Category Archives: Geeky

Posts about geeky stuff: new technology, cool programs, accounts of computer problems I’ve solved, etc

Gmail: Even better than you thought

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Whenever you give out your email address to a commercial entity, there is always the risk that they will pass it on to some evil spammer. Assigning customised email addresses to a company is a great way to keep tabs on which ones are spammers, and I discovered today that Google’s Gmail allows you to do this using a ‘+’ after your primary email address:
Gmail: Help Center – Can I receive messages at a different Gmail address?

With Gmail’s interface streets ahead of many desktop email clients I have used, and their other applications gaining cool features like weather reports integrated into your calendar, the desktop application may really be an endangered species.

Automatic apt-ing in Debian

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Recently I wanted to schedule some routine apt operations on our server. I discovered there is already an “apt” entry in /etc/cron.daily, but sadly it seemed that the documentation on how to configure it was less clear than it should have been. Hopefully this will aide another Debian user in the future!

In /etc/apt/apt.conf
# Perform a daily apt-get update
APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists 1;
# Download any upgradeable packages
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages 1;
# Run apt-get autoclean every 7 days
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval 7;

Offline Blogging Tools

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Given the popularity of Mac laptops, it’s not surprising there are a plethora of applications for writing blog posts offline.

mtsend.py: Definitely the ultimate geeky cross-platform solution: use your favourite editor, and then run a Python-script from the terminal to upload your post. It’s also free (unlike the others featured here) but it does have a number of disadvantages, principally the need to remember a particular format for posts, and the lack of preview functionality.

MarsEdit: I used this on my previous train trip to the North and found it to be excellent. It features a simple and uncluttered interface, and it was very easy to configure its Preview mode to use the Too Busy To template.

Ecto: My free trial of MarsEdit having expired, I thought I would try out Ecto before parting with any cash for MarsEdit. I have yet to reconnect to the Internet to actually post anything with it, but after using it to write just a single post I find it to be the complete opposite of MarsEdit: the interface is overflowing with buttons, controls and options I have no use for, and the rendering of the Too Busy To template in the preview window is not brilliant.

Current listening: Undone (The Sweater Song) from the album “Weezer (Blue Album)” by Weezer.

Nokia v Sony-Ericsson

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Nokia mobile telephones have a reputation for being the best on the market, but for a long time they didn’t produce a phone with all the features (tri-band, bluetooth and GPRS) that I required and so I had bought (Sony-)Ericsson phones. Recently I noticed that the Nokia 6230 does have all these features and given Nokia’s aforementioned reputation, I decided to go with the 6230i instead of another Sony-Ericsson.

So, after my first week with the phone, is Nokia’s reputation deserved? As usual when switching brands some things are better, some things are worse, and some things which are just different.
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I think this merits a new version number

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There’s been a lot of headlines about Web 2.0 recently, and at least one person has asked me: “What does all this 2.0 stuff mean exactly?”. With the dot com “bust” still a recent memory, a lot of people have proclaimed it more Internet-hype—and there is no denying the 2.0 moniker is pure marketing—but if the web becomes so ubiquitous people take it for granted, isn’t a little reminder of how much better things are now than they were in say, 1999, a good thing?

Anyway, here’s something which I think sums up why the web deserves a large bump in version number. During the Apple product announcement yesterday, practically every Mac-related website was swamped with traffic, yet I was able to watch a minute-by-minute summary at http://www.macrumorslive.com/ (sadly disabled after the event so you can’t see just how cool it was). Sure, webpages that automatically refresh themselves at a set time interval have been around since web 1.0, but this page didn’t refresh (the whole content), it updated with only the new information: no annoying flicker as the whole page changes, no wondering whether the server will be completely overloaded during this refresh so you’ll have to manually interveve, and it even had a little ticking clocking showing you how long until the next refresh so you knew how much time you could dare to avert your eyes for! It’s a shame there isn’t a demo available, but for the techies amongst you, there are some details of how it works.

Del.icio.us bookmarks

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del.icio.us has been heralded as a classic example of the sort of application that is “Web 2.0” but until recently I could not really see the point of it—web-based bookmarks? However, having been something of a computing nomad these last few months, without permanent access to an always-on, always-connected server of my own, del.icio.us has proved a useful way of storing random bit of information that I have needed to be able to access in a variety of places; e.g. links to products I have been recommended, technical information I may want to retrieve in a different location in the future, etc. As with any storage system, the make-or-break feature is retrieval, and Gmail-style multiple keyword-tags and a search facility look sensible and useful.

“Switching”

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A couple of my colleagues have been thinking about buying a new laptop. I was keen to extol the virtues of my ibook, but discovered they needed little persuasion on this front—a single trip to the Apple store and they were hooked. The only problem they have now is ibook or powerbook!

This reminded me that I should post a quick update on my “switching” experience. Most interestingly, using Windows at work has given me a new insight into just how awful the Windows desktop experience is, something I had always assumed that Windows did fairly well given its popularity. In reality the interface is horribly and confusingly inconsistent, and seems to pay scant attention to the theory of Human-Computer Interaction.

Anyway, I digress! I upgraded to Tiger and a Mighty Mouse a month or so ago, so I’ll post about them in more detail sometime. But in the mean time three applications that I’ve come across recently:

  • Adium is a very swish open-source IM client that supports pretty much every protocol under the sun.
  • Camino is a Mac-native web browser using the Mozilla rendering engine. For day-to-day browsing, Apple’s bundled Safari is much slicker, but there are a few sites out there which tell Safari users to go away and use Firefox or IE instead. There is, by all accounts, a perfectly good version of Firefox (& Thunderbird) for OS X, but until recently I had heard that as a cross-platform app, the performance was a little sluggish. Reportedly this will be much better in 1.5, but currently between Safari and Camino, all my web browsing needs are taken care of.
  • Desktop Manager. Sadly my previous virtual desktops program, virtue does not work under 10.4, and so I’ve had to switch to the program that inspired virtue to be written instead.

Raining Cats & Dogs

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Britain is famous for its rain, but it rarely rains really heavily for an entire day like it has done here, today — the puddles are so big the pavements are practically flooded! The forcast is “rain”, “heavy rain” and more “rain” through ’til Saturday too; I never thought I would be find myself missing the British weatherman’s favourite of “Sunshine & showers”…

(P.S. when (if?) the rain does stop I guess I shall have to pay another visit to the Apple store! Apple unveils video iPods and Home Entertainment hub.)

White earbuds everywhere

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I walked to work for the first time today. Although it’s about a 30 minute walk, it’s actually a lot more pleasant than taking the subway as it wasn’t too hot on the streets, and while subway trains are air-conditioned, the subway stations are not and often suffocatingly hot. There also seemed to be many coffee & bagel places en route that called out to be sampled. :)

It was interesting to see just how many people were listening to iPods (a lot!). On a related note, I was intrigued to see in iTunes that the BBC have begun podcasting, including my morning favourite, the Today programme! I hadn’t found the podcasting concept particularly interesting until now, but the thought of being able to listen to ‘Today’ programme while I walked to work in a foreign country was very appealing. Unfortunately further investigation shows that only the “the 8:10 interview” is available rather than the whole programme, so I guess I shall have to stick with CNN on TV for now — I hope the BBC extend their offerings soon.

A Day in New York

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Today really reminded me how New York is so fantastic. It started with a group of us having lunch in a classic 50′s style diner featuring singing waiting staff who were very entertaining. To get an idea of how long it was going to take to walk to work, I wandered down Seventh Ave back to the apartment and then Broadway through Greenwich Village towards SoHo and the Apple store. I love walking around New York: the shops, the people, and the buildings are all fascinatingly varied and interesting.

Unfortunately, just north of Houston Street the promised thunderstorm hit hard—the rain was falling just like it does in films when the romantic protagonists must have their dramatic life-changing conversation/chase/etc. I managed to take shelter in a small Ben & Jerrys on Bleeker St — fantastic ice-cream, but alas all 10 seats were taken. So as I was standing there watching the rain pour down like a tropical storm, I realised the guy sat in the window with his girlfriend and (presumably) parents, looked like Zach Braff of Scrubs and Garden State, fame. At first I was sceptical, but as I caught snatches of their conversation about scripts and films I began to suspect he was the genuine article!

Anyway, eventually the rain stopped and I was able to make it to SoHo. The shops here were of the highly fashionable type, a noticeable change from the characterful Greenwich Village. The Apple store was nearly identical to the London one, although if anything it felt less spacious and less well-organised, but still a lot of fun to browse around and give new products a thorough test drive (I’m really tempted by the very cool ‘Mighty Mouse‘!). A walk up 6th Ave took me back home just in time as a another mighty storm moved in — hopefully all this rain will mean tomorrow will be somewhat cooler than today’s 90-odd degrees Fahrenheit and 80% humidity.

Google Portal?

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Personalised Google looks interesting. I’ve always liked the idea of MyYahoo! but the interface is quite cluttered so it never became my homepage. The interface of the Google portal is actually one of the coolest parts of this page — you can use “drag and drop” to re-order the information! Being a Beta-service, the available information is a little limited at the moment and US-centric—for example, Google news is available but not Google UK News.