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I installed Ubuntu on my desktop again since I felt like desktop Linux was getting much closer to a state where I’d be willing to make the switch. My experience has been so much better than previous Gentoo and Ubuntu installs (even my wireless worked out of the box!) but there were still a few critical things I had to fix myself.

1. Fonts
Fonts in Linux look like crap by default. The Sharp Fonts tutorial solved all my ugly font problems in about 5 minutes. This is a problem I never actually solved the other times I tried Linux on the desktop. Now pages in Firefox look just like they would in Windows Firefox (crical for web development!). I realize that Microsoft won’t let anyone repackage and redistribute their fonts, but someone could still automate the Sharp Fonts tutorial and distribute the script with the default installation.

2. Mouse buttons
I have a Microsoft Habu mouse with buttons on the side that I like to use as forward/back buttons while browsing. Of course these didn’t work with the default xorg config but this tutorial on the Gentoo Wiki had the exact config I needed! Debugging this yourself can take a long, long time.

3. Sound
It turns out that Linux or Ubuntu aren’t really to blame for my sound issues. The Sound Blaster X-Fi card I have just has really bad Linux support. Is Creative good at making drivers for any OS? Luckily the onboard sound on my motherboard (Asus M2N32-SLI) works just fine and is supported by ALSA and OSS.

4. Firefox’s backspace action
I hadn’t realized this before, but I hit backspace all the time in Firefox to navigate back. I’m not sure why this is disabled in the default install, but it’s easily switched in about:config by setting the browser.backspace_action preference to 0.

Some other thoughts about the switch…

• IEs 4 Linux - testing stuff in IE6 is now really easy! I’m not able to test IE7 without booting a VM, but luckily it behaves well most of the time.
• Thunderbird works much better with IMAP than I expected it to.
• I was hoping gedit would be more like Textmate than it is. This tutorial helps a lot, but I can’t find a way to get the keybinds to be the same. At the very least, I’d like emacs-style keybinds in gedit.

I’ve also been using Ubuntu as the OS on my new VPS from VPSLink.com which is hosting this site. More on them in the future…

I’ve been very happy with my iPhone (writeup to come later) but had some trouble figuring out how to convert movies to its native format in an easy way. Here’s what I’ve found out;

• The iPhone’s resolution is 320×480 at 160ppi.
• The video formats are MP4 and H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10).
• On the Mac and PC, HandBrake can rip DVDs to mp4 format.
• On the PC, XviD4PSP can convert DivX and XviD files to mp4 format (I just used the “iPod Video 640″ option) as well as join files together.

I don’t know much about video formats, aspect ratios, or encoding, but all the videos I’ve converted so far play on the iPhone and look great!

After using the old Microsoft Intellimouse mice for years no other mouse ever seemed as good. I tried a number of Logitech and other Microsoft mice but they always had small side buttons, a crappy scrollwheel, or were pathetically small. Unfortunately, the newer versions of the Intellimouse have poor reviews and strange ergonomics.

Last weekend I picked up the new(ish) Microsoft Habu mouse at Fry’s and was back again today buying a second one for my desktop at home. The design is very similar to the Intellimouse v2 and it looks great. It costs $60, but even if it lasts for half the 7 years that my old Intellimouse did I’ll consider it money well spent.

While ‘driving’ by the Plaxo office using the new Street View in Google Maps I noticed that my car is visible in the parking lot (it’s the red wagon behind the lamp post in the center). Pretty cool! I don’t have any privacy concerns about this feature like some other people do. Assuming the images are kept up to date it’ll be very helpful when getting directions in confusing areas. It’s also fun to look at all the funny images people have found.

…a lot has happened!

• Went to Jump Sky High with a bunch of people from Plaxo. It’s basically 3 huge trampoline rooms and a foam pit that you get to play around on for $9/hr. We found it odd that you can only do flips on the trampolines and off the walls, but not into the foam pit. It only took a little practice before I could do decent back flips as well as flips off the trampoline walls. Maybe this summer I’ll learn to do them off any wall…
• Finished school this past Thursday and it feels great! In a few days I’m flying home for graduation which is on Sunday. Still waiting for the final grades to roll in.
• Started using Amazon S3 along with JungleDisk and am enjoying it so far. Had Explorer lock up a few times when accessing the mounted drive in Windows but other than that it has been stable. Even though I have 2 300gb drives in mirrored raid in my desktop it feels good to have a remote backup of certain things. Losing data really sucks.
• Got a new 50-200mm lens for my camera and have been able to take some cool macro shots. Since 50mm still feels zoomed in I’m sure I’ll be switching to the 18-55mm lens that came with the camera for larger shots.
• Finally signed up for Twitter and am enjoying Twitterific on my mac. Hopefully I can remember to update it reasonably often (I’m terrible with AIM away messages).
• Been working on the new WAP for Plaxo (now at m.plaxo.com!) and using it almost daily. If my phone had a button to jump to a specific WAP site I’m sure I’d use it even more.
• Pre-ordered Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and am remaining optimistic about its release date and ability to deliver good gameplay. I hope I’m not let down!