It's on file

Ever tried recording your voice with kids under the same roof? It's like trying to kill flies on a window pane with a hammer. But if you really must do it, it's (somewhat) possible. You need the right equipment. This is the Coles 4104 "lip" microphone. It's called a lip mic because you position it right against your upper lip. It's supposed to cut out most of the sound coming from other directions. This mic costs a bundle. If you pay full price (don't), it could set you back 1000 $. I got one from the UK for under 500$ new, with the pound sterling being pretty low thanks to Brexit. I didn't know what to expect. I knew the hype couldn't be true, that it wasn't going to be a sound booth in your pocket, as some have called it. And I was right. It will pick up background noise, albeit a lot less than a regular mic. It's actually pretty impressive when you talk into the side of the mic and it sounds like you're across the room, then

I like the idea of a rolling distribution. I've tried LMDE in the past, but the packages were always outdated, there seems to be issues with maintenance. Then, I tried SUSE Tumbleweed, the KDE variant, and was pleasantly surprised at the improvements with KDE since the last time I tried it more than a decade ago. But then the issues started. First, the screen would sometimes go black and the computer would become unresponsive,  requiring a reboot. This is a deal-breaker in itself. I was hoping an update would fix that, so I gave it some time. I wasn't in a hurry, since this is a laptop I seldom use. Then, I tried playing an mp3 file, and found out that I had to install the packman repository. That's when dependency hell broke loose. When I updated, the default repos replaced packman's packages with newer packages that didn't work. So I had to manually update those packages by specifying that the update manager must use packman. Updating became a nightmare. 

Do you like how Chrome removes the useless title bar to save space? Do you hate Google and wish you could do the same with Firefox? Would you like to get rid of it for ALL maximized windows?  Install packages mate-netbook and mate-tweak Run MATE Tweak -> Windows -> Check "Undecorate maximized windows" If you get stuck in a maximized window and would like to get out, press Alt-F5 .