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Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

unclack.app

181–190 of 193 posts

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe this? Tried googling but couldn’t find due to TPUs being so ubiquitous.

As in what is a TPU? It's Tensor Processing Unit. It's like a CPU/GPU, but specifically for doing the kind of math you come across with Machine Learning / Neural Network applications (mostly: lots and lots of dot products).

The noise cancellation :)

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I loved my Model-M Space Saver, collected quite a few of them. Co-workers did sometimes comment/complain but not that often. I also had this habit of moving my cursor keys up/down/left/right in rapid/slow movements while I was thinking deeply on a problem. Combined with how loud and that it clicks on each downpress and clacks on release was quite the cacophony.

I have the full size Model-M I would use a Model-M Space Saver as my daily driver but the full size is too big for my desk while also using a mouse.

Am I remembering right that there was even a SpaceSaver Model-M with integrated TrackPoint? Might be confusing it with a full-sized or ThinkPad-style separate keyboard.

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#183

The sentence explaining what it does has a typo which makes it confusing: > Unclack is the small but mighty Mac utility that mutes your keyboard while you type. This should say "mutes your _microphone_ while you type". You can't mute a keyboard

Ok, I've made that edit in the title above. Belatedly but oh well. Thanks!

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not have a hardware mute button. There is an output mute, but not an input mute. I wrote one in about 10 lines of AppleScript and associated it with a hot key. It ~mostly~ works. If you are talking about the application-specific software mute, I had such a terrible time finding it amongst all my open tabs and latency every time I wanted to type or speak that I wrote the above hardware-ish button.

I wrote a Hammerspoon script to do the same, but Microsoft Teams unmutes the default input every time you join a call. Did you run into this/have any idea how to get around it?

I do not run into that problem, but I don’t use Teams. I “mute” by setting the input volume to 0. Not sure if that helps.

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#186
post #82

I wish push-to-talk was more common. On linux I've been using this little python script that implements global push-to-talk by (un)muting the microphone in pulseaudio when you push a button. https://gitlab.com/somini/inpulse-to-talk Time to see if there's something equivalent for mac.

Shush: https://mizage.com/shush/

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#187
post #69

When I downloaded it the DMG file was 12.2Mb. I was suspicious of why an app this small in function would require such a large download, and looked inside, but the actual contents was only 1.4Mb, half of which was icons etc., which seems much more reasonable. If I right click on Unclack.app and choose "compress", I get a file under 1Mb in size. Does this always happen with DMG files, or is there something weird going…

DMGs are essentially disk images. So there's a lot of metadata there, inherent to the file system (HFS+ here but any file system would have metadata). Not to mention, there could be plenty of empty space if the virtual disk is bigger than the contained files.

DMG compression is also optional, so not everyone compresses them. The DMG in this case is clearly not compressed. Compressing the DMG itself results in a file less than a megabyte.

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#188
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love these solutions but none are as easy as "install an app and click a button to turn on." RTX Voice has that locked down. I'd use RNNoise instead if there was a standalone app that just "worked" on my mic input. But here I have to jump through hoops for it to work.

Can you elaborate on what hoops exactly you have to jump through? (genuinely curious, i wrote noisetorch and always looking to improve it)

Compared to something like Krisp (since there's no RTXV on macOS) it was difficult because step one was to compile it.

Assuming the rest of the UX journey is similar (i.e. technically-oriented) compared to Krisp's menubar click-to-activate-mic UX it then becomes less approachable

On a tangent - nice work! That people are even comparing it to RTX Voice is impressive!

Re: Show HN: Unclack – a macOS app that mutes your microphone while you type

#190

This is a god send. What a great little tool. I am constantly being berated by colleagues when I start loudly typing on my mechanical keyboard without thinking...

As well you should be, loud typing is disrespectful and distracting in any environment.

Totally agree, I don't have anywhere near as loud a keyboard in the office so only been a problem since working from home.

Easy to forget you're not muted on a call and start typing a reply to something else - not trying to suggest anyone is in the wrong other than myself!

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