Aqeel Zafar

After searching for a long time for a good, beautiful, easy to configure dock for Linux that can also work without compositing effects, I had finally given up, when I found out that Gnome-Do, my favorite application launcher, is going to feature a dock in it’s next release. Today, I downloaded and installed PPA packages for Ubuntu and gave Gnome Do’s docky a try.

Docky is basically a special theme of Gnome-do, to access it, you have to go in Gnome-Do Preferences -> Appearance and change it’s Theme to docky. As soon as you select docky, you will notice a huge dock bar appear at the bottom of your screen. By default it shows your most used applications. If you don’t like it’s size, just take your mouse pointer to it’s vertical border and it will change into resize pointer, you can then drag it away from screen border to increase the size, and towards the screen border to decrease the size.

Adding and removing icons from dock is as easy as dragging an item on the dock or dragging it away, depending on you are adding or removing. Another way to add applications to dock is search for them using Gnome-Do and press the small plus sign below it. You can also right click and remove applications from it.

Docky also replaces usual task bar, though it is bit lacking in this front for now, but it is to be expected, as it’s still alpha quality. Currently, docky doesn’t provide a way to access different windows of same application, that is, even if you have 6 firefox windows open, it will show them as one.

Docky can use all plugins for Gnome-do, though there aren’t any docky specific plugins available yet (like start menu, time, systray etc.), but I am sure community will start contributing soon enough. If you are looking for a nice dock yourself, give it a try, though beware it’s still in it’s alpha quality so you might experience some crashes or unexpected behaviour, if that’s the case you should wait for it’s final release.

Read more about docky at it’s gnome do wiki.

Aqeel Linux dock, docky, gnome-do

Few months ago, I wrote about different keyboard layouts and planned to switch to Colemak. I wasn’t able to completely switch, mainly because I am a programmer, and wasn’t able to give Colemak enough time. I tried it couple of times but postponed complete switching.

Couple of weeks ago I tried Colemak again, but this time I went cold turkey. The best way to start Colemak is to download typing lessons from it’s site and try first few lessons (they recommend going through first three lessons in one sitting). It helps get the hang of new layout.

Learning a new layout when you are already used to one is not very easy. Just as everyone had told me, first few days felt like walking thorough mud, my fingers were not able to type at the speed my mind and body was used to, it had that dream like effect where you are moving in slow-motion and can’t move fast no matter how hard you try. Don’t let me discourage you though, as that’s just for first few days, after that your fingers and mind start getting used to new layout and it becomes easier. My typing speed with Colemak is now almost equal to what it was QWERTY (though I make lots of typos at that speed, so, I go bit slower) and my speed and efficiency is still increasing.

It could be just a psychological effect but it feels my hands are less strained than how they were with QWERTY. Even though it’s a great layout and I will highly recommend it to everyone,  but switching layout is just not for everyone. There are many people who type by looking at the keys, it won’t help them much, similarly, those people who don’t type much, the incentive of learning new layout is very low for them. But anyone who is using QWERTY, types a lot, or have ever complained about RSI, should definitely give it a try.

Aqeel General colemak, keyboard layouts, qwerty

Today I am releasing version 0.2 of Aqwaal.

At user’s end it looks pretty much same as 0.1 version, only big difference in this version is that now you can edit / delete author name, quote source and tags.

Though, now that basic structure is there, plan is to make version 0.3 actually usable for anyone who might want to install it. Which means creating a nice looking layout / theme, making infrastructure more secure and stable, adding basic search etc.

Visit Aqwaal project page to download the latest version (or click here for direct download). Any comments or feedback will be most welcome.

Aqeel General aqwaal, projects

Got this email today, with cartoons from Brazillian cartoonist condemning Israel’s attacks on Gaza. They aren’t recent but what they show is still happening.

Disclaimer: If you believe these images violate copyrights, please let me know.

Read more…

Aqeel General cartoons, gaza, israel, palestine