I'm half the man I used to be
Just another WordPress weblog
Added a code prettifier
Mar 8th
Testing out a code prettifier I found from google
#!/bin/bash
for i in `ls /tmp`; do
ls $i
done
Shutter Island Review
Feb 28th
Well I saw the preview for this movie months ago, and I knew the whole story after watching that 5 minute clip. I went to see the movie today just to confirm that I was right, I was even a bit hopeful they would throw in something I hadn’t thought of. But no, I was right, it was that predictable. I would recommend just watching the trailer and saving yourself the 2 hours of watching a story that was easy to figure out.
Future Medicine
Feb 28th
M and I went for a long walk today on our way to the movies and we talked about a lot of things like we usually do. One thing that stood out as something I wanted to record was our conversation about one possible future of medicine.
Star Trek has shown us the future of cuisine is food replicators that make amazing dishes based on our personal preferences. But what is the future for what happens once our body is done with the food. Probably not explored because it’s not exactly a glamorous topic but we were thinking that future tech in the bathroom might analyze our visits and test for a huge array of things. We use blood/urine/stool sample tests for so many things it would be amazing if such tests were performed on a daily basis and recorded. We’d have a history of vitamin and mineral levels, hormone levels, warning signs and who knows what else. Then what if your home would adjust your diet based on this information, or schedule a doctor appointment. In my mind that’s what a real smart house means, one that does the things we can’t easily for ourselves.
Logitech 5500 MX Keyboard/Mouse Combo
Feb 26th
I ordered a new keyboard and mouse for work and I decided to get the Logitech 5500 MX Combo after a little bit of research. I did want some of the experience to be a surprise so I basically checked to make sure they would both work with Linux and they did minus the small LCD screen on the keyboard (not a big deal for me). I’ve been using them for a couple days now and here are something of the things that I didn’t expect.
The Good
The mouse has a feature with the scroll wheel where if you press it down far enough, it “unlocks” the wheel so instead of the typical behavior of a mouse where it clicks as you scroll, it enters a free-spin mode where I can basically spin the mouse-wheel and remove my finger while the wheel will continue to spin until it loses momentum. Kinda cool and useful for some of the longer tickets that get passed my way at work. The mouse also has more buttons than I know what to do with so I have to look at how I want to remap many of them.
The LCD screen doesn’t show all the things it can when you’re running linux, but it does have a keypress counter so I can literally see how many characters I’ve typed every day, not really useful but neat.
I LOVE how quiet the keyboard is, I’m a bit sensitive to sound and this keyboard is awesomely quiet.
It’s very comfortable which is something I was hoping would turn out to be true since I went to 5 stores that claimed to have them in stock and couldn’t actually find one to try, so I had to order it on-line from Tiger Direct.
The Bad
So far the biggest problem which is a biggie for me until I decide on my work around is that nearly ALL ways you would normally paste from your clipboard/buffer have been altered in some way. Clicking the scroll wheel does not result in a paste, clicking both mouse buttons does but I don’t like the idea of wearing out two buttons when one will do.
The insert key has moved, up to the same row as the function keys, WTF? I have to remap this somehow because that’s killing me, since they changed the layout of where home, delete, pgdn,pgup,etc. normally are I will probably remap the home key to insert because I can’t think of any time I use the home key.
Overall I’m in love with the new gear and I’m very happy with the purchase but I do wish I had known about the insert key/mouse paste before I might have kept looking awhile longer.
Built-in Help files
Feb 23rd
Something That I keep running into is people who don’t even look for help in the built-in help files for an app or search before asking someone else for help. Now I know I’m guilty of this too and sometimes it’s because I know someone who can probably tell me the answer without looking it up but I’m beginning to feel that this is the lazy approach. I commit myself to have tried at to research in at least 3 sources and performed at least 2 tests before I seek advice from my peers. Mainly because I think it’s better to be in the habit of using the help systems to find the answer, because some day Steve won’t be there to tell you not to fold pizza into your wallet.
I’d also like to give points to someone for one of the most creative RTFM’s I’ve stumbled across in awhile:
+1 to Scientica for his response in this thread
