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Category: English Post (Page 25 of 97)

Too minimal? Striking the perfect balance

2017-12-25 / / 0 Comments
I posted a while back about trying to be minimal with my tools and work flow, one of the drastic changes I made was removing Zim wiki and trying to use Libreoffice as a personal wiki.
I tried that for 45 days, even with some advanced tricks like master pages and the extension writer tools, it was clear that Libreoffice wasn’t cut for this.

Couldn’t manage without Zim

I re-read the post I made about Zim and I was sold! How could I even think of letting this awesome software go? It is missing a couple of features and hasn’t officially reached 1.0 yet, but it’s pretty mature and still the best piece of software written for this job (in my opinion of course).

I’m back to using Zim and I couldn’t be happier, I feel like my information is under control and that I can keep track easily of data via an all in one easy to use intuitive interface.

A bit of back and forth

This step back wards and then forwards arises a question: When is it too much to be minimal?
Where is the sweet spot between too much and too little? The risk of running a skeleton structure of tools, and having too much tools to choose from?

In this case the mistake was trying to replace a personal wiki with a word processor, as it turns out they can’t substitute each other despite having some similar features. 

All in one?

It is a minimalist dream to have an all in one software, that can write documents, store information, manage e-mails and write code while keeping a nice user interface.
Perhaps it should be my next research to find this all in one tool?

The web browser issue

I’ve been using Opera mini on the phone for years now, it saved me a ton of money on data fees and I’m grateful for that, but I can’t tolerate what Opera has become lately!
Opera has been plagued with ads and pop ups that it became impossible to use effectively, the once 5 star browser dropped to one star, just because there is no lower rating to give.

For now I’m using Firefox mobile, I figured since Firefox became so good, then the mobile version has got to be good too. It’s not perfect or even near that, but it provides a better experience than Chrome and it’s ad free. I also liked the two browsers using the firefox account and I have my bookmarks and history synced across devices, really useful when being away from my laptop or during long electricity outages.

Which brings me to note taking

Using Telegram’s cloud to write some notes on the fly is really nice, but when writing several topics or separate blog posts. And since Zim doesn’t have an Android version (and not coming anytime soon) and I refuse to have my private notes stored on a file sharing service like DropBox or Google drive, I use a service called Simplenote to sync my notes on the go and then put whatever I need saved into my personal wiki (zim).

What’s the use of being too minimal?

I had an empty phone, with no apps and nothing was being done, even when I installed the apps back the phone didn’t get any slower. So being too minimal and running a skeleton frame didn’t help boost the performance or tweak anything.

I’m still fine tuning my life and chances are I’ll make more changes sooner or later, but until then here is a step I felt like sharing with my readers to keep things updated.

Final words

Life is all about balance, I’m still trying to reach the perfect productive balance,  what about you dear reader? Do you think that your life is minimal or you have too much to handle? Let me know what you think in the comments section below.

A vicious cycle

2017-12-22 / / 0 Comments
Heads up: This post was written for venting purpose only, it doesn’t provide any solutions or suggest them even remotely, and yes; it’s pretty damn depressing.

For the German version of this post, click here.  

I’m still living in Libya – using the term living loosely as usual -, and it seems like all my attempts to get out are failing miserably, so for what’s it worth, I’m sticking here for a while.

Everyday life

It always amazes me, how these people can survive on scraps, now matter how long I ponder this I can’t seem to wrap my head around it, and whoever is ruling seems to be pushing them to the limits, see how long they can survive without security, water, electricity, money and infra structure.
But somehow they are surviving. a bit like the walking dead – if you ever watched that show.
Word breaks out of a clash somewhere, huge lines at gas stations, that crisis ends and soon after a cooking gas crisis begins.
One shortage after the other, one made up crisis after the other. War breaks without notice in this hell hole. It defies reason and defies purpose. Yet that is how the system -and I use the term loosely- works.
If it rained like it would normally do, the streets would drown and mobility becomes very limited, usually combined with long power outages.

Photo credit: Safepath Group

Attempting to apply logic to these people is a sin, life is turning into a paradox inside of a paradox covered in camouflage textile.

The economy

No matter how hard they strike at them, they don’t respond. No matter how high the prices rise or how long the queues get to obtain basic needs, they just get lined up to get whatever for however.
It gets colder, the electricity goes off for days, it gets hotter the electricity also gets off for days on end, for an economy with so much inflation going on I’m surprised that there is a lack of money in the banks!
What are they doing then? Mostly stabbing each other in the back and trying to make the most of a bad situation, raising the prices of goods and services to squeeze every penny possible from people.

Others aren’t as affected by the situation like most

While most Libyans struggle to make ends meet, a few are living the life! Pictures of fancy homes, cars, and lavishing weddings surface on-line (thanks to facebook for this) to brag fortane and social status. With everything being covered in Nuttela chocolate (it’s a big deal here for some reason!).
Libyans always liked to brag in weddings and show that they have as much money as the next guy, even if they have to borrow money in order to do so, but that kind of splurging money is a whole new level. Is it a case of the lipstick effect?

The political scene in Libya

For a country that has a pair of each: Government, parliament, central bank. Everything is going down hill (assuming that the more the merrier of course)

  • Corruption eating away what’s left of Libya’s wealth.
  • No security
  • Local currency is non existent, and for something so rare it’s worthless.
  • No functioning bodies of governance.
  • No power / fuel to operate basic daily needs.

Governments change without the slights audit, in fact most of the former ministers and prime ministers are enjoying a peaceful retirement abroad, and no one checked if they embezzled money before leaving office, as if anyone one cared!
Laws are passed without anyone noticing and the only rule is the lack of rules!
How will a government work right if it’s not audited by the parliament.
How will the parliament asses any thing if the members fail to meet each time?!

The vicious cycle

Sadly most of the problems that are happening now happened before, some happened years ago like the liquidity issue and the high price of the US dollar on the black market, others happen each year like the water ponds caused by rain fall, if these issues are periodical, than they can be easily predicted and solved if there was a government of sort, but no! These issues will continue to occur because that’s how Libya functions.

Finally

Will it be fixed someday? Does anyone have a magic wand to make it all better? Chances are no one does. But if everyone does his part and takes responsibility for their action, then things could improve.

As a young man who grew up and lived all of his life in Libya, I don’t think that it will be fixed in my life time, and I’m not too excited about starting a family in these conditions and hope that my children would have it better.

I really hope that the people of this country wake up, and realize that what are they doing is drowning all of us, because we are on the same boat.

Rocks’n’Diamonds review and download

2017-12-06 / / 0 Comments
It’s been sometime since I’ve posted a game of the week segment! 10 months to be exact!
This time it’s a game that I found by accident as I was looking for another game and it turned out much better than the one I was looking for!
Are you interested? Let’s get going!
I was looking for a game called Supaplex that was popular on DOS operating system, it’s one of the earliest games I played on PC and enjoyed so much, but playing on Dosbox isn’t very comfortable.

 

 

Supaplex Dos game
Supaplex

On the other hand, a much better alternative seems to emerge!

The game is called Rocks’n’Diamonds and it’s a mixture of Supaplex, Prince, Dig dug, Bombermaan, chip’s challenge,  and even fixit Felix (I might blog next about bombermaan so stay tuned).

 

Rocks'n'Diamonds main menu
Rocks’n’Diamonds main menu

 

Info about the game

The game is made by Artsoft Entertainment and it has a rich legacy going back to 1995, the version I downloaded was as recent as October 2017 (Version 4.0.1.0).

 

Rocks'n'Diamonds game play
Rocks’n’Diamonds game play

Gameplay

The game is a puzzle game with increasing difficulty and fast paced gameplay,  the soundtrack is catchy and reminds me of the good old days of Sega mega drive games.

 

Advantages

  • The game is cross platform, meaning you can enjoy it on any system you have: Linux, Mac, Windows and Android! There is even an “unofficial” port for iOS!
  • Free and open source.
  • Great soundtrack, as free games usually have generic midi tracks that sounds like 15 seconds of random keyboard keystrokes on repeat, that’s not the case here!
  • Supports controllers and multi players.

Disadvantages

  • The graphics are true to the retro nature, meaning that anyone who is accustomed to the high end gaming may look down on a game like his, but for a retro gamer (like myself) it’s a real treat!
  • I only tried out the Linux version, and it’s only available in tar.gz, no .DEB or a flatpak available, but other than that the game plays easily and without a hitch.

Cheats

What’s a great game without cheats? This game allows you to play classical games including Supaplex! So I guess it is an alternative for Supaplex after all! All you have to do is point on level sets and hit enter and choose the game you want to play, and in this case it’s supaplex, and several other awesome retro games, feel free to check em out!

 

 

How to add it as a shortcut to plank?

If you are using plank on Ubuntu you know that you can’t add executable files right to the doc, you need to add the icon to the program directory and then add the icon to the dock, here is a really simple way to do it from here. 
It’s a tutorial of a different game, but the steps are the same. 

Download

What are you waiting for? Download this game and have an awesome time with it!

For older version of the game click here. 

Did you like this post? Do you have games like this to suggest to me? Feel free to do that in the comment section below, and have a great Wednesday!

There is an updated version of the game in this post.

When life gives you penguins, you make..?

2017-11-17 / / 0 Comments
It’s been a while since I last blogged, and to be honest this isn’t the post that I’ve been planning to publish, this is a lot more positive than the one I was planning to post!

The gifts under the tree

The open source community has been busy! A lot of major updates were pushed this week for no specific reason to be grouped together like that. And I’ve decided to hold them together to give myself that Christmas morning feeling (that I’ve never experienced that to be honest, but you get my drift).
Without no further delay, let’s look at the gifts:

Linux Kernel 4.14

The first update is a bit hidden under the hood and cannot be seen in action, the charismatic father of the Linux operating system Linus Torvalds said it was a tough update to push (or something), and that it brings many improvements to the system’s overall performance, it’s not like I have the hardware for it, but it’s nice to feel current for once. This update is special because the kernel will be updated for 6 years rather than two, so let’s see how this works out!

Linux Kernel 4.14 LTS
Gotta love them penguins!!


It’s always advised to wait till your distro rolls out the update, but I’m not that kind of guy..

LibreOffice 5.4.3.2

Moving on to a more visible update: Other than the interesting build number, it’s not really a surprise getting a new version of LibreOffice knowing how consistent the document foundation is with delivering updates to users. I didn’t notice anything major since 5.3 (since it was running fine) but it’s nice to update the system every now and then, right?


Good old Libreoffice

Also, the mascot candidates look awesome, let’s hope they settle with something classy.

Now moving to the price pig, fox! Firefox 57

Firefox 57 Quantum

This update was hyped for months by Mozilla as the best Firefox yet, and I had to give it a try to see for myself, especially after reading several positive reviews, and I have to say that I’m impressed with how the new Firefox is working!

Firefox Quantum 57
New logo for a revamped browser

It’s lighter, faster and looks like a million bucks! It is very different yet the same. I feel like I’m using it  for the first time (I’ve been a user for 9 years).
Great job Mozilla.
Minor update: To learn how to fix the password issue after an update, click here.

A cheap jab

Since we are talking open source and that’s something I haven’t done in ages, I would like to say that unity is an ugly interface, and that I’m glad that Ubuntu dumped it and went back to Gnome, the interface that it should have stuck with for the past 7 years. I was gloating saying: “I told you so” to anyone who listened to the topic – not too many listeners in case you wondered-.
I won’t miss you, unity..

I’ll see you in hell, unity!

FDM’s crusade going nowhere?

After posting on itsfoss urging the open source community to vote for the favor of a Linux version of FDM (cool bunch of people by the way), and causing some havoc around the forum, I’ve got an e-mail from one of the admins saying that the “developers” learned of the result and that a Linux version of FDM is no being discussed, It’s been two weeks, maybe I should barge into the meeting with a six pack of beer?

FDM 5 logo
I don’t like how the new FDM looks to be honest.

Dear User!

Thank you for your interest. We have seen all your messages and let the developers know that the Linux version takes now the first position on the vote list. You have written a great article.
The previous week developers were busy adding Firefox support and fixing bugs.
At the moment, they need time to discuss the implementation of the Linux version.

Your FDM Support Center Team,
Regards,
Support Department


I know that this e-mail was just a way to buy some time against the heavy pressure I was applying, after all I did bring the big guns in order to force them to release the source code for Linux, will it work?

How awesome open source is!

And all this comes free of charge, can you believe it? If you can donate then please go and give these honest hard working people a well deserved donation. You can think of this as a public service announcement but I’ve never been good with that stuff anyway.

That is a bad ass looking penguin right there!!

Final words

I wish all my issues were as easy as the FDM thing, sadly I have other matters that need more immediate attention at hand, that I might blog about in a future post (the next one will be in Arabic as usual), so wish me luck there.

Thanks for reading this update, see you around.

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