I tried dropbox sometime back for many months. I didn't quite like it because I felt like I couldn't control many aspects. In addition, I ended up deleting many of my files due to some stupid settings confusion. I bet they have more options now, but I don't feel like going back. So I signed up for 25 gigs of free space from... *gasp* Microsoft's Skydrive. I figured if they are giving away this much space in the cloud for free, why not twist it around and use it as a cloud for Linux so that the joke is actually on them.

Naturally, Skydrive doesn't have any desktop synchronization tools for linux. And that is where SMEStorage Sync comes in. All I needed to do was to

• Install "Linux Cloud Desktop Tools" from SMEStorage for fedora.
• Set up an account at SMEStorage and login.
• Go to My Account --> Providers Tab
• Add the Skydrive account and password
• Set the Skydrive account as default (so all your files will be uploaded and synced to the Skydrive 25 Gigs account rather than the limited 2Gigs SMEStorage-Amazon Cloud. (An index of the Skydrive account is mirrored on the SMEStorage-Amazon 2 Gig Cloud. So the 2Gig account has an index but no real files taking up space.)
• Fire up the SME Storage Sync Center on your laptop/desktop
• Choose the US SME Server and connect
• Choose the local home/system folders to Sync
• Press Sync Up any time you want to upload and backup/sync your files in that folder.
• You can manually fire up the SME Storage Sync Center everytime you feel like doing a backup or schedule it to do automatic backups at some regular schedule.

That's it! Evil example of using Microsoft's resources to make life on linux easier.

Dedicated to (e:fing). ;-)

at pricerite?

• 0.25 lb Jalapeno Peppers
• 4.54 lb Acorn/Buttercup/Kabocha squash
• 3.46 lb Zucchini (Green squash)
• 3 generous bunches of fresh cilantro
• 5 medium red onions
• 0.89 lb red bell peppers (2 peppers)
• 3.79 lb Vine ripened tomatoes
• 1.00 lb Plum tomatoes
• 5.53 lb Granny Smith apples
• 2.61 lb Bosc pears
• 2.07 lb Black Friar Plums
• 1 Gallon Skim Milk

Except for the plums, each item on that list came from NY farms. Not bad at all for 13/14* 100 ~ 93% local produce & milk. I checked . That is about as seasonal and local as you can get.

---
Contrast with the sortie at (e:paul,55153)
Blasted thing won't post straight!

I skipped all the in-between bits of writing functions. Maybe I will return to them in the future.

But for now, I think it's super important to know how to apply a function once I have written it using what else but...
APPLY!!!

• The output of Apply can be a vector or array or list of values
• The input of Apply is always a matrix. So make sure to insert a "as.matrix" before anything you want to apply your function on.

Basic syntax:

apply(as.matrix(some object which is not a matrix already), Starting Row, function)

For eg.
Out <- apply(as.matrix(list of element), 1, function)

I am finding Zim (the desktop wiki-like note-taking software) SO useful for random on-the-fly notetaking!


Zim is like a wiki, todo checklist, notebook, LaTeX scratchpad all rolled into one! I think I like the todo checklist and LaTeX parts the best. It has this nifty dvipng plugin that generates small png images for equations. You could just take these equation pngs and stick them anywhere.

Like here.


Not only is it invading my desktop, it is invading the cloud. I set up cloud sync of my notebooks through SME sync to Skydrive. Now, that is one fail-proof hyperlinked universal brain dump.

I am making shortcuts left, right and centre in the Gnome 3 interface.

Turn on shortcut editing

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface can-change-accels true

Hover mouse over the menu entry
Press Delete
Press new shortcut combo

Turn off shortcut editing

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface can-change-accels false

I have been learning how to write functions in R. They are core to learning the language instead of just using what other people have written for their purposes. They make tailored manipulations in R easier. I am going to document the function writing system here, step by step so I can progressively write better functions and yet not forget the basics

Basic Syntax

NewFunction <- function (input){
answer <- some manipulation with the input
answer
}

• NewFunction is the name of the new function.
• function is the R function that creates functions.
• input is the "argument" of a function
• { delimits the beginning of the function
• } delimits the end of the function
• the last statement (in this case, just "answer", returns the answer as the output of the function. I could also have said return(answer).

It took me all this while to find out that one of my greatest annoyances in Gnome 3 is actually solvable by a simple change in position of my finger while typing the alt-tab combination.


Alt + Tab
Switches Applications

and

Alt + ~
Switches Windows


Reclaim the maximize and minimize buttion. Because sometimes, you just don't want to let go of the stylus (or mouse).

gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/shell/windows/button_layout --type string :minimize,maximize,close

Sweet. Two more annoyances banished.

Sometimes you can only pamper it with so much olive oil.



It's delicious sans mucilage or not.

I found it. At last.



TortoiseSVN was so good on windows that I really started to miss its awesome GUI features on linux. The clever thing to do would probably have been to guess that it would be named after some other herbivorous domestic pet. But I found it after a determined search instead. Linux royalty usually scoff at GUI solutions, but to me, they are an invaluable little tool in saving some brainspace and frustrations.

To install RabbitVCS on Fedora 15

sudo yum install rabbitvcs*

BUT. And there is a big BUT.

RabbitVCS won't run in some 64 bit environments

Some distributions, such as 64 bit Fedora, put 64 bit libraries in the /usr/lib64 directory, whereas nautilus-python (the program that lets us extend nautilus) assumes all libraries are in the /usr/lib directory. This is a nautilus-python bug. The current workaround is to create a symlink: ln -s /usr/lib64/libpython2.6.so /usr/lib/libpython2.6.so

That fix didn't work for me because RabbitVCS doesn't work with Nautilus 3.x YET. But the developer posted recently on the blog that a new release is not far away. I can't wait. Command-lining SVN is tedium that I can do without.