The Alpha Nerd

Migration

Calvin — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:27:05 +0000

I have migrated the siteover to self-hosted Chyrp.

However, I am using this as an archive for old posts, commenting, and OpenID.

The link is here.

Posted in Computing

Windows 7 Jump Lists and them

Calvin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:06:02 +0000

Now you may be aware that Windows 7 has a new feature called Jump Lists. Just right-click and open window’s button on the taskbar, and a jumplist appears. You may be able to get screenshot’s of Paul’s site.

Now some applications would work wonderful, but some can’t. Tomboy for Windows is an awesome example. You can have the recent notes at the top and the new note, restore Tomboy, and Close buttons in it. Genius.

Posted in Computing

I love you Chyrp!

Calvin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:40:00 +0000

If you’re going self hosted, WordPress is a nightmare to transfer over FTP. I was looking up lightweight blogging php and found Chyrp as the first result. It is much better to try to transfer, and is putting WordPress’s self-hosted setup to shame. Just transfer, chmod, make database, create .htaccess that they tell you to fill with the right content, and input the info. It is very barren, but modules for comments and TinyMCE helped. The default theme is not as good as WordPress’, but change be changed. (unfortunately, most themes can’t work on Windows extraction because of the UNIX-ish folders.)

If you want self-hosted, go with Chyrp. If you can’t, then WordPress.com is for you.

Posted in Computing

Back to the Village (again)

Calvin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:22:44 +0000

Well I’m back to Windows.

Linux didn’t go down without a fight though, and I missed it. It first started by Midori crashing and killing foomatic, then Firefox started typing backards. Then it killed my bookmarks. Evolution was puking on mail, and Tomboy thought I had no free disk space.

I missed the Mono poster children. I loved F-Spot, Tomboy, and MonoDevelop. I loved Dillo, Evolution, and Liferea. I loved the freedom of choice in theming.

I shut down Ubuntu and reboot into Windows. Thank goodness I installed through Wubi, and backed up with my new Gmail account.

I have the sudden urge to make Tomboy for Windows. Not exactly a port, but close or similar.

Posted in Computing

Microsoft Office Mondo: It’s the Guinea Pig

Calvin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:46:57 +0000

Microsoft Office Mondo. Now if you notice, it has more than Ultimate why? It’s M$’s testing version that includes all the cowbell. Get over it!

Posted in Computing

Python is the new Visual Basic

Calvin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 13:31:45 +0000

Is it just me, or it? Python is getting to be really popular, like VB, and anyone with a little effort can make a program with it. It’s widespread, it’s popular, like VB. It’s slow like VB. Unlike VB, developers take Python seriously when it’s a toy language!

I’ll have to try it with Boo, see how the .NET implementation is.

Posted in Computing

Creating a tiny GNOME enviroment in Ubuntu

Calvin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:32:21 +0000

Note to Debian users: you may have to replace the thunderbird and sunbird apps with the Debian versions.

If you like GNOME, but also want a tiny, fast, and functional enviroment, this guide is for you! Just install Ubuntu alternate (or any Debian-based textmode Linux) and run after installation:
sudo aptitude install xorg menu gnome-core gdm gcalctool gnome-utils epiphany epiphany-extensions eog evince gimp abiword gnumeric thunderbird sunbird synaptic alacarte totem rhythmbox gnome-games gtk2-engines

This should give you a light-weight, yet working desktop.

The some of the apps are:

Epiphany browser
Thunderbird E-mail
Sunbird calendar
GIMP image editor
Eye of Gnome image viewer
Evince PDF reader
gedit text editor
gcalctool calculator
Nautilus file manager
Totem and Rhythmbox media players
AbiWord word processor
Gnumeric spreadsheet
and the GNOME games

Posted in Computing

Linux alternatives for OTHER common Windows apps

Calvin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 19:21:34 +0000

How many times have you heard someone who won’t migrate to Linux because they would lose their favourite app. This list, instead of covering apps like Word or Explorer, we cover other apps like OneNote and Quicken. Well look no further! All the apps here are

OneNote alternative: Zim
Quicken/Quickbooks alternatives: GNUcash and HomeBank
Windows Live Writer alternatives: BloGTK and Drivel
PROPER (built-for-diagrams) Visio alternative: Dia
Dreamweaver alternatives: Bluefish
HyperCam2 alternatives: Istanbul

Posted in Computing

Postbox – a review

Calvin — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:45:54 +0000

No, the desktop email client is not dead yet. In fact, it’s more alive than ever. But most don’t impress me. That is, Postbox has finally.delivered. (pun intended)

Pros:

Customizable UI (as shown in screenshot)
Flexible search
Nice object search (attachments, images, link, contacts)
Tabbed
GTD integrated
Thunderbird based

Cons:

Ugly in Windows Classic (yellow toolbars)
Buggy UI (e.g.: double-click results in a blank tab)
No junk folder (though junk removal is supported)
No easy setup of Hotmail (had to do manual POP3 setup)
Crashy newsgroups
No extensions or themes
Lack of “see only read mode”

What? I like it. The pros outwiegh the con, in mass. If you’re still using outlook express, ditch and switch. 4 out 5.

The Alpha Nerd

Migration

Windows 7 Jump Lists and them

I love you Chyrp!

Back to the Village (again)

Microsoft Office Mondo: It’s the Guinea Pig

Python is the new Visual Basic

Creating a tiny GNOME enviroment in Ubuntu

Linux alternatives for OTHER common Windows apps

Postbox – a review

BloGTK