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Joined 7 months ago
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Cake day: March 28th, 2024

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  • Every time there is a new version available for the most part.

    I go to the changelog of the app or software to see what has changed, since I only use FOSS I also have a broad glance at the code. If I know that what I am updating won’t cause trouble for what I am currently doing (ie. A depency update that is used during a time I need to compile a big project), I go ahead and update.

    In the case of new features I am not keen on, I usually keep the current version I have (and make any self-update impossible for said app/software), see if there is any reputable forks or fork it myself to remove said features.

    I have a minimal amount of apps and software and I handpicked all of them specifically so that they follow what I want them to do. If for whatever reason they stray and become something I’d rather not use at all, I remove/purge them.

    Security is also very important (to me at least). Not updating because a feature is unpleasant is fine as long as the app is fairly recent and has no way of communicating to any other apps or have any internet access.










  • In the case of your laptop and microphone together while being on the go, a “small” microphone and somewhat cheap would indeed be best like I said previously. If you’re outside, I wouldn’t bring some equipment that attracks too much attention to you for sure.

    As for in-ear earbuds, the only good options I’m aware of do not offer any microphones. The cheapest and only ones that I can think of are the old (now retired) apple standard earbuds. However the mic isn’t that “good” per say and I doubt many places still have a stock of them.


  • It is a solution. I prefer to know exactly how my software is doing things and prefer to set every settings myself. While that isn’t something I recommend most do due to time constraint, I also forgot that those tools are implemented in a lot of big applications making use of video/audio calls. If it suits your needs and find no issue using them, go for it. It will indeed help tremendously. The tips to dampen the noise in the room you are in still applies. Noise cancelling tools like so need to distort the audio the more ambiant sounds there are and the volume they’re at. The louder an environment is, the more your audio will be distorted and the worst the quality will get. Nowadays, we are at a point where it shouldn’t matter too much because of how well those tools processes the audio so it should be fine. Just keep it in mind.

    In the end that wasn’t all that useful but I hope you’ll manage to have good calls with an audio that fits your needs and liking.


  • While browsing a few years back, I found myself buying the Blue Snowball. While many headsets now include good microphones, I chose this one because it was (and still is) cheap and of good enough quality for regular use.

    As for the input settings, that might be tough if you have no experience with it. Depending on your laptop’s OS and the wide range of software it might be tough.

    Before any audio settings in place, test out your audio with:

    • a microphone,
    • a physical filter (some uses socks, its not recommended but it’s just to give you an idea of what it is),
    • a room with as much noise reduction as possible (thick curtains/room with a good amount of furniture/sound absorbant panels, all of those can help).

    Chances are, the noise will still be too much and you will want some artificial changes from softwares afterwards, but the more you dampen the noise, the less tweaks you will have to do in the software making it easier while also not ruining the audio too much with software filters.

    If you’re willing to tell me what OS you will use with that laptop I can try and see what could potentially work on there without just telling you xyz software and giving you random values you have no informations on. Sometimes, simple OS audio configurations can do as much as some advertised software.


  • As blackstrat said, a commentator headset-microphone might be the thing you need if you ever have the money to spend on it. I could give you a good recommendation if you need one but the headset without anything else costs around $3k US iirc. That’s without the needed cable and DAC. Think around $5k US for the whole thing. It is really impressive because no matter how much shouting or loud noise there is right next to you, you cannot hear it if you want to filter it out by decreasing the noise gate.

    Do you need to have such a high end headset-microphone? Probably not. A good microphone, adjusted audio input settings and mixing should be well enough. However, if you do feel like you really need a luxurious microphone then tell me and I’ll find the referrence for it in a bit.


  • You could always try on another machine if you can to see if the latency is due to the laptop or the keyboard itself.

    Also, changing keyboard, especially if you’ve been using a certain keyboard type and you change to another, can really mess uo the eay you type until you get used to it.

    Lastly, bluetooth is a whole mess so it very well could be that. If you value what you bought and like you said, someone close to you is a tinkerer, converting a bluetooth device to a wired can be a nice project if they haven’t done so before (and it prevents throwing out a working device with a small defect).






  • Setup:

    Download Seal and go to Settings > General. From there click on the update yt-dlp to make sure you’re on the latest yt-dlp build. No head to Custom command > New template. Put your label of choice and in the “Command template” section put in your custom command.

    To create a good custom command I highly recommend you browse TheFrenchGhosty’s Ultimate YouTube-DL Scripts Collection’s Watch on Mobile Devices Script to get an idea of what you would want (I’ll give an example template later on based on theirs).

    Once your command is done click “Done”. If you have not configured the output directory yet, go to Settings > Download directory > Custom command directory (Usually you’ll want this in the Download folder. On android: /storage/emulated/0/Download/<Name-Of-Your-Choosing> Make sure to have “Configure before download” under Settings > General, enabled. From there, exit the app.

    Go to the app you want to download your media from (ie. Browser, Youtube). If you are in a browser, long press the url bar of your link and click “Share”. You will be presented a menu to share the selected link. Long press on the Seal icon marked as “Quick Download”. You will be presented with a way to pin the app. This will allow this specific app you’re in to have Seal be presented right away when you want to share a link and be prompted with the “Configure before download” menu. From there, select “Commands” as “Download type” and click on the template’s label you created earlier. You can now click “Download” and enjoy.

    You could avoid the hussle of setting up a custom command and tweak a few things in the app’s offered options. I just prefer to use my usual commands that I use to download on my phone as well.

    As for the command, here’s a short template I just made from modifying TheFrenchGhosty’s scripts as mentionned above (haven’t tested it but should theoritically work):

    yt-dlp --format "(bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=1080][fps>30]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=1080]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=720][fps>30]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=720]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=480][fps>30]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=480]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=360][fps>30]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=360]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=240][fps>30]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=240]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=144][fps>30]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1][height=144]/bestvideo[vcodec^=avc1])+(bestaudio[acodec^=mp4a]/bestaudio)/best" --force-ipv4 --sleep-requests 1 --sleep-interval 5 --max-sleep-interval 30 --ignore-errors --no-continue --no-overwrites --add-metadata --parse-metadata "%(title)s:%(meta_title)s" --parse-metadata "%(uploader)s:%(meta_artist)s" --no-write-description --check-formats --concurrent-fragments 4 --output "%(title)s - %(uploader)s (%(upload_date)s).%(ext)s --merge-output-format "mkv" --throttled-rate 100K

    Not all the info here is relevant for each use cases but I hope this gives ideas and helps even a bit.