Hit the Turtle

JavaScript Needs Blocks

2012-01-13T04:41:00.000-08:00

2012-01-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

Vim - The chosen editor

Starting with the conclusion, like one of those movies that start with the ending:
I have chosen vim because of its modal nature and extensions. These two combine to create an editor that assists me in any venture I wish to take.

Being only a newbie to vim I really don't have a lot of vim knowledge, but let me say this the learning curve is not as steep as you may think. You can be up and running fairly easily and editing quickly. I am just taking my time and learning the editor a few simple lessons at a time when I am ready.
Here is a good video tutorial broken up largely into roughly 10 minute lessons http://ontwik.com/tools/vim-from-novice-to-professional-by-derek-wyatt-p1/

Though it has a steeper learning curve than the other non-modal editors as I learn vim I get far more comfortable with it and I get far more features than nearly any other editor going.

I agree that other editors can get you up and running quickly, but that is it. Neither you or the editor can evolve so much together.

Vim on the other hand continues to always surprise in the ways that it assist the programmer to program and not just be a typist.

It is written that Perl's CPAN has so many modules that no matter what you think of someone else has already written it. Well this paradigm seems to ring true of Vim and vim's extensions as well, there is nothing I have found yet that if I have wanted support for I could not find.

For reference here is my vimrc on github, it utilises vundle to install module support.
My vimrc: git@github.com:flebber/MyVim.git
Vundle: https://github.com/gmarik/vundle#readme
Emacs is great too.

Editors to watch:
Sublime Text: http://www.sublimetext.com/
Cloud 9: http://c9.io/

2012-01-06T20:21:00.000-08:00

Will be using this blog in the interim to post and discuss my journey through the Mozilla Webcraft challenges at P2PU.

Look forward to discussing this with you as we go.

I am hoping to have a much better blog and website running shortly so will repost to the new site and domain when its ready.

PSPU - Hand Written html

2012-01-06T20:04:00.000-08:00

Here is my hand written html...glad I type usually!!

I thought this sort of interesting here is my hand written html polar inverted.

Xubuntu - Where Ubuntu Left Off

2011-10-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

After installing Xubuntu I am impressed, very impressed actually, it feels like everything Ubuntu is supposed to feel like, fast modern and easy from the get go. For those that loved Ubuntu 10.04 and Maverick hit the download button now http://www.xubuntu.org/get . Its a modernized take on Ubuntu that everyone will love.

This is a review of my experiences with Xubuntu. Honestly i had never tried Xubuntu until 11.10, I had Ubuntu installed and Kubuntu as well. Until recently my main desktop had been fedora 15 with KDE.

This review is based on my Acer Travelmate I3 with broadcom wireless 57780.

Installation

I won't get to deep into every step of the Xubuntu install as it uses the exact same installer as ubuntu and as such has been covered off in many other reviews.

Particular to my install though, and those with Broadcom drivers, is that I need to boot into the Live Desktop before commencing the install. Once you are in the live desktop you are greeted with a notification that wireless networks are available, a simple click and enter your password and you are connected. I wish all linux distro's supported Broadcom this well. Now you have an internet connection your install will download all updates and third party codecs should you choose.

Partitioning is the only area where the ubuntu install can be improved. Why is there not an option to replace exisiting linux paritions ? This has existed in Fedora & Suse for some time. I was writing over Fedora with Xubuntu and I feel that its the only missing feature that forces you to go into the manual partitioning mode.

Otherwise I was presented with the slideshow of Xubuntu's features as the install completed, Once completed i rebooted and ...?

First boot

Nothing no errors, my wireless connection worked and connected automatically. There was nothing to fault. By default the bottom panel was set to auto hide this was quick and easy to change.

Also you get the ubuntu notifier advising of any 3rd party drivers that can be installed. I installed the broadcom wireless updated driver and the ATI drivers and I was up and running in no time at all.

The Desktop

The Xubuntu desktop uses XFCE 4.8, and wow hasn't this come along way recently. My memory of XFCE was big blocky windows 98 styled windows. This was partly the reason I hadn't ventured to XFCE in a while. But there has been major re-writes going into XEC 4.8 and it shows. The panel by default has a nice transparency enabled and the whole feel of the desktop is light fast and stylish, maybe if I am critical a little plain but stylish none the less.

Don't fear there are many options available to customize XFCE. Will XFCE takeover the Gnome2 users who don't like Gnome3 or Unity? Well the answer should be Yes, a big fat resounding YES. It's light fast and highly configurable its well suited to laptop's, netbook's and PC's.

For the full list of improvements to XFCE 4.8 here is the release announcement XFCE 4.8 released . To quote the site

With Xfce 4.8 our users will be able to browse remote shares using a variety of protocols (SFTP, SMB, FTP and many more). The window clutter has been reduced by merging all file progress dialogs into a single one.

Our panel application has been rewritten, thereby improving positioning, transparency, item and launcher management. It also introduces a new menu plugin to view directories.....We also improved our settings dialogs. The display configuration dialog now supports RandR 1.2, detects screens automatically and allows our users to pick their favorite resolution, refresh rate, rotation.

In brief if you are like me and remember XFCE being old and plaid, give it a try from 4.8 onward I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

The Settings and Appearances Dialog:

The Ubuntu Bonus

Unlike Kubuntu you get all the Ubuntu bonuses working in Xubuntu and some. You get all the Ubuntu setup notifications as noted above but also you get the Ubuntu store and Synaptic so package installation is easy as Ubuntu and if you like Synaptic its easier than ubuntu.

Rather than the dash in ubuntu to search your applications you have a panel application which can do this for you to. Whilst its not as flashy as the ubuntu dash, it does the job.

As you can see from the shots though the default wallpaper is a little plain the over all look and feel is nice. It's snappy and easy to configure.

Software

As you expect all the applications available to Ubuntu are in Xubuntu. I have seen in a few review a distro being criticsed for not having Libre Office by default. Well Xubuntu doesn't have Libre Office by default either instead you have Abiword and Gnumeric. I won't be criticsing however as I think both are just highly underrated applications. Gnumeric in my opinion is better than its Libre Office counterpart and better for scripting.

When Calligra Office is available in a stable release I wonder which will be the default office suite then. I for one hope Kexi (Microsoft Office Access replacement) gets pushed to full completion as it has a lot promise as a full replacement.

The default music player in Xubuntu is gMusicbrowser, which is just fine for me as it is my current favourite player and very configurable and a solid replacement for Winamp and ITunes.

Parole is the default video player and is fairly plain, hasn't failed to play any items at all, just hasn't shone or failed. I will need a bit more use before I can decide what I want to use, of course Kmplayer & VLC are easily installed.

Conclusion

I think Xubuntu ended up where Ubuntu wanted to be, its fast light, is suited to PC's and laptops has sensible defaults and all the software, style and configuration options you could dream of. It's weird how things unravel, by default Xubuntu now feels like the main Ubuntu distro, it feels polished and complete. For all those gnome and unity refugees give it a try you wont look back.

Newspeak » The Newspeak Programming Language

2010-12-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

Newspeak » The Newspeak Programming Language

Newspeak based off smalltalk. Aiming to have the simplicity of squeak but wanting a function programming style to better allow for multiple core computers in the future.

It is still in early development and far from ready from prime time but you can learn more here at newspeak home or there are also a few newspeak videos to review as well.

Regards

Sayth

Which Smalltalk? | Smalltalk Zen

2010-12-21T01:27:00.000-08:00

Which Smalltalk? | Smalltalk Zen

A small article which summarise Smallalk VM's and IDE's though they are one in the same in smalltalk.

Soory to spoil the surprise but the ultimate winner was Pharo a fork of the squeak project.

Pharo Project Page

Enhance the quality of your VBA code - Microsoft Access - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

2010-11-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

See this awesome blog on improving your vba code from the Access Power Tips site.

Enhance the quality of your VBA code - Microsoft Access - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

2010-11-27T00:42:00.001-08:00

Access 2007 Normalisation

2010-11-26T21:59:00.000-08:00

I haven't had much experience with database normalization. I have started what i believed to be a simple project. To track horse races and update per race and horse a comments database.

I figured I would be able to use reports to later blog with for people interested in Australian horse racing. Here is a thread I started on Access World Forums. if you have any comments or suggestions on my normalization please comment. Here is the thread.

This is where my database is at. I am planning to use MySQL as the backend to my Access database so I can later query it as part of a larger program with Ruby and Sequel.

http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af10/Sayth_Renshaw/Relationships.png

2010-11-26T21:47:00.000-08:00

This is any easy one to slip through the cracks in case you missed it here is a good discussion from the Ruby google group on ruby 1.8 and the differences benefits/minuses of different string handling in ruby 1.9

Ruby 1.8 & 1.9 discussion on google groups

Cheers

7. Arrays and Iterators

2010-11-09T23:08:00.000-08:00

Chris Pines Book, The perfect starting place for Ruby Newbie's.

http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/?Chapter=00

Discogs in Foobar v 1.0

2010-02-16T05:34:00.000-08:00

Does anyone know how to get Discogs to be enabled in the drop down converter menu in foobar 1.0 as below.

Foobar 1.0

2010-02-06T01:34:00.000-08:00

Foobar 1.0 converter tagging options changed.

[IMG]http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2699/4333757967_6177112158_o.jpg[/IMG]

Django, Pylons and Frameworks

2009-10-19T04:51:00.000-07:00

So many good alternatives, definitely be using sqlAlchemy, postgres or mysql but choices of Django, Pylons or templating engnes like jinja2, Genshi, Mako and werkzueg. Choices choices choices.

2009-04-22T08:21:00.001-07:00

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a

Spiritual Romantic Lifelong Learner

High Quality Metal Video

2009-03-15T00:48:00.001-07:00

If you have high Quality Metal Video available please drop me a line and let me know

Thy Will Be Done

2009-03-14T19:20:00.000-07:00

Very Much looking forward to the Album from "Thy Will Be Done", soon to be released. The sound has developed and moved forward so it should be a killer you can here some advance release tracks here which is well worth a listen.

2009-03-10T06:02:00.000-07:00

Thought I should put something here for you too watch While I put some stuff together.

2009-03-10T05:57:00.001-07:00

Hi, this is my first post I am currently creating content so check back soon. Like Video I will also update music content at Rock Metal Video .

See you Soon