Scott Huffman Weblog

I’ve used Linux before, quite a bit actually. During my college studies for Computer Science, I used for Linux exclusively for 2 semesters on my laptop and desktop. After graduation, however, I’ve been working at a company that uses Microsoft operating systems and business software.

My favorite Linux distribution is Ubuntu. It’s easy to install and setup, it’s easy to maintain with apt-get for updates (and a graphical update manager). There’s even tech support if I have issues. There aren’t many distros that will support their OS outside of a forum community. Ubuntu has a document that helps in the transition from Windows to Linux. I’ve decided that I’m going to approach this project from a “new” Linux user perspective to see if I’ve missed anything learning how to use Linux as an everyday OS from just hacking through it before. My wife has never used Linux, so going through this stuff will probably help her get used to it as well.

Here’s where I’ve gotten in my switch:

• I have started working at home on organizing my data so that backing up and transferring it will be quick and (hopefully) painless.
• I don’t think that use any proprietary file formats that are not supported on Linux.
• I use online services like Gmail and Gcal for organization, so Windows applications like Outlook, etc aren’t necessary on Linux.
• I think my biggest concern at this point is getting my photo printer to work.

Something that I would like to do before completely switching is setting up a file server to serve my photos and music through NFS when I’m at home. Setting up automatic backups is another thing that would be nice to figure out before switching completely as well.

I have a goal of switching completely over to Linux before soon after Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” is released sometime in April.

Lifehacker posted their Top 10 Firefox Extensions today. I have used a few of those extensions, and especially like the Foxmarks bookmark synchronizer extension.

Another Firefox extension that I use a lot is the FaviconizeTab extension. It allows for your “favorite” tabs to be shrunk in size, only showing the icon for the site. I typically do this with my Gmail and Google Calendar tabs, so that I can fit more tabs that I need the text for on the tab bar.

Amit Agarwal at DigitalInspiration shared a list of the Top Ten Freeware Applications For Microsoft.

I had never heard of Windows Live Writer until today, so I downloaded it and am presently typing this post in the software. Windows Live Writer (WLW) is a Windows-based, WYSIWYG blog editor that works with most blogging platforms out there. The setup for this WordPress blog was very easy, taking about 30 seconds once I remembered the login information for my account.

As you can see from the screenshot, the interface is reminiscent of Microsoft Word, but is very uncomplicated. I think I’ll try using this tool for a while and continue making comments on it. The ability to work on different blogs with the same tool is very attractive to me.

I saw a new feature on my Google Homepage this morning. They have added themes to the settings. Along with the themes, you can add your location so that the theme can change throughout the day. Right now I’m using the “Beach” theme. I think that this feature doesn’t have much use for productivity other than being a very fuzzy timekeeping device. However, it strikes me as a “cool” feature for Google to have. I’m use to their fairly plain and utilitarian pages. This is a good change for them. You can of course choose not to apply any theme.

For the past 3 months or so, I’ve been using Google Calendar as an informal way of managing my todo list. I would create an appointment for the time when I need to be reminded of the task, and I would get an SMS reminding me of the task. This was nice, I just didn’t have a very good way of pushing back tasks, or hitting a “snooze”, or even showing that the task was complete.

I decided to experiment using Gmail for todo list management. I created a “_todo” label (to keep the label near the top of my list of labels). I created a filter so that all emails coming into my gmail account with a subject starting with “todo - ” would be automatically added to the todo label, archived, and starred. This worked pretty good, but I ran into an almost random dilemma. I received an email from a friend with a subject starting with “todo - “, and it got added to my todo list. That isn’t so good. I added the incoming email address to be my work email address which is where most of my todo list items originate.

After using this system for a few days, I realized that using a special email address for adding todo entries would work well. On my personal website domain, I have Google Apps enabled, so that I can create custom email addresses and using Gmail forwarding for those email addresses. I created a new “todo” email account, that forwards all the email it gets to my Gmail account. On the Gmail side, I have a filter that takes all email sent to the todo account and places it in the todo label, stars and archives it. That way, only someone who knows about the account can send me a todo, and I can send myself a todo through any email account and using SMS on phone. When the todo item is created, it is starred and unread. I then read the todo item, showing that it has been processed. When the item is complete, I unstar the item. I now have a list of completed tasks as well. The included picture shows how it looks.

Now for the HowTo:

1. Create a new email address with a service that allows for email forwarding.
2. Forward all the email from the new address to your current main Gmail address.
3. Create a new label for todo items.
4. Create a filter for all items sent to your “todo account” to be added to the todo label; star & archive the new item as well.
5. You can now send a new todo item to your “todo account” and have todo items automatically added to your Gmail account.

I like managing my todo list in the same place that I manage my email, although sometimes a reminder is needed when the task has a definite deadline. I still use Google Calendar for reminders to bring something to work in the morning, or perhaps to check a certain website at a certain time during the day.

This past Saturday, I helped my company move to a new office. Our old office was located in a suburban commercial office “park” with a bunch of other offices. Our new office is located in the middle of downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan (Google maps here).

The location is a big advantage for me, being 50% closer to home. The open environment and the fact that I get a window make the new office a big win for me. Parking isn’t too much of a worry, but I’m sure that certains days of the week will be worse than others because our building is located within a block of the Van Andel Arena.

I’ve never worked in a downtown office, so this experience is a new one for me. I hope that during the Spring, Summer and Fall months that I’ll be able to eat lunch by the Grand River and get out of the office a little easier than before. There’s nothing like escaping the office for an hour or so in the middle of the day.

Philipp Lenssen is giving away copies of his book "55 Ways to Have Fun With Google".  I've been paging through it the last few minutes and there are some interesting things that can be done with Google.

The book has a good mix of fun stuff to do with Google and some history of search engines mixed in.  The section on Egogoogling is hilarious.  Type "<your first name> is" into Google Search and it will usually bring up a page with something interesting to say.  My first name, Scott has an interesting first search result: ScottIsInnocent.com.  While I'm definitely not in support of this cause, I'm sure my wife will finally understand that I can do no wrong (hahaha).

There is also a section on how much time Google saves us.  Tasks like opening a coconut are much faster with Google.  What can Google not help us with?

The book has sections about Google Sketchup and Google Maps Mashups.

The book has some interesting material, definitely some fun stuff to show people at the office.

Ever since I started college, I've been "planning" on getting a Mac, but it just hasn't worked out so far.  Every time I get close to pulling the trigger on a iBook, MacBook, PowerBook or MacBook Pro I seem to talk myself out of it.  There are many reasons why I hold back.  First and foremost is the financial aspects of buying a Mac.  It is more expensive to acquire Mac hardware (the so-called "Apple Tax").  Another reason is application availability.  I can't run AutoCAD, MicroStation, or most other design apps I use on Mac OS X.  Applications like Microsoft Office, Firefox and Adium/iChat are there in Mac OS X, so my basic computer needs are met.  The third and probably smallest reason is a fear of the unknown.  I've used OS X a little bit of and on at school or on a friend's computer.  I hope that I'll be just as much or more productive on a Mac, but I can't prove it.

All the reasons that I am stating except for cost are going away because of hardware emulation via Parallels or the availability of Windows natively on the Mac Hardware with Bootcamp.  I see more of this convergence coming in the future.  I believe that the increased relevance of Linux on the desktop is actually helping the Mac become more mainstream as well.  Application developers are discovering that cross-platform availability is a very attractive selling point for much of their audience.

For the last few months I've been reading all my RSS feeds through RSS Bandit.  Whenever I come across an interesting blog, podcast or news site I usually subscribe to the feed.  This cuts down on my surfing time at the office (a good thing), but I also see a lot of repetitive information.  Every couple weeks or so I look through my feeds and discard ones that I'm not currently reading regularly.

I currently have 29 feeds, which is probably an average amount for me.  Sites like Lifehacker, Digg, Engadget and Ars Technica are ones that I usually read thoroughly.  I'm amazed at how much information is usually repeated between all these news sources.  I find that unique news can fall through the cracks because I'm quickly scrolling through 2/3rds of the new feed updates because they're repeats.  I think sites that use tagging are useful to sort of types of news, but not as good at lumping together similar stories.  A more intelligent "auto-tagging" would be useful, but difficult to implement.  A simple, but less accurate way would be to create a tagset for a blog post or other news item based on the words in the title line.  If multiple posts share a certain percentage (let's say 80%) of the words in the title of the other posts, then they can be considered to be the same post.  I know that sounds like a good way to miss even more unique content, but I'm not sure how to implement something more sophisticated that isn't going to take forever.  Starting with a spam-filtering algorithm might help match up posts better by searching the entire blog post.

After the jump, I'll post the contents my current OPML file (copy & pasting it into a text editor would probably help the wordwrapping).

Continue reading ‘RSS Bandit and Repetitive Information Overload’

I just got my first webcam to use with Skype and MSN Messenger.  I decided to go cheap because I don't really know how much I'll use it.

I got the the Rosewill RCAM-100 Webcam.  This webcam comes with the camera and an over-the-ear headset/microphone.  For the money, it works pretty well.  The webcam has a "chip-clip" that holds the camera on to a ledge or other thin object.  The clip is not big enough to allow the camera to be clipped to my LCD monitor, so I have it clipped to my desk.  There is not a microphone in the webcam, just in the provided headset with means that you have to switch headphones in order to listen and talk.

For casual use I would give this setup a solid B.  It works well for the price.  The clip and the headset are kind of difficult to use, but they are usable.