CalvinT.com

A few weeks ago, my good old friend Dave (Emphasis on "old"), was bragging about how Textmate for the Mac was such an awesome editor that could do fancy things like write half your code for you, cutting your development time down drastically.

I thought nothing of it. So what if I get carpal tunnel syndrome. By the time that happens I'll be paying smarter, younger people to write code for me. :) Secretly though, I was jealous. Why do Mac users get to have all the cool stuff?

Anyway, I suppressed my feelings of inadequacy and continued with the repetitive stress, busily getting my company ready for launch this fall. As is usually the case, my chi lead me to a Linux alternative. In the process of researching something else, I stumbled upon instructions for turning my Gnome text editor "gedit" into a more powerful development tool. The "snippets" plug-in was there the whole time, waiting to save me keystrokes. All I had to do was turn it on.

Edit > Preferences > Plugins Tab

Check the snippets box and also the File Browser Pane for good measure. You'll have to have gedit and the plugins package installed of course.

Now you'll have fast access to common functions for a wide variety of programming languages. Plus you can add your own snippets for common functions and code you use in your work.

If anyone has a set of Drupal 5.x or 6.x snippets for gedit I'd love to hear from you. Of course, I'll be working on my own and when I have a decent set, I'll post it here.

My clients thought I was fast before! Wait till they get a load of me now. :D

Happy(er) coding.

I finally updated my Linux machine to Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.

Jumped online with Firefox 3 and the speed difference is insane! I'm not sure if it's a combination of the new Ubuntu under the hood or just the upgrade from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3 but complex sites that used to take maybe 8 seconds to load every element and javascript or flash are popping into existence in 2 or 3 seconds.

So it WASN'T a crappy internet connection after all!

I don't expect to really be affected too much by the Ubuntu update but if anything does make me take notice, I'll post it here. Because I should probably start using this site for something....

Check out the old and the new Windows ad.

Windows 1.0

Yes that's Steve Balmer acting like a jack-ass.

Windows.... Cake???

Yes that's Jerry Seinfeld AND Bill Gates acting like jack-asses.

If someone wants to explain this commercial please feel free.

George Carlin - The Planet Is Fine

My good old friend, (emphasis on the old :), is heading up a cool project AND challenging the system at the same time. He's collaborating with artists and writers from around the world to produce an independent comic with a twist.

I think it's cool. I have the first issue in my hot little hands and I see potential. If you're into comics, and RPGs, you might like to check this out on the ground floor so 10 years from now you can say, I was there in the beginning.

Check it out. Support it if you like it.

Get your own banner and be a 14u champion too! Copy and paste the code below to your website, blog, facebook, or anywhere you can put HTML!

<a href = "http://14ucomics.net" title = "14ucomics.net" target = "_blank"><img style = "padding: 5px;" src = "http://14ucomics.net/Images/Champion.png" alt = "14ucomics.net" title = "14ucomics.net" /></a>

I have more thoughts on this topic than I have time to write at the moment.

I'm busy working on my new venture, very hard at work, when I get an email from my friend Dave.

I have a young daughter so this vid was extra cute to me. And it's about StarWars so lets take a quick break and check it out.