What a difference a decent HDMI cable makes.

The Question

Eternal
When I finally was able to replace the 2012 piece-of-shit all-in-one HP Pavilion 20 I had spent over a year using, I knew I'd need a display to go with it. Didn't have a lot of $ left over after the new computing unit -- all I could afford with a $600 stimcheck was a 2020 HP Envy TE-something-or-other Customize-To-Order rig. (To which I added no customizations, both in hopes of keeping the price down as well as getting it ASAP.)

So the best I could do for a display was a second-hand HP 2511x 25" FHD monitor. Just looked for a link to it on Amazon, I guess the closest thing they sell to it now is this:

Amazon.com: HP 2311x 23-Inch LED Monitor - Black: Computers & Accessories

Anyway, the HDMI cable that came with it was... about 1', at most. Severely short cable.

Well, it finally occurred to me, just tonight, and I have no idea why it took me so long to even think of it, to ask down at the Dollar General if they sell HDMI cables. Turns out they do, which surprised the hell out of me. So from a 1' cable to a 6' cable. Makes a world of difference in how I'm able to arrange shit on my desk.

If you've read this far, I'll bet you're every bit as Fucking Bored on a Friday night as I am. Ya loser.

:sarek:
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
I was sleeping, but I feel ya.
 

Loktar

Pinata Whacker
Dollar stores have everything. I spent about $15 on a 3 pack of phone chargers from Amazon. My smarter brother spent $3 at the dollar store for his phone chargers.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
I have a 6 ft, 10 ft and 20 footer, depending on what I'm doing.

I hate the interface really. Doesn't take long for the connection to get "loose" and once that happens the whole stream gets interrupted.
 

The Question

Eternal
HDMI interface, or phone charger? Kinda lost me somewhere between the two. Related: I am definitely not a fan of micro-USB charging ports, and herein arose the confusion, because loose connection is exactly why. I owned an Amazon Kindle Oasis when those first came out. Damn near $300 e-reader, and you know what happened? The micro-USB charging port came loose on the inside of the fucking thing.

Three bills worth of machine, top of the line... but that one shitty port turned it into an-rechargeable fucking paperweight.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Right? No, everything I own electronically is either USB or HDMI. My TV is a 38' class 1280p with 5 HDMI ports among other things. Three of them are "loose" so the connection breaks if I so much as touch the TV. Huge pain in the butt.
 

The Question

Eternal
I'm really hoping USB-C/Thunderbolt becomes THE standard power+data port.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
I have that in my new desktop.
 

The Question

Eternal
Same. And, yes, still planning to get back to the Mac -- M1 Mac Mini, to be exact, base model -- which has 2 USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports along with 2 USB-A ports.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Safari drives me nuts. I had an apple a long time ago, one of the first macs, but that was then this is now.

I have a RYZEN 3600 class, and the new AMD chip design is pretty awesome, desktop wise.
 

The Question

Eternal
I'll give Safari on Big Sur a spin, but I strongly suspect that I'll end up using Vivaldi as my daily driver, particularly if I skimp on the Mini's spec sheet (8Gb of unified memory and a 256Gb SSD are more than enough for writing apps, after all) and go for an ultrawide display. Vivaldi is, IMHO, the best browser going, particularly for power users.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Have to look that one up.
 

The Question

Eternal
Vivaldi Browser – Fast, private browser with unique features

Takes more setting up than your usual browser -- it's for power users, remember, so there's a lot you can customize, to your own taste and at your leisure, of course. It's Chromium based, however, so all your usual Chrome extensions will work (although Chrome themes do not.)

What I find particularly handy are the "web panels" that live in its sidebar. Its built in Notes panel, in particular, is very useful for just quick notes -- stuff I want to hang onto but that's not important enough to commit to Evernote.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Just downloaded it. Looks interesting.
 

The Question

Eternal
It's mighty handy. Likely would be even more so on an ultrawide monitor, since you could then leave your panel-of-the-moment open more or less permanently without negatively affecting the main content pane.

As I said, though, I'll give Safari a fair shake first.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
I have a super wide monitor 38" class. It looks really good. Going to take some adjusting but I like the feel out of the gate
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
I like all the panels and notepads.

Starting to get used to it :D seems like a cadillac. I know Firefox drives me nuts with all it's pausing and resetting and stuff. Makes me wonder what it's doing.
 

The Question

Eternal
Yeah, it's definitely handy, all the stuff you can add to it. Pair that with the fact that you can add pretty much any website as a panel and it's basically a customizable Swiss Army knife of a browser. I keep Paypal and Protonmail as custom panels, for instance.
 

The Question

Eternal
Ugh. May have to turn away from a Mac Mini, for the time being, sad to say. Turns out folks have discovered an odd behavior wherein the machine inexplicably writes and removes huge blocks of data to its SSD, diminishing the lifespan of the component.

Suppose I'll revisit my decision once that's been sorted out; for now, irritatingly, looks like I'll be sticking with Windows and just upgrading the current machine. To start with, from 8Gb of RAM to 32Gb, and from a 1Tb HDD to a 2Tb SSD. A better display couldn't hurt, also.
 

jack

The Legendary Troll Kingdom
Nice. I have a 2 tb storage and god knows what else in there. I can run three games at the same time, write and research an article for my local paper and troll the cupcakeer effortlessly. Happiness :bigass:
 
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