Newegg price changes: You have 7 days

 You have 7 days for a price match with Newegg.

A little over a week ago,  I bought a gaming laptop for US$1579.  Today, they are selling it for US$1469.

I went through their chatbot and  was passed to a person.  I was told that because it was more than 7 days, I could request a return, but they would not give me any sort of refund or store credit.

I asked if they intentionally changed the price to promote good will.  I believe that it was a fair question.

I then mentioned that the link to the 007 First Light game promotion didn't work and the the help link in the game e-mail pointed to Pragmata.  I suggested that they should at least fix the problem for future customers.

 Zero satisfaction is what I got.  No apologies were even considered.  I didn't not use any bad language and I didn't think that it would make a difference. 

Therefore, beware of pricing changes! 

MSI Crosshair A16 HX is on the way. It's here!

 My ASUS ZenBook Pro Creator's machine seems ready to eat itself.  Overheating, especially in 100 degrees F heat, is a problem.

 For the last three years, it's been used more for gaming than for creating.  I did some programming, edited some photos, and created documents, but most of that, I left to my Mac.

 I've played a lot of games.  I mentioned that I had damaged two or three mice and in the last year, I've been using a damaged WASD area (and the space bar) of the keyboard.  It wasn't meant for heavy gaming or aggressive players.  I checked with a reliable repair business and got a quick quote of US$150 for a replacement keyboard.  That's a lot but perhaps, someone else will want to buy such an otherwise good machine (aside from the heat during gaming) and I'll pay for the keyboard to be replaced.

 

The MSI Crosshair A16 HX has an AMD Ryzen 9 8940HX in contrast to my Ryzen 7 5800H.  The Nvidia RTX 5060 is only two generations newer than the RTX 3050 Ti, and at about the same level in the lineup.  IIRC, the 3050 Ti was a 3060 with 4 GB of GDRAM, instead of 8 GB.

MSI Crosshair A16 

I'll still only have a 1 TB drive, but it's PCIe gen4 instead of gen-3.  There is also another slot, which seems to be gen-5.  32 GB of RAM will be helpful, as Windows 11 Pro keeps taking as much as possible, and having Steam and another game launcher, plus a web browser and Malwarebytes, keeps RAM busy when running a game or creative software.

 The multi-zone keyboard is a SteelSeries designed product.  That gives me hope, since my current mouse is a SteelSeries Aerox 5, which has been amazingly reliable.

I found one warning in my research: Do not let the MSI helper software attempt to install BIOS updates.  Download them to a thumb drive and install it through the BIOS controls.  No one wants a computer-shaped brick.

I'd been looking at MSI for a while, but most of their laptop computers had VA panels.  I didn't think that those were still being used.  The last time I considered something other than IPS was in the 1990s.  Actually, I believe I bought my first LCD in 2000. Then again, my ASUS laptop has an OLED panel.  The documentation actually has "IPS-level panel", whatever that means.  I'm glad that the panel is level.  (Check your sarcasm detector for good batteries.)

The resolution on the Crosshair is 2560x1440, which is a bit more than the 1920x1080 that I have but those rich blacks and whites will be different somehow.  Supposedly, it has DCI-p3 100% compliance but I'm skeptical.  The RTX 5060 will be using a MUX  design, so graphics won't be routed through the integrated GPU on the AMD APU, more like what happens on a desktop machine in the old days.  That will improve data throughput and make it more efficient. 

The Ryzen 9 8940HX has 16 cores, twice as many as the Ryzen 7 5800H.  It might be slightly better.  Did your sarcasm detector alert you?  Even the internal GPU should be years ahead.  I remember trying to run Unreal Tournament 2004 through the AMD 5800H iGPU and it was not as fast as what I had in 2004.  I remember reading about the iGPU in the 8945HX and that was a 780M, I believe.  This one has a 610M, which may be good.

It all sounds good, right?  My one regret is that I had intended to buy a new M5 MacBook Air.  Tuesday can't come soon enough.  Should I have paid almost US$60 for Saturday delivery?

Update 2026.05.18: It's here!

UPS is not my favorite delivery company.  I had some equipment just not arrive and the store who sent it sent a second product for me.  UPS was caught selling merchandise because of a guitar with a serial number.  In this case, they did better and it arrived a day early.

Of course, updates took a while and not everything goes as planned.  There is a BIOS update and I'm trying to understand how to take care of it.  They showed something like 14 or 15 steps.

 

It works well.  It worked with my mouse from the beginning and gaming half-keyboard, as well.  Windows 11 had been making some sort of backup (to what extent, I don't know) and that sped things along somewhat.

Getting the Netmarble game launcher downloaded was the weirdest.   The company really needs to work on their user friendliness.  Steam, Mozilla, Google, and Malwarebytes wanted me to prove myself.  All of that is fine now.

At one point, while I was in a game, it powered off.  When I powered on again, it didn't explain why there was a problem, or even that there was a problem.  While I'm writing this, it just paused suddenly.  I'm a bit nervous.

The keyboard lighting is good, just like the images on their website.  The feel of the keyboard is excellent.  Steelseries did their part of the project.  I'm not sure why they had to stuff a numeric keypad into it, but the alpha keyboard isn't crowded.

Sound is excellent in contrast to my ASUS creator's machine that was weak.  That machine has speakers at the bottom.  It also has an OLED display, which I found amazing.  This IPS-level display is better.  The color settings may be set to be more vivid, but the blacks and the whites look great.

The stickers on the palm rest are big and don't provide any useful function, but I doubt that I can remove them.

Having more processing power shows up in games with much more detail.  Grass and rain are more impressive with the 5060 versus the 3050 Ti.  Older games seem okay and there is a glitch now and then, but I'm not sure whether it's Windows or the machine.  It could be the MUX design, bypassing the APU's iGPU.  One kind of glitch was that SteelSeries GG was recording clips automatically.  It took me a while to get things under control on the last two machines.  It might take a while this time.

SSD speed is fine, although I can't tell that it's faster than the PCIe 3rd gen in the previous machine.

Being that this laptop computer is 16 versus 15.6, it's difficult to notice the difference. The only difference I can notice is the smooth plastic, rather than the aluminum of the ASUS.

In any case, I'm happy. 

Update 2026.05.20: There is a little light bleed at the bottom of the LCD.  While playing Where Winds Meet, there was too much frame rate drop, something that never seemed to happen with the older machine.  Turned the graphics setting to Performance.  I guess pushing all those extra pixels made a difference, since the 5060 and the 3050 Ti are in the same category, just a difference of graphics RAM.

Maybe, Windows is taking advantage of the AI capabilities, even though they're supposedly disabled.  When has Microsoft ever been truthful or straightforward?

Other aspects of the machine are good.  The fans run a fair amount of time but they seem to be around 3600 rpm, not 6000 as the other machine was doing.

I should probably disconnect the power and run it on battery for web browsing and videos, just to drain the battery and see how it performs.  This APU has a 55 to 75 W TDP, which isn't horrible, but it won't last long on battery at 55 Watts. 

Update 2026.05.21: The frame rate drop in Where Winds Meet still happens occasionally.  There is an option to use DirectX 12.  I'm not sure whether it will become better or worse, but I should give it a try. 

 Update 2026.05.24: I tried some system updates through MSI Center and it sent me to Windows Update, which handled the drivers but not the BIOS update.

Got part way through the BIOS update but it couldn't show me where the update was and I didn't want to cause a problem, so I stopped.

Also, I tried the Where Winds Meet DirectX 12 option and it's very slow to start, plus it has occasional glitches.

It's strange that occasionally, this machine is not as fast as the older machine.

Update 2026.05.27: Got an idea to go back to 1987 ways and installed the BIOS/UEFI update.  I got an older USB type A thumb drive with only 8 GB of storage.  Formatted it and only added the firmware update.  I removed all other USB devices, and charged the battery to 99%.  It was complaining that 74% might not be enough.  It would have been interesting to do that with floppy disks.  I thought about it.  I also considered that we sometimes used a debugger to go into RAM to change certain sequences and then, commit the changes to disk or diskette back then.  Remembering my Atari ST around 1989, a BIOS-level update required a new set of (E)PROMs.  I had some Russian (in Queens borough, NYC) making a physical change to the motherboard to allow 18 pin DIP RAM instead of 16 pin, and he decided to make some money and duplicate my PROMs and gave me a set of EPROMs instead.  Everything worked fine but it was shady.

Then, I got a screen about Bitlocker.  I can't say that I ever enabled Bitlocker, but when I was allowed into the recovery information, the previous computer also had Bitlocker enabled.  Microsoft needs to stop making decisions for me.  They're like the ransom bandits.

 Thankfully, I was able to jump through all of the hoops and now, the machine seems much more stable. 

Oh, here's something fun.  I checked e-mail and found that Newegg reduced the computer price another US$110 since I bought it a little over a week ago.  Of course, they won't even think of splitting the difference to give you a partial credit past 7 days.

 Besides that, the promotional 007 First Light game e-mail did not have the correct information. 

Machine and games are running much better since the update. 

Update 2026.05.29: Where Winds Meet went through a large update and it's working okay, and certainly better than the game was before the BIOS/UEFI update.  I'm not really noticing too many problems overall.  There are some audio glitches, but I'm sure that's a Microsoft problem since the recent updates.  If Microsoft is trying to push everyone to Linux, they should just go out of business. 

Gaming on the Cheap, part 3

 A few years have passed since I wrote one of these.  I was probably playing Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact and Seven Knights back then.  Now, it's Solo Leveling: Arise, Where Winds Meet, Wuthering Waves, and Tower of God: New World.

I've spent some money on each, not a lot, but something.

Too often games become like work and I don't want to feel that way about games.  I don't want to put money into something that isn't enjoyable because I'll probably abandon it at some point.  After all, in Honkai: Star Rail, I had maximum level characters and wasn't enjoying it.

I've been playing Solo Leveling: Arise for two years and it takes some work but it's still quick-and-dirty for me.  I can pick it up, play a little, and put it down.

Where Winds Meet is overwhelming.  I'm paying for the minor Battle Pass upgrade, which is helpful.  I wasted way too much time not collecting skills and just wandering.  My character level is 93 (out of 95) right now and I'm three months behind on skills. There is so much going on in the game, and if you don't look at the Improvement Guide under Develop, you'll be like I am.

 Wuthering Waves definitely seems a pay-to-win game.  I've got a few 5-star characters that I can't upgrade past the low levels.  I mess with the game but I'm not sure I want to commit any real money to achieve better results.

Tower of God: New World follows the anime and is an idle, handheld game that requires too much attention.  Then again, I'm playing on Android AND iOS.  I started the iOS version about 1 year after I started the Android version and I'm within just a few floors.  There are so many characters and things to do that it's becoming work.  It's often something I would play while waiting for another game update to finish.  Now, this game's updates are taking hours to finish.

 There are so many gacha games out there now, especially from Chinese publishers that you can play without paying.  When you use up all of the game's energy for the day, switch to another game.

I'm looking forward to Limit Zero Breakers and Ananta when they're released.  However, I've seen a few in preview, and they don't really turn out all that great. 

Update 2026.05.18: Now that I bought a new Windows machine, I'm definitely on the cheap side.  Thankfully, it wasn't too expensive but everything else seems to be much more expensive these days.

Solo Leveling: Arise Two Years Anniversary

 Today marks two years since the game went live for everyone.

 

 I didn't pay quite as much attention to the Live Stream because I was playing Tower of God: New World and the original host still can pronounce "Jinwoo" correctly, which is annoying.  He went to Korea for the competition last year and probably annoyed a lot of Koreans there.  Oops.

The character level is now a maximum of 150.  It seems as though I get close and they move it.

 Naturally, there are new characters and a beast of a big boss, plus a new chapter.  Hopefully, that will take more than 15 minutes to complete.

On the Windows version, they've finally been cleaning up bugs from months ago.  Hopefully, they clean up some that happened right after they first released the game, also. 

Update 2026.05.07: What were they thinking?  What was I thinking not paying close attention to the Live Stream?

It feels so different, although some parts are the same.  Something I tried was new and yet, had bugs in it as though it had been planned 1 year ago.  I appreciate that they wanted to refresh it. 

 

I'm up one job category and took a third job change but failed.  I'm not sure why giving me the track suit is a good thing.  In Korea, that's considered a middle-age thing to wear.

I was looking at the Monarch's icon in the lobby.  It shows me to equip 8 artifacts.  I thought "I don't want to find new artifacts." and then, I thought, "What if I disable and enable the same artifacts?"  That worked and I got a load of Hunters and their weapons, along with runes and Sung Jinwoo weapons through 29 different selections. 

 

Update 2026.05.08:  The blue wheel of progress, that we haven't seen since the first year, has returned.

Update 2026.05.10: I have so many level 100 artifacts that I'm re-equipping a bunch of Hunters.  Too many still have level 78 or level 73 equipment and the newer characters have mismatched equipment.  Hopefully, this will help with times in the new gates. 

Update 2026.05.13: They fixed the blue wheel of progress!  Someone must have remembered the solution from two years ago.

I noticed that they still have bugs on Windows, such as using the original Ultimate skill for Sung Jinwoo, regardless of what is configured.  That's been a problem since the alternative Ultimate skills have been available.  I suspect that testing is very minimal or their testing methodology is weak.  As well, the configurable QTE skills don't work the same in every game mode.

That said, there are level 120 artifacts, along with the level 100 they introduced last week.  My Character level seems to go up every 1.5 days (or 2 levels in 3 days, if that makes more sense).   Keeping the Hunters updated has been interesting, especially since Gina, Seorin, and the American Football star have been added.

Update 2026.05.18: I just changed machines today.  I have a much more powerful laptop computer than the one from 2022.  However, suddenly, I'm not able to finish gates with Sung Jinwoo.  They're all taking longer because of the forced difficulty but it's odd that those gates where the main character is involved, they're all failing today.

Update 2026.05.28: Still not having much luck.  I noticed that they're really pushing the coupons.  It feels as though they're not making enough money from the game to keep it going.  That's why the gates are harder.  They can push that monthly subscription, and you can just sweep the gates all the time.

 Why else would I be able to crush the story on Expert and have trouble with the gates? 

Solo Leveling: Arise Only one month until two years have passed

 It's odd that May 3, 2026 will be two years since I started playing Solo Leveling: Arise.

It feels as though there hasn't been that much time, but they have advanced the game and still not fixed some bugs.

 Elena Renault will be added and I'm just glad that she wasn't Elena Citroen or Elena Peugeot.  Maybe, later she could be Elena Renault Fuego.

 Of course, there were codes.  I hope that I remember to use them.

 

I've been so busy playing Where Winds Meet that I've not been paying too much attention.  I must be poor.

I also didn't pay much attention to the drivel from the community managers.  Hope things are still good.

 

Update 2026.04.10: Finished the new chapters in Normal mode.  Also, got Sung Jinwoo through one job change that's been waiting a while.  Still need to do the second one, as it was available right away. 

A few other things happened about the same time. 

Update 2026.05.02: I got the D-5 at login yesterday.  We're almost to the two years' mark, even though I thought we started on 3 May.

They already gave me Gina and Seorin and their weapons.  That's amazing since other games can be so cheap.  For all the money Hoyoverse collected, Honkai: Star Rail and Genshin Impact weren't generous games.  Then again, I didn't spend any money on those and I spent a little money on SLA. 

Solo Leveing Arise: Two Months until Two Years

 Actually, it will be around the 3rd of May when the first open day of play happened.  It's difficult to believe that it has been two years.

  

I play too many games and it's always good to have an alternative while servers are down.  I was playing Tower of God: New World while the livestream was going.  It's a handheld Netmarble game.  I'm also playing Where Winds Meet, Wuthering Waves, and a bunch of old games, and a few racing games.

 There is a little bit new with Solo Leveling: Arise.  If you didn't read previously, there is a US$40 version on Steam.  I haven't spent much money but I've probably spent more than that in two years.  I'd rather have the PC version, although a Mac/iPad version would be really good now.

 I still haven't tried to play Cyberpunk 2077 on my Mac, but I play Wuthering Waves on it.  Now, that my M1 MacBook Air was released in 2020, I'm surprised that it does so well.  My ASUS ZenBook Pro running Win11 Pro with a Ryzen 7 5800H and NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti seem strained on SLA while other games seem fine.  Where Winds Meet doesn't complain. 

I'm currently at Character Level 130 and have more than 40 Hunters.  Still don't have weapons or skills finalized but I'm doing well enough.  I won't be going to South Korea to compete.

Is the MacBook Neo shaking up the computer industry?

 I've seen a few reports about the MacBook Neo coming as a shock to computer makers.

Is it because it's only a little more expensive than the rest of the industry charges for mediocre laptop computers? 

The MacBook Neo is a decent entry level laptop computer.  There are a lot of savings leading to compromises versus typical MacBook Air or MacBook Pro computers.

Are there people who want e-mail and web browsing machines that don't do much else because of hardware limitations?  I remember thinking that was why there were Linux distributions, and 20 years later, I'm still wondering why Linux hasn't taken that place.

 When I see Google Chromebooks, I see Intel Pentium-related processors.  It's surprising how they're still "alive".  Weren't Chromebooks supposed to go away, replaced with Android for the desktop?

Windows 11 is so fat that they need a slimmed-down version to fit on low-end machines.  My ASUS machine has a Ryzen 7 5800H and Nvidia RTX 3050 Ti (notebook edition), and with every Windows 11 Pro update, it seems to become more feeble.

The MacBook Neo benchmarks seem quite good, faster than my M1 MacBook Air in some cases. 

 With the MacBook Neo, will Apple somehow dominate in the low-end market for laptop computers, especially using a System-on-a-Chip (A18 Pro) that comes from a phone? 

Update 2026.03.14: I watched a video comparing a Microsoft Surface laptop computer using a mobile SoC and a Neo and the real problem was that Microsoft put little effort into making Windows on ARM great.  It couldn't run a lot of applications, including games, which is a point Microsoft always made against Macs.

 Since macOS has components for running iPadOS-modified games seamlessly, it goes a long way toward showing developers that their games can run on a Mac. 

Update 2026.03.23: I was at Target and got to see the Neo.  It feels much more expensive than anything that has Windows running on it for a similar price.  While the SoC is from a phone, it's quite powerful, exceeding my M1.  I was recently trying to help a friend find a powerful but economical laptop computer for university and they were close to the prices for the Neo.  Would you buy plastic or aluminium? 

Update 2026.05.07: Apparently, sales are great.  They need more A18 Pro SoCs to keep up with demand and to keep the A17 Pro and Pro Max going. 

They might ditch the lower model.  It didn't make sense to me to offer it.  They're talking about adding more colors.  They've noticed that certain colors have better demand than others from the Orange that was selling on the phones. 

Switching from M1 MacBook Air to M5 MacBook Air?

 The new M5 MacBook Air models have been introduced.

 I'm still running on a refurbished MacBook Air that I bought in 2022.  It's still reliable but games and graphics software are less smooth than they should be.  Plus, 1TB of storage is not exactly enough.  How anyone is okay with 256 GB or 512 GB and doing more than browsing and e-mail is beyond me. 

 The base M5  MacBook Air comes with 512 GB of storage, 16 GB of RAM, 10 CPU cores, and 8 GPU cores for US$1099.  My current M1 MacBook Air has 1 TB, 16 GB of RAM, 8 CPU cores, and 8 GPU cores.  I paid US$1359 for a refurbished machine.  If there is any doubt, I'm using a 13.3 inch machine and looking at a 13.6 inch machine.

I wanted to configure a MacBook Air with more storage and more RAM.  My current 1 TB seems to be under 100 GB regularly, and I've moved games to a separate 16 TB drive that seems really slow.  It's actually a HDD.

 

Given that you cannot change the storage or RAM with Apple Silicon machines, it's important to buy everything at once.  Windows machines are somewhat more flexible, but my ASUS ZenBook Pro has some soldered RAM.  Apple makes configuring a lot of upgraded RAM and/or storage expensive.  That hasn't changed.  However, with AI processing pushing up prices, Apple seems to be holding the line. 

Is US$1899 outrageous in 2026?  Is it worse than US$1359 for a refurbished M1 MacBook Air in 2022?  I tried a similar configuration of the 14 inch MacBook Pro and it was US$400 more.  Is one fan and a better display worth that much?

I'm not sure that the 24 GB of RAM is enough, especially with so many extra cores.  I use graphic design software and play games, so 32 GB of RAM might be more appropriate.

My M1 MacBook Air will have trade-in value.  It was at US$300+ the other day.

If I was making money with my equipment, would there be a question.   I'd still wait until they were available, but the last time I jumped to buy a machine was the 1998 Wall Street G3 laptop computers.  I regretted that one so much, I gave it to someone else.  That was US$2659, as I recall for a 233 MHz, passive graphics display, and a 66 MHz bus.   Then again, there was the IBM L40SX with Intel 486SX CPU.  I got that for 25% of the original US$6000.  It lasted a few months and the mouse port broke and the extended warranty company told me that the motherboard cost more than the price of the computer.  I settled with them and bought my first Mac.  It's amazing that you can go to a store like Costco or Sam's Club and buy a US$500 machine that's more impressive than most of what we used to have.

Let's see what happens.  Will there be a new MacBook Air here this month? 

Update 2026.03.04: The MacBook Neo looks good, but not for me.  If someone was using an Intel-based MacBook Air, they'd be happy.  It's much more powerful.  It's slightly more powerful than the M1 MacBook Air supposedly.  Those people who were looking for a 12 inch MacBook replacement may be happy.  Oh, and the US$100 price bump for Touch ID and more would be worth it.  I'm still confused about the USB ports on the Neo.  One operates at USB 3.0 speed and the other operates at USB 2.0 speed.  Supposedly, there is a speed warning when you use a device on the slower port.

Update 2026.03.16: I posted a comment about going to the M5 MacBook Air on a YouTube video and someone told me to wait for the M6.  I replied that, in a year, he would have me waiting for the M7, and so on, and I'd be on the M1 until I die.

 I just need to wait for enough cash to buy it outright and wait for the trade-in money to return.   I'd like to get it as soon as possible, but paying rent, etc., and eating are important. 

Is Yelp relevant in 2026?

 After my adoptive mum died in 2011, I joined Yelp and started contributing.  I made such a splash that the Community Manager bumped me up to Elite status.

 I've spent time making truthful reviews.  I don't like surprises the first time I visit a restaurant or store, so I would rather avoid places that have a negative experience attached.

 A few times when I've written a review, I've been threatened.  It's a little surprising because I didn't cause the business to treat me poorly or serve me bad food.  It happened for whatever reason, and I was just telling about my experience.

Yelp had some heavy-handed tactics about advertising and I found that when I moved to my current location.  The furniture store where I bought some furniture was marked Closed.  My review suggested that they were quite open.  My spending a few hundred dollars confirmed that.

The other day, some local friends, an elderly couple and I went to an Italian restaurant.  I've been wanting Italian food since I left Philadelphia, where there are probably 150 mom-and-pop Italian restaurants.  It didn't quite work out.

 

 I wrote my review and tried my best to be nice.  The restaurant got 8202 views since my review, and 2659 views since my three photos were uploaded.  How did I have that much of an impact?  I have a handful of Yelp friends and a few more Followers but none in the thousands.   Only one of my Yelp friends even noticed it enough to respond.

 I have around 1800 reviews all over the country and around 2300 photos, none of which has gotten more than a few responses.  Maybe, it's a calculation error, 10 times what really happened.

I'll continue to write reviews.  Who knows what will happen? 

Windows 11 Pro to SteamOS on a laptop computer? CachyOS to the rescue?

 For just more than two years, I've been running Windows 11 Pro on an ASUS ZenBook Pro.  With each update, the performance becomes worse.  The newest releases are invasive in the name of AI.  I have little interest in AI.  I've generally been using that computer for photo processing, gaming, and watching videos.  I have an M1 MacBook Air that is more capable for processing photos and videos from previous years.

I'm considering switching the ZenBook Pro to SteamOS, as I've found SteamOS on the Steam Deck to be quite capable with a keyboard and mouse.  I'm a little concerned that the combination of AMD 5800H and RTX 3050Ti may not be the best platform.

This week, I was reading that the latest Linux kernel has updated Nvidia drivers included.  I should probably wait for that kernel to be included in SteamOS.  Maybe obviously, SteamOS might run fine on the AMD 5800H and its inbuilt GPU but that GPU is far out of date and even had trouble with Unreal Tournament 2004.  I've been running much more intense graphics than that.

CachyOS seems to be the best choice for a Linux distribution that supports gaming AND Nvidia cards, although a few others like Nobara and Manjaro were mentioned.  I might just risk it.  I still have my MacBook Air but my Windows machine seems less capable because of Windows.  It was also running very hot today, while active CPU use was under 10%.

Update 2026.02.06: CachyOS looks like it's going to be a bit of "fun" to install.  I wonder if I should install Ubuntu or another easy distribution and then, install CachyOS.  I'm not quite as agile lately, and I don't want to make a huge error.  I've waited this long.  I can take more time to plan.

Update 2026.05.15: Well, that ZenBook Pro seems about to eat itself, overheating and such.  I've beaten the keyboard and that needs to be replaced.  Perhaps, after it gets some time to recover, I can install CachyOS without having to worry about not having a games machine. 

Update 2026.05.29: It's been two weeks since I was worried about one computer, and it's been a bit over a week since I've had an MSI Crosshair A16 HX as a replacement.

 It's a 16 inch class machine versus 15.6 but I don't really notice a difference, except that the display seems taller.  It's not quite 4:3 but it's definitely not 16:9.

 In any case, I put the ZenBook Pro on a shelf and haven't got CachyOS ready for installation yet.  I'm wondering if I need to have the keyboard replaced before a change or not.  I'm also wondering about some sort of Windows lock that will make this more difficult than it should be. 

Panasonic Lumix 35-100mm f/2.8 Mk II is here

 In 2012, I bought the Panasonic GH3 and the Lumix X 35-100mm f/2.8 in order to get started with micro Four-Thirds.  It was a rough start.

The GH3 EVF had the wrong color and the 35-100mm f/2.8 was subject to horrible flare with the lens hood in place and the sun out of the frame.  The OIS also had terrible stutter during video recording, even after a specific firmware update designed to fix the problem.

 

Besides that, it just didn't measure up to the US$1400 price or my Olympus ZD SHG 35-100mm f/2.0.   $1400 vs $2499 makes it seem as though the Panasonic lens was priced too high.  It took time to come to terms with micro Four-Thirds but I was using the system most days in 2015 and 2016.

Today, January 15, 2026, I received a used Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 Mk II.  I spent about US$500 on it.  The Panasonic G97 isn't as big as the GH4 that I was using daily but it has similar capabilities and IBIS (in-body image stabilization) that the GH4 did not have.  With most Panasonic lenses using OIS (optical image stabilization), they will be combined in what Panasonic calls Dual I.S.  I considered the Panasonic 135 Format 70-200mm f/2.8 instead but it's over US$2000.

 

Ugly flare with sun out of frame 

The second photo was taken with the sun out of frame, similar to the first, but look, there is no ugly flare.  Hopefully, it's not just that it was later in the day.

 I took the lens for walk of about 5 miles.  It feels like the earlier lens and it also felt surprisingly like a brand new lens.  Considering that it was used and coming from a rental company, I feel that my choice was good.

 

Color cast is non-existant.  I'll see if I can do a video test because I've been told that the OIS stutter still exists, even in the Leica-branded lens.  I hope it's been eliminated. 

 

Update 2026.01.25: Yesterday, I was at the Korean church and the person who photographs for the church had the Sony body and 70-200mm f/2.8 out on the dinner table.  I took out the G97 and 35-100mm f/2.8 Mk II.  There is a slight difference in size, and yes, I know, it's a lovely photo.  I took zero minutes to arrange things.  I didn't put the lens hood in place and the Sony has the lens hood in place.

 

Update 2026.03.01: Went out last evening with the G97 and 35-100mm f/2.8 Mk II.  The Dual I.S. performed admirably for such a middle of the range camera body. 

Mozilla Monitor and removing your personal information from the internet

 Since time began, people have been trying to get the most out of someone else's misery.

I remember people saying that J. Edgar Hoover (head of the FBI and a cross-dresser supposedly), had a file on each of us.  I didn't doubt it.  While we live in a free country, it has rules and spies.  Mrs. Pyle down the street from my grandmother used to feed me cookies and milk to learn all the secrets of my grandmother's household.  My grandmother did the same thing.  Spies were everywhere.

 A little over a year ago, I bought an annual plan for Mozilla Monitor to remove my information, as much as was possible.  The thing is, once it's out there, it isn't easily removed and there is always another to take advantage of your situation.

 Mozilla Monitor found my information in loads of places and sent requests to remove the information.  For each one completed, another two or three would arise.  It's like pulling weeds.

A few weeks ago, they renewed my subscription.  About a week later, they sent an e-mail to tell me that they were discontinuing the service.  I asked when I would get my refund, and they said that it would wait until the service was discontinued, about 3.5 weeks later.

 I got an e-mail from them after that to enter my PayPal information.  I don't have PayPal.  They sent that by mistake, apparently, and they sent me another form to enter my banking information.  They HAD my banking information when they took my money. 

It looks like a scam to clear out my bank account.  I never expected Mozilla to be so sloppy.  I'm not usually so protective but these days, it feels as though trust is also a commodity in short supply. 

Update 2026.01.21: Mozilla Monitor, which is supposedly out of business, alerted me to a data breach.  Sadly, my trust is gone.