Strange Loops

Netbook Part Deux

Over the holidays, I got myself a Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2. Initially the plan was to make it into a Hackintosh but since I got the machine working well I've decided to not go that route. Right now, I'm very pleased dual booting Windows XP with the Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix. 

I was an early Netbook early adopter. I purchased an Asus EEE in Feb 2008. One of the first entries into the Netbook market. We were going to Maui for a week and the EEE seemed like a great travelling companion. The small form factor made it easy to pack and the low cost made the potential lost on the trip more acceptable.

However after the trip, I'm promptly sold it. The Asus EEE and Lenovo IdeaPad have roughly the same dimensions but the deal breaker for the Asus EEE was the tiny keyboard. There were fairly large speakers (in relation to the rest of the EEE) to the left and right of the keyboard. This made the keyboard even smaller than it had to be. The IdeaPad does not have the same issue. Though smallish, I'm fairly comfortable touch typing this entry on the IdeaPad's keyboard. 

By default, Windows XP is installed and required for any future servicing or restoring to factory condition. I'm more of a Mac and Linux person so I had to find tools/applications to make Windows acceptable and integrate with my other equipment. I'm pleased with what I've found and actually find the experience relatively painless.

1. Removed the antivirus program

I should not do this but after uninstalling the Norton antivirus program, the IdeaPad experienced a fairly nice performance boost. I don't use IE or Outlook so most infection vectors are closed off. I still have to be extra careful about what I install on this machine though.

2. Chrome and Firefox

I was impressed with my brief usage of Chrome in early 2009, it was fast and I liked its sandboxing architecture that made it resistant to attacks (see this). On the IdeaPad, it's my default browser. 

Firefox is also installed because they are too many useful Firefox add ons. I have to say the 3.6 version has been pretty good on my Mac. For day to day browsing, Safari used to be noticeably faster but I don't notice a difference anymore.

3. xmarks

xmarks is a bookmark synchronization tool. It synchronizes my bookmarks across my browsers on all my machines. When I had one machine, I never understood the use of xmarks. With multiple browsers and machines, I love having the ability to manage all my bookmarks from one central location.

4. Dropbox

I use dropbox for sharing and synchronizing files across my multiple machines. It also version files that you put into it (effectively serving as a backup). Any documents I'm working can be accessed from any of my machines.

5. Evernote

I use evernote for managing my notes across all my devices. 

6. Notepad++

notepad++ is a huge improvement over the regular notepad. Has a bunch of useful programming specific features (e.g. line numbering, syntax coloring) and does not have a problem with unix style line endings (where the regular notepad puts the entire file on a single line)

7. Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix

Used Wubi to install Ubuntu. Sometimes I just need access to Linux. No repartitioning of the hard drive is necessary. Wubi installs Ubuntu on the windows partition of the hard drive (at the cost of slower disk performance which doesn't really matter in this situation).

8. Python

It's what I use these days for small projects. In the past, I liked Strawberry Perl and I would used it again if the need arises.

You'll also want easy_install to get new libraries.

9. Git, Putty

I need access to my git repositories since that's where my code is. Used TortoiseGIT (and it's dependency msysgit) for that. Works great for my simple usage. No major complaints. 

putty is the only game on windows for ssh'ing into my remote hosts.

3 + 4 + 5 + 9 form a common theme, they are tools I use for managing information/code I collect.

10. miro, songbird

For listening to podcasts and other digital media. This is one area I need to work on more. Figuring out how to access the digital media stored on my other computers.

11. External mouse

I've never liked trackpads so an external mouse eases that frustration. Nothing complicated. Just got myself a cheap (< $20), wireless optical mouse. This one fits the bill pretty well.

My new IPad

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 that I picked up on my trip to Singapore at the beginning of December. This one is a wifi only version. There is a 3G option available (based on what the user manual tells me). I've regularly taken this handy little device to the coffee shop whenever I want to catch up on my RSS feeds. The 10 inch display and regular keyboard make web browsing easier than on the iPhone. It evens come with a cute little pink carrying case.

This IPad is not be confused with this. :)

New Project: CCTV

One little project I'm undertaking is to build a CCTV system for the house. A little background, last Christmas our place got broken into. Among other measures, a CCTV/camera system was something we wanted to install. The requirements are basically to be relatively cheap and preferably with motion detection so the cameras don't need to be turned on constantly.

The biggest cost to the system is likely to be the cameras. For prototyping, I will use an old Ubuntu box and getting one camera to start with. ZoneMinder is the software that will be running on the Ubuntu box.

After doing some research, the D-Link DCS-920 will be the initial camera for prototyping with. It seems to be the best compromise between cost and features. It's wireless and appears to have fairly decent image quality.

Mapping "Caps Lock" to Control on my Mac

Since I've been hacking Clojure with Slime on Emacs, I've found myself wanting the Caps Lock key to work as the Control key. This makes some of the key combinations with Emacs easier to hit. Leopard makes this easy (almost too easy!).

First open "System Preferences", and select the "Keyboard And Mouse" preference pane.

Then click on the "Modifier Keys" button.

Finally pick Control for the Caps Lock key. Note that I made Caps Locks and the Control keys work as Control. Initially I swapped the functionality of the keys and found that years of using Control in the old location made me hit it too often. Since I rarely used Caps Lock, I decided to just make both of them Control.

QED!

Vimperator

Went old school this weekend setting up the old T41. old school = maximise keyboard usage, minimize mouse usage.  I've been a vim person for a long time and vimperator has been on my todo for awhile. Vimperator is a firefox plugin to use vim key bindings. With my vim background, the experience of navigating the web has been pleasantly surprising. It's amazing how fast I was able to navigate the web with just the keyboard. I didn't run any tests with a stopwatch but it felt faster than just the mouse and keyboard. 

There were some annoyances which I fixed by putting some config into my ~/.vimperatorrc

" disable the annoying audible beeping
set visualbell

" make a disable vimperator for gmail and google reader, activate by doing :disable and :enable. tip was from here
js function disable() { liberator.execute(':set guioptions=Tnbrm showtabline=1'); modes.passAllKeys = true; }
command disable javascript disable()
command enable set guioptions= showtabline=0

Preloaded Cruft

Went through the exercise of removing unwanted stuff on a PC notebook today. Replaced crappy proprietary software with better open source alternatives. I can't help but wonder if the low cost of notebooks is forcing PC manufacturers to pursue other revenue streams to cover cost.

I was tempted to go the Ubuntu route then decided against it since the notebook was not for me.

Weekend

Trying out the new TypePad. The differences are there but I'm not noticing anything major. This was the first weekend for the last couple of months where no running was done. Between recovering from the marathon(a month ago), the cougar mountain trail run, Ragnar and the twisted ankle, I was taking it really easy this weekend. It was a nice change of pace not to wake up early on Saturday or Sunday. That gave me sometime to play with technologies and write down some ideas.

Been meaning to try out Aptana Studio and Jaxer. Finally got a chance to do that this weekend. Like the concept for Jaxer bur was really impressed with Aptana Studio. It has a whole bunch of auto complete stuff I didn't expect. I've not been in the IDE world for too long (still preferring a good old text editor) but for new technology an IDE really helps with the learning curve. Might be hacking some rails code with Michael and looking to give Studio a try.

Didn't get too deeply into it but also mucked about with Hadoop, Cappuccino and picked up where I left off with Clojure from a couple of weeks back. Finally settling on Aquamacs + Swank to work with Clojure. Could not get textmate working with the REPL. Also downloaded the MPS language workbench but didn't install it. Also reminded me about the whole language workbench I want to look at and the little pyparsing project I have with Riley.

The two things I didn't get too was the Leksah Haskell IDE and the algorithms class form MIT OCW. Also still looking to build a website with Django, Drupal and SInatra.

Played with a couple of new apps from MacHeist and MacUpdate promo package. Checked out the Project Natal stuff from Microsoft, looks cool but I'll need to try it to be convinced.

Too much stuff. Not enough time.

iPhone blogging

I'm typing this from my iPhone right now using the typepad client. I won't do this on a regular basis but I wanted the experience of blogging from a mobile device. It feels like Twitter is a better experience because it constrains you to a word limit. With a blog I naturally want to write to fill all that space. Ok typing this was hard and I'm unlikely to do this regularly. One nice thing with the mobile client is pictures. So how about a cat (blogs seem to do it all the time).

New iPhone

Bit the bullet and picked up the new iPhone on Friday. This thing is amazing what it can do.

More stuff

Various thoughts dripping through the holes in my head!