Posts Tagged linux
Corsair Vengeance K90 – First Impression
I just received my new Corsair Vengeance K90 keyboard. It was a Christmas present from my sister. She bought my wife and I both one. Of course, she let me pick them out. I’m using mine to type this post and I can say that I’m pleasantly surprised by the board. I’m experiencing some weird behavior from it in Linux, but it really is designed for Windows and gaming.
The keyboard has the strangest feel to it that I’ve ever experienced. The top of the keys have a rubber coating which doesn’t feel anything like the hard plastic of most keyboards. The linear Cherry MX Red switches don’t have the tactile feedback or click that one would find on Cherry MX Blue switches. I’m coming from a buckling spring keyboard so the keyboard is very different from it.
I feel that the action on the keyboard is much faster than the buckling spring design, however. Once I get used to it, I’m sure I’ll be able to type faster. I hammer on keys pretty hard typically and that went along well with the buckling springs. They require a lot more force to depress than these Cherry MX Reds. I will need to retrain myself on typing with this keyboard. I shouldn’t bottom out as much as I presently do. However one of the bad things about the Cherry MX Reds is that they don’t have the tactile bump that lets you know that the key is engaged. However, it takes very little actuation of the key to engage it. So, you can barely touch the keys and they will register.
On Linux, you lose a few of the features that the keyboard comes with, from what I can tell. I’m not sure there’s a way to get the macros to work with it. Also, the caps lock and num lock indicators don’t seem to work correctly in Linux. I may just need to reboot, as I plugged the keyboard in and started using it. I’ll revise this post if that fixes the problem.
Adobe Cancels 64bit Linux Flash beta
Posted by Randy in Uncategorized on June 11, 2010
For many years, the internet has been plagued by a dependency on the proprietary software known as Adobe Flash. There are plenty of open alternatives that could be used, but from the beginnings of the internet, ShockWave and Flash have been used by many websites.
Flash has been used for everything from buttons and banners to games and complete user interfaces. It’s a very powerful tool, but it is outdated and is maintained exclusively by Adobe. While the Flash player browser plugin is completely free, the tools to create Flash content are not. There in lies the trouble. Being closed source, Flash depends on Adobe development. There are many people who use 64-bit Linux as their primary OS. Adobe has canceled development on the 64-bit version of there Flash plugin. This means that simple things like Youtube videos won’t work on 64bit Linux.
This is why proprietary formats are bad. Hopefully things will improve as more and more webmasters turn to HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript for their Dynamic content needs.
Another look at Google Chrome
Posted by Randy in Applications, Internet, Open Source, technology on December 13, 2009
I’ve never published a “first look at Google Chrome”, but I have been excited about it before. By Google Chrome, I’m referring to Google’s webkit-based browser, not the Chrome OS.
When it was announced that Google was releasing it’s own browser, I wasn’t extremely excited. Then once it was available, I downloaded it to see how well it performed. I was amazed. The javascript executing was blazing fast. I’d never seen a web application respond so well. So, I suddenly became very excited about it and wanted to adopt it as my main browser.
This was soon shot down by the fact that I rely too heavily on certain extensions in Firefox, namely Gmail Notifier, Firebug, ForecastFox, and Adblock Plus. So, I had to keep using Firefox and hoped that one day Firefox would be able to handle javascript as good as Chrome.
Well the opposite has happened. Chrome now has extensions. I’m a little worried that it will be bloated and start performing slowly like Firefox. Firefox was once a lean mean browser. Now it is a bloated mess. It has started crashing without warming in Windows 7. I was once a Firefox advocate and I still like the browser, but it has been going downhill for the past year or two. Let’s hope that Chrome doesn’t follow down this path.
Firefox shouldn’t even be that bloated. Sure, the extensions probably add to memory usage and Firefox reserves memory if it’s available, but should a browser really be using half a gig of RAM? Seriously?
Chrome doesn’t use less memory but it sure responds better. Adding extensions doesn’t seem to lower performance either. I’ve added a GMail notifier, Google Wave Notifier, Forecastfox weather, Firebug Lite, and a couple other extensions and there is no noticeable change what-so-ever.
Now that these extensions are available for Chrome, I think it’s time for me to take the next step. Chrome will be my main browser as soon as the extensions are available for the Mac and Linux versions. It’s already going to be my main browser in Windows.
So, if you took a look at Chrome when it first came out, this may be a good time to look at it again. There are a few added features that may change your mind about it as well.