A common reaction among computer users is that the program or the programmer is stupid.
"Why does it not do it like this? It is so obvious that it should do it like this."
What the User is missing is that there are millions of stupid things, the computer succeeds in avoiding. From the moment the computer is switched on, there are thousands of stupid things the computer avoids doing every milli-second. Every time a computer starts up faultlessly, it is close to a miracle. and yet there are millions of computers around the world that start up without problems every hour - millions of brilliant miracles.
Think about that the next time your computer does not work. It works for millions of others. If it does not work for you, clearly someone is after you.
Saturday, 22 March 2008
Tuesday, 18 March 2008
The perfect way of using an EEE PC
This is a recipe for a serene usage of Asus EEE PC.
1. Follow the steps in http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:installrescuemode to install a rescue mode in grub.
2. Shut down.
3. Start up, press F9 repeatedly at the first screen, and go to rescue mode, as described in the url above.
4. In the terminal, type "mount /dev/sda2 /mnt-user" and hit enter. (Skip the mnt-system described in the url above. You do not need it for anything.)
5. In the terminal type "cd /mnt-user/home/user" and hit enter.
6. Use vi and be happy.
Limitations:
* You do not have any access to external networks or inserted SD cards.
* You have only a fraction of all the unix commands you thought you needed. No "less". No "chmod". No "vim", so you are stuck with a stripped down version of vi. \
* This version of vi does not appear to support word wraps, and it goes haywire at more than 256 characters per line. It does not display all possible settings when you type ":se all".
But so what? No one will never need more than 256 characters, as Bill Gates used to say (or wasn't it something like that?).
1. Follow the steps in http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:installrescuemode to install a rescue mode in grub.
2. Shut down.
3. Start up, press F9 repeatedly at the first screen, and go to rescue mode, as described in the url above.
4. In the terminal, type "mount /dev/sda2 /mnt-user" and hit enter. (Skip the mnt-system described in the url above. You do not need it for anything.)
5. In the terminal type "cd /mnt-user/home/user" and hit enter.
6. Use vi and be happy.
Limitations:
* You do not have any access to external networks or inserted SD cards.
* You have only a fraction of all the unix commands you thought you needed. No "less". No "chmod". No "vim", so you are stuck with a stripped down version of vi. \
* This version of vi does not appear to support word wraps, and it goes haywire at more than 256 characters per line. It does not display all possible settings when you type ":se all".
But so what? No one will never need more than 256 characters, as Bill Gates used to say (or wasn't it something like that?).
Saturday, 15 March 2008
The least bad system in the world
Today's blog is written using an Asus EEE PC with Linux. I have hardly used Linux for at least five years, and I had almost forgotten how ghastly it is. Not only that, there hardly seem to have been any improvements when it comes to usability. It has taken me hours to set the keyboard to English instead of French. On Windows the same thing takes less than a minute. On Mac OS X less than 3 seconds. It takes slightly longer if you count the time it takes to figure out how to do it, but it will hardly take longer than 5 minutes on a Mac and 15 minutes on Windows. On this "simple" version of Linux, it has taken me about an hour just to figure out how to do it. And then it has taken about one hour of umpteen restarts and trial and error to get it done.
I have not bothered installing Japanese and Chinese keyboards, even though I have heard that Chinese keyboard supposedly is installed by default.
I had to fight with a new installation of Windows as well, a few months ago. Last time I got a new Windows machine it had a minuscule screen and a Japanese operating system. At the time I blamed my frustrations on my limited abilities to read Japanese, but when I now got to see a new European version, I discovered that it was equally bad.
Using a Macintosh is not a pleasure - it just happens to be a decent tool for whatever you happen to want to do. But it is not such an absolute pain and loss of time as using Linux and to some extent Windows.
Update: I have now spent another day on Linux, and I would like to moderate the above: Using Linux is not painful. Using Linux can be almost as acceptable as Windows and Mac OS. However, configuring Linux is painful. Editing configuration and startup files in Linux is like going back 20 years to DOS and autoexec.bat and config.sys.
I have not bothered installing Japanese and Chinese keyboards, even though I have heard that Chinese keyboard supposedly is installed by default.
I had to fight with a new installation of Windows as well, a few months ago. Last time I got a new Windows machine it had a minuscule screen and a Japanese operating system. At the time I blamed my frustrations on my limited abilities to read Japanese, but when I now got to see a new European version, I discovered that it was equally bad.
Using a Macintosh is not a pleasure - it just happens to be a decent tool for whatever you happen to want to do. But it is not such an absolute pain and loss of time as using Linux and to some extent Windows.
Update: I have now spent another day on Linux, and I would like to moderate the above: Using Linux is not painful. Using Linux can be almost as acceptable as Windows and Mac OS. However, configuring Linux is painful. Editing configuration and startup files in Linux is like going back 20 years to DOS and autoexec.bat and config.sys.
My word processors
When I type texts, I use TextEdit for about 9 out of 10 texts. It is fast and functional and provides reasonably well formatted files that can be read on both Mac, Windows and Unix.
I use JEdit X for texts where I need to count the number of words.
I use Google Docs for documents I change from different locations.
I use MS Word for texts in Japanese for the ability to use furigana and vertical script.
And once in a while I also use NeoOffice to open documents in unusual formats.
It also happens that I use Pages, but that is only for the rare cases where the layout is more important than the content.
I use JEdit X for texts where I need to count the number of words.
I use Google Docs for documents I change from different locations.
I use MS Word for texts in Japanese for the ability to use furigana and vertical script.
And once in a while I also use NeoOffice to open documents in unusual formats.
It also happens that I use Pages, but that is only for the rare cases where the layout is more important than the content.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Books as a medium - and their lack of future
It is always interesting to try to predict the future. It rarely works, and when it happens to work, it often is because of pure chance rather than any insights.
Here is my prediction: books will disappear. Soon. And suddenly. Arguments why I may be wrong follow below. They are all followed by counter-arguments that indicate that I may be right anyhow.
Books never run out of power. True, but electronic devices nowadays rarely run out of power either. A digital watch can run for years without recharging. One could easily make an electronic book that could last for very long time.
It is nice to touch a book and the paper in it. True. It is also nice to touch a vinyl record, not to mention a fountain pen. They are no longer available in the main stream market.
Backlit screens hurt the eyes. They used to do, but modern high quality ones do not.
Books are cheaper than e-books. It matters less if you lose one. You can buy digital watches for less than a dollar. It would be possible to produce e-books at very cheap prices as well.
E-books are almost as expensive as real books. Yes, today. However that is just a commercial decision. All the classics could (and should) be free for e-books. That's a price with which real books can never compete.
E-books are too small. E-books have the size the manufacturer chooses. For people who want them in their pockets, they can be small. For people who want big ones, they can be big. Just like normal books.
E-books are too complicated to load. E-books currently are often not easy to load, but that is a problem with software design. Nothing would prevent a manufacturer to create a point and click device which would be at least as easy, as it is to go to the city centre to buy the paper book you are looking for. And potentially all text-files available on the internet can immediately be available for you - regardless of language and origin. If you want a particular paper book from India, it may turn out impossible, if there is no local distributor of Indian books and if the Indian publisher does not do mail-order. If the same book is available electronically through the internet, there is no restriction - you can get it within seconds, instead of not at all.
E-books never get sentimental value. It is true that a copy of an early edition of an e-book hardly has any additional value. However, that makes them more widely available - not less.
A paper book does not break if you drop it. Neither does a well designed e-book.
If you spell coffee on a paper book, it is still readable. Yes, but it gets a coffee stain for ever. A well designed e-book is water proof enough to handle a few drops of coffee, which can be wiped off with no visible trace.
A paper book can be read in direct sunlight. Currently the paper book wins that match, as electronic screens mostly are difficult to read in the sun. However, in dark situations, like in a badly lit bus or a hotel room with bad lamps, an e-book with backlit screen is easier to read than a paper book. Besides, if you are out in the sun, should you not enjoy the view rather than read a book?
One cannot scratch notes in the margin of an e-book. Not yet - no. However, there are such a lot of other things one can do with electronic texts: copy parts of them with no risk of errors, make a full text search through War and Peace, change the size of the font to get the right one for your eyes, and so on.
So, why have e-books not caught on yet? Because of commercial concerns. The publishers do not want to release books in formats that can be copied freely, as that would limit their sales. And people are unwilling to pay for books they cannot copy freely, and which they may not even be able to read in a few years, if there then is no available reader for that format.
As far as I know neither Sony's Librié nor Amazon's Kindle have very good support for anything but their own books. This concept is of course broken. The perfect e-book should not be a dedicated device that only reads books. It should be integrated in your phone or PDA or even your digital camera. And it should support all kinds of files and encodings in all languages.
There is no such device today. But once it will come, there will be no way back, and paper books will be doomed.
You can get prepared for this already today. Get rid of your paper books right now. Just send them all to me, so I get something to read.
Here is my prediction: books will disappear. Soon. And suddenly. Arguments why I may be wrong follow below. They are all followed by counter-arguments that indicate that I may be right anyhow.
Books never run out of power. True, but electronic devices nowadays rarely run out of power either. A digital watch can run for years without recharging. One could easily make an electronic book that could last for very long time.
It is nice to touch a book and the paper in it. True. It is also nice to touch a vinyl record, not to mention a fountain pen. They are no longer available in the main stream market.
Backlit screens hurt the eyes. They used to do, but modern high quality ones do not.
Books are cheaper than e-books. It matters less if you lose one. You can buy digital watches for less than a dollar. It would be possible to produce e-books at very cheap prices as well.
E-books are almost as expensive as real books. Yes, today. However that is just a commercial decision. All the classics could (and should) be free for e-books. That's a price with which real books can never compete.
E-books are too small. E-books have the size the manufacturer chooses. For people who want them in their pockets, they can be small. For people who want big ones, they can be big. Just like normal books.
E-books are too complicated to load. E-books currently are often not easy to load, but that is a problem with software design. Nothing would prevent a manufacturer to create a point and click device which would be at least as easy, as it is to go to the city centre to buy the paper book you are looking for. And potentially all text-files available on the internet can immediately be available for you - regardless of language and origin. If you want a particular paper book from India, it may turn out impossible, if there is no local distributor of Indian books and if the Indian publisher does not do mail-order. If the same book is available electronically through the internet, there is no restriction - you can get it within seconds, instead of not at all.
E-books never get sentimental value. It is true that a copy of an early edition of an e-book hardly has any additional value. However, that makes them more widely available - not less.
A paper book does not break if you drop it. Neither does a well designed e-book.
If you spell coffee on a paper book, it is still readable. Yes, but it gets a coffee stain for ever. A well designed e-book is water proof enough to handle a few drops of coffee, which can be wiped off with no visible trace.
A paper book can be read in direct sunlight. Currently the paper book wins that match, as electronic screens mostly are difficult to read in the sun. However, in dark situations, like in a badly lit bus or a hotel room with bad lamps, an e-book with backlit screen is easier to read than a paper book. Besides, if you are out in the sun, should you not enjoy the view rather than read a book?
One cannot scratch notes in the margin of an e-book. Not yet - no. However, there are such a lot of other things one can do with electronic texts: copy parts of them with no risk of errors, make a full text search through War and Peace, change the size of the font to get the right one for your eyes, and so on.
So, why have e-books not caught on yet? Because of commercial concerns. The publishers do not want to release books in formats that can be copied freely, as that would limit their sales. And people are unwilling to pay for books they cannot copy freely, and which they may not even be able to read in a few years, if there then is no available reader for that format.
As far as I know neither Sony's Librié nor Amazon's Kindle have very good support for anything but their own books. This concept is of course broken. The perfect e-book should not be a dedicated device that only reads books. It should be integrated in your phone or PDA or even your digital camera. And it should support all kinds of files and encodings in all languages.
There is no such device today. But once it will come, there will be no way back, and paper books will be doomed.
You can get prepared for this already today. Get rid of your paper books right now. Just send them all to me, so I get something to read.
Saturday, 1 March 2008
VBA - it will be missed
In 1996 Microsoft started licensing Visual Basic for Applications to third parties. In 2007, 1 July, they stopped doing this. According to Microsoft themselves, they expect no "significant enhancements to VBA" and they recommend their customers to look into other solutions.
Part of this strategy is probably their decision to drop support for VBA in MS Office 2008 for Mac OS X. Tragically, Microsoft recommends its VBA users on the Mac to start using AppleScript instead. This breaks compatibility with the Windows version of MS Office completely for all macro authors. On the other hand, compatibility was already limited, as the Mac version was unable to use embedded elements from applications that only are available for Windows.
VBA in some ways is a horrible language, when it comes to memory management and performance and code structure. However, it was wonderfully easy to put together a working and useful small program in just a few minutes. It was right there, in Word and the other applications. There was never any question of getting the right version and ensuring compatibility or installing additional software. It was there, and it was usable.
Whatever comes next has something to live up to.
Part of this strategy is probably their decision to drop support for VBA in MS Office 2008 for Mac OS X. Tragically, Microsoft recommends its VBA users on the Mac to start using AppleScript instead. This breaks compatibility with the Windows version of MS Office completely for all macro authors. On the other hand, compatibility was already limited, as the Mac version was unable to use embedded elements from applications that only are available for Windows.
VBA in some ways is a horrible language, when it comes to memory management and performance and code structure. However, it was wonderfully easy to put together a working and useful small program in just a few minutes. It was right there, in Word and the other applications. There was never any question of getting the right version and ensuring compatibility or installing additional software. It was there, and it was usable.
Whatever comes next has something to live up to.
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