DIVID Technology Riffraff & Whatnot

Found an interesting review of three mechanical keyboards from the perspective of a seasoned writer, and how he quickly becomes an enthusiast. More of this can be found if you look for it, but I wanted to share this for any of you who haven’t tried a clicky keyboard. He outlines his discovery and likes/dislikes, and includes one of my favorite keyboards, the AEKII.

More: Shawn Blanc’s Review

For early adopters that want to test webkit2 without upgrading OS X 10.7 Lion developer preview, here’s a way to build it from source and run it from the webkit nightly app. Before we continue, a little background on webkit2, from macrumors:

“Starting in Mac OS X Lion, we’ve learned that Apple has started utilizing WebKit2 in their Safari web browser. The advanced version of Apple’s Webkit engine was first announced in April of 2010. WebKit2 is described as a new API layer for WebKit that offers both speed and security improvements:

WebKit2 is a new API layer for WebKit designed from the ground up to support a split process model, where the web content (JavaScript, HTML, layout, etc) lives in a separate process from the application UI. This model is very similar to what Google Chrome offers, with the major difference being that we have built the process split model directly into the framework, allowing other clients of WebKit to use it.

For the end user, the result should be a faster and more stable browsing experience. If a webpage crashes or hangs, only that single tab is affected rather than the whole browser. Subjective reports from early end users have indicated that the new Safari seems to run smoother.”

Before we start, a little disclaimer. This build will not show the new 10.7 UI changes that feature multi-touch and disappearing scrollbars, zoom to text, etc. because those are handled in the application interface and probably rely on frameworks only available in the developer preview version of Lion. As far as I can tell, downloading a nightly binary is the same as building it from source, but this is just for those who want to do it anyway.

1.) Download the standard webkit nightly build as an application. (you can stop here, or go on to build from source and we’ll use this application to run the compiled result)

2.) Run this in terminal, or use an SVN client. “svn checkout http://svn.webkit.org/repository/webkit/trunk WebKit”

3.) Run the “build-webkit” script, which builds webkit2 by default: “./WebKit/Tools/Scripts/build-webkit” —This takes a while

4.) Make an Automator action, choose “run shell script”, paste this code, and save as an application: “

#!/bin/sh
~/webkit2/WebKit/Tools/Scripts/run-webkit-app /Applications/Webkit.app
exit 0

5.) Enjoy the fruits of your compute cycles. You can verify it worked by checking your user agent string at a site like http://whatismyuseragent.dotdoh.com/

Everyone does this, but I’m not seeing MY favorites out there, so here goes. You’ll have to fetch the details yourself, I’m lazy today. Oh ok, if you insist.

Isolator, Nocturne, Quicksilver, Pathfinder, Transmit, Coda, Adium, Fluid, Motion, iStat, Blitz, Times, Bodega, Writeroom, VMware, and Automator is great too, but that’s a given. I also would mention the Webkit backend and all of unix, but that wouldn’t really be considered an app, but I digress. I’m sure I left several out, but these are the suprisingly enjoyable examples to remember.

For some time now, script kiddies have been able to read history from browsers by reading visited links. http://wtikay.com/docs/details.html This is where I found the best background information. http://startpanic.com/ Can tell you if you are affected. So I whipped up a userscript for that, should work in Firefox, Safari, and Chrome.

Download the userscript here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/77120

Posted here.

Hack day is in full swing after some interesting API announcements yesterday including “user streams” that allow location related twitter information to be run in realtime. Looks like fun.

Friend got an evo and showed me live 4g streaming on Qik, so I had to try it. This is from an original iPhone on wifi: http://qik.com/video/6959319

Meet Peerless

This model is the FKB-4725 in an AT layout with no super keys, with the usual leds embedded in certain keys. Recently I gave it a DIN5 to USB conversion internally, because there’s no n-key rollover on this series. Mine was made sometime between 88 and 94 according to some clues inside the case. I didn’t take to the warm grey look so it’s got a few coats of drab and black. Not bad for $12. See below what’s replaced this.

Svelte AEKII

A friend gave me a 20 year old Apple Extended II in the box. This is a really nice keyboard. Much faster to type on, quieter but more satisfying mechanism and looks much better. Also, I don’t have to do any key remapping like I do with the AT keyboards. This is a keeper.

Latest: Datadesk

This one is an ergo model, probably the first of it’s kind, called the SmartBoard. Uses clicky white Alps switches, which are more expressive as my son’s similar Littlefingers keyboard. Seems to be a good layout with the exception of the += key.

Danube posted this on their blog, it’s got a bit of insight to clarify how scrum works for planning software projects.

http://blogs.danube.com/scrum-is-not-something-“it-does”

Found a nice site today called quietube.com that inspired me to write a short userscript for skipping all the content on youtube except for the main video. Uploaded to userscripts.org here.