Even though I've been using computers for longer than I haven't, there are always shortcuts and cool, but unknown features, in the ever increasing amount of software that I come to depend on. Here are some of the tips and tricks that John, J and I have picked up over the years.
Please add yours!
I'm a big fan of Window's hibernate feature. I don't power off my computers I hibernate them. They shutdown quickly and they boot back up quickly - and bring me right back to where I left off. And unlike standby mode (sleep mode to you Mac users), I can leave my computer in this state for days, weeks, months... you get the idea.
Since I upgraded my Laptop to 2G ram (in prep for Vista) however, hibernate has been, well, pretty unreliable. Many times I try to hibernate it either wigs out and drops to standby or gives me an "Insufficient System Resources Exist to Complete this API" error. I though maybe it was something wrong with my Laptop configuration. But I saw the same thing on my desktop when I upgraded it to 2G. Turns out it is a 'known' bug in XP. Well, 'known' isn't the word I would use. I certainly didn't know about it. Anyhow the fix can be found on microsoft's download site here.
This ESR letter is pretty good. He basically covers my biggest frustration with Linux over the last decade. All of my distribution experience has basically ended up the same way: hours and hours of dependency chasing to try and install a single package. It usually ends with me either giving up or hosing my system to the point that lots of other things stop working. It is interesting though that most of my serious Linux attempts were derivatives of Redhat / Fedora. I also echo his experience with Ubuntu. In my few hours of playing with Ubuntu and Kubuntu 6.10 I have been pretty impressed with the package install / updating process. Could it be that someone will finally figure this out? Only time will tell.
Because, I'm sure that you've always wanted to know, here it is:
At least it's realistic: it's got a can.
One of the original reasons that I justified buying a PC back in 1996 on my tiny grad student research grant was the prospect of turning it into a recording studio where all the effects and synthesizers were software and storage was digital: lossless copies and no bouncing tracks around on 4 track tape recorder. No more racks of expensive dedicated gear that you'd have to lug around and best of all, no wires, power cords, MIDI cables, or patch cords. U2 had even talked about releasing one of their then upcoming albums with raw instrument tracks for fans to remix, which sounded too cool. That never happened, but it would have been fun to mash up Edge's guitar tracks:
I like the idea of persistent worlds, where the "twitch factor" is minimized and there is a large universe to explore.
The economics of these games are quite different, but if you look at it as more of a social experience where one night's gaming equals one night out for beers with your friends, the monthly fee is actually quite cheap: $13 per month for WoW, versus $5 per pint, with a usual 3-4 pints on a normal night out. This article has an interesting analogy comparing the social aspects of MMORPGs to the sports enthusiasts.
I wonder if World Of Warcraft is worth it at this point, as it's been out since 2004 and everyone has leveled up...
Back in my startup days my office mates and I had a tradition we called 'something cool'. When someone would come into our office that we hadn't seen for a while we would usually end our conversation by saying "hey, want to see something cool?" We would then proceed to show them something we hoped they didn't already know. These would usually be something like a new Windows or Linux trick, a new cool utility or macro or even a new web site we discovered. It was our way of 'sharing the wealth'
In the spirit of 'something cool'...
Meet MetaVnc.
Virtualization Illegal?
Specifically Parallels, won't release a version that can run OSX under virtualization because they don't want their users to do anything illegal, or to open them up to legal issues. VMWare is wrestling with the same moral issue. Apparently Apple's ELUA specifically forbids virtualization.
I was just talking about this very thing yesterday. I know Apple is worried about running OSX on non Apple, hardware, but why not just work with them to make sure it doesn't? How cool (or ironic depending on your point of view) would it be to run OSX in a VM under Windows on Mac hardware? In fact I think if Parallels could work it so that they can virtualize either way while accessing your native partition, it would be good for their business and Apples.
Oh and if you want a laugh, read the last couple of sentences of that article where they speculate if it is even technically possible to run OSX under virtualization. Are they serious? Just search a few torrent sites guys, people have been running it under VMWare on non Apple hardware since the first Intel developer version came out! I guess I expect too much from ARS.
Now that Vista is released Microsoft made the new Remote Desktop Client available for XP. This version is 6.0 and is basically the same client that ships with Vista. The killer feature for me is the /span monitors option. It allows you to create a remote desktop session that will fill two monitors. Note that the monitors need to have the same vertical resolution for this to be effective. Also they need to be oriented side by side. You do not need to have multiple monitors at the remote (server) end - just the client.
This one feature has been a real productivity booster for me. I have been using versions ripped from various Vista builds for over a year now, and can't live without it.
There are some other neat features in there as well, but most are limited for use with Vista as the server. These include 32bit color, font smoothing, and desktop composition. Oh, and by Vista I apparently mean Vista ultimate, since for some sick reason MS marketing yanked remote desktop support from Vista premium.
You can get the new client from windows update (if it hasn't already been pushed to you by now.)
More VI(M) powerups:
:set ic -Turn on ignore case for searches
Ctag commands:
:ta [tagname] - edit the file with tagname.
:po - pop to previous location
:ts [tagname] - list the tags that match
Ctag keystrokes:
Ctrl-] - jump to name under cursor
Ctrl-T - pop to previous location
To use above you must have previously built ctags for your source project. For example:
ctags -R *.c *.h
Power searching with Firefox using
smart keywords. Once you use this, you won't go back.
I've extended this to do specialized Google searches, where I want to search only one web site. I'm often looking up API documentation on MSDN, and I don't want other sites to show up in the search results. So, I'll type a query like this into Google:
But typing all that site:... junk is a pain, and I always seem to mistype the word Microsoft. So, I've combined the site specific search with a Firefox smart keyword so that you can type the following into the Firefox address bar to get the same results:
To do this:
1. Go to Google and right click inside the search box.
2. Choose "Add a Keyword for this Search".
3. In the Name field, type MSDN search (this name will be displayed in the bookmarks menu).
4. In the Keyword field, type ms.
5. Click OK.
6. Go to the Bookmarks menu in Firefox, and right click on MSDN Search and select Properties.
7. For the Location field, enter this string: http://www.google.com/search?q=%s+site%3Amsdn.microsoft.com
8. Click OK.
The key part is the q=%s in the search query, and that will get filled in with everything after the ms keyword that you type in the address bar.
Super awesome vim commands.
Gmail power select: to select multiple consecutive email threads, click the Select checkbox of the first thread, then hold down shift and click the Select checkbox of the last thread. Gmail will select (or unselect) all the threads between the two.
Mac OS X comes with retarded key bindings for somethings, like having Home/End go to the start/end of the document, instead of start/end of the line.
Fixes for this here and here.
On Mac OS X, hold down ctrl and use the scroll wheel of the mouse, or the two finger track pad scroll. It magnifies the screen and you can scroll around the area magnified.
To list just the subdirectories of a directory in Linux:
To look for text in a bunch of files recursively through directories:
Windows Update is really convenient, except when an update is installed that requires a restart of the computer. A dialog then gives two choices: "Restart Now" or "Restart Later". If you choose later, it'll pop up the dialog box 10 minutes later and keep doing so until you finally reboot.
Here is how you can turn off this ridiculous nagfest.
Firefox keyboard shortcuts.
Web development cheat sheets, from Mr. Mosaic + Netscape himself!
Silence the PC speaker beeps.