Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
2009/1/11 Klaus Umbach treibholz-...@sozial-inkompetent.de: Just out of curiosity, I'm interessted in what you are using on your desktop/notebook. I just want to have new ideas. On the desktop I use varying things. TI-86, analog scope, loupe, soldering station, random breadboards and stuff. Lots of pens and paper. It might benefit from some automation but I can't find a computer and interface of suitable size and connectivity. Since I can't find Rotring XONOX any more, only the sloppy fat Tikky, I have a Pigma Micron 005 (0.20mm line is maybe even too thin). It doesn't have a straight clip, though so it tore the back of the Moleskine in record time. I need a tougher notebook. You may freely consider this a snipe at crap analogies used in computing. Throw them away and things start to work better. Ion is a good step forward in that. -- I appear to be temporarily using gmail's horrible interface. I apologise for any failure in my part in trying to make it do the right thing with post formatting.
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
One thing I've been wondering is, whether a widescreen display on a laptop (not a dragtop!) is actually a bad idea too. And it's the trend. For most _sane_ documents, the height of the screen is more important than width. That is completely true. WS and X-black-shiny-crap have been forced upon us, nobody sane would like that, and we're pretty much fucked up. But maybe some guy will get it right someday. (The Modern Web counts as sheer lunacy. In a few years, given the trend, it will require triple-widescreen configurations for all the advertisements and other crap, yet still have a single 5cm text column in the middle.) The Web will not require a triple-wide screen since the trend seems precisely to get the content on a third of the width, two thirds being empty white (or styled) borders. And, preferably, long pages and large headers, so it's frequent not to be able to even read half of the latest post without scrolling. Just have a look at Blogger, Wordpress and DotClear default and most used themes. Yes, the Web has the exact inverse trend than the screens. I am still wondering about that too. Who can tell what crap the Web-for-phones-and-devices will give us next ? In fact, an approx A4 sized screen [...] could be quite nice on a laptop. That would be great, readable, and not to mention easier to fit in normal bags. -- Sylvain Abélard J'ai décidé d'être heureux, c'est meilleur pour la santé. -Voltaire
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
On 2009-01-17 11:47 +0100, Sylvain Abélard wrote: (The Modern Web counts as sheer lunacy. In a few years, given the trend, it will require triple-widescreen configurations for all the advertisements and other crap, yet still have a single 5cm text column in the middle.) The Web will not require a triple-wide screen since the trend seems precisely to get the content on a third of the width, two thirds being empty white (or styled) borders. The two thirds are mega-wide and force the text out of view in narrow browsers for sane content (such as my slightly smaller than portrait A4 or letter window on a 17 4:3 display) and viewing other stuff on the side. You need the tripe-wide screen configuration to not have to scroll horizontally to get to the text. In fact, an approx A4 sized screen [...] could be quite nice on a laptop. That would be great, readable, and not to mention easier to fit in normal bags. Of course, it would also be great if you could use it as a tablet in portrait mode... with an e-paper display mode. The current tablet PCs seem horribly kludgy, though, and, in fact, it might be better for the tablet mode to be the default, with the computer behind the screen and no keyboard except on a docking station that perhaps can be attached to the computer nicely for transportation. At least I don't think I'd miss the keyboard much when travelling lightly. The keyboard does work as a screen cover, though, and there needs to be something to replace that function. Surely it can be made lighter and less fragile than esp. tablet hinges. Or maybe the docking station can be made to fill this function, essentially making the computer of two detachable parts, so the tablet can be made less clunky. In fact, maybe you could also split the eletronics and battery between the two components, further reducing the tablet weight. E.g., a primary storage HD (or SSD) could go in the KB part, as well as any optical drives -- actually, it sucks that you have to again pay extra for a laptop that doesn't waste space for one; this is again something that belongs in a docking station or otherwise external device -- with a smaller SSD on the tablet part for the OS and some documents etc. The mechanical coupling between the parts of course has to be made reliable. -- Tuomo
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Tuomo Valkonen tuo...@iki.fi wrote:
If one can find an affordable notebook with a *matte* screen anymore,
when I finally need a mobile computer; right now I don't. Glossy
*trinkets* attract the herd like fly traps attract flies, and so it's
hard to find anything that doesn't hurt your eyes anymore. Another
thing I've noticed is that even tabletops tend to come with _shitty_
laptop-like keyboards these days with too short movement of the keys
to be comfortable to type. But the herd is happy with them, and so
all the time it becomes more and more trouble to find even something
half-decent -- that was standard a few years before -- let alone
something actually good.
I happened to be awake when the 50% off lenovo x61s coupon code was
posted and got one with docking station + overpriced dvd burner and
4-year warranty for about $1100 incl tax, much lower than when I
bought almost an identical x61s about 18 months previous. That said,
it's kinda sad that the only reason it could be considered
'affordable' is that Lenovo was blowing them out so that they can
hurry up and end-of-life them (I guess?).
Back on the topic at hand:
Terminal emulator: rxvt-unicode (invoked as 'urxvtcd'), sometimes xterms
Text editor: emacs
IM+IRC: ssh to {screen + irssi + bitlbee}
video player: mplayer
audio player: mpd + ncmpc
display manager: xdm
calculator: ti89 or just google/feel lucky if I find I'm too
feebleminded at the moment to figure it in my head
Mail: gmail (for better or for worse, since it entails a browser) [1]
Calendar: google calendar (for better or for worse, since it entails a
browser) [2]
Browser: Firefox (with It's All Text if I want to format code or whatever)
Firefox makes me die a little inside each time I interact with it. I
fucking hate it, and it's all the worse because I noticed the suck
back between the 1.0 - 1.5 transition, and it's only gotten worse.
Maybe I'll give opera another shot sometime. Looking forward to
chrome on linux.
[1] on the topic of mail clients, I haven't seen anybody mention 'sup'
( http://sup.rubyforge.org/ ), which didn't completely suck last time
I tried it (early 2008). Then again, shortly after I stopped using
it, I noticed on the mailing list lots of Architecture Astronaut talk
about splitting it into sup the service and sup the client. YMMV,
it may be shit by now.
[2] I used to use remind + wyrd with great success and much happiness
until I started using google calendar+mail for work. The only thing
I'd really need for remind to keep working for me is a better backup
solution for ~/reminders than I had at the time. Every once in a
while I think about going back to remind+wyrd.
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
On 2009-01-16, Philip Snowberger psnow...@nd.edu wrote: On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 10:23 AM, Tuomo Valkonen tuo...@iki.fi wrote: bought almost an identical x61s about 18 months previous. That said, it's kinda sad that the only reason it could be considered 'affordable' is that Lenovo was blowing them out so that they can hurry up and end-of-life them (I guess?). One thing I've been wondering is, whether a widescreen display on a laptop (not a dragtop!) is actually a bad idea too. And it's the trend. For most _sane_ documents, the height of the screen is more important than width. (The Modern Web counts as sheer lunacy. In a few years, given the trend, it will require triple-widescreen configurations for all the advertisements and other crap, yet still have a single 5cm text column in the middle.) You'd need at least 15.4 WS (1.6 aspect) to fit a single A5-sized document (21cm tall) on the screen without noticeable downscaling. Such a laptop is already quite huge width-wise. In 4:3 aspect ratio 14 is enough, and width-wise it's about the same as 13.1 WS, which just about fits a keyboard without it looking crammed. (I don't have much direct experience with laptops.) And a 12 4:3 is approximately as tall as a 14.1 WS. (A5 is what you get when you print two pages on one A4 sheet, and anything noticeably smaller than that is too small for documents that you have not specifically prepared for printing small -- see earlier post. In fact, an approx A4 sized screen -- A4 has 14.5 diameter -- with sqrt(2)/1=~1.4 aspect ratio, which is wider than 4:3=~1.3 but taller than 1.6, could be quite nice on a laptop. The WS laptopss themselves actually have about the aspect ratio of A4, but tend to have huge uneven borders around the screen. [1] on the topic of mail clients, I haven't seen anybody mention 'sup' ( http://sup.rubyforge.org/ ), which didn't completely suck last time I tried it (early 2008). I've heard of it before and on principle it seemed almost what I've wanted. However, at least then it suffered from some limitations that I can't recall now, so I didn't bother trying it. I also read mail on a remote computer that I don't control, so installing programs written in one of the Popular Bloated Scripting Languages isn't very straightforward. it, I noticed on the mailing list lots of Architecture Astronaut talk about splitting it into sup the service and sup the client. YMMV, it may be shit by now. That sounds bad. [2] I used to use remind + wyrd with great success and much happiness until I started using google calendar+mail for work. The only thing I'd really need for remind to keep working for me is a better backup solution for ~/reminders than I had at the time. Every once in a while I think about going back to remind+wyrd. I use a combination of xmessages and the cell phone for reminders, depending on the importance of the reminder and whether I should be near a computer anyway to act on it. (Why can't computer calendar software be as simple as that in cell phones? Wait! Probably they've managed to ruin them in them too with increased screen size and CPU power.) ~$ cat bin/atxm #!/bin/sh if test $# -lt 1; then echo 'Usage: atxm time [message]' exit 0 fi TIME=$1 shift cd / ( echo '(iconv --to=latin1 | xmessage -display :0.0 -file -) EOF' if test $# -gt 0; then echo $@ else cat fi echo EOF ) | at $TIME -- Be an early adopter! Beat the herd! Choose Windows today!
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 05:39:16PM +0100, Klaus Umbach wrote: Browser: Firefox with It's All Text, vimperator and FireGestures FWIW, vimperator opens text areas in your editor of choice with ctrl-i. I don't remember how to configure it though. Y
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
Here we go: :) Term: urxvtc Editor : vim Mail: sylpheed News: snownews Browser : Opera / elinks IM : bitlbee via irssi IRC : irssi Video P.: mplayer Audio P.: moc Shell : zsh Dock: docker Screenshot : http://jan0sch.deviantart.com/art/ion3-rocks-the-desktop-93554668 greetings, jens -- 12. Hartung 2009, 15:02 Homepage : http://www.jan0sch.de Inara: This is pointless, you know. Early: 200,000 seems fairly pointed to me. --Episode #14, Objects in Space pgpFOw47sFzrX.pgp Description: PGP signature
[SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
Terminal emulator: xterm Text editor: emacs, OO (when required to use .doc files at work) Mail: Thunderbird/gmail Browser: Firefox with FireGestures IM: gaim, gchat Video-Player: mplayer Audio-Player: Songbird Display Manager: xdm or startx, depending on my mood when installing Shell: bash Calculator: python Dock: mod_dock Torrent: bittornado other stuff: Dia, xpdf, Inkscape, eagle, Xephyr
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
other stuff latex, rubber, ... dramatic pause ... bibtex, metapost, xdvi, xpdf, gv, psbind -3 [*], dvipdfm. And should we start listing latex packages too? Seriously though, this listing of all the software one uses and that is far removed from setting up a consistent ionic operating (no desktops here!) environment, could be seen as spamming the list. A wiki would be a better location for this sort of stuff but, alas, it's too much of a hassle to set up one that wouldn't start sucking. Maybe some site offers ad hoc wikis, a bit akin to pastebots? [*] With narrow text column classes such as amsart, three pages fit on one side of an A4 just fine with psbind, and saves a lot of paper -- together with duplex printing, of course. -- In 1995, Linux was almost a bicycle; an alternative way of live to the Windows petrol beasts that had to be taken to the dealer for service. By 2008, Linux has bloated into a gas-guzzler, and the cycle paths have been replaced with polluted motorways.
[SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
Hi, Just out of curiosity, I'm interessted in what you are using on your desktop/notebook. I just want to have new ideas. Maybe other ion3 users have the same needs as I, but found better solutions. Here is my list: Terminal emulator: rxvt-unicode Text editor: vim Mail: mutt with offlineimap and lbdb to read my Palm's addressbook. Browser: Firefox with It's All Text, vimperator and FireGestures IM: psi (+ skype) Video-Player: mplayer Audio-Player: amarok (looking for something better with ipod, DAAP and podcast-support!) Display Manager: xdm IRC: irssi Shell: zsh Calculator: bc Dock: docker Backup: rsnapshot other stuff: gkrellm, xfce-mcs-manager, xscreensaver (bsod), unclutter, gnupod, jpilot and only on the Netbook: gnome-power-manager, bluetooth-applet, nm-applet Screenshot: http://www.sozial-inkompetent.de/ion3/cyberdeck.png Cheers Treibholz -- BOFH excuse #169: broadcast packets on wrong frequency
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
Terminal emulator: rxvt-unicode I use mlterm and have also found xterm to be an alternative. IM: psi (+ skype) I use Pidgin and Freetalk. Judging from your other apps and setup you might like Freetalk. Audio-Player: amarok (looking for something better with ipod, DAAP and podcast-support!) Yeah, all currently available music players suck in some way or another. Display Manager: xdm There are some slim alternative login managers. Calculator: bc Try 'calc'[1]. Leslie [1] http://www.isthe.com/chongo/tech/comp/calc/ -- LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/polzer Xing Profile: https://www.xing.com/profile/LeslieP_Polzer Blog: http://blog.viridian-project.de/
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
Klaus Umbach (el 2009-01-11 a les 17:39:16 +0100) va dir:: Just out of curiosity, I'm interessted in what you are using on your desktop/notebook. I just want to have new ideas. Maybe other ion3 users have the same needs as I, but found better solutions. I guess we'll see lots of interesting coincidences in this thread... * Terminal emulator: rxvt-unicode * Text editor: vim emacs * Mail: mutt, studying mairix for indexing until tracker does Maildir * Browser: Firefox + It's All Text + lots of incremental search + profiles * RSS reader: used to use newsbeuter * Calendar: remind + wyrd * Notes: emacs muse * Video player: VLC * Audio player: MPD + mpdscrible + ncmpc, sometimes MOC, lastfm * IM: pidgin * Dock: trayion * Others: xwrits (one instance for micropauses, one for long rests), unclutter, xscreensaver (black screen), tracker * Backup: unison, rdiff-backup I no longer use it, but the giFT project had an extraordinarily elegant P2P client called giFTcurs that would be nice to see revived (at least in spirit). :: Ivan Vilata i Balaguer @ Intellectual property is the worst offense @ http://www.selidor.net/ @against human intelligence. @ signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:39:16 -, Klaus Umbach treibholz-...@sozial-inkompetent.de wrote: On my desktop box: Terminal emulator: roxterm Text editor: vim Mail: Opera Browser: Opera IM: bitlbee via irssi Video-Player: mplayer Audio-Player: vlc or mplayer Display Manager: gdm or xdm IRC: irssi Shell: bash Calculator: python Dock: none Backup: rsync/ssh other stuff: screen, xscreensaver On my laptop I have OS X :) Terminal emulator: Terminal.app Text editor: vim Mail: n/a Browser: Opera IM: ssh to desktop screen with bitlbee/irssi Video-Player: vkc Audio-Player: vlc Display Manager: n/a IRC: ssh to desktop screen with irssi Shell: bash Calculator: python Dock: Dock Backup: rsync/ssh other stuff: Chicken of the VNC, Adium (on occasion), VirtualBox
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
If one can find an affordable notebook with a *matte* screen anymore, I share your hate of glossy screens. It's been a few harsh years. I happened to see a few matte-screen-laptops from Samsung recently, maybe you can finally find one. But then, it was quite a small-size (10 to 12) and probably widescreen resolution. I also heard you can find companies that replace MacBooks screens with matte ones for $100. FYI, the matte screen option is $100, only available on the biggest $2500 Mac. Of course, you probably hate the Mac's UI and its lack of possible customizations. It certainly lacks configuration possibilities, but the multitouch gestures make mac-WM less painful. GeekBind did much about this, but does not work on the latest MacOS versions. Maybe Nick has more MacOS WM-tricks, because I'm really new to Mac. Good luck, -- Sylvain Abélard J'ai décidé d'être heureux, c'est meilleur pour la santé. -Voltaire
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:13:26 -, Sylvain Abélard sylvain.abel...@gmail.com wrote: Of course, you probably hate the Mac's UI and its lack of possible customizations. It certainly lacks configuration possibilities, but the multitouch gestures make mac-WM less painful. GeekBind did much about this, but does not work on the latest MacOS versions. Maybe Nick has more MacOS WM-tricks, because I'm really new to Mac. I suspect I'm just as new! The keyboard shortcuts for OS X do seem particularly difficult to remember (I have to look up screenshot and how to select the menu bar every time). I only really use OS X as a casual OS; I can't manage without ion these days; floating wms just seem a pain in comparison.
Re: [SEMI-OT] Applications in a typical ion3 desktop environment
On 2009-01-11, Sylvain Abélard sylvain.abel...@gmail.com wrote:
I also heard you can find companies that replace MacBooks screens with
matte ones for $100.
FYI, the matte screen option is $100, only available on the biggest $2500
Mac.
Yeah, they only seem to sell matte displays on corporate-priced stuff
worth more than your monthly salary. To people who want quality and
are ready to pay for it. The typical idiot consumer is all wet over
a 19 (wow, big number!) dragtop with a glossy (shineee! my precious!)
finish.
Matte display finish is like green paint: worth more than the device
it is covered with. \end{army joke}
(In theory e.g. the el cheapo Thinkpad SL400 should be available in
matte, but all the shops only seem to carry glossy versions.)
--
Dreams of the past: Computers will automate menial tasks. Paperless office.
Reality: Paper forms replaced by a hundred times more electronic forms
required to be filled by human slaves for management departments.
