Tweet
Originally posted by kk:
I like it when I get free programs that no one's going to use, and I end up making really awesome things with them...
In example: the VLC media player, GIMP photo editor, and now, Wax 2.0 video editor...it's just amazing what you can do with cheap or free programs...
I like it when I get free programs that no one's going to use, and I end up making really awesome things with them...
In example: the VLC media player, GIMP photo editor, and now, Wax 2.0 video editor...it's just amazing what you can do with cheap or free programs...
Really I do recommend to people to look into FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) when there are things they're looking for. They do have the advantage of being free, but also of being community driven more than commercial software. While this may not matter to you now or ever, it is something in favor. Gimp is a nice photoshop equivalent (though it generally doesn't have the same gui, which can irritate people), firefox is a web browser which has a lot of advantages over IE at least (though I am interested in looking at Google Chrome when it becomes available for linux). Depending on the person linux can be a much better OS than windows is. If someone considers themselves geeky they may want to try a live cd of one of the more well known linux distros because there are some really nice things such as the repositories. Having a repository of "I can look for software which fullfills what I need it to do and install it automatically rather than search on the web" is extremely convenient. I'd say anything with either KDE or gnome as a window manager would probably not be hard to figure out how to use as a switch from windows. Ubuntu defaults to gnome and is generally described as looking like a mac (though it doesn't have a dock).
Of course I've been trying not to just go and start geeking out, because people were talking about open source stuff and wanting to pull focus onto people really do use this and it is really a good alternative. But its just so tempting along with it to be like, and you can do crazy stuff like use wmii or another tiling window manager, or not even load up X. I like my command line
. Though I at least use firefox as a primary browser unlike my boyfriend who generally uses links2 or there are even the people who go to lynx, but that's beside the point. And then there's doing things like writing up homework in LaTeX, which is actually something which professors think of you highly if you do so just for that depending on the field you'd be looking to go into it may be worth learning. I've had professors remember me because of how I handed in my homework and commented on it.
And because I really felt like geeking out, I'll just mention that editor wars are silly and for those few who know the big editors, that people find it hilarious that I started using vim because I couldn't figure out how to save in emacs, and thus I became a vim user.
--
Sorry about the computer geekery, I had been fighting it all day and got it not completely ridiculous at least...maybe. I stuck with a small subset which is actually related to my life.
Anyways to go onto talking about me rather than random computer stuff, am on break now, sorta. Sorta because its undergrad break but one of my classes is a grad class so its running anyways. We got a homework assignment today which is almost completely a logic-research like assignment, of figure out the class of things such that this is true and prove it to be true. It makes me happy though it'll be a really hard assignment.
My other classes didn't go poorly. I completely bombed the final in my Analysis of Algorithms class, but the professor was a very hard one and am used to math classes so somehow pulled off a B anyways. I don't think I deserved one. My other class was OSes which I currently have a C in (though he said I did very well on the final) because of only getting half credit on the final project. This was because of reasons external to the class and he's saying I can finish and give a verbal report to him and he'd adjust my grade to what it would have been if I had the project at that point in the first place. Or maybe slightly below, I dunno, but it'd move up to a B and if it somehow got to an A that'd be nice but I'd be fine with a B in a programming heavy class. This was the class which involved reading code in the linux kernel and writing kernel space code as well as userspace code. Was interesting but was a hard class especially for me as I'm not a programmer. But I think it sorta completed its job of making me more comfortable coding.
Next term is going to be painful. A full load is 3 classes (for 7 weeks), I'm going to be taking 3 classes, plus a grad class (those are 14 weeks long), plus auditing another undergrad class. And two of the classes I'm taking are ones I'm not going to be good at but are required (I really don't want to take a stats class but its required
) Oh and figuring out two projects for the second half of the year. It seems like a lot of people I'm talking to are going to have bad terms. The 4 grad classes, 1 undergrad class, 1 project worth 1 undergrad class, and finishing an incomplete I think wins (and to think I'm dating the person...). Hmm, what else. I almost went and visited a group of people off irc, didn't end up doing so though because of end of term stuff. Would have been interesting.
It's being creepy around here lately, the part of the city near campus is having way more violent crime than usual, like to the point where this part was being worse than where is usually worst in the city. Haven't known anyone to get injured or even mugged, but its creepy to know. But they increased police force a lot. I've been basically banned from walking anywhere alone at night, which doesn't bother me. Especially not me going out with my computer. If we were getting food and I wanted to go back to the apartment and nobody else was going back I go up to campus and then to the apartment from there because its a safer route and that way I'm walking most of the way with a 6'4" male, not just being a 5'2" female with a very expensive computer. Its amusing to think about he's been worried before walking down the street that there were people following us so he swung his computer off his back and onto his arm to make it clear that if they were to try to do anything he had something which could be swung at them immediately and not hurt the computer.
I've been writing this for a while, waiting for boyfriend to get out of class, but I've run out of things to say right now so I think I'll post before I get to rambling even more.
I had a BLAST!!
Yay!
Comment