Schinckel.net

Sam Deane’s excellent site Elegant Chaos has been hacked: the home page looks like the following. SpyKids From Brasil ... We are: poerschke FDL Hualdo LordX ... spykids@bsdmail.com It’s hardly news, but if anyone has his email address, they might want to let him know. (SpyKids, or ScriptKiddies…?)

The Darth Side: A New Hope: This has got to be the best idea for fan-fiction I’ve ever come across. Do yourself a favour, read the Darth Side…

I’m sure I’ve talked about SubEthaEdit before. Version 2.2 has been released. Reading the Release Notes, I see my fix:

- XHTML export and "Copy as XHTML" now export quotes as entities.

I got a phone call from a guy from TransAdelaide, or the Adelaide Metro, or something like that yesterday. I won the weekly draw, or monthly draw, or whatever; and won 2 tickets to paradise either the MotoCross or Monster Trucks at the Adelaide Entertainment Center mid August. Now, neither of these really appeal to me, but I’ll go anyway - I guess the fans expect me to… So, according to the email I received from them “YOU ARE THE WINNER!”. Luckily I was expecting it, otherwise I would have likely dumped it, since it looks an awful lot like a heap of the SPAM I’ve been getting lately.

I’ve been a member of the freecycle-adelaide list for a few months now - I’ve given away some stuff, and picked up a few good things, including a push mower. Recently, A Current Affair did a story on it, and now the list is filled with people asking for stuff. The moderator posted a message reminding everyone that you are supposed to only rarely ask for things, and must offer before asking for anything. I haven’t asked for anything - I see it as a way to use other people’s stuff they need to get rid of, not prompt someone to give stuff away. Anyway, I’m thinking about unsubscribing, as I had 78 new emails today, and 77 of them were either SPAM or [freecycle-adelaide] things. And not much there that was that interesting.

To stop an Application appearing in the Dock under Mac OS X add the following to the Contents/Info.plist:

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    <key>NSUIElement</key>
    <string>1</string>

I use the fantastic Camino browser for MacOS X, and the latest update has something nice: better looking tab panels.

Apple Matters has a story about what MacOS should ‘borrow’ from Windows. I’ll address them as I see the issue.

1. Compatible control keys. These should be called Modifier Keys, and I think Apple does a better job. Control-C is used by every variety of Unix ever for sending a break: I'd like to see this remain. And Command is in a better position for reaching with one hand to get all of the keys. Try to do a Ctrl-T, and then a Cmd-T. Plus, I can use my thumb for the Command key, meaning I can continue to use the correct finger. Cmd-Q, versus Ctrl-Q.
2. Save buttons on toolbars. I rarely use the Save Menu, let alone the Print toolbar button. Cmd-S always saves. The only time I use buttons is if I don't know the keyboard shortcut.Multi-button mouse. Every multi-button USB mouse I have ever tried worked first time. Even those that needed a driver for Windows. Like the wireless one that came with my Dell. Trying to use this with another computer without the software installed was hopeless - I had to use the Apple mouse instead. But yes, I'd like to see an Apple styled multi-button mouse.
3. Only show relevant file types in open and save dialogs. I actually hate that Windows never shows all of the files it can see - Word sticks to only showing Word documents and not Plain Text files by default. And, every time a beginner uses Windows, and uses Excel for the first time instead of Word, they think they've lost all of their files. And freak out.
4. Sort folders on top of directory listings. I'd be surprised there isn't a hidden setting using defaults for this one. Yes, I agree.
5. More context sensitive help. Actually, my take on this is get rid of the stupid help key on the keyboard. I've hit this more times than I care to remember when I go to hit Delete. And then Help opens up, telling me stuff I already knew, and not deleting what I wanted to delete.

Back in the heady days of BeOS, I at one stage taught myself how to type reasonably well using a Dvorak keyboard. I’ve clearly forgotten most of it. This was typed (slowly) on a Dvorak layout. I am getting faster, and more accurate, though. Using the CLI program dvorak7min will get me back up to speed soon, I hope.

Man, this is cool. After reading about it on Fraser Speirs’ blog, I tried SubEthaEdit’s Copy As XHTML. (⇧⌘C) It is extremely good. See:

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    #! /usr/bin/env python
        
    """A script for ecto that adds abbr and acronym tags to the text"""
        
    TODO = """
    Lookup on the internet for a list of acronyms/abbreviations?
    """

The only thing missing for me is the ability to paste this into ecto, and have ecto be able to edit it in Rich Text mode, rather than just HTML. (Oh, and I think my stylesheet is stopping the comment/string/keywords appearing in colour). Edit: No, it was an issue with double-quotes being escaped by a slash! I’m not sure what caused it, but it was annoying

composed and posted with ecto