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Desktop wars: Are you serious?

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They still exist! No, really! KDE vs. Gnome vs. XFCE vs. blah-blah-blah

Recent experience of switching among desktop environments proved one little thing to me.  Do you all know how easy is to change your desktop background? – Well, switching desktop  environment nowadays is the same.

You don’t have to bother on the apps stack packaged with your environment. Libs conflicts – can’t even remember when was the last time I had something like that? Or installing something from source…

You just don’t want to face the fact that most of your daily work is spent in:

  • Cross-platform IDE (Eclipse, Anjuta, Netbeams, etc)
  • Web Browser (Chrome, Opera, Firerfox)
  • Console (Terminator, Konsole, gnome terminal)

What else you might need?

So the desktop environment you’re using is narrowed to that tiny desktop area on the bottom/top of the monitor where you got your running applications. Oh, and the tray with clocks and NetworkManager.

KDE 4.7.x: I’m staying

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It’s been more then few weeks of “KDE experiment” I got myself into. The fact that KDE has become my default desktop environment is a bit shocking for me as well, as I’ve been a big fan of Gnome. Recent upgrade of Gnome 3 under my Fedora distributive ended up switching to fallback mode and using Gnome 2.x like navigation. I simply couldn’t get used to Gnome3.x interface.

Eventually, I ended up trying KDE as a primary environment for a trial of 2-3 weeks. The results:

  • Apper application which is an alternative of PackageKit got uninstalled (yumBackend.py script was eating up all CPU every 5 minutes)
  • Amarok – could never understand this “media monster”:heavy, overloaded, iTunes-wannabe?! Uninstalled.

The rest works like charm. My colleagues were complaining about dual-monitor issue. I’ve noted it once when plasma-desktop couldn’t allocate enough of resources to activate secondary monitor (thanks to Apper!).

Overall: it’s clear, nicely designed environment, with lots of nice small features that makes you like it even more.

Quote: human nature in super-capitalism

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In all domains of our everyday lives, from eating habits to sexual behavior and professional
success, there are fewer and fewer prohibitions, and more and more norms-ideals to follow.
[. . .] In our late capitalist universe, the subject is not guilty when he infringes a prohibition. It
is far more likely that he feels guilty when (or, rather, because) he is not happy – the
command to be happy is perhaps the ultimate superego injunction (Zizek, 2005, p. 225).

Google Maps v3: Polygonal zones

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 The result of fascination of Google Maps v3 upgrade and OOP structures of prototypes in JavaScript that I wrote before ended up with a small Overlay class for Google Maps.

Zone class allows easily create dynamic polygons based on built-in polylines of Google Maps, and easily save areas using jQuery framework and its jQuery Dialog window.

All the details are on GitHub repository, so feel free to share comments and/or issues on the code structure/errors.

 

Stay tuned! ;)

Free Software Meeting in CUT

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Just to make your life easier, and check some interesting talks in Limassol about Linux, read through this agenda on Free Software Meetup:

 

The Ubuntu Linux Local Community in collaboration with the Information Systems and Technology Service of CUT and the New Technologies Club of CUT invites you to a showcase event about the features the Free / Open Source Software in medicine, computing, home entertainment and search methods . The event will be held on October 21, 2011 in the KXE1 computer room in the Andreas Themistocleous building (Old Land registry). The agenta of the event is as follows:

18:00 to 18:30: “Free / Open Source in everyday medical practice” (Greek)
Dr. Eugene Metaxas

18:30 – 19:30: “What is version control software and why do you need it?” (English)
Leonid Mamchenkov

19:30 – 20:00: “XBMC as a core of home entertainment” (English)
Michael Stepanov

20:00 – 20:30: “make install: Installation Methods of Free/Open Source Software” (Greek)
Marios Isaakidis

20:30 to 21:00: “Intelligent search techniques” (Greek)
Theodotos Andrew

21:00 – 21:30: “Linux Security Tools” (Greek)
Gregoris Chrysanthou

The event is open to eveyone and you can bring your laptop if you need any help.

Try Free and Open Source Software! Information without obstacles!

 

See ya all there! ;)

Google released new language: Dart

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Dart targets a wide range of development scenarios: from a one-person project without much structure to a large-scale project needing formal types in the code to state programmer intent. To support this wide range of projects, Dart has optional types; this means you can start coding without types and add them later as needed. We believe Dart will be great for writing large web applications.

 

The code sample itself looks like this:

class Point {
  Point(this.x, this.y);
  distanceTo(Point other) {
    var dx = x - other.x;
    var dy = y - other.y;
    return Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy);
  }
  var x, y;
}

main() {
  Point p = new Point(2, 3);
  Point q = new Point(3, 4);
  print('distance from p to q = ${p.distanceTo(q)}');
}


Hopefully this week, I’ll manage to find time to try it. Official site of Dart language is here.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Happy Birthday ThinkPad

			
						

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Yep, 19 years ago it happened:


ThinkPads have been praised for exceptional build quality, system reliability, services and design throughout their decade and a half of presence in the consumer market.[8] The original design was a collaboration between Tom Hardy, corporate head of the IBM Design Program, Italian-based designer Richard Sapper (noted for the design of classic products such as the Tizio lamp for Artemide, office chair for Knoll, kitchenwares for Alessi and ballpoint for Lamy) and Kazuhiko Yamazaki, lead notebook designer at IBM’s Yamato Design Center in Japan.[8][9] Sapper proposed a design inspired by theShōkadō bentō, a traditional black-lacquered Japanese lunch box.[8][10]


If there’d be no ThinkPad’s, I believe I would switch to Mac long time ago, as it’s hard to find so durable laptop on the market.

					

		
		
	


				
					
	

		

						
Steve Jobs: 1955-2011. RIP

			
						

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Some of his famous quotes:


Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.


Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.


You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.


Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. 


Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.


Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?