anderstornvig.dk

Vimperator

I’ve used Vimperator for about a year and a half now and I’m very happy with it. For those who don’t know what Vimperator is, here’s from wiki:

Vimperator is a Mozilla Firefox extension designed to provide a more efficient user interface for keyboard-fluent users. The design is heavily inspired by the Vim text editor, and the authors try to maintain consistency with it wherever possible.

I never used it because of its similarity with Vim, but simply because it makes browsing the web exactly the experience I want it to be. Highly recommendable.

Some times though, Vimperator has a hard time adjusting its philosophy to its surroundings. Take for instance the shortcut features in Web 2.0 applications like Gmail, Google Reader, etc. The solution to this has been to temporarily disable the Vimperator key bindings by pressing Ctrl-z in normal mode.

The new and fancy Mozilla Weave project is no exception.

Mozilla Weave

Weave Sync is a brand new synchronization tool, still under heavy development. You can do lots of sync stuff between Firefox browsers but I mainly just want to use it for synchronizing the tabs I have open on my laptop and my desktop computer.

So, the only way in which Weave can represent the synchronized tabs at the moment is in an option in the top menu bar, “File, Edit, …” you know. But the problem  is that this menu is gone when using Vimperator (at least in the default setting) because you can do everything with the keyboard.

The vague fix

There’s nothing fantastic about the fix. It’s just a small setting in Vimperator that makes it possible to access “History->Tabs From Other Computers” in the top menu bar. I found it in the manual (:help).

Assuming that you have installed Weave yourself and are now setting in Firefox with the Vimperator addon enabled, simply write :set go+=m to enable the top menu bar on the fly. To add the setting permanently, put “set go+=m” in your ~/.vimperatorrc.

If you want to know more of the go (for guioptions) option you can investigate the manual. It allows you to enable or disable most elements in the regular Firefox GUI.

That’s the best I can come up with. For the future I hope to see a better representation of the synchronized tabs, perhaps some button in the status bar. A feature to restore an entire session from another computer would also be cool.

In relation to my last post on “Operating systems and web applications” I’d like to share with you an article I just read.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/29/cloud.computing.richard.stallman

I can’t help but completely agree and realize that I have to go cold turkey on the web applications. Some may even say “go back in time”. Soon!

Rant coming your way..!

I use a frighteningly large number of online services/applications/whateveryoumaycallthem. Gmail, Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Dropbox, Remember the Milk, GooSync, Twitter, WordPress, Delicious and that’s probably not even all of them.

The big sinner is obviously Google. Even though I’m reluctant to admit it, they make some darn great software – too great to not use. The same is true for the other services. One innovative, beautiful web application after another.

What’s scary is that I’m so dependent on them. I get chills from just thinking about something crucial happening to Google.

But I guess Google has reach a size where reliability will never be a problem. Too many users depend on them and hopefully they are aware enough of their responsibility to not just pull the plug.

The next stage after this concern about Google just pulling the plug is the monopoly concern. Just like Microsoft took over the world through your personal computer, Google is doing it through the web. I guess it can be seen as an advantage that everything is streamlined and so on but I choose to be worried. If Google went down, the world would really just halt. Communication lost, appointments forgot, tasks undone, data gone, etc.. Disaster!

Accepting the fact that the evolution is inevitable and that I’m a sucker for Google and other web services takes me to my next subject.

Operating systems (OSs) are depreciating. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Give me a browser and a text editor and I’m ready to take over the world myself!

90 percent give or take of the time I spend on a computer I’m either in Firefox or some obscure text editor. True story.

I’m not saying that OSs are becoming unnecessary, just irrelevant for everyday work. Any modern OS can fire up a browser and a text editor, and if that’s more or less all that’s needed on a daily basis, maybe we need to rethink the entire design of modern OSs. Simplify rather than complicate them if you will.

As point of departure though, I can’t fully support this evolvement because of the statements first in this post. I’m simply not comfortable with the thought of people gullibly putting their personal data in the hands of someone/everyone else.

I would like, however, to draw a final perspective that’s not just relevant somewhere in the future, but also today. On any computer you use for regular tasks like mailing, browsing, documenting, if the OS is irrelevant, why not install an open source one for free? It’s just plain ludicrous to pay for an OS you’re not directly using. You use the applications you’re installing on the OS, and any OS can manage most of those applications, also open source ones.

If you’ve read this far, largely agreed with my points, not quite understood this open source thingy, but – sensible as you are – noted that you can get an operating system for free and free yourself from the monopoly that is Microsoft, you’re probably wondering where. My best answer to that question is www.ubuntu.com. Here you can download a free and open source operating system called Ubuntu built upon the Linux kernel. Highly recommendable.

Rant… over…

Today I went to the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) conference in Aalborg. It concerned two main topics, secure programming and real-time/embedded systems. Here are some highlights and reasons I was glad that I went. While it was incredibly relevant for my education, I didn’t find the real-time/embedded part very interesting. It was plain boring, so I won’t comment on that.

Development tools

During the day several helpful tools for software development were introduced and recommended. That included tools for bug tracking, documentation, etc. Especially interesting ones were doxygen, doxygen-gui, graphviz, valgrind and splint.

Git eye-opener

A guy named Esben Haabendal talked about git through practical examples. As opposed to some documentation about git I’ve read online which I found a bit arbitrary and complex, this talk was really an eye-opener for me. Even though the presentation itself wasn’t particularly good, the talk provided an introduction to some terminology within git, basic commands/operations and more importantly the context in which they are used. Also the brief explanation of distributed version control systems and how they implement various workflow models was very interesting. I can definitely see why git outrules subversion or other centralized version control systems in larger projects.

The OpenBSD guys

There were two german OpenBSD developers, Henning Brauer and Sven Dehmlow, present. Two funny but also extremely OpenBSD religious characters. I really enjoyed their presentation about code security and rightness. Particularly, I found the part about chroot and privilege seperation interesting. But also their slides. They were different with colors, beers as progressbars, legos as flowchart, etc.

Book recommendations

Henrik Lund Kramshøj talked about security tools, mainly for programming also. His talk was alright and he recommended a couple of books. They were:

• Secure Coding: Principles & Practices – Principles and Practices by Mark G. Graff and Kenneth R. Van Wyk
• 19 Deadly Sins Of Software Security – Programming Flaws And How To Fix Them by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc

Wrapping up

There are several other things from the conference on my list that I plan to look more into, so I guess in all it was 200 dkr well spent. The food there was also much better than expected, but I was disappointed that we didn’t get a t-shirt.

To zoom out a bit, the conference reminded me what great community exists around the open source idea. Once again I’m really motivated to contribute.

Finally, all talks were video recorded, so they should become available online together with slides etc. at some point. The talks from last year’s conference are available at http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/blivklogere/foss_aalborg/2008/.

I bought a new old LaCie monitor today.

I used to have two LCD monitors here at home, a 22\” and a 24\” but for some months now my 22\” has been at the university. I spend a lot of time there after all, and a 14 inch laptop monitor just won\’t do it for me.

So, I was left at home with my 24\”. It\’s a great monitor and it may sound priviledged but it just isn\’t enough. I need, really need a second monitor. I once stated that the same effect could be achieved with multiple desktops/workspaces, but I was wrong. Once you get used to a multiple monitor setup, it becomes hard to live without.

For instance, no matter what I do on my computer, I want a browser within sight. Easily accessible for googling, mailing, news reading, whatever. The same goes for IM, IRC and various status windows. If possible, I want to them within sight.

Now, if I also want to write something, code something, draw something or really just do anything else than browsing and messaging, space becomes a problem on one monitor. And every time (which is more often than you\’d probably think) it\’s a terrible annoyance.

Another example I\’ll just briefly mention is coding. You\’ll need one screen for a browser and documentation, and a second for writing, debugging and compiling the code. Often even a third screen is preferable!

Back to my monitor. It\’s a LaCie Electron Blue 22\” CRT monitor, goes up to 2048×1536, has an USB hub and double VGA connectors in the back. Great. About the picture, I won\’t say that it\’s good or bad but it\’s definitely entirely different than on my 24\” LCD monitor which is right next to it. Not so great. I\’m also a little concerned about its power consumption.

But it does the job and it only cost me 250dkr so I can\’t complain.

Firefox is without a doubt my favorite browser (sorry if I undermine your competences when saying this, but Firefox can be considered the better alternative to another browser called Internet Explorer as you probably know). The browser is, as well as the first application I start when booting, a crucial part of my everyday. I do research, troubleshooting, news reading, blog reading, discussions and youtubing. I also check book, music and movie reviews, even the weather, the TV programme, etc. I could continue forever – Firefox does it all very well. Furthermore, it’s open source, multi platformed and most importantly, it possesses the incredible feature of being extensible. Any user can at any time expand the functionality in the browser, only by installing a simple addon. The only acceptable approach to functionality in a browser. So, if you miss functionality in Firefox, chances are that someone with programming skills has already missed it – and actually developed it for you to use freely. Ah, the beauty of open source strikes again. Anyway, the addons are available either directly in Firefox (find it yourself) or at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/, where you can just search and install anything you want.

This intro leads me into the topic of this very post: The Firefox extensions/addons I use, simply because they make my life easier. Thanks to anyone who may have recommended one or more of them to me. You can search the headlines to the following descriptions directly. Here goes.

Adblock Plus. Blocks ads on the web. In other words, it basically applies a filter of known ads to any site you may visit. After installing it, the risk of having unwanted ads in five different places on each site you visit are noticably reduced. You won’t believe that you ever lived without it.

Delicious Bookmarks. When you want to synchronize and share bookmarks between computers or just browsers, Delicious is an ideal solution. This addon provides a tool for administering your delicious account.

Download Statusbar. Gets rid of that annoying popup download window which is default in Firefox. Instead, it adds another discrete statusbar in the bottom of your main window.

It’s All Text! If you’re annoyed by editing text on the web in textarea boxes, this addon provides an alternative. Each time you see a textarea on a site, you’ll also see a small Edit button. When you click this, your predefined, favorite text editor will pop up, and each time you save (and close), the text is transfered to the textarea. It works well.

Mouse Gestures Redox. Binds different browser actions to simple movements with your mouse. For instance, when I press right click, move my mouse left and release right click again, Firefox goes back to the previous site I visited. It also controls features like tabs, etc. Even though I’m normally a keyboard man, it’s sometimes comfortable to just lean back and browse with my mouse. On a laptop with a touchpad the addon is obviously not very conveinient.

Tabs Open Relative. Excuse me, but the brains behind Firefox must have had their heads under their arms when designing the algorithm for handling tabs. Luckily, they made user improvements possible with addons – yay! This addon implements another much more logical and conveinient way of handling tabs.

Vimperator. The most radical addon I use. It more or less changes the whole interaction with Firefox to something more like the interaction known from Vim. If you don’t know the Vim editor beforehand, don’t install this. If you do, well then you have to try it. A few keywords describing the addon would be Vim-like key bindings and generally efficient, keyboard driven browsing. After I’ve gotten used to Vimperator, I’m annoyed by the regular interface, and also really happy that I made the switch.

So, there you have them. Something to play with. Thanks for reading and I hope you’ll enjoy at least some of my recommendations.

That, and I also wanted a camera. After gradually spending more time on sites like flickr, I figured it’d be cool to have one, and since I just got an extra, unexpected pay check from my summer job, could it be more convenient? So a couple of weeks ago I started checking out the market. I’ve never had a camera before nor found them particularly interesting. In fact, until a couple of years ago I didn’t know the slightest about the impressive “science” behind it. The shooting itself is one thing. You have to find a motive, maybe a subject, get influences like light, focus, colours, angle, zooming, the moment, everything right. I obviously don’t know the fancy words, but I know that it can look quite amazing if carefully thought out. After that – the other thing – there’s also the whole post-processing phase if you’re up for it. My impression is that most use Photoshop, and apparently there’s also a tendency of photographers using/liking Apple – just something I noticed. Anyway, some find post-processing unnecessary, some indispensable. It’s all a matter of taste and of course the specific picture. I like when the photographer captures certain kinds of moods, atmospheres, expressions, quirks by using alternative, maybe even experimental methods. I also like dust, black/white, transparency, age, etc. No definite taste though.

Right now, I’ve no intension of becoming an (amateur) photographer like the above briefly describes. I find their photos very interesting to look at, but I have enough interests to take care of and I also simply can’t afford a camera that’s worth the considerations – that would be a DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) camera, way too expensive for a novice.

Instead, I’ve thrown my money at the “Canon Powershot G9” digital camera. In it’s price range (around 2800 dkr) I haven’t been able to find anything better. I can only find positive reviews of it, and I also read something about that it’s the DSLR users’ prefered compact camera. Without insulting too many, I guess one could call it a worthy middle ground between the two kinds. I bought it with a few accesories – that is a bag, an extra battery and of course some SD memory (4 GB). Total cost of everything together: 3440 dkr.

So Friday (it’s Monday now), I went to the cheapest place in DK – kamerashop.dk – and ordered it to get it delivered today. Of course it got too late in school, and on my way home I could therefore only wave to the postman driving past me in his car. In Aalborg DK you have to be home to sign the reception when the postman comes. If you aren’t, you’re forced to wait until the next day before picking up your package at the post office. Stupid system. That’s why I – nearly with tears in my eyes – stopped my bike to watch the postman drive by me. I had come like fifteen minutes too late, obviously unable to stop him (even though I seriously considered throwing myself in front of his car). Still, I refused to give up. I started giving the bike all I had – pedal with my entire weight. I got home, ran up the stairs (four floors), locked up my appartment and threw myself at the key for my car. Got out again, smacked the door back in, ran down the stairs (still four floors) and into the car. When I backed out from the parking slot I nearly hit a cyclist. I didn’t, but it made me think “Slow down, Anders, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get that camera today.”, took two long breaths, thought “Okay, maybe it is.” So I sat off in pursuit of catching the postman. When I got past the point where I’d met him on my bike, I started searching every side road. Eventually, I got to the end of the “big” road which divided in two. I choose the most likely and searched for another 2 km or something. It may seem that I looked for hours but it all took around 20 minutes. That was when I decided to accept my defeat and go home. Now I’ll have to wait till tomorrow and pick it up after school.

Till then I’ll keep considering a question I (probably should’ve but) haven’t answered yet. What do I want to take pictures of? No clue. Anything at any time I guess. When I get it tomorrow I’ll post a few test shots ASAP – just for show. After that, I don’t know of anything specific, but I have my Dublin weekend trip on which I’ll probably bring it. Stay put and in a week or so, you can read about that. I know I can’t wait : ).

By the way, this is my first post on the “new” domain. It has been mine for a long time but it has always just pointed at my own server. Now it points here – to my blog – and it’s nice to get rid of the subdomain.

Have a nice evening.