Author: Amit Schreiber

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Goodbye Unity, Welcome Back Gnome (Classic)

I gave Unity a good chance, but it was simply torture. Maybe it’s the over 3 years old hardware I’m running Ubuntu on, or maybe it’s the servers I’m running on my machine for the project I’m working on, but the hard drive kept thrashing to a point where it was unbearable. Sometimes just clicking a top menu or switching to a different window would take over a minute while the hard drive was grinding as if it was being benchmarked.

So I decided to go back to Gnome classic. The computer is way more responsive now and works considerably faster. My guess is that either Unity’s memory requirements are so high that I ran out (of 2 GB) and the memory had to be constantly swapped or it’s my relatively old 3D accelerated nVidia video card or Unity is doing too much disk access. Whatever it is, Unity does not work well on my machine.

I’m not so happy about reverting back to Gnome because I don’t like to be the kind of person who doesn’t accept change. But for the sake of productivity – I have to forget about Unity for now.

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Ubuntu 11.04 Launcher Doesn’t Auto Hide

If you installed Ubuntu 11.04 and after a while the launcher stops auto hiding as it should, it may be because you did some dragging and dropping in an application. For example, if you use Konsole (like I do) and you drag one of Konsole’s tabs to reorganize their order, the launcher will suddenly pop up and will not hide itself automatically.

The easiest workaround I found is: right click the tab in Konsole and choose “Detach tab”, then drag the tab in the newly detached window back to where you intended to put the tab in the original window. When you’re done – the launcher will hide itself.

Excluding (some really annoying) bugs, is anyone else having difficulties with the new Unity interface? Or am I just too old for these kind of conceptual changes?

EDIT: This is a known and confirmed bug in Unity. I dutifully added my two cents.

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When Text-To-Speech-To-Text Is Perfected

What’s going to happen when text-to-speech-to-text is perfected? Phones can already read text messages well enough and soon you’ll be able to input text messages to your phone just by talking to it.

Then, instead of texting, you’ll be:

  1. Talking to your phone (entering a message.)
  2. Waiting for a reply, entered by your friend by talking to his/her phone.
  3. Having the reply read to you by a text-to-speech engine.

Essentially, you’ll be having a push-to-talk (PTT) conversation with the robotic voice of your phone. All to avoid a simple call.

Just a thought.

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Adjustments

I’ve been unemployed for a week now and it’s mostly been about adjusting to a new, different, routine. Here’s a list of some of the adjustments I had to make:

  • Making my own food – I’ve mostly been eating pre-made grilled chicken I buy at the supermarket, salad and whole rice, which I make in the new rice cooker I got as a gift. Luckily I don’t mind eating the same thing for long periods of time so it works for now. At some point, though, I’ll have to learn how to make other foods.
  • Running outside – this one isn’t easy. I still run early in the morning and currently the temperatures are pretty low. I have a route of a little under 11km, which I complete in one hour – almost the same as when I used to run in the gym.
  • Riding around on a bicycle – after many many years I’m riding a bicycle again. It’s not too bad, apart from the fact that I have to ride slower than I would have liked to avoid sweating.
  • Using public transport – for the longer distances I’ve started using the train, buses and taxis. The train is the most comfortable, as I can use my netbook and time flies. Buses and taxis pretty much suck, but I get along.
  • Giving up Diet Coke – my mild addiction to Diet Coke had to be stopped. From time to time I can still drink some, for example if I’m going to a restaurant, but generally I switched to tap water.

This is just off the top of my head. Getting up in the morning and “going to work” in my own desk at home also feels a bit unnatural. But it’s all about adjusting, and I think that after just one week I’m doing OK.

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Happy Birthday To Me. I’m 34

I’m 34 and it’s time for the yearly look back.

It was a year of starting and ending relationships. I’ve had some great moments of happiness along with big disappointments. Right now I’m happy and hoping to stay that way.

It was a year of travelling. I visited Paris and Berlin (same trip), Athens, Slovenia and Croatia (same trip), Switzerland and the US. I traveled more than I did during my trip around the world in 2009.

It was another year of Prodigy concerts. I went to a total of 3 concerts (two in Paris, one in Athens) with friends, which is even better than going alone – it’s an experience I love to share. My count of Prodigy concerts now stands on 12. Considering they’ve been around for 20 years, I think I still have some catching up to do :)

And finally, it was a year of tough career decisions. After working nearly 5 years in the same place I decided to quit and go on my own way, starting in a week’s time. It’s not easy giving up the comfort and security of being a hire in favor of an independent road, but I think it’s time to give it a try.

All in all, it was a year to remember. I can only hope for a similarly exciting 35th year.

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Facebook Disables Contact Info Sharing (For Now)

This is what I get for reporting news on this blog – having to report change: Facebook will temporarily disable the new contact information sharing it just announced. PC Magazine reports:

Facebook announced Tuesday that it will temporarily disable a feature that allowed the social-networking site to share user phone numbers and addresses with app developers.

Douglas Purdy, director of developer relations for Facebook, said in a blog post that the site is “making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so.”

I still recommend you remove all “real life” contact information on Facebook. Put a current email address and nothing more. Your privacy is too precious.

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A Day Of Privacy: Facebook Now Shares Your Private Info

Facebook announced they’ll be sharing phone numbers and addresses of users with platform application developers. I recommend removing personal information from your Facebook profile (I’ve done it a long time ago.)

Also, if you haven’t already turned off Facebook applications in the applications privacy section, maybe it’s time. If you don’t use Facebook applications – why not turn them off? Legacy apps, which you installed in the past, still have a so-called “legacy access” to your information.