While I was quick to point out the release of Apple’s Aperture 3 software, perhaps even bigger news is KDE 4.4 now available. Time to check out openSUSE or Mandriva again soon?
Wednesday 10th February 2010
Thursday 19th February 2009
In the interests of disclosure, you may have noticed the old graphic I had on the side of the site here promoting FreeBSD and the KDE desktop has been replaced. I figured that while I really liked the KDE 3.5.x desktop, I don’t use the 4.x desktop on any of my current machines. Not sure whether that will change, I’m presuming it will, but for now I’m really happy with Xfce. The Xfce desktop is simple, lightweight, and fits all my GTK+ apps nicely.
In it’s place I’m using some Spread FreeBSD graphics which [surprisingly] link to http://www.spreadbsd.org/, a BSD server and desktop advocacy site as well as an advocacy site for the BSD licences themselves.
If you like FreeBSD or PC-BSD (the desktop) you can register for a free affiliate account too which will allow you to keep track of the number of visits your site has generated. You don’t get any money, just a warm fuzzy feeling that you’re helping to spread FreeBSD awareness and whatnot, even if (like me) you’re not Bill Kurtis.
Sunday 01st February 2009
As I’ve said before here many times, I like to think of the how-to guides I post here as guides to help myself remember how to do something, with the added benefit that if someone else finds what I’ve written useful I’ve been able to help someone else too. My how-to guides are probably far too verbose and contain superfluous images for their own good, but I figure the last thing the world needs is another dry, text-only technical blog right? ^_^
In this case I feel humbled that the Fedora Tunisia team of all folks are listing my guide to using OpenBox with KDE in amongst other recommended guides in their window manager wiki page. I’m afraid I can’t speak any Arabic and my limited grasp of the French language restricts me to just saying merci beaucoup!
Reading what I wrote in that post I wrote on the 19th of March 2008 reminded me of just how much attitudes and opinions can change in such a short amount of time. Back then I was primarily a KDE desktop user on FreeBSD who also dabbled in Xfce for his GTK+ (a graphical toolkit) application needs; now with the advent of KDE 4.x I’ve moved over to GNOME as well as Xfce and more generic vanilla window managers. That’s why I love blogs and journals in general; they’re a fascinating view into how you used to think… even if it was less than a year ago and even if I’m not Bill Kurtis.
Wednesday 29th October 2008
It’s official, the first images and details of Microsoft’s up and coming Windows 7 operating system have been released to the press. The always interesting PC Pro in the UK has the inside scoop:
Microsoft has released the first pre-beta code of Windows 7, writes Barry Collins at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles.
The next-generation operating system includes a bevy of new features, including a revamped Windows desktop, support for multitouch, USB drive encryption and improved boot times and performance.
While all this does sound promising for people still using Windows, the preliminary screenshot definitely failed to impress. I’m hoping that Microsoft’s history of refining and modifying the interface to the point where it barely resembles the betas repeats itself, because this is just awful:
Screenshot of the first preview of Windows 7
Not only that, but I feel as though they’ve blatantly and unabashedly ripped off my beloved K Desktop Environment. The panel is pixel-for-pixel the same size. The layout is the same. The widgets look the same. Though for what it’s worth, you’ve got to hand it to them for taking such a gorgeous interface and making it look terrible!
I think it does make a strong statement though that a software company that has been so desperate to label free and open source software as a movement that largely can’t be taken seriously, then turns around and attempts to emulate the fruits borne from such projects.
Screenshot of the current release of the KDE Unix (Linux, FreeBSD etc) desktop
I continually find it amazing how Microsoft’s user interface standards have so dramatically slipped over the years. Our first home computer came loaded with Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions which we later upgraded to 3.1. It was by no means perfect, but I’d argue in many ways it was superior to anything outside Amiga Workbench at the time. Windows 95 was clean and organised and personally I thought it was much slicker than System 7.x and all the other classic Mac OS’s. Windows 98 was marginally worse, XP’s cheap graphics looked childish, and Vista of course was an abomination.
With the bar now set so low, let’s hope for the sake of people who still must use Windows that this latest version gets some serious cosmetic changes before it ships in 2049.
Windows 3.1 in all it’s glory!
Monday 20th October 2008
I’m planning on doing a more comprehensive review of the KDE 4.1 desktop for Unix-like systems at some point in the next few weeks, but I thought I’d pass on a helpful hint to those trying to compile it from the FreeBSD ports system. If you see the following within the lines of errors it halts with:
gmake: *** [libgiofam.la] Error 1
*** Error code 2
Stop in /usr/ports/devel/gio-fam-backend.
… it’s probably a good indication you’re running with an older version of glib installed; if you’re running a system with the base ports system, this is quite normal. As far as I know, gio-fam-backend needs glib 1.6 or higher to build properly.
To fix it, navigate to the latest version of the glib C libraries in /usr/ports/devel/glib20 and do the usual make install clean. Now you should be able to build KDE 4.1 without trouble.
Monday 28th April 2008
The Gmail / Google Mail crew seems to have really been hard at work as of late adding features over the last few months including:
- AIM support
- coloured labels
- group chat
- new emoticons
- free IMAP
- view images as a slideshow
- increased attachment limit
- … and lots more stuff
However Konqueror (my favourite browser) is still limited to the basic HTML interface. For now it’s perfectly fine though, I still dislike most AJAX and prefer being served static pages anyway, they’re far more reliable and act in a more predictable way.
I just wish there was a way to remove the "you are a second class citizen on our service that we don’t care as much about" message from the top of the screen…
Friday 25th April 2008
Summary if you don’t have time to read all of this: Excel 2008 for Mac is a piece of junk and slower than Excel 2004 which needed Rosetta! Gnumeric is my new spreadsheet best friend, provided they could fix a few tiny usability problems.
You may have read my fun with trying to download a trial version of iWork 2008 from Apple and having it fail repeatedly. It seems the adventure was just beginning!
A bit of background first (I’ve chopped this down from 3 paragraphs down to this one!), I’ve been working on a spreadsheet for over a month now that contains information on the results of some GCC optimisations for various different platforms, programming languages and whatnot. The spreadsheet contains in excess of 36,000+ lines of data and reaches to row BA.
Now here comes the kicker: I’ve been editing this spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel 2004 on my MacBook Pro. Excel is the last Microsoft application I use on a regular basis, mostly because it’s the last Office app that I haven’t been able to replace (Word, PowerPoint and Access have been easy!).
I figured then it was high time to try out some alternatives for Excel both on my Mac and on my FreeBSD desktop. I tested Kspread, Gnumeric and OpenOffice on FreeBSD, and NeoOffice, iWork 2008 and a purchased copy of Microsoft Excel 2008. My three specific requirements, aside from the need for fast general calculation speeds, decent user interface and so forth:
- Smooth scrolling speed
- This may sound trivial, but I spend a huge amount of time scrolling through lines of data and it’s downright maddening when you have to wait for the cursor to catch up to where you are!
- Fast floating point calculations
- I don’t think I need to explain!
- Professional looking charts
- A lot of data I summarise from this spreadsheet is being done so I can include it in reports and whatnot. Crappy pixellated charts that look like they were done in an early 1990s spreadsheet app don’t cut it
That’s a lot of cells! Wait, that’s a piano, never mind!
The results? Not one of the spreadsheets on offer today do all three of these well! Here are my anecdotal experiences using this software on a MacBook Pro 2.0GHz with 2.0GiB of RAM, and a Intel Core 2 Duo 8400 3GHz FreeBSD box with 4.0GiB or RAM:
- Kspread
- THE GOOD: Kspread is the KDE project’s spreadsheet application that’s bundled with the KOffice package. Therefore the the interface is clean, very slick and obviously fits well into my KDE desktop on my FreeBSD box. And of course it’s free and open source software!
THE BAD: It won’t open my huge spreadsheet without crashing. That’s a problem! Also the charts it generated are pixellated and look quite dated, and scrolling is very jittery. It’s a shame.
CONCLUSION: Has lots of potential, and is certainly the prettiest and easiest to use interface of any spreadsheet app, but currently it has too many shortcomings for me to consider it seriously.
- Gnumeric
- THE GOOD: It’s free and open source software, the interface is uncluttered and slick, the charts look smooth and it can open my gigantic spreadsheet without too much trouble.
THE BAD: Scrolling is very jittery even with plenty of RAM, and it has the insanely irritating habit of scrolling long since I stopped using the mouse scroll wheel or arrow keyboard keys. It offshoots everything I scroll to, sometimes by as many as 100 rows!
CONCLUSION: It’s a huge shame, if this scrolling issue were fixed I could see myself using this as my primary spreadsheet application. Perhaps for smaller sheets with less numbers I could use it now, and maybe I will.
- OpenOffice.org Calc and NeoOffice Calc
- THE GOOD: By far they have the closest feature set to Microsoft Excel, the charts they generate look half-decent and they can both open my giant spreadsheet with ease. They’re also both free and open source software!
THE BAD: Scrolling is painfully slow, and inconsistent. They can scroll for a few rows just fine, but then will refuse to move, then will splutter back to life again. It makes me seasick! They also are huge memory hogs considering their abilities. Gnumeric can do most of what they can in a fraction of the memory and executable size.
CONCLUSION: As much as I’ve tried to like OpenOffice and NeoOffice for everything I do, unfortunately their spreadsheets just aren’t as polished from my own experience compared to their word processors and presentation apps. And their speed is hardly stellar.
- Apple iWork Numbers
- THE GOOD: The interface is gorgeous as we would all expect from Apple software, and the charts it generates are absolutely stunning!
THE BAD: It can’t open my giant spreadsheet. It doesn’t crash or overload itself, it just displays a message box saying the spreadsheet I told it to open "is too large", then quits.
CONCLUSION: I’d love to be able to use Numbers, but if it can’t open my work because of a size constraint I just can’t seriously consider it.
- Microsoft Excel for Mac 2004
- THE GOOD: The interface is half-decent (I’ve always thought Office for Mac was unusually good compared to pretty much all the other junk they produce) and scrolls beautifully without any hickups despite being a PowerPC app running under Rosetta! THE BAD: Obviously not the latest version so support could run out soon, being a PowerPC app makes it slower. Was expensive too, and it certainly isn’t free or open source software. Generates XLS files which I need to manually convert to an ODF file. CONCLUSION: It’s a shame Microsoft couldn’t just recompile this as an Intel app. I know it’s not as easy as that, but currently from a usability standpoint it’s still the best spreadsheet app on Mac. No screenshot yet, because Excel 2008 deleted my Excel 2004 installation!
- Microsoft Excel for Mac 2008
- THE GOOD: It can open my spreadsheet without trouble. Uh, that’s pretty much it.
THE BAD: It is SLOW! I mean really, really, frustratingly slow! This is a native Intel Mac app, and it scrolls, calculates and refreshes values slower than Excel 2004 which was a PowerPC app! Not to mention it’s noticeably slower than any of the other spreadsheet apps in this review, and not by a small amount. And to top it off, I can’t use it for university because VBA and therefore the Analysis Tool Pak isn’t included! What a joke!!
CONCLUSION: I was expecting this Intel version of Excel to be faster than the PowerPC 2004 version but it managed to be slower! I couldn’t believe it! If I need to hold on to Excel, I’ll need to keep my copy of Office 2004 for Mac handy. How silly is that?
So there’s my anecdotal reviews of these spreadsheet applications. For everything I do now I’m going to use Gnumeric because it supports more of my complex formulas, generates nice charts and is free and open source software. For my larger, more complicated spreadsheets though I’ll need to stick with Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac, though hopefully that will change.
Thursday 24th April 2008
I’m sure we all knew that KDE stood for the K Desktop Environment, but I also know none of us really knew why the "K" was significant. Just like the first "Q" in the Automated Teller Machine acronym "ATM", I thought it was chosen because it’s a letter used less often.
Fortunately my primary desktop machine didn’t understand my sarcasm or sense of humour and decided to let me know what it was all about:
So FreeBSD actually played a part in their decision! Well okay it was Unix-like operating systems in general, but good nonetheless right?
Tuesday 25th March 2008
While reading a fascinating interview with senior contributors about the improvements in FreeBSD 7.0 at the OnLamp BSD Dev Centre, I couldn’t help but notice a certain problem with the page:
Can you see it? I’ll give you a hint: it starts with an "A" and ends in a "dobe"! Yes, Adobe is advertising their Flex framework, on a website dedicated to an operating system they refuse to support!
Just for more fun, if you click on their advertisement on your trustworthy FreeBSD box as I did, you’re told you need to download Adobe Flash. Clicking on that link takes you to a page where they tell you that "We are unable to locate a Web player that matches your platform and browser".
Little hint Adobe, don’t advertise your products to people who can’t use them, even if they wanted to.
Sunday 23rd March 2008
For some reason this evening while searching for information about how to grate cheese using only rubber bands MacGyver style (or maybe while I was searching for SQlite information for Ruby, I don’t remember) a random message box popped up:
Given I’m on FreeBSD (they didn’t even check whether their victim was running Windows?!), just for a laugh I decided to click OK and see what they showed!
I was expecting the usual silly looking website with affiliate links for piles of overpriced and unnecessary security software, but instead a new fake web software screen appeared, complete with animated progress bars and an evolving list of "infections" that the "software" had "detected". When it was done another fake message appeared which linked to an executable file to download, presumably containing spyware or a virus. Taking a look at the source on the page itself, each button triggered the same JavaScript download function.
ASIDE: The JavaScript code took up more space than any of the HTML. I’ve never seen that before, quite eye opening. Scams like this need more 1337 programming skills than I thought. And all the more reason to disable JavaScript except for trusted sites!
I must say, despite the fact the Windows logo is different in four different places and the grammar is terrible, the animations and fake scan results are pretty well done. For most savvy and intermediate computer users the flaws would be pretty obvious and they’d probably laugh them off, but the scary thing is I’m sure there are plenty of people who would find this whole shameless charade convincing. Just like all these hoaxes, they seem to target this group; heck if they can net one person out of a few thousand, the whole exercise has been… how does Richard Quest put it… profitable.
Malware distributor, I stick my tongue out at thee!
For what it’s worth though, and on the bright side, it was really hilarious seeing this whole thing act itself out… in KDE on a FreeBSD machine where the windows look completely different, the colours don’t match, the fonts aren’t even the same and the .exe file it tried to download to the machine wouldn’t have been able to run itself even if it did make it to the hard drive to start off with!
Sorry guys, there’s no Microsoft Windows code to exploit on this machine!
