Another Opinion Among Many

I’ve become less and less enamored with all desktop interfaces lately. When Microsoft Windows updated the kludgey Windows 98 to XP, it was probably the last good move for the Windows desktop. The subsequent versions added work to the simplest tasks and the “security” was ill-conceived and usually got turned off or ignored. With Windows 7, Vista became a tad more useful, but still adds extra steps and complexity to the simplest tasks. It seems that they are trying to hide the OS from the user, especially the powerful parts.

Mac OSX is heading that way, as well, with OSX 10.7 and 10.8. More work to do the simplest task and hide all the powerful tools from the user, lest they actually get to leverage the power of the OS.

This is one of the real reasons that I was lured to the Linux desktop. Despite there being dozens of Window Managers and a few Desktop environments to choose from, you could actually tinker with it, if the default setup wasn’t what you wanted. I settled on the KDE desktop environment for several years, as it had easy power and everything was easy to find. Gnome was simple to use, as well, but it lacked the tools that KDE had.

When Ubuntu took Gnome to the next level and created the tools that were missing, it was the beginning of a good era. Regardless of the distribution I chose, I liked where Gnome had gotten to, thanks to the direction that development took.

And then, there came Gnome 3. Shades of Windows 8/Mountain Lion. There went my ease of use and easy access to the tools of every day use. In one version “evolution”, Gnome has become as difficult to use simply as Windows and Mac OSX had. Ubuntu took their desktop in a different direction with Unity and, still, I felt no joy in using their front end, either. It certainly isn’t designed for 4×3 monitors, like the old CRT I still use, with that button bar permanently on the left of the screen, stealing real estate from my browser.

Its not that these evolutions of the previous desktops wasn’t good looking. On the contrary, if they work, they are all stunning to look at. The thing is that my perfectly good PC has become a sluggish piece of crap, due to the increased system requirements that these bloated desktops require. They all want a 2GHz processor with at least 2 cores. They all want at least 2GB or RAM. Any less and they plug along at a snail’s pace.

Cinnamon, you say? Nope. Just as sluggish as Gnome3 and Unity. What about KDE4? Not really (until maybe now), as the new version was a complete rewrite, just like Gnome, and the features that used to be there haven’t been rewritten yet. MATE? Nope, for the same reasons as KDE. XFCE? Its lite, right? Nope. Just as bad as Gnome.

Where does that leave me? Well, if Android was on a desktop already, I might have installed it, as the GUI is easy to use and there are tools that leverage the power of your device, if you want to.But, can you port a touch screen interface to one that uses a keyboard and mouse? Good question. It didn’t work with Windows 8. Great try for a tablet, but on the desktop? More covers to hide your tools with, I see.

And, why don’t any OS’s play nice when I dual, triple, etc boot? They used to.

This is a question that came to me when I realized that i am still not “back” when it comes to my online presence.

I used to post frequently at Linuxquestions.org but I rarely visit now. I used to enjoy the challenge of assisting others in solving their problems, even if it was to put a keyword into Google on their behalf. I used to enjoy researching my interests and sharing them here, with pictures and everything.

I find that most of my time is either playing Mobsters2 on Facebook and not enough Scrabble or reading the postings in the threads for cheaper Android phones at XDA Developers. Surely, there are more things that I could do online, but that’s about the extent of it, lately.

Not the Ross and Rachel type of break. But, damn, didn’t she look good in that episode?

It seems that I’ve been neglecting my feed reader, as well. Really, except for all the reading that I’ve done about Android and how to hack the crap out of my phone, I’ve not really been an internet guy lately, despite the tech support I do for the ISP I work for, and the number of unread posts in my feed reader exceeds my unread email count. So, I’ll be deleting all of the unread ones from the big sites and trying to sort through the ones from bloggers and friends that I care about. To my friends, I have been neglecting your thoughts and I apologize.

Some other things have just been so darn important that they have taken my focus. Some people, too. Sometimes the past catches up to you and gives you a great big squeeze.

Mine has 708 unread right now. I’ve subscribed to a few newsletters that I thought that I’d read. And, I signed up to do a few surveys to make a few spare bucks (very few, I must say. Poor pay for the time invested). Before I knew it, I was leaving too many emails unread and the number is still growing, I think.

If I had not filtered the emails that I got from Facebook (yes, I am on FB. Not sure why) to show as unread, I might have several more added to the list. I am working on a system of categorizing my mail according to its type and content so that I can manage it easier. If I learnt he easy tricks that work, I’ll share them here.

I won’t promise a fresh post in a few days. It could be a few more months before I “pick up the pen” again. At least it was an excuse to update my plugins and blog engine (my gawd, this is FAST hosting). Taa taa.

This winter has been unnaturally warm, sort of. A lot of the days have been warm but a lot of them have been bitter cold, too. The thing that stands out more, to me, though, is the lack of snow.

Right now, we’ve got some of the white stuff on the ground. Its been -10°C for the past few days and the snow has remained here in all of its crusty glory because of that – all 3 inches (8.62cm) of it. The sun was bright today and it looked like a more typical New Brunswick winter day, save for the missing metre of snowbank.

For most of this winter, though, we have had bare ground. For most of the time, its been warm enough to rain any time that something had to come out of the sky. Of course, it’d freeze the next day and be treacherous to walk on. And, the ground has been one soupy, muddy mess for the dog to track in, as well.

Its nice that we don’t have to wipe the dog’s feet every time she comes back in the house now.

I’m still around.

The lesser good new is….I haven’t written anything in ages.

I’ve tried the beta 3 of the upcoming 3.2 release of WordPress. Wow! Its a lot snappier. The site loads a tad quicker but the biggest speed boost is behind the scenes in the admin panel.

The theme is clean and logical, as well, from what I see. More exploring, I must do.