Google recently released an update to Reader that gave it a more visually pleasing look and changed some of the functionality. In playing with the new design, I started to re-tag my subscribed feeds.
I currently feel that my tagging system is a bit substandard. Nearly everything that is tagged Ubuntu also falls under Linux and Tech. Miscellany has everything else that I can’t seem to categorize otherwise, like Futility Closet and Not Always Right. Also, as you can see, I don’t always get a chance to read every single new item. One person suggested to use a Favorites tag to separate the feeds that they always read away from the others, but I’m not sure how well this would work in practice.
How do you organize your RSS Feeds? Do you use Google Reader or does some other application (preferably not locked in to one computer) work better for you?
While my laptop was under the knife during the past week or so, I was using my Linode to get my Ubuntu fix. Although I have quite a bit of space free, I wanted to avoid installing extra packages that I would only end up using while my other computer was out of commission.
One such package was devscripts; I make heavy use of the rmadison command when doing support in #ubuntu. While I could probably have easily just used the basic interface for searching, I wanted something a bit nicer. I settled for using Mozilla’s Mycroft to create a SearchPlugin that could be added to Firefox’s search bar.
The plugin itself can be found here.
I wasn’t going to do this, but I thought this was an interesting result:
- Grab the nearest book: 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die – info
- Open to page 56: Review of Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh) – 1924
- Find the fifth sentence:
“Some of the camera work is ’subjective,’ as when his drunken perceptions are rendered by optical distortion; at other timer, it is the camera’s mobility that is evocative, as when it passes through the revolving doors that serve as a symbol of destiny.”
Congrats to everyone on the release of Intrepid Ibex. You’ve all done a great job.
#ubuntu has be wonderfully busy since the release announcement. We’re currently hovering around 1500 users in channel.
Some of the first packages for Jaunty were just uploaded. I’m waiting patiently for the time where the archives are at a state where they can start being tested.
I use nano as my primary CLI editor. It may not have as many features as vi(m) or Emacs (in no particular order), it is fast and easy for me.
One of the features that many people do not realize that nano supports is syntax highlighting. This can quickly and easily be enabled by following these directions:
nano will automatically read in ~/.nanorc if it exists. Since you probably don’t have that file there already, go ahead and copy the sample file out of /etc:
[pici@romulus:~]$ cp /etc/nanorc ~/.nanorc
Highlighting for each language needs to be turned on explicitly in your new .nanorc file. In Intrepid, the lines specifying each language begin around line 217, which is probably around the same area in other releases. If not, this is what you’re looking for something similar to this:
some default languages supported by nanorc:
## Nanorc files
include "/usr/share/nano/nanorc.nanorc"
## C/C++
include "/usr/share/nano/c.nanorc"
## HTML
include "/usr/share/nano/html.nanorc"
## TeX
include "/usr/share/nano/tex.nanorc"
## Quoted emails (under e.g. mutt)
# include "/usr/share/nano/mutt.nanorc"
## Patch files
include "/usr/share/nano/patch.nanorc"
## Manpages
include "/usr/share/nano/man.nanorc"
## Groff
# include "/usr/share/nano/groff.nanorc"
## Perl
include "/usr/share/nano/perl.nanorc"
## Python
include "/usr/share/nano/python.nanorc"
## Ruby
include "/usr/share/nano/ruby.nanorc"
## Java
include "/usr/share/nano/java.nanorc"
## Assembler
include "/usr/share/nano/asm.nanorc"
## Bourne shell scripts
include "/usr/share/nano/sh.nanorc"
## POV-Ray
#include "/usr/share/nano/pov.nanorc"
Go ahead and remove the hash from each include statement for the languages you wish to enable, and you’re all done.
Some other options that I find helpful to have in my .nanorc are as follows:
Other options:
## Setup tabs
set autoindent
set tabstospaces
set tabsize "4"
## Don't wrap text at all.
set nowrap
Screenshot coming soon.
I spend the bulk of my Ubuntu time in our IRC channels. My client of choice is irssi, which might be a bit minimalistic for some users. I find that with a rich set of scripts and aliases that its utility rivals that of any gui client.
Here are a few of my aliases from my ~/.irssi/config file:
CS = “/msg chanserv”;CSINFO = “/msg chanserv info $0″;
CSACCESS = “/msg chanserv access $0 list”;
CSOP = “/msg chanserv op $C $0″;
CSDEOP = “/msg chanserv op $C -$0″;
CSKICK = “CSREMOVE”;
CSBAN = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 50;/ban $0;/msg chanserv op $C -$N”;
CSMUTE = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 50;/mode +zq $0″;
CSKICKBAN = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 2;/remove $C $0 :$1-;/ban $0;/msg chanserv op $C -$N”;
CSUNBAN = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 50;/unban $0;/msg chanserv op $C -$N”;
CSTOPIC = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 50;/topic $0-;/msg chanserv op $C -$N”;
CSMODE = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 50;/mode $C $0 $1″;
CSMOD = “/CSMODE”;
CSINVITE = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 50;/invite $0;/msg chanserv op $C -$N”;
NS = “/msg nickserv”;
NSINFO = “/msg nickserv info $0″;
remove = “/quote remove”;
CSREMOVE = “/msg chanserv op $C $N;/wait 25;/remove $C $0 :$1-;/msg chanserv op $C -$N”;
CSRM = “CSREMOVE”;
CSKB = “CSKICKBAN”;
ubottu = “say !$0 > $1 (Please see the private messsage from ubottu)”;
bot = “ubottu”;
NICKSETUP = “say $0: Please make sure that you have followed *all* of the steps outlined at http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup and then return here and ask a staffer to activate your cloak. (I am not a staffer)”;
I originally found many of these aliases in Aaron Toponce’s blog, but they since been modified to fit Freenode changes and my own preferences.
In addition, here are some of the more important scripts that I have symlinked into ~/.irssi/scripts/autorun. Most of these can be found in the irssi-scripts package:
auto_away.pl
bantime.pl
chanpeak.pl
clones.pl
dictcomplete.pl
dns.pl
figlet.pl
format_identify.pl
notify.pl
screen_away.pl
trigger.pl
usercount.pl
Well, it seems that the EMEA board was crazy enough to let me in here, so I might as well get this over with:
Hi, my name is Pici and I’m an Ubuntuholic.
