August 11, 2003
Trying KDE for a while...
For reasons of laziness, I've switched to using Debian's
default KDE setup on my Linux box at work. (I'm still using the
custom-designed FVWM2 setup at home.)
You know what? I like it. By and large it doesn't feel like it's getting in my way at all. And that's not what I expected. There are a few things I adjusted (mouse focus issue--I can't stand click-to-focus). And there's one annoyance. Every time I highlight something URL-like, to put it into the X clipboard, this stupid little applet thing pops up and tries to "help" me decide what to do with it.
Anyone know what it is and how to disable it?
And for some reason it seems to ignore part of my ~/.Xdefaults. I haven't quite sorted that out yet.
Other than that, I'm sorta liking this. It's a bit more pretty than my dull-ass FVWM2 setup. And it's not sucking on my productivity at all.
Talk Directly to the Unix Yahoo! Messenger Team
The search group isn't the only one with a public forum. If you're a user of Y! Messenger on Unix, you can talk directly to the engineers who build the software in the ymessenger group:
This Yahoo! group is dedicated to enabling users to interact with the development of the Unix version of Yahoo! Messenger. The scope of this list involves but is not limited to:
* Beta Releases
* Feature requests
* User problems and solutions
Not only that, but one of the engineers now has a public web site where you can get more information, downloads, and more. There are RPMs (Debian packages coming soonish) of the 1.0 client available there.
Check it out.
And be on the lookout for new of more Yahoo! groups who are using Yahoo! Groups to talk more directly with our users.
Bay Area Traffic
Phil experiences Bay Area traffic and notes:
Traversing a few miles of I-80 here (the Bay Bridge) took 2 hours, longer than flying over the entire stretch of I-80 that traverses Utah (from Wyoming to Nevada). No accidents; just a normal flow Sunday around noon.
When people used to ask me if I liked living in the Bay Area, I always said: "I love it, except for two things... The traffic and the cost of housing (not living)." Traffic isn't nearly as bad as it used to be in 1999 and 2000. You really can tell that a of of people moved away and/or are not working. The morning commute is much easier.
There still are times and places when it's still quite bad. I experienced the Hell that is I-880 near Berkeley yesterday evening. And I don't see that really changing unless something dramatic changes--like getting much better public transit around the Bay Area. Yeah, getting to and from San Francisco isn't bad, but there are a lot of other places that public transit really doesn't serve too well.
Andrei is a Yahoo
Yup, we've got a new PHP Hacker working at Yahoo now. Welcome, Andrei.
I hadn't realized that he started already. I walked over to Brian's cube a few days ago to ask him a question, knocked on the wall (there's no door, of course), and Andrei turned around. I wasn't quite paying attention yet and said something like "Hey, you're not Brian." And then realized that I knew Andrei was starting soon, so they must be sharing a cube for now.
It's funny when stuff like that happens.