I'd like to share an application from the Ubuntu/Debian repositories that is "old-school" and usually overlooked. The command line application a2ps has saved at least 3 trees in my office. Without the need to adjust for printing settings for the one-off printing. It also can create a postscript file that I can preview or even use ps2pdf (part of the Ghostscript family) to create a pdf for anyone on a different operating system.
To get these applications on Ubuntu just use:
sudo apt-get install a2ps ps2pdf
These are command line applications and they both have exentive options. Please read the man page for all the details.
<--snip-->
a2ps todo.wkYY.txt <- prints straight
a2ps --output=todo.wkYY.ps todo.wkYY.txt <- creates .ps
ps2pdf todo.wkYY.ps todo.wkYY.pdf <- converts ps into pdf
<--/snip-->
I use this method for my text file that I use for my todo list. It's a personalized version of todo.sh. So, think before you print...save a tree. And if you do print, double down and kill only half of one.
--
CafeNinja
Saturday, March 15, 2008
The Standard Questions
Not that YOU have asked me yet...but plenty of folks have. So let's get the standard questions out of the way so there is no confusion:
vi vs. emacs <- vi
pine vs. mutt <-mutt
firefox vs. w3m <- depends on where I'm going
exchange vs. qmail <- qmail
dot net framework vs. anything <- anything
original vs. copy <- original
coke vs. pepsi <- coke
digital vs. broadcast (entertainment) <- digital. My way!
linux vs. mac vs. windows
<- in order would be mac then linux. Windows is dead to me.
Well, that sounds like it merits a posting. I should qualify that with the fact that I enjoy working on a mac, it offers the "pretty" with the unix under the hood I can still get my geek on. I consider it the best of both worlds. I have a high comfort level with linux, there for I consider them a very close tie.
Windows hasn't impressed me in so long, I don't really even worry about keeping current. I mean I don't mind to help out friends with something, but more than 3 problems and it's easier to format. I really just got tired of adding resource intensive applications to make windows behave like linux. Multiple desktops, highlight copy + middle-click paste, etc.
Sorry if I made this start out looking like I was going to turn it into a poll, but this blog is not a democracy...it's mine.
--
CafeNinja
vi vs. emacs <- vi
pine vs. mutt <-mutt
firefox vs. w3m <- depends on where I'm going
exchange vs. qmail <- qmail
dot net framework vs. anything <- anything
original vs. copy <- original
coke vs. pepsi <- coke
digital vs. broadcast (entertainment) <- digital. My way!
linux vs. mac vs. windows
<- in order would be mac then linux. Windows is dead to me.
Well, that sounds like it merits a posting. I should qualify that with the fact that I enjoy working on a mac, it offers the "pretty" with the unix under the hood I can still get my geek on. I consider it the best of both worlds. I have a high comfort level with linux, there for I consider them a very close tie.
Windows hasn't impressed me in so long, I don't really even worry about keeping current. I mean I don't mind to help out friends with something, but more than 3 problems and it's easier to format. I really just got tired of adding resource intensive applications to make windows behave like linux. Multiple desktops, highlight copy + middle-click paste, etc.
Sorry if I made this start out looking like I was going to turn it into a poll, but this blog is not a democracy...it's mine.
--
CafeNinja
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Great looking agenda's for meetings
I have used Evolution to manage my professional email and calendar and was made fun of more than once because my printed agenda had no todo list and my todo list had no calendar. Well, I fixed that and here's how.
First I would print to file the two pages that I needed as PostScript (.ps file extension) naming them page1.ps and page2.ps. Then I issued the command "page2.ps >> page1.ps". This simply adds the 2nd page into the 1st page file. Then I used ps2pdf to make my new page1 a pdf. That I could open and print with perfection even using the print duplex mode that the windows guys didn't have a driver for and that is how my agenda printing became the envy of all.
This process could be done for combining any pages together and then printing them. I find that the ps2pdf step allows me to be able to send it to anyone for printing purposes and to ensure the layout before printing it. Clearly you could use this for even more individual pages if you wanted to tack together research information in a type of cheat sheet. There are a million uses, go find yours and leave a comment about it.
--
CafeNinja
First I would print to file the two pages that I needed as PostScript (.ps file extension) naming them page1.ps and page2.ps. Then I issued the command "page2.ps >> page1.ps". This simply adds the 2nd page into the 1st page file. Then I used ps2pdf to make my new page1 a pdf. That I could open and print with perfection even using the print duplex mode that the windows guys didn't have a driver for and that is how my agenda printing became the envy of all.
This process could be done for combining any pages together and then printing them. I find that the ps2pdf step allows me to be able to send it to anyone for printing purposes and to ensure the layout before printing it. Clearly you could use this for even more individual pages if you wanted to tack together research information in a type of cheat sheet. There are a million uses, go find yours and leave a comment about it.
--
CafeNinja
2x 8Gig goodness
Well, It's true. There are now two new US keyboard 8Gig Eee Pc's in the house. Freshly smuggl...I mean imported boxes. And I have to say it is just as good as the 4Gig model with twice the soft center goodness and still has only 1 calorie :)
Already, the wife has taken to it. At the moment is only the complaint that the default Xandros linux install doesn't include her normal Ubuntu software repositories. I have insisted to let me tweak mine out so if things go wrong, I can flash mine and she won't loose any data.
I'm still a little sad that bluetooth isn't included but that is not a show stopper and gives me hope for the Eee 900 model shown at CeBit. I'm glad that there will also be a price premium for anyone who wants the M$ Windoze installed on it. I completely agree with the decision to make it available, since that will bring corporate sales onboard.
I'm truly overfilled with joy to have not one but two of these in the house that are truly my property (not from work) and I will continue to support Asus as much as I can in this market as long as the native linux remains available. We need more companies making OEM Linux devices and I applaud Dell, but they don't offer those products here in Europe (everywhere) yet.
I'm sure to be blogging and updating more frequently with this always in my hip pocket.
More Power to the Penguin!
--
CafeNinja
Already, the wife has taken to it. At the moment is only the complaint that the default Xandros linux install doesn't include her normal Ubuntu software repositories. I have insisted to let me tweak mine out so if things go wrong, I can flash mine and she won't loose any data.
I'm still a little sad that bluetooth isn't included but that is not a show stopper and gives me hope for the Eee 900 model shown at CeBit. I'm glad that there will also be a price premium for anyone who wants the M$ Windoze installed on it. I completely agree with the decision to make it available, since that will bring corporate sales onboard.
I'm truly overfilled with joy to have not one but two of these in the house that are truly my property (not from work) and I will continue to support Asus as much as I can in this market as long as the native linux remains available. We need more companies making OEM Linux devices and I applaud Dell, but they don't offer those products here in Europe (everywhere) yet.
I'm sure to be blogging and updating more frequently with this always in my hip pocket.
More Power to the Penguin!
--
CafeNinja
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Entertainment of Ex-Pat Geek
Living abroad limits entertainment slightly. I mean to say that for example, I live in Italy and I can speak and read Italian but it is not they way I prefer to consume mass quantities of entertainment. When native speakers are trying to copy the format of popular American TV shows like CSI they have to get a lot of dialouge in a very short time and start talking fast, which I have a hard time keeping up with.
The first solution that my family and I came up with was subscription satellite service that feeds also the UK. So we can see some of the most popular TV shows that trickle down via the BBC, etc. This provides what would equate to having cable with HBO in the states about 8 years ago. Which is enough programming, but not the most current or with massive selection.
Last year I purchased a Apple Mac Mini while in the States. I have started using the Mac for my entertainment and video/photo editing. iTunes has provided me with an amazing world of podcasting in diverse media for consumption. I use audio podcasts for the car, iPod formated video for the wife's new iPod and Apple TV formatted for consumption on the 21" monitor that I attached to the Mini.
Recently, I purchased a new Full HD 37" TV which supports PC connectivity. And now, I've added to my repertoire the HD Video Podcasts from iTunes which are, in fact truly amazing. It was during the writers strike and the lack of new TV programming that the family and I realized that the digital consumption of entertainment satisfied our needs and was very, very convienent. Using it in this way made it feel like the Video-on-demand or TiVo experience that most people have to pay extra for via a TVR or pay-per-view model. Where in my case it was a cost of nothing in addition to the infrastructure of the home which already existed.
So, being the geek that I am (as stated in title) I strapped that poor Mac Mini to the new 37" LCD TV and now the family enjoys the shows they want, when they want and in the language they want it in. The only thing that I haven't done yet is to add the USB TV Tuner to the Mac Mini and piped my satellite feed over it to have a very real TVR. By the way, if you haven't seen the HubbleCast produced by the ESA and NASA in REAL (I mean x1080 real) HD, then you haven't lived.
Point is, over the last view months, my family and I would have been more put out by the loss of internet connectivity for entertainment than satellite service. Even though I do have both, I think I will try to keep up the trend. Since that also means that our entertainment is always available over the internet whether we are in Germany, Belgium, France or Italy.
--
CafeNinja
The first solution that my family and I came up with was subscription satellite service that feeds also the UK. So we can see some of the most popular TV shows that trickle down via the BBC, etc. This provides what would equate to having cable with HBO in the states about 8 years ago. Which is enough programming, but not the most current or with massive selection.
Last year I purchased a Apple Mac Mini while in the States. I have started using the Mac for my entertainment and video/photo editing. iTunes has provided me with an amazing world of podcasting in diverse media for consumption. I use audio podcasts for the car, iPod formated video for the wife's new iPod and Apple TV formatted for consumption on the 21" monitor that I attached to the Mini.
Recently, I purchased a new Full HD 37" TV which supports PC connectivity. And now, I've added to my repertoire the HD Video Podcasts from iTunes which are, in fact truly amazing. It was during the writers strike and the lack of new TV programming that the family and I realized that the digital consumption of entertainment satisfied our needs and was very, very convienent. Using it in this way made it feel like the Video-on-demand or TiVo experience that most people have to pay extra for via a TVR or pay-per-view model. Where in my case it was a cost of nothing in addition to the infrastructure of the home which already existed.
So, being the geek that I am (as stated in title) I strapped that poor Mac Mini to the new 37" LCD TV and now the family enjoys the shows they want, when they want and in the language they want it in. The only thing that I haven't done yet is to add the USB TV Tuner to the Mac Mini and piped my satellite feed over it to have a very real TVR. By the way, if you haven't seen the HubbleCast produced by the ESA and NASA in REAL (I mean x1080 real) HD, then you haven't lived.
Point is, over the last view months, my family and I would have been more put out by the loss of internet connectivity for entertainment than satellite service. Even though I do have both, I think I will try to keep up the trend. Since that also means that our entertainment is always available over the internet whether we are in Germany, Belgium, France or Italy.
--
CafeNinja
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Apple Air - uncovering the plan
I've never claimed on this blog or in any other forum to be a man of deep thought. I think that I have made a revelation. I feel that I already understand where the Jobs machine is motoring the future of Apple computing. I feel my recent experience has given me familiarity with the technology involved and was pondering the question posed by Harlem on the Freshubuntu podcast interview "How would I compare the Eee Pc to the new Macbook Air?".
I feel I need to explain my twisted logic and then summarize my conclusions. First Harlem's musing got me to ask the first and simple question that is "What is similar about them?". I had not until that point thought about them in the same class at all. In my mind they were not even attending the same school or grade. After some reflection, there are some similarities that both of these machines are hitting on. Size, weight and solid state disks which are faster but may not offer the same space one might ask for in their day-to-day PC.
This got me to thinking about my "computing in the cloud" analysis with the Eee PC. "Cloud Computing" is the obvious choice with the limited disk space of the Eee PC. But how much more removed is it from the Air? I know plenty of people who will not be able to put their entire iTunes library on 64 Gig. It was mentioned on a popular podcast that I listen to on the TWiT network that they would probably not recommend the Air as a first or primary computer and that sounds like good advice with some of the hardware that is missing. I probably wouldn't recommend the Eee PC to a user that didn't have a primary machine already either.
Remember that the Air was announced on the same day as their new product Time Capsule. This little device seems like just an over-priced external hard drive with wifi access. So, I ask you...is Apple, through their product development, potentially teaching Apple users how to "compute in the cloud"? Is it such a removed idea that the large iMac in the home office actually becomes the house server? Could Apple not start offering server machines that would potentially compete with Windows Home Server? Do they not already have the media extender idea pretty much working with shared iTunes library over a LAN?
So, my grand conclusion is that the Air and Time Capsule are a primer and a "cloud computing" for dummies course via product release. We all know that Apple has gotten where they are by thinking like chess GrandMasters about 20 moves ahead. They are the masters of creating demand where there is and should be none. I feel that the Mac community may be getting spoon feed how to really embrace "cloud computing" via these new products. Which would allow Apple to make many devices that just access centralized information, rather than needing to store it locally too.
Ok, conspiracy over. Breath deeply. By the way, we Linux geeks have lots more experience at the client-server model. While Windows offers minesweeper and solitaire for new users to learn how to use a mouse, Linux has freeciv both the client and the server ;)
--
CafeNinja
I feel I need to explain my twisted logic and then summarize my conclusions. First Harlem's musing got me to ask the first and simple question that is "What is similar about them?". I had not until that point thought about them in the same class at all. In my mind they were not even attending the same school or grade. After some reflection, there are some similarities that both of these machines are hitting on. Size, weight and solid state disks which are faster but may not offer the same space one might ask for in their day-to-day PC.
This got me to thinking about my "computing in the cloud" analysis with the Eee PC. "Cloud Computing" is the obvious choice with the limited disk space of the Eee PC. But how much more removed is it from the Air? I know plenty of people who will not be able to put their entire iTunes library on 64 Gig. It was mentioned on a popular podcast that I listen to on the TWiT network that they would probably not recommend the Air as a first or primary computer and that sounds like good advice with some of the hardware that is missing. I probably wouldn't recommend the Eee PC to a user that didn't have a primary machine already either.
Remember that the Air was announced on the same day as their new product Time Capsule. This little device seems like just an over-priced external hard drive with wifi access. So, I ask you...is Apple, through their product development, potentially teaching Apple users how to "compute in the cloud"? Is it such a removed idea that the large iMac in the home office actually becomes the house server? Could Apple not start offering server machines that would potentially compete with Windows Home Server? Do they not already have the media extender idea pretty much working with shared iTunes library over a LAN?
So, my grand conclusion is that the Air and Time Capsule are a primer and a "cloud computing" for dummies course via product release. We all know that Apple has gotten where they are by thinking like chess GrandMasters about 20 moves ahead. They are the masters of creating demand where there is and should be none. I feel that the Mac community may be getting spoon feed how to really embrace "cloud computing" via these new products. Which would allow Apple to make many devices that just access centralized information, rather than needing to store it locally too.
Ok, conspiracy over. Breath deeply. By the way, we Linux geeks have lots more experience at the client-server model. While Windows offers minesweeper and solitaire for new users to learn how to use a mouse, Linux has freeciv both the client and the server ;)
--
CafeNinja
Monday, February 18, 2008
Geek woes
So, now that I have a blog about the geek and caffeine, I've started to look at my geekyness (is that a word) in a geeky way. That is to say I'm on a quest to answer the question "Why is CafeNinja so geek?"
I found myself in the office just the other day with a "novice" who didn't know how to do a simple action "I think copy and paste" on the new iMac. So I told him that instead of control + key (c,v,z) he should use the command button on the keyboard. He was amazed at my wealth of knowledge :) I then told him that I didn't like that method either since with Linux I could highlight and paste with wheel button click and that was much faster.
At this point the co-workers eyes just glazed over as I was clearly talking out of the mouth on my second head based on the looks he was giving me. I stopped and pondered just how strangely would this person look at me if I talked about replacing the windows shell with NextStep or not having a task list while using WindowMaker.
That was the moment I started to ask myself....why does a CafeNinja need to know this either. I mean, I should know the difference from fresh brewed and instant, but why do I feel I have to really study to figure out how to use the Eee PC in our normal work environment...that's just strange. And I always take for granted that any normal user might have half the understanding I do. I've given up on trying to explain to anyone how I fix things in any operating system any more since it takes less time for me to go there and put my hands on the machine.
I know there are others out there who have more technical knowledge than I in speciality areas to be sure. I also find myself in the country of the tech illiterate which makes it even more challenging. I hope that one day I can find the land of Geek which has a penguin on it's national flag, a happy mac symbol for a postage stamp and windows is blocked and held for interrogation at the border *snicker*. I can say that it is better in some European countries than others...but this is not one of them. At least in Germany, my co-workers knew what scripting was.
I think we can all thank Micro$oft visa vie Windows for bringing computers to the masses. I just think it's time for the masses to become wise in what they do, for if I find one more virus infected windows user pulling their hair, I'm going to hand them an Ubuntu CD and tell them that is the magic software to fix it. BLAH!
--
CafeNinja
--by the way, I think the next gadget I would like to break would be the cloudbook.
I found myself in the office just the other day with a "novice" who didn't know how to do a simple action "I think copy and paste" on the new iMac. So I told him that instead of control + key (c,v,z) he should use the command button on the keyboard. He was amazed at my wealth of knowledge :) I then told him that I didn't like that method either since with Linux I could highlight and paste with wheel button click and that was much faster.
At this point the co-workers eyes just glazed over as I was clearly talking out of the mouth on my second head based on the looks he was giving me. I stopped and pondered just how strangely would this person look at me if I talked about replacing the windows shell with NextStep or not having a task list while using WindowMaker.
That was the moment I started to ask myself....why does a CafeNinja need to know this either. I mean, I should know the difference from fresh brewed and instant, but why do I feel I have to really study to figure out how to use the Eee PC in our normal work environment...that's just strange. And I always take for granted that any normal user might have half the understanding I do. I've given up on trying to explain to anyone how I fix things in any operating system any more since it takes less time for me to go there and put my hands on the machine.
I know there are others out there who have more technical knowledge than I in speciality areas to be sure. I also find myself in the country of the tech illiterate which makes it even more challenging. I hope that one day I can find the land of Geek which has a penguin on it's national flag, a happy mac symbol for a postage stamp and windows is blocked and held for interrogation at the border *snicker*. I can say that it is better in some European countries than others...but this is not one of them. At least in Germany, my co-workers knew what scripting was.
I think we can all thank Micro$oft visa vie Windows for bringing computers to the masses. I just think it's time for the masses to become wise in what they do, for if I find one more virus infected windows user pulling their hair, I'm going to hand them an Ubuntu CD and tell them that is the magic software to fix it. BLAH!
--
CafeNinja
--by the way, I think the next gadget I would like to break would be the cloudbook.
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