fjellstad.org

I’ve been looking for a good software to help with writing a journal/diary. Although I didn’t know exactly what i had in mind, there was a couple of features I thought I needed (and which I has discovered I needed as I tried out the different software packages that exists).

1. Ease of start writing. I don’t want to jump through hoops to just start the writing process.
2. Browsable/searchable. I need to be able to easily go back to previous entry, or at least be able to search for them.
3. Preferably text file format. In case the program stop working or I want to upgrade/change program, I rather the files that are created are in a common format. Making it hard to move away from a program means that developer don’t have faith that people will stay program voluntarily (yes, I know there are some efficiency reasons for going binary).
4. Simple. KISS principle

Wikis
Wikis are interesting. They pretty much cover 1,2 and 3. The problem is, I don’t want to install a webserver on my home system just to be able to write to my journal. Also, the browser isn’t the best editor in the world. I do have WordPress installed on my public webserver, so I could in theory create a private section. But again, I don’t think a browser is the best editor.

Kontact’s Journal
Journal that comes with Kontact is pretty basic. Since I already use Kontact as my primary mail client, it wasn’t that much that difficult to use Journal.
The problem is that Journal is too basic. Once you write an entry, there is no way to find it again. There are no indication in the Calendar whether a given day has a journal attached to it. So you have to pretty much go to each day and check whether the journal entry you want is there or not. There is a very rudimentary search, but sometimes you want to just browse.

Emacs
Now, Emacs being the all-in-one editor probably had something I could use.

journal-mode had everything I really needed. Problem was that it wasn’t maintained anymore. No support for Emacs 22 and beyond, which is a problem.
planner-mode forced too much structure. Programs should conform to me, not the other way around.
muse-mode made it easy to start writing. But it has the problem of structure. I wanted to be able to browse my journal by period and tags. I could set it up manually, but really… the program should take care of it.

org-mode. The perfect module, so far. It fills all four of my needs. It took my less than an hour to wrap my head around it to use. Org-mode also seems to be extendible enough for me to use in other parts of my life (like a day planner), which means that I can become more productive the more time I spend on it. So far, after 24 hours of use, I consider it a keeper.

Note: Sasha Chua has an blog entry about the topic. She also has lots of articles about using Emacs to its fullest potential.

I’ve decided to reinstall my Linux system, and in the process upgrade to the next Kubuntu version, 8.04, also known as Hardy Heron. I usually don’t like to reinstall my OS when I upgrade to a new version. One of the reason I decided to move to a Debian distribution was that I didn’t have to reinstall during upgrade. Unfortunately, when I initially installed Kubuntu 6.06 (Dapper), I made the / partition too small. Although it was big enough for normal usage, during upgrades, with multiple versions of the kernel, firmwares and kernel modules, it got too tight. Hopefully, the current size of 1 Gb should be enough.

In general, I hate reinstalling an OS. Mostly because I spend some time customizing it, writing scripts to help me in the day-to-day work. Most of the time, I forget to backup these scripts, so I have to recreate them once I notice they are missing. Mostly finding everything to make the desktop look and feel exactly as I had it before I made the upgrade do take time. Of course, I’m also finding functionality that I’ve never noticed because they have been hidden because of customization, or I just hadn’t looked.

Although I stopped installing beta software (unless force to it), I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the stability of Hardy. Stuff like hibernation and suspension that I previously had problems with, works now. I never got the kernel in Gutsy to boot, so I had to be content with the kernel from Edgy, but 2.6.24 works perfectly now. And Kontact seem more stable than previous versions. The addressbook has gotten a much needed speedboost (when using LDAP), although it still doesn’t expose all the fields. This version seems to be a keeper.

Following the previous post, I’ve been playing around with labeling my email. Mutt has really good labeling support, mostly because of its flexibility. With it, I can pretty much do anything I need using labels (add, delete, modify, limit views to a given label etc), so it has become my primary email client these days.

I used to use Kontact, and I still like some of its functionality (like setting up search folders), but not being able to edit and add labels make it hard to use. It’s also not that stable when you’re using imap. Looking forward to trying it out again when KDE 4 turns stable. Hopefully, it is more stable there.

Being, the lazy bum that I am, I really don’t want to manually add labels to email from people I know when the computer can do as good a job as I can. Enter maildrop. One thing that I noticed was when I wanted to the system to add multiple labels to a given email because multiple people was on the mail list. I therefore wrote the following maildrop rule (procmail users can probably write a similar rule for their system):

# Get address from the From, To, and Cc line
foreach /^(From|To|Cc): .*/
{
    foreach (getaddr $MATCH) =~ /.+/
    {
        ADDR=tolower($MATCH)
        # check if the address is in the label file
        # label file has a key/value pairing looking like this
        # example@example.com exlabel
        # where first part is the address and second part is the label
        TMPLABEL=`grep $ADDR labels`
        if ( $RETURNCODE == 0 )
        {
            # if message already has a label, keep it
            LABEL = `echo $TMPLABEL | cut -d' ' -f2`
            if ( /^X-Label: (.*)/ )
            {
                xfilter "/usr/bin/reformail -I 'X-Label: $MATCHLABEL, $LABEL'"
            }
            else
            {
                xfilter "/usr/bin/reformail -I 'X-Label: $LABEL'"
            }
        }
    }
}

So far, it’s been working really well.

Hmmm… 8/8. 8 being a lucky number in Asian mythology, or stuff or something. Forgot about that.

Thinking about redesigning my website again. I want to do some more AJAX on the site, and I really need to rewrite the gallery section. Right now there is no text, and the gallery sucks… Probably would have make some more server side scripts, then.

Currently in Norway visiting the old folks. I’m going a little crazy. Need to get out, back home, to the US. I miss my car and TV, and just being alone. I really need to cut down how much time I spend in Norway.

Finished my first year of Graduate studies. One more year to go. It’s been interesting going back to school, meeting new people again, and just worry about learning stuff. Really enjoying myself. Well, it’s vacation time now.

Two programs that people who are running Linux should try out are amaroK and digiKam. amaroK is a really excellent music player, but a killer music management capability. Never used iTunes, but I think Amarok is probably one of the best out there. digiKam is a photomanagement program. Another killer app. Check them out.