Yesterday was the day I have been waiting for since the WWDC in June: the release of macOS Sierra featuring Siri on the mac. Why is this a big deal for me? Because my favourite personal computing platform is the desktop (or laptop for that matter) but I am also a huge fan of voice-controlled assistants which have been most prominent on smartphones - until now.
Like almost everyone else on this planet I have been out there catching Pokémon and conquering gyms last week whenever I took a break from uni work and went outside. In case you have no idea what I am talking about, well, no offense, but you must have been living under a rock for the last weeks - I am of course referring to the highly popular augmented reality game “Pokémon GO”.
Tobi and I were both excited about the game’s release but as computer scientists we don’t “just play” such a game. We systematically try to find ways of optimizing our progress with as little effort as possible. We experimented and did research on the best ways of boosting our XP points quickly. It turned out that there is a very common technique to achieve this: Try to evolve as many Pokémon in a row as possible (ideally under the influence of a lucky egg which doubles your XP gain).
During the Christmas break, I found the time to do some free time coding again and I would like to share my results with you.
During the last month or so, a remarkable number of people have asked me, “what OS is that on your laptop”? When I got my new laptop, I have put quite some time into setting up my personal Arch Linux installation and apparently I am not the only one to appreciate its looks and workflow.
The sad part of the story is that I cannot give a simple answer, because it is, in fact, a compilation of various software packages, themes and configurations, that make it what it is. This is why I have decided to write a blog post which allows others to replicate my “desktop experience”.
Leaving aside the recent security release, Windows users of Go For It! have not seen many updates lately. Apart from my general, omnipresent “lack of time” forcing me to focus on what I consider most important, this was mostly due to the former dependency on the unstable Gtk 3.10 release for Windows.
Thanks to Jonathan Moerman’s support in porting Go For It! to an older Gtk version, less “hacks” need to be applied to the Windows version, thus allowing for an easier synchronization between the Linux and Windows branch.
A new version (1.3.5) of Go For It! for Windows has been published. Windows users are advised to update, as this is a security release.
When I started to learn about web development it felt to me as if everyone was suggesting to use a CMS for everything. Back then I have chosen to get started with Drupal after considering also Wordpress, Joomla and a few others and I have to say that it served me well all the time.
Nevertheless I have become tired of the amount of maintenance that a full blown CMS demands.
I finally released a Go For It! update to version 1.3 for you patient Windows users out there. Even notifications work now!
I just happened to release a new open source project this very christmas eve. Go For It! is a to-do list application with built-in productivity timer, that I have been working on in my spare time during the last one and a half months or so.
User experience matters a lot to me. I have tried, tweaked, installed, removed, loved and hated many desktop environments in the past.
Working "on the road" a lot I have grown used to touchpads and have developed a slight aversion to mice (the gadgets, not the animals).
Due to that I caught myself sitting around with my notebook even when I was at home where I could be spending time at my desk with a docking station, a proper keyboard and a bigger screen. So I decided it was time to replace my mouse with a modern touch device.
I hereby invite you to join my lightning talk (5 minute speech) about Icon Set Forge that will be held in the context of this year's FrOSCon at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences in Sankt Augustin. It will take place next saturday at approximately 14:15 (Better be there 10 mintues earlier, as the talks are in fact short). I do not know where exactly these talks are located, but I guess one can easily find that out on site.
Since my return from Scotland, I have not even written a single blog post.
Yes I am ashamed, but I do in fact have a good excuse for my behaviour: I have been working on a new project: Icon Set Forge. It is an application for creating, managing and viewing icon sets in a convenient manner.
I will be away on holiday in Scotland from 19th July to 3rd August. My girlfriend and me are going to hike and camp alongside the West Highland Way.
During that period I will not be able to respond to any requests or review comments, but will give my very best to answer as soon as we are back.
Organizing source code in hierachical subfolders is, in my humble opinion, a mandatory task for keeping code tidy, structured and comprehensible.
Due to this I was pretty astonished about Qt Creator's lack of an intuitive procedure to create and display subfolders. I would have expected to find an option like "create subdirectory here" next to "Add New..." in the context menu of my project, but was disappointed.
During the last week I have been developing a website for displaying information about me and several software projects I was involved in or am currently contributing to. Futhermore I am going to maintain this blog where I will most likely write about software (development), Linux and music, computer games or other forms of arts.
I hope you enjoy your stay :-)