One Thing Linux Doesn't Support (Yet)

Today I got a phone call that helped me realize one thing that Linux can't do, at least not yet:

"Hello Sir, I am calling from [unintelligable speech], to help improve the performance of your computer."

"Ok."

"I will tell you how to do this. The first thing you need to do is turn your computer on."

"It is already on."

"Then I will have you click on Start."

"I don't have a Start button."

"... You have a Macintosh?"

"No, I have Linux."

"Excuse me?"

"I have Linux."

"You have a Linux?"

"Yes."

"I am sorry sir, we only provide technical support for Windows computers. Goodbye."

Calling Microsoft

I had to call Microsoft to activate my copy of Windows XP Pro (too many re-installs), and I was surprised at how HORRIBLE their user interface was. When you call, the first thing you hear is a error loud chime. The same sound you hear when you try to do something that is not allowed. Then, after answering a couple questions, you are asked to read off about 40 digits. After each set of 6, there is another (different) error chime. I won't even mention that there is no way to shorten the call by answering the questions prematurely .. but that's another topic.

So, I figure, either someone designed the call-in program who had never really used Windows to any large extent (and thus did not recognize that the sounds would put fear in the hearts of their callers (maybe a Mac user!)). Or, they did it on purpose to try and scare off the software thieves.

My Comprehensive List of Free or Open Source Software for XP

I received a brand new hard drive (400GB SATA) for Christmas this year (thanks Mike!), and so I am spending today reinstalling my main computer with Windows XP Pro. Unlike most Linux distributions, Windows is devoid of any useful programs after it has been freshly installed (no, I'm not saying that windows is a linux distro). As I reinstall all of my old programs, I'll be keeping track of them here for future reference, and maybe some passer-by (that's you) will find it useful.

I got tired of adding text and links about halfway through - I will update tomorrow or so.

The Operating System:

Windows XP Pro

Much better than XP Home, if you are going to use your computer in any custom way, or on a network. I'm not even going to go into Windows Vista here.

Debian, Etch

Debian will be installed as a dual boot on my 80GB drive... I've only used Mandriva and Ubuntu/Xubuntu thus far, so this will be exciting.

Appearance:

Royale Noir XP Theme

Download the Royale Noir theme and follow the instructions. This will give you a darker (navy or black) version of the Windows Media Center theme. Or, you could set the theme to Windows Classic and forget about trying to look snazzy.

Desktop Wallpaper

Go visit Smashing Magazine and download a desktop wallpaper. They scour the web for amazing wallpapers so you don't have to. It doesn't matter what you pick as long as it isn't the default 'blissful hill'.

Internet:

Browsers

As a web developer, I install every browser, but only really use Firefox. Opera 9 seems comparable, but it comes down to 1) extensions and 2) familiarity. Chrome isn't ready for consumer use yet, Internet Explorer 6 is a dinosaur, and Internet Explorer 7 is slow / annoying to use. I let Windows install IE7, and then install multiple IEs in order to get IE6. This lets Microsoft update IE7 for me, so I have the latest version for testing. Safari is fast, but I don't like the User Interface - it's too hard to find the features I am looking for (without even knowing if they exist).

Browser Plugins

Flash and Shockwave, Acrobat Reader, Quicktime (skip if you plan on installing iTunes), Java, Real Player or you can install Real Alternative which lets you play the RM files without the terrible media player!

Pidgin

Pidgin is an all-in-one Instant messenger. I like it for the custom smiley themes and plugins. I used to use Trillian, but it conflicted with my computer for some unknown reason. Astra looks awesome, but it's been coming soon for at least two years, probably more. Digsby looks kind of cool, and if Pidgin ever fails me, I'll try it out.

mIRC

mIRC is the best IRC client that I've tried. The UI is simple yet powerful. Lots of bells and whistles if you want them. And no fluff graphics either. I turn the theme to dark as soon as I install it.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is better than Outlook Express. There might be a better free email client, but this one is good enough for me. I don't like the default theme, so I install Azerty Mail instead.

Azureus

Azureus (or Vuze) is a pretty good P2P app. Vuze sucks, change it back to the classic mode. Useful for downloading the latest Linux Distributions.

eMule

eMule is good for downloading old, hard to find programs.

LimeWire

Limewire is great for getting viruses and spyware!

AVG 8

Before installing Limewire, make sure you have some basic anti-virus protection. Unless someone out there knows of a better free anti-virus, I am currently recommending AVG-Free. Avira is also good, but has pop-up advertisements. Clamwin sucks, as does Avast.

Spybot S&D

Spybot's most useful feature is the teatimer system change monitor. This alerts you to changes to your registry, startup, browser, context menus, etc. Better than Vista's watch-dog because it actually tells you what is happening, and saying no lets the program continue to run as if it HAD made the change rather than just stopping the program from running altogether. I use this for programs like quicktime that want to add a startup entry so that it will load faster. Since I only use quicktime once every couple months, this is hardly a good use of my start-up space.

FileZilla

This is a great program, but I have not had good luck with version 3.x. I can only assume that it DOES work for most people or they would have fixed the issue already (disconnects every few minutes). If you can find version 2.x, it's pretty darn good.

Firefox Add-ons:

Camifox theme

There are a lot of good themes for Firefox, but Camifox is nice and simple without looking ugly.

Add to Search Bar

This lets you add any search box to the firefox search in the upper right-hand corner, instead of relying on the ten or so default ones.

Cookie Swap

Cookie Swap lets you quickly switch between named sets of cookies so that you can use multiple accounts with the same service without re-logging in all the time.

Edit Middle

An AwesomeBar hack.

Enter Selects

AwesomeBar Hack

Favicon Picker

Lets you change or add a favicon to any of your bookmarks.

Flash Block

Special mention to this extension for older computers that can't handle the amount of flash that some websites use. Or, if your eyes can't handle it!

Foxmarks

Useful if you have more than one computer, dual boot, or have ever lost all your bookmarks when your HD crashed. It synchronizes all of your bookmarks with their server, so that when you add a bookmark it is added to all of your computers.

Go Parent Folder

Lets you go to the parent folder after searching for a bookmark in the organizer.

Google Notebook

A notetaking thingy - there are some problems with it, but I haven't gotten around to trying any of the other similar extensions yet.

Google Toolbar

Essential for the 'Go to Next Search Word' buttons. I can't use the web without them.

Hide Unvisited

AwesomeBar Hack

HTML Validator

A Web Dev tool that tells me how many errors a web page has.

Old Location Bar

AwesomeBar hack - Tries to make the AwesomeBar just be a location bar, it isn't quite sufficient, and I'm not sure if it helps or hinders more ...

OpenBook

Lets you customize the add bookmark dialog.

Organize Status Bar

Firefox 3 didn't have the same status bar layout as FF2, this will let you move things around however you like.

ScribeFire

A quick blog editor.

Show Keywords

AwesomeBar Hack

Smart Bookmarks Bar

Transforms your bookmark bar into a list of single icons. This is where the favicon picker comes in handy.

Tagmarks

I haven't tried this one yet. It lets you add little icons to your bookmarks, visually placing them into categories for you.

Unsorted Bookmarks Folder Menu

This places your unsorted bookmarks in a folder that is accessible from the bookmarks menu.

Web Developer

By far the most useful extension that I have installed. It is the swiss army knife of web development tools.

Applications:

Open Office

Open Office is free and comparable to Microsoft Office. Writer is AWESOME! much better than Word for pretty much anything.

Google Earth

Edit Pad

Graphics and Design:

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free photo editor along the lines of Photoshop.

Picassa

Inkscape

Pepekura

SketchUp

Audio/Video:

CDex

Winamp

Streamripper

Streamripper rips individual songs from streamed internet radio stations. If you use the WinAmp version, make sure to get a custom skin for it, the default one is (was) terrible.

iTunes

Cool Edit replace

DivX

Step Voice Recorder

Video LAN

Switch Sound Converter

Tools:

Sequoia View

WinRar

TweakUI

For good measure, here's a list of the proprietary/non-free programs that I use:

Photoshop 7 or CS3
Flash
InDesign
Adobe Acrobat
Microsoft Publisher
Nero 6
FolioBound VIEWS (if anyone knows of a good replacement, leave me a note!)
PowerDVD (same for PowerDVD)

Picasa 3

I have a LOT of photos on my computer (approx. 23,000). They range from family snapshots to references for various art projects to charts and diagrams relating to topics that interest me and so on. I currently use Windows Explorer to sort out my images, and as of yet, I haven't found anything that works better. If explorer had tagging or virtual folders or something, it would be all I needed. All of the programs that DO offer those things do so in a poor manner or are seriously lacking in the stability / usability areas. I tried Picasa when Google first bought it, and found it wanting in a number of areas, but uninstalled it because it was unstable and caused my computer to crash. Now that Picasa 3 is out, I thought I'd give it a try. My thoughts, and a wish-list:

The Good

It's stable now! I've added all my pictures, and it still runs. I can't add hundreds of photos to the photo-deck thing without it getting pretty slow, but i can offload them fairly easily.

The collage maker is awesome, and I used it to create the back of a calendar yesterday, and it was great. The only thing that would make it better would be to allow you to individually move the photos around, rather than relying on "Scramble" to put them in the right place.

The thumbnail view is pretty good, the slider bar on the right takes some getting used to, but it's cool when you do.

The Okay

The User Interface has a lot to be desired, but once you find what you are looking for, most tasks are easy and straightforward. Exceptions will be covered in a sec.

The Bad / Annoying

When you're importing your initial collection, you cannot import a single set of folders, sort them into albums then add a second set of folders and still be able to easily see what you just added. You can sort by creation date, but when you have such a variety of images that isn't helpful - new folders appear randomly in the folders list. The same goes for all of the folder sort options. You can sort albums by when you added them to Picasa, but not folders.

Albums are great, but you can only place them in the Album collection, not in any user created collection. This is my biggest beef with Picasa - collections AND albums are both virtual organizers, why do they not work together? If this was added, I think it would finally do the one thing I want a program like it for: to organize my photos.

You also cannot place a folder into more than one collection! This means that there is no way for me to put a collection of photos in more than one place. What if I want to put my photos from a Grand canyon trip with other photos from that year, with other photos of my family and with pictures of the Grand Canyon. Currently, there is no way to do this efficiently. Either, I have to create an album for each subset of images which multiplies quickly and gets to be too much to deal with (remember, I have 20k photos) OR, create collections and choose one collection for each folder. Since there are no other sub folders, this also multiplies fairly quickly.

If I could only add photos to Albums, with a way to have subsets IN the albums (even if it just kept track of which folder it came from) and then add those to my custom collections.

After adding all my photos to Picasa, I ended up with 500 folders that got stuck into the Other Stuff folder. There is no difference (for me) between these photos and the ones in the Folders collection, so, I want to move ALL of them to the main Folders collection. There is NO way to move more than one folder to a new collection at the same time. It might work well for five or sic folders, but I don't want to individually move 500 folders (right click, choose move to collection, choose Folders from a list, repeat).

How does Picasa decide what gets imported into Folders and what gets imported into Other Stuff? About a third of my folders went into the Other Stuff collection rather than the Folders collection. I looked it up on their website, which told me that these are folders which have other types of content in them. But, I looked at the source folders, and many of them are all JPGs - I think this must be a bug.

The Missing

I wish I could select multiple photos between folders. I know I can push-pin them into the "shelf", but this gets annoying, and it's easy to forget that you are required to do so. It's also easy to forget to empty the shelf after moving them somewhere.

Currently you can only email photos with a Gmail account or Thunderbird. I know why, but it would be nice to be able to send with other clients (hotmail, yahoo, outlook, etc)

I remember tagging was a big thing in the older version of Picasa, but it conspicuously hard to get to without using CTRL-T or CTRL-K - and you can't see them either, or look at a list of tags or ... I think they are trying to phase them out, which is too bad - a well designed tagging system can be used for almost anything - which is what a good app can do. It's like a food processor that can only accept foods that are a certain size or shape or color. It seems arbitrary to the people who are trying to use it.

AwesomeBar and Me - Why I've left Firefox.

I upgraded to Firefox 3 back when it was in beta. Then, I uninstalled and went back to Firefox 2. I tried it again a few weeks later. Then, I uninstalled and went back to Firefox 2.

This was quite a while ago, but I will explain how I felt at the time:

Something was lacking in Firefox 3 that made me uncomfortable, and unable to be productive. Namely, the address bar, which had been replaced with something called the AwesomeBar. My main beef with the AwesomeBar actually isn't its ugly look, or the fact that it retrieves bookmark results, but rather, the fact that it requires visual interaction to be used effectively. The address bar was reliable. I knew what it would do when I typed. Its algorithm was something that could be fully comprehended in my head. I knew if I had cleared my history before starting, and had gone to calendar.google.com once, then visited ubuntu.com and apple.com and microsoft.com that I could simply press Alt+D "c" down enter to go back to calendar.google.com. Furthermore, it was the same knowledge I used to operate the old Start->Run dialog back in Windows, and the same knowledge I use to operate every autocomplete field in every website and every dialog box in both Windows and Linux.

With the AwesomeBar, my absolute and complete knowledge of the data being searched was taken away. Sure, I know which types of things it searches, but I don't know what data was present (in page Titles, for example) The extra steps are that I would have to press Alt+D, type, then look at the results and determine if there was an error, if so, I would have to arrow to the desired result before pressing enter. The developers of Firefox knew this, that's why they redesigned the widget visually to try to create enough visual distinction so that it could be scanned quickly. The problem is, I don't want to visually scan it at all. That isn't something I have ever been accustomed to doing and it slows me down and takes my focus away from the page I was browsing.

Since that time, I have continued to use "good old" Firefox 2. However, for whatever reason, my Firefox 2 installation began to become unstable. It would freeze up requiring restarts quite often, usually when I click on a javascript-based link. I finally got irritated, and decided that maybe it would be time to update or switch.

First, I tried Crossover Chromium. It is goofy because of its dependence on wine. I will give it another chance when it has been ported natively to Linux.

I searched through the Firefox add-ons/extensions to see what has been created, and found both "oldbar" and "Old Location Bar" - I had tried oldbar before, so I decided to go with "Old Location Bar," bit the bullet, upgraded to Firefox 3, and installed the extension. I didn't read carefully enough, and I presumed Old Location Bar would do what I wanted, as people were praising it for being better than oldbar. I was disappointed with Old Location Bar. It still didn't solve my problem at all.

Firefox 2 is freezing up. Firefox 3 is not efficient. I decided to go "old school" and switch to Opera.

I installed Opera 9.27 from the Hardy repository. Just a little ugly feeling in the menus, but the toolbars are not too bad. I can live with this. Alt+D doesn't work! Dang. So, I did this:

Tools -> Preferences -> Shortcuts -> Keyboard setup - Opera Standard -> Edit.

The one under "Browser Window" that says "Focus address field | Focus message list" I clicked, and changed to "d alt", clicked OK, and clicked OK again. Alt+D ... works!

Now I did some experiments with the address bar. It works!

I realize I'm not using the latest release of Opera. I may try upgrading and see if it still works. But, as long as it does what I need, maybe this older release is fine.

As I save this post, regrettably, I will change my default browser to Opera and uninstall Firefox 3. It isn't because I wanted to. It's because I was forced out. If I knew how to fork the Firefox code and reinstall the genuine old Address Bar, I would rather do that.

Firefox 3

After using FF3 for a while, it's time to give a review.

Smart Location Bar, AKA the Awesome Bar

It's not really fair starting with the worst feature in the new Firefox, but I'm not the one who named it the awesome bar, so I don't feel too bad.

This is the only new feature that actually HINDERS my use of the internet. I have a few different early extensions installed to try and revert it back to usefulness, but alas, it's still broken. Instead of the old, type what you want to get what you want, now the procedure is much more arcane. Firefox tries to guess which sites you would like to visit by looking in your history, favorites and so on. If I am typing in the address bar, I am usually typing an address, rather than fumbling around trying to find a site I have been to. If I wanted to open one of my favorites, I would ... use my favorites! If I'm looking for a site I visited last week, I would search through my history.

I'll use a visit to Firefox.com as an example of the new process. in FF2 if I wanted to go to firefox.com, I would type firef in the address bar, and by that time, I would be able to pick firefox.com off of the drop down list by pushing the down arrow once or twice and then pushing enter.

Now, however, when I type in firefox, I get every website that has firefox anywhere in it's address, title or even a keyword I added to one of my favorites. I have to either, type the entire address out, or search though a lengthy list in order to reach my destination.

I am just waiting for the perfect extension that will fix my complaints.

Tagging!

I was very excited about adding tagging to firefox, but it was fairly poorly implemented, so .... more waiting for the bugs to be worked out.

I have a complex bookmark sorting system involving 200 folders, sub folders and sub-sub folders. Firefox doesn't give you a way to know what tags you have already used. In huge multi-user systems, letting each user tag items and then reaping the combined efforts of the masses is a great idea. But, the individual needs a concrete way (or ways!) to stay consistent and organized. After all, that's the point of having bookmarks in the first place - finding them again.

There were quite a few bugs involving duplicate tags, blank tags and so on. There is no way to tag a bookmark when you add it through the menu, nor can you add tags when you right click a bookmark in the bookmark menu.

That said, I can happily ignore the tags until they fix them, unlike the awesomebar, which broke a feature I use(ed) regularly.

Themes

I don't care all that much for the default XP or linux themes, and winstripe, the theme I was using on FF2 (since I didn't like its default theme either) isn't going to be updated to FF3.

I've been using Qute, but it's a bit too bubbly and soft for me.

Memory Leaks

Nope, still leaky. It might even be worse now. A few minutes ago, FF3 was using 300,000 K .. after a restart, it's using 137,000. I believe that FF2 only used about 40,000 while running.

Anything good about it?

Yes! There are a few nice things about the new version. Animated PNGs! I haven't tried any out yet, but as a web developer, this is a step in the right direction.

FF3 seems more stable than 2, less crashes and firefoxen running after you close them.

Most extensions are being ported over to FF3, so I won't have to leave much behind.

Over all, I am disappointed in all of the new features, but only one of them has made my life difficult so far. I feel that the Firefox team was rushed, or they are getting to large, or something and inefficiency has crept in. Either way, FF3 was released before it was really ready for all of the fans. So, I guess I'll be waiting for 3.1

Ubuntu Hardy Heron is Unstable

I've been running Hardy now for quite a while, and I've come to the conclusion that it isn't stable. I will probably be downgrading to Gutsy very soon, however much I dislike the idea of doing so. To me, downgrading doesn't feel like I'm being part of the solution, but rather that I'm just bypassing the problem.

Here are the things I've been having problems with so far in Hardy. And, for the record, I've tried all of these things with compiz disabled as well, with no improvement:

1. On occasion (sometimes as frequently as once an hour), gnome-terminal will open with a blank (frozen, not invisible) window, there will be a grey bar where the menus should be, and I have to terminate the process. I've tried waiting it just stays there blank. Once this happens, nautilus, gedit, and even some of the file-related dialog boxes, and possibly the pop-down calendar from the gnome panel all crash in the same way, creating a blank box, and in the case of anything associated with the gnome panel, freezing the panel entirely. Restarting GDM doesn't help. I've tried everything. There seems to be nothing logged showing that there was any problem. Rebooting is the only solution.
2. Firefox 3. Not only is it annoying (due to AwesomeBar), but it feels less polished than Firefox 2. My Firefox 2 did crash every once in a while. I finally decided to reinstall Firefox 2, and give it a try. Firefox 3 unfortunately did things to the configuration which makes Firefox 2 suck as well, since it tries to run off of the same settings. I deleted the extensions.rdf file and start FF2 and everything seems almost OK. But, if I ever run FF3 again, it ruins FF2 (removes all extensions, mostly.) This means I cannot ease into FF3 while still using FF2 for my day to day work. I will thus be uninstalling FF3.
3. Random lock-ups. I haven't had this problem as much as some people have been reporting, but I have had some unusual lock-ups. One of them involved my screen suddenly appearing scrunched left-to-right and streched up-and-down with big black bars on either side and everything completely frozen (including the mouse pointer) requiring a hard reset.
4. Thunderbird is barely usable. I use Thunderbird with an IMAP account. Previously, it has worked like a charm, but now all of a sudden, it routinely crashes without an explanation. It seems to crash in two different ways. The first way will be, while checking my inbox, new messages will appear, but the program is still catching up (not usable yet), and all of a sudden the entire program will just disappear. Messages, and the main window, poof, they're gone. No word as to why. This happens about 1 in 5 times that I open Thunderbird. The other one happens about 3 out of 5 times that I open thunderbird, and it involves clicking on my Inbox and the program immediately going comatose. When compiz is on, the window dims to a dark gray to show me that the program isn't responding, and no matter how long I wait, it never wakes back up. I have to kill the process (or click the X and force quit it) in order to try again. Yes, that adds up to 4 out of 5 tries that Thunderbird doesn't work. Every once in a while I am lucky and it will work, in which case it is usually stable for the entire session until I close it.

I'm a web developer. Browsing the web, using SSH through a terminal, and checking my email are nearly all that I do on my computer, and Hardy Heron isn't ready for ANY of those tasks. Gutsy Gibbon worked perfectly with all of them. I will probably be moving back to gutsy, but I'm afraid of what a downgrade might involve as far as my user configuration files are concerned. I guess I will be making backups before downgrading.