Tag: linux

As you might imagine, I’m bored at work1 and I’m trying to come up with something to keep my brain alive. So here’s another QotD2 for you; what are your favorite web development tools?

My response is slightly complicated because I use both Linux & Windows and use different tools under each. Note that these lists are presented in no particular order.

Linux Web Development Tools

  • Quanta for editing HTML, CSS & PHP.
  • Bluefish is another good tool for editing HTML, CSS & PHP but its interface just feels a lot more clutured.
  • GIMP for editing images, though to be perfectly honest I hate using it because the interface is just wretched. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of another image editor that I can use under Linux which has the functionality that I need.

Windows Web Development Tools

  • UltraEdit is the best text editor for Windows. Period. It’s not free but there is a time-limited demo. You can edit pretty much anything with UltraEdit and there are additional wordlists & dictionaries for it to make it even easier to use. Though as I recall CSS is not included with the default word list –this means UltraEdit won’t do syntax highlighting for CSS by default– but an additional wordlist can be downloaded to take care of that.
  • Fireworks MX is the best image editing program, particularly for web work. It’s interface feels very well laid out, hiding options you don’t immediately need and grouping similar options together. Plus, it uses Adobe Photoshop’s plugin architecture allowing you to easily expand the functionality of the software. Again, this isn’t free software but there is a time-limited demo. Unfortunately, the Crossweavers version of Wine lists this program as Known Not to Run; so I won’t be running this under Linux any time soon. *sigh*

1 For the record, I am working right now. I’m trying to get the program I test to generate some errors so I can test some new functionality that the programmers added to the error handling. Naturally now that I want the program to break; it’s not. *sigh*
2 QotD (acronym): There are 2 generally accecpted meanings for this acronym,

  1. Quote of the Day
  2. Question of the Day

Unless otherwise noted, this site uses the 2nd definition.

Hi, I’m Mark (aka Manzabar1). If you want to know more about me; well, you’ll just have to keep reading this blog and see what you can learn as I go along.

I’ve had this domain for a short time now and finally plunked down the moolah to get a proper host for it (thank you Digital Sense Hosting).

I imagine if you’ve probably got some questions about the who/what/why of CoffeeBear.net, so here are some of the answers. If you have a question that’s not answered in this post; contact me and I’ll reply. Though if your question is too personal, then the reply might be no more than “I’m not going to answer that.”
(more…)

As mentioned in a post earlier today, I got a new toy this weekend. I probably shouldn’t have, but Ariesna kind of ambushed me into doing it and I’ve researched my choice of toy enough to know that I’m going to like it.

What is the new toy you ask? I finally got myself a new camera. My old one was a Pentax K1000 SE (all manual, 35mm). My new one is a Canon PowerShot S500 Digital ELPH. It’s a 5 megapixel camera but it’s teeny-tiny (roughly the size of a deck of playing cards) and the best part is that even my bear paws fit on the thing without smashing half the buttons. There’s a nice wide, clear spot on the back to put my right thumb, the lens is shifted enough to the left (as seen from the back of the camera) so that I’ve got room to put my fingers across the front of the camera giving me a fairly, solid grip. The left side is a bit more crowded, but there’s enough room on the top & bottom of the camera that I can steady it when needed. The zoom on this camera is nothing to write home about (3x optical, 12x digital) but that’s the price you pay for compactness. I’ve only played with it a little bit so far, but I can say that I’m really digging it. Though my co-workers are a bit annoyed seeing the flash go off. That’s ok; I won’t be taking any more pictures around the office (for now) and will delete the test shots that I made. Though I do plan on carrying this camera with me everywhere, since it’s so small and since there’s been so many times that I’ve wished I was carrying a camera.

Oh and in a related note, though the camera’s specs say it only works with Windows & Macintosh computers; I was able to browse/download the photos on the camera using Digikam under SuSE Linux 9.0 Pro under KDE 3.2.2. Score!

Right, back to work for me. Again. *sigh*

<sarcasm>
Work is such fun today!
</sarcasm>

Our corporate network got hit with the WORM_SASSER.B virus and since I work out of a remote office that relies on servers in the main office; I’m effectively dead in the water today. I wish we had some more Linux boxes on the network, so that maybe we wouldn’t get hit so hard by viri like this. Unfortunately, all our company’s software is Windows based which doesn’t give us much room to do that.

Ah well, at least I’m having plenty of time to read Assimov’s I, Robot (I borrowed a copy from “my friend Fritz”) and so far, so good. It’s nice to go back and reread the works of some of the masters of Sci-Fi once in a while. Oh, I should mention that I finished Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast over the weekend and enjoyed it but while he explored an interesting concept, it wasn’t one of his better books. Overall, I’d give it 2.5 out of 5 points.