Category: everything else

I’€™m taking (actually, retaking) Computer Science 240 right now. So I’€™m learning C++. This is someting I’€™ve always wanted to do. I was maybe 10 years old when we got Turbo C++. My dad was the only one who knew how to use it, but still, I had fun playing with the “Heap Walker”€ program. I wasn’€™t able to learn simply by experimentation, like I did with QBASIC. Now, having paid some of my dues with tuition and time, I feel like I’€™m learning the language. The project we’re working on right now in class is an implementation of make. I’€™ve been hacking away, learning how to deal with circular #include’€™s, finding memory leaks and fixing segmentation faults. Maybe sometime soon I’€™ll be able to start contributing to some Open Source projects – another long-time goal of mine.

Here’s something I would like to code into KDevelop: a plugin that allows the file list sidebar to be sorted to have the most recently used files on top. Somehow there has to be a more optimal way to switch between source files than pushing Ctrl+/ and typing the name of the file, or moving the mouse cursor over to click on the “File List”€™ sidebar button, then back over to the file that you want to open. How about a key combination that cycles through the last five most recently used files? There must be some better way.

Lately I’€™ve been listening to the UbuntuOS podcast about the Ubuntu Linux distro. It’€™s a good show, for sure, though there’€™s a bit too much down time where the guys are just sitting there saying, “Yeah… uh… so linux is pretty cool, yeah….” It really does remind me of my conversations with my brother, but with some more varietous viewpoints.

The people on the ‘cast are constantly citing website addresses or terminal commands. It would be useful to develop a technology that would allow the people speaking on the podcast to send text directly to the listeners. Imagine the show mentions a website, and up pops in the corner of your screen or your media player a notification window. Why not use libnotify/notification-daemon? Actually, such a technology already exists in the form of Vorbis metadata. At least one program, called FreeCast, seems to have a feature like that.

Last night at some absurdly late hour (as if 2:30am isn’€™t late) I read a the keynote from OLS. I was very impressed with the debunking of the “Linux has no device support” myth. It’€™s worth a read.