Tag Archives: software

The problem with Gwibber: Tyler Rant (My Thoughts)

The problem with Gwibber Tyler Rant.

Ok.

There are too many comments to really post much more to the original article, so I’ll comment here.

I like Gwibber. I’ve been using it since it first came out and I started using microblogging services (twitter, identi.ca, etc).  It’s had problems and growing pains, but that’s expected with a new piece of software that is working with new technology (that’s always changing, btw; twitter changes its API all the time).

Complaining in a blog post is not necessarily the best way to deal with a program’s issues.  I’m not going to say Gwibber doesn’t have issues (I’m running the daily-ppa) but I think the program is excellent.  It allows me to interact with twitter, my status.net cloud instance, facebook, friendfeed, and buzz (coming soon!) and not go to those websites.

The only other program that I find to be this comprehensive is Tweetdeck.  And, it has issues of its own; sort-of support for status.net and no posts over 140 characters.

Anyway, maybe Tyler should have installed the daily-ppa?  The development of this software is at a breakneck pace; I see new versions of gwibber coming out almost, well, daily.  Also, reporting and confirming bugs is another way to help out the project.  I’ve been steadily reporting bugs on Gwibber (and other packages I use) to improve the user experience.  Some of my issues are in part of the way I use it.  I have a lot of accounts that eat a lot of processing power sometimes.  It seems that the memory leaks have been addressed recently; Gwibber isn’t taking up as much of my processor as it was previously.

I thoroughly disagree with this:

When it comes to basically all Ubuntu Twitter apps, there is no benefit, but plenty of drawback. There is no benefit whatsoever in using Gwibber except that it aggregates from multiple sources. But it doesn’t even do that particularly well. The fact that Person A writing on Person B’s wall looks, in Gwibber, to simply be a status update makes it more or less worthless. The fact that trying to view a twitpic picture requires opening a browser anyway, kinda defeats the purpose anyway.

There is plenty of benefit.  I can see what’s going on in the twitter/dent-verse without going to those sites.  I don’t have to keep a browser window/set of tabs for only those sites.  I can send thoughts quickly to all my accounts without going to each site or to ping.fm.

Re: twitpic; yes, this functionality is in the latest daily build.  Re: facebook wall-to-wall; how should this be fixed?  Digging up old posts with sub-posts?  I’m not sure how this would work.  Anyway, you can always click on the time-stamp  link and see what’s going on.  This is what I do for Facebook.

I use Gwibber so I don’t have to go to the web interface to get basic functionality.  Adding in the ability to subscribe to users and all sorts of other things would make the program too heavy, in my opinion.

Gwibber isn’t perfect, but really, are any other programs perfect?

Reading Articles Later

I read a lot of articles, and sometimes I don’t really have time at that moment to read some of the longer ones (like ones I get through NYTimes, or editorials).

I’ve tried different approaches to dealing with articles to read later, but since I have two computers, I like them to be in sync with each other. I at first tried a “read later” tag on delicious, but it didn’t work for me, as I didn’t revisit the tag later. Didn’t work at all. Then I tried the “read it later” plugin for Firefox. It just basically plopped a folder on your computer that was called “read it later” and had a web component for syncing. I didn’t really like that either.

I’ve decided on using Instapaper and Readability in conjunction with Google Chrome/ium on both Windows and Ubuntu. I use Instapaper through Shareaholic, but they have a very simple bookmarklet to save stuff to the default folder under your account. Yes, this requires an account, but I think it’s totally worth it, as you can sync articles between all your browsers, and they’re not tied to just one browser or computer.

Readability is a great bookmarklet that strips all the ads, graphics and everythign else that pulls your attention away from the text. I love it with longer articles, and some shorter articles. It doesn’t really work with an article that relies on pictures and graphs to illustrate it’s point, but it does a great job with just text. I’m not advocating killing all ads (though I use adthwart) and graphics, but sometimes you just want to read something and not be bothered by graphics and fancy CSS stuff on a website.

Both of these bookmarklets “just work”. That’s something that usually doesn’t happen, but in this case they do, and they do very well. Try it out. Next time you don’t have time to read a huge article, try out Instapaper to save it and Readability to actually read it. You’ll get through it faster than you would on the website.

Infotainment Software in Vehicles

From “Automotive Engineering International”, published by SAE International, April 2009 issue:

New consortium focuses on infotainment software (by Terry Costlow)

[...] Consortium members feel that Linux is a solid software base for their adaptable software.  That could mark a turning point for the open-source operating system, which has gotten much interest from the auto industry, but so far seen little in production. [...]

Emphasis mine.

This is a brilliant move by automakers.  By reducing their dependence on Microsoft, they can use an open alternative that will fit their needs.  If they don’t like it, their software engineers can edit the code to their liking, something they cannot do with closed-source software.

If people run Linux on their cars, they may see the things it can do.

I saw this in the magazine I picked up at the SAE World Congress and my mouth dropped open.  It is amazing that automakers are considering it.  I’m thinking it would cost less than having software specially written by a software house.  Even though it will be specially written, there will be a base for expansion, and users may also be able to modify the source code for their cars.

This is an exciting development that pulls two of my interests together: cars and Linux.

Wakoopa (and software I’ve discovered)

I’ve started trying out Wakoopa on Ubuntu.  I have it on my laptop, and I should install it for my desktop (as it’s been getting more use as of late).  I’d also like to install it on Windows (I still have a partition on the desktop) and see what it comes up with.

It’s interesting to see what other people are using.  I’ve discovered a new program through it already: Miro.  I can use Miro to download podcasts and watch them… Yes, I use it for video podcasts.  It automatically downloads new episodes, and will delete the old ones after 5 days.  This, on its own, is perfect.  I had a problem with RSS feeds in Flock geting cluttered and staying in my history.  Hence why going to Google Reader (among a multitude of other reasons).

The Linux version of Wakoopa is beta right now and is walled-off from the other part of the website.  Go here to try out the Linux version.

I’m gamerchick02 under both “versions” of the site.  Feel free to add me if you sign up!

Blogged with the Flock Browser