Saturday, September 26, 2009

Going on hiatus

Not that anyone actually follows this blog (if they do, the statistics certainly don't reflect it), but this is just a public outlet for me more than anything else. I have a journal for my deep, dark stuff, mwahahahaha. But anyway, it seems like there is a lot of negativity permeating the intrawebs these days, and I've pretty much had my fill of it. I don't if it's due to the stress of getting close to the release date of several huge software projects, or what, but the blogs and "Planets" I typically follow have been especially bitchy these days, and it's not just about code, either. That would be one thing, but I can't open my browser these days without being greated by at least a few profane posts ranting about everything from sexism to politics.

Anyway, this kind of sentiment seems to be permeating cyberspace as a whole (or at least my little corner of it), and at the moment I really don't need that. I'm in the process of recovering from major back surgery and have enough to deal with without listening to everyone who can type a forum post air their personal beef. So this blog is most likely going to go silent for some time. I've deactivated my Facebook account for the time being, cut WAY back on checking email and have left my computer sitting pretty much unloved more often than it's getting used, with the exception of keeping notes on my condition and tracking my meds. So for now, I'm checking out and taking a little vacation from the web. I'm going to pick up my guitar, take walks, and spend a little more time talking to my kids. Admittedly, it's probably best that I do more of that in the long run anyhow, as some people seem to get too wrapped up in their online selves, and I'm probably just as guilty as anyone of that.

As an aside, though, my kid got to playing with my Fuze a couple of weeks ago and was so impressed with it he ditched his current PMP, ordered one for himself and so far couldn't be happier with it. Turns out the old man knows a thing or two after all. ;) It really is a kick-ass audio player for the money, and I can't imagine (at least for my needs) ever needing anything different as it already does more than I actually use it for. Now that I think about it, it might be wise for me to either buy a replacement battery for my current Fuze or buy a new Fuze altogether and just leave it in a drawer in it's packaging for the unfortunate day Sandisk decide to replace it in their product line, which with my luck would be about the same time mine would die. Never hurts to cover your bases.

Later.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Epiphany extensions, where art thou?

For the longest time, ever since I started using Debian, Epiphany has always been my favorite web browser. It's always been just a little quicker and less bloated than what Firefox has evolved into and came with a sufficient number of extensions (including the very useful Greasemonkey). However, after version 2.26 of Epiphany they have dropped the Gecko engine (the one used by all of Mozilla's browsers) in favor of WebKit, something I've been pretty excited about. I've been trying to keep up with the latest Epiphany releases which use this engine, and they have worked brilliantly for the most part. One of the big hurdles at the beginning of development seemed to be porting the extensions over to WebKit version, but port them they did. The extensions are available on the PPA for Epiphany WebKit, but I'm not sure why. I can only remember running one version that ever gave me access to the extensions, and the latest (and I fear last) version for Jaunty has once again disabled the Tools menu and I'm no longer able to access them even though I have them installed. This is quite frustrating, as why would you offer an extensions package and not provide access to it? Just doesn't make sense to me. Guess I'll have to wait for Karmic to get a fully functional version of Epiphany, which can't come too soon as I'm growing a little weary of this game of hide and seek. Meanwhile, I find myself using Midori (another Linux WebKit browser) more and more, which seems to be updating at a breakneck pace and adding new features all the time, even for Jaunty users. It's just beyond me why the Epiphany developers are giving us half functional releases. If they're going to do that, then why offer them at all? Perhaps they should be wooing the developer (which is pretty much a one man show) of Midori and tapping him to add some of the cool functionality of that browser into Epiphany, as Midori remains small, fast and simple (like Epiphany) but still provides some niceties that Epiphany WebKit, at least on Ubuntu 9.04, seems to be lacking. At least October is right around the corner......