uzbl, the return, day7
so... uzbl has been doing strange things to me. all that "unixy-goodness" has started to go to my head...
... such that i installed slackware.
and slackware has been doing more of the same strange things to me....
... i now like delving deeper, getting to know more about my software. i'm not claiming i sit there reading throguh source code or anything like that... but just more about how the packages interact with each other, a few configuration files that are universal to all distros, i've never known much about, are now familiar to me, i now take a look at the project page for specific applications i want to use, i read about them more, i read README files, and so on.
and y'know what coems with all this extra engagement with my software? knowledge. it's got me off learning about stuff i hadnt been aware of existing. like yeahconsole!!!!!
yeahconsole is another piece of software that's really got me excited.
after tilda was segfaulting, i went first in search of fixes for it, but upon doing so, i discovered a link in one of the threads, pointing to yeahconsole. yeahconsole, isnt a drop down terminal.. it just adds drop-down functionality to your existing terminal of choice. how cool is that!!!
i've long wanted to explore all the rxvt terms n the like, but i've been so gleefully ingraned in the *uake/tild* paradigm that i couldnt bring myself to it.
a friend, rstcogburn/p0rksh3d suggested i check out his urxvt drop-down wrapper script once it was finished... well... thnx for the idea. ^_^ looks like i might have found a working one on my own already. i've not even typed a command into it yet, just configured it, launched it, and made it appear/disapear a few times, and i already love it. it seems properly crisp n clean. fluffless. i like that. ^_^
...and why am i rabbiting on about this in my uzbl series?
well... besides the point of it being MY blog, AND my disclaimer just under the title, because this is what uzbl has done to me. it's set forth a cascade of events (pebcak n all), that's bringing me closer to the metal, deeper into the interoperability of the operating system... the immense power that comes from your software being entirely "sh" friendly, so one app can use the output of another and do things with it... so all apps can work together, rather than distinct separate islands that you're just reliant on whatever features the programmer thinks you need.... which when you're in that prison, it often feels really great, because the programmer has diligently furnished it with everything they could think of you needing. and that's great, it really is, it works wonders, especially for many a specialist application (thinking of the highest couple examples of this like softimage|XSI and abletonLIVE)... and chances are, when the demands are high-end enough, you'll come full circle, and that pipeable interoperability will be on the cards again.
see... i know uzbl isnt the absolute zippiest nippy responsive browser out there... using the likes of "links" (as i'm doing on slackware just now, until i get uzbl installed..... i'll get around to it, dont worry) where everything seems instant, because there's no delay waiting for graphics to load, no wasted cpu cycles on anything but the text n links... yeah, it's fast... but uzbl wins, despite it's python lag, because of it's interoperability with the rest of the os, because of it's relative familiarity. if you've already learned a load of bash, there'l be more tricks availed to you in uzbl. if you havnt, and you learn to use and configure uzbl, you'll learn more tricks to apply to the rest of your os. ...see how clever it is?
... i still feel like i've completely failed to convey the boon of using software that strives to adhere to the unix-philosophy of "one job, well". when you couple this with "Free Software" (i.e. the 4 freedoms) it really takes off. without the freedom, it becomes insular, elitist, esoteric. with the freedom, it becomes a community, where we're all sharing and learning together. ...sure you still get elitism in some corners, but hey, that's kinda part of the freedom... it's "free to share", not "not free to not share" (or not "mandated to share", if that's clearer.)... as was proven just moments ago in irc.. there are of course still people who are in that place where they'd rather massage their own insecurities by calling others "noobs" rather than actually offer something helpful. human failings on their spiritual evolution aside, the 4 freedoms are still maintained, and that fosters the sense of community, encourages the notion that it's not only ok to share, but a very welcome benefit to US ALL. .... n that's the idea that proponents of the proprietary development model are fighting hard against. there, it's aledgedly not being a beneficial contributing member of society, but a leeching pariah criminal!!! see how utterly disturbingly wack that is?!? helping your neighbour is a crime??? helping spread enlightenment and knowledge is a crime? helping spread empowerment a crime??? utter maaaaadness!
centralisation, totalitarianism, want to keep you dependent. hard working dependents. slaves effectively. constantly reinforcing the idea in you that you cant know enough to be empowered, and that you always need to keep relying on what they have to offer you, and that what they offer you is the farthest extent of possible empowerment, so you'd better keep working to pay the piper.
... ok... ok... now i rly have stretched the relevence to uzbl a bit far... this is encroaching on the teritory of digit's ideals vs the incumbent socio-ecconomic paradigm. :/
... i suppose i'm just having a grumble about this because i have some wage slavery to get on with... or the nearest thing i have to it, freelance graphic design crap for commercial interests. :/
better stop procrastinating on that with my lamentations. ^_^
Thursday 19 May 2011
uzbl, the return - day 6
uzbl, the return, day6
well, yesterday i said i was gonna start from scratch...
i thought i'd rap out an arch install in about 25 minutes, n then another 20 minutes later, i'd have a nice gui (xmonad + my config), packer, pacsync and of course, uzbl installed again, and start up a nice tight install, kept tight n tidy with pacsync...
...alas, events took a different turn.
my dual netinst cd was giving me installation problems again... i'd had this before installing arch on this laptop for bases for the arch based rown witch linux i've been developing.
it seems to somehow cut out just after package installation, and fails to reccognise the media it was being installed to after that (preventing just those last two steps).
so after the third time getting the same result (and not remembering what i did, besides blind luck, to get it to work for the arch witch install), i thought i'd just try the shortcut cheat way of getting arch installed.... archbang. ... installed it, but it failed to boot... and.. well... i could have probably tried a couple things, but i had already decided, somwhere between my second attempt getting the drives to stay awake during the arch install, and the archbang install, that i'd install slackware.
slackware 13.37
how can you resist?
^_^
since i have a 15gb partition newly freed up, n i've long been saying how much i respect slackware n will eventually use it n so on...
so... i thought, since i'm already on this uzbl unixy-goodness fest, why not get closer to the metal with the most leet sounding release of slackware ever.
it makes sense, right?
....or maybe i'm having too much of a good thing here.
configurability n unixy-goodness is good stuff.... but... maybe going for the lightest gui otion availed in the installer was going a bit far. just giving me twm. just giving me basically everything to isntall... in this new* unfamiliar os that takes a little more reading up on how to install software (and more typing) than most of everything else i've used. so much so, i ran back to my ubuntu-based squishboom install on the laptop just after installing libevent and tmux from slackbuilds.org.
* not the first time i've installed slack over the years... but the last time was so long ago, and i dont rly remember much of it, n probably didnt use it for long enough to get a proper feel for it.
it is a far cry from the simplicity of "emerge --sync && emerge tmux" or "pacman Syyu && pacman -S tmux".
and to think i used to lament on how many extra characters/options pacman and apt based distros had you typing/remembering over gentoo's simple "emerge"....
...but anyways, like i say...
it's nice feeling closer to the metal.
and it's good to learn.
learning how to live closer to the metal, means... well... basically it means you're more immediately availed the benefits of free software, the proper way.
i mean, the "open source" guys did think about the term, seemingly, longer and harder than i presume the deliberations went over the term "free software", despite, for the most part meaning pretty much the same thing.
it's about the source. the availability n freedom to get jiggy wid da source!
so the less layers of abstraction and interpolation and plastic wrap between you and the source, the better... right?
well, yes and no.
(or should that be yes and know).
convenience, oh convencience... why must you so often come ready as convenience for those who want to remain ignorant, and why must you be so inconvenient for those who want to know.
it's like the trade-off one has to make for security.
... sure you could have a completely secure locked down system, with no wires leading to the internet, and passwords required for EVERY action... but it's far from convenient.
same goes for being closer to the source. you're more closely afforded the opportunity to paruse the source code, to modify it and so on... but of course, it's not as simple as point and click gui package managers. ... n that's less convenient... if all you want is a click-n-go.
i'm not actually opposed to the idea of a click-n-go system... i just think it can be made in a way that retains that maximal expedient convenience, but ALSO provides the user, up-front, all the knowledge and source-code access that a close-to-the-metal style of package management affords.
nice ideals huh. ^_^
though i know why they've not been programmed to be so... a combination of lazyness and a perspective which says "those who want click-n-go dont want to know".... and there's an element of truth to that indeed. they dont. but is that any reason to help them remain ignorant? is that any reason to be negligent in caring for the intelectual commons? they are free software users just like everyone else... and as such, just as much developers as anyone else. who want's their software developers to be ignorant of how the software works??
....see... it's like an insideous poisonous meme, that's crept into free software from the proprietary cathedralesq model. and understandably so... in the evolutionary meme theory, you can easily see why it managed to out-compete the existing predominant meme in free software at the time of it's sneeking over... that being that hard-ass "geek it up or die" kind of elitist mentality. ...sure, it keeps your intelectual genepool rich... but small. it's off-putting to us lazy masses. n i dont say that disparagingly. lazy in the good sence. efficiency. we evolved to be this lazy. it makes sense. less effort for more gain? no-brainer. so of course plastic wrap started winning out... and just kept getting stronger as more n more arrived, self-exiled from proprietary, "windows refugees" we call them. and of course, they just kept adding to the demand (and supply) of more of this separation-from-code modality.
so yeah... that's me just re-itterating my call for all plastic-wrap to come with details on the contents.
then with a "fully informed public", we can start making smarter decisions. it's as true of software as it is for politics n grocery shopping n religion, and so on.
anyways... yeah... uzbl.
lol.
getting more used to it. though i admit, i have reached for seamonkey a couple of times.
pidgin on my ubuntu 10.04 squishboom, doesnt seem to want to retain that it's uzbl-browser i want it to use. keeps telling me that manual selected browser is not set. :/ maybe i'm doing something wrong.
i havnt done much more tweaking to it on any of my opperating systems since my epic facepalm fail.
(not sure if i mentioned this already, but shortly after my stupid mistake, i was informed that a mere cookie purge would have likely resolved my connection fail to a number of sites.)
i've just been using it. nice n simple.
on a page per page basis, it does seem to amount to a heavier ram useage, compared with my old fully kitted out firefox with bartab, n all the blockers (noscript, flashblock, adblock, ghostery, betterprivacy), and i really dont mind at all.
usually i'm a stickler for demanding things be ever less resource hungry (fighting against the tide, right?) but considering the interoperability with the rest of the system, it's soooooo worth it.
i am starting to see how despite it's slight flaws *coughpythonisslowcough*, it does, and will, confer productivity boons.
... and i'm forced to remind myself here... this is still alphaware!
it's just gonna get better. rly glad i've gotten on board so reasonably early in it's life.
i see a very long bright future for the likes of uzbl.
oh, and a bonux
(^typo worth keeping)
the moral of the story from the earlier bork...
(as repeated in the following todo)
dont go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
X|
#####
todo
####
1. stop writing these silly todo lists at the end of your uzbl blogs, now that you've become fluent enough at editing the configs.
2. remember not to go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
3. get a nice tiling wm and uzbl and 9menu installed on slackware. (doing that now as i write this blog ~ or procrastinating on that, and got this graphic-design brief to fullfil now too)
well, yesterday i said i was gonna start from scratch...
i thought i'd rap out an arch install in about 25 minutes, n then another 20 minutes later, i'd have a nice gui (xmonad + my config), packer, pacsync and of course, uzbl installed again, and start up a nice tight install, kept tight n tidy with pacsync...
...alas, events took a different turn.
my dual netinst cd was giving me installation problems again... i'd had this before installing arch on this laptop for bases for the arch based rown witch linux i've been developing.
it seems to somehow cut out just after package installation, and fails to reccognise the media it was being installed to after that (preventing just those last two steps).
so after the third time getting the same result (and not remembering what i did, besides blind luck, to get it to work for the arch witch install), i thought i'd just try the shortcut cheat way of getting arch installed.... archbang. ... installed it, but it failed to boot... and.. well... i could have probably tried a couple things, but i had already decided, somwhere between my second attempt getting the drives to stay awake during the arch install, and the archbang install, that i'd install slackware.
slackware 13.37
how can you resist?
^_^
since i have a 15gb partition newly freed up, n i've long been saying how much i respect slackware n will eventually use it n so on...
so... i thought, since i'm already on this uzbl unixy-goodness fest, why not get closer to the metal with the most leet sounding release of slackware ever.
it makes sense, right?
....or maybe i'm having too much of a good thing here.
configurability n unixy-goodness is good stuff.... but... maybe going for the lightest gui otion availed in the installer was going a bit far. just giving me twm. just giving me basically everything to isntall... in this new* unfamiliar os that takes a little more reading up on how to install software (and more typing) than most of everything else i've used. so much so, i ran back to my ubuntu-based squishboom install on the laptop just after installing libevent and tmux from slackbuilds.org.
* not the first time i've installed slack over the years... but the last time was so long ago, and i dont rly remember much of it, n probably didnt use it for long enough to get a proper feel for it.
it is a far cry from the simplicity of "emerge --sync && emerge tmux" or "pacman Syyu && pacman -S tmux".
and to think i used to lament on how many extra characters/options pacman and apt based distros had you typing/remembering over gentoo's simple "emerge"....
...but anyways, like i say...
it's nice feeling closer to the metal.
and it's good to learn.
learning how to live closer to the metal, means... well... basically it means you're more immediately availed the benefits of free software, the proper way.
i mean, the "open source" guys did think about the term, seemingly, longer and harder than i presume the deliberations went over the term "free software", despite, for the most part meaning pretty much the same thing.
it's about the source. the availability n freedom to get jiggy wid da source!
so the less layers of abstraction and interpolation and plastic wrap between you and the source, the better... right?
well, yes and no.
(or should that be yes and know).
convenience, oh convencience... why must you so often come ready as convenience for those who want to remain ignorant, and why must you be so inconvenient for those who want to know.
it's like the trade-off one has to make for security.
... sure you could have a completely secure locked down system, with no wires leading to the internet, and passwords required for EVERY action... but it's far from convenient.
same goes for being closer to the source. you're more closely afforded the opportunity to paruse the source code, to modify it and so on... but of course, it's not as simple as point and click gui package managers. ... n that's less convenient... if all you want is a click-n-go.
i'm not actually opposed to the idea of a click-n-go system... i just think it can be made in a way that retains that maximal expedient convenience, but ALSO provides the user, up-front, all the knowledge and source-code access that a close-to-the-metal style of package management affords.
nice ideals huh. ^_^
though i know why they've not been programmed to be so... a combination of lazyness and a perspective which says "those who want click-n-go dont want to know".... and there's an element of truth to that indeed. they dont. but is that any reason to help them remain ignorant? is that any reason to be negligent in caring for the intelectual commons? they are free software users just like everyone else... and as such, just as much developers as anyone else. who want's their software developers to be ignorant of how the software works??
....see... it's like an insideous poisonous meme, that's crept into free software from the proprietary cathedralesq model. and understandably so... in the evolutionary meme theory, you can easily see why it managed to out-compete the existing predominant meme in free software at the time of it's sneeking over... that being that hard-ass "geek it up or die" kind of elitist mentality. ...sure, it keeps your intelectual genepool rich... but small. it's off-putting to us lazy masses. n i dont say that disparagingly. lazy in the good sence. efficiency. we evolved to be this lazy. it makes sense. less effort for more gain? no-brainer. so of course plastic wrap started winning out... and just kept getting stronger as more n more arrived, self-exiled from proprietary, "windows refugees" we call them. and of course, they just kept adding to the demand (and supply) of more of this separation-from-code modality.
so yeah... that's me just re-itterating my call for all plastic-wrap to come with details on the contents.
then with a "fully informed public", we can start making smarter decisions. it's as true of software as it is for politics n grocery shopping n religion, and so on.
anyways... yeah... uzbl.
lol.
getting more used to it. though i admit, i have reached for seamonkey a couple of times.
pidgin on my ubuntu 10.04 squishboom, doesnt seem to want to retain that it's uzbl-browser i want it to use. keeps telling me that manual selected browser is not set. :/ maybe i'm doing something wrong.
i havnt done much more tweaking to it on any of my opperating systems since my epic facepalm fail.
(not sure if i mentioned this already, but shortly after my stupid mistake, i was informed that a mere cookie purge would have likely resolved my connection fail to a number of sites.)
i've just been using it. nice n simple.
on a page per page basis, it does seem to amount to a heavier ram useage, compared with my old fully kitted out firefox with bartab, n all the blockers (noscript, flashblock, adblock, ghostery, betterprivacy), and i really dont mind at all.
usually i'm a stickler for demanding things be ever less resource hungry (fighting against the tide, right?) but considering the interoperability with the rest of the system, it's soooooo worth it.
i am starting to see how despite it's slight flaws *coughpythonisslowcough*, it does, and will, confer productivity boons.
... and i'm forced to remind myself here... this is still alphaware!
it's just gonna get better. rly glad i've gotten on board so reasonably early in it's life.
i see a very long bright future for the likes of uzbl.
oh, and a bonux
(^typo worth keeping)
the moral of the story from the earlier bork...
(as repeated in the following todo)
dont go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
X|
#####
todo
####
1. stop writing these silly todo lists at the end of your uzbl blogs, now that you've become fluent enough at editing the configs.
2. remember not to go brash n insane next time something doesnt work, and instead, follow the apropriate troubleshooting proceedures.
3. get a nice tiling wm and uzbl and 9menu installed on slackware. (doing that now as i write this blog ~ or procrastinating on that, and got this graphic-design brief to fullfil now too)
Monday 16 May 2011
uzbl, the return - day5
uzbl, the return, day5
well, after my reporting fail yesterday, i've done a faaaar bigger fail today.
the story goes something like this...
i was having loads of fun playing around with change_style.sh and various .css files i'd made/copied. i liked the idea of making every webpage use the style i chose for my webpage.
it was working great.
then dipiwee in ##customize made a second request for screenshots of my customisations, and i thought, "ok".
"ok" as it turns out, lead to a whole load of disruption....
so... i go to ompload with my newly created batch of screenshots, but :O oh no! omploader wont load!
most obvious reason of course being... it doesnt like something i've done in my tweakings... so i try to roll back a few of the changes... still no omp. so i fiddle with my style changes, n the script n my config a few more times, all with the same result, no ompldr.org.
now i've fallen way down the labrynth of changes... and still no omp...
so i try imgur, to see if it can handle change_style.sh...
yup... so i get my images uploaded.
...wait... now what... seems facebook and several other pages are now refusing to load! oh noes!
what have i done. ... and then i discover the reason i couldnt visit omplr.org, was because it was down!
DOH! so all those haphazzard wild tweakings n changes i made.... i was fixing something that wasnt broken!!!
so.. i try to fix my borked fix for a while.... still, no matter what i did, i couldnt get facebook (and a few other pages) to play nice anymore.
always telling me it timed out, n couldnt connect, offering me an utterly futile "try again" button.
i could change the styles all i wanted... n get that message in default, or any number of my tweaked styles... and i couldnt find where it was that i'd changed something so far as to make it not load facebook. i could switch off all the scripts, revert to the original default config... and still get that message.
so... i decided to uninstall, and reinstall uzbl-git...
nope... same message!
so i decided to uninstall and reinstall a different version uzbl-dfb-git ~ nope, that version didnt play nice.
so i decided to install another version... the experimental git branch.
oh lordy, that doesnt work nice at all... broken keybinds n other freakyness.
so, i go back to uzbl-git and as i had started to suspect... same message....
so... i get brutal n serious with it....
i backup all my configs n scripts, and then i sudo updatedb && locate uzbl, and from that list, i extracted everything but my backups of the configs i'd made, and add them ALL to a sudo rm -rf.
... i knew it wa wrong, i did it anyway.
i was desperate. i rly wanted whatever it was that was causing this fail on facebook gone.
alas... it took my whole home directory with it! and a few system directories too!
time to update my entry in the "whats the stupidest mistake you've made" thread.
classic moment of "i know this will likely break things, i'll do it anyway"... i must be missing some neuropathways from my frontal lobe.
so...
instead of fixing this tiny little problem, that wasnt a problem at all... i've ended up with a hosed system.
moment i reboot, i doubt i'll manage to boot into this system again.
:/
i could try restoring an old backup from short ago... but since my home dir was mostly just symlinks now, i'm not rly losing anything more by opting for a complete reinstall of arch... 'cept maybe a day of my life.
still... all's well on my toorox workstation. *sigh*
oh well, at least i got a couple screnshots outta it.
http://imgur.com/a/kT6hY
:/
#-|
y'knoa, i've always heard it said you have to be careful in linux, and that you can very easily completely destroy your system... and in the 7 years i've been using linux, i'd never actually experienced it until now. ...unless you count that time i intentionally put to test, the claims that "ubuntu doesnt let you do that".
well, this pebkac error will only make me stronger. :)
#####
todo
####
1. start from scratch
well, after my reporting fail yesterday, i've done a faaaar bigger fail today.
the story goes something like this...
i was having loads of fun playing around with change_style.sh and various .css files i'd made/copied. i liked the idea of making every webpage use the style i chose for my webpage.
it was working great.
then dipiwee in ##customize made a second request for screenshots of my customisations, and i thought, "ok".
"ok" as it turns out, lead to a whole load of disruption....
so... i go to ompload with my newly created batch of screenshots, but :O oh no! omploader wont load!
most obvious reason of course being... it doesnt like something i've done in my tweakings... so i try to roll back a few of the changes... still no omp. so i fiddle with my style changes, n the script n my config a few more times, all with the same result, no ompldr.org.
now i've fallen way down the labrynth of changes... and still no omp...
so i try imgur, to see if it can handle change_style.sh...
yup... so i get my images uploaded.
...wait... now what... seems facebook and several other pages are now refusing to load! oh noes!
what have i done. ... and then i discover the reason i couldnt visit omplr.org, was because it was down!
DOH! so all those haphazzard wild tweakings n changes i made.... i was fixing something that wasnt broken!!!
so.. i try to fix my borked fix for a while.... still, no matter what i did, i couldnt get facebook (and a few other pages) to play nice anymore.
always telling me it timed out, n couldnt connect, offering me an utterly futile "try again" button.
i could change the styles all i wanted... n get that message in default, or any number of my tweaked styles... and i couldnt find where it was that i'd changed something so far as to make it not load facebook. i could switch off all the scripts, revert to the original default config... and still get that message.
so... i decided to uninstall, and reinstall uzbl-git...
nope... same message!
so i decided to uninstall and reinstall a different version uzbl-dfb-git ~ nope, that version didnt play nice.
so i decided to install another version... the experimental git branch.
oh lordy, that doesnt work nice at all... broken keybinds n other freakyness.
so, i go back to uzbl-git and as i had started to suspect... same message....
so... i get brutal n serious with it....
i backup all my configs n scripts, and then i sudo updatedb && locate uzbl, and from that list, i extracted everything but my backups of the configs i'd made, and add them ALL to a sudo rm -rf.
... i knew it wa wrong, i did it anyway.
i was desperate. i rly wanted whatever it was that was causing this fail on facebook gone.
alas... it took my whole home directory with it! and a few system directories too!
time to update my entry in the "whats the stupidest mistake you've made" thread.
classic moment of "i know this will likely break things, i'll do it anyway"... i must be missing some neuropathways from my frontal lobe.
so...
instead of fixing this tiny little problem, that wasnt a problem at all... i've ended up with a hosed system.
moment i reboot, i doubt i'll manage to boot into this system again.
:/
i could try restoring an old backup from short ago... but since my home dir was mostly just symlinks now, i'm not rly losing anything more by opting for a complete reinstall of arch... 'cept maybe a day of my life.
still... all's well on my toorox workstation. *sigh*
oh well, at least i got a couple screnshots outta it.
http://imgur.com/a/kT6hY
:/
#-|
y'knoa, i've always heard it said you have to be careful in linux, and that you can very easily completely destroy your system... and in the 7 years i've been using linux, i'd never actually experienced it until now. ...unless you count that time i intentionally put to test, the claims that "ubuntu doesnt let you do that".
well, this pebkac error will only make me stronger. :)
#####
todo
####
1. start from scratch
Saturday 14 May 2011
uzbl, the return, part4~ no, er 3.5
uzbl, the return, part4~ no, er 3.5
(ok, technically i started writing this on what i'd call day three... but lets not quibble over that.) [edit- (it's later than late for me)]
starting to notice that what i most want is the ability to add ads to the adblock list, on the fly, "click click done*". ...not gonna sort that out now... i'm sleep deprived like a mofo.
*gone from my sight forever, effortlessly.
... hehe, or perhaps a do-gooder script for uzbl would b rly nice.
ads n pop-ups on megavideo for example... gurrr.
a moment of clarity...
double fudge.
fumbling around, feeling like forgetting everything i was doing, so able to work with... get this... zero to about a dozen tabs. ... that's it. uzbl isn't the lightest cat around. she doesnt scale as well as firefox with bartab (and noscript, flashblock, adblock, ghostery...)... but then... i dont recall me ever managing to make do with just about a dozen or less tabs with firefox. hence why i eventually ended up getting bartab addon, to help me scale my tab useage even more. i'm not joking here... after some time with bartab addon, (and this is neither joke nor exaduration here...) it was the norm for me to have over 1000 tabs in my session)
the fudge of it... it had created for me the illusion that i was getting more done, because i was looking at more ~ er, no, sorry, that was the illusion trying to slip back in there again. ~ because i was opening more.
this isnt just me, this isnt just firefox. this is loads of people, all over, suffering from "tabs as bookmarks". it's been happening since back in the days when all we knew about was explorer and something you heard of called "netscape" but never had the slightest incling to look out side your cosy little microsoft mesh, because [as incorrectly lead to believe] "thats all there is" and/or "it's the best".
~ er, sorry, getting off the point.
suffering from tabs as bookmarks. why? because the browser is a big slow bloaty thing to launch... it's so precious with all those tabs/windows so fragile and liable to crash, so full of that important data that you're using your important time to see, and you just really really dont want to have to click all those buttons again after having to wait for it to load again after it crashed, and you lost your big precious pile of stuff.
see, it teaches you that what you have is more important than either what you can do, or what whatever it is that you have can do / what you can do with it.
capability > stuff
^ thats the correction for you. :)
that's the re-orientation!
greater-potential-ward.
^ that's the heading/direction.
...
y'know... come at it with a philosophy of what's best... n keep looking for the best best you can find, the biggest, the broadest, the smartest, the ~
sorry, wrong blog. ;)
tonight it's free software rambling, with digit.
oh, wait, but that's right, free software is at it's roots savvy to philosophy first, it's a philosophy of synergy, and reccognises you only get there with the liberty, the freedom, the libero, only get the synergy that propells us all to be better than we can be alone, that we're all scuppered and diminished a little bit any time someone takes without giving, that doesnt synergise, and not only that, attempts to stop all others from synergising too.
if you're reading this and you've been on foods laced with any glutamates, or drinks laced with aspartame, then you might fail to catch a thought of that size there.
(if you're reeeeeal savvy n on the case, you'll have seen what i did there. ;) dimensional.) *snortyscoff*
stopping the synergising? dont they see that no matter how much they take n try to build their totalitarian singularity, they'll always ultimately falter too? yay, they might be the last to survive, but they'll still fall to ultimate bottom obliteration and ultimate nothingness oblivion. syngergising... as yaz would say... the only way is up.
and i'll add... "P.S., you're not a dot."
~
er... so anyways... uzbl.
it.. uhh.. helps you connect the dots.
i wonder what would be involved in making a button row for it... a fully configurable.. ;) y'know... for the firefox kids. ;) get them in on the candy(1), n hit them with the er... candy(2).
(1) the pretty button candy
(2) the unixy goodness, the interoperability n completely wide open potential for configuring n tweaking and making your own, making wow, making new innovations...
i wonder what'd be the lightest, simplest to configure way of getting that tight n tidy pixel perfect "gui"... i know uzbl already uses gtk... but since uzbl seems so accomodating... i wonder if we could see about using something lighter n simpler... hrmmm, fltk? no... no.. something simpler and more reliable... hrmm... i wonder what those haskell toolkits are like...
no, stop, that's just my haskell lust talking.
i think i'm past where i should have stopped this blog post now anyways. :P
(ok, technically i started writing this on what i'd call day three... but lets not quibble over that.) [edit- (it's later than late for me)]
starting to notice that what i most want is the ability to add ads to the adblock list, on the fly, "click click done*". ...not gonna sort that out now... i'm sleep deprived like a mofo.
*gone from my sight forever, effortlessly.
... hehe, or perhaps a do-gooder script for uzbl would b rly nice.
ads n pop-ups on megavideo for example... gurrr.
a moment of clarity...
double fudge.
fumbling around, feeling like forgetting everything i was doing, so able to work with... get this... zero to about a dozen tabs. ... that's it. uzbl isn't the lightest cat around. she doesnt scale as well as firefox with bartab (and noscript, flashblock, adblock, ghostery...)... but then... i dont recall me ever managing to make do with just about a dozen or less tabs with firefox. hence why i eventually ended up getting bartab addon, to help me scale my tab useage even more. i'm not joking here... after some time with bartab addon, (and this is neither joke nor exaduration here...) it was the norm for me to have over 1000 tabs in my session)
the fudge of it... it had created for me the illusion that i was getting more done, because i was looking at more ~ er, no, sorry, that was the illusion trying to slip back in there again. ~ because i was opening more.
this isnt just me, this isnt just firefox. this is loads of people, all over, suffering from "tabs as bookmarks". it's been happening since back in the days when all we knew about was explorer and something you heard of called "netscape" but never had the slightest incling to look out side your cosy little microsoft mesh, because [as incorrectly lead to believe] "thats all there is" and/or "it's the best".
~ er, sorry, getting off the point.
suffering from tabs as bookmarks. why? because the browser is a big slow bloaty thing to launch... it's so precious with all those tabs/windows so fragile and liable to crash, so full of that important data that you're using your important time to see, and you just really really dont want to have to click all those buttons again after having to wait for it to load again after it crashed, and you lost your big precious pile of stuff.
see, it teaches you that what you have is more important than either what you can do, or what whatever it is that you have can do / what you can do with it.
capability > stuff
^ thats the correction for you. :)
that's the re-orientation!
greater-potential-ward.
^ that's the heading/direction.
...
y'know... come at it with a philosophy of what's best... n keep looking for the best best you can find, the biggest, the broadest, the smartest, the ~
sorry, wrong blog. ;)
tonight it's free software rambling, with digit.
oh, wait, but that's right, free software is at it's roots savvy to philosophy first, it's a philosophy of synergy, and reccognises you only get there with the liberty, the freedom, the libero, only get the synergy that propells us all to be better than we can be alone, that we're all scuppered and diminished a little bit any time someone takes without giving, that doesnt synergise, and not only that, attempts to stop all others from synergising too.
if you're reading this and you've been on foods laced with any glutamates, or drinks laced with aspartame, then you might fail to catch a thought of that size there.
(if you're reeeeeal savvy n on the case, you'll have seen what i did there. ;) dimensional.) *snortyscoff*
stopping the synergising? dont they see that no matter how much they take n try to build their totalitarian singularity, they'll always ultimately falter too? yay, they might be the last to survive, but they'll still fall to ultimate bottom obliteration and ultimate nothingness oblivion. syngergising... as yaz would say... the only way is up.
and i'll add... "P.S., you're not a dot."
~
er... so anyways... uzbl.
it.. uhh.. helps you connect the dots.
i wonder what would be involved in making a button row for it... a fully configurable.. ;) y'know... for the firefox kids. ;) get them in on the candy(1), n hit them with the er... candy(2).
(1) the pretty button candy
(2) the unixy goodness, the interoperability n completely wide open potential for configuring n tweaking and making your own, making wow, making new innovations...
i wonder what'd be the lightest, simplest to configure way of getting that tight n tidy pixel perfect "gui"... i know uzbl already uses gtk... but since uzbl seems so accomodating... i wonder if we could see about using something lighter n simpler... hrmmm, fltk? no... no.. something simpler and more reliable... hrmm... i wonder what those haskell toolkits are like...
no, stop, that's just my haskell lust talking.
i think i'm past where i should have stopped this blog post now anyways. :P
uzbl, the return - day3
uzbl, the return, part3
well, that was odd... i swore i remember posting part one... oh well, starting day 3, and days 1 & 2 are posted now.
i've a graphic design brief about to kick off any day soon (just waiting to be sent a file), and may need a browser to help with that, so this will be it's first real test. eep!
much better rested than i was yesterday (which was mostly squandered on facebook, ugh) so am keen to check out what pogress i made on adblock in those last few hours yesterday through my yawning and bleary eyes.
... or to find out what a mess i've made of my config.
oh, a little list of niggles seems to be the order of this series of blog posts. ^_^
i'm still not fluently making use of it. little things like copying the url of the page i'm on for instance... so used to triple clicking the url bar and ctrlC, ctrlV, or just middle clicking to paste... i'm sure in the uzbl way of doing things, there's a much simpler "press this one key once" and it's in the clipboard. ... yet to get that.
i did spend a chunk of time yesterday just reading through the config.
it was rather dry reading, as you'd expect, and it was late... attention kept wavering... eyes kept closing. ^_^
but i did manage to have a few "a-ha!" moments where i saw where it all fits, how it works, and why it's done like it is.
that's the thing about this level of unixyness... it's not made for immediate intuitiveness for someone who's never used it before... it's made to be the best way it can be for those who know it.
to some that might seem like an insane aproach, but really, it's about ... it's...
... it's like playing diablo2x, and you design your character before even playing with it, with your godly equipment in mind, so you fill all your skill points and attribute points accordingly with that end goal in mind, even though that is likely to cause considerable difficulties and shortcomings on the way. ...but once you get to your destination of having all your godly equipment specially selected for your fully optimised character build, you really apreciate it, and would really regret it if you had compromised. ...yeah, it's like that. ^_^
some of those niggles i have in converting to the interface, get utterly blown away when i learn how it's done in uzbl-browser with the default config. for example.. i was a little miffed earlier that i couldnt zoom with ctrl- and ctrl=, but what elation when i learned i can forgoe the ctrl key, with just a more intuitive - and +... more intuitive, that is, if i hadnt already been conditioned to this other way.
still niggled a bit that my blog would only increase the text size, and not the width of the text area... maybe this is already accomodated for too, and i just havnt encountered it yet, or maybe blogger is lame, and i should see if i can edit it's css.
discovering zoom "1" and "2" was a real treat too. just what the dr ordered. one zoom setting for when i'm leaning forward in productivity mode, one zoom setting for when i'm leaning back in lazy-browse mode. ^_^ usually that doesnt bother me, since i'm so rarely in the latter... but it's nice to know now that should i ever want to lean back, i dont have to squint n keep leaning forward to read small text, nor resize the text with half a dozen key presses. it's touches like this that make uzbl so lush. really shows the benefit of making your software configurable. ... cos then people configure it! ^_^ (the sharing of those configurations, n the good one's making it upstream should go without saying of course. viva free software!)
speaking of real treats,
this page:
http://www.uzbl.org/wiki/configtricks
paints a pretty decent picture of the potential.
if you've read this far, chances are your not one of the highly doubtful naysayers to this sort of software, so you dont likely need this kind of convincing... but maybe you'll want to show this to someone who doesnt yet get it. taking one example from that page... sharing links... how often do we share links through some site... and how much sweeter would our lives be if all it took to do so was press two keys "vr"*. BAM! rather than the lengthy process of selecting, copying, navigating, loading, clicking, pasting, waiting to load again, navigating back. sheesh!
* just for example. of course, it could be any keys you want.
... oh, and it doesnt take long to find what you're looking for with a little help from #uzbl
found how to copy the url of current page.
@cbind yu = sh 'echo -n $6 | xclip'
i missed it in the config while searching through "copy" and "url" instances... but it was hidden under "yanking" and "binds".
yu copies it to the middle click, so i added cu, to copy to the clipboard. mmm, sexy.
@cbind cu = sh 'echo -n $6 | xclip -selection clipboard'
oh sweet lordy lordy do i love uzbl. ^_^
i should have done this years ago. ... oh wait, i did. ^_^ right when uzbl was still new. ... of course, i wasnt giving it a proper chance then though. not like this time. ^_^
if there are two things on a modern computer that you'd be using pretty much all the time, and would be most worthy of learning something a bit more fancy*, it's the window manager and web browser. :)
* s/fancy/expediently useful, even if it takes a little longer to learn in the beginning/
... some time later...
... after some more use and tinkering ...
fuuuuuuuuuuuuu'!
i'm rly in love with uzbl now.
a real grower. ^_^
.. it's got me so damn enthused and excited about it. not since... idk... not since discovering xmonad, or crunchbang, have i got this excited over a piece of software.
... later yet in day 3...
well... it's got to that stage where it's late, n the brain must not be quite as sharp, as evidenced by my inability to figure out that damn change_style.sh ... wouldnt even change the default background. but then, the guy helping me in #uzbl couldnt figure it out either. as best we could, we covered all the bases, and couldnt figure it out. ... i started to suspect version incompatability.
mouse-over links showing what the link is in status would be nice... ~ too sleepy, a lil project for the morning.
~ OH! it does already! ... just couldnt see it with the default colours.
i should point out, there's loads more scripts added than i've mentioned in my todo list bellow.
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
2. video download (AND/OR see #9)
3. flash cookie purge
7. no script
8. pdfs open in zathura (or whatever)
9. flash movies get watched in mplayer.
10. oohooh! want a "add to adblock list" added to the right click menu... aw, that'd b piiiimp!!"
####
complete.
###
1. adblock (still needs extra populating and updating of the block list, but it's catching most now)
5. flashblock
6. copy selected text without right click
####
no longer applicable
###
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
well, that was odd... i swore i remember posting part one... oh well, starting day 3, and days 1 & 2 are posted now.
i've a graphic design brief about to kick off any day soon (just waiting to be sent a file), and may need a browser to help with that, so this will be it's first real test. eep!
much better rested than i was yesterday (which was mostly squandered on facebook, ugh) so am keen to check out what pogress i made on adblock in those last few hours yesterday through my yawning and bleary eyes.
... or to find out what a mess i've made of my config.
oh, a little list of niggles seems to be the order of this series of blog posts. ^_^
i'm still not fluently making use of it. little things like copying the url of the page i'm on for instance... so used to triple clicking the url bar and ctrlC, ctrlV, or just middle clicking to paste... i'm sure in the uzbl way of doing things, there's a much simpler "press this one key once" and it's in the clipboard. ... yet to get that.
i did spend a chunk of time yesterday just reading through the config.
it was rather dry reading, as you'd expect, and it was late... attention kept wavering... eyes kept closing. ^_^
but i did manage to have a few "a-ha!" moments where i saw where it all fits, how it works, and why it's done like it is.
that's the thing about this level of unixyness... it's not made for immediate intuitiveness for someone who's never used it before... it's made to be the best way it can be for those who know it.
to some that might seem like an insane aproach, but really, it's about ... it's...
... it's like playing diablo2x, and you design your character before even playing with it, with your godly equipment in mind, so you fill all your skill points and attribute points accordingly with that end goal in mind, even though that is likely to cause considerable difficulties and shortcomings on the way. ...but once you get to your destination of having all your godly equipment specially selected for your fully optimised character build, you really apreciate it, and would really regret it if you had compromised. ...yeah, it's like that. ^_^
some of those niggles i have in converting to the interface, get utterly blown away when i learn how it's done in uzbl-browser with the default config. for example.. i was a little miffed earlier that i couldnt zoom with ctrl- and ctrl=, but what elation when i learned i can forgoe the ctrl key, with just a more intuitive - and +... more intuitive, that is, if i hadnt already been conditioned to this other way.
still niggled a bit that my blog would only increase the text size, and not the width of the text area... maybe this is already accomodated for too, and i just havnt encountered it yet, or maybe blogger is lame, and i should see if i can edit it's css.
discovering zoom "1" and "2" was a real treat too. just what the dr ordered. one zoom setting for when i'm leaning forward in productivity mode, one zoom setting for when i'm leaning back in lazy-browse mode. ^_^ usually that doesnt bother me, since i'm so rarely in the latter... but it's nice to know now that should i ever want to lean back, i dont have to squint n keep leaning forward to read small text, nor resize the text with half a dozen key presses. it's touches like this that make uzbl so lush. really shows the benefit of making your software configurable. ... cos then people configure it! ^_^ (the sharing of those configurations, n the good one's making it upstream should go without saying of course. viva free software!)
speaking of real treats,
this page:
http://www.uzbl.org/wiki/configtricks
paints a pretty decent picture of the potential.
if you've read this far, chances are your not one of the highly doubtful naysayers to this sort of software, so you dont likely need this kind of convincing... but maybe you'll want to show this to someone who doesnt yet get it. taking one example from that page... sharing links... how often do we share links through some site... and how much sweeter would our lives be if all it took to do so was press two keys "vr"*. BAM! rather than the lengthy process of selecting, copying, navigating, loading, clicking, pasting, waiting to load again, navigating back. sheesh!
* just for example. of course, it could be any keys you want.
... oh, and it doesnt take long to find what you're looking for with a little help from #uzbl
found how to copy the url of current page.
@cbind yu = sh 'echo -n $6 | xclip'
i missed it in the config while searching through "copy" and "url" instances... but it was hidden under "yanking" and "binds".
yu copies it to the middle click, so i added cu, to copy to the clipboard. mmm, sexy.
@cbind cu = sh 'echo -n $6 | xclip -selection clipboard'
oh sweet lordy lordy do i love uzbl. ^_^
i should have done this years ago. ... oh wait, i did. ^_^ right when uzbl was still new. ... of course, i wasnt giving it a proper chance then though. not like this time. ^_^
if there are two things on a modern computer that you'd be using pretty much all the time, and would be most worthy of learning something a bit more fancy*, it's the window manager and web browser. :)
* s/fancy/expediently useful, even if it takes a little longer to learn in the beginning/
... some time later...
... after some more use and tinkering ...
fuuuuuuuuuuuuu'!
i'm rly in love with uzbl now.
a real grower. ^_^
.. it's got me so damn enthused and excited about it. not since... idk... not since discovering xmonad, or crunchbang, have i got this excited over a piece of software.
... later yet in day 3...
well... it's got to that stage where it's late, n the brain must not be quite as sharp, as evidenced by my inability to figure out that damn change_style.sh ... wouldnt even change the default background. but then, the guy helping me in #uzbl couldnt figure it out either. as best we could, we covered all the bases, and couldnt figure it out. ... i started to suspect version incompatability.
mouse-over links showing what the link is in status would be nice... ~ too sleepy, a lil project for the morning.
~ OH! it does already! ... just couldnt see it with the default colours.
i should point out, there's loads more scripts added than i've mentioned in my todo list bellow.
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
2. video download (AND/OR see #9)
3. flash cookie purge
7. no script
8. pdfs open in zathura (or whatever)
9. flash movies get watched in mplayer.
10. oohooh! want a "add to adblock list" added to the right click menu... aw, that'd b piiiimp!!"
####
complete.
###
1. adblock (still needs extra populating and updating of the block list, but it's catching most now)
5. flashblock
6. copy selected text without right click
####
no longer applicable
###
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
Friday 13 May 2011
uzbl, the return - day 2
uzbl the return. part2.
so... it's day 2 of my 14 day uzbl experiment.
bit of a lethargic lazy day. struggling to kick both body and brain into gear after a poor sleep. so i'm not expecting any intensive geeking.
discovered adblock isnt working to satasfactory level... not sure if that's my fault, inherent inadequacy in the script, need of some subscription block list, or a duff script link, or what...
been having a couple moments getting momentarily infuriated by reaching for old firefox shortcuts, or from just not being familiar enough with the interface.
using a tabbed layout i can switch to in the window manager [xmonad] rather than tabs in the browser itself, has changed my useage style quite a bit. ... remains to be seen how this will play out when i get on with some work where i'd have previously had several ,ulti-tab browser tiels and a couple other app tiles, on the same monitor, how i'll adjust... or if i will refuse to adjust, and instead adjust my window manager, to include layout combo/combinator.
some of the config syntax still baffles me a little bit, and i've started to notice that python sluggishness... maybe one day someone will re-write it in C or some other speedy language.
ok ok... this is all starting to sound rather negative. teething problems were expected, hence the decision to dedicate two weeks to the transition. ... and my feelings toward uzbl are anything but negative. i'm loving it already, despite it's (and my) shortcomings.
though i'm not on ubuntu, this page did help keep me straight on a couple points.
http://kagashe.blogspot.com/2009/06/uzbl-new-usable-browser-on-ubuntu-904.html
for one, setting my:
XDG_DATA_HOME=~/.local/share
which i was willfully negligent on, postponing sorting it out for later. well later has passed now. :) this should make tweakages much easier... especially once i do a pile of cp -r from the examples to ~/.local/share and ~.config/uzbl (er... maybe not that last one, already made a pile of changes to that config.... maybe a diff to check)
i notice my todo list is growing rather fast. i hope to have all issues resolved long before the two weeks is up.
i was also shown luakit and jumanji, another couple of similarly lightweight n highly configurable browsers. oh yeah... we're a long way from kansas* here baby, yeah!
* firefox, etc.
normally i would install them, and try them out too... but i am committed... uzbl or bust. ^_^
even though i said yesterday i was going to stick with the default controls... i'm more than curious to see what other configurations peeps have come up with.
that's one of the greatest beauties and boons to going for this level of, what i increasingly call "unixy goodness".
at this level of unixy goodness... with that gnu|linuxy freedom, everyone's hooking up their configurations in their own unique innovativeness and creativity and imaginativeness
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
1. adblock (various interesting possiblity being explored, n learning much)
2. video download
3. flash cookie purge
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
5. flashblock
7. no script
8. pdfs open in zathura (or whatever)
9. flash movies get watched in mplayer.
####
complete.
###
6. copy selected text without right click
so... it's day 2 of my 14 day uzbl experiment.
bit of a lethargic lazy day. struggling to kick both body and brain into gear after a poor sleep. so i'm not expecting any intensive geeking.
discovered adblock isnt working to satasfactory level... not sure if that's my fault, inherent inadequacy in the script, need of some subscription block list, or a duff script link, or what...
been having a couple moments getting momentarily infuriated by reaching for old firefox shortcuts, or from just not being familiar enough with the interface.
using a tabbed layout i can switch to in the window manager [xmonad] rather than tabs in the browser itself, has changed my useage style quite a bit. ... remains to be seen how this will play out when i get on with some work where i'd have previously had several ,ulti-tab browser tiels and a couple other app tiles, on the same monitor, how i'll adjust... or if i will refuse to adjust, and instead adjust my window manager, to include layout combo/combinator.
some of the config syntax still baffles me a little bit, and i've started to notice that python sluggishness... maybe one day someone will re-write it in C or some other speedy language.
ok ok... this is all starting to sound rather negative. teething problems were expected, hence the decision to dedicate two weeks to the transition. ... and my feelings toward uzbl are anything but negative. i'm loving it already, despite it's (and my) shortcomings.
though i'm not on ubuntu, this page did help keep me straight on a couple points.
http://kagashe.blogspot.com/2009/06/uzbl-new-usable-browser-on-ubuntu-904.html
for one, setting my:
XDG_DATA_HOME=~/.local/share
which i was willfully negligent on, postponing sorting it out for later. well later has passed now. :) this should make tweakages much easier... especially once i do a pile of cp -r from the examples to ~/.local/share and ~.config/uzbl (er... maybe not that last one, already made a pile of changes to that config.... maybe a diff to check)
i notice my todo list is growing rather fast. i hope to have all issues resolved long before the two weeks is up.
i was also shown luakit and jumanji, another couple of similarly lightweight n highly configurable browsers. oh yeah... we're a long way from kansas* here baby, yeah!
* firefox, etc.
normally i would install them, and try them out too... but i am committed... uzbl or bust. ^_^
even though i said yesterday i was going to stick with the default controls... i'm more than curious to see what other configurations peeps have come up with.
that's one of the greatest beauties and boons to going for this level of, what i increasingly call "unixy goodness".
at this level of unixy goodness... with that gnu|linuxy freedom, everyone's hooking up their configurations in their own unique innovativeness and creativity and imaginativeness
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
1. adblock (various interesting possiblity being explored, n learning much)
2. video download
3. flash cookie purge
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
5. flashblock
7. no script
8. pdfs open in zathura (or whatever)
9. flash movies get watched in mplayer.
####
complete.
###
6. copy selected text without right click
uzbl, the return - day 1
uzbl the return.
i've been getting rather increasingly miffed with firefox. it's never really been my "favorite" browser, just the one i've ended up using for various features i felt i couldnt live without, n couldnt find in other browsers without making bigger compromises.
well.. it's time to make a serious effort to change.
as with tiling window managers, you have to stick with them for about a week before yu realise how much better it is... and after hearing fabsh on linux outlaws recently suggest people spend at least two weeks with gnome3... i plan to do the same with uzbl.
uzbl-tabbed to be precise. not readdy to give up tabs just yet, even if i do use a tiling window manager. (i did consider using surf too, but since it's based on uzbl i hear, i thought i'd skip the middleman).
currently, as i start to type this, i have both uzbl-tabbed and firefox running, and am just working out a few details to ease the transition, but i realise, the sooner i just close firefox and make a dedicated decision to stop using it, i'll transition all the more expediently (if a little more uncomfortably at the start.) ... so i plan to do that in a few minutes.
i had a little hiccough earlier when i couldnt get youtube videos to play.... uninstalling gnash soon sorted that though, and it's as seemless as it aught to be again.
i was going to start to construct a firefox-esq set of keyboard controls, but looking in the config, i soon began to realise, there was so much more potential in uzbl, and i'd be better off learning the defaults, so put that config construction on hold. i'm going to try to give the default controls the full fortnight test.
i always like to test the waters in a project's irc channel. #uzbl on freenode has a reasonably healthy 52 people in it, and rather amusingly, when i got a quirky snide unhelpful remark from one user, (to which i replied "mkay. i thought uzbl users would have more inteligent responces than that.") another user came along and apologised for them. :) a good sign of a healthy community spirit.
they* engage with issues, and enjoy learning more as they use their greater experience and knowledge to more expediently get to the nub of whatever issue you may be having.
(* of course, i cant say everyone in there is like that, but that's the general vibe and jist i picked up from my interactions.)
... i dont suggest you go in there with a wont-rtfm help-leach attitude though. .... not that you likely would if you're interested in the likes of uzbl though. ;)
about those few little niggles i mentioned earlier...
one is adblock. i've found a couple scripts for that, just looking into how to implement them now.
the other is the ability to download streamed video.
without these two features, i'll just give up on uzbl. ^_^
oh, and also ensuring i can delete all flash cookies is a biggie too... but that's such a simple little issue, i could EASILY write a script for that myself, n bind a key for it.
... ok, after spending an age trying to get uzbl-tabbed to accept this paste keybind:
@cbindc = sh "xclip -o | xclip -selection clipboard"
i discover it works fine with uzbl-browser. so, i'll see how well i get on without tabs. i dont mind. i have an ace window manager. ... and i'd rather be able to copy selected text with a ctrl-c (without having to press "i" first) than have tabs that i navigate clumsily, if i'm only allowed one or the other. (i'll check out some of those other tabbing scripts later anyways, i'm just glad i have my ctrl-c workflow restored... no more pressing i, or righclick-copy, or relying on select-middleclick (which i like to have as-well-as, not instead-of/only).
ok, it's late when i'm writing this after all that faffing around reading up about xclip not realising it's just uzbl-tabbed playing up, and it works fine in uzbl-brower. ~ i'll check on that in the morning with a fresh head...
it's not even a day in, and i already love it more than firefox.
PS. hehe... added XMonad.Layout.Tabbed and simpleTabbed, et viola, i have tabs again, sorta. ;) works well enough, so long as i dont want tabbed windows beyond full screen. ... i might finally end up getting around to XMonad-Layout-Combo or XMonad-Layout-Combinators because of this. ^_^
so, thats the jist of the state of things on day 1 of my 14 day uzbl trial run.
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
2. video download
3. flash cookie purge
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
7. no script
####
complete.
###
1. adblock
5. flashblock
6. copy selected text without right click
i've been getting rather increasingly miffed with firefox. it's never really been my "favorite" browser, just the one i've ended up using for various features i felt i couldnt live without, n couldnt find in other browsers without making bigger compromises.
well.. it's time to make a serious effort to change.
as with tiling window managers, you have to stick with them for about a week before yu realise how much better it is... and after hearing fabsh on linux outlaws recently suggest people spend at least two weeks with gnome3... i plan to do the same with uzbl.
uzbl-tabbed to be precise. not readdy to give up tabs just yet, even if i do use a tiling window manager. (i did consider using surf too, but since it's based on uzbl i hear, i thought i'd skip the middleman).
currently, as i start to type this, i have both uzbl-tabbed and firefox running, and am just working out a few details to ease the transition, but i realise, the sooner i just close firefox and make a dedicated decision to stop using it, i'll transition all the more expediently (if a little more uncomfortably at the start.) ... so i plan to do that in a few minutes.
i had a little hiccough earlier when i couldnt get youtube videos to play.... uninstalling gnash soon sorted that though, and it's as seemless as it aught to be again.
i was going to start to construct a firefox-esq set of keyboard controls, but looking in the config, i soon began to realise, there was so much more potential in uzbl, and i'd be better off learning the defaults, so put that config construction on hold. i'm going to try to give the default controls the full fortnight test.
i always like to test the waters in a project's irc channel. #uzbl on freenode has a reasonably healthy 52 people in it, and rather amusingly, when i got a quirky snide unhelpful remark from one user, (to which i replied "mkay. i thought uzbl users would have more inteligent responces than that.") another user came along and apologised for them. :) a good sign of a healthy community spirit.
they* engage with issues, and enjoy learning more as they use their greater experience and knowledge to more expediently get to the nub of whatever issue you may be having.
(* of course, i cant say everyone in there is like that, but that's the general vibe and jist i picked up from my interactions.)
... i dont suggest you go in there with a wont-rtfm help-leach attitude though. .... not that you likely would if you're interested in the likes of uzbl though. ;)
about those few little niggles i mentioned earlier...
one is adblock. i've found a couple scripts for that, just looking into how to implement them now.
the other is the ability to download streamed video.
without these two features, i'll just give up on uzbl. ^_^
oh, and also ensuring i can delete all flash cookies is a biggie too... but that's such a simple little issue, i could EASILY write a script for that myself, n bind a key for it.
... ok, after spending an age trying to get uzbl-tabbed to accept this paste keybind:
@cbind
i discover it works fine with uzbl-browser. so, i'll see how well i get on without tabs. i dont mind. i have an ace window manager. ... and i'd rather be able to copy selected text with a ctrl-c (without having to press "i" first) than have tabs that i navigate clumsily, if i'm only allowed one or the other. (i'll check out some of those other tabbing scripts later anyways, i'm just glad i have my ctrl-c workflow restored... no more pressing i, or righclick-copy, or relying on select-middleclick (which i like to have as-well-as, not instead-of/only).
ok, it's late when i'm writing this after all that faffing around reading up about xclip not realising it's just uzbl-tabbed playing up, and it works fine in uzbl-brower. ~ i'll check on that in the morning with a fresh head...
it's not even a day in, and i already love it more than firefox.
PS. hehe... added XMonad.Layout.Tabbed and simpleTabbed, et viola, i have tabs again, sorta. ;) works well enough, so long as i dont want tabbed windows beyond full screen. ... i might finally end up getting around to XMonad-Layout-Combo or XMonad-Layout-Combinators because of this. ^_^
so, thats the jist of the state of things on day 1 of my 14 day uzbl trial run.
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
2. video download
3. flash cookie purge
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
7. no script
####
complete.
###
1. adblock
5. flashblock
6. copy selected text without right click
Thursday 12 May 2011
uzbl the return.
uzbl the return.
rome wasn't built in a day, uzbl-love was though.
i've been getting rather increasingly miffed with firefox. it's never really been my "favorite" browser, just the one i've ended up using for various features i felt i couldnt live without, n couldnt find in other browsers without making bigger compromises.
well.. it's time to make a serious effort to change.
as with tiling window managers, you have to stick with them for about a week before yu realise how much better it is... and after hearing fabsh on linux outlaws recently suggest people spend at least two weeks with gnome3... i plan to do the same with uzbl.
uzbl-tabbed to be precise. not readdy to give up tabs just yet, even if i do use a tiling window manager. (i did consider using surf too, but since it's based on uzbl i hear, i thought i'd skip the middleman).
currently, as i start to type this, i have both uzbl-tabbed and firefox running, and am just working out a few details to ease the transition, but i realise, the sooner i just close firefox and make a dedicated decision to stop using it, i'll transition all the more expediently (if a little more uncomfortably at the start.) ... so i plan to do that in a few minutes.
i had a little hiccough earlier when i couldnt get youtube videos to play.... uninstalling gnash soon sorted that though, and it's as seemless as it aught to be again.
i was going to start to construct a firefox-esq set of keyboard controls, but looking in the config, i soon began to realise, there was so much more potential in uzbl, and i'd be better off learning the defaults, so put that config construction on hold. i'm going to try to give the default controls the full fortnight test.
i always like to test the waters in a project's irc channel. #uzbl on freenode has a reasonably healthy 52 people in it, and rather amusingly, when i got a quirky snide unhelpful remark from one user, (to which i replied "mkay. i thought uzbl users would have more inteligent responces than that.") another user came along and apologised for them. :) a good sign of a healthy community spirit.
they* engage with issues, and enjoy learning more as they use their greater experience and knowledge to more expediently get to the nub of whatever issue you may be having.
(* of course, i cant say everyone in there is like that, but that's the general vibe and jist i picked up from my interactions.)
... i dont suggest you go in there with a wont-rtfm help-leach attitude though. .... not that you likely would if you're interested in the likes of uzbl though. ;)
about those few little niggles i mentioned earlier...
one is adblock. i've found a couple scripts for that, just looking into how to implement them now.
the other is the ability to download streamed video.
without these two features, i'll just give up on uzbl. ^_^
oh, and also ensuring i can delete all flash cookies is a biggie too... but that's such a simple little issue, i could EASILY write a script for that myself, n bind a key for it.
... ok, after spending an age trying to get uzbl-tabbed to accept this paste keybind:
@cbindc = sh "xclip -o | xclip -selection clipboard"
i discover it works fine with uzbl-browser. so, i'll see how well i get on without tabs. i dont mind. i have an ace window manager. ... and i'd rather be able to copy selected text with a ctrl-c (without having to press "i" first) than have tabs that i navigate clumsily, if i'm only allowed one or the other. (i'll check out some of those other tabbing scripts later anyways, i'm just glad i have my ctrl-c workflow restored... no more pressing i, or righclick-copy, or relying on select-middleclick (which i like to have as-well-as, not instead-of/only).
ok, it's late when i'm writing this after all that faffing around reading up about xclip not realising it's just uzbl-tabbed playing up, and it works fine in uzbl-brower. ~ i'll check on that in the morning with a fresh head...
it's not even a day in, and i already love it more than firefox.
PS. hehe... added XMonad.Layout.Tabbed and simpleTabbed, et viola, i have tabs again, sorta. ;) works well enough, so long as i dont want tabbed windows beyond full screen. ... i might finally end up getting around to XMonad-Layout-Combo or XMonad-Layout-Combinators because of this. ^_^
so, thats the jist of the state of things on day 1 of my 14 day uzbl trial run.
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
2. video download
3. flash cookie purge
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
7. no script
####
complete.
###
1. adblock
5. flashblock
6. copy selected text without right click
rome wasn't built in a day, uzbl-love was though.
i've been getting rather increasingly miffed with firefox. it's never really been my "favorite" browser, just the one i've ended up using for various features i felt i couldnt live without, n couldnt find in other browsers without making bigger compromises.
well.. it's time to make a serious effort to change.
as with tiling window managers, you have to stick with them for about a week before yu realise how much better it is... and after hearing fabsh on linux outlaws recently suggest people spend at least two weeks with gnome3... i plan to do the same with uzbl.
uzbl-tabbed to be precise. not readdy to give up tabs just yet, even if i do use a tiling window manager. (i did consider using surf too, but since it's based on uzbl i hear, i thought i'd skip the middleman).
currently, as i start to type this, i have both uzbl-tabbed and firefox running, and am just working out a few details to ease the transition, but i realise, the sooner i just close firefox and make a dedicated decision to stop using it, i'll transition all the more expediently (if a little more uncomfortably at the start.) ... so i plan to do that in a few minutes.
i had a little hiccough earlier when i couldnt get youtube videos to play.... uninstalling gnash soon sorted that though, and it's as seemless as it aught to be again.
i was going to start to construct a firefox-esq set of keyboard controls, but looking in the config, i soon began to realise, there was so much more potential in uzbl, and i'd be better off learning the defaults, so put that config construction on hold. i'm going to try to give the default controls the full fortnight test.
i always like to test the waters in a project's irc channel. #uzbl on freenode has a reasonably healthy 52 people in it, and rather amusingly, when i got a quirky snide unhelpful remark from one user, (to which i replied "mkay. i thought uzbl users would have more inteligent responces than that.") another user came along and apologised for them. :) a good sign of a healthy community spirit.
they* engage with issues, and enjoy learning more as they use their greater experience and knowledge to more expediently get to the nub of whatever issue you may be having.
(* of course, i cant say everyone in there is like that, but that's the general vibe and jist i picked up from my interactions.)
... i dont suggest you go in there with a wont-rtfm help-leach attitude though. .... not that you likely would if you're interested in the likes of uzbl though. ;)
about those few little niggles i mentioned earlier...
one is adblock. i've found a couple scripts for that, just looking into how to implement them now.
the other is the ability to download streamed video.
without these two features, i'll just give up on uzbl. ^_^
oh, and also ensuring i can delete all flash cookies is a biggie too... but that's such a simple little issue, i could EASILY write a script for that myself, n bind a key for it.
... ok, after spending an age trying to get uzbl-tabbed to accept this paste keybind:
@cbind
i discover it works fine with uzbl-browser. so, i'll see how well i get on without tabs. i dont mind. i have an ace window manager. ... and i'd rather be able to copy selected text with a ctrl-c (without having to press "i" first) than have tabs that i navigate clumsily, if i'm only allowed one or the other. (i'll check out some of those other tabbing scripts later anyways, i'm just glad i have my ctrl-c workflow restored... no more pressing i, or righclick-copy, or relying on select-middleclick (which i like to have as-well-as, not instead-of/only).
ok, it's late when i'm writing this after all that faffing around reading up about xclip not realising it's just uzbl-tabbed playing up, and it works fine in uzbl-brower. ~ i'll check on that in the morning with a fresh head...
it's not even a day in, and i already love it more than firefox.
PS. hehe... added XMonad.Layout.Tabbed and simpleTabbed, et viola, i have tabs again, sorta. ;) works well enough, so long as i dont want tabbed windows beyond full screen. ... i might finally end up getting around to XMonad-Layout-Combo or XMonad-Layout-Combinators because of this. ^_^
so, thats the jist of the state of things on day 1 of my 14 day uzbl trial run.
#####
todo
####
####
in progress.
###
2. video download
3. flash cookie purge
!4. open in new tab, in right click menu
7. no script
####
complete.
###
1. adblock
5. flashblock
6. copy selected text without right click
Sunday 8 May 2011
when the witch gets going, the fan stops blowing.
no, that title doesnt mean witch broke my laptop's fan. i did that. well, sort of. it was increasingly making weird noises... and i thought... it's just dusty, i'll skoosh some air in it and blow out the dust, and yes, some dust did come flying out, alsas, i dont think it was dust that caused it to be making noises... it seemed to be on the verge of mechanical failure... and rebooting after the skoosh of air, lead to "fan error", "beep beep", and it shuts down. so... with just 10 days left on my warranty... i've shipped it off to get mended. phew! timing! lucky i hastened it's demise, or that fan might have borked on it's own the day after the warranty expires.
so anyways....
what gets me is that this puts witch development on pause. :/
great progress was being made... and now... i sit twiddling my thumbs*. after several months of not much happening on the witch front, things had suddenly picked up again, and had just gotten to a scrotwm desktop on arch, with tilda n all the "rowan" selection of apps installed on a fresh arch, using my "witchcraft" script, which was getting bug zapped n refined at great pace... :(
part of me is thinking "why didnt i just leave that fan alone to make it's noises", and part of me is relieved that i managed to discover the seriousness of it's fault before the warranty ran out...
still... i just want a grumble.
it's actually been really good for a few other projects, where i've taken this productive energy i'm buzzing on at the mo, and made some more progress ... specifically, organising audio stuff and website stuff. (and some graphic design stuff for a client... but shshshsh, i dont want word to get out that i do graphic design stuff... it's a bit soul destroying)
well... this feels like the most pointless blog post i've made yet. ^_^ but with my warning just under the title, i feel i've given my self license to have pointless rambles like this. ;D
*not really, i'm still busy as fuck with the dozen other projects i have on the go.
so anyways....
what gets me is that this puts witch development on pause. :/
great progress was being made... and now... i sit twiddling my thumbs*. after several months of not much happening on the witch front, things had suddenly picked up again, and had just gotten to a scrotwm desktop on arch, with tilda n all the "rowan" selection of apps installed on a fresh arch, using my "witchcraft" script, which was getting bug zapped n refined at great pace... :(
part of me is thinking "why didnt i just leave that fan alone to make it's noises", and part of me is relieved that i managed to discover the seriousness of it's fault before the warranty ran out...
still... i just want a grumble.
it's actually been really good for a few other projects, where i've taken this productive energy i'm buzzing on at the mo, and made some more progress ... specifically, organising audio stuff and website stuff. (and some graphic design stuff for a client... but shshshsh, i dont want word to get out that i do graphic design stuff... it's a bit soul destroying)
well... this feels like the most pointless blog post i've made yet. ^_^ but with my warning just under the title, i feel i've given my self license to have pointless rambles like this. ;D
*not really, i'm still busy as fuck with the dozen other projects i have on the go.
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