Free software of the day: GNU typist
Late last week I figured out that tomorrow, and not today, was the first of March, meaning that I had the whole weekend to finish a couple of sci-fi contest entries due then. The stories are more or less done, though my revisions were interrupted when I re-read the rules and realized that I needed to get my name off the submission. That little technical hurdle has now been jumped.
NaNoEdMo starts tomorrow, and I’m not ready to face my November Disaster yet. It’s only an hour a day, though, so maybe I’ll do it this year. Last NaNoEdMo was a complete wash for me.
On the Stargate side, I finally saw “Chimera” and enjoyed it, though, again, there wasn’t nearly enough Jack. I don’t know why everyone was upset about Sam telling all to Pete - obviously she wouldn’t give out classified information without clearance right in the infirmary under the security cameras. Pete was cuter than the screenshots led me to believe, although still kind of chubby in the suit. Was it just me, or did Sam look guilty when he said “It’s nice to know that people still stay together no matter what, isn’t it?” I certainly felt guilty on her hussy behalf, although otherwise they were just too happy together for me to feel the typical Ex-JetCer In The Hands Of The Cruel PTB anger. I almost feel guilty plotting to break them up in fanfic…almost.
I’ve decided to go back to the Dvorak keyboard, since my typing is only getting worse in my old age. I need a keyboard that was designed to help people type fast, not impede them. Most sites about it are too old to cover MacOS X, for which there are two Dvorak keyboard options available from the International System Preferences pane under the Input Menu tab. Be sure to check the box for “Show input menu in menu bar” so you can switch back and forth easily. For a typing tutor, I downloaded and built gtypist (link above) without any difficulty, though it’s possible you might have to grab ncurses with fink if you don’t have it installed already. I’ll make a note of it when the first Dvorak-typed blog entry appears.
Jade was having IE problems, so I downloaded FireFox in solidarity with her. I noticed it colors my XML links as html links, wiping out the pretty colors from my XML CSS stylesheet. I hope the new Camino, coming soon, doesn’t do the same. I really wish Safari could handle XML links, no matter how it colored them.
Jade also complained about my dark salmon background, so I added a style shutoff at the top of the sidebar: Turn Style Off. It’s a javascript link that I’d like to include on all my pages, but I’m not sure where I’d put it. At the moment it isn’t persistent, either - you’ll have to turn the style off whenever you visit, if you want it off. The function itself (OffCSS) is simple; you can get the code by viewing the source for this page.