There are many usability flaws and annoyances with The Gimp. One of the most annoying things about The Gimp is how the scaling and rotation tools work. When you scale or rotate a layer in Gimp it displays the original, untransformed, layer underneath so it’s impossible to correctly scale something so that it fits with a background layer!

For examples of what I mean, check out the following two screencaps:

This can really make a huge difference in how easy it is to get things scaled or rotated just right in an image. As far as I imagine there is no good reason to display the original layer underneath the transformed layer.

For reference, this is in Gimp 2.6.8

Just got back from the movies, after having seen Christopher Nolan’s “Inception”.

It’s a total baller film. Definitely one of the best films of the year!

I have a terrible secret to confess. I have discarded an IBM Model M keyboard before I realized it’s value. It was a hand-me-down from my parents which served me well for several years. At the time I regarded it as an old and worn out keyboard with slightly too heavy keys. I assumed that most other keyboards would have a similar clicky feel and that I should upgrade to something more modern.

Little did I know that the Model M is considered to be one of the best keyboards ever produced. Among keyboard enthusiasts it is highly regarded as a reliable and comfortable keyboard for typists. I have been reading up lately on mechanical keyboards since I’ve been dissatisfied ever after throwing out my poor Model M. This eventually led me to become a huge keyboard nerd.

A typical keyboard today is built with so-called rubber dome switches. These are basically made up of a rubber mat with dimples covering a circuit board. The dimples are depressed by the keys to complete the circuits, and signal key press. Rubber dome type keyboards were able to muscle in on the market due to their low production cost. However, they come with disadvantages. Rubber dome keyboards give no noticeable ‘snap’ when the key is actuated, have next to no audible feedback and have a low life expectancy.

Some may prefer having a quieter keyboard, most however prefer keyboards that give a greater felt feedback from key presses. It is important for typists to feel when the key has actually been activated.

Since I grew up with IBM Model M buckling spring switches (they had them at my school too) I’ve come to expect keyboards to be clicky. When the keys are too soft, it becomes hard for me to type on. Some rubber dome keyboards are better than others, but mostly I’ve felt that there is something lacking with the keyboards I’ve had since my poor Model M.

After reviewing most information I could extract on some of the more easily available mechanical keyboards last week I made my pick. Yesterday I received in the post my brand new Filco Majestouch keyboard — a keyboard with mechanical key switches of type Cherry MX Blue. The Cherry switches are as clicky as I want them to be, have a very high expected lifetime and feel sturdy under my fingers. I am absolutely in love with this keyboard. With the softer keys than the Model M it’s the best keyboard I’ve used so far. I love the sound of just sitting and typing. It feels like I could type endlessly with this keyboard!

Further reading:
IBM Model M
Switch Mechanisms etc.
More on Mechanical Keyboards

So I’ve been thinking (I know, I amaze myself sometimes!) and you know how most web comics have their strip on the front page and there are always four or five links close to the strip: first, previous, next, last and archive. The archive link isn’t always grouped with the other navigation links but it’s always there, somewhere.

So here’s what I was thinking: why do web comics even have the “first” link? How many times is a reader going to want to click it? Once, maybe. And once you’ve read the first strip you usually don’t want to read it again, while you might want to use the “latest” link several times since heck it doesn’t always point to the same fucking page.

Even if I want to read the first strip of a web comic, I’ll often go to the archive just because it’s convenient and it means I don’t have to go through the strips in chronological order to check out some random strips.

In conclusion, my opinion is that having a “first” link on a web comic is fucking stupid. Put the archive link in it’s place.

I’ve been working on an Eclipse plug-in for my work-in-progress C compiler. So far, it’s got syntax highlighting, occurrence marking, folding, error and warning markers. Next thing to add will be content assist :)

I wrote a while ago about WordPress and how it did not give the user easy access to update information before upgrading.

I am a really big fan of FOSS (Free & Open Source Software), still it might seem to those who’ve read some of the posts I write here like I’m only keen to find flaws in other projects. To prove that I’m not just a whiny bitch who likes to nit-pick on Open Source, and that I actually want to contribute, I submitted a bug report to WordPress and gave them a patch with something that seemed to work.

I confess that I do not understand the technical details here but the clever WordPress devs were able to address my complaint in a pretty elegant way without adding my patch.

It feels like I have contributed in a real way to a project that means a lot to me, and this feels good.

Here is my bug report for those interested.