So why if mint fluxbox 9 is so cool (and it is) would I want to change to mint 11? Well, the main two motivations were:
1. I wanted to install the kernel 2.6.38-8 as this includes finally the driver for my built-in SD card on my acer netbook and I did not want to mess around doing this myself.
2. I was getting sick of not finding the latest version of so many packages in the standard mint/ubuntu repositories which meant adding loads of launchpad ppas – so many that I had lost track of which ones I still needed.

To begin with I thought that I would simply take the newly released mint 11 and stick with gnome but with only an atom processor in my netbook and having been used to fluxbox’s speed from mint fluxbox 9 I just could not stand how long everything took. Don’t get me wrong it is a LOVELY release. Smoothly done but it is almost as slow as windows on my netbook.

So I looked in the repository and there I found the latest and greatest fluxbox 1.3. Installed it and made a few tweaks (see below) and it just seems to work.

Note: this will probably not work quite so smoothly for newcomers to fluxbox but if you were already on mf9 and kept your home directory and don’t mind manually updating your menus then this should work.

After fluxbox is installed logout and then login again – at the login screen at the bottom choose fluxbox instead of gnome and bam you are running fluxbox.

So the new tweaks I had to make to get fluxbox working were:
1. install tint2, leafpad, xfce bits and pieces, volumeicon, gsimplecal, galculator, conky and whatever else you like and was not installed in the gnome installation
2. optional cos I like things fast AND pretty: I changed the font in the menu:
edited: /usr/share/fluxbox/styles/zimek_green/theme.cfg
menu.frame.font: DejaVu Sans-11:Book
menu.title.font: DejaVu Sans-12:ExtraLight
3. I had a small problem as all of my windows when maximised would cover up my tint2 menu – so looked in the tint2 FAQ and had to use a setting to stop maximising over the menu – I added the following to .tint2rc:
panel_layer = top
strut_policy = follow_size
I have no idea how this worked before in mf9 as I was using the same .tint2rc but I guess something Kendal did somewhere else made this work automatically.
4. cleaned up my fluxbox startup and as some mint specific scripts are missing added the following early in the script:
xrandr –screen 0 -s 1024×600
fbsetbg -f /usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint-katya/curve.jpg
note: you need to swap in your resolution and fave background

The only thing I have yet to get working is to get the menu quit to work. So my workaround right now is to click on run and type in “sudo shutdown -r now”.

So, now I have fluxbox running in mint11 with the option to jump into gnome if I feel like it – yes I just left gnome setup as per default – on this netbook I don’t have disk space issue and sometimes there are some tools in gnome which I want to go back to so might login. Also, if I manage to screw up my fluxbox settings in the future I can always use gnome as a failsafe login.
I know there is a lot of duplicate stuff now installed but like I said an extra GB of hard disk usage does not overly concern me. If this concerns you then go ahead and deinstall all of the stuff from gnome you don’t need.

Happy hacking.

Foreword:

A word of warning: this is not meant as a “Dummy’s Guide To Owning A Dog” – infact I would go so far as to say it is more like “Dummy Buys A Dog” – but a simple blog of our family’s adventures as we bought our first family dog, Slack.

Second minor point: since getting Slack I have had no time. Infact before I had Slack I thought I had no time. Now, I seem to have negative time. Which is the excuse I am giving for typos in the text! …

Saturday, 31/07/10

Totally unprepared, irresponsibly and probably against all RSPCA recommendations we set out to visit a bunch of labrador retriever puppies – one of which supposedly fit our simple requirements: black and male and RELAXED. We had nothing at home for a dog. Had read no books. Although both Gabi and I had had dogs as kids we had also both been children which hadn’t really helped much in being parents. About an hours drive away and we met the cutest bundle of fur on legs I have seen in a long time: 5 puppies ranging from almost white through beige to black. And there was Slack: with what looked like a dripped vanila ice cream down his front. The only shock was when we met Slack’s dad who was this huge bear of a dog with a kneck and head resembling Mike Tyson’s. But as harmless as a sleeping Mike Tyson.

Well, I think we were all immediately in love with this little dog: he was not the cheeky one in the pack and while being friendly was not overly fussed with us being there. And so already living up to his name Slack. Within an hour we had unpacked the money and just as we were about to hand it over shit struck. Literally. Slack got the runs. The breeder immediately said he would have to stay there for the night or until it cleared up – a relief for me as I was already imagining washing runny shit out from between the planks of our lovely wooden floors at home. We planned with the breeder he would call us once things were fine again and we bundled dogless back into the car and drove home.

THEN it was a frantic 24 hours of reading as much as we all could pack in and talking to/facebooking with as many people as possible about any tips they might have.

Sunday, 01/08/10

The next day we heard nothing, except from Luna who would ask at regular intervals (about 15minute intervals) whether the breeder had called and, after we had said “no”, she asked “when do you think he will call?”. Similar kind of fun to the “are we there yet?” questioning from Tierra during a car drive.

Finally, Luna picked up the nerve to call the breeder and the we found out that after he’d been to the vets the runs had come from the worming tablets he had taken on Friday. So Slack was ok and we could pick him up on Monday evening. Spent the day then, similarly to the night before picking up Luna from the hospital after her birth, trying to make our house “dog safe”.

It was then that Gabi got her first reservations as she eyed our 60s vintage leather sofa having also just read that “dogs tend to chew on wood, rope and … leather”.

Monday, 02/08/10

Slack, born 5th June 2010 officially became a member of the Rigby family – and also officially got his name Slack. We had spent months thinking of a name with the almost final one being George which the kids and I thought was great as our neighbours dog was called Clooney. Luckily Gabi talked some sense into us as the novelty of walking the dog with the neighbour and us calling George followed by them calling Clooney would wear thin. We also decided against calling him Brezinger, the name of our only horrible neighbour which I initially thought would be great if just to annoy him: I imagined the fun of him walking past, me shouting “Brezinger sit!” and him seeing a dog reacting. The problem was, we dislike this neighbour so much it would mean that the name was already loaded with negative energy. Not a great start for the newest Rigby. The name “Slack” came from me, as we thought what would we like the dog to be like and the main thing was “chilled not hectic”, so kind of like a hippy. Well, as a good mate’s DJ name is “Slack Hippy” it was the obvious choice. And, surprisingly, we all liked it. So it stuck and we just have to hope Slack likes it.

The handover process was really simple: drove there, had a few words with the breeder, he told us how often to feed him, showed us how to hold Slack properly, we handed over the cash and he all of the paperwork. And then we put Slack into our car and drove off. Easier than childbirth. The drive home was a bit of a nightmare for Gabi who had Slack at her feet: not only being taken away from home with almost complete strangers, he was now experiencing his first car drive. So he cried literally half the way home. Eventually settling down to doze.

Then taking him into the house was similar to bringing Luna home – at least at first as with Luna we put her down on our futon and thought “what now?”. With Slack the “what now?” lasted a couple of seconds as our inquisitive dog immediately started to slowly explore his new home. His exploration was though for me a lot slower than I had imagined it was going to be. Similar to I guess how the British army conquered parts of Iraq: slowly checking something out, guaranteeing it was safe and no enemies there before setting out for the next room / area of garden.

He had his first meal (the breeder had given us enough for the first couple of days) which vanished in seconds. And then finally fell asleep SOOOOOO cutely with the kids on the futon – at this point we had decided that he was allowed on this but on no other furniture. Unfortunately we changed our mind on this decision the next day – more about this later.

Tuesday, 03/08/10

The day started early for Luna and Gabi with Slack getting up at 5:30. By 6ish Gabi had already been on Slack’s first official dog walk – he is currently allowed 16mins for his long walk. After the walk and remembering that there was an expensive Tempura mattress on the futon and being worried Slacker would wee on it in the night Gabi decided to banished Slack from the futon. Well, we decided this. He had since claimed this as His Place ignoring so far the towel that now smelt of him which the breeder had said would be sufficient after Slack’s father had repeatedly trashed any attempts at baskets he had ever been given. He was willing to share with others but giving it up looked to be out of the question. At least for now. But we persevered and Slack ignored each of our attempts as little more than a game. Like giving a kid their first chocolate after so far only having tasted carob and then offering them a carob bar again. So trying to get Slack to give up the futon is about as easy as convincing a child of the health & dental benefits of carob v. chocolate.

And another brand new experience: we visited three of the huge mega pet stores that I don’t remember existing as a kid, full of other stuff I don’t remember as a kid. We almost spent €70 on a swimming pool for dogs until some form of sanity entered my head. But we did come away with the biggest pack of dog food (“Royal Canine for Labradors”) I had ever seen. I guess these kinds of thing are normal nowadays but the only thing I had seen this big was the special organic soil I occasionally buy to help out my tomatoes. I assume now sack of food will probably last until he dies and I suspect their may even be a couple of meals for his grandchildren.

So since moving to Leopoldsdorf DIY centres, car accessory shops and now pet megastores have replaced record shops, clothes boutiques and book stores. How life changes.

Luna also registered a major milestone in managing to get some rubbish out of Slack’s mouth. He seems to be very much like a baby in this respect: “hmm, will that fit in my mouth? Yup. Must be food then. Let’s see if I can swallow it before anybody sees.” We stopped most attempts but he has taken a fancy to my raspberries and we missed a few there. At the end of the shopping trip he was sick and bits of raspberries could be seen; not sure if this was then travel sickness or raspberry sickness.

At the end of the day Luna & I took Slack for our first walk. It was a bit difficult to get him out of our street but as soon as we hit the wooded area near our house he was in his element – still kept on the lead and as soon as he met a fully grown dog coming in the other direction he had to be carried past him but otherwise great and we didn’t have to carry him home so actually better than I expected. Except it didn’t tire him out and he didn’t do the only two things he was really supposed to do: shit and piss.

Disaster struck in the evening as Tierra decided to cuddle Slack after he had settled down to sleep for the night. This meant he woke up thinking “Ah, tomorrow already. Yahoo!!!! Time to play!!! So what can I chew in the lounge?” So after staying up until 2am with him, we have a new rule in the house…

Wednesday, 04/08/10

My first day in the office since getting Slack and for me the beginning went quite smoothly: only major difference was that I spent my coffee drinking moment outside with him and threw a stick not really expecting any reaction but I almost dropped my coffee as Slack ran joyfully after it and BROUGHT IT BACK TO ME! Certainly beats updating facebook. At this point in time Gabi had already been with him on his 5:30 walk and was collapsed on the sofa enjoying one of her Gabi Moments: a blissful form of slumbering, usually on the sofa at which she is pretty much the expert – well she got enough practise juggling Luna+Tierra-as-babies and their haphazard sleeping patterns.

The day seemed to pass uneventfully but the evening was a new disaster: Slack decided to be sick a lot. Couldn’t keep down any food for longer than 30mins and then ate up his sick with lightning speed. The distressing thing was how he acted before being sick: running around like a bit of a madman, biting and generally not nice before hiding in a corner. Not at all like the Slack we have already come to know and love. I  eventually phoned the breeder and explained it to him. And then eventually he phoned me back and told us that he had given us the wrong info: feed Slack three times a day not twice a day. Obviously twice was not enough which meant he had supplemented it with anything he found in the garden which meant grass. Which made him sick. So the final cure was to catch him being sick, stop him eating the sick and immediately feed him new sick-free-food. It seems to have worked – now he is asleep and we can start to relax.

Not sure which was worse: Slack being sick or Luna crying cos she thought he was gonna die. Even before getting sick it it was my turn to spend the night with Slack sleeping in the lounge: we’d decided that we should all try and do it – excluding Tierra who is still a bit overwhelmed with Slack due to size and strength. Infact this will get worse for the next few years as Slack will grow I guess faster than she will. It was a bit hard to get to sleep as to begin with there was a bit of a fight to keep Slack off the futon I was on. But I won with gentle perseverance and he fell asleep on the floor next to the futon, ignoring his own comfy mattress 2 metres away for the proximity of me. Then I listened a while to the noises he made in his dreams (I assume from the noises and movements he made he dreams of simple things like running after sticks, eating and his dog family and not being the hero in an action movie) before falling asleep myself.

Thursday, 05/08/10

So woke up to a dog tongue licking my face. Normally something horrible but today just pleased that Slack was healthy enough to do this. And because of the strange night he let me sleep till 7:30 but because of the strange night this was still too early for me. He was a completely changed dog – no signs of last night except what looked like more love for me. And we started on a new regime of 3 larger meals (still tiny) and 2 snacks in between to see what effect this would have on him. It seemed to balance him much more and his eating of everything in sight was different in nature: he would relent that in his mouth much easier as now this was not driven by hunger but by inquisitiveness. He wasn’t sick all day and his nose was cool and wet. In the morning I took him on a short walk and he seems to totally have lost his fear of cars and now his major fear seems to be bigger dogs (that aren’t labradors). He met a dalmation and this was the first time where he showed his usual fear but did allow a bit of closer inspection and didn’t snap at the other dog. Looking forward to starting puppy school with him – which we have now decided to do for some of the similar benefits we knew from kindergarten: i.e. the dog-social aspects. i.e. not for the learning of sit, stay, walk close to me on the lead eying me like some kind of superhero… Although I guess the last of these aspects may be a good thing for Tierra and Luna as Slack grows into a bear.

Friday, 06/08/10

Today was not massively different to previous days except Slack experienced what seems to have been his first wind – at least based on how excited he got when he saw trees blowing – especially the leaves. Infact I think he thought they were playing with him. So cute to watch as his pounced towards them with a little bark.

The other thing that we tried on his evening walk was letting him off the lead. Well, he ventured at the most 3m away from our feet but loved it. Tierra also started to trust Slack enough to play with him – and slowly understood not to move too quickly when playing with him. The challenge we started today was also trying to make him sit while we served him his dinner. If we don’t get this to work then when Slack is bigger only Gabi and I will be able to feed him cos he will simply knock the kids over. But it is a hard challenge to make as I love the way he jumps around excitedly while he waits, usually bumping into tables, chairs and anything else in the kitchen/dining room.

I made my second trip to Zoo&Co, pet megastore to buy a different dog food – this time one perfectly for his age group and then we also read the instructions and saw that even with the five meals we had been giving him he actually needed 240g which was a bit more than this.

Saturday, 07/08/10

I had the early morning shift and slack duly woke me at 5:25. I got off the sofa and went to greet him and promptly trod in a puddle of wee. Great start to the day. Love socks wet with dog wee. I gave him a tiny bit of food just so that I could maybe have a brief time to wake up. 30seconds later and he was finished. So not much more sleep -infact I hadn’t even made it back to the futon before he came bounding in wanting to play. So, I got up, let him out for a poo and made myself some quick breakfast. At 6am we left the house for his first and biggest walk of the day. This time I took it a stage further and let him off the lead as soon as we entered the woods. He was as good as the evening before and enjoyed it so much. What I forgot to mention was it was raining. Infact every time I went out with Slack today it rained – I can’t remember being out so much in the rain since I played football in England as a kid.

Tierra took a big step forward and started to learn not to move her hand too quickly when playing with Slack which means he doesn’t always try to bite her.

As the evening came I thought how hard to believe that it is only a week since we met Slack for the first time. And so I thought I would write down some of my favourite things about Slack so far:

• the welcome I get – although I still prefer the welcome from the kids; although from the kids I get it once a day and from Slack it seems every time I am out of his sight for more than 10minutes
• the way he tries to run alongside us whilst taking his walk
• the sudden enthusiasm he gets for playing with a football or stick
• also the playful way he jumps – actually looks like somebody just released a spring in each of his legs
• the way he ignores us when we say “no” and he has his back to us; he obeys just pretends he didn’t want to actually jump on the sofa / bite something he shouldn’t / …
• the shadow – i.e. he will sometimes follow me around although he tends to bore of this quite quickly

And so the first week of knowing Slack came to an end.

In order to do this I need to replace the parts of delicious that I was actually using:
1. sync bookmarks between my 3 major PCs
2. search based also on tags
3. bookmark in a neat way, such that I can also tag all in one window and with one click
If you are using delicious to share bookmarks with other people then I think you need to stay with it; for this delicious is perfect but I don’t use this. The only other requirement I have is to import the thousands of pages I have tagged in delicious over the last three years or so.

After much messing around I managed to do most of this with the help of only a few firefox addons:
1. firefox sync plugin (based on the mozilla weave project) https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10868/
I have activated here via the sync preferences only bookmarks and passwords. The history, preferences and tabs do not fit to how I work with firefox and my PCs and so I am currently not using this.
The only problem I had with this was when I tried to export/import bookmarks from delicious. Here I ended up with a HUGE amount of untagged bookmarks in my main bookmarks menu. It took a LOT of messing around to get rid of this mess. As there is no way of importing the tags I am currently living with searching delicious for my old bookmarks and now all new stuff is being added locally.

2. Toolbar Buttons https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2377/
There should be an easier way of doing this but I simply wanted one icon on my toolbar for bookmarking the side I am on with one click (and not right mouse key which is not so easy on my eeepc. So I added I think 60 buttons which come in this set and picked out the one for bookmark this page.

3. handy tag plugin https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7498/
When I press the bookmark button (or even bookmark this page from the menu) firefox does not automatically present you with a field for adding tags. Well, with this addon it not only offers this field but also offers 4 handy little buttons where you can search for proposals to tag with (one of the nice things about delicious if other people have bookmarked this page). It uses four sources: your own tags, delicious, the webpage’s keywords and KGen. This is not essential but a useful addon for this purpose as quite often I can’t think of what tag to give.
I tried lots of other addons, some of which looked handy but in the end the newest firefox actually provided most of the functionality I needed in just as comfortable a method – of course you may need some other functionality to me – which is to me the beauty of firefox addons: users get to choose the features they want thus avoiding application bloat. It does seem that firefox is concentrating in adding more tagging functionality so before you look for an addon check what your latest version can do by itself.

Now I can easily bookmark and tag and then search using default firefox functionality based on tags even better than delicious as the awesome bar seems to manage to find quite quickly URLs or tags containing the text you entered and even shows you in the result list whether the match refers to the tag or the URL.

The one thing that does not currently work (and no googled solutions worked anymore) is the import of delicious bookmarks including the tags. This is not a delicious issue (they export in html form, keeping all of the tags) but firefox will only import .json files with tags – html file import loses the tags.
I am currently using firefox 3.6.8 which right now is the up2date released version – so I hope in some future version this will work. I will provide an update on this when / if I resolve it.

Here is a rather long report from our first holiday in 2010 where we visited the wonderful town of Komiza on the island Vis in Croatia.

Friday, 09/07/10

10 hrs of driving and pissing and we finally arrived in Split. Only to not find our hotel. But then when we did it was the perfect place to spend one night: 20m from the sea and on the promenade a small bar selling great burgers. And very reasonably priced. Under €30 for all of us including 2 G&Ts and a bottle of wine. And it was heavenly sitting by the sea with NO mosquitos. Apartment also reasonable: €89 for one night for all of us with parking spot. Off to bed early for the next mornings crack of dawn departure.

Saturday, 10/07/10

Arrived in Komiza on the island Vis. Exhausted. But relieved. Had a few experiences that I mastered with driving: onto the ferry in incredibly cramped parking, then leaving the ferry without scratching on the side of the ferry and then the worst bit the drive into Komiza which was down a very steep winding road with amazing views of the bay below us but I managed to experience my “fear of heights” for the first time driving a car. Apartment absolutely perfect: our bedroom nice and cool and far enough away from the kids room / kitchen to not be easily disturbed. Kitchen with everything we need (except a big espresso machine). I sat down on the patio to start writing this holiday journal and booted twice as for the first time in years I found NO WLAN access points. So this was also going to be a forced holiday from the internet which is also great. Gabi bought an O’Neil bikini cos she forgot her bikini top. Gabi got her octopus salad, I got my beer, Luna got a blue Von Dutch baseball cap and Tierra fell asleep with her head on the table of the restaurant we ate dinner at. She dripped spit onto her hand and this wet the side of her face – looked so cute just hanging on the table with her feet dangling off the chair. Went back to the appartment and I had a sleep while the others went for a swim. After we all got up we were greeted by a little dog. The little dog was actually accompanying a small croatian girl who didn’t quite understand that I didn’t understand her as she babbled onto me. Then the dog did a “pisha” on our patio just missing Gabis beach dress. Then we all played cards (Schwarze Peter) and then Tierra and Luna tried to do some magic with upturned candle glasses. From day1 Luna for some reason is already totally balanced and playing beautifully with Tierra and almost not arguing.

Sunday, 11/07/10

Gabi found her bikini tops – but never mind the O’Neil one is at least liked by me. The day spent on the beach and Tierra unfortunately got her painful skin rash again which she seems to get at the start of each beach holiday. Tierra also trusted herself to walk the 5mins back to our apartment for the first time – so she learnt something. Unfortunately Gabi didn’t have the patience or trust and so had to go back 10minutes later to check she had arrived home. So Gabi still has something to learn. The evening was the World Cup final (Spain 1-0 Holland) on the beach practically in the pizzeria. Lovely evening except for the vuvezalas (the one thing I will not miss from the World Cup). After the game we retired to the patio with a glass of the local vino which is only enjoyable at subpolar temperatures.

Monday, 12/07/10

So the World Cup is over for four more years which also meant that now we have no more deadlines to meet which meant that my watch was removed and we would live via our biorhythms and the angle of the sun. Beach in the morning and played our new game on the surf board. So lovely to see the kids laughing so much as I threw them into the water. Tierra’s skin is hurting more so we put olive oil on it and it started to get better. Had a quick visit to Vis which almost lasted much longer than planned as they locked up the road we were parked on. But managed to get out by driving over the pavement and managed to get all of our supplies from the supermarket. Managed as usual to have the fullest shopping trolley of everyone there. And then followed by the joy of driving into Komiza and experience my fear of heights whilst driving along the bends of the cliffside roads. Then back to the beach for some more fun in the sea, beers, sun and ice cream. The kids spent the early evening feeding all of the cats in Komiza with the kit-e-kat we bought in the supermarket. As a family we explored some of Komiza’s backstreets finding finally the market but still didn’t find the natural spring that Roman, our landlord, had told us about. we bought the best smelling olive oil on the way home and then played a game seeing if we could identify organic supermarket, non-organic supermarket and natural from here by smell. It was an easy game but still the differences were amazing. As the sun went down we sat on the patio looking at the night sky and the millions of stars drinking g&t / spritzer. I managed to see FIVE shooting stars – Gabi none. And I think now the 2nd time already on holiday Luna said “I am tired and off to bed” before we told her to. Tierra still needed telling. We witnessed the distant Croatian relative of our garden’s hedgehog who was young and nimble enough to manage four steps.

Tuesday, 13/07/10

Day started with breakfast on the patio and coffee on the deckchair looking out to sea listening to the crickets. Tierra playing with the new family pet, cat Theresia (her choice for the cats name). And me teaching the Croatian cat the internationally well known word “no” (with the help of wet flannel whipped skillfully across her nose). Morning was spent on the beach and I finished it off with a visit to Zoky (+385-98-784-615 / zoky@zoky.hr) the town’s (and maybe island’s) only barber to experience a new hobby of mine: testing “I want a George Clooney” in as many countries as I can. Well, he did Croatia/Vis/Komiza proud with I think the best haircut I have had for at least 10 years – and this considering the reduced amount of hair left to cut and work with to get the George Clooney look. Then back home to see the reactions: Tierra “huh? did you get it cut?” was the best. Then eating up the last three days leftovers before hitting the sack. After our siesta we headed off in search of some legendary white sandy beach. Well, if I thought the road down into Komiza was hell-on-earth for drivers-with-fear-of-heights then the coastal road was hell-on-a-hot-day. Miles of nothing more than overgrown pebbles stopping me and the family from experiencing bungee jumping without the rope. But we did survive but we didn’t find the beach but we did find Rukavac which reminded me a bit of Milna 20 years ago: two restaurants and a handful of old houses and a beach similar but larger than the “zwillingsbucht” – just as many sea anemone but no naked people. Lovely peaceful place to visit and even stay if your idea of fun is not having a bar on the beach. Was actually a little piece of heaven as the kids spent two hours playing with stones, building walls into the sea and no mention of shopping & ice cream cos there was not. But not so lovely when the missus is constantly nagging that “there will soon be no sun” … and all I am thinking is “I got the family here alive”, Then a quick beer in one of the local restaurants, perched on the edge of the sea, with a view to kill for, before heading to Vis; this time not parking in the weird pedestrian part just so that Luna could buy her SECOND pair of sunglasses. After all, she has got two eyes… After a wonderful sheeps cheese salad we retreated to spend an evening on the patio enjoying Our Sea View with Our Gin & Tonic.

Wednesday, 14/07/10

Had a bit of a bad nights sleep (actually having pretty horrible dreams the whole time so far – need to remember to bring bells, jos sticks and dream catcher next time!) but this time not due to nightmares but stomach cramps. What also seems to be tradition on our hols – or infact any longish trip for me I get Taurean Tummy which means a visit to the toilet every 30mins. So a quick diet of BRAT (banana, rice, apple and toast) together with mouthfuls of dried blueberries. Should be gone by this evening. I hope so cos the octopus salad that Gabi just made looked a LOT more interesting than my rice… Family spent most of the morning on the beach and me on the toilet. But made it down to the beach eventually. As I was not playing staying-on-the-surf-board with the kids, they invented some new games involving holding positions whilst dancing and one of us shouting “stop!” or “water wind fire”. In the evening we awoke Luna’s love for golf by playing mini golf. She was hard to stop – as soon as we’d finished our round and headed off for the nearby beach bar she started her next round. As we sat looking out to the dusk at sea she would keep running up to us with such news as “got a hole in one on hole 9″. Then we headed off into the old town and had the world’s best cookie ice cream – the family’s new favourite. After that my personal shopper, Gabi, picked out a lovely silk towel that I will now use on the beach – assuming I can leave the toilet long enough. Back to the patio to count shooting stars again. I only saw one but Tierra and Gabi saw 2 each. While we were doing this Luna was writing her plans for addressing the need to Leopoldsdorf’s Mayor that we need a mini golf course in our village. Tierra also made a cute drawing of how 9 holes could be setup.

Thursday, 15/07/10

Night was much better – just had to get up twice and each time only for a HUGE fart. But after yesterday I was taking no chances. The worst seems to have gone but still had rice+soy sauce for breakfast and lunch. Another beach day. And by the end of it I was back to normal and able to play stay-on-the-surf-board with the kids. Luna also did a tiny bit of scuba diving with me – although her scuba diving involves lying on the lilo hanging over the edge, looking briefly under water before surfacing with splutters and shaking out her goggles and saying “they don’t work, water keeps coming in”. In the evening on the patio Tierra then showed us her hip hop dancing talents as we listened to the Crookers album which fit perfect to enjoying the last of the days light, looking out to sea. Our teenager was lying on her bed watching films on her eeepc.

Friday, 16/07/10

Hot. Hot. Hot. We just heard from Roman that this is REALLY hot weather even by Komiza standards. Hotter than any day last year. Good to know that it is not just us. So we decided finally to switch on the air conditioning which at least makes it cool inside. Not icy cold like in the Park Lane Hotel but nicely bearable. Another beach morning with a quick visit to the bakery and fruit & veg market before. My digestion seems to have somehow regulated itself now – rice for breakfast seems to be working so that I can at least enjoy some other foods for dinner and tea. Heard about 42°C in Moscow and pleased to be near a nice cool sea as I imagine Vienna must be similar. Whoever invented siesta was a genious and I am now off to enjoy one. Thought VERY briefly for the 2nd time of work. Sent SMS to find out how things are and then forgot to look for replies. So it means that the holiday is working.

Saturday, 17/07/10

Half time has been reached. Relaxation pure has really started to work. Only two problems: “scorchio” also in the night and still my digestion/Gabis time of the month. The latter has at least got rid of another problem: Gabis pressure to get down to the beach in record timing. Today I turned into a German / Austrian as I was sent to the beach with towels to reserve the best spots on the beach (i.e. in the shade). More of the same down the beach: except after last night’s bad sleep was a bit hard especially the stay-on-the-surf-board game which, now with Luna, is becoming more like a new form of fitness training as I can now only shake her from the board with tricks. Even with Tierra it is getting harder. My attempts to stay on board are pathetic in comparison.

Sunday, 18/07/10

Another beach day. And we saw our first clouds after 8 days. But rather pathetic clouds compared to those we have seen in Austria this May and June. But it meant a welcome drop of a few °C. We now only have one cat left – not sure what happened to the other two but now only Mario is here. In the evening we watched the videos we had made so far and it was already clear to see this was the most relaxing holiday we have yet had. Croatian islands beat Italy EASILY also partly because of their spartan conditions and definitely not missing the Africans parading up and down the beaches with their clothes. Nothing against the Africans but when you have two girls and one wife it means a lot of shopping possibilities. And it is relaxing not to stretch ones wallet muscles tooooo much on holiday. Off out now for another mini golf open.

Monday, 19/07/10

Beach day. Early evening on patio looking at shooting stars again (each night we have seen at least two). But afterwards we wandered along the harbour looking into yachts and I realised that if we ever do a yachting holiday it will be expensive. VERY expensive. As the only yachts we liked were those similar to Roman Abramovich’s. The others (which were also huge) seemed to be like low budget mobile homes inside. I don’t consider it fun to spend two weeks sleeping in a bunk bed. This is of course on top of the main requirement that anybody I guess has who has seen the film Open Waters II: ladders going down into the water that are fixed to the yacht; cannot be removed; cannot be forgotten to be mounted when everyone jumps in the water.

Tuesday, 20/07/10

Went on a day trip in a boat to the Blue Caves on a neighbouring mini-island, Bisevo (www.srebrnatours.hr). Amazing. On the boat were only about 30 people, the loudest the Americans, and one of them looked like Sigourney Weaver which on the 45 minute journey to the island occupied my skewed mind: what would it be like to be married to the real Sigourney Weaver? If you sat opposite her at breakfast eating your cornflakes would you always be expecting a small creature to explode out of her stomach. Not exactly what I would call a relaxing marriage. Every sudden move would have me ducking for cover. Well, anyway we survived without any screeching and sticky monsters trying to get their tendrils down our throats and saw the Blue Caves which were amazing for two reasons: one the obvious amazing blue water which seemed to be lit up with special underwater lamps from Ikea but the most amazing thing was that our boat actually fit into the cave opening. Looked like mission impossible (I would have bet my house on the boat not fitting through the opening) but we got in their without losing our heads or ANY of the boat. Having seen the beautiful deep blue sea on the way to the island and then the incredible turquoise water in the caves I am beginning to think that the word used to describe the colour of Chelsea & Everton’s football shirts not good enough to describe Croatian sea colours. English needs new words for turquoise and blue. Then the boat took us onto the next port of call: a small cove, Porat Beach, with a couple of houses and three restaurants,one of which occupied our first two hours as we planned to have a quick meal but it ended up being a slow meal in a typically spartan restaurant – everything was really simple but the important thing was the food was excellent – but I am sure with the time they took making it they were cooking only with matches. Then the day spent on a sandy beach as if to remind us why we have come to love stoney beaches. Sand is simply a pain. Tierra and Luna enjoyed the sand briefly but by the end of the day both hated it. We had a “family swim” out into the cove and I think I swam the furthest I ever have from the coast (I have some kind of Woody Allen type phobia where I think I will not make it back – kind of like a horizontal fear of heights). During the trip and day we met a nice family of a similar cultural cocktail to us: wife from Croatia who is an English teacher, husband Spanish, with three giant boys. Infact everyone we met so far has been so nice. Even Sigourney’s double ended up being nice and had a story to tell which did not involve adventures in space stations. And Luna got to know one of the Americans, a girl called Phoebe, who amazed Luna cos she could talk quicker than she could: when Luna tells you something it is not a conversation but more like a brain dump done at Gigabit/second speed. Phoebe had obviously cracked the Terrabit/second barrier. The boat trip back home was much more relaxed as Tierra & Luna (who had both felt a bit queazy on the way over) got to actually enjoy it and Gabi sat on the front of the boat enjoying the sea spray in her face. Then back to our STONE beach to enjoy the last of the sun and Gabi managed to exhaust herself doing the crawl with my snorkel gear. Evening looking into the yachts again: from about 50 yachts there only two were acceptable – the type you would expect to see James Bond hanging out in. VERY VERY EXPENSIVE. First night where none of us saw a shooting star.

Wednesday, 21/07/10

Another beach day. But now we officially reached the part of every good holiday that I hate: the countdown-to-going-home. This involves things like “last time we will do this” and “emptying the fridge”. But the worst part are things like “oh my god, 1700 emails are waiting for me” – i.e. thinking of work and life back home start to come to the forefront of my mind. I am trying to resist and enjoy “the now” and I think I am doing better than usual as I still feel incredibly happy and relaxed. Finally changed from sunfactor 50 to 20 as I noticed I am actually not getting brown. Strange to think that years ago sun factor 2 with that lovely smelling Ambre Solaire oil was standard. I assume it is about as effective as sweat or just not showering for a day. But it is sad that the smell once defined “summer” to me seems now to have vanished forever. Have now decided I will try to continue writing the latest book that I started – incase you don’t know, I am now trying to write my first book – which has nothing to do with work but more to do with life. The evening ended (after our traditional cookie ice-cream / yacht stalking on the harbour) on our neighbour’s patio as we ere invited to their farewell meal with Roman and Nikolai (Roman cooks a mean seafood risoto – incredibly good – even though we were officially full by the time he presented it to us). The meal had an interesting mix of nationalities resulting in the language being a mix of German-English-Croatian-Polish – sometimes a bit hard to follow but fun. And the amazing thing is that it seems it is possible to talk to almost any man in the world about premier league football. Got the great news from our Croatian neighbour (Man Utd fan!) that Joe Cole has signed for Liverpool, Gerrard said no to Mourinho and Torres is still there. All of which made the evening even more enjoyable. We really have no idea what is going on outside of this island (actually outside of Komiza): no newspapers, no TV, no radio. Austria could have been annexed by Russia / England nullified the independence of the USA / … and we would not know anything about it. Anyway a really nice night only interrupted by a hysterical Tierra with her blocked nose who could not sleep -and so was keeping Luna awake. Bad combination. Looked like we finally resolved it (I stroked Luna to sleep and Gabi lay with Tierra until she slept) and we collapsed into bed.

But then in the middle of the night Tierra’s blocked nose turned into some kind of more serious bronchial cough. Which meant a swapping of beds and me moving into Tierra’s – but also MUCH WORSE the turning off of the aircon which suddenly became ENEMY NO.1 for Gabi. And meant sleeping-in-a-sauna for all of us.

Thursday, 22/07/10

All very tired from the night’s activities with Tierra. Gabi found the pharmacy in the town and then took Tierra to the doctors. And the fatigue ruled out finally our planned day-trip to Milna (Vis’s Milna not Hvar’s Milna) – we were anyway considering cancelling as we enjoy our beach/patio/cookie-ice rhythm that we didn’t really want to disturb it but just to continue to enjoy the last couple of days like this. We are after-all Taureans and so not real adventurers and more enjoyers. I am pretty sure if EVERYONE had been born in Taurus-time we would still believe the world was flat and would not have discovered America or Australia.

So back from the doctors (apparently very nice bloke who could speak broken English) we got the news that Tierra’s cough is not life threatening (as Gabi and I guess all mothers of the world seem to immediately assume) and she just has to avoid ice-cream, going in the sea, sitting in the sun. So, very glad this is happening at the tail end of the holiday and not at the beginning which would have made the whole 2 weeks hell for her. Best news was the doc said the aircon was ok and actually good in this case as Tierra had a slight temperature. I love Croatian doctors. Luna and I went to the beach but my tummy is also playing up again a bit so there was no stay-on-the-surf-board game. Just chilling. Infact the whole morning was chillout time – Gabi and Tierra came to join us with Tierra sitting under the sun shade. We of course did not skip our traditional “Gemist” (white wine spritzer) on the beach (Gabi & I, not the kids). And Luna got her first ice-cream for the day and Tierra got a lollipop instead. Long siesta followed by another trip to the beach.

Friday, 23/07/10

The last full day in Komiza. And the usual routine except for the packing. Tierra was pretty bad all morning but by the afternoon had brightened up and by the end of the day was back to herself jumping around in the water. Luna learnt underwater diving for stones and also distance: she improved from about 2m to I guess 6m. Gabi noticed a great tradition here: the fruit tree farmers leave some ripe peaches on the trees for the bees during the dry weeks – makes sense so that they are alive next year to pollinate. In the evening we headed for the harbour again to buy the girls their traditional holiday jewelry. Tierra found a lovely moonstone necklace which suited her beautifully but just before we went off to buy Luna’s she had a HUGE argument with Gabi during which she swore at her and basically lost all rights for anything. For some reason, even though we are sad it is over it feels like it lasted longer than the past couple of years although each of these holidays was two weeks too. Probably cos everything is so easy to reach here and the place is just perfect. What I can say though is that Komiza fulfilled our simple (but somehow hard to meet) requirements completely: relaxation as a family.

Saturday, 24/07/10

Left Komiza at 8:30 to get in the queue in Vis by 9am which was as on the way over WAY TOO EARLY. Could have slept or swam for another hour – Gabi had a 30minute swim at 7am which she totally loved and said next year she would do this every day. Hmmm, how come I don’t quite believe her. Maybe cos I know how much she loves just dosing around in bed, half asleep, purring and stretching like a cat. Spent the morning in Vis and were totally happy that we spent two weeks in Komiza and not Vis: the people in Komiza seem friendlier / more laid back and the place is generally more compatible with a swimming holiday – in Vis the beaches are tiny and scattered throughout the town with the largest (smaller than Komiza’s) miles away from most appartments. And Komiza seems cheaper. Got Luna her moonstone necklace as she seemed to briefly behave again. The boat trip to Split seemed much faster than the one to Vis – even though both directions are 2.5hrs. Now just got to find the hotel again where we will spend one night on the edge of Split again before the L.O.N.G. journey home again tomorrow.

First horror was that the hotel we had spent our first night in had somehow lost the booking for our final night. Note to self: in the modern world never deal with people; only book over the internet! Luckily the receptionist found us a better room at a neighbouring apartment for almost half the price (and I can thoroughly recommend this place for anyone needing to stopover in Split:  Apartments Nika, Kralja Zvonimira 32, 21312 Podstrana, +385-98-179-1121, marija.lalic@gmail.com). So ended up AOK. We then had a quick swim (well Tierra and I did) but got a big reminder of how special Komiza was and how great it’s beach/sea/everything was. This was kind of like laying on a gravel path – and, cos of a storm, the sea was not soooo inviting.

We then decided to quickly find a supermarket to buy breakfast for the next day only for me to find a new anti-theft function of my car (I guess all car owners will be laughing now but I never used the lock function before and so was a bit surprised when somehow I activated it and the car wouldn’t start). Well, I got out the manual and solved the problem and removed the panic of being stuck in Split.

We had the best part of the day as we hit the beach for the 2nd time, for our evening meal: sitting on the sea front, listening to the waves, watching the sun go down with probably the best cevapcici I have ever eaten – I had no idea that cevapcici could be so good. At 10pm we hit the sack and I slept like a baby without tooth ache / stomach problems / nightmares / hunger for milk – actually where does the saying “sleep like a baby” come from? Baby’s sleep terribly. So I slept like me-after-a-long-but-good-day.

Sunday, 25/07/10

So the absolute worst bit of the holiday: the drive home. The drive to Split was bad cos of the length but at least then we were about to start our holiday and head to a beautiful island with lots of surprises ahead. Now it was back to work and as we heard on the weather reports bad weather and I predicted 1700 emails to deal with on my first day back at work. In addition to the expected bad stuff between Split and Zagreb (about 4hours) there were terrible winds and I was so pleased we had not, as at one point planned, bought a mobile home or even a roof box. At one point the winds were so bad that the max speed was reduced from 130kmh to 40kmh. As we passed the winds my hands almost had cramps and my neck and back were in serious need for a massage. Add to the wind the same number of Zagreb matchkos as on the way to Split and it was just horrible. The Zagreb matchkos all seem for some reason to drive German made cars – infact I would go so far as to say that 90% of BMW/Mercedes/Audi car drivers had obviously been told while learning to drive that “when in the outside lane of the motorway, the aim is to drive as close as possible to the car in front without actually getting inside the boot”. Had a relatively short wait at the border and was soooo pleased that Slovenia is in Schengen which meant at least there we had no passport controls. But we still managed to waste more than an hour in various queues. And it was my fault as I had refused to believe Gabi’s instincts it seemed that every queue I got into whether it be for the toll roads or the borders I got in the worst of all of the queues (and Gabi’s recommended queue was ALWAYS the best one). I guess this was to re-teach me the life-lesson of patience which I thought I had learnt through living in England and waiting for buses or the visits I have since had and waiting for trains. Obviously this lesson is not yet over. Or it was to teach me again that my wife always knows best.

As we hit Austria had the great experience of paying €15 for 2 coffees and three fruit juices. The words “taking the piss” came to mind. As I reached home it did rain a bit and infact I only had 997 emails waiting for me – so it wasn’t all bad but already missing Komiza.

Mostly this is focused on my eeepc but is also more and more valid for my desktop as I see my favourite apps converging.
On my eeepc I am currently running Linux Mint Fluxbox edition V8. So I am also on the look-out for non-KDE and non-gnome applications. My desktop is still using gnome but I am considering a move to LXDE to make things faster.
This list is something that keeps evolving as the opensource world keeps coming up with an even better app to do the job – where I often thought I was totally happy with the solution I had. Also, sometimes a newer version comes along from an app I tried and gave up on (e.g. evolution where version 2.28 got rid of some of the problems I had had with 2.26 and beat thunderbird to become my PIM of choice – especially after performance problems with thunderbird’s lightning – esp. in TB 3.x). But on top of this there is a handy set of “mini apps” that use the evolution database but with a very simplified view and focus on doing one part of the PIM story well, and to fit the concept the apps have simple obvious names: contacts, tasks and dates. I use only really contacts as a VERY quick address book. Dates still seems to have a problem with timezone settings and I don’t use the todo functionality of a PIM as I am using Zim for this.

Note taking / personal wiki: zim. I also use this to track my todos. Chosen as it is available also on windows and because it just works. I also use it for the draft version of my blog.

Journal/diary: for just clearing my head of thoughts and a little bit of a diary I am using Rednotebook. Maybe I will start using this more than zim in the future but as I just found this I am still working out how and when to fit this into my life.

Flegita replaced xsane for scanning. Much more compact if not quite as powerful (only scans into .png files but if I need to I can use imagemagick to convert to jpg).

GCStar the application I have used to meticulously catalogue my downloaded film collection. It is definitely worth doing this as I see my online catalogue growing slowly towards the 1TB limit of my NAS I cannot think now of living without this. So start as soon as you can – catching up later (as I found out) is a PAIN. GCstar works perfectly for my needs (basically I can add comments & genre (as I see fit – not tied into pre-defined genres) and of course mark as seen or not – these are my biggest requirements but you should also check yours. Of course there is a download from imdb.com (and others) for initial reviews.

Photo viewer: here I keep going round and round in circles and cannot make my mind up what I want. Whilst picasa is the outright clear winner on my desktop I have just moved back to gthumb on my eeepc after trying shotwell (took up too much cache with no way to stop caching & and had no zoom), solang (too unstable in V0.3) and also picasa (too big for my eeepc). I still have picasa installed on my desktop as I also use the upload to web feature there. I still have gpicview installed for really quick viewing and zoom.

Graphical editing: the simple solution is mtpaint – much better for my eeepc than gimp and has the functions I most regularly need and 10% of the footprint. I still have gimp installed on my desktop for more complex graphical design. Also uninstalled gnupaint which was no longer needed.

Music player: exaile. Is getting better and better although the crossfading seems not to work yet – or not consistent. I still prefer to all but amarok but on my eeepc I don’t want the kde libs installed.

Conky is a cool little tool for monitoring my pc – I use it for diskspace, CPU & RAM usage, network traffic and also battery. It put’s it output onto the desktop and is AMAZINGLY configurable.

Keepassx is still my password & PIN manager.
Guake is my terminal of preference.

Ok, office remains open office. I have gnumeric installed but only cos of ssindex which is needed for beagle to find stuff on my linux PCs. On top of this planner for my project planning and Dia for flowchart & visio type stuff.

Dictionary I am using starDict and have installed English, English to German and indonesian dictionaries that I need for work. Would like some more dictionaries (e.g. Indonesian and German to English) but otherwise love it.

Search: well beagle is not perfect but the only one to really find everything without needing an index as big as the data I am indexing (the only problem with recoll). I am not totally happy with beagle here but I still need to mess around a bit more to make it work as intended.

Programming editing: ok, programming is a bit of an exageration but editing html is done with bluefish. Simple and lightweight.

Filezilla for FTPing, galculator for calculator (10% of the size of GCalcTool but containing all the functionality that I ever use), mousepad text editor (although I usually use vi), nautilus file manager (with dropbox plugin), gsopcast for my online footie, idesk for my desktop, gsimplecal for my pulldown calendar (just replaced orage), VolumeIcon for volume control, xfce-power-manager, unetbootin to make bootable usb drives, skype, syncevolution for PIM sync, rsync as basis for my own backup scripts, wicd network manager and just about to install vpnc for vpn access to my work network, Firefox for browsing (see my previous blog about this), pidgin IM although I did take a quick look at empathy but there was too much gnome included in it.

And finally, my current project is remote access / control of my desktop and currently got vinagre for vnc access but not yet happy and so trying qtnx/freenx. I want to do this currently simply to control exaile running on my desktop from the patio where the wireless speakers usually are during the summer.

As I said at the beginning, I expect this list to keep changing as the open source world is changing SO fast. I would also love to know what you are using so that maybe I can find some new apps.

Over the past year I have tried out most of them as my firefox 3.0 became unstable and sooooo slow but:
1. As I am running on a mostly linux, partly windows setup, no mac or iphone I could not test Safari.
2. As I am slightly aware of security issues and want a standards compliant browser I would not test IE.

So for me the battle is between Opera, Firefox and Chrome… Let the battle begin…
OPERA (V10)
+
The speed dial function is FANTASTIC!
The whole installation is simple as it just comes with MOST of the things you need like flash and java support.
For me this is the BEST out-of-the-box solution.
-
Not supported on all web pages. Notably google wave which seems a bit of a mean tactic  of the 3rd Evil Empire. But it can immitate other browsers with a simple mouseclick.
A little bit tricky to add delicious icon – infact this is the biggest minus in that it is not very configurable. But if you don’t tweek a lot then it is fine. I do tweek a lot. Always and everywhere!

There are also a lot of features that I never got round to using, like sync of bookmarks (cos I use delicious for this) which other people are raving about.
CHROME (V4.0)
Well this is the hardest to review as it is changing literally by the week. For example there are now extensions which was a minus point about 2 weeks ago.
+
Fast.
Very sleek and simple and minimalistic user interface.
Stable. Due to each tab not being able to effect the others it is much easier to stop or kill a rogue tab.
Also seems to come with most functionality just working.
-
There is still the supposed fear that google will get ALL of the info about you on the internet. I have no idea how much data is passed back to google.
There is not much of a chance to configure things like how much disk space it should use. Chrome is currently chewing up over 100MB of my disk and growing and I can’t do anything about it (on a 4GB eeepc 100MB is a lot!!).
For this reason I started looking at what the Foundation was doing now almost a year after I left them.

FIREFOX (V3.5 / V3.6.2)
+
The extensions. For everything you could possibly want there seems to be an extension available. i.e. having tasted the speed dialing in opera I found an addon for firefox which did just that. I also managed with strata theme to look pretty similar to chrome.
Brilliant adherence to standards.
Works pretty much everywhere.
Available for all OSes and now with firefox mobile even for your phone.
Has THE best support forums for all OS versions.
-
The extensions. The downside is that many extensions make FF either unstable or ridiculously slow. And finding out which one(s) is not easy.
Slow.
Unstable.
UPDATE: I just went round in circles and after being REALLY restrictive with my addons (on my eeepc I have  “classic compact options”, “compact menu 2″, “delicious bookmarks”,  “speed dial”, “stop or reload button”, “download manager tweak”, “handy tab” and the stratini theme) ff is now stable + fast.
With this setup I seem to have the best of all worlds.
And of course to look after my SSD I have set via about:config the following:
browser.cache.disk.enable; false
browser.cache.memory.enable;true
Also removed the search field (cos I have defined g to be google, w to be wikipedia and d to be delicious). Incase you didn’t know: you can add ANY search field to be used in firefox by doing the following:
1. Right click inside the search box.
2. Choose “Add a Keyword for this Search.”
3. Pick a name and shortcut key for it (e.g. “d” for delicious). The shortcut key can then be used to search in address field. So that “g liverpool arsenal online” will search in google for “liverpool arsenal online”).

Summary
I can say now there is no clear winner and it all depends on what you want to do. But firefox for me just replaced chrome to become my default browser again. It looks like in the releases between 3.0 and 3.5, firefox has come a long way and also it makes sense (at least on my eeepc) to be restrictive with addons. Especially those which analyse the content of pages: surprisingly addons like adblocker which are supposed to improve performance tended actually to slow the whole thing down.

So I guess my recommendation today (late 2009, early 2010) is:
1. out of the box winner: opera
2. tweekers dream: firefox
3. speed alone: chrome
4. best supported (i.e. least problems when viewing web pages): firefox
BUT I expect chrome to challenge both over 2010  so expect to see the 3rd Evil Empire seriously attack the old Evil Empire as soon-to-launch chromeOS (where chrome browser is an integral part) looks to be heading to become THE cloudOS (well maybe still behind jolicloud but with more money… looks like another blog is forming in my mind … The battle to be the perfect cloudOS …).

But I also think it will be interesting to see what else the browser evolves into if you look at Opera’s Unite / integrated web server and also things like Mozilla Weave.

Hmm, would you fall for this?

The problem is that this is what happens when you install any application on facebook. And probably what each advertiser can see.
So, is facebook intentionally evil. No, but they obviously need to make money.

I would personally prefer an advert free / private version that I pay €5 / month for.

Yes, unfortunately I do think facebook is worth paying for if they can guarantee my privacy. It would then be nice to get 24×7 support line for when things go very wrong(like with friends and my wife’s accounts which were totally offline for 48hrs). And it would be nice to get a better foto uploader (more like picasa’s / less like something from 1999).

If these things could be guaranteed then I would use fb much more openly, much more often and it would become much more useful.
At the moment I don’t see this happening. And at the moment I see people getting around this by faking data, not uploading fotos of their kids, not really saying what is important to them… Which kind of defeats the point. For everyone. Including advertisers who can no longer be sure that this “important social data” is actually anywhere near the truth.

Which means there is a hole in the market. FB is in the optimal position to fill this. But will Mark get passed those $ signs blinding his vision?

Facebook has some great features: knowing what your friends are doing, seeing this and also one real plus point is that their messaging system is NOT email. Which means when you get a message there then it really is from a friend. Not spam, not a regular newsletter email, not work, but from the people that matter. All of this is totally pointless if I cannot trust facebook with my information.

Don’t say I didn’t warn u Mark.

Never have the mistakes of so few been paid for by so many, so many times.

The financial crash seems to now be reaching new levels – it is not over. Not even really started.

But the one thing that is now starting to make me boil and rant is that people like me, a man in the street are paying for it in so many ways.

Here are a couple of examples:

1- worst case getting laid off to save costs

2- absolutely no chance of pay rise in the last 12 months or next 12 months – more likely a pay drop but more work to deal with unfortunate colleagues caught by 1.

3- no chance to change to a better job as hiring is vanished (I am btw not really looking, but still I am still “lucky”)

4- cost saving plans across the board by employers on things like business class flights (even for overnight long haul flights! which I personally think Amnesty should get busy on)

5- depressed atmosphere almost everywhere I go (unless the people are drunk!)

6- reduced service everywhere as companies save costs

7- reduced quality of products ditto

So we are losing out in our jobs and also in the goods & services we buy. i.e. we are not only getting less money but getting less for our money.

But as we are all involved in this cost cutting the company’s margins are not cut as badly.

Which means that the bankers on wall street who caused all of this continue to get MASSIVE bonuses.

I no longer think Al Qaida is our biggest enemy. This is a smokescreen. We are.

I wonder how far we can be pushed.

Now should I send a facebook event invite out to join World War III?

Would you accept?

My IT Zoo
So again (for those who have read other blogs you can skip this paragraph) a bit about my rather mixed setup: at work I have a windows XP box (yuk) with outlook 2003 (yukkier), at home desktop is opensuse 11.1 and evolution (although even here I have considered easypeasy cos I have got so used to the netbook remixer launcher!). And then there is my eeepc (also using evolution as my PIM) and a couple of mobile phones (nokia for work and SE for play). And a very old laptop almost never used with windows XP on it. And I try to keep everything up2date… Automagically.

Connecting
On my eeepc I use WiCD instead of the normal gnome network manager. Add the repository and install WiCD (gnome-network-manager will then be deinstalled automatically to avoid conflicts) and then it just works:
deb http://apt.wicd.net jaunty extras
wget -q http://apt.wicd.net/wicd.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo gpg –keyserver http://deb.opera.com –recv-keys F9A2F76A9D1A0061

PIM Data
So first of all my PIM data is synchronised using the fantastic scheduleworld.com. This seems to have plugins for everything thanks a lot to some really good opensource work from funambol, genesis and syncevolution. Had some problems getting it working on opensuse (weird cos of the Novel – evolution connection) but eventually got all syncing and the biggest problem I had was getting a couple of events doubled. NOTHING deleted and ALL data synced. And I have over 1000 contacts and a busy calendar schedule THANKS to work. I suppose in today’s crazy world I SHOULD be happy about this.

Install syncevolution and follow the general howtos you can find on syncevolution.com & scheduleworld.com which depends on the setup you have. Here’s the package link you will need:
deb http://downloads.syncevolution.org/apt stable main

Here is the repository info for Genesis (which is basically a nice and SIMPLE front end to the rather difficult to understand config files from syncevolution):
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/frederik-elwert/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/frederik-elwert/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys A5BEC8B5

Email
This is surprisingly the least cloud-ed of all of my data. The only part here is gmail which houses my personal email. My work email stays in outlook where it belongs. Every so often I manually upload my outlook contacts into gmail. I have played with various plugins both in outlook (but this seemed to effect the performance of outlook too much) and earlier with Thunderbird. I gave up with Thunderbird when V2.0 somehow almost ground to a halt – i.e. the performance just got so bad – especially on my eeepc but also not much better on my suse box. If I was running the mozilla projects now I would be focussing #1 on performance for the next versions.

IM
Very simple: using pidgin with my gtalk and yahoo messenger accounts. And skype.

Surfing
Well I spent years with firefox but have recently switched to opera V10 as it is just much more stable and FASTER. Whilst on the firefox path I also tried the prism apps (gmail, googlereader, facebook, twitter, …) but they had some annoying drawbacks such as not taking my firefox download settings but also not being able to save images and in the end on my eeepc I had to pick either the Firefox way or Opera (I only have 4GB of SSD). Also had a look at jolicloud but as this is also seems to be based on firefox/prism it suffers from the same problems. Now a jolicloud based on opera would be good or mozilla speeding up firefox…

One changes I made to the default (interesting for all SSD owners) is I added the line:
Cache Directory4=/tmp
in userprefs section of $HOME/.opera/operaprefs.ini. This forces opera to use /tmp for MOST of its cache files. In the vanilla easypeasy form /tmp is mapped to RAM and so is also cleaned up at reboot. In addition to stop the other major cache topic is goto Options-Advanced-History and unclick “remember content on visited pages”. This not only saves SSD usage but also quite a bit of diskspace but this of course has the disadvantages that regularly visited pages will not be cached by opera thus slowing it all a bit – for me this is preferable.

The Opera repository info:
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ sid non-free
gpg –keyserver http://deb.opera.com –recv-keys F9A2F76A9D1A0061

Bookmarks
For bookmarks I am using of course delicious which with opera is a little more complex than it was with firefox but (un)fortunately opera is just so much faster and stable.
If you are using firefox you automatically have delicious as a search engine and just need to get the delicious add-on for the easy tagging icon – this is one HUGE advantage of firefox over opera – i.e. the ease of adding extensions. But then also it is one that I have found is a disadvantage as it tends to push you to bloat the already bloated firefox with rarely used add-ons.
Now using Opera as a browser and wanting to add a search pulldown for delicious requires you to add manually following into a new search type (Tools-Preferences-Search-Add):

http://delicious.com/search?p=%s&chk=&context=search%7C&fr=del_icio_us&lc=

You can ger the bookmarklets at http://delicious.com/help/bookmarklets and then make sure the personal toolbar is visible and then drag the widgets up to the toolbar.

Storage
For my “cloud storage” I am using Dropbox which just works wonderful with nautilus (both on suse & easypeasy) and XP explorer. I am still ok with the free 2GB limit. Using cloud storage on a netbook has various advantages:
- obviously you can easily sync with other devices
- you get your data backed up
- if you use it ruthlessly (like I do) there is little else to be backed up when you decide to update your OS (i.e. there a few config files that I have carefully trimmed that I save but then only once and never again)
What I do recommend (especially based on the sidekick fiasco recently) is of course “somewhere” in your device zoo to backup regularly the complete dropbox directory. I imagine the horror otherwise of one day when dropbox has its first major problem of it syncing zero with all devices.

Dropbox:
either directly via https://www.getdropbox.com/downloading?os=lnx
or better is to add the repositories:
deb http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu jaunty main
gpg –keyserver pgp.mit.edu –recv-keys 3565780E

Office
If I want to share my docs (often) I am using Zoho & openoffice (OO) and MSOffice plugins and as I ruthlessly save everything to my dropbox it also means the docs are also on dropbox and so all of my other devices. Kind of double clouded but sometimes I like to send people the zoho link e.g. when I want to collaborate with them on a document OR the other extreme I want to give them read only access and then if I want to give them the doc I put it in my drobox public foldder and send then the dropbox link.
As I need to use both OO and MSOffice I keep things simple using microsoft formats. But if I need to, zoho can handle both native formats.
Goto the zoho website to get the plugin for MSOffice and for openoffice goto the openoffice addons page and look for the gdocs_1.6.0.oxt extension (works for both zoho and googledocs).

Social Networking
There are a whole set of tools that can give you a kind of dashboard view of your social networks although mostly twitter and facebook are the only ones well supported. Well I played with lots, settled for a while with gwibber but am now currently using tweetdeck which is an Adobe Air application and lovely so far. The only downside although is it does seem a little CPU intensive but I will learn a bit more.
To do this:
Ensure you have downloaded the latest version of Adobe AIR from

http://get.adobe.com/air

Download the latest Tweetdeck AIR file from:

http://tweetdeck.com/go/download/tweetdeck

I found the easiest way was to save the tweetdeck app, open Adobe Air Installer, locate the tweetdeck…bin file and install like that. Other direct ways from tweetdeck.com didn’t work for me but this could also be an opera problem…
So far I have not yet found a ubuntu or easypeasy repository for this…

But there is a downside – not necessarily for the sponge down the pub … but for the others physically local to one of the facebook sponges attending the online nightly hen-nights.

What chance do personal communications at home have when the alternative is what is like a WHOLE room full of friends all talking at the same time about totally different topics, i.e. all of your facebook sponge friends. i.e. try to have a conversation in your own living room with (mostly) the female parts of the family all tied up in some chat/wall-ing/game/… activity on fb.

I suspect a whole generation of kids will grow up being neglected not due to their parents having nights out at the pub but nights in tied to the computer.

So will there soon be facebook self help groups?
“Hi I’m Alan and I am a facebook addict…”

But its not all bad. There are things you find out about friends that you would not have found out otherwise – not even if you got ridiculously drunk. Like which of the seven dwarfs you are most like.
And there is no hangover the next morning.

Note: this is the first in a new series I am doing with a photographer friend of mine from Jakarta, Athalia, to show how globalisation can have some positive sides when done bottom-up instead of top-down. Over the next few weeks I will use her fotos to try and inspire the flavour of my blog.

Living Large Jakarta - photos by Athalia

This weeks foto shows to me perfectly how communication used to happen in days before facebook.

(*) for non-english native speakers: a hen night is the female equivalent of a stag night, i.e. the last wild night out with mates of the same sex before getting married. It seems to have been successfully exported from England over the last 15 years to at least mainland Europe, in much the same manner as our other great export, football hooliganism. For a man out on the town without his better-half, a hen night which has-not-pulled can be potentially as frightening as bumping into an unsuccessful stag night resorting to the last option for a “fun night out”,  i.e. up-for-a-fight.