Dvorak, when the walls fell

I'd heard of the Dvorak keyboarding method years and years ago, but I never really got a handle on it or why it was better for me. Then last week, I came across this post on boingboing linking to a very informative e-comic that outlined exactly why I should switch.

So I hitched up my pants, spat into the brass spittoon and said "Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy."[1] Metaphorically, of course.

Literally though, I set up the Dvorak keyboard on my Thinkpad (it's included as a option in the Regional Settings portion of the Control Panel), took an old keyboard apart and reassembled it Dvorak-style -- for referral purposes only, you don't need a new keyboard to learn Dvorak -- and went online to find some typing tutorial software that would help me learn. I eventually went with Ten Thumbs and their cool viking cartoon helpers.

I dug in with both hands (ha!) and began to see why Dvorak can be such a blessing for touch typists. All the main letters (s,t,n,a,d,o,e,i) are on the main "home" row. A lot less finger movement means more efficient and presumably faster typing.

Then I started to run into the problems:

1. O.M.G. was I slow. I'm a pretty fast touch typist on QWERTY, roughly around 75-90 WPM when I really get it going. With Dvorak, I went back down to 18-25 WPM and I could not stand it. Emails, chats, writing technical documentation -- I do a lot of writing in a day, and I literally kept forgetting what I was trying to type because it was taking me so long to type it. I know that it's idiotic to think that I would be as fast a typist right away, and I certainly was improving after only a few days, but it was giving me headaches to try and rewire my brain like this.
   
2. Copy/Paste - on your normal computer keyboard, CRTL+C and CTRL+V are the copy and paste shortcuts. But in Dvorak land, C and V aren't beside each other anymore (for the record C goes in the "I" position and V is in the ">" position, QWERTY-wise). I wound up losing efficiency with my keyboard shortcuts.
   
3. Multiplicity - I work with a lot of computers. A lot. I have 5 systems in my office, plus my wife's iBook, and literally dozens and dozens of other virtual machines both here at home and remotely at work. That's just too much pain to set each and every one of those up with the Dvorak layout (not to mention that my wife was having none of this madness, so there'd have to be both layouts on several systems to support both of us).
   
4. Keyboards - I mentioned that I took apart a keyboard and set the keys up in Dvorak layout, but most keyboards today are "formed" to a physical design and you can't just move keys from one location to another on the keyboard and have it look normal. The alternative is to paint or tape over the letters and put the Dvorak keys in place. Way too much hassle.
   

So in the end, I pulled the plug on the Dvorak experiment. I think for someone just learning to touch type, or someone who only has one computer, it's definitely a great choice, and I admire all the proponents who swim against the stream to keep this alternative alive. But I've got deadlines to keep and miles of documents to write before I sleep.

[Those of you wondering about this post's title: see here]

New release of DB2 Express-C available

I know I spend a lot of time talking about hardware, but software is an important part of what I'm all about here at the 3'oclock blog.

In my work life, I work as a technical marketer for the IBM DB2 database, and today marks the release of our latest version of our free version-- DB2 Express-C 9.5, so if your in the market for a free no-limits database, please drop by our download site and grab a copy (currently only available on Windows or Linux).

Download:
Linux
Windows

Launchy

I just looked over my last few weeks of posts, and I can't believe I've forgotten to talk about Launchy!

I found Launchy courtesy of my constant perusal of Mac OSX sites that always hype Quicksilver (more detailed explanation here), a powerful keyboard based application launcher. So without having OSX to play with, I went looking for a suitable Windows alternative.

And so I found Launchy.

Launchy is great stuff -- hands down one of the most useful software tools I've installed this year. Just hit the "Alt" and "SpaceBar" together and this slick-looking bar pops up:

Not that much to look at, but if I start typing:


And if I keep typing, I get what I'm looking for:


(I could have also used the down arrow to pick the iTunes program out of the drop down box).

What Launchy does is index your Windows Start menu, programs directory and bookmarks and then helps you to find what your looking for, then launches the appropriate executable file to start the program or bookmark. I've pretty much stopped using my Start Menu, Quick Launch toolbar and desktop shortcuts since I put Launchy to work for me. And it learns too, putting the programs you use more often higher up in the returned results. You can of course, configure it to avoid certain directories or document types that should not be indexed.

Other cool features:
* Built in searches: just type "IMDB" or "Google" and hit the Tab button. You'll get a vertical bar "|", after which you can type your search term and it'll open your browser and retrieve your search results for that engine:


* Directory launching: Launchy also knows all about your "Documents and Settings folder", bringing you the ability to retrieve (and launch) documents from your "My Documents", "My Music", etc. folders:



Give Launchy a try -- you will be glad you did!

Wow: Photosynth

I am pretty surrounded with technology. I work at IBM making software (although databases will never really be on the "cool" side of technology); I love to futz around with computer hardware and software; and I love to see new stuff coming down the pipe.

And then there's stuff that simply takes my breath away because it's so far beyond what I could ever have conceived as possible. Photosynth is one of those things.

Here's a couple of videos that show off Photosynth:

Video - from the TED conference: Video #1
Video - from the Photosynth team: Video #2

This is just jaw-dropping stuff and it will likely revolutionize photo sharing and taking, as Google Earth and Google Maps have revolutionized mapping.

Way cool.

Captcha (n.)

You know what a captcha is, right? Sure you do. You know -- those annoying little "tests" on websites where you to type the wacky image text into a form box to prove that you're actually a human being and not a computer.*

Yeah, they bug the hell out of me too.

Well, the folks over at Carnegie Mellon University have done a very smart thing. See, they've tied the text used in those captcha images with a large database of digitized, but not transcribed, books. When a book is electronically scanned, the character recognition software is usually enough to transcribe 90% of what's there into the correct computer text. The other 10%, though, has to be done by humans, who are smart enough to parse the visual part of the text, even when it's slightly blurry, or has lines drawn through it, or whatever.

With the marriage of this slightly illegible text and the constant need for new captchas for website verifications, the Carnegie Mellon group have released "reCAPTCHA" as a web service so that websites can take advantage of the idea (for free!) and all of us poor human users who have to use captchas to log on or sign up will actually be contributing to the digitization of human knowledge via this effort.

Next time you're filling in one of those de-humanizing "human" tests on a website, make sure the site is using the reCAPTCHA system. If they are, you can feel good that once again, you're better than a machine.

* CAPTCHA is actually an acronym for "Completely Automatic Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart". See? The 3'oclock blog isn't just about fun, it's also about learning.

Hey Developer: they're MY documents, not yours

A bit of a rant today, I'm afraid.

I've never been a huge fan of how Windows organizes a User's programs and files. The move to "My Documents" and "Program Files" in Windows 95 (if I recall correctly) made things probably worse than in the Windows 3.1 and DOS days. Now we found ourselves subject to programs installing into "C:\Progra~1\Micros~1\" and user files winding up inside a hodgepodge of folders like "C:\Documen~1\Steve~1\Access~1\" and so forth.

Vista has made things a little tidier. Users are still given an individual "home" folder, but it's in a more reasonable place: C:\Users\Steve -- no more spaces in the filenames. However, they're still using the poorly named "C:\Program Files\" folder as a destination for program installs. Why, oh why, can't we just have a "C:\Programs\" directory instead?!?! It's less than 8 characters, and there's no spaces. It would eliminate all the "~1" garbage now and forever.

Honestly, though, I'm digressing. The point of this post is that I took a close look in my "My Documents" folder today, and I was just disgusted to see how many other applications feel that they have the right to install their related files into MY documents folder, without so much as a by your leave. 10 different applications had all dumped settings and output files into my home location!

A few points for every application developer to take note:

1. Settings for your application should go into an appropriately labeled sub-folder under the User's "Application Data" folder, not into this documents folder, where a User can easily change and/or delete your application's settings.
2. If an application needs a spot for temporarily downloading files (for updates or whatever), this is NOT the place for that. Use one of Windows' myriad of temp directories, or create your own under the User's base (C:\Documents and Settings\\) directory. And for the love of all that is sweet and good -- if you absolutely, positively have to, have to, have to, create a temporary folder here -- CLEAN IT UP WHEN YOU'RE DONE!! I have no need to see the ugliness of your update system's directories and files, especially in amongst my personal documents! Augh!
   
3. If you have any sort of graphical installer -- and this is Windows, so 99% of you do -- during the install, make sure to ask the user where they want to install the program. Sure, having a "Program Files" folder preset as a default is great, and some folks will be fine to just hit the "Next" button, but be sure to include an option for users that don't like to default to the C: drive, or who use a separate "Programs" folder. And make sure your application knows how to deal with this scenario. It's no good asking for user input if you're just going to ignore it.
4. Also ask the user where in the Start Menu they want to have your shortcuts. I cannot stand Start Menus that spew out to multiple columns. I have my own organization, and I ask that you respect it.
   
5. If you do require a place for user specific settings and update temp files to live, provide an Options panel choice so the user can pick where to put these files. Don't leave the location option specified in a lonely .ini file somewhere, and the only place that option is documented is in the .ini file itself. Likely the average user won't be bothered to change it, provided your location makes sense, but it's a great feature to have for the advanced user.
   

Anyway, I'm off to get my delete key out for these morons who don't respect my computer, and won't leave my documents alone.

Joost: The Verdict

I'd love to tell you that Joost was the coolest thing I've seen come down the pike, and that it will revolutionize television/internet convergence, but that just ain't the case, babe.

I tried running Joost about 10 times, but every time I started the software, my CPU went straight to 100%, and when I did get any video, it was blocky and skippy. I couldn't understand the interface icons, or even how to pick a show. My searches found nothing. The GUI takes over the entire computer screen, including the Windows bar, without asking, or without an easily found minimize option.

Maybe the blocky viewing was my pipe -- I only have a 2 MB/s line into the house, but even still, YouTube and other video clips show fine.I tried rebooting, I tried shut down everything else running on the system, but I couldn't get any real improvement.

Joost is still just in beta release, but as Google has shown, these days, if you're in beta, you'd better be just about ready for prime time.

And Joost is anything but prime time.

Joost: Pt. 2

I was able to get a Joost invite here: https://joost.com/presents/gigaom-newteevee/

I'll take a look and let you know what I think.

Joost

My ever intrepid reader, DS -- who frankly seems to be my only reader -- put up a suggestion at the 3'oclock blog's del.icio.us site that I should blog about Joost. Joost is the cool new internet-based TV killer app that's been put together by the guys who made Skype a reality.

[Sidebar: if you made freaking millions off of one idea, and honestly never had to work another day in your life, would you really go back to it? Wouldn't you want to go out and experience life outside of your current world? I guess if it really is what you love, then leaving it would be bad. I'd be soaking up the sun on a yacht in the Caribbean faster than you can say "department re-org".]

There's only one problem -- Joost is currently only in a "friends-only" beta stage, which means you have to have an invite from Joost to join. But I don't have an invite.

Yet.

(stay tuned)

Software the good: DB2 Express-C

As some of you may know, I spend my working days pushing bits and bytes for the man at IBM. I primarily work on a database software product called DB2, specifically the free version, DB2 Express-C. This week we made a big announcement -- you can now pay for it!

"Uhh....what?" you ask. "Why would I pay for something that's free?"

Ok, that's a good question. The answer is that DB2 Express-C is still as free as before. But now you have the option of purchasing a 12-month support contract, so as they say, you have someone to choke when things go wrong. Database not agreeing with your OS? Call IBM support. DB2 throwing an error that you can't track down on google? Call IBM support.

And to make things even sweeter, with the purchase of the support contract, we throw in licenses to allow you to use DB2 in an HADR configuration, and to work as a database replication server. Trust me, if you know what those things are, you'd be excited by now.

Anyway, come on down and visit us at Jed's discount database emporium, and we'll set you up right. Tell 'em Ian sent ya.

Take it with you

Imagine you're staying over at Grandma's house for the weekend. She's just had a kicking T1 broadband connection installed (hey, who doesn't have a Grandma with a T1? What? Seriously, just me?). You're fired up to download some Linux torrents, or an all night FPS frag-fest. But you cannot for the life of you remember what the stupid URL is for the site. Googling for it doesn't help either, as you can't remember the weird spelling of that site. And was it .com, or .net? AUGH!

Enter Foxmarks. This cool site/utility/Firefox extension lets you keep and maintain one unified set of bookmarks, across any number of computers. And even if your Grandma's never heard of the Fox, you can still log into your Foxmarks account on via any browser and you can access your bookmark list.

I use multiple computers in multiple locations, so foxmarks is tailor made for me. On any new system, I just install the Firefox plugin, enter my account info, and boom -- 5 seconds later, all my stored bookmarks are available through the Bookmarks menu, or Alt+B (for you mouse haters). I've been using it for ages, and I love it!

Foxmarks - www.foxmarks.com
Foxmarks Firefox extension - addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2410/