Coffee in my laptop again...
This time it just messed up the few keys around (and including) the Enter key. Thankfully there was no data loss.
God in His grace allowed me to switch to Linux after the last coffee deluge, so I've had several options at my disposal for a temporary work around while I wait for my new keyboard to come in the mail--special thanks to Spare Parts Warehouse.
I was able to log into my laptop being careful to watch how my keyboards new "features" work (ex: hitting 'h' moves to the left before entering the character 'h' others move left, hit enter, or type other characters in addition to themselves). Once logged in, I typed the characters I'd need in a text editor, then copy and pasted them into the correct order using my mouse. With those characters, I logged in as root, started the SSH (secure shell) service so I could connect from my Linux desktop, emerged VNC (Virtual Network Computer) on the desktop, started Gnome Remote Desktop services, and logged into my laptop from my desktop.
Currently, I'm typing this blog entry with my desktop's keyboard sitting on top of my laptop's keyboard, using the mouse from my laptop, and being very thankful to Christ that Linux has so many options for coffee drinking entrepreneurs.
Looks like Novell's got some good ideas in their new release of their SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED). If you're interested in Linux on the desktop (and in particular Gnome), check out some of the screenshots. They also have some videos.
One of the biggest improvements seems to be the "start menu" (labeled "computer" in SLED 10). It's greatly improved over Windows start menu. Their layout makes it more of a palette of tools.
They've included some slick 3D rendering features as well as other graphical improvements over most other Linux distributions. They've improved Alt+Tabbing, but they've also added an "Expose" like window switcher. The zooming features handy, especially for GUI/Web Developers. Check out the Visual Workspace video to see the goods.
It looks like it's a solid release. Don't know how competitive it'll be against Windows and OS X, but its visual features certainly put it far ahead of the average Linux Desktop.
I danced with my shoes tied again.
It worked for a while.
But now my coat's on backwards
-- not sure how that happened exactly ---
but it's on nonetheless.
That's progress, right?
Not the best name, but the right idea.
CosmoPOD is an "online" desktop. From what I can tell it uses the power of the X Windows Client-Server concepts in order to ship you a KDE-based desktop.
They have a free ad driven version that I might try later, for now, let it be said that there are many people thinking this way. We'll see who gets their first and how. :)
Sounds was one of the sticking points with myself and Linux.
It seems I've finally got it working (without the nasty static noise in the back). Special thanks to the esound daemon (by the Enlightenment desktop people) for the happiness!
"Come On! Feel the Illinoise! :)
