Beckism.com

And now, without advance warning, I have launched a new blog! Tagamac focuses on Mac tagging software and generally exploring the phenomenon of tagging. I noticed several months ago that there is a serious dearth of easily digestible information about tagging online, and since I’m into tagging software, I figured I would try to rectify that situation.

Check it out if you enjoy tags, and particularly if you enjoy Mac software! I’m hoping to publish general articles about tagging, track tagging software updates, and review Mac tagging software.

Let me just say that Transmit 3 from Panic Software is a wonderful program, and my current favorite FTP program. The one thing that has been marring its beauty for me was my inability to navigate through directories or transfer files using the keyboard.

I’m a big fan of keyboard navigation. I’m still something of a novice at it in many ways, but now that I’m doing a lot more coding I’ve been forced to find the hotkeys and shortcuts that I didn’t bother to learn before (thank goodness for KeyCue). In fact, the only thing really standing in my way when it came to Website Coding Keyboard Nirvana was my reliance on the mouse in Transmit.

But it finally pissed me off so bad that I took the time to sit down and whang at my keyboard until I hit something that worked.

Here’s the the secret: cmd-↓ (command + down arrow). This one simple shortcut transfers files, opens directories, and improves your chances with beautiful women. It really is a miracle worker.

Now perhaps for the hard-core keyboard navigators among us this shortcut is all too obvious. It turns out that it’s an Apple standard; cmd-↑ and cmd-↓ can also be used to navigate through the Finder. I’m sure the real mice-burners are laughing at me, but it just wasn’t a shortcut that I was familiar with. I’m used to using cmd-O in the Finder, and to be honest I’ve never taken the time to learn its keyboard navigation secrets because I got hooked on Path Finder’s excellent shelf system before I started really making an effort to navigate using only the keyboard.

In any case, when I went looking for the shortcut in Fetch I discovered what is possibly the worst decision next to leaving any reference to the shortcut out of the program entirely: the only place where I can find it mentioned is in the preferences.

That’s right. It’s not in the documentation. It’s not in the menus. It’s in ten point font in the preferences. I ask you: who looks in the preferences for a keyboard shortcut? Sure, if the program allows you to create your own (Transmit doesn’t). But normally? Panic, where’s the excellent interface love that is so evident throughout the rest of the program?

In any case, I can at last navigate through Transmit without leaving the keyboard, which, despite my recent trackball purchase, is bound to make my wrists that much happier, not to mention speeding things up.

Now if only there were a standard shortcut for switching between tabs, my life would truly be perfect.

The reason I use Mac OS X is because it is several levels of magnitude less frustrating than using Windows. I could take or leave Aqua (actually, thanks to ShapeShifter, I’ve pretty much left it), and I don’t frequent sketchy sites so viruses probably wouldn’t be that big a deal for me. I just find Mac OS X much easier to understand and use. I think a large part of this is because Apple decided that “competition” means making a better product with the user in mind instead of pulling illicit corporate shenanigans and bullying everyone else out of the market. The main reason I think Mac OS X is a better product is because of the user interface, which is highly standardized across the many diverse programs that run on Mac OS X. I can download a Cocoa program from a new developer and be pretty much certain that the keyboard shortcuts I’m used to will just work (among other things). It makes picking up new software extremely easy.

Unless I want to switch between tabs, that is. If I want to switch between tabs, then I have to think carefully about which program I’m using, try one shortcut, curse when it does something unexpected, and then use the actual shortcut. Just take a gander at the variation across some of my favorite programs:

OmniWeb: cmd-↑ and cmd-↓ (command + up arrow / down arrow)
CSSEdit: cmd-{ and cmd-} (command + shift + left bracket / right bracket)
Transmit: cmd-shift-← and cmd-shift-→ (command + shift + left arrow / right arrow)
TextMate: cmd-opt-← and cmd-opt-→ (command + option + left arrow / right arrow)

And then there’s Adium, which lets you choose. Two of the options are shared with a program above; two are not. Thanks to my youthful foolishness, the shortcut I got used to in Adium was not shared: cmd-[ and cmd-] (command + right bracket / left bracket).

So here I am with five different programs, each with a different shortcut for switching between tabs. And I’m left with a single question:

What the fuck?

I love my desk, don’t get me wrong. But it is not set up very well for computing. There’s a roll-out keyboard holder, true, but not really anywhere good to put the mouse. I had it up on the top of the desk next to the computer, but ever since I’ve started doing web design and using the mouse a lot during the day, I’ve been getting pretty bad pain in my wrist (okay, maybe the unfortunately small Nintendo DS that I’ve been crouched over for hours every day wasn’t helping, either).

In any case, after eyeballing the amount of room I had on the keyboard rollout, I realized I simply couldn’t fit a mouse there unless I wanted to be constantly tracking. I decided to look into trackballs; they’re stationary, after all.

Turns out that it’s barely worth the plural. Local stores carry, at most, two of them; both wired, both Logitech, both very red and speckly looking. Okay, whatever. I bought the one for the thumb (Logitech’s optical Trackman Wheel), because I wasn’t willing to make a gamble on an online trackball that I’d never got to try.

Wrist pain pretty much instantly went away. I’m a fan of the trackball. I’ll probably develop some horrific thumb problem, but who cares? The trackball lets me hold my hand at a more natural angle than the mouse ever did and, even better, lets me keep it entirely relaxed. It was a bit squiggly at first, but it only took me about a day of heavy use to get used to it.

Two thumbs up. Well, maybe one thumb up, and one kind of limply sprawled nearby panting at all the extra work it’s had to do.

Take a moment and go take a look at Writing.com.

Now take some deep breaths and recover from your initial “What the shit?!” reaction.

As best I can tell, this is one of the most popular writer’s critique websites that you can find. Hundreds of people will be online at any one time, posting their writing, reading other’s writing, and just generally using the website.

This is a crime. Why do writers settle for this kind of crap? It’s nothing but advertisements, and even if you “upgrade” your account to get rid of the ads, its still impossible to get anything done because the site’s interface is designed so poorly. There’s simply no excuse. That site should be allowed to die, preferably in agony.

It’s hard to find good sites for writing critique online. Critique Circle is like a breath of fresh air after Writing.com, but it has far fewer people online at any one time (10-20 in my experience). I just don’t get it. Why do writer’s have no taste?

If there were any justice in this world, ColdFusion would never have been created.

I currently have a client whose webhost uses Windows hosting. Okay, I can handle that. It’s not what I would advise (since I’m far more competent with Linux hosting), but these things happen. And the host offers PHP.

But this particular client’s website was designed in ColdFusion, which means that it’s languishing on one the host’s ColdFusion servers, with no access to PHP. Due to the fact that I cannot test PHP applications under Windows SQL conditions, I get stuck using ColdFusion in order to be able to test anything.

It wasn’t until I was halfway through the project and banging my head against a wall because nothing was working that I figured out that it wasn’t just ColdFusion, it was ColdFusion 5, two full version numbers lower than the current released version. This server is obviously a dinosaur. I have a fairly decent background in ColdFusion thanks to my college’s idiotic policies (they used ColdFusion rather than PHP because they didn’t think PHP, a piece of open-source software, was secure), but having to use ColdFusion 5, which I’m sure is light-years better than 4, is like riding a tricycle when I’m used to PHP’s motorcycle. At least ColdFusion MX was a bicycle with training wheels.

Needless to say, the site’s code is ugly. Ugly, ugly, ugly, and no fun to write, either.

I know the people who need to hear this are not going to read this, but please businesses looking for hosting. Just because Windows “business” hosting often costs more, doesn’t mean it’s better. And if you settle for Windows, at least make sure that you don’t get saddled with ColdFusion.

On the other hand, this project has forced me to think about interface design a lot (mainly because my first design choices weren’t possible given the limitations, but also because the people who will be using this site are not at all savvy when it comes to the web). When I have more time after the project is done, I shall have to ponder interface on the web.

Alright, I’ll admit it. In a moment of weakness, I bought myself a Nintendo DS. I am not sure what made me start thinking about buying one, but I found myself peering at them through the glass at the local electronics store, perusing the games, and thinking to myself, “Should I? No! Spending money bad! But they’re so shiny…”

I held out for a while, but after reading the reviews online (highly positive), taking a long bus trip in my now car-less existence and watching the guy in front of me play PSP the whole way, and then agonizing over it for days I finally gave up and just bought the damn thing.

And wow. I’m loving it. Along with the system, I purchased Puzzle Quest and Mariokart DS. Today in another moment of weakness, I also purchased Final Fantasy III.

In any case, this is possibly the coolest piece of gaming equipment I have ever purchased. Granted, the handheld and stylus are slightly uncomfortable after extended usage in my much-larger-than-a-child’s hands. But it’s worth it. The dual screens are gorgeous, the touch-screen mechanic useful, the games that I’ve bought so far extremely fun. And integrated Wifi? It doesn’t get cooler than this.

I may be late to jump on the handheld gaming bandwagon (this is my first handheld), but I am a whole-hearted believer now. If only I had more friends with DSes so that I could play Mariokart against them online…

There’s always something to strive for.