sudo aptitude install gedit-developer-plugins

However, there’s a bug in that package and the popup menu doesn’t actually work. Ctrl + Space is supposed to bring it up. So you want to add the Gedit Developer Plugins PPA and upgrade to the more recent version.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:user/ppa-name
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade gedit-developer-plugins

If you try to run gedit now, you’ll notice it won’t… run, that is. Great. I know, right? The problem is that the bzr plugin (also included in the gedit-developer-plugins package) is trying to use the gtk2 version of bzr-gtk, but that doesn’t work in the gtk3 gedit. Anyway, you can pull a copy of the gtk3 bazaar plugin into your local bzr plugins directory. (I found this info here). Create ~/.bazaar/plugins/ if it doesn’t exist.

mkdir ~/.bazaar/plugins
cd ~/.bazaar/plugins
bzr branch lp:bzr-gtk/gtk3 gtk

The gedit-developer-plugins package and gedit should work after that! An alternative to the above would be to add a PPA that includes bzr-gtk 3. Not sure if one exists at the moment, but that would be a cleaner solution. And you thought it would be simple. I know I did.

It’s not as polished or featured as other implementations, but it’s a good start. Here’s a screenshot after I type os. then hit Ctrl + Space:

Further reading

• Official Gedit Plugins Page – Lists shipped plugins and links to many 3rd party plugins
• Gedit as a Django IDE for Linux – Micah Carrick describes how he makes gedit useful for him

External tools plugin

• External Tools Plugin Command Collection – Collection of scripts to be used in External Tools plugin
• Using External Tools – Writing your own mini-scripts for External Tools

Rolling your own gedit 3 plugin

• Python Plugin How To for gedit 3 – Intro to writing gedit3 plugins
• Writing Plugins for gedit 3 with Python – Another intro to plugin writing, by Micah

Shocking, I know. But it’s probably not what you expect. Since April 11th, I’ve been going to culinary school in downtown Vancouver. It’s an 11 block program (each block consists of 4 weeks, so… 44 weeks) – I should be done in February 2012. In addition, I just completed a 4-month stage (unpaid internship) at a hotel. I would go there after class (or before class, depending on the class) about 3 times a week. Lots of getting up early, and some getting home late. It can be tough work. I’ve been physically exhausted. Heck, I’m exhausted, right now. And you know what? I love it. There is something really satisfying about cooking. You produce something you can be proud of in relatively short period of time… and the kitchen can be an exhilarating place to be. I’ve always liked a bit of adrenaline in my life and I guess I didn’t find that in an office environment.

Anyway, I haven’t been taking photos at school. And I should be. So today I took some photos. I’m currently in block 7: baking and pastry. Here are some cheesecakes I decorated today. My partner and I had finished pretty much everything, so we had lots of time to play around.

whipped cream rosettes with orange segments and strawberry. Probably should have left the orange bits off the rosettes, but oh well.

rosettes on top of kiwi slices, with strawberry on top of orange segments.

The cheescakes turned out really well. No burning, no cracks (thanks to a sour cream topping), and quite level and smooth. Clean!

Spent way too much time on this, but had a lot of fun doing it. Marzipan pumpkin and chocolate "Booo" leaning on rosettes, Messy spider is 2 strawberries covered in chocolate with marzipan eyes and chocolate disc legs. All on chocolate webbing.

The cheesecakes go for $18. It’s a good deal considering how much cream cheese is in them… each about 750g? But whoever gets that halloween one will have a bunch of chocolate shrapnel when they attempt to cut it. Hah!

My door was open, but I didn’t let on to that. I lowered my key and tried to talk him out of it, saying it couldn’t end well and stepped cautiously towards him. I may have had my hands up and open. Obviously, he wasn’t a rational person. Even if I did pop my trunk and give him all my stuff, I had no insurance he would leave me alone. I suppose that’s when I decided I would have to defend myself as best I could and find help. He swung his weapon at my head a few times, some of which I managed to block with my arm and sweatshirt. I charged him, knocked him back a bit and retreated to the bus exchange looking for help.

I was being pursued, but I didn’t have have to try very hard to keep a safe distance. As I jogged through the bus exchange, there was a young couple there (waiting for their bus, presumably), no buses, and no authorities. I didn’t really want to bring this lunatic into them, and felt a sense of regret. They cast concerned glances at me and asked if I was alright. The assailant was still a safe distance behind me, ranting and stomping on. That’s when I noticed blood on my hands. I was bleeding? I was aware of a different sensation on left side of my face, but it didn’t hurt. I may have actually said that aloud, both shocked and annoyed, “I’m bleeding?!”

Then I actually got a bit of luck. Nearby, I noticed the police had set up a roadblock, so I ran over there and got help. The assailant was surprisingly cooperative, dropping his weapon, lying down on the ground and putting his hands on his head. I later found out it was a studded belt – I guess he was swinging the clasp at me? He was taken away, would be put in jail for the night (minimum) and be charged with assault and robbery. I was interviewed, the young couple were interviewed, and I got a ride home from the officer. After I was home, I was finally able to see what I looked like.

After cleaning up and sleeping, it looks a bit better. Bit of a shiner, though.

Aside from being a little shaken, a couple cuts and welts, I’m okay. I was not robbed. Nobody else got hurt. And I’m thankful that things turned out the way they did, as it could have been much worse.

UPDATE 2011/09/04:
The shiner keeps developing. It’s so… colorful! ^_^

The Good

• It’s pretty. And minimal. Love the new font.
• High quality and scalable graphics and interface – tried it on both a 10″ netbook and a 23″ monitor with success. Large title bars and close buttons – easy to hit.
• All the updated core GNOME programs! I especially like the progress with Nautilus, the file manager. Instead of using a status bar, it uses a floating alt-type yellow info box to display info. Plus it seems much faster.
• Single stroke exposé-like effect that reveals all windows, scaled and tiled. This is bound to the Windows (Super) key, which actually makes it more appropriately named for GNOME3 than any version of Windows. Note: It can also be reached by clicking Activities in the top-left corner. From here, you can use your mouse to switch to a window or quickly close windows, launch/switch-to a program from the left sidebar, or you can start typing a substring of a program to run, or a string to search using wikipedia or google (these options appear after you type something… OR you can browse applications by clicking Applications. Additionally, on the right, you can manage workspaces. With the smart launcher and window manager functionality tied to a single key, I found myself actually starting to heart the windows key and its prime keyboard real estate.

  

• Don’t worry, you can still alt-tab! And it’s improved, with mouse input, and grouping instances of the same program.

  

• Integrated chat with notifications is great.
• Modal windows are now attached to their parent window (by default, this can be changed).
• Slick animations with meaning. Like the modal windows that slide out of the parent window’s title bar. I think OSX does something like this….
• Yelp, the Help browser is about a billion times faster. Seriously. This is largely due to the shift from gecko to webkit, I believe.
• No more minimize/maximize buttons. At first, I wasn’t sure about this and thought I wouldn’t like it, but the way the new desktop is designed, I don’t miss them. You can add them back, if it’s a concern. And all the old window shortcuts still work: [Alt+F9] = Minimize; both [Alt+F10] and [double-click title bar] = Toggle Maximize; [Alt+right-mouse-button] = window menu.

  

• GNOME is just much leaner than it has ever been before. Instead of starting 3 different programs at login (nautilus, gnome-panel, metacity), it simply starts gnome-shell.

The Bad

• Requires 3D support. Unfortunately, this is not always a simple request for us Linux users. Tried it on my netbook and failed. Couldn’t run it and probably never will thanks to the terribly supported poulsbo integrated graphics.
• And not just any 3D support… Tried it on my desktop, also with integrated graphics, but a better supported ATI x1250 – performance wasn’t stellar, but it was usable.
• Not very mature and not very customizable (yet). Panel Applets in prior versions of GNOME are extremely popular. Now we have this huge piece of space we can’t do anything with. But I’m sure something like panel applets will come eventually.
• It’s really hard to train myself to look to the middle of the top panel for the time/date… I keep looking at the top-right.
• Some of the changes had me fishing for functionality. Like, where is the control-center? It’s not in the Applications list under the Activities window. It’s under the user menu, under System Settings.

  

  And once you’re in the System Settings, you often want to change many things. At first, I was opening System Settings, selecting a component (they’re called Panels) to adjust (Background, for example), making changes, closing, repeat. When you open a panel from the System Settings window, that panel replaces the contents of the System Settings window. I didn’t notice the All Settings button that replaced the search entry in the dark grey area! After realizing that, it wasn’t so bad. And to be honest, I think the theme or something is not quite finished. Looking at other screenshots on the web, the button is much more noticable.

The Ugly

• BIG change in the way it expects people to use it. This will likely cause lots of frustration.
• Doesn’t quite seem ready for prime time. I guess that makes sense, it’s still beta.
• Some odd input lag every now and then. Visual artifacts. For both of these, I point my finger at my integrated graphics. Just a general lack of polish. But that’s to be expected with alpha/beta software.
• Bold, black window titles with same-colour shadow. Ugh… I expect that will change soon.

After trying Shell, I’m actually more excited for it. It still lacks polish in areas, which is expected at this point, but I love the direction GNOME3 is taking GNOME. I’m hoping I can get by on my integrated graphics, but I’m probably willing to purchase a low-end video card to get better performance. Anyway, I’m really interested to see how Canonical’s Unity and GNOME Shell will evolve side by side. Now I have to try Unity, I guess….

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/03/massive_earthquake_hits_japan.html

As you no doubt already know, Japan has been devastated by a monstrous natural disaster. On Thursday March 11th, at 2:46pm, Japan experienced a massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake originating just a few hundred kilometers north-east of Tokyo. The quake caused a giant tsunami which actually caused much more damage than the original earthquake. I’ve been constantly glued to the news.

An effort to summarize some key events follows…

At this time:

• Over 3000 confirmed dead, many more expected (upwards of 10,000)
• Thousands still missing
• Complete cities destroyed, thousands made homeless.
• A nuclear power plant in Fukushima was damaged from the quake. People near the plant were evacuated and fears of a meltdown are growing as the plant grows more unstable.
• Aftershocks are expected to continue for months, most recent one was magnitude 6.1.
• To provide power to the eastern part of the country, all Kanto regions have cycling blackout periods, which apparently also affects hospitals.
• Food and gas are running out and being rationed. A friend of mine, in an area largely unaffected by the quake and tsunami, says it takes 2-3 hours to get to a gas station.
• In the areas hit hardest, it has become colder and snow is expected, lowering chances for trapped survivors.

Vivid Images at Boston.com: 1 (source of image above), 2, 3, 4

News Coverage: BBC Live. BBC has been my primary source for the above information.

If you are able, you may want to consider donating to relief efforts. Donate to the Canadian Red Cross. Or, take a look at some other well known charities listed at the CBC.

Japan is special to me. Having lived there for a year, I fondly consider Japan to be a second home. I have many friends and acquaintances in Japan. Fortunately, everyone I’ve contacted, so far, is safe. I still can’t believe the destruction. My heart goes out to all of Japan….

I encourage you to leave links to images, videos, news updates, and corrections in the comments.

Yup. There’s that omelet again! My mom wasn’t here when I made it last weekend, so naturally, I had to make it again.

I stuffed these with a lot of onion and mushroom. Not a bad thing, at all, but it certainly prevented them from being sealed.

And I think I’ve finally found the right pans. It’s funny, I kept trying to do it on non-stick pans, and low heat. Well, it works much better on buttered steel pans, over high heat. (Bit-a-butter-makes-it-better?) Plus, it’s way quicker! You just have to be careful not to burn it, or overcook it.

Also on the weekend, I got myself a new chef’s knife. I will have this knife for the rest of my life. Using it is an absolute pleasure.

On Friday night, I had the house to myself and made myself a nice meal: inside round steak on top of spinach, red pepper, asparagus, green beans, carrot, mushroom. Cooked and paired with some cheap pinot noir.

Still practicing cooking meat. I like medium-rare. As I get more confident, I’ll buy nicer cuts of meat. And the great thing about steak? It’s super quick and easy!!

Saturday afternoon, I made a French-style omelette for myself and two homestay students. In hindsight, this was slightly overcooked and the pan I chose was not the best for the job… but at least it wasn’t browned and I know better for next time.

I’ve attempted this elusive French omelette a few times, but I don’t normally put that much effort into the rest of the plate. I had some fresh spinach from the night earlier, and I thought tomatoes and lightly fried zuchini would go well with everything. Sprinkled a bit of olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, grated cheddar and mozzarella….. Inside the omelette was sautéed onion, mushroom, red pepper, garlic, spinach, and melted cheese.

There was certainly a lot of work put into this single dish, but man did I enjoy it. Everything. The preparation, the cooking, and the eating.

Gourmet couch candy

I’ve really been enjoying these shows: Good Eats, Chef at Home (though I hate the theme music), and Posh Nosh.

I made 3 of them. the first was made entirely with paper and tinfoil and it worked fine, but I figured I would try making a couple more with different materials: 2 different strengths of card. It’s good I did that too, as I ended up using 2 of them and giving the paper prototype to Shirley’s friend who most likely has better things to do than build paper parabolas. (I, on the other hand, do not.)

What does it do? It turns your omni-directional antenna into a directional antenna with a stronger signal. The tinfoil does the radio wave reflecting and the shape (the parabola) just happens to be an efficient way to do that. Using this new direction, I’ve “pointed” the antenna on my wireless router towards my room – even on a bit of an angle through the floor. In my room, on my desktop PC, I’ve just pointed it horizontally in the direction of the access point.

The results have been great. Without any home-made boosters, I received 25-35%, with one on the access point, i received 35-55%, and with one on both the access point and my desktop antennas, I’m receiving a pretty steady 62-68% (see the graph, above). I still receive disconnects, but it’s now much easier to reconnect… usually happens automatically on the first try – I don’t even have to do anything!

So if you’re having wireless issues, give it a shot! It certainly doesn’t cost much.

The pumpkins, this year:

I did the one on the left (least effort!). ^.^ And it should resemble the pumpkin in the FlipNote animation, above.

Happy Halloween!