New toy - Skylyne USB switch box.

Earlier today, I bought an apple keyboard to go with my new macbook pro. Since I'm also using a mac mini at my desk, I need a way to switch the keyboard between the two computers. Enter a cheap solution with little or no information available on the internet, the SKYLYNE USB 2P Sharing Station (art no 173900).

It was a bit of a bet, since there really is next to no information available on the internet about this gizmo, but then it only cost 99 dkr, or about 20$, so even if it was crap I wasn't loosing too much.

I've been playing with it for about 30 minutes, and assuming it doesn't go up in a puff of smoke, I feel like I've gotten a pretty good impression of the pros and cons of this gizmo.

As might be visible from the included action picture, there is no visible feedback. The button on top switches between the two computers, with a few seconds delay, which is what I was expecting. There is no audio feedback either, when switching. the only indication that the switch has done its job is (in the case of input devices) which computer responds when you move the mouse/press keys.

The main surprise, which is a bit of a mixed blessing, is that it is also possible to switch computers using hotkeys, or a keyboard shortcut. The "mixed" part is that this is done by pressing the ctrl button twice.

If you, like me, actually use the ctrl key on a regular basis, you'll probably be switching back and forth at random, which is going to get annoying really fast.

Conclusion of this mini-review: somewhat mixed. It does what it is supposed to do, but I'm reserving judgment on whether the ctrl-ctrl hotkey issue will have me pulling out hair in large clumps.

Opening remote files via FTP using Emacs

One piece of functionality I was missing for a long time in Emacs was the ability to open a file remotely, so that I didn't have to manually download, open and upload, every time I mad a minor change.

I Originally found this in the windows text editor Editplus, and I have been pining for it in every other text editor I've used since then ( JEdit can do this too, via a plugin. it's just not quite as easy or as elegant).

I finally discovered the magic incantation needed in Emacs, in order to do this:
\username@domainname.com:

after this, you just type in the path to the file you want, and all is well in the world.

Additional installs when using Ubuntu.

While Ubuntu is a clear favorite of mine, there are quite a few programs that are needed before I actually enjoy using it.

Here's the list:

konsole: A better shell
kopete: A nice IM app
emacs: Programmers text editor
gftp: An ok, but not great FTP client. I wish there existed a better alternative
vlc vlc-plugin-* mozilla-plugin-vlc : The video player that plays everything
amarok: A Jukebox application - pretty similar to ITunes.
easytag: ID3 tag editor, with most of the functionality I could wish for.
dia-gnome: A tool for creating diagrams, both UML and others.
rar unrar: packing and unpacking tools
build-essential: gcc, and other tools needed to compile programs
vpnc: a command line VPN client
krdc: My favorite VNC client. Can also be used with other types of remote desktop servers.
ssh: umm, an SSH client?
cvs: CVS client - has mostly been replaced by SVN, but still nice to have.
tetex-base tetex-bin tetex-extra auctex preview-latex: LaTeX with all the trimmings
subversion: SVN, a versioning system.
sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jdk sun-java5-jdk: JAVA runtime and developer kit
tilda: a Quake style console, doesn't work too well with Beryl, though.
agave : a colorscheme creator. Nice for people like me who has no aestetic sense.
flashplugin-nonfree: What it says it it, a flash plugin for Firefox.
gnome-compiz-manager: additional configuration possibilities for Compiz/Beryl.
network-manager-gnome: A nice Network configuration interface. Still not really good, but better than straight text files.
emacs-extra emacs-goodies-el: lots of extra functionality for Emacs.

Generally, the first thing I do after installing ubuntu is adding all of these.

How to enable midle button scrolling on IBM X31 in Ubuntu

By default, you can scroll by holding down the middle button and using the trackpoint in windows.

In order to enable this functionality in Ubuntu, I did the following:

Add the following lines to /etc/X11/xorg.conf, under the “Configured Mouse” section, if they are not already there:
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”
Option “EmulateWheel” “true”
Option “EmulateWheelButton” “2”
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5”

save the file and restart X (or the computer), and you now have Trackpoint middle button scrolling

What you've been waiting for

Another blog on the Internet! How did you ever survive, before you found this one? No one knows, and most likely, no one cares.

I'll be writing about my frequent computer trouble, and how I get out of it. The trouble in question is versatile, as I am using both Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

Enjoy, and if you find this information at all useful, please post a comment or write a mail.