Switching to Colemak (part 1) – The reasoning

This is going to be probably the first part of a multi-part on my attempt to switch to the Colemak layout.

Why Colemak?

My reasoning to change keyboard layouts has to do with the amount of typing I really have to do every day. I can write consistently around 50-55 words per minute on a traditional QWERTY keyboard and this speed was slow for the amount of writing I did in my PhD thesis. As that is finished, I decided to invest some time in learning a better (and faster) keyboard layout.

I want a layout that is less stressful on my hands (not getting younger…) and is easy to transition to. After reading a lot about alternative keyboard layouts I decided to try out Colemak.

The main reason I adopted Colemak instead of Dvorak (another popular choice) was to make the transition from qwerty easy. There are fewer changes (17) to get used to and traditional shortcuts like copy and paste are in the same place.

My main concern right now is with the time it will take me to get at least to a similar speed as the old layout. I started practicing using the fabulous Amphtype software a few days ago. My idea is to read a book by writing it on the software. Right now my speed is around 18 wpm and my most used key is the backspace, but at least I have already memorised the layout.

By the way, this post was already written in Colemak. I’d love to hear about your experiences with different layouts and if you have any tips on how to improve the speed, please send them. I promise to keep you updated on my progress with the Colemak.

Disappearing right click (context) menu in Dropbox folder and files.

Today I was alerted by a friend that his Dropbox files/folders couldn’t be shared anymore (he was asking me how to do it) in windows machines. That’s strange behaviour I thought!

I had a Windows machine laying around and went to test it. The truth is that it had happened to me too. Where were my Dropbox icons on the context menu? I was running version 2.4.11 in both Windows and Mac and the Windows version seamed to have stopped allowing the sharing functionality.

Another colleague told me that she experienced a similar thing, but in her case it was the missing of the Public folder after installation of Dropbox. What? No Public folder?

Until now I relied in the auto upgrade of Dropbox but what I found is that my 2.4.11 version was A LOT behind the official 2.6.x stable release. The x of the 2.6.x is there because if you go to the install page on the mac you get 2.6.7 but if you go to the release notes page the latest stable version is 2.6.13 GO FIGURE!

Well, in the end I decided to go with a testing release (LIVING WILD I SAY) and installed 2.7.38 on all my machines. So my advice? Don’t rely too much on Dropbox auto-updating itself. DOESN’T WORK. Do a manual check now and then.

Podcasts: Audições para a primavera de 2014

Os podcasts vieram para transformar a rádio. Democratizaram o meio e permitiram que os produtores independentes tenham uma voz para voltar a fazer programas de autor. Mas se em Portugal o panorama é dominado por podcasts que não passam das gravações das emissões de rádio (tirando algumas honrosas excepções), lá por fora encontram-se verdadeiras pérolas. Pena que por cá o “de autor” seja entendido normalmente como “de baixa qualidade”, mas isso levar-me-ia para outra discussão.

A minha lista de audições para esta Primavera mantém apenas uma entrada relação à lista que me acompanhou em 2013. Outra vantagem dos podcasts é que não temos que ouvir o mesmo RAP a encher chouriços o ano todo. Curiosamente não tem nenhum podcast (em) português e é dominada por podcasts da radiotopia! Cá vão eles: 99% Invisible, The Truth, Strangers e Theory of Everything. Para além destes quatro ainda ouço um produzido pela BBC 4, o In Our Time com o Melvyn Bragg. Não será para todos os gostos e nem sempre a qualidade é top (e muito menos se compararmos com alguns dos independentes que em nada lhe ficam atrás), mas tem o peso da BBC, o que permite a regularidade semanal com convidados de peso.

A lista é curta, não inclui nenhum podcast de tecnologia ou de ciência ou… geek, mas se calhar são gostos que vão mudando consoante a idade ou o momento. Se tiverem alguma sugestão de podcasts que realmente sejam uma lufada de ar fresco por favor indiquem. Publiquem a lista de podcasts que ouvem. Quem sabe se não há espaço na minha lista para mais um?

Goo.gl shortener needs a few hours work

Google has an URL shortener of his own called goo.gl. It works great and if you create your short cuts while you’re logged into your account you’ll get an history of your shortened URLs, but… and this is the but, the interface is not all that great. Google needs to pay some attention to their URL shortener. Some things that the UI team at google needs to take into consideration:

  • The number of visible urls per page should be configurable, instead of being just 10 per page.
  • One should be able to sort the table by any column, namely by hits. This would allows us to search quickly for most popular URLs instead of going through many pages to find it. (In my case I have a popular URL for Endnote bibliographic style sheet for the Portuguese norm NP405 that I like to track but it is buried in this awful pagination)
  • Some kind of statistical export function would be nice. Maybe in CSV format.

This kind of stuff would take maybe a couple of hours from a google engineer and would make the service even more useful! Think about it google.

Acerca dos Clientes para os Blogues

Blogging

Uma das coisas que não compreendo hoje em dia tem a ver com as aplicações que se utilizam para “blogar”.

Pessoalmente não gosto das interfaces web. Prefiro ter uma aplicação offline, onde se vai escrevendo e se reúnem as ideias até que a “posta” esteja pronta a tirar do forno.

No caso deste blogue, a plataforma que utilizo é o WordPress e custa-me não ter uma aplicação bem feita pelo pessoal da AUTOMATTIC para o Mac. Há aplicações de terceiros, mas não percebo porque será tão difícil fazerem algo nativo.

Se há aplicações nativas o iPad (e a versão para iPad está um mimo) não percebo porque o Desktop ficou tão “órfão”. Ou será que os senhores do WordPress têm interesses financeiros noutra aplicações?

Se calhar vão dizer-me que a aplicação web funciona. Funciona, mas não é a mesma coisa. MarsEdits, Ectos ou plugins para browsers… Meh. O único plugin que gostaria de ter era no Evernote. Se os tipos do Evernote permitissem exportar directamente para o blogue não me queixaria tanto.

Mas os senhores da AUTOMATTIC podiam perder um pouco de tempo e finalmente escrever uma aplicação nativa para Mac para aceder ao WordPress. Ainda por cima quando aquilo comunica em cima de um protocolo estável. Não tinham que reinventar a roda nem nada. Para além do mais já fazem uma aplicação chamada Simplenote que permite guardar notas e exportar para Web. Porque não integrar isto com o WordPress?

The Pound Problem in Gmail

As I’m starting a new life in the UK I need to adapt to some things, but…

YES BUT… We always believe that we have our little shenanigans and mischiefs in Portugal, mainly with computers. The Portuguese Computer layout, although “international” has been changed to include accents, and moving some programer keys to places that require you to be a keyboard olympic gymnastic from Romania (in the good old days).

NOW, move forward 20 years… I use GMAIL A LOT. A LOT, really a LOT. and I use the keyboard shortcuts exclusively. If you don’t know what I’m talking about YOU CAN REVERT BACK TO WHATEVER YOU’RE doing.

BYE!

Still here? Ok, you’ll learn something today then.

Being used to the PT KEYBOARD you’d assume that you wouldn’t have many problems going to an english one. The shortcuts for programming would become perfect and the accents … WELL who really NEEDS those stupid appendices anyway?

The problem is GMAIL. In the UK layout the hashtag (#) is on the letter ‘3’ and is activated by ALT+3 (in my shiny new MacBook Pro). SHIFT+3 activates the ‘£’. YES they pay me in £s but this breaks GMAIL. I can’t DELETE emails with a shortcut. ARGH!!!!! ALT+3 doesn’t work.

SOLUTION:

Go to settings in your GMAIL account and then to LABS and activate the GREAT, DAY SAVER, NOBEL AWARD nominee Custom keyboard shortcuts by Alan S. Then go the SETTINGS again and into the Keyboard shortcuts panel and change to them your liking. I just added the £ as a possibility to delete emails in UK layouts.

Argh. Why AREN’T COMPUTERS CIVILISED?