For about eight years now, I’ve been hapily using Crimson Editor. At its simplest, Crimson Editor is nothing more than a fancy Notepad; however, it is so much more than that. While it doesn’t have all sorts of fancy tools that some editors have, it does support customizable syntax highlighting, customizable colors, line number, visible whitespace characters, basic smart indenting, a file/directory navigation pane, project support, and a MDI interface. Those features aren’t really the reason why I use it as almost all programming editors support such features. I use it because it gives me tools that help me program without doing things that hinder my productivity.

Three relatively-small features that most people would miss but make working with Crimson Editor a pleasure are as follows:

• Built-in macro ability with quick access keys – I have a number of pre-defined macros that do all sorts of tasks that I find take too much time without. For example, I have macros that duplicate the line that I’m currenlty on, replace all the white-space characters at the front of the line with a single tab (this makes reformatting files with spaces for tabs much quicker), comment out or remove he comment from the current line, and so on.The addition of a quick-record button makes doing a number of repeat tasks extremely easy. I once had to remove every third line from a document that was 500 lines long. It would take too long to do it line-by-line and wasn’t worth the time required to crank out a script to do it for me. Using the quick macro ability, I created a macro and had all those lines removed in less than a minute.
• Regular expressions in search and replace – A number of programming tools are starting to add support for this, but Crimson Editor was one of the first ones that I encountered with this ability. Even many of the newer editors that I have tried fail at reproducing the ease that Crimson Editor has when it comes to this extremely helpful ability. You can even perform the replace command on all the currently open files at the same time.
• Remembers what I was doing last time I had the editor open – This is a slick feature that some of the newer editors are starting to pick up on. When I’m done for the day, I close everything out. When I come in the next day and open up Crimson Editor, it opens up all the files that I had open last time. Heck, it even puts the cursor where it was in all the files that I had opened previously.

I think that editors these days try too hard. Rather than providing extremely robust syntax highlighting and a slick/customizable editor, they build in all these tools that are supposed to make my life easier. Unfortunately, most of these tools are touted as the “features” of the editor and cannot be disabled. Even more upsetting is that many of these tools actually decrease my productivity.

There are a number of trends in the current generation of editors that are coming these days that I really don’t like. Once again, it’s not that I think everything should be changed to accommodate me, I just think that the developers of these editors need to understand that not everyone wants feature X thus features that affect how editing works should be have the option of being disabled/enabled. I’ll pick on E-Text Editor as it is so close to being great, but it has some of these failings as listed below:

• Constantly adding characters that I didn’t type – This is a major point of frustration for me. So many of the modern editors that I have tried out want to “help” me write my programs. In their attempt to do so, they make mistakes and introduce syntax errors into my code. Those mistakes go by unnoticed by me as I can type out most of my code without looking and often am not looking since I’m looking at a terminal window, database output, or other information source while programming.For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, take E-Text Editor as a good example of this behavior. Whenever I create an open parenthesis, it automatically creates a closed parenthesis. This seems like a nice way to prevent from forgetting a close parenthesis, but what if you are putting together something that requires an open parenthesis but not a close (such as regular expressions or adding new conditional checks inside an existing conditional)? Suddenly you have new characters that you may forget were created peppered around in your code that will create syntax errors. Frankly, I produce fewer syntax errors because of forgetting to close a paren than I did because of unnecessary close parens added by my editor while using E.
• Smart tabs that get too smart for their own good – I enjoy smart tabs. I like automatically having my next line indented after adding an open curly brace. I don’t like it when my editor continuously tries to force what it believes to be proper tabbing after I finish typing out a line. If I want to break out of the standard tab flow for whatever reason, that is my business. E-Text Editor, like so many modern text editors, refuses to allow me to do this. I say refuse, but it’s not always a 100% thing, which drives me nuts more than anything. Every so often, if I start a new line outside the common tab flow in E-Text Editor, when I hit enter, the previous line gets auto-tabbed and my new line is tabbed to match. No! I do not want that line there. If I go back and correct the auto-correction, as soon as I arrow out of the line, E moves it right back to where it was before. If I explicitly go outside of the “smart” tabbing, my editor should no longer try to force its rules on me.
• Ability to remember some things but not others – As mentioned before, I love how Crimson Editor remembers to open up all the files as I had them last time it was run. E-Text Editor, as well as many other newer editors, also have this feature. However, I feel that they aren’t doing enough. E-Text Editor implements code-folding, which is a very nice tool BTW. However, if you have lots of files open with many areas of code folded and you close the editor, when E reopens, all the files won’t be as you had left them; rather, they all open up but all the code folding is now gone. Not restoring the code folding state seems to be a major oversight to me as I want to come back to not just the same files I had yesterday but to the exact same state that my editor was in when I closed it. I really don’t want to spend the first part of my day refolding all my files so that I can get back to work.

I suppose to some, these are not earth-shattering problems. I thought I could deal with them too and used E-Text Editor for the full 30 days of the trial. I fully expected to have my programming worldview changed and to fall in love with E. Instead, I was just as frustrated by the problems as I was on day one. I never got passed how I felt like some parts of E were just as annoying as Microsoft Word when it autocorrects things. At least in Word, you could disable autocorrect. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone tells me to just turn off smart tabs in E. It’s not that I don’t like the smart tabs, it’s that I don’t like how E’s implementation of smart tabs doesn’t let me modify the text as I want it. I want it to auto-tab as I type but not enforce its will when I’m manually formating.

I suppose the crux of the problem I have with E, and most other next-gen editors, is that the features that are supposed to make me feel powerful and productive all too often times make me feel controlled and frustrated. Who knows… E is still new. I very well may be a convert if it becomes a bit more flexable.

If you ever need to work with DNS servers or domain management, you find tools that help you get an outside perspective of what is happening with DNS invaluable. Years ago I found DNSStuff and immediately fell in love. They have tons of tools that give a wealth of information. I configured some quick bookmarks in Firefox that made making specific requests more simple than doing a dig from a command line while returning more data than any of my system tools could possibly offer.

A little more than a year ago, DNSStuff changed from free to a paid service. Since I found their tools so valuable, paying a few dollars a month for the service was a small price to pay. In fact, I was happy to pay for the service and quickly purchased a subscription for a year.

Over time, things changed. They continued to change their site format resulting in me having to constantly change my quick bookmark formats. All of these changes were to force people to buy subscriptions, but why was I being affected since I was a paying member? About half the time that I would try to do a query, it would take me to a page with severely reduced tools with ads all over the place telling me to buy a subscription. It was annoying, but I dealt with it. Then the frustrations went up another notch when they divided the service into two different subscription models. Suddenly, tools that I used to access for free and then could continue to access since I paid for them were no longer available. Every time I’d accidentally try to request one of those tools with my quick bookmarks it would tell me to upgrade. Furthermore, the tools that I could still access with my paid subscription became littered with ads telling me to upgrade. Around this time I also started to receive frequent email ads telling me to upgrade my service to gain access to other features.

My subscription ran out a couple of months ago. I was faced with renewing my subscription or finding something else. I decided that despite the irritations that I would renew since the tools were really that good. Then came the shock, the prices had gone up. To access all the tools I had purchased (and eventually lost access to) a year ago would cost me around twice as much as before. Not only would I be paying more, the site that I would pay to access would be filled with ads and would constantly send me emails pestering me to purchase yet even more tools that they invent. That’s when I decided to ditch DNSStuff and find a DNSStuff alternative.

After quite a bit of searching around and trying different tools, I settled on Ip Tools. Frankly, their tools aren’t as robust as DNSStuff’s tools and don’t offer the wealth of information either; however, they are still (at this moment) free and perform a good enough service.

My desire is to one day build up a tool that is as good as what DNSStuff offerred without all the constant ads in my face, that I can use just as quickly as the original DNSStuff tools could be, and that wouldn’t leave me with a feeling of being ripped off. This tool will most likely be a personal tool and be available to some friends of mine. If I get enough interest though, I might make it more robust and make it a public service.

Have you been burned by DNSStuff? Share your story.

Things were going well with my Linux trials. I ran Ubuntu through its paces with the Live Distro with great results. I was really excited to get on with the installation when I ran into problems. Apparently I have too many drives in my system and GRUB didn’t get loaded properly. Working late Sunday night, I thought I had finally found the problem. So I went to bed satisfied that everything would work well when I started working on it again Monday; however, my computer had different plans.

I woke up yesterday morning to a dead computer. We had a storm roll through, so I thought that the power supply’s protection circuit was tripped. After trying to get the system to start for a few minutes with no sign of life, I started to get really concerned. I thought maybe my motherboard had fried. After testing the power supply removed from all the other components, I found that it was the problem. The power supply was completely dead with not even the faintest hint of fan spin when supplied with power and switched on (yes, I did short the green wire to tell the unit to turn on).

Fortunately, my power supply has a three year warranty, so I plan on doing an RMA for it to get a refurb. However, that does little to help me now, so I ordered a new unit to be overnighted and should get it today.

After I get my system back up and running, I’ll resume my Distro testing. I hope to start posting results soon.

As I talked about in my Time to Switch to Linux post, I’m ready to finally migrate away from Windows and into Linux. The biggest question for me is which Distro do I want to start with. Me being a lover of lists, I have a few criteria that I want the Distro that I select to meet:

Desired Functionality

• Be relatively easy to install. I don’t need something so easy that my Grandmother could do it, but I also don’t want to be over-burdened with dozens of packages to install just to get the initial installation working properly.
• Have a clean and easy GUI. I think Beryl/Compiz is really slick, but I really don’t think I need to be messing with all that stuff when I just want to start off with something that is functional.
• Be compatible with my current hardware. I know that hardware support in the major Distros has seen vast improvements in recent years. I just want to know that I can still make full use of my Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 keyboard and my Logitech MX 518 mouse. For example, I want to use all of the buttons on my mouse (buttons 4 and 5 should already function for or be easily mapable to forward and back in the browser) and be able to easily map the Windows-specific keys on my keyboard to functions in the UI or key combinations. Just having this functionality alone will do a lot to help me ease my transition.
• Easy hotkey assignments. I love having quick access to programs by hitting some key+key combination. I use AutoHotkey on my Windows systems to hotkey all the programs I use frequently, I’d love to be able to easily mirror the functionality on Linux.
• Have an active and thriving community for support/troubleshooting reasons.
• Be able to support some of my Windows programs if possible. In particular, Team Fortress 2 and Ventrilo as I’m a member of the EGO gaming clan and don’t want to give that up for an operating system. I’m sure I can have some of the Linux-running members help me with getting this set up.

After browsing around DistroWatch for a while, I have found a few Distros have grabbed my attention more than the others.

Ubuntu

I have been an Ubuntu fan for a long time now. I ordered one of the original release disks that they offered years ago and was instantly impressed. My understanding is that they’ve come a long way since then. My only reservation is the lack of support for non-open-source software, such as proprietary nVidia drivers or proprietary codecs. This probably isn’t a big deal as plenty of people have guides about adding such things.

Sabayon

Another one of the Distros I checked out a while back when I first started playing with the idea of running Linux at home, Sabayon is looking good to be my final choice. While I’m not too familiar with Gentoo, the Distro which Sabayon is built off of, Sabayon does have some interesting stuff going for it. I’m most interested in how they try to ease installation and use of many cutting edge features, such as enhanced proprietary driver support, and their unique packaging system Entropy.

openSUSE

I don’t personally have much experience with openSUSE, but I have read many good reviews and recommendations about it. My biggest reservation is I don’t like what I’ve read about Novell and Microsoft and how it relates to openSUSE.

Fedora

Most of my experience with Linux comes from Red Hat EL. Fedora is a Distro that is spun off of the main releases of RHEL, so it will have much in common. Maybe it would be best if I stick with a platform that has a similar foundation which could ease my changeover.

CentOS

My personal webserver runs CentOS, and I really like it, sometimes even more than Red Hat EL. I really like using yum as it makes updates extremely easy. Hopefully the desktop version will be able to hold up to the results I’ve experienced from the server version.

Conclusion

So those are the options that I’m currently looking at. Fortunately, all the distros I’ve decided to explore more have Live Distros available. This will make it easy for me to “try before I buy”. In other words, I can try out a basic version of the Distro without having commit to an installation of it first.

Updates will be coming with my impression of each distro and my final selection.

Over the past few years, I have developed a very strong desire to dump Windows entirely from my day to day computing. I tire of the obscure errors that no one has answers for yet are easily reproducible, the way that Microsoft is enforcing its “genuine Windows” initiative in ways that irritate paying customers while only mildly bothering pirates, and how Windows always has a black box model of operation which always keeps me, the user, out of the loop on what my own computer is doing. The final insult: User Account Control. I disabled that within minutes. Talk about a useless feature. People who know what they are doing will always click yes because they know what they are doing. People who don’t know what they are doing (the ones that were the primary focus for this feature) will quickly learn to always click yes because clicking no may prevent them from doing what they want.

What’s the problem?

I upgraded to Vista the same week it was released and have been using it at home ever since. At first, I really liked Vista. Over time, I realized that there really wasn’t anything that I truly liked about Vista above XP and discovered that I used my Vista machines at home more or less the same way I used my XP Pro machine at the office. Vista had simply given me a shiny new veneer over what is, to me, functionally no different than XP.

Now, there is one nice feature that Vista has that XP doesn’t. I do like the new sound subsystem which allows for controlling different sound sources individually. However, even that feature isn’t significant enough to make me want Vista on my office machine.

Going down the list of features that Vista added / improved upon, they all boil down to one of a few categories for me: just eye candy, unwanted process that wastes resources and can’t be turned off, unwanted or unused application, yet another tool that tells me something broke yet has very little to offer me in terms of solutions.

For example, I hate how when I navigate to a folder with lots of files in it that the entire system slows a bit and I hear the harddrive being read furiously. All I want to do is see a list of files and folders, but Vista insists on scanning all the files in order to create fancy thumbnails for me. Even after disabling every setting that controls thumbnail generation, browsing around folders with large amounts of content is slow. When I want to delete a file, I can’t just delete it right after selecting it. I have to give Windows a few seconds or more so that it can completely scan the file to give me “helpful” information in the status bar. If I try to delete the file right away, Windows complains that the file is in use. Well, yeah… You’re using it. I didn’t try to open it, you did. Now I have to wait for you to be done with it so that I can do what I want.

Another thing that I can’t stand is how so many processes created by Windows are cloaked in the mysterious svchost.exe processes. Looking in my process list now, I have a total of twelve svchost.exe processes consuming anywhere from a few hundred kB of memory to more than 50 megs each. Every so often, one of those processes will take an amazingly large chunk of processing time. Can I kill it? I don’t know. I have no idea what that process is doing, whether I want it to do what it’s doing, or whether the system will crash if I do try to kill it. So I end up leaving it alone and hope that it doesn’t slow down my productivity while it does who knows what in the background. Would implementing some type of screen or menu that allows me to see exactly what Windows is doing in the background and give me the option to tell it to stop so I can have my computer back be so hard?

The big thing that set me off was the annual reinstallation (Vista was getting too hinky and was begging for a fresh install) that I was performing last night. I hoped for a quick hour or two of installation, but it took over six hours. I ended up having to remove half of my RAM, disconnect all the drives except the one being installed to, turn off a staggering number of BIOS options, put a jumper in my drive to limit it to SATA I speeds, and burn an offering to Microsoft.

What would I like to see from Windows?

If I were able to have a discussion directly with the heads of the Windows division of Microsoft, I would describe my problem with Windows as such: An operating system’s fundamental core purpose is management of memory and file structures, providing methods for the hardware to communicate effectively, and enabling a user to make use of that management system to execute code and modify file data (copy, move, rename, delete, etc). For all the features that Microsoft has been heaping on top of Windows, I seldom see any features that are a true improvement of the core operating system functions. Rather than improving the speed at which I can be productive, most of these features have only managed to slow my machine and my productivity down.

Case in point with the basic OS functionality: why is copying files today the exact same as it was in 3.1? I would love to see a copy dialog that allows for files to be dropped on it. Have you ever had some large files copying from one place to another and you want some other files to go to that same location? As it is right now, you have two options: 1) you can wait for the original copy job to finish and then start another one or 2) you can start another one at the same time. The problem is that the first option makes you, the user, wait for the operating system which is a waste of time whereas the second option starts burdening the process causing inefficient copy jobs that can over-tax the system if you build up too many. Why can’t I just drop more files onto that copy dialog and have those files added to the queue to go to the same location? That way I have queued up instructions for the operating system to optimize the efficiency of the job and have freed myself up to continue doing other things. To me, that’s innovation, new, and improved productivity.

Why haven’t I already dumped Windows?

I’ve been dedicated to dumping Windows for at least the past two years now, so why am I still with it? I suppose my reasons aren’t unlike many other peoples’:

• Familiarity – It’s not that I don’t like Windows. Windows technically isn’t bad, I just don’t think any version of Windows offers the best of what I want combined with what is available. However, I’m used to working with Windows. If I have a problem happen, I have a much better chance of knowing how to fix it quickly than I would with any other operating system. Thus, I’ve stuck with the evil I know rather than exploring my options.
• Utility – I have a lot of experience with Linux, and I know what it is capable of. I also know that there are some things that Linux just isn’t quite ready for (such as running most Windows games). While I don’t game much, there is still that little voice in my head reminding me that playing the games that I do like could easily become a chore on another operating system. This goes beyond just games as there are other software packages that just don’t work like I’m used to on Windows (such as codec packs and media players).
• Time – Properly adjusting to a new operating system takes time. Often those time expenses take place when you don’t want to spend time chasing down a problem due to needing to work on something or just not having any time for it at that moment. I think this is my biggest fear: will a server emergency or client problem come up while I’m in the middle of trying to figure out how to get my system working again?

The Solution?

Some of you may be thinking that I should jump on an Apple. I’m not going to white-wash it. I’ve never been a fan of the way Apple does stuff. I’m sure that they have a great product, I just don’t think that product is for me. The product that is for me is Linux.

I’ve been working with Linux servers for over six years now, and I absolutely love Linux. It has its problems, but they are relatively minor when compared to the constant frustrations that I’ve faced in the past with Windows. The biggest hurdle for me is going to be getting used to working with Linux as my primary operating system and working with the window managers of Linux.

Now it’s time to dig around DistroWatch again and start picking out which distros I’ll try first.

Good news. I was contacted by someone with AnimeFest earlier today, and I got my registration taken care of.

So, let this be a lesson. If you having a hard time getting a group to contact you, call them repeatedly, send emails to every address you can find, post on the forum, and send PMs to every person on the forum who has a title.

So AnimeFest is about a month away. My friends and I have been planning on attending for about six months now, and we’re really getting excited. About three weeks ago, I tried to register and hit a big snag. The payment page apparently has problems since it refuses to try to process my card and tells me to call a number instead.

Fast-forward to today, and I have called that number many times and left a number of messages with callback details, I have sent multiple emails, and I have posted on the official forum. To date, I have not received a single call, email, or forum response. From looking at the forum, I’m not the only one having problems as artists and merchants are running into problems and pulling out their hair since no one will confirm or deny their registration, give them information that they require to be able to set up their table, or give them any type of response to their questions.

Worst case scenario, I have to pay for my registration when I get there. It won’t kill me, but my biggest concern is how this will affect the con in the long run. They obviously have some core logistical problems. If these problems aren’t dealt with in a timely manner, this might be a sign that AnimeFest is starting to fall apart.

I found this gem right before going to bed, and I’m so glad that I stayed up to check it out. It’s a series of three short musical-style episodes about a mad scientist with aspirations for villainy who longs after a woman at the laundromat.

Joss Whedon, yes the same Joss Whedon who brought us shows like Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, cooked up a crazy idea to break outside of the standard mold of show making. The idea came up during the Writers’ Guild of America strike that effectively paralized Hollywood for half a year. Joss wanted to test how successful a show could be outside the grips of production studios and networks; Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was the result.

By pooling all of his connections, Joss Whedon put together this series of three shorts on a very limited budget but with great results. Some very famous and recognizable faces make up the cast. You may recognize Neil Patrick Harris from How I Met Your Mother, Nathan Fillion from Firefly, Felicia Day from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory. The combination of these easily recognizable faces with witty lines and silly songs makes for great entertainment.

I hope that Joss Whedon, the actors, and the talented crew that helped with development and production are all handsomely rewarded for their efforts.

For more information about Joss Whedon’s idea and the plan for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, check out the plan page.

Starting a little over a month ago, I started submitting plugins to WordPress.org’s Plugin Directory. Overall, the system is great for developers since it offers Subversion and enables the automatic plugin upgrades that the latest WordPress versions support. However, it has some major problems that causes developers like me some headaches.

The instructions on how the request for adding new plugins works has the following information:

1. Sign up.
2. Within some vaguely defined amount of time, some one will approve your request.
3. You’ll then have access to a Subversion Repository where you’ll store your plugin.
4. Once you put your plugin (and a readme file!) in that repository, it will shortly be automatically entered into the plugins browser.

The “vaguely defined amount of time” isn’t defined at all. I’m sure that there are some people that handle new plugin approvals on their spare time and set up the subversion for the new projects, so I understand how there can’t be definitive times for new plugin approvals. However, I think the language here needs to clarify the details of how the approval process works and what type of feedback will be sent when the approval process is complete.

I was pulling out my hair when trying to submit my first plugin. I put in the request and then checked back a few hours later, nothing had changed. I checked a day later, not approved. Finally, after three days, the site said that my plugin was approved. I eagerly dug into the documentation on how to add the plugin to Subversion and started the submission process. When it came time to check in the repository (this is how you submit your new version), I received the following message:

Error: Commit failed (details follow):
Error: CHECKOUT of ‘/!svn/ver/52171/current-date-time-widget/trunk’: 403 Forbidden (http://svn.wp-plugins.org)

Forbidden? There must be an easy fix for this problem. I started searching around Forums, and found a large number of people were having the same problem. No one had any help for these people and there weren’t any official responses. Everyone just guessed that some random accounts just aren’t set up correctly and that there isn’t any way to fix it or to get help. After making official help requests and sending an email off to Matt Mullenweg with no response to either, I figured that they were probably right.

A few days after seeing that my submission request had been approved, I received an email telling me that my request was approved and that my Subversion would be ready in about an hour. I was extremely happy to get this email but was also very confused. If I had known that I just had to wait for an email, I would have just waited patiently. Instead, I wasted hours of time searching the forum, requesting official help, and doing some trial-and-error testing.

So what do I want to do about this? I’d like for the documentation to be improved. Sure, it’s kind of cute, but it doesn’t help a developer know what to do when they run into the problem I did. The documentation should read:

1. Sign up.
2. Approval of your request can take anywhere from a few hours to more than a week.
3. When your request is approved, you will be sent an email notifying you of the request approval with instructions for submitting your plugin to the Subversion Repository.
4. Once you put your plugin (and a readme file!) in that repository, it will shortly be automatically entered into the plugins browser.

The change is simple, but it would prevent a lot of frustration that may cause promising developers to ignore the repository due to their frustration.

Just last night, I found a new irritation with the plugin submission system. Since approval takes so long, I thought I’d go ahead and put in requests for some plugins that I’m working on so that when they are ready to be released, their spot is ready and waiting. I released the WP Developer Assistant late last night and was dismayed to see that my plugin wasn’t listed on the new plugins page. I went to bed thinking that I would see my plugin listed there today. For those that don’t know, getting a plugin listed on that page is crucial since you get a lot of exposure and can build an initial user base quickly. To my disappointment, I didn’t find the plugin on the new page today either. After a “what if” thought, I went back a couple pages and found my plugin listed on the third page. Apparently, the plugins are ordered in that list based upon when the plugin request was approved, not when the first version is loaded.

Due to my desire to release the plugin as soon as it was ready rather than waiting for request approval before I can release, my plugin has lost it’s best chance to get good initial exposure. I’m not sure how the back-end of the system is structured, but it would make sense to me that plugins should be listed in order of their initial version release rather than by their approval date.

Please don’t misunderstand me, I love the system. I just think that it has some issues that could be simple to fix and would improve the experience greatly. I’m still sad that my plugin that I’m really excited about didn’t get a chance to sit on the front page for a few days. Oh well, maybe next time.