Have I ever mentioned that I read the webcomic xkcd?

I admit this isn’t the best strip, but it shows what I love about xkcd: that’s me! I usually try to avoid just answering “I’m fine thanks”, because that’s just plain boring. And most of the times isn’t really a honest answer at all.

Other than that, there are so many comics there which I can identify myself with. Almost all of them. (OK, maybe not all; can’t recall being strapped like that).

Guess I’m a geek after all.

On a side note, I’ve started to use LaTeX. Ooh, it’s so nice in so many ways. Instant love. Sorry OO.o and other WYSIWYG word processors, I think you’ve annoyed me for the last time (certainly not as there still are people who insist on using .doc).

Since I’ve unconsciously avoided emacs and prefer KDE applications, it felt natural to begin with Kile. A few years ago I would be surprised that such a great application is completely free, and still not understand that it means more than ‘gratis’.

Plasma has also gotten pretty hot lately with WoC and everything, but it still has too many rough edges to enter my love list. The little beauty below, however, has been among the top since I saw it for the first time.

I think I’ve figured out why I never have the motivation to blog.

• Obviously, like everyone else, I feel I have more important things to do.
• Nobody reads it anyway. Not really unexpected, as this blog isn’t really meant to be read by anyone else than myself. Except for some post, such as the Compiz ‘guide’ – without doubt the most popular post I’ve posted. Guess I’ll update the links someday.
• I don’t have anything to whine about.

As for the third point, bad things actually happen to me too, just not very often. Recently, however, I’ve successfully broken lots of things. The umbrella aside, I broke my iPod in a similar accident. No, I’m not clumsy at all…

Anyway, buying a new iPod Classic was out of question, and repairing it is almost as expensive as getting a new one.

Being addicted to music, I needed a new mp3-player. A cheap one. Well, hello there iPod Shuffle. I mean, you have to have an Apple logo on your music player, right?

Nope. I choose a Zen Stone instead, for the following reasons:

• Cheaper.
• Simple drag and drop – no iTunes.
• Comes in pink. <3

If you wonder, I bought the black one.

It’s a nice little device and does what it’s expected to; the only complaint I have so far is the poor battery time. I haven’t got a chance to test the Stone’s durability yet – given its name and construction it should withstand more abuse than my iPod, but hopefully I won’t need to find out whether it lives up to my expectations or not.

The player also works great with Amarok, that reason alone makes it much better than the Shuffle. If you plan to buy a Zen Stone, however, don’t forget to buy a pair of earphones if you haven’t got any. The included ones are horrible (quite understandable if you look at the price tag).

End.

By the way. This is how my English looks like before proofreading, which reminds me: remember the list from before? Let me add another item to ‘reasons why I don’t blog’.

• My English is really not something to hang on the Christmas tree.

Direct translations are lovely.

Tip of the day: don’t try to rolling hop a curb with an umbrella in your hand. At least not without practice.

On a side note, I’m quite comfortable on my new keyboard now. Typing about 30 wpm, ~57 % of my original qwerty speed. After a month. Not too bad. And my hands feel good doing it, no more awkward twists.

I said I was going to remap some keys, here’s the result; I’m pleased to introduce chvorak 0.9:

Click to enlarge

Note that I’ve omitted the backspace, enter and space key in the middle. You can’t see the function keys either (for example the numpad).

I’m really happy with the layout so far. The only thing I don’t really like is the placement of the apostrophe. It’s quite dangerous being between Esc and Tab, but in my opinion much better than the Svorak placement.

I’ve wanted to convert to Dvorak, or rather the Swedish version Svorak, for a while. But it seemed too troublesome, and soon I forgot about it.

Until recently, that is. I read a review of ergonomic keyboards, and Typematrix EZ-Reach 2030 was one of the products reviewed. I had seen that keyboard before, and even if it didn’t score very good in the test (they didn’t like the grid layout. Huh?) the geek in me just screamed: I want it!

I recalled that a friend of mine used a Typematrix, so I asked him about it on IRC. As it’s quite expensive here in Sweden, I wanted to know where he had ordered it.

Short story even shorter, here I sit with my EZ-Reach and try to type Svorak. ‘You can have mine’ the friend told me, “I don’t use it anyway.” Just like that.
The C key didn’t work, and some keys were “sticky”, so I decided to clean it inside out. It took some time to assemble it again, much thanks to the Space key.

Seriously, this thing is awesome.

Now I’m going to remap some keys. For your information, this was all written in Svorak. Damn slowly…

First post in 2008. Took some time, didn’t it? I don’t think anyone actually read this blog, so it probably doesn’t really matter.

Like most blogs out there, this one was doomed to die before it was even born. It’s suffering from “penuria of vicis”, or rather, I am.

Not much has happened since last time. The first version of KDE4 and KDE 4.0.1 as well have been released. I like the slogan “be free”. Speaking of freedom, I’ve listened to a lecture by Richard Stallman when he was in Stockholm. Awesomeness. He’s weird.

The first patch I’ve written made its way to SVN. Isn’t it nice?

And finally, I’ve decided – no Lobster for me this summer. Unfortunately. But that’s how things turned out. At least I think my wallet and legs are grateful. And probably the rest of my body. Oh well.

The stuff I ordered finally arrived yesterday – what a joy! So, what exactly did it contain? If 1 picture > 1000 words <=> 3 pictures > 3000 words:

It’s not very large, but the package didn’t fit in the postbox

Wrapped pretty tightly in plastic

*drumwhirl*

“You should’ve invested in a better camera” you may think, but don’t you agree that low-quality photos taken with the mobile phone are pretty charming? No? Me neither.

Anyway, what exactly is it? Well, if you can’t tell by looking at the pictures, I see little point in teilling you. *Hint* Maybe they’ll appear on this blog again, in another context.

By the way, let me notice you that K/Ubuntu 7.10, know as Gutsy Gibbon, is going to be released tomorrow. Hooray!

But it did rain a lot today. It was really fun to ride with an umbrella – just a tip: don’t use it when riding into headwind if you’re a beginner like me.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow – hopefully I’ll receive my secret package. You wonder what it’ll contain? Maybe I’ll post a photo when I get it (with my crappy mobile camera). Yeah!

Obtained two new skills today: bunny hoping and suicide mount. Especially the first one will become very useful after more practice.

Tomorrow I’m going to try idling again. I made some attempts  to idle today; at one time I even felt that nice feeling, “hey I can do this!, but then I fell to the ground. Well, guess that means that I have to train more.