Playing With The Pangolin: Upgrading To Ubuntu 12.04

Last night, I took the plunge and upgraded my Samsung NC10 netbook to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, the "Precise Pangolin". Technically, this was a fresh install over the top of the pre-existing Ubuntu 11.04, rather than an upgrade of that older version, but I digress...

As is generally the case these days with Ubuntu, installation itself was a largely painless affair. The only wrinkle happened part-way through the initial sequence of dialogs that sets everything up for installation, where the netbook's trackpad was suddenly and mysteriously disabled. Fortunately, plugging in a USB mouse proved to be a suitable workaround, and the trackpad came back to life following the post-installation reboot. One cute addition to the installation procedure is the inclusion of a Twitter feed of happy customers tweeting their thanks to the Ubuntu devs (sadly - but perhaps understandably, given the potential for abuse - not a live feed).

So what's it like?

Overall, I'm impressed. It feels slicker and more polished than the 11.04 that I'm used to, as you would expect given the 12 months of work that the upgrade represents. Unity is maturing nicely (bar the issue discussed below) and lenses are becoming much more useful. The HUD, a last minute addition that allows keyboard-driven searching of menu options for the in-focus application, looks like it could be extremely handy for power users, who often favour the keyboard over the mouse. So far, I've encountered only one bug: a regression in the code for setting screen brightness. In 11.04 I could use key presses to increase or decrease brightness over a number of discrete steps, but now I get only maximum brightness or the two lowest settings. There's a PPA with a samsung-backlight package that might solve this.

There is one fly in the ointment, though. In 11.04, the launcher would hide automatically and then slide into view when the pointer neared the left edge of screen. However, testing with novice users has revealed that this behaviour is confusing, so in 12.04 it has been removed entirely. Yes, that's right: removed entirely. Not made an option, with 'always visible' as the default, but removed entirely.

I find this really disappointing. I'm not a Unity hater - quite the opposite, in fact. And I'm not one of those people who dislikes change: when the buttons infamously moved from the top-right corner of windows to the top-left, I wasn't bothered in the slightest. And I take the point that Unity should not be confusing for newcomers; I'm all for simplicity. But this feature was very useful for those of us who own netbooks, where screen real-estate is a precious commodity. I've benefited from auto-hide for the past 12 months, but now find that I can no longer take advantage of it. My experience has degraded so that the experience of another category of user can improve.

It would be simple to solve this: just provide auto-hide as an option. Bury it deeply if you like, so that inexperienced users are unlikely to find it and enable the feature accidentally, but provide the option so that those of us who want it can have it.

I'm hoping there might be a change of heart on this, or that a suitable setting might find its way into one of the Unity tweaking apps that are out there. I don't really want to start messing around with a forked Unity if I can help it.

In the meantime, I'll shrink the launcher a little - not too much, or it will become difficult to see the various notifications associated with the buttons. And I'll run applications in Full Screen mode if they have that ability.

The Impact of Computer Science

Hmm, been a while since I last blogged in any meaningful way - and I had such high hopes for this blog, too! I promise I'll be better over the summer.

Anyway, I feel moved to post about something I came across just this morning: a project to place the names of victims of 9/11 on a memorial in New York. The concept for the memorial was that names should be arranged not alphabetically, but rather according to where people were and who they were with when they died - linking victims through "meaningful adjacencies", in the words of the architect. It's a wonderful idea, but how could such a thing be achieved?

This is, of course, precisely the kind of problem that computer scientists like to tackle. I won't go into the details here, other than to note that guy implementing this, Jer Thorp, made some interesting use of Processing for the visualisation of victim relationships and name placement. You can read Jer's blog entry if you want to know more.

What strikes me most about this work is that it represents a very human and emotionally significant application of computer science. It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that CS makes an impact only by improving technology, but this little project demonstrates brilliantly that it has the capacity to connect with human beings more directly than that.

UCU Strikes

My photos from last week's UCU strike action are available as a set and as a slideshow:

Shadowmarch

I'm a big fan of the writing of Tad Williams, and the other day I finished reading Shadowheart - the final volume of his Shadowmarch tetralogy.

Those familiar with Tad's work will know of his earlier forays into epic fantasy, such as the Memory, Sorrow & Thorn series with which he made his name a couple of decades ago. It is interesting to compare this recent saga with that earlier work.

The Memory, Sorrow & Thorn books flirt with the cliches of fantasy fiction - magical swords, prophecy, etc - but this is leavened by touches of real originality. The elvish race featured in the books (the Sithi) are portrayed more as orientals than as stereotypical sylvan folk, for example. The stand-out feature for me was the large cast of interesting and well-rounded characters - perhaps none more interesting, well-rounded and complex than the guilt-ridden monk Cadrach.

So how does the Shadowmarch series compare?

Whilst it revisits similar territory - a madman meddling with godlike forces that he cannot ultimately control - this an altogether more nuanced piece of work. It is still strongly character-driven, but has a more intricate and intriguing plot. The two main characters, twins Barrick & Briony Eddon, are far from classic hero/heroine material. Tad pulls off the difficult trick of making them deserving of sympathy but not entirely likeable: 'satisfyingly flawed' might be a good description - rather like Cadrach in the earlier books. That same subtlety is there in other aspects of the books, but there is also plenty of action to keep you greedily turning the pages - particularly in the extended final battle that is the core of Shadowheart.

In short: his best work to date, highly recommended for fans of epic fantasy.

As a postscript, let me note that I bought this from Amazon in hardback form, despite owning a Kindle for several months. It may be a bit OCD, but it would have bothered me to have three hardbacks plus a purely digital version to complete the set! I almost regret the decision now, because I found the bulk, weight and small print size of the physical book to be very off-putting after having got used to the Kindle...

Flickr

Perceptive quote from the NY Times:

"No one questions Flickr’s appeal to photographers who post, admire and comment on a wealth of artistic images, many of which are magazine quality. Where Flickr is faltering is with people who want to store and share more mundane snapshots."

I guess Facebook is where people are increasingly turning for casual photo sharing.