Category Archives: Computing

Tuners Use zsh & iTerm

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One of the tools that I haven’t had much success really tuning before, which I’m looking to try again is Apple Terminal.

Mac OS X has been with us since 2001. There is now a lot of stale information out there for tuning the command line experience. For example, there are still a lot of articles about tsch in search results. The earlier versions of Mac OS X default shell was tsch, but since 2003 the shell has been bash.

One thing I’ve noticed in the screenshots of tuned Terminal is “zsh” in the window’s title bar. I’m not willing to tackle figuring out the zsh shell, but I find it interesting that it’s a favorite of the tuners.

Another favorite seems to be using iTerm. I noticed my co-worker Demitrious Kelly sporting iTerm in his WATCHME for wpshell. And today, reading my co-worker Andy Skelton’s “My SSH config setup” fellow WordPress contributor Dougal Campbell and my co-worker Donncha O Caoimh both gave iTerm shout outs.

I wonder if Apple Terminal has mostly caught up to iTerm. It seems iTerm might still have some tab advantages.

Tune Your Tools

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Black and white photo of a hand tuning a guitar

"Tune it in 96/365" cc by-nc flickr user Crashmaster007

Although I love to try the latest software and gadget, I’ve most recently been spending more effort tuning my tools.

When time is family time it seems like a greater benefit to optimize where I can instead of always seeking the next great thing!

It’s also a lot more work than just playing with the shiny.

Kobo, Still Loading

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I picked up a Kobo eReader today at my local Chapters (Canada’s mega-bookstore).

The Kobo has a lot going for it. Because the company behind it isn’t an Amazon.com, and so they can’t do it alone, it scores big points by using common technologies and supporting standard formats.

For the Kobo being a 1st edition, and for wearing a much more affordable price tag at $150, than the Amazon Kindle at $260, it can be forgiven for falling short of the Amazon Kindle in a lot of ways.

But the Kobo has only itself to blame for where it falls hardest.

Their (boring) slogan is “eReading: anytime. anyplace.”

It should be “eReading: anytime… eventually. anyplace… eventually.”

It takes over half a minute to power on.

That’s just too long.

Reading is a sacred ritual. Those that read are going to be frustrated, and those dead tree books will also be calling them with their sirens song.

Charlie Sorrel of Wired is correct, the Kobo is a killer, suicidal that is.

I do expect it to do decent in the Canadian market, but this first edition is no Kindle killer.

I’ll be returning it this week.

Note: Chapters Help Lies, Thankfully It Should Be Easy To Return

Contrary to Chapters online help stating “Kobo eReaders must be returned in its original unopened packaging.” I confirmed first online with Kobo customer support, and then in store, that I have 2 weeks to return it open with the original package.

“If the unit is not defective and you simply don’t want it you can return it to your local Chapters/Indigo store within 14 days of purchase as long as you have a receipt”

PDF to Amazon Kindle

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The information out there makes it sound like you can view PDFs on the Kindle 2 e-book reader. This is not true.

So how do you get your PDFs on your Kindle?

In my experience both Lexcycle Stanza and the Calibre App PDF conversions result in mangled, unreadable e-books.

The solution is Amazon.com offers an email to your Kindle service, [email protected] for a small fee (not quite so small if not in USA).

I just discovered if you send to your-kindle-email@free.kindle.com there is no charge as it’s sent back to the email address you sent it from, not directly to your Kindle.

Although Amazon.com calls PDF “an experimental file format” the results have all been great for me.

Quake Commitment

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For those software developers and companies where open source doesn’t quite fit their business plan, how about a Quake Commitment?

“In conjunction with his self-professed affinity for sharing source code, John Carmack has open-sourced most of the major id Software engines under the GPL license. Historically, the source code for each engine has been released once the code base is 5 years old.”
Wikipedia article: id Software

Blurred Computer Commands in Green on a Black Screen

Photo "cmd.exe" cc by-sa flickr user n3wjack

I think this is a novel approach, and I’m surprised that I haven’t heard of any other companies making this sort of commitment. Fellow open source zealots would warm up to you and you’d earn the love of developer communities everywhere. It also increases the chance that your software has a greater legacy.

Let me know if you’re committing to opening the source of aged versions of your proprietary software. Will it be 2, 3 or some other length of years from now?

Reveal Files on Mac OS X

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My co-worker Michael Adams starts “PHP 5 + Apache 2 + MySQL 5 on OS X via MacPorts” with a great developer tip for Mac Finder:

# Displays all files in Finder. Optional: personal preference.
$ defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles YES
# Relaunch Finder

This is a great tip — Mac .dmg disk images will never look the same.

Here is a reciprocal tip for the Mac Terminal.

In your favorite editor create ~/.inputrc (bash shell) with the following contents:

# http://osxfaq.com/tips/unix-tricks/week66/friday.ws
# Tab key filename auto-completion improvements
## ignore case
set completion-ignore-case on
## list alternatives immediately (bash normally requires 2nd Tab press)
set show-all-if-ambiguous on

Anyone else have tips along these lines, command lines that is?

Online Productivity Expensive?

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With a young family I’ve found myself drawn to calendaring and to using “to do” lists extensively. It has freed my time and energy to instead enjoy it with my wife and son.

I’ve turned my eye to doing some selective time tracking. This class of software is most often integrated into billing applications.

I’m looking at a few Mac apps:

And a couple of web services:

The spread in pricing of the web services surprised me. How does FreshBooks justify being so much more expensive?

Those prices are a year’s worth at the “solo” levels of these services. Except toggl, these web services are magnitudes more expensive than the Mac applications.

Gmail’s Sweetest Feature, the URL

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Gmail’s sweetest feature is that each view has a unique URL.

This provides simple integration with other applications. In other words, I copy and paste an email’s URL into my to do list, and at any time, with a single click I can get right back to the email.

Try doing that with any other email client!

Great Artists Still Steal

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Young great artists still steal.
Old great artists litigate?

I missed the news about the Apple-HTC Patent Lawsuit (Google Android) until tonight when I found out about it on Mark Jaquith’s blog.

I’m happy that these cards of Apple are finally on the table. I think Apple’s Multi-touch related patents have been hanging over the heads of other hardware and software developers.

I don’t think I’ve ever found myself agreeing with John Gruber more:

“No doubt some of you are nodding your heads and see this as justification for Apple’s suit. But life isn’t fair. Great ideas make the world better. Apple can rightly expect to benefit greatly from the ideas embodied by the iPhone, but they can’t expect to reap all of the benefits from those ideas.

That’s the nature of implementing insanely great ideas. The bar has been raised, and, yes, Apple did most of the lifting. That’s how it goes.”

John Gruber, “Daring Fireball: This Apple-HTC Patent Thing“, Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

Right now people are in their venting phase. What comes next?

Is there an effective protest against the Apple-HTC patent lawsuit? Particularly something that Apple customers should do?

I can’t see enough people caring, particularly on the eve of the iPad.

May 5th quotes from the comments:

Ian wrote “I think Apple customers should use one finger at a time in protest.”

Mark wrote “Apple has to operate in the system as it exists.”

Terry — how can I just choose one of his tasty insights — wrote “I do think that holders of software patents should be forced to do some sort of licensing because of the chilling effect they’re having on innovation.”

Google Tries for High Ground in China

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These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.David Drummond, A New Approach to China, Official Google Blog, Jan 12th, 2010