I am annoyed by Flash. It sucks, it is used for annoying stuff everywhere, it hogs cpu cycles like no tomorrow and crashes often. ClickToFlash to the rescue!

Replaces all things Flash by a box that you can click on if you really want to. But what is totally awesome is that it lets you play YouTube videos as H.264 using QuickTime X just inside your (Webkit)-browser using HTML5. It just rocks, essential install.

I was a long time user of gimmesometune. But for some reason it stopped fetching lyrics. It’s still an awesome application, but no more lyrics kinda suck. And as the author seems to be lacking time to support it, I had to search for another solution and came across Tune Instructor.

Last.fm support? check.
Lyric Fetching? check.
Artwork Fetching? check.
Mini Control in your menu bar? check.
Song Announcement? check.
A gazillion of other features that are plain awesome? check.

If you are using a Mac and iTunes, definitely give it a shot. It’s that awesome. MacMagazin has an article about it, German though. Tune Instructor is Donationware, so please support the author if you use it. It’s well worth your money.

While looking for a new Font for my terminals on my Windows machine at work – because seriously, Courier New kinda sucks -, I came across the Anonymous Pro font. Really nice looking and distinct shapes for characters that could be mistaken for one another (O, 0, I, l, 1, etc.). Best of all, it’s under a free license.
Really enjoying it so far, check it out.

Using a Mac? Been thinking about the security of your password, login credentials, bank accounts and whatnot? Look no further…

I was trying to find a credentials-manager for some time now. Multi-Plattform support at least for reading my passwords etc. is a must. Been evaluating Data Guardian for some time now, but the support is utter crap. Couldn’t even get an answer to my questions from Koingo when I asked them for licensing. And the software… It’s okay, but not much more. I am not buying something I can’t even get support for. So much for that…
Then I read about 1Password on macnews.de today. That’s it. Played around with the software for 15 minutes and bought it. Sad thing is – you can’t describe how awesome it is with words, you have to use it. Then you will want it. For ages I have been using crappy passwords, same passwords on multiple sites, etc… no more. 1Password generates passwords for you, stores them securely, retrieves them when needed (god, the automatic login to web sites is just awesome), even stores Thumbnails for the sites you have passwords stored (the little details that make you go: awesome!) and with the new 1Password Anywhere makes them available in any Web-Browser on any operating system. Couple that with Dropbox Synching and you are in love. And there is an iPhone App, too. That syncs. I am in love with this software.

Interestingly painless…

• Download the .deb version of the Notes client from IBM
• tar xfv <downloaded_archive>
• unpack the Notes client and Sametime with ar x ibm_lotus_notes-8.5.i586.deb and ar x ibm_lotus_sametime-8.5.i586.deb into separate directories
• unpack data.tar.gz and control.tar.gz in both directories (tar xfvz <archive>)
• elevate your ego to higher levels (aka become root)
• move the files in opt from the respective Notes client and Sametime directories to /opt
• in the Notes client directory, open postinst. Around line 254 comment out some lines and add one  so it looks like this:


# If on a Debian system, check to see if we have previously written an
# upgrade marker. If so, then set the action to "upgrade". This is to
# handle the fact that even on an upgrade, a Debian postinst script action
# is "configure", which doesn't give us an ability to distinguish initial
# install and upgrade functions that we need to perform.
#if [ -e /etc/debian_version ]; then
# if [ -e /tmp/ibm_lotus_notes.upgrade ]; then
# DPKG_ACTION="upgrade"
# rm -f /tmp/ibm_lotus_notes.upgrade
# else
# DPKG_ACTION="$1"
# fi
#fi
# ADD THIS LINE
DPKG_ACTION="configure"


• execute postinst in both directories
• start Notes and *cough* enjoy *cough*

This of course only applies to the Gnome Edition of Sabayon. Your mileage may vary when using the KDE Edition – will probably have to install lots of Gnome packages and their dependencies.

… is looking really great.
Just installed on my new company Lenovo T500 and so far really, really liking it. Multimedia capabilities by default are awesome, Wireless is working (I am still wondering why I had such troubles with a stock Gentoo install and the really well supported Intel 5100AGN), Font rendering is sweet. And after all, it is a Gentoo derivative, which makes it awesome by all means. Oh, I am using the Gnome edition.

Sabayon Linux 5.0 Gnome Desktop (Click for Large Version)

… absolutely everytime I install Gentoo on a machine I run into this inconvenience – on first reboot it nags loudly about modification times in the future. Rightly so, but quite annoying.

touch /etc/{conf.d,init.d}/* && touch /etc/rc.conf

and it’s gone on next boot.

… to write on wordpress.com – I realized that having my own server just to note down my thoughts is probably… to overpowered.

Reading Aaron’s latest Blog entry I was totally blown away by the graphics he had in his post – to the point that I was so blown away I posted a comment asking where to get them when Aaron actually linked to them *cough*.

Anyway, check out Wade’s Blog and his public Picasa gallery for some awesome, awesome KDE related material. His stuff just rocks.

… for making Notes 8.5 Beta 1 available in .deb packages. Works beautifully (well, it’s still ye’olde sluggish Notes, but hey…), looks good, good font rendering, no ‘beta-related’ crashes so far. I love you for that. Srsly. No more using that broken crap installer.

… I still hate you for creating/buying Notes tho.