In the boring-but-useful category comes Anti-RSI, a simple, not-overly obtrusive break manager for OSX. I don’t need it to prevent RSI, I do OK at that myself. I need it for my own sanity. Will check it out and report back; think it could make things calmer and less stressful, especially when bugfixing programs in languages I don’t really know.
Vienna
26 July 2005
Vienna is a new, freeware, opensource feedreader for OSX. It’s in final beta but I’m really liking it; very stripped-back interface, support for groups, smart folders and Atom. I’m going to experiment with it for a bit; NNW and me have only got on so well, recently, so this could be the change I need. Recommended, anyhow. [via Jon Hicks]
Where are all the startups?
25 July 2005
“Where are all the startups?” asks Tom Coates. It’s a good question, and, as the 2lmc boys rightly note, his theories regarding marketing and advertising might have something to do with it. Tom and I discussed this topic at the New Media Awards ceremony a few weeks back – it’s been something that’s crossed my mind several times in the last month or two – and whilst I agreed with his complaint, I found myself somewhat lacking in inspiration. I mean, I’d try to do something about it, but I seem short on ideas right now. Still, I’ll keep racking my brain. Could be something in it.
Phew
24 July 2005
Exhausting weekend. OpenTech on Saturday was pretty good, though as it drew on I became more and more tired of lectures and more and more in need of networking and chat-time. That did eventually happen, and it was great – good to catch up with some and meet others for the first time; set lots of cogs whirring and helped others along their way. Today saw some much-needed sleep, after a tiring week, and then afternoon (and evening) of article writing. For once, the topic wasn’t technology. More on that later.
Oh, look. Another week’s here already.
Drat.
OpenTech 2005
22 July 2005
So, along with a whole host of other geeks, I’ll be at OpenTech 2005 tomorrow. NotCon was great fun, and I’m hoping that this year will be just as good… and that I’ll manage to network just that little bit more. If not, you’ll probably find me on the backchannels as twra2
. Anyhow, it’d be great to meet any of you going; I’m probably bringing along a 6-gang extension lead for those precious power sockets, and will be lugging a copy of Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows, v1.1 (5.25″ floppies still shinkwrapped!) to donate to the Internet Archive. I might also have my DS.
Looking forward to it a lot… and do say hi.
Google Moon
20 July 2005
Google Moon. Awesome. In honour of the first manned moon Landing, on July 20, 1969, Google have produced a small-ish map of the Apollo landing sites and surrounding area. The imagery is not from Keyhole this time, but Nasa. Unfortunately, Nasa could only supply information to a certain resolution; undeterred, Google used their common sense, which is why what you see when you zoom all the way in is just too beautiful.
Ethnic Cleansing
19 July 2005
Eurogamer report on a terrifying new computer game released by the National Alliance (roughly, America’s answer to the National Front). Entitled Ethnic Cleansing, it’s colossally offensive to just about anyone. As is traditional with about 50% of EG news items, it is essentially a rewritten press release – but goshdarn if the tone and content of that release aren’t scary enough. And to cap it all, there’s a quote from the NA chairman. I want to write more about this, but for now, just don’t have time; instead get over to the news article and make up your own mind. There’s so much in it that defies belief. And yet also, demands comment. I’ll see if I can rustle up anything further in future.
Django
18 July 2005
Django looks rather interesting; a fairly substantial Python webapp framework, with a leaning towards publication of, well, stuff. Might bear it in mind if I ever get around to Python, and if I ever master my bloody Unix PATH.
Application of the day: skEdit
17 July 2005
Pretty much since I got this Powerbook, I used an old, battered copy of BBEdit for my text-editing purposes. I quite liked it; I mean, the main thing I liked about it was the whole 9-point Monaco thing. Seriously, for me, text-editing on the Mac meant nine-point Monaco.
It integrated into FTP quite well, but sometimes its PHP syntax highlighting was wanting a little. I couldn’t afford to shell out the $100+ necessary for a copy of BBEdit 8, though.
A couple of weeks back, I realised that, now I was on Tiger, I could try out those text editors I was so interested in previously. The brief chance I had to use Textmate wasn’t enough to get familiar with it, and by the time I had the chance to spend serious time with it, my 28-day trial was up.
So I tried skEdit. And was pleasantly surprised. It has a “site” feature, for managing whole directories and subsequent SFTPing to mirror the structure on a server. It’s smart enough to auto-fill your class
es and id
s out if there’s a properly-linked CSS file in your site structure. It’s also got excellent code-hinting (wherein it reminds you of syntax for styles or functions), and the auto-completion, once you’re used to it, really speeds up the writing of code.
Add to that good snippet handling, good code tidying, and great auto-indentation, and it’s a really nice editor. The best bit? It’s $20 – for a lifetime licence. My demo ran out yesterday, so I bought myself a licence. I haven’t looked back – it’s been that pleasant an experience, and it’s already proved its worth over three seperate projects. It has some shortcomings – it is, after all, a text editor designed for web development, and doesn’t quite have the featuresets of Textmate or BBEdit. However, that’s all I need; I use a different text editor for note taking and writing, and the rest of my development is web-based. So with that caveat in mind, skEdit comes strongly recommended.
FlickrRSS pics
17 July 2005
Finally, six months after I commented the block out, I’ve got some Flickr pics in the sidebar. Which will hopefully make me updated it more. Scraping courtesy of the surprisingly good flickrRSS.