I seem to use web browsers in a manner that other people just cannot fathom: In particular I never use bookmarks. I have created many book marks in my time; I've created huge unmanaged lists of pages I thought were worth saving; I've even tried to manage an categorise them... But I never remember that they are there, (or they point to an expired/dead page), so now I don't bother.
So instead I end up with masses of tabs open all the time. It's a common event for someone to look over my shoulder and exclaim, "Oh my God! How many tabs have you got open there?" - So I need excellent tab management and excellent session management in case my battery dies or the browser crashes...
Opera has always been fighting a battle over web standards - but even in their valiant attempt to be standards-compliant, they-too have made mistakes, and a great many web authors use browser-specific extensions, locking people into IE/FF/Chrome or whatever...
Most pages display and work well but then there are enough which it's native "Presto" engine can't handle. There was always an occasional need to use Firefox, Chrome, or as a last resort; Internet Explorer to view the odd page which didn't work in Opera, but that was okay because my day to day life with the browser was great.
Unfortunately a while back they decided to throw their towel in and ditched their "Presto" engine in favour of Google's "Blink" engine. In effect Opera is now little more than Chromium Browser with a pretty skin :-( It is blindingly fast, but also dull, minimalistic, featureless and really a bit pointless.
All the wondrous customisation and look-and-feel options are gone. My top menu bar is seemingly gone forever, replaced by a crappy single IE-style launcher that all the browsers are copying. The 'Themes' are little more then a choice of pointless background picture - It is a massive disappointment.
Of course I could continue to soldier on with Opera 12 with all its features, but it is now a dead browser - unmaintained and unloved and unfortunately also closed-source.
Tab Management
One of the best features of Opera was it's tab management - One could group tabs together, set it to open new tabs next to the current one rather than all the way at the end of the list and it also sported a nice searchable list of open windows/tabs. I always have anything between 20 and 150 tabs open at once - many stay open within my session for weeks or months until I have a cull to get back to a sane number. Even with reasonable good add-ons like TabMixPlus for Firefox, nothing begins to come close to how good Opera was at doing this.
This is almost all gone in Opera 25. At least there's still a single row of tabs which get narrower as you open more tabs, and not the really stupid Firefox/Chrome default of building a massive horizontally scrollable list of fixed-width tabs. Grouping is gone though - this was a really massively useful feature where dragging one tag to another started a group which could be expanded to show all its tabs or shrunk to occupy the space of just one tab. I used it a lot to group pages by subject matter.
Session management
I've tried a number of session managers and they're all crap (i.e. fail to correctly save my open tabs in the event of browser being closed, or killed) in my experience. In the distant past I've had a couple of let-downs with Opera's session manager too, but ultimately it just works. I'm having an on-going nightmare of conflicting and failing session managers in Firefox and I have high hopes that Opera's will still be better.
Friday, 8 August 2014
Tuesday, 26 June 2012
SPL the magic formula to almost all american sitcoms
"Haven't you seen Big Bang Theory? Oh mate, you've got to watch it, it's hilarious!".
No I had not seen it. Yes, I have now, (sadly it's unavoidable as my wife loves it,) and no I don't find it funny, or awesome, or even good.
There seems to be a formula running through the vast majority of American situation comedies and I've now summarised it for myself, (and subsequently a few friends,) as SPL: "Setup, Punchline, Laugh".
It's nothing new. When I was in my teens I was often told I should watch Fraiser, then it was Friends and these days it's shows like Two And A Half Men, How I Met Your Mother and the aforementioned BBT.
To me these shows all follow a very simple and annoyingly repetitive formula:
Step 1 - The Setup:
A man walks through the door
Step 2 - The Punchline:
He calls out, 'Hi Honey, I'm home!'
Step 3 - Laughter:
Canned laughter is vomited over the soundtrack
This is all followed by a lot more of the same which, when sandwiched between opening and closing credits creates a show.
You may think that the above setup and punchline are not even funny... You'd be quite correct with that assertion. Not only do many of these shows use SPL, but frequently the laugh appears to be triggered based on quantity of previous actions/statements rather than whether anything funny was actually said or done.
As SPL is very easy to detect I use it as a selection criterion for my 'TV programmes to avoid' list.
No I had not seen it. Yes, I have now, (sadly it's unavoidable as my wife loves it,) and no I don't find it funny, or awesome, or even good.
There seems to be a formula running through the vast majority of American situation comedies and I've now summarised it for myself, (and subsequently a few friends,) as SPL: "Setup, Punchline, Laugh".
It's nothing new. When I was in my teens I was often told I should watch Fraiser, then it was Friends and these days it's shows like Two And A Half Men, How I Met Your Mother and the aforementioned BBT.
To me these shows all follow a very simple and annoyingly repetitive formula:
Step 1 - The Setup:
A man walks through the door
Step 2 - The Punchline:
He calls out, 'Hi Honey, I'm home!'
Step 3 - Laughter:
Canned laughter is vomited over the soundtrack
This is all followed by a lot more of the same which, when sandwiched between opening and closing credits creates a show.
You may think that the above setup and punchline are not even funny... You'd be quite correct with that assertion. Not only do many of these shows use SPL, but frequently the laugh appears to be triggered based on quantity of previous actions/statements rather than whether anything funny was actually said or done.
As SPL is very easy to detect I use it as a selection criterion for my 'TV programmes to avoid' list.
About me
I suppose the first thing to kick-start this meagre entry into the world of blogs is to introduct myself.
Unsurprisingly, my name is Jonathan. I was born in 1980 and I'm a self-confessed geek and general misfit. It's not that I can't cope with or understand society, I just find myself a little removed; things which matter to me don't always matter to anyone else and vice-versa.
My interests are wide and varied but are probably split most easily into the categories of Music, Computing and 'Everything Else'. The latter encompasses just about anything life throws at me but usually excludes anything relating to sport or popular culture.
I say, 'continued', because I actually started my career at a very young age. Aged somewhere around 7 years, I voluntarily helped at a local chandler's shop in my home village. I'm not certain that my, 'help', was always completely welcome but they humoured me and taught me some of the basic skills that one might apply when working in a shop.
Aged 9 years I bravely asked the man at the local computer repair shop, (who'd previously fixed my ZX Spectrum and BBC Model B computers on several occasions), whether he'd mind me helping him on Saturdays. The deal I offered was simple: I'll work for free if you'll teach me to fix computers. To my surprise he agreed and I spent a good number of years learning skills that have stayed with me for life; not just technical skills but interpersonal and business skills. He (Eric) remains a good friend and inspiration to this day.
Moving swiftly to Age approx 19 years: I landed a job providing desktop support for what was then the Mobile Phone division of Pansonic (MMCDE, formerly MCUK). I was in heaven! I spent my days building PCs, fixing PCs, patching and configuring extensions on the company PBX, I got to work with some amazing engineers (many of whom were only too glad to chat to me about their area of expertise and teach me interesting stuff) and most importantly I discovered Sun Microsystems' Solaris OS and found myself an escape from the awful world of Micro$oft.
After a couple of years I decided to dip my toe into the job pool by uploading my CV to an I.T. job website. I was stunned when an influx of phone calls ensued and nearly wet myself (well, actually not, but I was very excited) when an opportunity arose for an interview with none other than Sun Microsystems!
Long story short; I got the job and started working as a support engineer in their UK development lab (sadly now defunct). That got me the chance not only to mess with Solaris and Linux all the time, but got me back into a world of soldering and EEPROM programmers. Bliss!
After a couple of year of that and a move to the head office campus, I applied internally for a Job in Customer technical support and got it. Which is where, in a variety of responsibilities, I remained until July 2013. Sadly, Oracle Corporation bought Sun Microsystems and I was transferred across - the two companies' ethoses could not have been more different and after a total of eleven years of service, the final two under Oracle I made the decision to leave.
I began my current (and hopefully long-term) role at Q Associates as a Senior Consultant in July 2013. My day to day workload is very different from the world of technical support but I enjoy the support and company of a very slick and dynamic team of people and a generally very interesting workload.
I'm a keen musician (notice I didn't say, 'good'), and I spend a fair proportion of my leisure time either sat at the piano or singing; sometimes both. My wife, (who as yet I've completely failed to mention,) runs a school choir and I accompany them at rehearsals and performances.
Since my school days when I played Rhythm Guitar in the Jazz band, (I can't do any of that clever finger-picking 'lead' stuff), Tuba in the brass band, Timpani in the Orchestra, sang in the choir and took piano lessons; I've fallen back to just the Piano and Singing. I can still strum chords on a guitar but I don't really consider that as 'playing' the instrument and as such I usually leave guitars to people who actually can play them.
Undoubtedly I will occasionally blog about Drupal/Ubercart/MySQL related stuff: I develop and maintain an e-commerce website for a friend's small business as well as having recently taken over responsibility for the Wycombe Homeless Connection charity's volunteer database, which is a rather daunting, 'evolution,' of PHP and MySQL. I suppose technically it's work, but I enjoy most of what I do with it and the amount I learn while doing it is a valuable reward.
Satirical and generally silly humour features strongly in my life. On the rare occasions that I watch TV it's South Park, Family Guy or some old Monty Python episode that you'll find me watching. I do occasionally get into a series of something, (most recently both 'Touch' and 'Once upon a time' have grabbed my attention,) and I could probably watch David Attenborough nature documentaries for countless hours at a time, but most of the mainstream stuff on TV goes into either 'utter crap' or 'just not worth it' buckets.
I seem to get inexplicably excited about Hardware Stores and DIY Shops, and I'm always collecting new tools. I do quite a lot of DIY...
I've learnt that plastering is most definitely not one of my skills and I'll probably defer to a professional when I need some bricks laid or new path but if it involves pipes or cables: I'll do it. It seems that I can also make stuff out of wood too; ranging from Cat/Chicken enclosures to hand made jigsaw puzzles.
The BBC is massively important in my life. Bolstered strongly by the fact that I cannot bear commercial advertising, (even when you can fast forward it's still awful,) the BBC is one of the few British institutions of which I am truly proud. BBC Radio 4 is unique to this world: No other country, anywhere has anything even close to it. Radio 3 has it's awesome moments and just occasionally I'll go all 'middle-aged' and listen to a bit of Radio 2. I'm afraid I couldn't care much less about Radio 1, but each to their own, and I know that many people love it. As well as listening to a fair amount of radio content I also make frequent visits to the BBC Radio Theatre in London to watch live recordings of shows. Now and again I'll apply to see a TV programme such as Q.I. or Have I Got News For You, but the high demand and long queueing times usually turns me towards the more intimate and less hassled world of the Radio but with the aforementioned baby daughter it's harder to just nip out to London of an evening these days.
One day I might find enough space to set up one of my Barco 808 CRT Projectors. Back in the days of living with my parents I was able to strap a barco 700 to my bedroon ceiling and enjoy big screen films at home. Since buying a big upgrade (in all senses of the word) to a 90Kg (!!) Barco 808, my life situation changed and the projector(s), (yes, plural but it's a long story for another day,) are in storage. I gained a wife (big plus,) and lost a home cinema, (medium minus), then we had a baby (big big plus). Essentially, life is good and I can cope with a 32" TV for now, but I'm allowed to dream that one day I might resurrect my Barco dinosaurs and my enormous, (but lovely,) KEF Series 105 speakers and convert a Garage/Loft/Spare-Room into a home cinema again. Hey, she's let me keep my entire laserdisc (~350 discs) collection and I've still got my collection of obscure memorabilia such as a Philips CDI and a Hitachi CED player (Video on a vinyl disc - It has to be seen to be believed!). Since originally writing this I have moved into a house with a perfect space underneath the garage for a home cinema - maybe, just maybe I'll find time one day!
I should have mentioned at the top of this post. I talk a lot. And that talking also translates into typing. This is a massive 'About Me' and there's still more but I'll save it for general rants an posts.
Unsurprisingly, my name is Jonathan. I was born in 1980 and I'm a self-confessed geek and general misfit. It's not that I can't cope with or understand society, I just find myself a little removed; things which matter to me don't always matter to anyone else and vice-versa.
My interests are wide and varied but are probably split most easily into the categories of Music, Computing and 'Everything Else'. The latter encompasses just about anything life throws at me but usually excludes anything relating to sport or popular culture.
Work
I've worked for just three companies since finishing school. Despite best laid plans to move to Germany, become fluent in German and then return to the UK to do a degree as a mature student; somebody waved a pay cheque under my nose shortly after I finished my A-levels and thus continued my career...I say, 'continued', because I actually started my career at a very young age. Aged somewhere around 7 years, I voluntarily helped at a local chandler's shop in my home village. I'm not certain that my, 'help', was always completely welcome but they humoured me and taught me some of the basic skills that one might apply when working in a shop.
Aged 9 years I bravely asked the man at the local computer repair shop, (who'd previously fixed my ZX Spectrum and BBC Model B computers on several occasions), whether he'd mind me helping him on Saturdays. The deal I offered was simple: I'll work for free if you'll teach me to fix computers. To my surprise he agreed and I spent a good number of years learning skills that have stayed with me for life; not just technical skills but interpersonal and business skills. He (Eric) remains a good friend and inspiration to this day.
Moving swiftly to Age approx 19 years: I landed a job providing desktop support for what was then the Mobile Phone division of Pansonic (MMCDE, formerly MCUK). I was in heaven! I spent my days building PCs, fixing PCs, patching and configuring extensions on the company PBX, I got to work with some amazing engineers (many of whom were only too glad to chat to me about their area of expertise and teach me interesting stuff) and most importantly I discovered Sun Microsystems' Solaris OS and found myself an escape from the awful world of Micro$oft.
After a couple of years I decided to dip my toe into the job pool by uploading my CV to an I.T. job website. I was stunned when an influx of phone calls ensued and nearly wet myself (well, actually not, but I was very excited) when an opportunity arose for an interview with none other than Sun Microsystems!
Long story short; I got the job and started working as a support engineer in their UK development lab (sadly now defunct). That got me the chance not only to mess with Solaris and Linux all the time, but got me back into a world of soldering and EEPROM programmers. Bliss!
After a couple of year of that and a move to the head office campus, I applied internally for a Job in Customer technical support and got it. Which is where, in a variety of responsibilities, I remained until July 2013. Sadly, Oracle Corporation bought Sun Microsystems and I was transferred across - the two companies' ethoses could not have been more different and after a total of eleven years of service, the final two under Oracle I made the decision to leave.
I began my current (and hopefully long-term) role at Q Associates as a Senior Consultant in July 2013. My day to day workload is very different from the world of technical support but I enjoy the support and company of a very slick and dynamic team of people and a generally very interesting workload.
Play
Outside of work, I find my time stretched across seemingly infinite dimensions. As time is actually uni-dimensional, (so I'm told,) I find that this multi-dimensional stretching is, in the words of Douglas Adams, "in fact, impossible." And thus there is never enough of it - especially with a baby daughter to look after.I'm a keen musician (notice I didn't say, 'good'), and I spend a fair proportion of my leisure time either sat at the piano or singing; sometimes both. My wife, (who as yet I've completely failed to mention,) runs a school choir and I accompany them at rehearsals and performances.
Since my school days when I played Rhythm Guitar in the Jazz band, (I can't do any of that clever finger-picking 'lead' stuff), Tuba in the brass band, Timpani in the Orchestra, sang in the choir and took piano lessons; I've fallen back to just the Piano and Singing. I can still strum chords on a guitar but I don't really consider that as 'playing' the instrument and as such I usually leave guitars to people who actually can play them.
Undoubtedly I will occasionally blog about Drupal/Ubercart/MySQL related stuff: I develop and maintain an e-commerce website for a friend's small business as well as having recently taken over responsibility for the Wycombe Homeless Connection charity's volunteer database, which is a rather daunting, 'evolution,' of PHP and MySQL. I suppose technically it's work, but I enjoy most of what I do with it and the amount I learn while doing it is a valuable reward.
Satirical and generally silly humour features strongly in my life. On the rare occasions that I watch TV it's South Park, Family Guy or some old Monty Python episode that you'll find me watching. I do occasionally get into a series of something, (most recently both 'Touch' and 'Once upon a time' have grabbed my attention,) and I could probably watch David Attenborough nature documentaries for countless hours at a time, but most of the mainstream stuff on TV goes into either 'utter crap' or 'just not worth it' buckets.
I seem to get inexplicably excited about Hardware Stores and DIY Shops, and I'm always collecting new tools. I do quite a lot of DIY...
I've learnt that plastering is most definitely not one of my skills and I'll probably defer to a professional when I need some bricks laid or new path but if it involves pipes or cables: I'll do it. It seems that I can also make stuff out of wood too; ranging from Cat/Chicken enclosures to hand made jigsaw puzzles.
The BBC is massively important in my life. Bolstered strongly by the fact that I cannot bear commercial advertising, (even when you can fast forward it's still awful,) the BBC is one of the few British institutions of which I am truly proud. BBC Radio 4 is unique to this world: No other country, anywhere has anything even close to it. Radio 3 has it's awesome moments and just occasionally I'll go all 'middle-aged' and listen to a bit of Radio 2. I'm afraid I couldn't care much less about Radio 1, but each to their own, and I know that many people love it. As well as listening to a fair amount of radio content I also make frequent visits to the BBC Radio Theatre in London to watch live recordings of shows. Now and again I'll apply to see a TV programme such as Q.I. or Have I Got News For You, but the high demand and long queueing times usually turns me towards the more intimate and less hassled world of the Radio but with the aforementioned baby daughter it's harder to just nip out to London of an evening these days.
One day I might find enough space to set up one of my Barco 808 CRT Projectors. Back in the days of living with my parents I was able to strap a barco 700 to my bedroon ceiling and enjoy big screen films at home. Since buying a big upgrade (in all senses of the word) to a 90Kg (!!) Barco 808, my life situation changed and the projector(s), (yes, plural but it's a long story for another day,) are in storage. I gained a wife (big plus,) and lost a home cinema, (medium minus), then we had a baby (big big plus). Essentially, life is good and I can cope with a 32" TV for now, but I'm allowed to dream that one day I might resurrect my Barco dinosaurs and my enormous, (but lovely,) KEF Series 105 speakers and convert a Garage/Loft/Spare-Room into a home cinema again. Hey, she's let me keep my entire laserdisc (~350 discs) collection and I've still got my collection of obscure memorabilia such as a Philips CDI and a Hitachi CED player (Video on a vinyl disc - It has to be seen to be believed!). Since originally writing this I have moved into a house with a perfect space underneath the garage for a home cinema - maybe, just maybe I'll find time one day!
I should have mentioned at the top of this post. I talk a lot. And that talking also translates into typing. This is a massive 'About Me' and there's still more but I'll save it for general rants an posts.
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