And I’ve got nothing.
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More Adventures in Linux
I’m writing this from a brand-new installation of Kubuntu 9.10. This is the third time since I bought this netbook earlier this year that I’ve reinstalled Linux. I seem to be pretty good at blowing up operating systems.
I really liked (K)Ubuntu 9.04. It worked, it was nice looking, and hey, free is good. I learned enough about bash (the command-line terminal) and sudo to make myself dangerous, and the forums would help me out when I inevitably got in trouble. I’m still a Windows guy, and was very excited about Windows 7, but I don’t currently have enough licenses to put it on this computer. I installed the Win7 release candidate, but didn’t really play with it that much, as I am learning the Drupal content management system and playing with it on Linux. So I decided, since there wasn’t much on this machine anyway, I’d do an in-place upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10.
It seemed to go easily enough, with only a few simple questions. Since they were so simple, I didn’t pay enough attention to the boot menu choices. I was dual-booting with Windows, so I told the installation program to keep my current settings. The install continued, and at reboot time…
Problems.
There was no option for 9.10. I selected the default 9.04 and it booted normally. Except, the touchpad (mouse) wasn’t functioning. Our friendly Google search revealed I should rebuild my xorg.conf file, so off to the command line I went (sudo dpkg reconfigure xserver-xorg). Then, when that didn’t work, they said to edit the xorg.conf file to manually include the touchpad. Then I found out that xorg.conf isn’t really used in this way anymore, and everything’s done with something called HAL, shades of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
So I have to find out where HAL is, gain permission to access it, then hack the file to find out that didn’t work, either. This is when I went into pseudo-panic mode, typing anything into the command-line Terminal I found that seemed related. I only succeeded in facing the infamous “Checking Battery State…” bug, or issue, so now I was staring in the face of a command line, not able to get into the Kubuntu shell. The problem is, there’s almost too much information out there. I decided at some point that this fight was not worth my time, so I attempted to back everything off the machine and clean install Kubuntu 9.10. That’s where I ended up this morning.
Of course, the Kubuntu Live CD, installed on a USB flash drive, sets itself to read-only, so I couldn’t copy the files I needed to my USB drive. I had to wait to get home last night (because, being offline, the propietary wireless network card drivers trying to install completely froze the machine), connect directly to my router to install the network drivers, and then copy everything to one of my home PCs. Thankfully, there’s really only one folder structure you need to back up – the Home/username folder. The Samba networking client works really well out of the box; transferring files was quite quick. Chalk another one up to home networking.
I really like Linux. I just can’t see myself using it daily, as the Gimp is not Photoshop and Inkscape is far from Illustrator, and at this point there’s no complement to Adobe Framemaker, which I use for my job. Until the command-line Terminal goes away completely, Linux won’t be ready for the mainstream: people who use Internet Explorer, are afraid to edit their Start menu, and have no idea what Windows Explorer is. Kubuntu 9.10 seems to hide the command line, and you will always find people who maintain that you don’t need the command line, ever. But when problems occur, and problems always occur, the command line and config files are still the primary option. So I think this time I am going to avoid Terminal as much as possible, and look at Kubuntu from the GUI only. I’ll let you know how it works out next time I format my machine.
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What Adobe Should Put in Framemaker 10
If you’re fortunate enough not to use Word, it seems the only other decent choice for technical writing is Adobe’s Framemaker. However, some of Frame’s quirks make Word look almost welcoming. Here’s a running list of the things I’d like to see in the next release of Frame, in no particular order:
- Find and Replace with more functions. How come I can find a marker, but can’t replace it with a different kind of marker?
- Dialog boxes and palettes that you can close with the Esc key.
- More intuitive keyboard shortcuts. All of these Esc functions hearken back to UNIX, and when’s the last time anyone used Frame on UNIX?
- Drag and drop text. C’mon, this was a new feature to users back in, what, 1990?
- I can’t believe I’m writing this, but Macintosh support. Seriously, I’d give the Mac another look if Frame ran on it natively. Emulation doesn’t count. Yes, I’m aware of Boot Camp and Parallels.
- Full OpenType support. All of Adobe’s fonts are now OpenType, with ligatures and special characters, but yet we tech writers get the typographical shaft.
- Word processing features, like AutoCorrect, spellcheck as you type, and all of those everyday functions that Word has, but writing in Word is so bad that you refuse to go back.
- How about Ctrl-backspace to delete a word before the cursor, just as Ctrl-delete works great for deleting the word before a cursor. Again, this was a feature of, let’s say, Word 2.0?
- Support for transparent PNGs.
- How about a more usable “missing file” dialog box? If you type in the path to the file, Frame doesn’t change to that directory, it accepts that as the filename!
- Much better style management. How come I can import styles across a book, but they don’t always update? Why can’t I delete unused styles? Argh.
- A reasonable upgrade price commensurate with the new features. All DITA, all the time, isn’t worth $400.
Check back often for updates to this list, since I find something that drives me insane pretty regularly.
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the joys of illness
So, for the past five days, the only time I’ve left my condo is for doctor’s visits. Sometime last Wednesday, I started feeling a bit… odd. Sore throat, congested, out of it. Wake up Thursday morning with my right eye crusted over, and a very unpleasant ringing in my ears. The sore throat now feels like my tonsils are the size of, let’s say, fifty quarters both stacked up and fanned out so that swallowing is an awful experience. needless to say, i called out (in? i never know which is right) sick to work and slept till about 11 or so. same thing on Friday, so i went to a doctor S. recommended, which was advantageous since they accepted walk-ins. S. was also nice enough to work from home that day, in case i needed anything. you know, like a ride to the doctor, although her co-worker was also sick so she couldn’t leave to… drive me to the Dr.
So the doctor tells me not to put anything larger than my elbow in my ear, while he’s putting one of those probes in my ear. Apparently I inflamed the ear drum in my right ear by using… Q-tips. yes, cleaning your ears is bad. grr. so i have some sort of unknown virus, and the joy of all joys, Pink eye, aka (say it with me in that Peter Griffin gingivitis voice) CONJUNCTIVITIS. Neither the eye or ear drops seem to do much for me, other than limit me to the couch while they absorb. I don’t like sitting still, so this is difficult, even while i’m catching up on five episodes of 90210 (shut up, just shut up, ok?).
the biggest problem i have is that i can’t sleep because swallowing is so excruciatingly painful that i wake up every time i need to swallow. i’ve tried gargling with salt water, that spray stuff that i can’t remember the name because S. bought generic Rite-Aid variety spray stuff, and even cayenne pepper. nothing helps. the second biggest problem i have is that there’s a constant. ringing. in my ears, like (insert PG gingivitis voice) TINNITUS amplified. on Saturday it included an echo in my left ear, so everything sounds out of tune, and distorted. Sweet.
Sunday morning rolls around and now both my eyes are crusted over. so i go to my old doctor, at one of those urgent care joints. of course, i have to wait the longest i’ve ever had to wait in my almost 10 years going there. the good news is i’ve lost four pounds since I last saw them in August. take that, wii fit. the bad news is i have to take another antibiotic. the worst news is that as of right now, Monday afternoon, nothing’s changed. i still can’t swallow, and i have to skip the high-pitched songs in my collection, which is apparently all of them.
i’m working from home, thankfully, because there’s nothing like being sick and sharing a train and underground tube with hundreds of other people who may or may not be more ill than you.
On Adobe Framemaker 9, DITA, and XML
Adobe recently released its newest version of software geared towards technical writers, FrameMaker 9. Needless to say, I downloaded and installed the demo version of the software. When it was done, I was excited to see the interface was updated to look like their flagship products in the Adobe Creative Suite 4, complete with the CAPITAL LETTER tabbed interface (you make your software for designers; what the hell were you thinking?!). It certainly beats the existing interface, which is so quirky you wonder how anyone uses it.
Other than that, it’s the same-old Frame, which was initially UNIX-based (and it shows). The menu options are exactly the same, and there no new options to set, at least in unstructured mode. Adobe is a huge font producer, but yet Frame 9 doesn’t fully support OpenType? We tech writers like our ligatures, too.
The new features page indicates more support for DITA, the latest XML buzzword in the technical documentation community. I helped to implement a DITA workflow at a prior job; DITA and XML are not a push-button-and-get-your-doc solution. It requires a lot of work to convert existing documentation to DITA, and it should really require someone who’s an expert at this. In this economy, it’s not easy to justify that kind of cost. There is a lot of prep work required before you even write a word. For single-writer environments, there is little return on investment, and if a company’s not going to hire a second writer, there’s no way they’re going to pay for a consultant to come in and do what’s necessary. Single writers with deadlines simply don’t have the time to invest in learning all they need on company time, while maintaining their documentation.
Frankly, I think the dirty little secret of these XML-based solutions is XSL (Extensible Style Language). XSL is a programming language (no, it’s not really a language, but bear with me on this) that is supposed to separate content from formatting, much like CSS does for HTML. However, XSL is design by programming; everything is done with if-then statements. I took a course on it, and was baffled; who decided design should be done in code?
Before technical writers and writing groups push forward with DITA because it’s the latest and greatest, they really need to determine if they can afford, in both financial and stress costs, the amount of preparation, programming, and grunt work necessary to make it work for their environment. At the very least, one full-time, dedicated resource is necessary to make the move. I am a big fan of change, and usually upgrade the software i use as quickly as possible, but I’m probably not going to ask my employer to pay $399 for this upgrade.
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