Mar 19 2010

Dvorak and the Illtyperate ( Part 2 )

Category: Random — Suvir @ 5:39 pm

Disclaimer : I did not invent the term ‘illtyperate’, this guy most probably did.

This is the same person responsible for opening many people’s eyes about illtyperate ( -ism ?? ).

Well, there are two types of typists regardless of the layout :

1. Those who hunt-n-peck .. or look at the keyboard for any reason whatsoever …

2. Touch typists – they have trained their muscle memory to recognize they keys, and they seldom let their hands leave the confines of the all-holy “Home Row”

Yours truly likes to call himself pseudo – touch typist. I generally type at 60 wpm ( its pretty OK, go check yours here ) and sometimes look down on qwerty. On dvorak, which I am currently learning, I dont look down at all but I since I just started, I still dont use it for email etc. Probably in a couple of months.

Well, but the man point is that we all spend lots of amount on the computers and you are basically impairing yourself ( feel free to disagree ) if you dont type as fast as a normal touch-typist. With qwerty touch typing ( little more on dvorak )  , people generally get speeds of around 70 wpm ( whew! i am close).

If you dont belong in the second category and you still havent clicked on that link in the first line, do it now! I know that its long, and the guy is ranting a lot, and frankly he does exaggerates some things, but he gets the message across quite well.

Anybody inspired to start touch typing, leave your comments .. cheers!

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Mar 19 2010

Dvorak and the Illtyperate ( Part 1 )

Category: Random — Suvir @ 5:26 pm

I have been toying recently with the idea of switching my keyboard layout.

It all started with my some abnormal pain in my hand one evening. So, I googled for something like “keyboard hands stress”.

tangent : I dont think I am the only one who considers google to be some sort of oracle or something. I sometimes feel pretty silly googling for trivial things for no good reason.

Anyways, so I hit “search” and got back loads of pages of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury). And quite frankly, I was pretty freaked out. Not being able to use a keyboard or mouse for a long time is something that I find extremely disconcerting and disturbing.

(another) tangent:  It feels like having your arm bent by some bully in the playground and not being able to get back at the prick ( well, thts why he is the BULLY).

Getting back to the point, one of the tips for beating RSI was switching from qwerty to another keyboard layout called dvorak.Firstly, a little background on dvorak and why it was developed.

Well, long long ago, there were typewriters. Whenever typists used to type fast, the typewriter used to get jammed. So these clever guys scrambled the typewriter keys to basically limit your speed. If you go faster than a certain level, you will feel strained and well therefore you will type slower than your brain is actually processing stuff. So,  an “educational psychologist and a professor of education”[sic] by the name of August Dvorak and another fellow called William Dealey analysed the most common typing patterns for the english language and designed a new and easier to use keyboard layout called the “Simplified Dvorak Layout”. Its pretty different from the qwerty layout but its much easier to use. For example, all the vowels are in one place, common punctuations are grouped together etc. Small things which basically make typing less strenuos.

The current world speed typing record is 210 words per min. No surprise that its held by a dvorak user. This by no means implies that a normal dvorak user will type at at 210 wpm. A normal user would still max out around 100-120 depending on what they are doing. But the point is that you would actually move your hands much lesser and hence strain yourself lesser.

Over time, many variants of dvorak have been developed. Most of these keep the letters same as “ANSI dvorak” but modify position of other things to make it easier for a particular task. For example, there is a programmer’s dvorak which makes symbols like ‘;’, ‘{‘, ‘}’ ‘.’ etc easier to reach. This is obviously based on the analysis of classical statically typed programming language like C, pascal and basic. There is no proof that you will program faster if you use the keyboard ( ofcourse not).

Notable users of dvorak – steve wozniak , bram cohen, matt mullenweg .

BUT ALL THIS ONLY APPLIES IF YOU TOUCH-TYPE. Do you still HUNT-N-PECK ??? THEE is ILLTYPERATE!!!! more on that in the next post  ;D

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Mar 19 2010

HTML5 and the cloud revolution

Category: FOSS — Suvir @ 8:42 am

HTML5 is going to change the web as we know it.

So , what is HTML5? Whats different from the present version of HTML? Why should developers develop with it?

If you would like to watch and learn, check out . Its an hour long but it gets the message across. I especially like the part with a really complex animation done using pure Javascript thanks the canvas feature. There are obvious similarities with flash, but there are also some intrinsic differences. Both flash and HTML5 can serve dynamic content like animation ( and flash will still do animation much better than HTML5). But with flash, you are locked in to the adobe universe and its proprietary formats. But HTML5 is still HTML. The open source community is already exploiting its great features and coming up with great frameworks (like Sproutcore, 52framework). You dont even need any development environment like flash to develop in. A text editor is all you need really.

The real compelling thing about HTML5 is that, with HTML5, the web is not web as we know it. A web-app is almost same as a desktop app. You do not just go on a website, and wait after each click. Ideally, there should be as much functionality as possible within a single web page. Think of google docs, thing of google calendar, these behave quite differently from traditional websites.

This is where the cloud comes in. When webapps have functionality similar to the desktop, the desktop becomes obsolete for all its worth. You want to edit documents, do it on some cloud app like google docs. You want to chat, play, listen to music .. all these apps can be hosted in the cloud, they do not need to exist on your local machine.

Suddenly, your web browser is not just a “browser”, its an integral part of the OS itself. And thats when the rationale of Chrome OS started making sense to me. Google is being pretty foresighted about this and once again grabbing an entirely new market segment which it has helped create in a way.

Hmm..so it might not be long before all I need is a small and sleek gadget ( ipad style maybe) and not a bulky laptop with loads of ram, storage, power hungry processors etc. Because all you would really need is the cloud!

For complete list of differences between HTML5 and HTML4, check this out.

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Mar 17 2010

Lucid Lynx Alpha 3

Category: FOSS, Ubuntu — Suvir @ 11:05 am

I could not wait anymore. Yesterday, I upgraded ubuntu to the latest Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. This one is called Lucid Lynx. Dunno how these guys ever come up with names. Its great how the next version comes out every 6 months on the dot. The LTS i.e. Long Term Support releases come out every one in two years.

Generally its advisable to wait till the beta, since its relatively more stable. But its pretty stable till now. Although, I did encounter some random nautilus crashes. Should be fixed by april when the stable release version releases.

Some new features of Lucid Lynx (that I have noticed till now) :
1. New default theme – bbye dirty brown default theme. The new theme is biased towards purple instead of brown which was favored by the ‘Human’ theme.
2. Much faster bootup. It can be lesser than 10 seconds on netbooks. My own laptop used to boot up in 30-40 seconds in the previous version. Now, it does it in around 15 seconds.
3. The latest GNOME just seems zippier. Its quicker than karmic. I reckon it looks better too … or maybe thats just compiz …
4. Some new software – the main one I noticed was Gwibber – its a neat social networking app. So now I can use facebook and twitter from desktop itself.

A bit about the ubuntu version numbering – it is <version number>.<month>.
Found out about this recently, though i’d share it. This is the reason, 10.04 releases in april … 9.10 karmic released in october … 9.04 in april …

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Mar 17 2010

Contributing to FOSS

Category: FOSS, Technical — Suvir @ 10:49 am

Its been a long time since i’ve blogged, and I will not try and make any excuses explaining myself. Today, I am gonna talk about some of the stuff I have been upto and itching to blog about.

Two things that I am really into at the moment –

Firstly,..the goodness of ubuntu…

I have been an ubuntu user for around 3 years now. Its a great operating system, it has all the software you could ever need. It has the most gorgeous eye candy you could get on a computer screen. It has a huge and very helpful community which is always ready to help you. Just google your problems, and the solution is there within the first few hits.

Second, a natural extension of using Ubuntu is that you learn to appreciate the FOSS i.e. Free and Open Source philosophy. Its amazing how some amazing people from around the world devote time and the result is much greater than the sum of the parts.

As a programmer, I am pretty intrigued and inspired by the open source development workflow. So, I decided to contribute to the “open source” development. But how?

Well, I started with analyzing what were the two greatest open source softwares that I used. They were Ubuntu and Python. So now,

Python : Went to python dev, and tried to figure out how to get started. Install subversion, checkout a working copy of a branch, find and fix bugs, submit patches … sounds good …

Ubuntu : Really good help for newbie contributors. They have an entire set of youtube videos to guide you along. They start with the basics and you basically start by helping maintain the packages in the universe repository ( see here for more on that). Hence, the title MOTU (Masters of the Universe) ..

For now, I am biased toward Ubuntu because of the (apparently) easier learning curve. Lets see whats in store … will update the blog with new stuff…

Do you / intend / plan to contribute to any open source software? Please leave your comments …

P.S. If you still dont know what ubuntu is, go here. Download it, ship it .. its all free.

In case, you have not heard of python, go here — a beautiful programming language.

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Aug 14 2009

The true patriot

Category: Random — Suvir @ 5:25 am

“Patriotism is the conviction that your country is the best because you were born in it.” – George Bernard Shaw

I read this the other day and then read it again and then once more. Then I laughed. I felt like someone was speaking my mind. As someone who has stayed half his life in India and half outside it, I am somewhat intrigued by the notion of patriotism.

I do remember being very “patriotic” as a kid when I was studying in India. But I have questioned my patriotism over the past few years. What is really patriotism? To me, from a third persons point of view,  its a feeling that overwhelms you on 15th August and 26th January when u watch that parade or you listen to some patriotic song. I do confess that at times that still gives me goosebumps.

But seriously, is patriotism just something like blind faith in the idea that you love you country? Is it just something you are supposed to be as a good citizen? Is not being patriotic traitorous??

Well this is what I concluded : If you love your country, do something for it. If you dont do anything, you are no patriot but just a hypocrite. I mean how can you call yourself a patriot if apart from 2 days of the year, you are whining about what your country lacks(thats just cynical) or just oblivious to it all. Because how can you truly love something if you do not do your bit to improve it. In that sense, “true patriot” is something that only a few deserved to be called. All others, well I like to call them the 2-day patriots.  My patriotism status, lets leave that for another day :) .

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Jul 21 2009

Insult? Yeah…but…

Category: Politics — Suvir @ 11:52 pm

Abdul Kalam was frisked by Continental Airlines some time back in clear violation of protocol. Read here.

Well, I have been following this one of and on for the past few hours. Initially, I was disgusted that a person of such stature should be dealt with in this manner.

tangent : I am sure, the humble man he is, he will never raise his voice against an incident where he is treated like a common person. Even during his tenure as President he rarely lived in the grandiose of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, preferring a more humble abode nearby. BUT the point is that a person like him deserves to be treated with respect.

But a part of me also felt if it will be hypocritical not to apply the same law to all citizens of the country. This is like a perfect moral dilemma. You have got the law on one hand and your respect for the great man on the other. I think the point here is not that Dr. Kalam is an important person. What needs to be looked into are the reasons that he was detained in the first place. My gut feeling is that he is nothing but a victim of racial profiling. I know respectable people – doctors, homemakers etc. who have almost been strip searched on one or more visits to the United States. Its just something thats NOW in the news Because its happened with a famous person.

So, the question is, was the airline ignorant of his status? Did it decide to go ahead with a frisk not knowing about him? Or was it aware of who he is and still decided to go ahead with it? In all these cases, (hate to sound cynical but still) I feel one thing that is common is the preconcieved notion that a south asian man with a muslim name should be specially frisked. [Yes !! they always say its "standard procedure" yada yada,  as they said this time too ; they always do that!] But sadly, that is the kind of world we live in today. What happened is unfortunate but its not the first time a respectable man, this time a VIP, has been dealt with awkwardly.

With all this in mind, I’d say the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security is PROBABLY doing the right thing by filing an FIR and going to the full extent of the law to persecute the “unrepentant” Continental airline. But I am NOT totally convinced that its the IDEAL thing to do and thats simply because , unfortunately, such incidents are due to a mentality which is sadly nothing but the a product of the circumstances of the world we live in.

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Jul 21 2009

Microsoft contributes to Linux

Category: Technical — Suvir @ 2:30 pm

Check this out. Interested reading. Apparently MS last year became one of the sponsors of the Apache Software Foundation. And now it contributed 20,000 lines of code to the linux kernel to improve Linux Virtualization in Windows.

I can understand why the skeptics like Free Software Foundation say that MD shouldnt be trusted at all. But look at it this way, Linux is a great virtualization option and MS knows that. And MS also wants to sell its virtualization option to its huge business customer base. Its a win-win situation. And as long as its contributing to Linux for the better, lets accept its for the good (with a pinch of salt ;) ) .

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Jul 21 2009

Solar Eclipse of 22nd July ‘09

Category: Random — Suvir @ 1:45 pm

Wow, there is gonna be a solar eclipse tomorrow! Totality will be visible in India and China and apparently the best place to view it some god foresaken place in Bihar. It will just touch north-eastern Australia, too bad I am in Sydney.

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_July_22,_2009 for more.

I have always been fascinated by a solar eclipse. I still remember a particular one somewhere around 1998 I guess. Mom let me look up at the eclipsed sun with a pair of Dad’s RayBan and good number of XRay sheet bundle. Talk about improvisation. I dunno how it looks like from those viewing decks with UV filter telescopes, but I still remember seeing a pretty cool eclipse, with the flaring ring around the sun and all.

All those who CAN see it, I’d say dont miss this one, supposed to be the longest one of the 21st century yet.

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Jul 21 2009

Google books

Category: Random — Suvir @ 12:01 pm

Wow..everyone seems to be doing some good..After Bill Gates, its google’s turn…adding to the already large number of books available for free reading at google books, its now entered into a partnership with barnes and noble. According to the deal, barnes and noble will commit another 1/2 a million books to google books. Good stuff!

http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/07/helping-more-people-discover-books.html

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