The Akashic Field Chronicle

Computer mice that is… (I’m afraid I’m spending too much time in the lab )

ergonomics or fashion?

microsoft or apple?

The answer might be obvious now, but just a while ago, a lot of people thought they knew better. Interesting they way people’s ideas about design evolve.

Disclaimer: mice used without explicit consent… Uber cool looking mice property of Przemysław Pawełczak (whose name, apparently, is non-ASCII compliant LOL). Ugly looking Microsoft mouse on loan to me via CORES lab.

Lookie what I got in the mail:

Free Ubuntu 10.04 CD

I’ve been running 10.04 since it launched a couple of weeks ago, so this is mostly just for people who want to borrow an Ubuntu CD. I mean, it’s slightly better in terms of advocacy to give someone this nice looking CD than a CD-R marked with a Sharpie .

If you want one delivered at no charge, head on to shipit.ubuntu.com. It takes a while to arrive so you can just download the ISO if you want to check out this impressive, well polished Linux distribution.

Click here to read other Pick-of-the-Week (POW) entries

The newest version of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution, code-named Lucid Lynx, has just been released this week (April 29th).

Here’s what I think…

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

I’ve been running the release candidate (RC) for a week now, so I’ve been able to put this version through its paces, and believe that I’m now in the position to fairly evaluate this release. Through my years of using Linux, I have gone from being hardcore Linux advocate to a more pragmatic view. I know the strong points as well as the shortcomings of the OS and I also know that as much as I would encourage people to use it, it still isn’t for everybody. Having said that though, I can confidently say that this new release comes pretty close to achieving that. In addition to this, it’s an LTS release so stability and security are primary motivations.

The Good

It’s free… I have to say this before anything else. Too many people complain about this and that bug, or the look and feel isn’t right. It seems the better the Linux desktop becomes, the more criticisms are aimed at it. Let’s not forget people, this software is completely free (as in beer). It’s not gonna cost you anything to try it.

Polish, polish, and more polish… The desktop is stunning! You can clearly see that a lot of effort went into design as much as coding. Of course, not everyone is entirely happy with a lot of the design choices the Ubuntu made, but I think the majority of long time users would agree that this is probably the sweetest looking Ubuntu release ever. They dropped the orange/brown motif and went for a darker shade of gray (and a lot of purple by default).

Here are some screenshots of my desktop (click to zoom in)

Default theme. Very Mac-like (but that's actually good)

Lighter theme with similar elements

Accessing the internet (Firefox, Chat, Social Networks)

Integration… Linux is primarily a result of independent efforts from different developers. As a consequence of this, it has always lacked the tight integration that Windows and especially the Mac OS had. Each new release has brought the Ubuntu UI closer to near perfect integration. This time around, they’ve really gone leaps and bounds towards this goal. Everything just works together.

This is particularly true for social networks and chat. The notification system works with all the default programs and works with almost all major chat (YM, GChat, Live Messenger, and Facebook) and social network services (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and others ). It also has a file sync service called UbuntuOne that syncs all your bookmarks, contacts files, music, and chat logs (Similar to Dropbox but with very tight integration to the desktop).

Flash Finally… This varies from different configurations, but I’ve always found it a bit clunky. This is the first version to actually integrate Flash flawlessly (Hulu Desktop!). Also, with the new and improved interface for the Ubuntu Software Center, it’s very easy to install Flash (as well as the thousands of free software in the Ubuntu repositories).

Me Menu: Where all your apps come together (even a text box for tweets and statuses)

Multimedia, A built-in music store, and Hulu (works flawlessly with Flash)!

Revamped install center UI with thumbnails and descriptions for the entire Ubuntu software repository

Fast boot… I have yet to time my boot-up, but it’s quite impressive. I’m not sure how they manged it but it’s blazing fast to get to the log-in screen.

The Bad

• Minimize, Maximize, and Close Buttons… I’m not a big fan of buttons on the left-hand-side of the title bar. I could easily change it of course, but it would have been great if they gave novice users an easy way to switch the layout back.
• Multiple Monitors… If you use a laptop most of the time and use an external screen once in a while, Ubuntu has this irritating behavior of messing up the order of your panel icons. Kudos to the Windows bar for its flexibility in multiple monitor setups.
• No more chat pop-ups… Chats are shown as notifications instead of pop-ups (you then have to click on the panel to open up the message). I know, this is probably a good thing in terms of productivity because you don’t get distracted all the time. Still, if you leave your desktop for a while, and a message comes in, you might miss it. Okay, so the message icon lights up to inform you, but sometimes you just have too many unread messages for it to make sense anymore.

Final Words

Ubuntu 10.04 is a clean, polished and well integrated desktop. It has reached the point where I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone who has an open mind to try something new. Ubuntu is here to stay and I’m very excited to see what the Ubuntu community can achieve for the next LTS version. Whatever it is, I know it’s gonna be beyond any of my expectations.

Try it for yourself

• Ubuntu 10.04 Main LTS Features
• Linux Mag article about Ubuntu 10.04
• Download Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (The Lucid Lynx)

Click here to read other Pick-of-the-Week (POW) entries

Click here to read other Pick-of-the-Week (POW) entries

As promised, I’ll be trying to blog with a little more semblance of regularity. I figured, what better way to get back into the zone than by bringing back a regular blog segment. Fortunately, I had just the thing in my archives, the AFC Pick-of-the-Week (P.O.W)!  But a weekly segment seems completely unrealistic at the moment. Perhaps bi-monthly sounds a little more practical (we’ll see). Anyway, it’s still a week and I still pick something, just not every week, so there.

This week, I’m picking…

Beamer

LaTeX Beamer to be exact. What’s Beamer you ask? Well technically it’s just another LaTeX package, but a pretty awesome one if you ask me. A friend introduced it to me while I was doing my MS at  UP Diliman and I’ve been a huge fan ever since.

It’s basically a package (i.e. an extension) to LaTeX in order to make presentation slides using standard LaTeX syntax. If you already write papers or dicussion notes in LaTeX and you’re familiar with its syntax then Beamer is definitely for you. If not, then it’s a perfect opportunity to start learning LaTeX. I previously wrote about how useful it is in this post, and I still believe so.

Why Use Beamer

Here are some reasons why I’d recommend using it:

• LaTeX – It’s built on top of LaTeX and if you think LaTeX is great (esp. for rendering math) then this reason is pretty self-explanatory.
• It Looks Great – It’s hard to sell this claim, esp. to people who are obsessed with PowerPoint. But you have to see it to believe it. Here are some great Beamer examples:
  • A Sample Presentation by Till Tantau (creator of the Beamer class)
  • Demo of different features
  • My MS thesis defense presentation (ok, maybe it’s not great, but it has sentimental value)
• Portability - A Beamer presentation is essentially a PDF file so it will work almost anywhere (and preserve ‘animations’).
• Reusability - the LaTeX code in your paper, discussion notes, book or whatever, is exactly the same code used in Beamer. Including the structure (section, subsection, etc.). This means formulas will render perfectly whether you originally used it on a paper or a presentation. If you’re cramming a presentation, you can even make it straight from your paper (just put \begin{frame} … \end{frame} on certain segments)
• Structure - Beamer, without messing with the nitty-gritty, enforces a certain style to your slides as you will see if you look at the examples I have above. Some PPT users might see this as very limiting, but after a while you begin to realize that this actually forces you to adhere to certain rules (font size, image placement, margins, etc.) that actually make your presentations look very professional.
• It’s Free - and not the ‘illegal’ kind of free

Did I mention they look great?!

Who Should Use Beamer (and who might not want to)?

If you regularly write research papers and make presentations (Faculty, Grad Students, Researchers, etc.) then I definitely recommend you at least try it out. If you’re already familiar with LaTeX then I recommend it even more. Also, if you find yourself rendering mathematical formulas very often, then the LaTeX equation rendering is the best there is.

Still, there are some who might not see the point of using Beamer and might not necessarily benefit from the things I listed above. These include:

• People who can’t invest time learning LaTeX - I admit, the learning curve is a little steep and for some people it just isn’t worth it.
• People who want their presentation to focus on the animations – although beamer has some animation capability, it won’t give you that nasty ‘Swivel” animation. Sorry.
• People who need their content to  be accessible to their superiors - and by this I mean, people who are expecting their bosses to re-purpose their hard work to please their respective bosses (you know who you are). You can’t expect the bosses to learn LaTeX. Sorry.

How can I learn?

I won’t go into a tutorial of Beamer, much less LaTeX. Fortunately, Google is your friend. To save you a little effort, here are the tutorials I really like:

• A Beamer Quickstart – this should get you started real quick (huh? wait?)
• Beamer v3.0 Guide – the most comprehensive one I’ve found besides the user manual (also, it’s made with beamer)
• Beamer User Guide – the manual
• LaTeX Tutorial – by Eudean Sun, presented (using beamer!) in a seminar sponsored by the UCLA Graduate Students Resource Center. Specially targeted to Grad Students.

So there. Start making professional looking presentations and make your adviser think you’re actually making progress on your research

Click here to read other Pick-of-the-Week (POW) entries

Click here to read other Pick-of-the-Week (POW) entries

Okay, so I’m having trouble maintaining a regular posting schedule for this blog. What with all the work that being a teacher entails, and even more importantly, how much time doing a masteral thesis actually eats up. All the same, I will try a bit harder to put in a post once in a while. Starting now!

I recently replaced my cellphone, a Motorola Razr v3i, with a Nokia 6500 Slide. The Razr has served me well all throughout college (undergrad) and I thought it was time to finally get a new one. So for my Pick-of-the-Week I give you, the Nokia 6500 Slide. Tadaa!

The Nokia 6500 Slide

Why I bought it

I was basically on the look out for a replacement for my flip phone (Razr v3i). Slider phones have been quite in fashion right now (don’t you just love those ultra-thin Samsung sliders?), so I decided to narrow down my search and look for a good slider. Here are the key features I was looking for before I bought:

• Slider – of course
• Compactness – something that would comfortably fit in my pocket. After the Razr, it’s really hard to go back to big and bulky phones
• 3G – the local service providers in the Philippines are all 3G (Highspeed) enabled so this is definitely a must for a new phone, in my opinion. However, it’s quite hard to find a compact handset that has 3G too.
• Not that new - gadgets are just so exorbitantly priced when they’ve just been introduced in the market and I really don’t have money to spare for a shiny new phone.
• User-friendly - the Motorola interface (for the v3i) is just plain crappy so I wanted something a little more geared towards usability. Because at the end of the day, looks are just looks. They wear out and you’re left with an unusable piece of bling.

A Comparison

So how does it stack up? Well, for one thing it’s quite stylish. I wouldn’t call it “sexy” as I would the Razr, but it definitely has a stylish masculine appeal. It’s even more pronounced when you consider its very sleek exterior and minimalist design.

As for usability, I really didn’t have any doubt it would beat the Razr in every aspect. Nokia phones are just so darn user-friendly. They stick to their tried and tested functionality and make very small incremental changes. I’m all for this kind of development. Just small changes to polish up an already good system.

Ok, so it’s not a smartphone (symbian, etc.) but I wouldn’t call it stupid either. It’s just a decent balance of features without the speed overhead very common to a lot of smartphones I’ve seen. If you’re not really into the extra PDA-like functionality, this phone will do the job.

The Bad

All in all, it’s a great phone, but it wouldn’t be a fair review if all I said were good things. Here are some minor issues:

1. Battery life – could have been better. 2 days on the average. 1 day if you’re using all the features (music, 3g surfing, games).
2. Slider – not the slider per se, but the way the keys are scratched a little bit everytime you slide it open. It’s only been a week and I can see lines on the keypad. It’s even more obvious with the black version.
3. No HSDPA - as I’ve said before, it’s 3G, not 3.5G. So the maximum speed you’ll get is 300+ kbps I think.
4. Start-up - there seems to be a bug in the software so that when it’s turned on, it seems like a very fast boot-up, but if you try to do anything right away, it kinda stalls for a few seconds and without any indication that it hasn’t hanged yet. It does eventually work after waiting a bit.

Linuxability

I don’t think that’s a real word though. Since I do all my work in Ubuntu, linux compatibility is definitely a big plus for me. Good thing Nokia decided to include Mass Storage support (similar to flash disks). This way, I don’t really need their software to get pictures, files, and programs to and from the PC.

I was also able to surf the net over the 3G connection of Globe telecom by following the instructions from the Globe website and this tutorial. Just a warning though, the default settings from Globe don’t work for prepaid users straight away. You have to change the APN from internet.globe.com.ph to html.globe.com.ph. It will allow you to surf using the built-in browser but it won’t allow your installed programs (Opera, Gmail, Yahoo Go) to connect using 3G. I think this also applies for all 3G handsets under the Globe prepaid service.

At 5 pesos / 15 mins, it’s quite a good offer. You just have to find a strong 3G signal. It isn’t much of a problem in the metro but becomes quite irritating in the provinces. If you don’t have a laptop with you though, I recommend browsing using Opera Mini in your cellphone.

The uber-funny manual

Here’s an excerpt from the manual that came with the phone (no editing was done):

Hello

Hindi halata ngunit sa kaakit-akit sa mata, ang iyong bagong Nokia 6500 ay makabago ng estilo at pagiging makabago. Sa pamamagitan ng isang nakaka-engganyong disenyo at isang eleganteng kaha na yari sa stainless steel at protektado sa gasgas ay nagsasanib ang salat at hitsura sa isang paraang talagang nagbibigay-pagkilanlan…

–used without permission

Ummm… Good thing there’s an english version. If you understand Filipino, then you’re probably laughing out loud right about now. I think the folks at Nokia translated the english manual word-for-word and probably didn’t even hire a decent translator. Funny!

Nokia Tagalog Manual —-> FAIL!

Click here to read other Pick-of-the-Week (POW) entries