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Jason Haslup
jason at haslup dot com

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Sun, 25 Jul 2004

New Server
blog

We're up and running on my new server... nice to be able to make that switch. Loyal readers will remember that it's a switch to a linode where I have a virtual server of my own.

I haven't switched my mail to the new server yet, though... that one I'm a little nervous about. I'd hate to start a stream of bounced messages back to any lists I've subscribed to. I wouldn't mind the stream of bounced messages going back to the spam folks, though.

I'll probably make that switch soon... the way I have DNS setup now should make it transparent, but if you get a bounce from me in the near future, you'll know why.

Thu, 22 Jul 2004

Dead Monitor
blog

Well, it finally happened... my "big" monitor (19" ViewSonic) died this morning. Started making a high-pitched noise and something inside smelled like it was burning up. Bummer. I guess it lasted a while, though -- I bought it just after moving to Austin which was in... um... 1998? Something like that.

So now I'm in the market for a new monitor... I originally thought I'd go with another CRT, probably a 19", but I guess I have to give LCDs consideration. Nah. I have to get CRT because of the resolution... I want to run at 1400x1120 or 1600x1200 and an LCD just won't cut it.

And now the painful part... the utter indecision caused by monitor buying. I'll be staring at this thing for the next five years, so it better have a nice clean display. Any recommendations would be great... we don't have many monitor stores up here, so I'll probably end up buying it online. I'll probably check out our used computer store that just opened up, maybe I can get a good deal on something from there.

Mon, 19 Jul 2004

Can't do it...
blog :: linux

Nope, I'm out. Or actually, Ion's out. I've switched back to ratpoison at work and I'm in the process of building Gnome 2.6 for home. I'll try that out before switching back to enlightenment, most likely. Haven't used gnome in a few versions, so why not give it a try...

I just missed ratpoison's simplicity, I guess... last night I went through the trouble (which wasn't much, really) of setting up ion's keybindings like I'd like, but I just couldn't get used to the minor changes. I know, I gave it just a 1/2 day, but that was enough to drive me back to ratpoison. I might try ion again later once I work through what I'm exactly looking for... I found that at work I kept using Ion just the way I used ratpoison -- one big screen, but quickly switching between windows to where I wanted to go.

I'll let you know how I like gnome 2.6 soon...

Sun, 18 Jul 2004

Here I go again... Part Two
blog :: linux

Why do I switch window manager so much? Why can't I be like other people and simply enjoy Gnome or KDE the way they're installed?

I'm on a window manager hunt again... trying to eke out just another percentage of productivity, I suppose. I'm now working on switching to Ion, a window manager that's pretty similar to ratpoison, which is what I use at work.

Just to bring you up to date... these window managers are tiling wm's... that is, you normally don't drag windows around, resize them, etc... new windows are placed in frames (or whatever the actual wm calls them), and you setup your screen based on that.

For example, at work I usually have just one frame -- so whatever I'm doing (most likely working in emacs) takes up the entire monitor. If I switch to Galeon for web browsing, then it takes up the entire screen. I can split the screen into two frames, split it again into three, etc... and the best part about it all is that my hands don't leave the keyboard. I'm pretty anti-mouse these days, don't know why.

Anyhow, so ratpoison (current WM) is pretty powerful, but I'm not sure that it's as powerful as Ion seems to be. I'm looking to use Ion to setup my screen so I can specify modes that I'm in... for example, development mode would have a primary emacs frame, and maybe another smaller emacs window that's set on just my connection to mysql. Or maybe a compile window. That's all possible just using emacs, but I think ion will let me free up emacs a bit, and maybe make it a little easier so I don't accidentally destroy a setup by telling emacs to go to one window all of a sudden.

So I'm working towards getting more familiar with ion... I've installed it at home on my main machine and even my laptop, so I'm sort of forcing myself to get used to it. One thing I need to do (and haven't done yet because I'm lazy) is setup the prefix key like ratpoison uses. All of its commands are preceded by Ctrl-t. It does that in order to only "steal" that one key from applications (namely emacs). So once I hit Ctrl-t, I'm free to hit any other key to tell ratpoison (and soon ion) what to do. That's necessary since there's no way I want to combine key bindings between emacs and ion.

One thing I'm kind of sad about is that Ion doesn't use lisp for its scripting. It uses Lua, a scriping language designed for this purpose (being embedded in another application). I briefly looked at using sawmill again, but moved away from it when I realized it'd be a lot of work to get it to be something like ion (and ratpoison) already is. Sawfish is cool because it's pretty much completely lisp-based. There's a core set of functions done in C, but everything in the window manager is built up using lisp. Sound familiar? Very similar to emacs.

So it looks like I'll be learning Lua... it actually looks fine, it has some similarity to lisp, but definitely not as cool. I think I'll survive, though.

In other news... been trying to find some time to devote to getting some of the enlightnement libraries running on my Zaurus. Enlightenment, of course, is another one of my favorite window managers... I almost switched back to it, but I'm looking for something new. The new e17 libraries are pretty cool, though, and I'd love to get them all going on my Zaurus and maybe even start work on an e17-library-only set of PIM applications. Ahh, nice little pipe dream, but who knows -- maybe I'll devote some time to it, especially after getting my new Zaurus PDA.

Yep, still thinking about getting a Zaurus C860 after my ebay auctions finalize (which is tonight). It might not happen this week, though... just another 30 minutes on two of my auctions and they still haven't hit their reserve price. One stereo component (the amplifier) and my old cell phone have sold, though, so I'm half-way towards my new Zaurus. I'm hoping for a flurry of activity will hit as the auction winds down and I'll get some good prices for the components. If not, I'll just re-list in a week or so.

Let's see, what else... I still haven't made the big move of haslup.com to my linode... I really need to do that, though... still having an issue with multiple domains and postfix, though. Just don't feel like spending the hour or so to figure out what's going on tonight... maybe tomorrow. Or in september when it's not too hot to sit in my office at home.

That's all for the linux front... more soon when I get better at ion!

Tue, 13 Jul 2004

Duh
blog

640x480 would be four times as big as my original Mac screen, and probably eight times as big as my Apple ][+. I apparently forgot how to calculate the area of something.

In haslup.com related news: soon (hopefully this week or weekend) I will be transferring my domain and email to my cool new linode setup. It's similar to a dedicated hosting machine, but it's actually a virtual linux machine created using user-mode linux. Pretty cool stuff. Anyhow, I'm still figuring some things out, so my email might bounce, web could be down, etc...

Mon, 12 Jul 2004

Sonic Air
blog

Hi! I'm still alive... just taking it easy during the awesome Bozeman summer.

Not much going on here... I was doing some shipping research for some ebay items I've got for sale, and I saw on UPS.com that they have a service called Sonic Air. Apparently it's same-day delivery. Seeing as how the item I had to ship was $120 for overnight delivery (16 pound audio amplifier), I was just wondering what it'd cost for same-day delivery. I also want to know who actually uses that service and what sort of item needs to be somewhere that day. Ahh, who knows.

So I've got a few things on ebay this week... it's my first-ever (and, as it turns out, only-ever) audio system that had a separate amplifier. Some Rotel equipment... really good stuff, but I've found that I rarely ever use it. Like maybe three times a year for a total of one hour each time. I'm pretty comfortable with selling it.

Of course the real reason I'm selling those toys is to buy new toys... I'm making a giant concerted effort to not just buy toys these days. I need to get rid of things first. I think three stereo components are a good trade for... a new Zaurus PDA! Yep, just one Zaurus isn't enough these days... I want the clamshell model that has a 640x480 screen. Can you believe it? 640x480. That's twice as big as my original Macintosh screen, and probably four times as big as my original Apple ][+ display. Crazy.

My loyal readers will remember that I purchased a Zaurus 5500 back in January or February... at the time I wanted to see how much I actually used such a device, and it turns out that I use it a lot. Enough to justify the $600 or so that I'll have to spend in order to get the new one. It's just really handy to have a little device like that where I can check my email, do some web page reading, etc... from anywhere in the house.

Plus, it's handy for trips... on a recent trip I was able to connect up to a hotspot with my wifi card and could easily check my email at work and at home without needing a laptop. Very, very cool.

So that's the idea... so far I've gotten some pretty good reaction to my ebay items, so I'm pretty certain I'll sell them all and get enough money for the new Z. If not... I'm sure I've got more toys around here somewhere... (DSL modem anyone?).

That's all I've got for now... I'll try to be a more responsible blog-guy, but you know how that goes...

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