A look at Emacs
10th August 2010
It's remarkable what work can bring your way in terms of technology. For me, (GNU) Emacs Has proved to be such a thing recently. It may have been around since 1975, long before my adventures in computing ever started, in fact, but I am asking myself why I never really have used it much. There are vague recollections of my being aware of its existence in the early days of my using UNIX over a decade ago. Was it a shortcut card with loads of seemingly esoteric keyboard shortcuts and commands that put me off it back then? The truth may have been that I got bedazzled with the world of Microsoft Windows instead, and so began a distraction that lingered until very recently. As unlikely as it looks now, Word and Office would have been part of the allure of what some consider as the dark side these days. O how OpenOffice.org and their ilk have changed that state of affairs...
The unfortunate part of the Emacs story might be that its innovations were never taken up as conventions by mainstream computing. If its counterparts elsewhere used the same keyboard shortcuts, it would feel like learning such an unfamiliar tool. Still, it's not as if there isn't logic behind it because it will work both in a terminal session (where I may have met it for the first time) and a desktop application GUI. The latter is the easier to learn, and the menus list equivalent keyboard shortcuts for many of their entries, too. For a fuller experience though, I can recommend the online manual, and you can buy it in paper form too if you prefer.
One thing that I discovered recently is that external factors can sour the impressions of a piece of software. For instance, I was using a UNIX session where the keyboard mapping wasn't optimal. There's nothing like an unfamiliar behaviour for throwing you off track because you feel that your usual habits are being obstructed. For instance, finding that a Backspace key is behaving like a Delete one is such an obstruction. It wasn't the fault of Emacs, and I have found that using Ctrl+K (C-k in the documentation) to delete whole lines is invaluable.
Apart from keyboard mapping niggles, Emacs has to be respected as a powerful piece of software in its own right. It may not have the syntax highlighting capabilities of some, like gedit or NEdit for instance, but I have a hunch that a spot of Lisp programming would address that need. What you get instead is support for version control systems like RCS or CVS, along with integration with GDB for debugging programs written in a number of languages. Then, there are features like file management, email handling, newsgroup browsing, a calendar and a calculator that make you wonder if they tried to turn a text editor into something like an operating system. With Google trying to use Chrome as the basis of one, it almost feels as is Emacs was ahead of its time, though that may have been more due to its needing to work within a UNIX shell in those far-off pre-GUI days. It really is saying something that it has stood the test of time when so much has fallen by the wayside. Like Vi, it looks as if the esteemable piece of software is showing no signs of going away just yet. Maybe it was well-designed in the beginning, and the thing certainly seems more than a text editor with its extras. Well, it has to offer a good reason for making its way into Linux too...
On web browsers for BlackBerry devices
8th August 2010
The browser with which my BlackBerry Curve 8520 came is called Web'n'Walk and, while it does have its limitations, it works well enough for much of what I want to do. Many of the sites that I wish to visit while away from a PC have mobile versions that are sufficiently functionality for much of what I needed to do. Names like GMail, Google Reader, Met Office and National Rail come to mind here, and the first two are regularly visited while on the move. They work well to provide what I need too. Nevertheless, one of the things that I have found with mobile web browsing is that I am less inclined to follow every link that might arouse my interest. Sluggish response times might have something to do with it but navigating the web on a small screen is more work too. Therefore, I have been taking a more functional approach to web usage on the move rather than the more expansive one that tends to happen on a desktop PC.
For those times when the default browser was not up to the task, I installed Opera Mini. It certainly has come in very useful for keeping an eye on the Cheshire East bus tracker and looking at any websites without mobile versions for when I decide to look at such things. Downloading any of these does take time, and there's the reality of navigating a big page on a small screen. However, I have discovered that the browser has an annoying tendency to crash, which it did it on one occasion while I was awaiting a bus. The usual solution, rightly or wrongly, has been to delete the thing and reinstall it again with the time and device restarts that entails. While I got away with it once, it seems to mean losing whatever bookmarks or favourites that you have set up too, a real nuisance. Because of this, I am not going to depend on it as much any more. Am I alone in experiencing this type of behaviour?
Because of Opera's instability, I decided on seeking alternative approaches. One of these was to set up bookmarks for the aforementioned bus tracker on Web 'n' Web. What is delivered in the WAP version of the site, and it's not that user-friendly at all. When it comes to selecting a bus stop to monitor, it asks for a stance number. Only for my nous, I wouldn't have been able to find the ID's that I needed. That's not brilliant, but I worked around it to make things work for me. The observation is one for those who design mobile versions of websites for public use.
Another development is the discovery of Bolt Browser and, so far, it seems a worthy alternative to Opera Mini too. There are times when it lives up to the promise of faster web page loading, but that is dependent on the strength of the transmission signal. A trial with the Met Office website showed it to be capable, though there were occasions when site navigation wasn't as smooth as it could have been. Up to now, there have been no crashes like what happened to Opera Mini, so it looks promising. If there is any criticism, it is that it took me a while to realise how to save favourites (or bookmarks). While the others that I have used have a button on the screen for doing so, Bolt needs you to use the application menu. Other than that, the software seems worthy of further exploration.
All in all, surfing the mobile remains an area of continued exploration for me. Having found my feet with it, I remain on the lookout for other web browsers for the BlackBerry platform. While it is true that OS 6 features a WebKit-powered browser, I'm not buying another device to find out how good that is. What I am after are alternatives that work on the device that I have. Though porting of Firefox's mobile edition would be worthwhile, its availability seems to be limited to Nokia's handsets for now. Only time will reveal where things are going.
Changing Outlook usage habits
2nd August 2010
Given that I have been using it for so long, I shouldn't be discovering new things with Outlook. However, there is one thing that I have been doing for years: leaving messages set as unread until I have dealt with them. Now that I look at it, it seems a terrible habit compared with an alternative that I recently found.
Quite why I haven't been flagging messages for follow-up instead is beyond me. Is it because I worked with Outlook 2000 at my place of work for so long, and the arrival of Outlook 2007 into my life wasn't sufficient to force a change of habits? In fact, it has taken a downgrade to Outlook 2003 to make it dawn on me; it was the sight of search folder for messages marked for follow-up that triggered the realisation.
Speaking of old habits, there is one that I'll be dropping: setting up loads of rules, allegedly for organising messages. Given that they were the cause of my missing emails quite a few times, it's one more nuisance that needed to be left behind me.