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I work in Japan as a Software Engineer. I love obscure programming languages, open-source, cycling and Japanese culture.
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An Idea
Lately I’ve been dreaming up of a window manager that could help me stay focused on a single thing by keeping me from multi-tasking. In the spirit of programs like writeroom and pyroom.
- It would always display windows in full screen mode.
- To do any action it would require you to type in a random string of characters.
The reason for having to type in the specified random string of characters is to give some weight to moving to another window. It might remove my desire to “just check if there’s any e-mail”, which usually turn into big distractions wasting time I don’t have. Yet it still makes switching to a Firefox window with some research possible.
Valentine's Day
I got Valentine’s day Chocolate from my Girlfriend! I’m so happy. 
It’s a box from Kobe Morozoff. The company that brought Valentine’s Day to Japan.
I need to work double hard now to work off the calories. f^_^;
LaTex
It’s amazing how far a little LaTeX can take you. Even if you’re just writing an MLA style paper.
Here’s some packages to get you started:
After installing those packages you can learn how to make an MLA style paper by reading the readme file at:
/usr/share/doc/texlive-latex-extra/latex/mla-paper/README
If you are making a regular CS paper/report/dissertation then the example LaTeX file is the best example to go on. Try a Google search for “LaTeX Example” for some good ones.
I use Emacs as my editor which is pretty tough for most people but I think that it’s worth it if you learn how to use org-mode. Then you can C-x 3 (Vertical Split Screen) in Emacs and open a notes.org file right next to the text. Then you can have an outline right at your finger tips, that you can modify/show/hide in various ways.
I also recommend adding the following line to the top of your .tex file:
% -*- mode:latex; mode: flyspell; mode: auto-fill -*-
It’ll turn on flyspell and auto-fill mode for you.
My LaTeX documents are organized into a directory structure like this
~/<class name>/<essay title>/
essay.tex
essay.bib
notes.org
Makefile
I keep a skeleton folder with those three files in it. And to make a new essay I just copy and paste it with a new name.
Integrating Qt3 programs in Ubuntu
If you’re like me and have discovered a couple of kick-ass Qt applications and are wondering how to make Qt programs look more like the default Ubuntu Human theme, I present you with a quick cheat sheet.
There’s luckily one KDE style available in the Ubuntu repositories that only depends on Qt, polymer. But the colors it uses are different from the Ubuntu colors, so here’s how to get them pretty close.
First you’ll need to install a couple of packages. You can either click on these links or search for them using synaptic.
Once you have them installed you can find qtconfig in System>Preferences>Qt3 Configuration.
First change the style to Polymer. Then click the Tune Palette. Here’s the colors that I used:
- Background: Red: 239 Green: 235 Blue: 231
- Button: Red: 245 Green: 242 Blue 239
- Highlight: Red: 219 Green: 154 Blue: 86
You can change the color by clicking on the change color button when and inputing these numbers in the window that pops up.
Once you’ve changed those three, close the Tune Palette window and go to File>Save.
Now your installed Qt apps will blend in a lot better with your other GTK applications.
Here’s what it’ll look like:
Posted in General, Linux, Planet
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Opera Mini 4
I Just installed Opera Mini on my Treo 650. It’s pretty amazing. Not exactly a safari but good enough, and much faster than the browser the Treo comes with. It’s pretty amazing that this Java app can out-perform the C-based Blazer browser by what feels like an order of magnitude.
Quote
I think Mark really hit the nail on the head with this sentence he used on a recent blog post on Inkscape changing to Launchpad for bug tracking.
“We don’t have money on our side, but we do have the power of collaboration.”
- Mark Shuttleworth
I’ll definitely be using it in presentations and talks about Free Software.
Posted in Linux, Planet
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Workrave
I learned about this program from Sacha Chua’s blog. Workrave is a cool time-to-take-a-break-reminder program that doesn’t just lock your screen (like the default typing break program in Ubuntu). It has micro-breaks which are great to remind me to get back to working on whatever I was supposed to be doing.
I wonder how my life would change if I made a program for my Treo that would make it vibrate every couple of minutes to remind me to keep my attention where it should be.
Ubuntu users can use the following link to get APT to install it for you: Install Workrave
EMobile D01NE on Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn
The EM D01NE is a (I think) HSDPA PCMCIA card. The driver for the modem comes with Ubuntu 7.04 (Maybe before). I get about 2Mbps from it (max is 3.8).
Getting this setup in Ubuntu is easier than getting it setup with Windows. The only gotcha is that you have to install Gnome-PPP first, since it doesn’t come with Ubuntu. I’ll try later using gnome-network-settings and report it in another post.
- First install GNOME-PPP using synaptic or apt-get
- Run it and press the setup button
- Press the detect button, it should find /dev/ttyACM0
- Speed: 460800
- Phone Line: Tone
- Volume: High
- In the Init Strings change Init2 to ATH0E1
- Leave Init 3 alone
- Leave Dial prefix empty
- Username: em
- Password: em
- Phone number *99***1# (Some people have success with just *99#)
- Internet!
These instructions come from http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hayamiz/20070616/1181994636 (Japanese)
Posted in Japan, Laptop, Linux, Planet
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Japanese Keybaord-Fu
For the benefit of the Internet, the key combination Control+Shift+Hiragana_Katakana puts the keyboard to and from the qwerty layout. Unfortunately the story doesn’t end there. Control+Shift+Hiragana_Katakana actually alternates between half-width katakana layout and qwerty layout modes. If you are unlucky enough to accidentally press that key combination while in full-width character mode (Like I did) you will be pleasantly surprised to find that the same key combination doesn’t take you out of the Kana layout mode! The language bar isn’t going to help you either because the keyboard map between qwerty and kana mode isn’t handled in the input method! (Great design guys!). If you are in full-width character mode you need to press ALT+Hiragana_Katakana (TWICE!!!!) to get back into the full-width qwerty layout. This because the first time you press it it’ll take you into the full-width kana layout again!
(Since I map the Caps Lock key to Control, it might be possible that the combination is Caps Lock+Shift+Hiragana_Katakana. Changing this mapping in Windows requires messing with the registry so I’m not going to try it. Perhaps Lazyweb can confirm it for me. )
In the hour I spent smashing every key combination possible I found some other equally useless combinations. Here’s a list of my findings.
- (Full-width mode) ALT+Hiragana_Katakana: Toggle qwerty and kana layout modes
- (Half-width mode) CTRL+Shift+Hiragana_Katakana: Toggle half width querty and kana layout modes (toggles full-width romaji in full-width mode)
- (Full-width mode) Shift+Muhenkan: Toggle between kana and full-width romaji
- (Full-width mode) Shift+Henkan: Toogle between kana and half-width romaji modes
Posted in Japan, Planet
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