Re: Name change

Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Rowland McDonnell <real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Whiskers <catwheezel@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

snip

'Xinerama' allows a single 'desktop' to use two or more
diplays at once - or of course each display can be used separately.

How do you mean, `separately'?

Different workspace on each, rather than one space spanning them all. Or
one for 'system admin' stuff and another for 'my stuff', if you have to do
that sort of thing. Or one for the headless server under the stairs and
the other for this laptop. All sorts of possibilities.

Righto. Hmm. I'd have to see that to get my head round it properly. I
don't quite see why you'd need to separate things out by screen - but
then, I'm one of those `open another window and do it in there' types.

snip

I'm just not ready for a multi-dimensional desktop; I'm still a bit
confused by having windows in my desktop, not to mention moveable
and re-sizable and over-lapping windows ... who started this crazy
nomenclature?

Xerox?

Probably.

AIUI, it was Xerox which first implemented overlapping windows.
Re-sizable windows might well have come from somewhere else. I did see
a pretty good family tree for the modern GUI/OS arrangement we've got
and it's *incredibly* tangled.

I can believe that. It sort of shows, too, doesn't it?

<grin> Yep. I might even have that family tree somewhere, but I'm not
digging now.

In the days of Windows 3.x, I preferred Quaterdeck's display with
non-overlapping 'Windows', or the 'filing-cabinet and ring-book' model
that came with my ICL sub-notebook;

Righto. I've always preferred having my windows overlapping because
I've never had enough screen space, y'know?

I think Compaq had something similar.
On a 640x480 9" display with a mind-boggling 16 shades of grey, you don't
want to leave any space unused.

Ye gods. 9 inches, eh? Well, well, well. That's `original Mac size',
that is - and they didn't have greyscale at all in standard trim, just
black and white. That's when I found out about the joys of overlapping
windows - you just don't have the room for anything else if you ask me.

One window 'maximised' was all I could manage on that thing. The office
desktops were text-only two-colour 80x25 character 13" displays at the
time (obviously, not running Windows).

You can do a lot with an 80x25 character display.

snip

I can cope with three or four windows per desktop, if I can keep them
minimised when not in use; that's why I like multiple virtual desktops - I
can have a multitude of 'things' going on, without getting confused.

Hmm! I see - yes. Sort of like the way I do it, but with better
organisation. (that might not make sense to you, but it does to me).

I get it now - I think. Yes. <heh> I can't work your way because I
just can't keep track of things well enough - it's why I like to have
`everything all piled up in the one place' (at least on a computer -
real life, that's different).

[1] I don't like fiddling about. If it ain't straightforward when it
comes to UI `enhancements', I don't want to know.

Yup; clean and simple is the way to go
<http://i11.tinypic.com/2wohk50.png>.

Coo!

Now, if I had some Web space sorted out, I could reciprocate. But I've
not, so I can't.

If you don't mind losing control and ownership of the images,
<http://tinypic.com/> hits the spot.

Hmm. `No nudity of offensive content allowed'. No `offensive' content?
Hmm. Terms and conditions, me no like. Nothing offensive means you can
get into trouble for perfectly innocent behaviour just on the basis of
someone complaining that you offended them.

Tell you what, see that email? That's what it looks
like here. One pair of pics is `Each monitor is its natural state'; the
other pair of pics is `Each monitor after I've hit F9 to fire up Exposé
so I can see all the windows'.

Let's make it recursive <http://i18.tinypic.com/29mm0t2.png> <G>

<chuckle> Excellent! I could go for another step, but not tonight.

(I spy a real geek's OS at your end, mind - what's that down the right
hand side of your monitor?

GKrellM; basically a custom set of monitors and 'toys' with a launcher for
each of the apps I use most often.

Righto.

I have a self-hiding 'panel' as well,
which you an see in the latest screenshot.

Is that the thing along the top? It seems to be akin to the MacOS
`Dock' - an entity I consider to be a Really Big Mistake in the
implementation we have. The problem is that it's used for `everything':
launcher (app, file, folder, disc, server, and all other entities),
displays all running user apps, keeps icons of minimised windows, it's
where the trash is now kept, and it's also meant for information display
(application icons displayed on the dock often display information).

Thing is, as soon as you have more than a few icons, they get far too
small and it's just unmanagable. That's why I've got `DragThing' - much
more like the old-tyme Mac `Launcher'. Nice big friendly buttons,
switchable to different `panes' of launcher buttons, and you get a few
things on top of that - I have what's effectively a menu of all running
user apps with a GUI face, and *only* the running user apps with a GUI
face, so it's manageable. There's a separate one for discs, and
DragThing also gives me trash icons all over the place - on a couple of
the `magically appearing' menus, and on the desktop.

There's a 'desktop menu' for
launching less frequently used apps. I have no icons on my desktop, just
'post-it notes' as required.

Righto. A tidy desktop is the sign of a sick mind. My desktop is a
mess, for all that I try to keep it tidy. I collect junk, and drop it
on the desktop until I manage to work out what the hell to do with it,
which can sometimes take a while.

The current 'background' is a simple
graphic; sometimes I use a photo. There are some 'trick' backgrounds too,
such as news-tickers, transparent real-time syslog entries, animations,
etc, but mostly I think a background should not steal the scene.

Me too. I use a swoopy blue affair that's - well, just right. It
doesn't intrude on my thinking at all, but it's got enough visible
features to help with being aware of `how things are moving' when you
move stuff on screen.

System stats, eh? Who really needs that
sort of info when using a computer normally? Okay, in my case, I can
tell if I'm thrashing the CPUs for some reason 'cos the fans get faster
and a lot louder - but...)

Rowland.

Well, you seem to have the system or CPU temperature, and the time, and
various launchers, displayed across the top of your screen.

Umm, ish, okay, so I do have a temperature displayed. Not sure why,
mind, and I'm not sure which temperature it is (there are many
temperature sensors). Aside from the rest of it - well the menubar is
the place to keep controls, so that's what I've got there.

Actual launchers - well, while I could use *one* of those things as a
launcher, I mainly use it for finding folders.

Anyway, to explain: the temperature probably ought to go, 'cos I don't
have any need to see it. It's displayed by the Temperature Monitor app,
which I keep running 'cos it keeps a log and I've been interested in
what the hell goes on at times (some software doesn't play nice and
sometimes uses 100% of a CPU - with four CPUs, this can happen even with
a pre-emptive multitasking OS).

But the rest of it? Okay: the green icon to the right of the
temperature is SMARTreporter, which will tell me if either of my
internal HDDs fails its self-check. Then we've got the `dial up my ISP'
icon (and yes I do have a modem connected as well as the broadband
router), the `Classic' icon (for the backwards compatibility OS) because
it's a good idea to turn it off if you're not using it.

The union flag is the `UK keyboard layout' sign, and there are a couple
of character related palettes available that way which I've never used
much but probably would if I did much wysiwyg text stuff. Volume knob
is obviousl. Time and date - handy reference material. The small
parrot is `my login icon' - the menu there lets you switch between
different users on the fly. And then the small filing cabinet is XMenu:
a configurable pull-down menu of files and folders so you can `just get
to whatever' in the file system without hassle. And the small blue
magnifying glass is the bloody, bloody Spotlight (system search) icon
and the sooner Spotlight is shot, the better.

I like to see
what my machine is doing;

I know the feeling - but I find I'd rather not be distracted by that
sort of thing. I mean, I've often got `Activity Monitor' running (think
of a GUI version of top, and then add brass knobs and all the other
monitoring in that line you can think of), and I can't help keeping an
eye on things when I have. Waste of flippin' time, that's what. Except
that sometime they will be some process got itself messed up - usually
Classic - and needing a bit of a prod (aka kill -9, or `Force quit' in
MacOS X terms).

Mind you, it's quite entertaining to see a process thrashing away and
chewing up (say) 60-80% of one CPU - with the overall %CPU /idle/
indicator floating around the 75% mark.

Which reminds me: I've got a song called `kill -9', by a British space
rock band called `Born to go'. The rest of the lyrics are Unix commands
too, apparently. I've not checked carefully, but I reckon the claim is
near enough true. Mind you, the fact that Unix has commands like
`whoami' helps.

when the scanners are out on force it's fun for
a little while to watch the router 'status' and logs too - rather like
being indoors and watching the sleet and gale doing their worst out there.

Fair enough.

I've long taken the line that I really don't want to know what it's
doing behind the scenes - but while that's what I'd *like*, here in the
real world one does have to pay attention and yes of course you've got a
point about the entertainment value. Not that I'd know how to interpret
what's going on by looking at any indication of network traffic.

Rowland.

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