Yin can be a real bitch

[ehowton]

A confluence of events (as is usually the case when we step back and take an 80,000 foot view) contrived to both create, and, in a mighty heave of chi at work, also destroy. I don't strive for balance, though I often encourage others to. On the contrary, neither is it a matter of 'do as I say, not as I do' as I tend to lean toward a more optimistic lifestyle. It wasn't always as such. For example, I wasn't patriotic when I joined the service. It wasn't out of some misplaced sense of duty, or wanting to serve my country. It was more out of a mixture of boredom and necessity. And a desire of tradition; to walk in my father's footsteps. What on this earth is just black and white? No, I became patriotic when I discovered what we had as Americans by spending time overseas. Its so easy to take it for granted when you never leave your mother's teat. And its these reminders that I am but the sum of my parts. So when I say that betwix MySQL & USB this weekend, Windows & linux, hardware & software...I've wanted to swear off computers forever and become a monk.

Perhaps one of those ale-making Monks in Belgium?

There are pro's and con's to everything. And nothing is ever as simple as just writing it all down. And these activities go back months. Years maybe. And its not a lateral timeline either. As I mentioned above, it was more a conflux of diverse and numerous pressures all bubbling to the surface which allowed for both the creation of my knowledge-sharing weekend activities bringing technologies together, and the unleashing of an avalanche of difficulties which resulted because of it. Suffice it to say, we're moving the right direction with things, and I will continue to unveil the master plan as it solidifies.

World Domination starts at home.

Part of this endeavor replaced my 22" NEC CRT with a 19" Widescreen Monitor. The NEC is in Maximum PC's Best Technology Items Ever. It was at the pinnacle of CRT technology (right before LCD's were actually able to start supporting decent gaming Frames Per Second that drax0r and I purchased these items. Massive, impressive boxes. I've used mine everyday since I purchased it in 2005, and couldn't imagine living without it. I usually keep it at 1600x1200, but its capable of much higher. In another example of disparate, simultaneous events, both the...unusual size & layout of my office coupled with the glass-top desk had me at a disadvantage with my behemoth monitor, and my boss gave me an HP 19" flat panel monitor for my laptop. I was impressed with the picture of the monitor, and its small footprint and announced that I would trade my $500 CRT for a 19" FP (lehah got one of these baby's a while back so I know he's familiar with the output of these monitors). drax0r was immediately interested, as he wanted side-by-side 22" monitors extending his desktop to an incredible 3200x1200! He bought me a 19" Widescreen Samsung SyncMaster 920nw at Sam's Club yesterday, and dragged The Beast home.


It's so far away!

At first, the FP looked funny sitting there. Unimpressive. And it took quite a bit of tweaking with my xorg.conf to get my resolution and fonts playing nice with each other. I'm also so very used to spreading windows and apps equally side-by-side and top to bottom (1600x1200 is a lot of real estate). Learning to utilize only the width is awkward, and scrolling is increased 10-fold due to the narrow nature of widescreen. On the plus side, its a very nice picture and very light.

I'm hoping drax0r posts a picture of his new "Command Center."

mr_dowg and glowdowg had a gathering at their house as well this weekend. Through all the difficulties every day brings by simply having children in your house, we made it - and perhaps it was just me, but it seemed to be the most sober of any number of parties I've been to in quite some time. The host had browned five pounds of ground beef and when they opened the kitchen, like vultures we swooped in for the kill. Yes, I killed myself some tacos. Those taco's needed killin.

And what better place to gather for a feeling of family, than in the kitchen?

Then mr_dowg pulled a rabbit out of his hat. He palmed me a Monster sticker! I saw it, I saw him - but words, they didn't come. I was speechless! So many questions...How? I'll let him tell you the story, but suffice it to say, it ended up on my car. (He also provided me with a Monster temporary tattoo, which I wanted to immediately put on my forehead for the duration of the party, but when I nodded toward him and demanded, "Lick my forehead!" so I could apply it, sadly, he refused :(


Monster-powered!

Comments

[schpydurx.livejournal.com]

You would have had tabbed browsing years ago had you stuck to the world's fastes browser.

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

Lets qualify that, my Opera-only using friend. As you know I've been using it on-again, off-again on a variety of platforms, and can now say, with bit more authority than you, that the 'worlds fastest browser' is not a true statement across the board.

It may 'launch' faster - but I wouldn't dare browse slower during the 30-days in between the times I close the browser and re-open it.

When I'm using Opera on x86 linux, I notice my Gallery runs much, much slower, and I can't respond to some people on xanga.

I guess it really is true - no one browser is perfect. But pound-for-pound, more stuff opens and I'm able to be more productive (and faster) in Firefox over any other browser.

[schpydurx.livejournal.com]

I will grant that Opera doesn't render the themes correctly on Xanga. I will also point out that the AJAX on Google Notebook doesn't work in either Opera or Safari. The software that they wrote at work has a problem rendering the Javascript menus in Opera (though I think it's something they fucked up in the code as this wouldn't work in Safari 2.)

I can't speak to how Opera runs on SPARC, but I've used Opera on OS X, Wintel and Ubuntu x86 and have found that it is extremely fast. I know that Mozilla has always been slower in Ubuntu/Knoppix for instance. In the few months that I've been reading Coding Horror he as posted some numbers (link 1, link 2) and wrote about a feature that I have always used but didn't know that Opera went out of it's way to provide nor knew how to put into words.

Also, this week I found out how to make my own one letter searching shortcuts. For instance, Opera will give you "g + SPACE search terms" by default for searching Google. i.e. When I do a Google search I do a CTL + TAB to get my new tab, then type "g + SPACE + ehowton" to Google ehowton. I now have the following shortcuts setup:

d- Dictionary.com
g- Google
i- Google Images
m- IMDB
w- Wikipedia

Though it may not sound like much, you have no idea how much time that those few shortcuts save me. My hands never have to leave the keyboard and I have a minimal amount of typing to do. (To make this customization, pull up the Search tab in the Preferences, pick what you want your shortcut to be [you can use multiple letters or phrases if you so desire] paste in the URL and where the search term goes put a %s]).

I am starting to see the wisdom that you have in always running two browsers. I'm not opposed to Firefox, but I do see it as a tee toting child. I don't care for the interface or the workflow and have seen numbers that show that the browse is slower then even IE when executing certain tasks. I know that I should be pushing Firefox because it's Open Source, but I've see enough writing in the ubuntu_users group to know that Firefox has kinks on both Ubuntu and OS X.

I will say that you have made me very happy for choosing to work with Opera as a second browser. I don't know what really possessed you to do so but I'm proud to have a friend that is open minded. I think I can finally lay this argument to rest.

Thanks.

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

I don't know what really possessed you to do so...
Portability.

[schpydurx.livejournal.com]

Is Opera more portable then Firefox these days?

[ehowton.livejournal.com]

No, but more portable than any other second browser I could find.

[schpydurx.livejournal.com]

oh.