The lows are low, but the highs are home
Month
vael:
I want you to take this post very seriously. This could save your right index finger.
Recently I installed Linux at work, and I have found very little reason to continue…
Ha-har! You think this is the best thing you can do for your mouse, but you would be wrong. The best thing you can do is to stop using a physical mouse at all. At first I thought it would suck, because not every program is keyboard-shortcut friendly. Then I installed something called AT Mouse, and I’m happily mouse-less.
Allow me to direct you to their help page, which describes its usage. You can move slowly for accuracy, you can move quickly for speed (double-press), you can pop the mouse from one side of the screen to the other (press left/right when at the edge), you can quickly jump across the screen (repeated presses of 7/9/1/3) - all using the numpad on your keyboard. If you’re one of the few people in the world who type so many numbers that you use the numpad, good news: you can still use it when you want! Though it no longer turns on the “Num Lock” light on my keyboard, but if I find the mouse isn’t moving, I just press NumLock+/ and we’re back in business.
In all honesty, it’s responsive enough that I can browse the web with it (though I’ve never tried Firefox’s Caret Browsing, and got too lazy to try out the mouseless Firefox dubbed Conkeror). Enough that I can stop using my laptop’s trackpad, which is the bane of my existence. Check it out, ‘cause it’s free. I’m a bit upset with some of their keybindings of other keys, mainly because it messes with my AutoHotKey scripts. Luckily, there are many alternative options that use AutoHotKey, which provide the benefit of being easily modified to add some of the nice features of AT Mouse.
So, to summarize our options:
I can’t ditch my existing customizations, obviously, so I’m going to cheat and steal take inspiration from AT Mouse to add things to one of the scripts I just linked to. It may take a while, because I have actually important things to do, but I’ll post here when I’ve got something worth using. Toss it up on GitHub or something, make life easy.
This is a quick post with relatively little of my own commentary, but I just want to share the story because it’s so absolutely ridiculous. Plus, in light of the hyper-popularity of Kickstarter these days as a good way to fund video games, it highlights the complete opposite end of the spectrum. Namely, the shitty way to fund games, in which publishers have all the control.
I’ve linked to an article on Nightmare Mode, mainly because it adds some commentary to the original story from Destructoid (breaking news on an independent video game blog!) You don’t have to read it, though - here’s the basic summary:
According to Nightmare Mode, the game sold five million copies. 5,000,000 copies. $60 each (well, they probably weren’t all full price, but it’s a lot of money at any price).
Obsidian Entertainment didn’t get a single cent from any of those sales. All they got was a flat rate for completing the game. Since then, they’ve had two rounds of lay-offs.
F*cking what?!
Years ago, when I would listen to songs that made me think of anything related to relationships, I didn’t stop to put into words what the song made me feel. I’d get a vague approximation of some thoughts, and I’d be appropriately happy/miserable/both, and that was all I needed. Now that I’ve got more time between myself and the relationship in question, I don’t get the same feelings, and so I literally can’t remember what it was that I liked about these songs. Listening to them now, I know there was something about the song, but can’t quite grasp it.
You can see the vague, unformed idea effect in some of the music posts I made back in 2010 - I’d post the song and the lyrics, but not say a whole lot about it. A prime example is this post about Kickback UK’s All The Wrong Reasons. I was listening to the song last night and thinking it meant something to me in 2010, but I couldn’t say what it was. At a guess, I’d say I felt like I was trying to help people so I could feel better about myself - the most cynical way of reading my behaviour at the time. There were a couple people I was “friends” with at the time mostly for that reason, and it took me a while to realize that wasn’t the way to go. But that’s only a guess - I can’t say for sure what I was thinking when I made that post.
What I can tell you is what the song makes me think now, which you will (hopefully) be glad to hear is much more positive. I was up late writing an essay for my Linguistic Analysis class, and I took the lyrics in a very different way. (Chalk it up to vague interpretations, I guess, when the same song can mean a totally different thing two years later.) I was feeling good about the essay and wanted to reflect a bit on how I’ve changed lately, and where I’m heading in the future. Moral of the story, for the tl;dr crowd - I feel like I’ve gone from “all the wrong reasons” to “all the right reasons”, and I’ve got big plans. Read on if you’re interested! Best if you take a stop by the old post, first.
"Head’s in the future, but your heart’s in the past" is an apt description of me circa 2010. Things were looking up, but definitely not all the way up. Which is a stupid metaphor if you try to picture it, but it works verbally. “And we’ve seen it all before, you’re holding out for more” follows from that, obviously. Neither of those things still apply to me, which is a good sign. Head and heart are both set on the future, I suppose. Getting to the future I want means working hard in the present, but it feels more and more and more natural as I put out work I’m legitimately proud of. Nobody’s ever going to look at the C++ assignment I’m working on right now, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make it good and shoot for a mark of 110%.
The next line is what gets me now, and probably what got to me in the past as well. “When that call never comes it’s time to face what you’ve become - there’s no point doing all of this unless you know you’re having fun.” At the time, there were a lot of things I wasn’t terribly happy with. I wasn’t having a whole lot of fun with the work I was doing back then. Although it got me here, so I can’t complain - but it was all delayed gratification at the time. At least now I get some of that gratification! A little, anyway. Still lots of delay right now. But I’ve recently realized what I should be working towards, although I’d been thinking about it for a few weeks. I said I didn’t have many important goals for 2012, but I take that back now! I’ve got two, which I strongly feel I can accomplish, and which all of my work now contributes to:
Both of these are practical goals that will, hopefully, put me in a great position when I finish my education and set out for a job. So - “what have I become”? Someone who strives to be the best they can be. (Time will tell where I’ll fall on the sweet/awesome dichotomy.) I’m not necessarily having fun, but I’m seeing the big picture now.
From where I stand, that means a number of different things. Most recently, it means improving my writing consciously, the way I used to while I was in AP English. (If you’re interested in that writing analysis tool but not interested in Emacs, I can look into creating an independent version, with the author’s permission.) Going back a few weeks, I’ve started to really dedicate myself to programming well. I’m getting tons of inspiration on that topic as I dig up tidbits of information about Emacs, and inevitably get linked to some other brilliant piece. There’s Steve Yegge and Avdi Grimm over the past few days, who have both Emacs secrets I can steal and general programming knowledge. Meanwhile, Jeff Atwood and Scott Hanselman write about quality of life as a programmer - improving your tools, improving your office, improving your lighting, etc. Aside from that, I’m always trying to synthesize what I know about the seemingly-disparate areas of linguistics (at least, that’s what the separation in course content would lead you to believe). I want to say with some confidence that I’m a linguist - not some kid who “maybe heard about that in university, but didn’t think it was important”.
In a similar vein, I’m connecting all the dots in this “cognitive science” thing. Philosophy is cognitive psychology, cognitive psychology is neuroscience, neuroscience is linguistics, linguistics is computer science… And the whole conglomerate is cognitive science. I may not use every part of it for the rest of my life, but understanding them all matters. Even if I were to be a career programmer, I’d keep usability testing in mind. Even if I were a linguist for the rest of my life, I know for a fact I’d land in a crossover field - computational linguistics and neurolinguistics seem equally likely right now.
So what I’m getting at is: I know what I’m doing here, and I know who I am. I can’t tell you what I’ll settle on for a job, but I know what the core components of that job will be. This is where I belong. The lows may be low, but the highs are home.
It’s the moment you haven’t been waiting for: a big post about Windows software! I happen to think most of this stuff is pretty rad. I know the appeal isn’t universal, though, so I’ve organized this post in descending order of mass appeal. It’s a five-star scale, with five-stars being “everybody try this” and one-star being “you might find a use for this”. Some of these things may be multi-platform, but if you don’t use Windows, you may as well skip everything after the 5-star section. If something in that section is Windows-exclusive, it’s up to you to find an alternative for your OS! A few ways to do that: the Lifehacker app directory, alternativeto.net, or Google.
Side note: this is partially inspired by the website The Setup, which interviews smart people about how they do what they do. I’ve learned some neat things there, but it may not be worth going through the archives unless you use OS X exclusively. Other main reason: I want to tell people about neat and useful things!
f.lux
Available for every platform ever created, f.lux takes your geographical location and calculates the sunrise and sunset in local time. Then it tints your screen to simulate the natural cycle of the sun. The red hue at night seems weird at first, but it’s something you can’t live without once you get used to it. If you use your computer in the dark, do yourself a favour and try it. I find that I sleep better, my eyes hurt less, and I actually get tired later in the evening. I actually wasn’t using f.lux for a while - it wasn’t in my startup folder for some reason. I realized something was wrong when I was on my PC at 3 AM, fueled in some way by that disturbing blue glow, trying to read all of the things there ever were. After turning it on again, I got to see the benefits all over again. So yeah, download this.
LastPass
LastPass is the closest you can get to real password security these days. It’s infinitely better than your browser’s built-in password manager, and I want you to use it. Please? I don’t even know my passwords anymore, and I don’t need to! Life is good.
AutoHotKey
What to say about AutoHotKey? It provides a sky-high programming language to easily manipulate things that would be painfully complex any other way. The corollary to this is that it’s a programming language, so you’re limited by the problems you want to solve with it. My current uses:
Lifehacker has a ton of posts about AutoHotKey, though. So look there for some inspiration.
Rainmeter
I love Rainmeter. I love it violently, with every fiber of my being, every second I use my laptop. A quick look at the most popular skins on DeviantArt is all the explanation you’ll need. Exciting new features are on the way: Rainmeter 2.3 brings the option to define a margin around the screen that’s reserved for Rainmeter - maximized windows can’t use the area you define as part of the DesktopWorkArea. This is a fantastic addition, and it’s something users have needed other utilities for until now. Rainmeter is everything I want in software: sexy, lightweight, and highly configurable.
WorkRave
WorkRave is a neat tool I found recently that I highly recommend if you spend hours at your PC. WorkRave lets you set a certain length of time for taking short breaks to rest your hands (I do 15 seconds every 10 minutes) and longer breaks to stand up and stretch/exercise (I’m doing 5 minutes every 55 minutes). It’s partially a health thing, and partially a time-management tool. Did you know you’ve been reading stupid crap for an hour? Do you actually want to be doing that? Go for a walk, stretch your legs, think about what you’ll do after your break. I actually found it quite helpful during Reading Week, and I was grateful for the breaks whenever I was working on a tough problem. Instead of breaking my flow, it helped me focus when I was actually working. Definitely check it out.
Anki
Anki is, put simply, a digital flashcard program. But it’s also a tool for spaced repetition of anything you happen to want to learn. Spaced repetition may be the second best way to learn, topped only by applying your desired skill in some useful way. One of my professors introduced it to the class as a way to study, and I’ve gotten into it since then. I’m using it for most of my classes, and the Anki decks will accompany my class notes in the future. Your mileage may vary, though - creating the Anki cards is part of my studying, too. I know what the cards are actually trying to say, and I rehearse background info that’s not on the actual card. It doesn’t cost me anything to export my decks, though, so why not? Here’s an article with some guidelines for using Anki, particularly outside an academic/testing related setting.
Microsoft OneNote
This is the only paid software on the list, oddly enough. I’ve posted about OneNote in the past, and I still love it. OneNote has a ton of features-you-never-knew-you-wanted that make editing a little bit faster - they’re simple but appreciated. My notes export to PDF and MS Word documents in a decently attractive format, so I can share them for your viewing pleasure, and for the benefit of students with disabilities that make it difficult for them to take their own notes. I’ve never tried Evernote, but I’ve never wanted to - OneNote is perfect for my needs.
QTTabBar
I use QTTabBar so frequently that I don’t remember what options I actually use. I can’t use Explorer without it anymore. Download it and look through all the sweet, sweet options it provides. Its most noticeable feature is tabs: how can you live without them? But it adds lots of other useful things, too. Double-click the folder background to go up to its parent folder, hover a file to preview its contents, and many more. Using a light Windows theme, I recommend the Firefox 3 theme if you use a light Explorer frame, and my personal pick to go with the dark background of my Explorer is a mix of two styles: the background image from Adagio and the tab image from NOOTO. Using the settings provided by NOOTO’s creator, I think.
RescueTime
It requires some self-discipline, but using RescueTime definitely helps keep me on task. Although I may have cheated a little by defining my hours of Emacs research as “very productive”. Lifehacker has a brief-ish guide on how to set up RescueTime in a way that works for you. Try it out for a bit - my one recommendation is not to get too attached to the premium features. Unless you need to distinguish between 5 hours spent in MS Word and 30 minutes spent in 10 different documents, a free account is still great. Bonus for laptop users: it’s quite light on resource usage.
Dropbox & Dropbox Folder Sync
I started using Dropbox to access shared files from the DM of the Cognitive Science D&D group, but I stayed because I can easily make backups of things like Rainmeter skins and other tweaks I’ve made. The Public and Photo folders have their uses, too. While the option is still available, you can score some free, permanent space upgrades by testing the photo upload feature. I got 5 gb from it when it first came out, so I’ve got plenty of space - unlike every other Dropbox user, I’m not pimping my referral link!
WriteMonkey / Q10
“Distraction-free writing programs” that offer minimal features and, more importantly, minimal UI. WriteMonkey is more frequently updated and provides more features, but I couldn’t quite get it to calculate things like page lengths correctly. They’re worth trying if you get distracted when you want to write, but they don’t have the pure text processing power of other programs.
Soluto
Soluto is occasionally useful, but it’s worth installing to look at your boot times. I’m not sure how the “delayed start” feature works, but I’ve had no problems with it. Soluto doesn’t solve the problem of slow boot times, so much as it highlights the actual culprits for you: all that terrible software you installed with the default options checked.
KatMouse
This is a small utility, but a useful one. It only does one thing: makes your mouse scroll whatever it’s currently hovering over. Saves you from having to put a window into focus. I know, you might not have this problem, but if you ever do!
Miranda IM
My multi-client IM program of choice. Best for masochists with hours to waste tweaking. I almost wrote a quick-start guide for it, but then realized nobody would care. Let me know if you care! I still use it over Pidgin almost entirely because of a contact list theme called Malice Tab that gives me a small visual dock for my contact list. Sexy, lightweight, and (with enough blood, sweat, and tears) configurable.
PhraseExpress / Texter
I don’t actually want to recommend either of these pieces of software. PhraseExpress is a resource hog, but it does work. Texter is, disappointingly, the exact opposite (it will break, inexplicably, after prolonged use). But text expansion is extremely cool - being able to type common words and phrases with a few keystrokes would be great for taking notes, or any other situation where there’s common vocabulary/phrases. There are good options for other platforms, but nothing that works for me on Windows (on a desktop, you might like PhraseExpress - but configuration is rough). Check Lifehacker’s posts on text expansion if you’re still interested - I think there’s are some good options on OS X, and maybe something workable for Linux.
Ultimate Windows Tweaker
This is a great tool that bundles many useful registry hacks (both enable and disable) in one convenient UI. It works on Vista and Win7. Check it out, for sure. Personal highlights: disable automatic restart after Windows Update (“Security Settings”), everything under “Additional Tweaks”, especially removing arrows from shortcut icons and removing the ’-Shortcut’ suffix on new shortcuts. Take ownership and ‘open command window here’ are occasionally useful, too, and also under “Additional Tweaks”.
Right-click menu editors
I have two categories of tools here: one for Firefox, and a handful for Windows (Fast Explorer, ShellNewHandler, the somewhat inferior ShellMenuNew, ShellMenuView, ShellExView, and OpenWithView). It’s the same idea either way - remove the useless clutter from the right-click menu. I don’t use LibreOffice file formats, so I don’t need the right-click “New” menu to offer me six file formats I don’t even use. You may not care! But I enjoy this level of control.