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And that’s what I’m looking at as I type: my laptop has four connections instead of just one: power, HDMI to the display, a USB -C connection to an ethernet adapter (so I can get wired speeds), and a USB 3 connector to a hub where the external disk and other peripherals are connected. The only scenario that worked reliably was to not use the docking station on my desktop. I also saw online that I am not the only one experiencing this problem.

I played with various connection alternatives with no success.

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Remedies from Dell support consisted of making sure that all drivers were as up-to-date as possible - something I’d already done. The problem, however, was very simple yet annoying: when connected via the docking station, every so often both screens would go black for a second and then return. It doesn’t sound particularly serious, but I can tell you that over time, it became incredibly frustrating. I plugged in my external mouse and keyboard, the external drive, and the external display, and with one connection, my laptop was connected to all and getting power. One connection gets you power, as well as almost all the external connections you might want. In theory, the dock is an excellent idea. The other items I added include a 6TB external drive, as planned an Amazon Basics keyboard and mouse and a gaming mouse to use when the machine is docked. ( Here’s the article detailing what it took to perform the upgrade.) Running virtual machines, as I mentioned in prior articles, tends to be memory-hungry, and maximizing the available RAM made that scenario run a lot smoother immediately.

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I did order a 32gig RAM upgrade from Crucial. The horsepower is what I was looking for - video encodings, my most demanding CPU-intensive operation, are on a par with my previous computer, even though I have only half the number of CPUs. The wide-screen external monitor on my desk is awesome in the true sense of the word. The machine is lighter than some laptops I’ve had in the past, and will make a fine traveling companion. Process Explorer showing all CPUs maxed during a video encode. Performance: the need for speedĪs I type this, I’ve been using the machine for the better part of a month, and overall, I’m not disappointed. I spent a significant amount of time downloading and installing software. There’s more - probably much more - that I’m overlooking, but you get the idea.

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xPlorer2: a dual-pane Windows File Explorer replacement I’ve used for years.

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VirtualBox: the software that allows me to run virtual machines within Windows 10, which was one of the key criteria behind my choice of machines.

AutoHotKey: a keyboard macro and programming package that allows me to type some standard replies with a couple of keystrokes.

VLC Media Player: my media player of choice.

TunnelBear: this is the VPN I use for travel.

Mozilla Firefox: I use this to help me separate personal and business accounts, as well as to research the occasional question.

World of Warcraft: everyone needs a distraction now and then.

Adobe Creative Cloud: most notably PhotoShop, which I use heavily.

FastStone Image Viewer: Dropbox has all my photos this is how I browse them.

BoxCryptor: the encryption utility I use to secure data I store in the cloud.

Evernote: the note-taking application around which I structure my day.

This also copies a number of command-line programs, scripts, and batch files I use regularly.

Dropbox: one of the ways I copy lots of files to this machine, while enabling sharing with my team and off-site backup.

(I installed Camtasia, my screen video capture tool of choice, prior to the updates I talked about last week, so that process could be captured.) Thus, in roughly chronological order, the software I spent the first few hours downloading and installing included: Whenever I get a new machine, or rebuild an existing one, I follow an “install it as you need it” approach, only installing programs I actually use as I encounter the need for them. There’s also one thing that falls into the “not so well” category. Let’s review some of the software I’ve installed and use every day, as well as what’s been working well. Well, now it’s time to put my new machine into service. It’s here, I backed up, and I updated, updated, and updated some more.

Snagit 13 lockup