The killer apps of academia via iGeneration

Zack Whittaker’s iGeneration blog has quickly become a must-read. His post on The Killer Apps of Academia is well worth bookmarking for future reference.

He mentions quite a few apps I use every day, from the obvious (Firefox, OpenOffice) to the less-so (Notepad++, Audacity).

Among the ones I hadn’t heard of but want to try immediately are LogMeIn Free, which, if the description is correct, is like GoToMyPC, letting you control a Windows PC from a remote location, but without the costs involved. There is a “Pro” version with more features, but the fact that there even is a free version warms my cockles considerably.

Filezilla and Notepad++ working together for a fully FOSS Windows FTP solution

I’m a simple guy.

In Windows, I used to use Internet Explorer 6 as my FTP client. Yep, you can do that.

And when I installed IE7 after much kicking and a little screaming, I was dismayed to learn that I lost my ability to use the Web browser and a drag-and-drop, fully graphical, albeit extremely simple FTP client.

I quickly learned that the Windows file browser, which I get to by going to Start — My Computer (since I’m locked out of My Network Places by my paranoid sysadmin) and enter the FTP address as ftp://10.10.10.10 (that’s a fake, not-real address for those who are wondering), and then do my FTP work just as I did in IE6.

And yes, I’ve tried the FTP plugin for Firefox.

I needed a real FTP client for Windows.

I tried a few that weren’t free, open-source applications. They included CuteFTP and another I can’t remember.

But I’m not happy with 30-day trials, and why pay for an app when you can use FOSS?

I finally downloaded Filezilla, which has FTP clients for Windows, Mac and Linux.

If you’ve been reading this blog for even a little while, you know I love apps that go across as many platforms as possible.

So far it works great. I set Notepad++ as my default editor, and I’ve already edited my first file on the FTP server.

So I have a fully FOSS FTP solution in Windows, and I’m happy.

P.S. In Ubuntu and Debian, I just use gFTP, which for some reason I also remember using in Slackware.

Geany works great in Windows … but printed output looks horrible

I’ve been all excited about how well the Geany text editor has been working in Windows.

But I never even tried to print a text file with Geany in Windows.

Until now.

First it did some kind of shell command. I don’t have access to my shell, per my lovely employer, so that didn’t work.

When I installed Geany, I used the “nogtk” version because I already had the GTK+ runtime libraries as a result of installing the GIMP image editor on a previous occasion.

So I reinstalled Geany with new GTK+ libraries. Then I went into the Geany preferences and turned on GTK printing.

It works.

But it looks HORRIBLE.

Each and every letter is separated by two lines in various stages of thickness.

Ugly. Horrible.

I wonder if there’s a fix for this.

As it is, I had to return to Notepad++ just to print a text file.

So … it’s back to Notepad++.

I’m a fickle user of applications and operating systems. If something doesn’t work for me, I’ll switch things up in a minute.

Daily News online leader Ryan Garfat uses EditPlus, which is NOT a free, open-source program, but which does edit HTML exceptionally well. It offers a 30-day trial, then costs $35 for a single user.

But y’all know me. I want FOSS.

So does anybody out there have a favorite free, open-source text editor for Windows?

Geany works great in Windows … but printed output looks horrible

I’ve been all excited about how well the Geany text editor has been working in Windows.

But I never even tried to print a text file with Geany in Windows.

Until now.

First it did some kind of shell command. I don’t have access to my shell, per my lovely employer, so that didn’t work.

When I installed Geany, I used the “nogtk” version because I already had the GTK+ runtime libraries as a result of installing the GIMP image editor on a previous occasion.

So I reinstalled Geany with new GTK+ libraries. Then I went into the Geany preferences and turned on GTK printing.

It works.

But it looks HORRIBLE.

Each and every letter is separated by two lines in various stages of thickness.

Ugly. Horrible.

I wonder if there’s a fix for this.

As it is, I had to return to Notepad++ just to print a text file.

So … it’s back to Notepad++.

I’m a fickle user of applications and operating systems. If something doesn’t work for me, I’ll switch things up in a minute.

Daily News online leader Ryan Garfat uses EditPlus, which is NOT a free, open-source program, but which does edit HTML exceptionally well. It offers a 30-day trial, then costs $35 for a single user.

But y’all know me. I want FOSS.

So does anybody out there have a favorite free, open-source text editor for Windows?

One thing I wish Geany could do

I’m back using the Geany text editor in Windows. I also use it in OpenBSD and in Linux.

I like applications that I can use across platforms. Things like Firefox, OpenOffice, Abiword, Pidgin, and other too numerous to name make life easier for those of us who use three or more different operating systems. The apps also showcase free, open-source software for those who are using proprietary operating systems and give them a reason to explore FOSS further, perhaps even trying something like Linux.

If you learn to love a bunch of free applications, why not try the OS that is just as free?

Anyway, I have a lot of requirements for a text editor, as I’m sure do most of us who use them heavily.

One thing that Geany doesn’t do that I need is an easy way to rename files. It’s easy enough in a Unix-like shell, or in the finder in Windows, OS X or anything else, to change a file name, but I like to be able to change the name of a file right in the text editor.

Sure, you could always do a “save as” and have the old file with the old name and a new file with the new name, but I like to save steps and have the application do it all for me.

EditPadLite, which isn’t FOSS, has a “Rename/Move” function. I don’t believe that Notepad++ has it, either.

At any rate, my life would be that much more complete if Geany had a “rename file” feature.

Now that I’ve got that off my chest, it’s back to work.

I’m back to using the Geany text editor in Windows

(Click for a larger screenshot of Geany for Windows)

After having problems with line spacing a couple of versions ago in the Windows build of the Geany text editor, I moved over to Notepad++.

While Notepad++ is a nice applications, I prefer Geany because I also use it in Linux and OpenBSD (especially in OpenBSD, where it’s my default editor in X).

But the line-spacing problem was killing me. Using the default Windows linefeeds, I kept getting extra lines in my text files, which was a problem when it came to copy/pasting my text.

Today I downloaded the latest version of Geany for Windows, and the linefeed problem seems to have gone away. I looked in the release notes for the past two versions, and I didn’t seen any reference to the problem, but the fact that I can now use Geany in Windows means that Notepad++ will fade to the background for awhile.

I don’t use Geany to write hard-core code. I mostly just run it for general writing and a bit of text cleanup and HTML coding. There are probably better editors for heavy HTML coding, and that’s something I’ll have to look into.

To run Geany in Windows, you need the GTK+ runtime libraries. If you don’t already have them, and chances are if you are unsure, you probably don’t, download the version of Geany that includes them.

If you do have GTK+ — and I do because I installed it along with the GIMP image editor — use the “nogtk” version.

For Linux and BSDs, Geany is usually available as a package.

Go here for all info on Geany for Windows and Unix-like OSes.

I’ll be using Geany in Windows rather heavily over the next week or so, and I’ll write about it again in the near future.

Notepad++ quick update — testing my latest Windows text editor … and a tribute to Jerry Pournelle and Byte magazine

Notepad++ is working out pretty well so far. The latest Windows text editor in my quest for a better, freer text-editing experience, Notepad++ is under the GPL license, so it’s free and open-source. It’s also not a port of a Linux/Unix editor like Geany, and the annoying Geany bug — in which extra linefeeds (or carriage returns?) are inserted in Windows (CR/LF) formatted text files — is thankfully not present in Notepad++.

In fact, Notepad++ allows you to set whether you want your text files to be in Windows (CR/LF), Unix (LF) or Mac (CR???) format. Since the files look the way I want (and cut/paste that way) in the default Windows format, I’m pretty happy. I like the way you can change the case of letters — ctrl-U for lower-case, ctrl-shift-U for upper. I’ll have to get used to it, because every other program I use does it a different way.

The search/replace function in Notepad++ is very good. It even keeps your previous search/replace words in a drop down so you can use them again in the session. I haven’t yet figured out how to search for text and replace it with a carriage return/linefeed, but if I figure that one out, Notepad++ will become a must-have editor on my Windows box.

Notepad++ seems to remember the last directory I saved to, and all newly created files default to that directory. But I don’t think it remembers the directory from the last time the program ran. EditPad Lite does remember, and it’s a great help. I wouldn’t be opposed to setting my “home” directory manually, but I’m not sure this can be done. If using the Notepad++ directory for files causes it to open to the same directory every time, that’s a small sacrifice for me to make; I generally store all of my text files in one place, and it doesn’t matter where that place is (though it’s nice to be able to choose it in advance, though navigating to my text-file directory once per day isn’t an insurmountable hardship).

Notepad++ remembers the last eight files I’ve opened, and they’re available for reopening in the File menu. I think I can set it to remember more. For me, the more the better.

Why a text editor? I remember Jerry Pournelle, prolific science-fiction writer and long-winded columnist for Byte magazine way, way back in the day talking about the pre-IBM-PC machines he had set up for word processing in what he called (and still calls) Chaos Manor, and all the technical specs, trials and tribulations he went through. He’s definitely an inspiration for this blog and its style, although I’ve never quite thought of it that way until now. (I used to love Byte back in the ’80s.) Pournelle always talked about text editors, and at the time, I had no idea what a “text editor” was. I knew what a word processor was, but it took awhile for the concept of a text editor and what it can do to sink in.

And then came vi. Vi’s great when it’s the only game in town, as it was on the UC Santa Cruz timeshare Unix box I had an account on in the late ’80s. Today I can fake it in vi, but I’m no master.

I still use word processors occasionally — usually AbiWord, sometimes OpenOffice, occasionally MS Word on the Mac. But more and more — with all the Web work I do — text editors are quicker, more flexible, faster — and most importantly, they give you clean ASCII output that isn’t mucked up with extra crap.

End note: I Googled Jerry Pournelle to see if I was spelling his name right. I’m glad to see his Web site, which I’m going to explore at greater length at my earliest opportunity.

Windows does something right

I’ve been changing text editors in Windows like some people change underwear — clean people that is.

And every time I try a new one, I open a text file and choose the new application. Windows remembers what I chose the last time, and that is presented as the first choice when I open a new text file. I’ve gone from EdiPad Lite to Geany to Notepad++, and I appreciate Windows remembering the last text editor I’ve used. I get the same treatment with .doc files, which I sometimes open with OpenOffice but usually go quick-and-dirty with AbiWord.

Anyhow, it’s a nice feature in Windows, this remembering the last app I used in a given category. Nice to hear me say something nice about Windows, don’t you think?

Next week’s new Windows text editor: PSPad

In search of more Windows text editors, I started here, which led me to PSPad, which I will try next week. There’s more info at PSPad’s English-language site. I’ve just learned that PSPad was created by Jan Fiala of the Czech Republic.

While Notepad++ is under the GNU GPL license, I think PSPad is distributed as “freeware,” with a request for donations. You don’t have to pay, but I don’t think you get the source code, either. I can’t argue with “free.”

Notepad++, the first session

Notepad++ is doing pretty well. But I have two problems: First, I don’t see a function for renaming files. I prefer not to “save as” sometimes and instead change a file’s name. Two, when creating a file, I had a little trouble naming it. I wanted the .txt extension to be added automatically, and for some reason my file had .txt in the name and the extension. The latter could be operator error, the former … well, I’ll have to work on it.

However, lack of a “rename” function is not a deal-breaker.