February 2, 2009
bash-completion! (context...)
Good lord. After fifteen years as a Linux user, I finally discovered the package and configuration that adds smart context awareness to bash command-line completion. Why doesn't my distribution make this automatic? Who wouldn't want this? I used to want it every day without knowing it existed. For example,
cd . . .Why should I get tab completion suggestions for every file in the directory, as opposed to just directories that I could actually cd to? Or:
acrobat . . .Should it just suggest pdf files? Well, yes, actually, but in Gentoo there are a bunch of steps to configure bash to do these intelligent things, and somehow I never stumbled across them before.
Posted by blogadmin at 10:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 7, 2008
MS Windows is unbearable
I don't know why anyone who had a choice would put Windows on a computer used for public presentations. Every single powerpoint talk I have seen this semester has been marred by a nagging popup continually asking for a restart for whatever upgrade Windows had to download that day to fix some new security breach or flaw. Watching tonight's Presidential Debate in the Gold Student Center, we had to wait about eight times for someone to find the mouse and dismiss the window and reset the live videocast. There really doesn't seem to be anywhere to tell Windows not to bother us again with that warning.
Posted by johnn at 7:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 24, 2006
What am I Missing Here?
David Pogue's technology piece in the NYT today ("Wifi to Go") trumpets some new portable wifi routers, in the $600 range, that accept wireless access cards, putting the router on the Internet and broadcasting a wifi signal. Can't any old laptop with a card slot connected to a $30 wifi router do this same thing? I use Linux, with which it is easy as pie to make a laptop a gateway host, but couldn't a Windows laptop "share" its Internet connection with the router easily enough? I can see the advantage for a stand-alone cell-to-wifi router for a permanent situation, like at home, due to the fact the desktops don't typically have card slots and one may not want a large computer at home, but the marketing seems to focus on the portable aspect, which seems trivial to me.
Posted by johnn at 10:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack