Window Management Woes?

Windows 8 is a damn good OS I have to say. Many people don't seem keen, although in my experience so far they don't seem to have given it much of a chance. Accept that it has a complete split personality and move between the two as and when is necessary. Or don't. Stay away from the new stuff altogether if you would rather.. You are rarely forced to use 'new style/metro' applications if you would rather not. But even if you stay entirely in the traditional desktop environment I still think Windows 8 has something to offer. It's fast, it's stable, and with technology like storage spaces, really brings some serious improvements to the table.

One thing has been getting to me lately however, - and that's Window management.  I used to play around a lot with different Window Managers on Linux, and recently the idea of the tiling Window manager has been tickling my fancy.  Watching all those YouTube videos of experienced RatPoison and XMonad users flitting around various Windows has led me to lust after some hardcore window management for my Windows 8 desktop.

So... what is it I'm actually after - What are the requirements here...? Well, firstly - I need some kind of virtual desktop capability.  Bog standard use of the PC should be fine with about four, although if I'm doing some particular job, I should anticipate adding another 2 or so, so 4-6 virtual desktops are required for sure.  On top of that, when I flick to each of these desktops, I want to be able to easily tile Windows and snap them to a particular area with the keyboard only.

I have played around with a few different tiling Window managers, and bug.n seemed fairly promising. Unfortunately however, certain Windows like the explorer file copy dialog box just weren't playing ball, and there were certain concepts that I just wasn't getting on with.. (Improved documentation for bug.n would certainly not go amiss).  

So after playing for some time with bug.n and a few other candidates, looking for a window manager that would give me tiling functionality, *and* virtual desktops, I suddenly came to a realisation.. I might get away with running two pieces of software - one to handle the virtual desktops, and another to handle the Window management..  And so, after trial and error, I present my perfect solution to my Window management woes...

GridMove

GridMove is an amazing little piece of software for Windows. It slices the screen up into a grid and lets you assign hotkeys to snap Windows to different parts of it. Not *quite* a tiling Window manager, in that it doesn't automatically tile, but this is more than good enough.. And previous experience tells me that not all Windows like to be snapped to a tile automatically anyway, so this solution should be far less troublesome! So GridMove sorts me out for Window management.  I slice my single 27" 2560x1440 screen into quarters. Tempting to slice it into 6, but seeing as I have virtual desktops too, 4 Windows per desktop should be fine.

With GridMove taking care of Window positioning.. what can we use for virtual desktops?  Well, I gave VirtuaWin a try, and it's solid enough, but I couldn't quite get on with it.. I was after something more, and luckily enough I found just the thing:

goScreen

goScreen is a brilliant piece of software. Unlike the free VirtuaWin it's shareware, but inexpensive, and well worth it.  With goScreen I have created a number of desktops and assigned hotkeys to them. Anything to do with [M]ail for example, I hit Ctrl-Shift-M.  For tunes, Ctrl-Shift-t. For  my Chrome window Ctrl-Shift-C.. It's brilliant!  Not only can I create and name each desktop, but there are some very pleasant transition effects to choose from. I love it! It's proven very reliable and when combined with GridMove gives me the perfect Windows experience!

So with my Windows 8 box now loaded with GridMove and goScreen, I have Windows that snap to the grid. I have virtual desktops containing my lovely tiled Windows, and order reigns!  I can't imagine going back now.. In fact, my whole way of working has changed over the last few hours since I finished tinkering with these tools..

The management of individual windows, and the desktop(s) which they reside on are an important part of building an optimal environment.. Next time you are resizing or dragging a window around the screen - ask yourself,  'is this optimal?'.

Internet Explorer 9 - WTF?

So I'm back on Windows.. (don't ask)..

I thought I would give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt – seeing as they now had plenty of time to get with the program and catch up with browsers like Chrome.. So, Internet Explorer 9, here I come!

Except... one of the first websites I find myself browsing onto.. gives me this tripe:

Can you spot the problem here?

Yes, there's a certificate error.

Yes, I'm aware that a certificate error should cause me to think twice about the identity of the site.

And how charming and polite this browser is, in saying 'We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website'.. Before promptly giving me

O N E

option! 'Click here to close this webpage'. What the hell? You recommend I 'close the webpage and do not continue to this website', and then don't give me a choice? Chrome gives me a choice and doesn't treat me like a dribbling retard.

But maybe I'm being too harsh on the poor thing. I'm probably in some sort of Granny-mode. Let's bring up the help page and find out how to load the page:

'You can click 'Continue to this website..' - No you utter, utter muppets. No I can't. The option isn't there.

What a joke.

Further: NICE. The 'Publish Post' button in Blogger is proving too much for this stinking mess of a browser so I couldn't even write a blog post with this heap. Back to Chrome we go! Happy days..

Linux

My nose won't stop running.. and thats bad. But one good thing that has come out of this extended indoor stint is that I've kicked my Microsoft habit (again).

So I went from eLive, thinking that was the best thing since sliced bread, to Windows 7, and there I stayed for quite a while.... I even bought it! (Courtesy of my girlfriends student discount)

But now gentle people... I'm back! And I don't mean in a small way, I mean in a big way.. I'm seriously loving the Linux right now..

Yeah I know, I do this.. I go through phases.. but this time I'm convinced its different. Why? Because for the first time ever, there is nothing that my Linux OS can't do... Before it would typically be things like Skype not working smoothly enough.. Now Skype is essential, and it's got to work so I can vidcon with my gorgeous girlfriend.. so its a dealbreaker if my OS can't run Skype properly.. Thankfully... it now does..

Which distro I hear you ask... Well.. I almost cringe when I admit this, but against all odds, I seem to find myself running Fedora... Even after a nasty encounter with the Nvidia driver and nouveau a few weeks ago.. But I came back, I persevered, and now... everything is perfect...

FINALLY! OS Heaven...

Took me a while, I grant you.. but I got there in the end, and after recompiling freetype2 with the ByteCode Interpreter enabled for the Microsoft Font hinting, but it was worth it... Now my fonts are crisp and I've got rid of that god-awful 'big, bubbly Linux' look..

And so BEHOLD gentle people! This... is the face of the future!..and I kid you not.. this is my new, sparkly desktop.. :-)

Traffic Officers

A few years ago I started spotting an increasing number of sparkly new 4x4 vehicles in bright, luminous livery cruising around the UK's motorways. Looking at first like police vehicles you of course slow right down when passing one, but then you notice that the colours aren't quite right, and it doesn't say 'POLICE' on the side, but 'TRAFFIC OFFICER' in the Window.

So why am I blogging about Traffic Officers? Quite simply because they're getting on my nerves and they're a complete waste of time. Fulfilling their role as a 'New Labour money wasting scheme', 'Traffic Officers' can regularly be seen slowing down traffic flow on most busy UK motorways. Yessiree - pulling up behind motorists stranded on the hard shoulder and turning on flashing lights so that everyone can have a good stare is a real great idea. Indeed lets kill two birds with one stone, - making everyone think there is an incident, and in doing so, increase the risk that there will be one!

Am I missing the point? - Or is the sheer pointlessness of these people apparent to me alone? I just don't get it. It's like Police 'Community Support' officers, only on the roads, and with less power than even those muppets. Maybe they have some special role which I'm missing, but I only ever see 'Traffic Officers' do one of two things:

1. Cruise up (or down) the motorway network.
2. Pull up behind a car in the hard shoulder and put their lights on (and have a chinwag with the unlucky motorist).

Seeing as cars stranded in the hard shoulder aren't impeding the flow of traffic in any way, I don't quite see what point it serves pulling up behind them. Let's say the poor soul doesn't have a mobile phone on them - even then there are emergency phones connecting directly to the police control room all along the motorway - installed and operated at great expense I might add. Now I'm guessing that after all that driving around the Traffic Officers are that bored, the primary point of the exercise is to have a bit of company, but is this really worth the money?

So the Highways Agency website has the following to say about Traffic Officers:

'The Highways Agency Traffic Officer Service staff are trained to a high standard in everything from safety to dealing with customers, traffic management and the use of technology.'

'We also keep the public informed through our electronic message signs and by supplying information for local travel reports.'

'We patrol the motorways in vehicles marked as traffic officers with high visibility markings.'

Well what can I say.. they are trained how to use a TomTom... they keep us informed with flashing message signs and help update the travel reports.. Thats money well spent folks. I guess we're putting in those multimillion pound CCTV systems, overhead displays and active traffic management systems for fun. The traffic officers have it all in hand.

Can they really not think up anything better to waste our taxes on? Meh..

OS Nirvana

Anyone who knows me knows I change operating systems weekly... from Solaris to Vista, FreeBSD to Ubuntu.. you name it, I've tried it.. and I usually get a bit bored after a while. The reasons are many and varied, but I usually tire of the interface, or some little annoyance gets to me and I feel like a change.. But now, after all these years I really have found something I finally feel comfortable with, and where there isn't even one annoyance.. in otherwords, I have found my computing nirvana. Ladies, and gentlemen... allow me to introduce... E-Live

What is it? It's a Linux distribution based on Debian, as many are (Ubuntu etc). E-live uses Enlightenment as its default desktop environment, so it is unbelievably snappy whilst looking far nicer than other, heavier environments and window managers. I guess it comes down to pure coding skills, but in Enlightenment and the libraries that it uses, the creators have brought forth a wonder.. It is beautiful, but fast, and seems light years ahead of traditional Linux environments.

As the name suggests, E-Live is actually a live CD, so you can boot off the disc and use it straight away. You'll get most benefit in actually installing it though, so it runs off your disk at full speed. Its fairly good looking by default, but careful application of some downloaded wallpapers, themes and login manager screens has transformed even this beauty into something amazing to behold..

Whilst E-Live is beautiful, fast and thus far extremely stable (even on the 'unstable' version), where I have consistently been impressed is in software installation. Whether I use 'apt-get' to install programs from the default repositories, or download a self-extracting Google Earth, everything seems to just work, and installs itself nicely..even inserting entries into the Enlightenment menus..

The default graphical file manager used by E-Live is 'Thunar', and what a breath of fresh air! I'm sick to death of Nautilus and the new KDE file manager 'Dolphin' I couldn't stand.. Like the rest of E-Live, Thunar is fast, clean and simple. In other words - it 'just works'. Perfect.

A few painless installs of such yummy things as SongBird, Google Earth, VirtualBox etc.. and my computing Nirvana is complete.. If I do need to, Vista pops up in a few seconds courtesy of VirtualBox, but other than that its all plain sailing...

I can't recommend E-Live enough. Bear in mind you may need to tinker a teeny bit to make it just perfect.. but for me, it was worth it.. Computing is fun again, and I have ZERO desire to change my OS for the forseeable future...

Suck it and see anyway - download the live cd at http://www.elivecd.org

From darkness to light...

From the darkest depths of the sea of dead blogs, the good ship Sugarat rises, and sets sail once more.. I don't know what shores we shall reach, but for now it is 'Engine room - full steam ahead!' - My faithful - I have returned!

Much has changed in my life and times.. but the blog itch needs to be scratched. Of 100% certainty is that I'll be covering the juicy world of IT and operating systems, stopping now and again to rant and bitch about anything that hacks me off, and throwing in the odd random news-related article or two. Who can tell? Whatever it is though, I hope you find my musings of worth.

But for now... let us begin....

Atlantis found! (Again)

Lunacy or science?

It seems they've located Atlantis. This about the 4th time I've heard people say that, but the data does sound convincing. Personally I wish they'd hurry up and open up the chamber beneath the sphinx..

It lives!!

..And not only does it live, but its name.. is BEAST.

Okay okay so its sad obsessing over a new box.. Obsessing over a new box that plays Doom III this fast though.. thats acceptable. Speaking of which, if you haven't seen it yet, Doom III is stupendously good. What a pity I don't have the balls to play it more than 3 minutes per sitting.

So here I sit, surrounded by hardware. This is really getting silly now. 3 Laptops, 3 sun 21" monitors, the beast, 4 other boxes, a HP/9000 server and enough parts left over for another 2 PC's. Time for a tidy up I think, these bastards are breeding.

Then again, I can do that any day. For now.... its brown pants time...