Rubenerd

My research into the ultimate keyboard for my secondary workstation continues! So far we’ve looked at the Unicomp Spacesaver M bucking spring keyboard, which is the Mac version of the Spacesaver I already have.

Speaking of StackExchange, Jeff Atwood surprised peripheral nerds last year with the announcement of his CODE keyboard. In a refreshingly humble blog post, Jeff explained what motivated him to create his own slab of programming goodness, along with some design justifications. It was an interesting read, and obviously written by someone passionate about his craft.

The keyboard is manufactured by WASD Keyboards, so named for the key arrangement preferred by DOS gamers everywhere. I’ll admit, I was one of the few who hadn’t heard of WASD prior to the introduction of the CODE; if this was a marketing exercise it worked.

Switches

The CODE uses Cherry MX mechanical switches. Anything other than buckling springs will be a compromise in my book, but testing existing Cherry MX keyboards in stores yielded a pleasant experience. They lack the reassuring, mechanical “sharpness” I’m used to, but they still offer far more responsiveness than gross, mushy membranes.

The CODE use Cherry MX Clear or Green switches with “sound dampening O-rings”. I’ll most likely be writing a whole obsessive post about these switches, but suffice to say the Greens are somewhat stiffer. I’ll be using this keyboard in the loungeroom of our house, so I’m willing to chalk up their quieter operation as a practical plus.

Other features

Speaking of switches, the CODE holds DIP switches on the back to control all manner of operations. Most appealing to me is assigning assigning CAPS LOCK to CONTROL, a favourite of all rational typists who long since made the SHIFT key their friend.

In terms of physical design, the black bezel and keys are dull with a side of conventional, though the texture promises to avoid fingerprints. I never thought this an issue till I started typing regularly on a MacBook Air for extended periods!

Speaking of practical considerations, the 87 key option looks wonderful. Virtually all smaller keyboards sacrifice the PigUp/PigDown and cursor key islands along with the numeric keypad, including Apple’s bluetooth model. The CODE comes with the option just to sacrifice the numeric keypad. Ipso facto, no awkward shoehorning of PigUp/PigDown, Insert and the like into weird places.

Unfortunately, there are some personal tradeoffs. I don’t want or need a backlight, so paying a premium it seems redundant. It’s plain black. It also sports one of those terrifyingly horrible micro-USB plugs which all need to jump into a volcano and be melted down into something usable.

The layout is clearly for PCs, but the aforementioned DIP switches can remap the Windows/Alt keys to Command/Option. I’ve been using a Unicomp PC keyboard with a Mac for years, so that doesn’t really bother me. For situations where I need to boot into Linux or *BSD, having a more standard layout is also a plus.

Conclusions

Micro USB aside (#facepalm) this keyboard is intriguing. It’s opinionated hardware for Jeff Atwood, and I appreciate that. For the relatively steep price though, I’d rather one that didn’t make as many personal compromises. Fortunately, this keyboard introduced me to WASD Keyboards, which has some wonderful looking kit and may satisfy all my pickyness. The search continues.

Recently I came across an answer on SuperUser, one of the Q&A sites on the StackExchange network. It was incredibly useful, but the discussion had been closed with the following boilerplate:

closed [sic] as too localized by [people] [time]

Why does that matter?

Artificial constraints

In the age of printed books, newspapers and encyclopædias, limited space and slow distribution necessarily meant only select information could be published. This had the benefit of quality control, but I think that was incidental. When you have a limited amount of a resource, it’s only natural you’d want to utilise it in the most efficient way possible.

(Also, despite what my primary school teachers assured me, being printed in a book isn’t a guarantee of accuracy or quality either)!

In print, this means not publishing information that:

[..] is unlikely to help any future visitors; is only relevant to a small geographic area, a specific moment in time, or an extraordinarily narrow situation that is not generally applicable to the worldwide audience of the internet.

Except that’s not a statement from a newspaper editor, that’s the reasoning StackExchange contributors give for closing a question.

I understand the StackExchange network’s desire to maintain high quality, general purpose questions, but it seems short sighted to discount other questions on the basis of limited appeal. The same applies to Wikipedia, and other sites that routinely close questions or delete text.

Without the constraints of space, printing or distribution, the internet has liberated us from having to justify the availability of information. Part of the very beauty of this global network is somewhere, someone may find what we have to say interesting, and have the answer to a question we have. You’re an Amenian heavy metal sewing machine enthusiast? Great! We’d love to have you.

For those concerned about sites drowning in niche content, the issue also seems self–correcting. The most popular answers and articles on sites will naturally attract more attention, inbound links and potentially advertising revenue, if that’s your jive.

Preserving culture and ideas

I’ll be blunt. We have all this digital storage, processing and bandwidth. Rather than just deleting things a “limited” number of others may find useful, why not just let the more generally accessible content bubble up, while letting those with niche interests still access that information? We lose enough digital information from shut down sites, let’s not accelerate it.

Fortunately, there is a more inclusive form of discussion online: running your own site. For those who use that as a reason why StackExchange doesn’t need to accept all answers, touché. That’s why I think personal publishing is still superior.

I’ve configured my web server to return XHTML to good browsers, and HTML to crappy ones. You know which ones go into each camp.

Running the XHTML version through the W3C Validator:

Line 12, Column 68: Bad value Content-Type for attribute http-equiv on XHTML element meta.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml" />
http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/

So I went to the prescribed page on XHTML media types.

I suppose you mean

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml" />

(otherwise a different error message is issued).

The message might be somewhat obscure, but it corresponds to the HTML5 
draft. So any complaints should be directed to people working on HTML5 
rather than to the validator. Reference:
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/the-meta-element.html#pragma-directives

Well, this is awkward.

The good news is its the fault of HTML5, rather than the validator.

HTML5 is billed as a living spec. I suppose that means its like kudzu, and grows onto other things. Or maybe it’s like water, and splashes onto other things. Either way, really not sure what that spec has to do with an already codified standard.

I was going through my drafts from a week ago, and I found this:

This afternoon while awaiting the completion of a terribly inefficient PL/SQL query, I found myself staring into space. That kind of distant look where you don’t care if your eyes are even focusing or not; where even the act of blinking seems like a chore. I could almost feel the life energy draining out of me as my MacBook Air SQL Develop’d for its dear life.

I closed my eyes momumtarily [sic]

… and then I woke up.

I have no idea what it was about. It’s utterly pointless, but surreal enough to warrant me publishing it. Maybe you can read between the lines and see something I can’t.

I found these old instructions in nvALT for installing Tomcat 6 in Eclipse with Java EE and other such fun. Not really sure if there’s anything useful here, but if you can parse it, feel free to use.

1. Install Homebrew
2. Install homebrew-cask

3. Install eclipse-ide
4. Help -> Install Software
5. “Work With” -> Choose “Keplar” or “–All available sites–”
6. Search Java EE
7. Install “Eclipse Java EE Developer Tools” under
“Web, XML, JavaEE and OSGi Enterprise Development”
8. Confirm review, next
9. Accept licence agreement, finish
10. Wait for Installing Software
11. “You will need to restart”

12. brew tap homebrew/versions
13. brew install tomcat6

14. In Eclipse: File -> New -> Other
15. Choose Server -> Server, next
16. Now you can choose tomcat6 from homebrew location

There’s just so much stuff being announced or released on my birthday, it’s almost too much excitement to bear! Bare? Bear? From the NOAH website, which is almost too funny in an of itself:

Russell Crowe stars as Noah in the film inspired by the epic story of courage, sacrifice and hope. Directed by visionary filmmaker Darren Aronofsky. [..] Australia: 27 MAR 14

That sounds… super duper. But here’s some far more interesting news. From Mary Jo Foley:

Microsoft has scheduled a March 27 press briefing in San Francisco [..] The [Office] suite for the iPad is rumored to include only Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, and possibly no other Office client apps.

I’d be quite interested in an iPad Excel, depending on its implementation. There’s no OpenOffice/LibreOffice for the iPad, and I’ve never been able to grok Numbers.

It is expected to be downloaded from the Apple Store but most likely to require a Micrososoft Office 365 subscription

H-happy birthday to me!

As an aside, I’m aware this hasn’t been the Microsoft Office logo for almost a decade. I just make it a habit of including logos that are more awesome than their replacements. Case in point, Java and Telstra.

For as long as I can remember, chages of environment have been key to maintaining my concentration and productivity. Now that my Mac Pro runs Mavericks, I can get meaninfgul work done on it again, along with my MacBook Air in the other room. Finally, I have my dual workstation setup!

Okay, what’s the catch

There’s just one problem. In the time the Mac Pro was relegated to being a server, my MacBook Air workstation got my best monitor, Unicomp keyboard and Logitech trackball. Like a younger child who gets hand-me-down clothes, the Mac Pro has since got a late 1990s IBM membrane keyboard and an HP mouse from the time when optical was new and exciting.

I’d like to think the benefit of having two working locations outweighs any productivity losses incurred from using a keyboard that feels like a pancake, or a mouse that induses RSI if used for extended time periods. Still, just as the master chef has her or his favourite knife, I do long for these specialised tools.

Over the coming week, I’ll be spending a little time each day reviewing where keyboards and mouses have come since I last looked into this seriously in 2009. Today, we’ll check in with Unicomp!

The Unicomp IBM Model M

As I mentioned, I got my Unicomp keyboard in 2009. Machined from the same hardware that created the legendary IBM Model M from the 1980s, these keyboards are made to order and are built like battleships. My Spacesaver has already outlasted the machine it was bought for, and I anticipate it’ll be in use for many more years to come.

Along with its durability, this keyboard has let me type faster, more accurately and with greatly reduced finger and wrist strain. The springs under each key provide a degree of responsiveness that makes it hard to go back to regular keyboard with their gross, mushy membranes.

The biggest thing that has changed is the introduction of a dedicated Mac model, the Spacesaver M White Buckling Spring USB. It comes in their regular black/grey combination, but also in a classic “pearl white” which resembles the beigetastic we all grew up with in the 1990s. The nostalgia factor for that alone would be worth it!

Thoughts

For the loungeroom environment though, there are some factors that give me pause. I’ve since learned I don’t really use the numeric keypad, though I still heavily rely on the PigUp/PigDown and arrow cursor islands. The Spacesaver is already much smaller than their full sized Classic boards, but on a desk others also may have to use, I’d rather save the space.

Additionally, while I think buckling springs are superior even to mechanical switches, they do emit a great deal of noise. In my closeted SOHO/bedroom this isn’t an issue, but if I wanted to use this loungeroom Mac Pro with others at home, I’m thinking it may be a little inconsiderate.

For now, I’ll be adding it to that oft–mentioned Maybe Pile™. One keyboard down, four more to go!

My email migration post generated quite a few responses. Georgina disliked Fastmail, Yaakov found their service excellent, Gregory emailed to say they’re good. Clara even defended my use of SquirrelMail as a web–based front end! Thank you :).

For the last fourteen years, I’ve used a fairly simple shared hosting system for POP mail. I’d decided given the importance on email on employment and other adventures, I’d use a dedicated email provider in lieu of just moving that account over to IMAP.

I have enough experience with setting up mail servers from scratch in VPSs and the like to know it’s unlikely to be worth the trouble. The act of setting them up is surprisingly simple today, but you have to be preparted to be blocked by several of the big guys without your knowledge. Making sure your little server is on the right whitelists can be a complex, time consuming undertaking with no guarentee of success. Marco Arment has echoed similar sentiment on several podcasts.

For now, I’ve decided just to pay a little extra for my shared hosting, upload my messages, and try IMAP with my beloved SeaMonkey Mail and iOS devices. If it’s not a workable system, I’ll start shopping around for dedicated mail providers again.

In the meantime, if any of you have recommendations for mail providers, I’d love to hear them ^_^. Not being a US company isn’t a necessity, but would be a plus.

Image of everyone’s favourite *monogatari character © 2009 Shaft, Inc (有限会社シャフト).

Happy Sunday everyone, hope you had a lovely weekend. For your consideration and amusement, have a related screenshot from 2011!

The first cut is the deepest

For many of us in the Anime@UTS executive team, and life in general, this weekend was a period of reflection. I continue to research alternative email systems for our executives to use, given the POP SquirrelMail mail system I inherited has been met with less than enthusiastic responses. Understandably so, in an age of AJAX, WYSIWYG and other acronyms, dependable old SquirrelMail running off a shared hosting account simply doesn’t cut it for them anymore.

It got me thinking about so much of my own technology toolchain, and how I use things. As a product of the late 1980s, I was born into the last generation that didn’t have internet before primary school. When we did, we had Eudora, then Netscape Communicator, then Outlook Express. Around that time, we also experimented with Hotmail, then with time Gmail. Still, whether it was before I moved off Google or not, I’ve found myself using traditional desktop email clients.

Crusty enough for you? Oh wait, it gets worse. You’re so not ready for this. I’m serious, you may want to get a drink of water first. I still use POP. Admittedly, I’ve configured my server for secure mail access and authentication, but I download all my messages onto my local machine for storage and home backup.

This has had several implications; perhaps most importantly I can’t reliably check mail on my iPhone or iPad. I can log into the server from them and view messages that haven’t yet been downloaded by SeaMonkey Mail on my MacBook Air, but as soon as they are, they disappear from my aforementioned mobile devices.

2014 is calling Ruben, and it’s your smartphone

In the past, this hasn’t been so much of an issue. Even though my primary machines have usually been desktops, I’ve also been tied at the hip to a laptop for most of my life. Regardless of whether I was at high school, university, work, coffee shops, libraries or the like, my laptop has been with me, and with it my email.

It has given me several advantages. I use OpenPGP to send signed and encrypted mail that would be infeasible. (at least, to my knowledge) from a mobile device with the default mail app. I have every message I’ve sent or received since 1997 in one convenient, encrypted, indexed archive that nobody else can reasonably get to. There’s something reassuring about that.

And yet, I feel the method is starting to fail me. Dealing with potential clients and jobs, urgent university messages and the like, a few hour gap between receiving a message and responding seems too long. As I will with Anime@UTS, I may have to start looking into IMAP email providers. I could try hosting myself, but the burden of maintaining white listings on all the spam systems and dealing with abuses seem far too troublesome and expensive to attempt in 2014.

I’ve heard good things about Fastmail; their servers are based in New York, but they’re an Australian company. Time to… start sending some email.

For White Day this year, Clara bought me a cute bag of gourmet marshmallows made with real fruit. I’m highly partial to these fluffy deserts, and these are—without a doubt—the most decadant I’ve ever had. No plate or bowl, even a Desimone original, seem worthy to contain them!

For those who aren’t familiar, Clara has a far more eloquent and interesting post about the subject of White Day than I could ever do. Not that she would admit this, given her modest nature.

Thank you Clara :”)