I've been using Linux for six years, and I've seen the Linux desktop mature in amazing leaps and bounds.  It's maturing so fast, that in any given month, I often see maturation for core parts of the overall product. 

For some perspective, when I first started using Linux, you had to manually run a command to mount your CD.  You had to run another command to unmount the CD when you were finished with it, and a third to eject it.  In that order, exactly, or it would fail.  Often you had to reboot just to get the disk out of the tray. Read more

I welcome efforts by companies such as Microsoft and Sun to embrace openness.  Sun gets it.  They've released Java under the GPL license.  That's a significant contribution to my software freedom, and I will always appreciate Sun for doing so.  As a result, I know I can involve myself in Java as deeply as I need, and never fear my software freedoms can be taken. Read more

I was in the market for a laptop, and if I am anything, it's a frugal gadget geek.  I'm always buying gadgets, but I'm cheap about it.  Buy.com had a deal on refurbished HP DV9627CL laptops for $700.  While that's not cheap, it's a pretty loaded laptop, with a 17 inch widescreen, dual core 64bit processor, 2 GB memory, 200 GB HDD, and so on.  This thing isn't super portable, but it's well equipped for a developer like me. Read more

The Asus Eee is good for many needs, but sometimes it's nice to have access to a full desktop machine from the convenience of your Eee.  Luckily, like most Linux desktops, Eee packs thousands of hidden utilities, including some that let you connect remotely to other computers.

Accessing a Windows desktop

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When I decided to buy an Asus Eee I had a hard time finding one.  Amazon was sold out.  Buy.com was sold out.  Many of the smaller websites I found were also sold out, and claimed they would be in stock again on some future date.Read more

For her birthday, I bought Leslee an Asus Eee (pronounced E).  I've had my eye out for an ultraportable laptop for her for a while.  So far, I'd only found very expensive ultraportables.  When this came out, and was available in the $350-400 range, I jumped at it.  For some, the fact that it runs Linux might be a deterrent, but definitely not for me.

Leslee's homework on her Asus Eee in Open OfficeRead more

JavaScript provides no good way to check if a variable exists.  If you try to use one that doesn't, you get a big fat error.  I've seen some people use:

if (myVar == undefined)

But this only works if the variable has been declared, but wasn't set to a value.  Sometimes, you don't know if the variable was even declared.

Here's some code that solves that: 

try {
      if (myVar) {}
} catch (err) {
      var myVar = "";
}

I've been trying various browsers over the past 6 weeks or so.  I've used Firefox for four years now, since it was named Phoenix, then later Firebird, then later Firefox.  I've enjoyed the run, but I was starting to desire a bit of a change.  Firefox doesn't look as good as the rest of my Gnome desktop, and trying to makeRead more

Over the past few weeks, I've been trying browser options beyond Firefox.  I've really enjoyed using the GTK-native browsers Epiphany and Galeon.  They are fast, both in loading and rendering pages.  But, the biggest issue I had is that 64 bit builds of these browsers can't use 32 bit plugins.  And Flash 9 is only available in its 32 bit version.  It's pretty hard to use the web these days without Flash, now that sites like Youtube have pushed Flash beyond advertisements and into the mainstream.Read more