Chrome Capabilities

 This was another journal I pulled from my computer files (it was originally a txt file):

 

 

I was getting frustrated at my school Chromebook today because of what I mentioned yesterday about the search feature. This time though, I noticed a bunch of OTHER issues that I didn't even talk about. In addition to it being on the left side, the search key is actually super laggy and takes like a full second for the search panel to appear. I have two possible theories as to why this happens:

        1) The Chromebook is just slow and takes time to display that menu
        2) They intentionally programmed it to not immediately appear because there are keyboard shortcuts that involve the search key. If it appeared instantly, it might cause issues with those shortcuts.

    Either way, as someone who actually uses the search feature on any computer (Mac and Linux), it is incredibly annoying to have to wait a second for the window
to appear, and then type in your query. If you don't wait and immediately start typing, the window won't open and nothing will happen.

Another annoying thing has to do with what actually appears when you search something. Since it searches through your files and frequently visited websites, it's possible that two seperate things with similar/the same name can appear at the same time. If the one you actually want isn't the first option, you have to move you hand off the keyboard and use the arrow keys to tab down or click on it with your trackpad. This is a tremendous waste of time and feels so tedious, almost as if it was pointless to even use the search feature in the first place. In my case, I wanted to search for "Chrome" to quickly open the browser, but instead my document "ChromeOS tips" kept appearing before it. The more annoying part is that sometimes Google Chrome would have priority, and sometimes the doc would. I don't understand why it couldn't just pick one and be consistent. Or better yet, have any app that you search for have priority. If you want to have the file/other thing appear first (in this case, my doc), then make it so that if you further specify in your search, it appears. Example:

 - I search "chrome", and the browser opens
 - I search "chromeOS t" and the doc appears

 IDK what it is, but MacOS and KDE Arch Linux got their search system down to a tea. It feels so good and accurate to search for anything on my Mac. ChromeOS has a long way to go.


Besides yapping about the search tool for the entire time, let's talk about other "Chrome Capabilities". Google Classroom. The weirdest web app ever.

On it's surface, it may not seem that weird to you. It's just an app mostly for schools that let's teachers post work, announcements, or resources to their students digitally. It's also free. However, you don't need to be in a school to use it, and you obviously don't need to be a teacher either. Sure, some features are gone if you're not using a school account, but who cares. To me, it could become like a subreddit. You have a subject (the r/), and if you let your students (members) post, they can pretty much post whatever they like. The teachers of the class will be the mods. I'm not sure if Google moderates or watches over what is posted on Google Classrooms, and I know it won't be school related at all. Either way, it's interesting to me how a Google Classroom class code link could be distributed and essentially become it's own social media page for whatever you want. I've seen some online were people post memes or other stuff like that. The only issue I think is with the class size, as with a personal account you're limited to 250 people per class. With a G Suite account (not free) you can have like 1000, which to me is insane.

Welcome to KWrite

Here is a random journal entry I saved on my computer. I wrote it using a text editor on Arch Linux, but decided to post it here on my blog. I apologize if the language is a little more harsh:

Yeah, shocker. This is the first entry I'm not writing on Google Docs or TextEdit, and that's because I wanted to try KWrite. KWrite is KDE Plasma's default text editor. Although simple, it's actually pretty solid and even has that sweet, sexy syntax highlighting. KDE Plasma is the desktop environment I chose to run Arch Linux on. As I begin to use Arch Linux more and more, I am beginning to discover more and more things I love about it. First off, KRunner. This is KDE's Spotlight search, but dare I say it's a bit better...? Maybe it's the fact that you can customize it within the system settings. You're even able to add specific websites that it searches within to make searching even quicker. It's insane. You can also change the position of it on screen; I prefer it to be right smack in the middle, as that's where my eyes rest 95% of the time. This is part of the reason I hate ChromeOS's search key. The stupid thing searches things on the right hand side of the screen, which makes no sense. Now I gotta move my eyes to the right side just to see. I know that the search is pretty good, but this inconvenience pisses me off. Years ago, the search key actually did bring up a window in the middle of the screen, as it should. No clue why they decided to remove this. You may think I'm nit picky or a whiny little bitch for complaining about something so simple, but trust me. If you are used to using MacOS everyday and using Spotlight, you will get sick of it. The extra 10 milliseconds will add up.

KRunner is pretty damn solid. If my computer was faster and newer, I think it would be even better. I have noticed that it will lag a bit upon searching something really fast. It takes just a bit to fully show what I searched, which can get annoying if 2 things have similar names. Plus, when opening/closing the KRunner, I notice that it is not nearly as fast as my Spotlight. I don't really know if it actually takes a nano second to open or if it is just because my Chromebook is slow. Either way, it is so trivial that it doesn't make me like it any less. In order to open KWrite this time, all I had to type was:

alt + space

"writ"

Boom. That it's. Just that keyboard shortcut and "writ", and it instantly knew I wanted KWrite. How amazing. Same with the file manager. Just type "dol" and it instantly boots up. If I had a faster computer, this would be extremely efficient (obviously apps take a second to open because of my amazing hardware).


Besides talking about KRunner and KDE, let's discuss other tech relating things I discovered today on Monday:

1) iMovie, even on the newest M4 Mac Minis, will lag and occasionally crash if you make to many cuts in a long video. I recorded a 30 minute video for YT with the screen recorder. This didn't have any gaming or heavy software, literally Safari. Not a big file, but once I made enough cuts, iMovie lags on the timeline. When you play the video back, it can randomly mute and then crash. This software, while pretty stable, still has a lot of things I hate about it.

2) Google Drive lets you add descriptions to folders, which I find amazing, since that means that I can give folders stupid ass names to look back on.

3) Google Feud is extremely difficult, but also very addicting. I played for over 45 minutes and uploaded a video to YT.

4) Google Drawings is fun, but there's something more fun about using a complicated ass software and not knowing what the hell you're doing. GIMP, as an example, is basically open-source photoshop/paint. Even though it's FOSS, it's surprisingly complicated with a shit ton of features and menus and buttons that make no sense. I installed GIMP on this computer, and it actually is able to boot up pretty quickly. It's a bit laggy and not the most optimal for a tiny laptop like this, but it runs. Very lightweight software.

5) KWrite is awesome. As I type more and more lines, I am slowing liking this program more and more. I know I already glazed TextEdit in my previous YT video, but damn, this one's pretty good too. I haven't tested if it can view or edit RTF's, but for plain txt files, it's pretty good. The interface is clean and simple, it never lags, and I fucking LOVE this bar to the left that shows what parts of your doc haven't been saved. That is so damn intuitive and genius. It's also satisfying to see a whole bunch of text be saved with just ctrl+s in a millisecond. If I ever need to run an application along side something that requires notes, text, or a reference sheet, you best believe I'm using KWrite.

Making Videos on this new Mac

    If you haven't been watching my videos lately, then you may not have noticed that I got a new computer. A new, M4 Mac Mini. This thing is truly a beast. I've already made several Yoshi's Island parts on it, and even a non-gaming video discussing my experience using it so far. To say the least, it's been fantastic at handling everything I throw at it.

    I've been using iMovie to edit most of the footage together and make some small edits here and there. Once I get more comfortable using it, I think I can start to do more complicated and advanced edits that make videos stand OUT. I think the reason I never made cooler videos on my Chromebook was because it was a slog to use. If it's not fun to just casually use the computer, then it will most definitely not be enjoyable to try and push it to do productivity or anything that requires some time and effort. For example, trying to set up a recording to film an Oracle of Ages video was a huge hassle. After I'm doing filming, editing on a slow, laggy, and small machine is the last thing I want to do. Heck, even editing on this Mac became a bit tiresome after a bit (and that was with good tools). So, while it is definitely possible to make some interesting videos on a Chromebook, it will not even come close to doing it on anything else. Sorry ChromeOS.

    Making videos that do not relate to gaming take significantly more time, effort, and ideas put into them. It's quite easy to just hit record on the screen recording and play Yoshi's Island for half an hour. Does it make an entertaining video? Not really. Most videos that I like watching are well put together, interesting, and honestly not even gaming related. That sounds crazy, but it's true. Gaming videos can be really good, but it's a very saturated video category. Bog, for example, is one of my favorite tech YouTube channels that has very quality videos on plenty of computer stuff. 

    So, moving forward, since I have the capable hardware, I am going to start uploading new, different videos. I want to experiment with how I go about making them and what kinds of things I will make videos on. 

Things that Make My Heart Happy

 Since it’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving break ends, I decided to finally lock in and get work done. I tried the tried and true Pomodoro session, and absolutely fucking loved that shit. You essentially get four 25 minute sessions of uninterrupted work, with 4 minute breaks in between. I got a lot of shit done, and it doesn’t feel too overbearing since you get those small breaks. However, after the video I was watching for the timer I decided to take a 30 minute break and do things that “make my heart happy”. I realized that I haven’t come up with a list of things that makes my heart happy, so here goes.

1) Recording a video for YouTube (this is probably my favorite free-time, unproductive hobby)
2) Watching YouTube
3) Making a Lucas animation
4) Learning to code
5) Writing in this thing
6) Exercising

    When Christmas break eventually rolls around, I will actually have no “productive” things to do, which means I have plenty of time to do things that make my heart happy. A stream of videos on Yoshi’s Island and Zelda will likely be released. They did this week.

Yoshi's Island SPREE

 If you haven't noticed, I've been uploading a ton of New! SMW2 Yoshi's Island videos recently. The main reason is really just to get more videos out and to really make more progress in this game. It's been over a year and I'm barely halfway done, which is insane. It's taken me awhile. I finished World 3 this week and I plan on starting World 4 near Christmas time when I have more time (obviously).

Enjoy.

Wealthy ass text files

 Today I was using TextEdit on my Mac mini to learn all its features, and you can apparently add images. It’s super limited, though, since you can’t resize them or really move them at all. By default, any document you create is saved as an “rtf” file, which is essentially a text file that contains formatting like fonts, sizing, and color. However, once you add images, it becomes an “rtfd” file… I’ve never seen that. It’s pretty much specific to mac, and has a very limited selection of apps that can open it. But why? If you were going through the effort of adding color and images to your text file, why not use something more advanced like Word, Pages, or Google Docs? TextEdit has very limited options anyway. You can’t even resize the images, and your formatting options go about as far as adding color and making the text bigger. So now I look at “rtfd” as a wealthy ass text file, since its a rich text file with a bit more money (images) added.
    I can see the appeal, though. As crazy as it sounds, the TextEdit doesn’t include any page breaks, so it’s kind of like using pageless mode on Google Docs (or like a plain txt file). In a way, that’s better than other word processing apps, since page breaks can be annoying. If you really desire a long running, huge document, then this might be a good option. You can even export the doc as a PDF.
    So the TL;DR is… TextEdit is probably best used as a tool for quick notes.

WOW! Where the heck did you go?

 Hey guys, welcome back to my blog. Sorry I for not posting a blog post in a while. I completely forgot I even made this thing, to be honest. Lately, I've been fiddling around with Google Keep, and I've just got to talk about it.

Google Keep is basically a note-taking app for the web that is supported on pretty much everything that has a web browser. You can also download it on the App Store (apple) or the Play Store. Right now, I've been using it on chrome. It allows users to quickly and easily create notes, with options to add images, links, and even drawings. It's an excellent tool for taking notes in class (since you can draw like math notes and type out lecture notes from other classes) as well as just creating quick mental notes for yourself. You can put reminders, to-do lists, shopping lists, or whatever you'd like. There are also labels you can apply to notes to keep them organized.

I've really been checking out the drawing tool, which is very limited but also kind of fun to play around with. I've seen some people online posting about sketches they made with it, and it's pretty impressive. Shoutout to Joshua Pomeroy (https://www.youtube.com/@JoshuaPomeroy) for his video on sketching with Google Keep. 

If you haven't given it a try, I'd suggest so. There are alternatives out there, of course, like OneNote and Notability. However, if you aren't sure where to start and want something that is fast, reliable, and free, then Google Keep is a good option.

Other than that, I've been pretty busy with other stuff, so that's why I haven't posted a lot on my channel. I will get back to Oracle of Ages, but I'm mad at my computer right now for FUCKING up a recording I did on it. I finished recording the rest of Mermaid's Cave, and once I stopped recording after around 50 minutes of footage, the computer decided to crash. All of my footage went down the drain, and I save stated already. The next part will unfortunately not contain the rest of the dungeon. I got to record shorter sessions just to be safe, I guess.

If you took time to read this, thank you. I'm not sure how many people even see this blog....