Posts tagged: APPLE

My recent reinstall of Ubuntu 21.04 (to fix some driver problems) reminded me there is more to the world than XMonad. I played with Gnome Shell 3 for a day, and it’s all right. I don’t hate it (and I didn’t hate Unity either).

Last summer I switched from OS X to Ubuntu for my day-to-day work. It’s gone well. Here’s a condensed rundown of some of the things I’ve noticed.

Things I miss when using OS X:

• ctrl key on both sides of the keyboard
• one-key app switching
• System-wide package management
• ctrl-alt-T default to bring up a new terminal

Things I miss when using Linux:

• Selecting menu items by typing their first letters
• Emacs-compatible key bindings in text fields
• LaunchBar
• Consistent mic support across applications
• Full-fledged Exchange integration (still haven’t bothered to get davmail running)

Cross-platform bright spots:

In July, I switched from OS X to Ubuntu as my workday environment. For three years my personal MacBook Air had been pulling double duty, personal computer plus workstation at my job (each role with its respective user on the box). When the combined demands for disk space exceeded the 250GB SSD, I took that as a sign that it was time for a change. I work outside my office enough that an external HD wasn’t a practical solution, and a USB key is too slow.

So, I requested a Windows laptop from the company stash. Step one: wipe Windows off it. Step two: install Ubuntu 14.04.

Here are some highlights and hopefully useful details about the switch and the new setup.

I’m still loving my iPod touch. It’s really a great little handheld computer. I’m able to do almost everything I need with the stock apps, but there are a couple free third-party apps that have earned a permanent place on it. One is the game Chess With Friends from NewToy.

This is a version of what is also known as “postal” or “correspondence” chess. You make a move and send it to your opponent; your opponent makes a move and sends it back to you. (In this version, the CWF app rather than your mail carrier is the middleman.) You can pick somebody out of your address book, or ask the CWF app to find you a random opponent. Nice touches include in-game chat, step-by-step replays, and optional email or SMS notifications.

It will surprise few that I have not yet given Apple $10 for the privilege of upgrading my iPod touch (“iPt”) firmware from 1.1.5 to 2.x.

Update: A month after posting this, I took the plunge. Version 2.2 came with some nice little improvements. I still miss my shell, but at least I have an SSH app!

At first, I resisted out of attachment to the open source software I had installed via Cydia – with no supported “upgrade” process per se, I would have had to reinstall all my packages manually. Then I saw that my core uses of the iPt (email, web browsing, audio, calendar, contacts) all used the Apple software, so I leaned toward the upgrade.

This began as a quick reply to a discussion on the Well about a recent posting from John Gruber which links to a hit list from Crackberry.com about the iPhone. Gruber focuses just on the keyboard issue, about which I found I had this to say:

With the built-in spelling correction, I can type close to 30wpm on my iPt keyboard. This is faster than I ever was with Graffiti, which I used for about 8 years and was pretty good at if I say so. Most of the stuff I do with the device doesn’t involve the keyboard, and then I’m really happy not to have a hard keyboard.

From a post at Rogue Amoeba:

• Allow applications to be installed at the user’s discretion, not Apple’s
• Allow applications to run in background on iPhone
• Allow access to root user on iPhone
• A MediaPicker API for accessing the iPod music files is needed
• Add option to allow iPhone applications to access entire filesystem
• Allow iPhone applications to access the host computer when docking
• Permit Voice over IP on the cellular network
• Allow iPhone applications to access the docking port

Funny, it reads more like a list of demands! I’m +1 on it all though.