Source Guru

So - after my post about wanting a conference laptop - I went out and bought one today. I got myself a nice, large, Dual Core 17″ Jobby. Ok, I’ve realised afterwards that it might be a bit of a gas guzzler, but, at least, as long as I have power, it should meet all my needs. And it’s the first machine that I’ve had where, out of the box, everything works perfectly, and the first where I’ve been able to properly use the Desktop effects (Darn proprietary Video Cards!)

Anyway, along with this - I’ve now installed Ubuntu on it. Actual Ubuntu - rather than Kubuntu. This means that I now have nearly a full shipment of *buntu that I’m regularly using. Kubuntu @ work and on my desktop at home, Xubuntu on the eeePC, and Ubuntu on this new Laptop.

I also had fun thinking up another name for the laptop. I’ve called it synergy. Which basically means lots of small things working together to make something greater in whole than of it’s component parts (Think of two muscles working together to give you a sort of idea) - The reason? Well - partly because my computer naming scheme revolves around the “I can’t be bothered of thinking of a name” (put politely) - and - synergy, is of course, ultimate laziness, putting small things together to make something bigger (convoluted excuse I know!) and well - it completes my having what my idea of the 3 primary WM’s are (Gnome, KDE, and XFCE), and means that my experience of Linux as a whole, is a more rounded and richer experience (Again, convoluted!) but anyway - here are my machines and what I call them (from the newest acquisition to the oldest)

• Synergy - The new “Conference” Laptop
• Stupor - My VPS for running the important things on
• Lethargy - My eeePC
• Coma - My work PC
• Anorak - Radio Amarok’s primary server (named after a Radio Amarok inside joke)
• Torpor - My “playground” VPS (where I keep all the non-critical stuff)
• Apathy - My Home Desktop

So - those are my machines, but, knowing that I have a similar naming schema to Daniel Silverstone, it begs me to ask.

What do you call your machines and why?

Annoyances

So - today I decided that I needed a “conference laptop”

Basically, at the moment, I have my main desktop, (custom built monster) and an eeePC.

While the eeePC does exactly what I need it to, which is be portable, and have wifi - so I can check email etc etc on the fly, it doesn’t lead itself very well to developing on the move. If I try to compile anything but the most basic, it dies. So, I thought that I’d take some of my paycheck and invest a few Quid in a lower end laptop.

What I need is

• At least 1Gb RAM
• A Processor around the 1.7 GHz mark
• As much disk space as possible
• Wifi
• 15″ Screen size minimum

What I’d also LIKE is

• Compatible Video card for stuff like Compiz, etc
• Wifi Chipset that’s compatible with Linux without me having to hack away for hours to get it working (preferably something that works out the box)
• Something where I’m not paying extra for the privilege of having Windows installed before I wipe it

Ok, so - these things, espescially in the “What I need” - are fairly standard. So I went around a few websites and started trying to find the best deals. I went to ebuyer, dabs, Dell and PC World (not linked - I’ll explain why in a moment!)

Well, looking through these sites, one thing came to me pretty much instantly, and that’s that none of them seem capable of telling me what chipset the Wireless cards are running. and pretty much all of them (in most cases) lack sufficient information for a tech savvy person to actually decide whether it meets their specifications. It’s a bit like buzzword bingo on some of the sites. They give you all the weird and wonderful wacky names that come along with the technologies, without even giving you details about it. Dell is one of the few sites that gives you the information you need. But it still doesn’t tell you what chipset it’s running.

Well, anyways - that’s my first annoyance. My second… is one of putting “bling” ahead of usability, or in some cases, using technologies where it’s not even needed. The PC World website uses Javascript extensively. I, out of habit - tend to middle-click on pretty much everything when I’m browsing (ending up with my record of 37 tabs open in Firefox today!) but, when a link links to a javascript: URL - it doesn’t work. So, I goto the PC world website, click on “Laptops” and see a selection of types - I middle click on a couple of them to get the different choices, but no such luck. The tabs open to about:blank cause they don’t know what to do with Javascript.

Now, as a web developer - I know that this is a bad thing. I know that a link should have a static URL, and an onclick handler (or event listener, or whatever) if it wants to do Javascript stuff. This isn’t purely for the people who want to surf the web with Javascript turned off (which I’m sometimes tempted to do!) - but it also makes the site accessible for those who want to open a link in a new tab, in a new window, etc etc.

I’ll stop my griping now. But, please, for the love of god, if you create a website, make sure it’s accessible to anyone who doesn’t want to just stick around in a single window. If I wanted to do that - I’d use Prism (or whatever it’s called!)