My Pebble watch has arrived!

Posted on by

W00t11! My Pebble watch has finally arrived after an exciting trip through Kazakhstan of all places. I thought for sure that it would never be passed through because Borat wanted it for himself, but it all worked out for the best. 🙂

I have read a lot of horror stories in the Pebble forums about bad displays and other malfunctions in the new watches, but mine seems to be fine (touch on wood). We’ll see how things work out after I have used it for a while.

And for your viewing pleasure, here are the obligatory unboxing pictures.

 

First keyboard impressions

Posted on by

OK, now I have used the new Unicomp keyboard a little while, both on Windows and on OS X. Very happy with it so far. One little thing I was afraid would be bothersome is that the Trackpoint control only has two mouse buttons. I am, as are most users nowdays, spoiled with using a pointing device with a scroll wheel. That function is often activated by the third mouse button to toggle scroll lock mode when you don’t have an actual scroll wheel.

So what to do? I first looked for a solution using AutoHotkey to toggle scroll lock mode with some key combination. That is probably the best solution, since I use the program anyways, but I didn’t find a good solution right away. So instead I am now using X-Mouse Button Control set to toggle scroll lock with a right click. I then use the context menu key on the keyboard to get the normal right click functionality. Works great.

As for OS X, I have been using a trackpad for a long time now, so of course I’ll be losing all the multi-touch gestures. But that’s ok I think. It was possible to live without them before, so it should be possible again. At least the context menu key works as function key on the Mac without any extra configuration. That was actually unexpected, since it doesn’t either on Das Keyboard or on my Realtek. So, all in all good stuff.

My new keyboard is here!

Posted on by

I have always been a keyboard freak, trying this and that hoping that I finally have found the ultimate keyboard that will improve my typing and remove all strain. Maybe I finally have …

A week ago, I ordered not one, but two, Endura Pro keyboards from Unicomp, Inc. These are mechanically the same as the original IBM Model M keyboard, as delivered with the original IBM PC. This is arguably the best keyboard ever made – it is certainly the most durable with many still in daily use after almost 30 years.

The Endura Pro model has an additional feature – a built in Trackpoint mouse control. So now I can throw my mouse in the bin … Maybe.

Anyways, I am typing away on it now, and so far it feels great. It has a very distinct click, and the key press is stiff, but not too hard. It is quite loud though, so I hope my collegues will not object to my clicking and clacking.

Here are some images from the unboxing. Enjoy!

Keyboard Macros on Windows

Posted on by

My new job is forcing me to use Windows. Yes, it sucks a bit, but to make the best of the situation I try to set it up as similar to my Mac environment as I can. My primary editor is SublimeText 2, which is available on both platforms, so that works fine. I have set it up with all package files in Dropbox, so they are automatically shared. More on that later.

A code editor such as that relies heavily on keyboard shortcuts. And those tend to work best with an American keyboard layout. I switched over several years ago on the Mac, and use a keyboard macro program to type all the necessary national characters without having to resort to cumbersome dead key combinations and such.

So when I started using Windows, I immediately looked for a suitable program, and I can really recommend AutoHotkey (http://www.autohotkey.com). It is free, incredibly capable, as it  actually contains a full programming language and can create arbitrarily complex GUI widgets. I currently use just a small part of it, but intend to look at more use cases later. Anyhow, here’s my national characters macros. They may come in handy for someone else.

Continue reading →

I have found new employment

Status

There. No more lying around on the sofa all day. Starting Monday, I will be working full time at Textalk with various programming and design tasks. Initially, I’ll be doing C++ application programming with Qt, so I’m getting away from the web for a while.

Print from Sublime Text 2 with this plugin

Posted on by

Sublime Text is a fantastic text editor, but it does not let you print. Personally, I don’t mind – I only print very seldom. But there are many entertaining discussions on the discussion forum where people who have bought the program months ago suddenly realize that it does not print, and then make as if the sky has fallen down or some such. Anyhow, Svenax to the rescue!

I started on a very simple plugin last april that just sends the document of the current view to an external command line program for printing. I naturally put the plugin on Github and promoted it a bit in the forum. Nothing much happened for a while, until I got a merge request with substantial enhancements from another Githubber. After having merged that, I took another look at the code and decided to rewrite it pretty much from scratch to clean it up and remove code duplication.

This new plugin has been submitted to Package Control, the semi-official package manager for Sublime Text extensions. Looking at the merge request queue, it seems to take about two weeks before requests get integrated. Until then you can install directly by selecting Package Control: Add Repository and adding https://github.com/svenax/SublimePrint. Happy printing!

ETA: It is now available in Package Control under the name Simple Print Function.

Source code for sheet music archive

Posted on by

I have used the Sheet music archive as an opportunity to learn a little about coding WordPress plugins. I think the code is good enough now to show to the world. 🙂 So, take a look on https://github.com/svenax/wp-plugin-sheetmusic/ if you are interested.

The plugin itself is pretty simple. I have also started on some general WordPress support classes that may come in handy if I decide to code more plugins. We’ll see … Continue reading →

Happy New Year!

Posted on by

fireworksHappy new 2013 from all of me to all of you!

This will be an awesome year for sure. Did you know that 2013 is the first year with all different digits since 1987? Isn’t that amazing?

The sheet music archive is live again

Posted on by

One of the interesting features of my old web site was the sheet music archive, where all my bagpipe music was available and searchable in a number of ways. This was something I had programmed myself using the Drupal API to get it to display. It took me a while to get the same functionality going in WordPress. The plugin API is completely different – no surprise there. I took the opportunity to change my code to the better. I might publish this plugin on Github later so you all can admire it.

Anyways, here is the sheet music archive in all it’s glory. Enjoy!