Springpad + Evernote, Revisited

I wrote about using Springpad and Evernote sometime ago. My use of them since has evolved following the progress of those two services/apps. For example, Springpad note support was quite basic at that time but now it has become quite consistent and enjoyable to use. So, some of my setup has follow suit.

I now use mainly Springpad while Evernote is more for exceptional things like on the cases below :

• Need things offline
• Long writing
• More "sticky" stuff like resources for projects
• Scans and documents

Springpad has now can fulfill most of my needs. It's better not to have too much tools and have things duplicated so I cut down my Evernote uses. It still an important part of my system though within its scope. As for Springpad, here's ans example of how I use it for :

• Manage and track media : movies, series, books, games, etc. It is really useful on this
• Checklists : Springpad checklist support is quite advanced and it's what I have been looking for sometime
• Project research and resource collection : Springpad has various type of content, not just notes, that makes collecting resources for projects really
• Random notes, items and collections : for collecting interesting item from either online or offline that has not yet fit anywhere yet. I can search or organizing it easily later on

JEdit : One Text Editor to Rule Them All (Functions and Platforms)

Any programmer would say his favorite text editor is the best one so I won't bother saying which one is best :). However, I do use one text editor, JEdit, for quite a long time already and find it a really useful text editor. Below is some of the reason :

• It does "everything" I can think of and more. It has a rich plugin list and so far I haven't find any of my needs that is has not met. Apart from coding which I do mainly on IDE, I use JEdit for the rest. Editing and Viewing binaries with it's Hex editing plugins, Editing XML even using it as a full-fledged IDE for some language e.g: Ruby, Python.
• It runs on all Platform. One of my main priorities of text editor is it needs to to be able to run on OS that I use. I did works on Windows, Mac and Linux so having text editor that can run on all of them is a big requirement for me. It saves a lot of time to be familiar with one advanced text editor and can run it on all system. The time you spend customizing the configuration, learning the shortcuts will pay off really well.

There is one situation that I can't use JEdit though and that is the time when I am working on command-line/shell. When that happens, VIM is my friend. So, I guess, JEdit doesn't really rule everything yet.

Focus on Personal Workflow and System, Not Gadget and Apps

Gadgets and Apps are abound today and the discussions that runs mostly are about what Gadgets can do this and that. I think many times the focus are misplaced. Gadgets are just tools and what is most important is the personal system workflow that a person has. Without that, gadget has no context and will just be a distraction with each additional feature. However, when you have system, each feature on the gadget can use to improve certain aspect of that system.

When you have a workflow involving calendar and reminder, a good calendar app can make that part of your system more optimal and in turn will make the overall system runs better. However, when you don't have need for calendar in your personal workflow (which is not a sin, BTW :) ) it will be just a toy to try a little bit and never used again or worse you keep keep wasting time using it without adding any benefit to your system.

So, I guess what matters is what system that you have and what combinations of gadgets and apps that can make it runs better. Researching new gadgets and apps can be useful if you use it to see how you can improve your existing system with it.

Hiding Future Task on Pocket Informant for iOS, A Workaround

Pocket Informant is a great software. I have used it since Windows Mobile days and now its 3.0 version of Pocket Informant iOS. I find many of my needs can be met with it in some way. However, one important thing that missing from is a good way to hide future task from showing.

The above makes my task list looks cluttered with tasks that I don't want to focus on right now. This is most annoying on routine tasks. For example, on a routine task that repeat daily, when I complete today's task the task for tomorrow will auto-generate and show up on the current list. It makes the list not as clear to look at compare if it's gone from my view until tomorrow. This kind of option exist  Toodledo's own iOS app but somehow does not get into Pocket Informant so far.

Anyway, not all is lost. I still like to use PI and there is some indirect way to make future task, especially the routine ones, can be better managed in PI in it's current state.

Utilizing Grouping

The grouping feature on Pocket Informant is nice (can be accessed on button on upper right corner).  t has great visual and easy to access. I use grouping by Due Date to separate future tasks from the rest. It helps on some circumstances but still can be a problem when I need the grouping for some other field. When that happen, I just group as I needed and try to ignore future tasks from it's label that does not say 'today' or blank.

Filter by Tag

Another feature that can be used for hiding future task is filtering by tag feature. I label the routine task with specific label so when I really need them to go away to focus on non-routine task including those what will happen later, I can just filter the label from showing.

So far, with the above workaround, I still find it usable and does not hurt so much on my workflow. It still better if there is true future task filtering though.

Tunnel Internet traffic through OpenVPN per client only

We have been using OpenVPN at the office to access development resources only. So, as long as we have LAN connection to the VPN host server all is good. However, there is the need to direct all traffic including internet through it. It can be useful on public network to have it as a secure tunnel for all traffic to have more peace of mind. I don't want it to apply to every connection, I still prefer using internet non-tunneled on secure local network for speed reason.

Some references assume the setting is to be applied to all connected clients so the setup is set on server config. The notes below move the server-side setting to client so it can be set per client/case only.

Setting things up on the server side

The server is Ubuntu using Shorewall as a Firewall. What is needed on the server side is setting NAT from OpenVPN interface to the internet so the internet traffic from vpn can be forwarded to the outside world. Here's what to do

Allow IP Forwarding in /etc/shorewall/shorewall.conf :

IP_FORWARDING=Yes

add entry to /etc/shorewall/masq :

eth0    [vpn network IP]

allow traffic from vpn to internet on /etc/shorewall/policy :

vpn net ACCEPT

Client Side 

Here's the lines to be added on the client configuration :

redirect-gateway def1
dhcp-option DNS 8.8.8.8
dhcp-option DNS 8.8.4.4

Google DNS used to override whatever exist on client system in case it cannot be accessed through the tunnel.

I make two different .ovpn file with the same keys setting but one has the above setting. This makes it easy to switch between the one for tunneling internet traffic and vpn-lan-only.

That's about it. Below is some source references :

• http://openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/documentation/howto.html#redirect
• http://wiki.debian.org/HowTo/shorewall (part about PAT and NAT)

Utilizing Springpad with a little help from Evernote

I stumble upon Springpad sometime ago. It was on some discussion on some forum (probably stackoverflow, it's a bit hazy now) about programmer's notebook. It was hard to really pinpoint the usage of it for me initially since it's feature is all over the place. I can't really describe what it is personally, you just have to try it yourself to really get the feel of it. It's a mix of Evernote, Pinterest and probably several other cloud-services.

I tried to use it for several purpose some which does not seems to fit well. In the end I settle with using it for more collecting-related purposes. It is a great tool to collect things on the fly. On GTD space it is great for Inbox and Someday/Maybe stuff. I migrated my Waiting-For list to it also since it has a good list item support. Here's the highlight of it's features that relevant for my usage :

• Flexible views. You can see the items using several different layout : cards, list, custom. If you are an Evernote's user, you might find some visuals quite interesting compare to it, at least visually
• Notebook and Tagging organization
• Great iOS mobile client feature-wise although still quite buggy in term of stability
•  Interesting collecting workflow. Saving books, movies and other stuff is actually fun

The noticeable part where Springpad is still lacking is on the note part. It's mobile implemention is quite out-of-sync with the web one. I tried to copy some materials through it's web app which end up uneditable on the mobile. Some that is editable contains various character-encoding artifact. You have to be really careful to get the notes in-sync with mobile experience which is quite a deal-breaker for me. I'd rather focus on my work than spending time on hand-fixing the notes.

Comes Evernote to the rescue. I am not a newcomer with Evernote, it's just that somehow I prefer OneNote style of note-taking (on iMac I settle with Growly that has the closest workflow with OneNote) so I am not actively using it. I have been thinking about porting the note-taking business to the cloud though and it seems a good time to do so. Not much needed to say when related to cloud-based note app since currently Evernote is the de-facto standard. I need to adjust my system though since it only has limited notebook number allowed and the organization seems to center around tagging (I think I am gonna miss OneNote a lot due to this).

So, the serious note matters are on Evernote while Springpad note system currently only useful for basic notes for me. I might switch fully to Springpad if it has a comparable note feature (accross multiple device that is). Until then, having to switch between the two is bearable considering the usefulness.

Setup Cyrus IMAP account on Thunderbird

I connected to Cyrus-IMAP server using Thunderbird. There's some problems on the first try :

• All the folder reside under INBOX folder. Trying to move them up fails
• The sending does not work, always hang with the message box informing that it can not save to Sent folder

I was in the middle of following some troubleshooting direction from this discussion when I see there's textbox labeled "IMAP Server Directory" in "Account Advanced Setting" dialog (Account Management > Server Setting > Advanced) . I input the annoying "INBOX" root folder mentioned above and surprise surprise, it makes the root folder go away. The sending is acting normally after it too.

Below is how the dialog looks like :

Setup postfixadmin on top of existing postfix installation

My office mailserver was a result of migration sometime ago. It was done in a limited time at that time so I only migrated the needed data and setup to keep it running as soon as possible. So, stuff like postfixadmin was left out (the system is postfix+courier+sasl setup).

Until this recent time that I need to add the account that it started to bite me. Most of the setup guide for postfixadmin assume a pristine install where it generate the database from scratch which could possibly wipe out my existing installation. So, I need to follow them less linearly.

After some searching around, I settled using this article as a starting point. However, it's quite outdated (to the point the writer marked it oudated on a big font at the top of the page) but it prove useful in my case nonetheless. It also assume fresh install but it define the steps more clearly including some behind the scene matters that happen which help me make some workaround for my specific case.

So, here's the summary (some silly-but-useful trial and errors and mistakes omitted) on what I did :

• Backup like crazy. It's a live system after all and one can not be too careful
• Download and install the .deb package from  postfixadmin site : dpkg -i postfixadmin*.deb.  Saying no when asked for auto setup apache and database.

• Add apache setting : make symbolic link on /etc/apache2/conf.d/postfixadmin to /etc/postfixadmin/apache.conf
• Add setting for the existing postfix database to /etc/postfixadmin/config.inc.php along with other settings there
• I couldn't find the admin account for it and find the solution to reset it here. Here's what I did on my case : 
• Installed dovecot-common package since I used courier instead of dovecot. It is needed to get access to dovecotpw utility
• run : dovecotpw -s MD5-CRYPT -p password | sed 's/{MD5-CRYPT}//'
• update the admin account (it's on admin table of postfix db) with the above result  

After that things went quite smoothly. I get access to user management again and adding the user is a snap.

Multiple Monitor Setup : 2 +1

It is quite the norm now to use multiple monitor setup for software development. It used to be that dual monitor setup is quite hot but now three monitor is already quite common. However, I find it better to have 2 + 1 setup instead of going to 3 monitor setup (with "+ 1" being a screen of another device ).

I have only certain space at one time (not to mention attention) and with several devices and gadgets I use, they all have to battle for the space in my workspace. So, I set aside one side for secondary device instead of third monitor. I find it more useful this way since I have more flexibility with the third space which I can use for Laptop, Tablet or even Books when needed. Also, if I want to breath a little I can just clear it up (or have there a snack, tea or whatever).

Below is my current workspace following the above setup.

With the above setup, I have quite generous leftover space as below.

 As you might see, there is still some space free for support stuff.  That is PS3 on the far corner for those stressful times :), connected to the secondary monitor (Dell monitor) that has comfortable source auto-switch.

And here's my Windows workspace which has the blank right space to be used for the +1  as the above setup i.e: for non-desktop devices.

As you might notice, I am generally a desktop guy. I don't like working on laptop so much (at least for major development work) unless I really need to.

I find the +1 screen can function as third monitor quite easily e.g: opening references, utilities and even with more flexibility. The downside is that it has no direct computing connection to the main machine which break a flow a little compare to having the keyboard and mouse interacting with the integrated three screen. This can be helped a little using stuff like cloud, file sharing,  bonjour protocol, etc.

Integrating Personal Information Manager accross Devices

I like to have integrated Personal Information Manager (Calendar, Task, Contacts, Notes, Files) across my devices. It just does not make sense for me to have different set of tasks, calendar, contacts, etc.. on different devices that I used.

On the pre-Cloud days I used BirdieSync at the core of my synching (I am a happy Thunderbird user). It worked well until I updated my mobile ecosystem to Apple (iPhone and iPad). It was the time when I switched my system to Cloud-based since trying to keep device-to-device synching was no longer practical. So, below are my current setup in general.

Backend : Google, Toodledo and Dropbox

After some searching I settle with Google, Toodledo and Dropbox  as backend :

• Google : Calendar, Contacts, Email
• Toodledo : Task, Support Notes
• Dropbox : Files

They form a powerful combination to support all my data need.  Also, with a high availability of clients on virtually all devices I have great flexibility on forming the setup on the Frontend

Desktop : Thunderbird+Lightning and Addons

 On the desktop I manged to have one conveniently integrated setup below

• Thunderbird + Lightning Calendar Addon. I only used the calendar on Lightning since the task on Toodledo does not support bidirectional synching to it
• There are Google Providers Addon that helps sync contact and calendar with Thunderbird
• For Toodledo, I mount it to Thunderbird using WepApp Tabs Addon

Apart from the above, Dropbox pretty much handle the rest of the data i.e: various files.

Mobile : Pocket Informant, Toodledo App 

It's quite flexible on the mobile side these days since lot of various options available to connect to the above backends. Here are just the highlights of what I used currently

• Pocket Informant. It synched all calendar, task, contacts and notes to Google and Toodledo, so it's almost a one-stop solution for it
• Dropbox client. The mobile version support file viewing to some extent.

Having a reliably integrated Information Manager is essential to have us really using it. Otherwise, on this time of multiple devices, we'll just play around with the system on the beginning and potentially discard it later on when the data become scattered and unusable.

I find the above setup working for me personally. You might find other setup more align with your usage and the level of integration that you think is acceptable.

Storage and Reader/Player App on iOS for File-Centric Usage

I was a happy Windows Mobile user back in the day and I like how I can access it somehow just like another storage system. The system can be used more as File-Centric system rather than App-Centric like the recent mobile system.

This feature can be quite useful sometime e.g: bring file when in a hurry to  read/play on the go or copy somewhere else later. I missed this kind of use case when started to use iPhone where it has sand boxed model for the App and the only way to interact with the app and storage is through limited iTunes storage model (which is not quite intuitive nor practical at times).  

Thus, my search for a good storage-related app started. Along the way I find that the apps I found also feature built-in reader and player. This is quite interesting since this makes it a self-sufficient subsystem in itself beyond just a mere storage app and it fits with my needs mentioned above.

So, here's some of the apps that I used right now :

• File Explorer (Universal). This is the most complete in term of feature that I know of. What I really like is how it can access Samba share and Play directly (without copying) many formats that iOS does not support natively. It has great reader/player functionality but from the feel of it took more of  Storage first, Reader/Player second approach.
• Good Reader (iPad). I needed more advanced PDF reader for my iPad than the built-in one, so I bought this. It turns out it could function as a storage app too and in fact many people use it as such. It's reader first app though with a good general-purpose storage facility.
• ReaddleDocs (iPhone). I got this when it goes on sale (free) but despite it's price at that time it is a very good app. It's rival Good Reader for reading feature although for PDF reading, good reader has much more sophisticated feature. However, the interesting aspect of this app is how beautiful the built-in reader/player is. It complement my usage of File Explorer above.

Apart form features listed above, all of those app support  features typically exist storage app is quite complete (cloud services support, web-based interface, etc..). They are all enable me to use iPhone/iPad in File-Centric manner when needed.

Now Playing Desktop Display for VLC using Geeklet

I was looking for now playing display on the desktop for Mac. I used combination of Samurize, Foobar and Now Playing Simple Plugin in Windows and would like to have the similar experience.

The closest combination I can find is by using Geektool. There's a posted geeklet for Now Playing on VLC to be used with Geektool but it no longer work when I tried it. It seems the xml posted by vlc web interface has changed since the posting of that Geeklet.

I end up playing around with the new vlc's xml myself using XMLStarlet to get the value I want. It's a great command line tool for handling xml. Here's the command that I then feed to Geektool (using shell Geeklet) :

cd /Users/Hafiz;curl -o vlcstatus.xml -s http://localhost:8080/requests/status.xml;./bin/xml sel -t -v "/root/information/category[@name='meta']/info[@name='title' or @name='artist' or @name='album']" vlcstatus.xml

What it does is dump the xml to the file using curl, and then XMLStarlet parse and display the relevant part (artist, album, title). When the above command put in shell Geeklet, Geektool will then display it on the desktop.

Here's how it displayed on the lower-right corner of my screen.

iThoughts and Freeplane compatibility

I used Freeplane a lot, not just for mindmapping but also for other uses like lists, outlines and notes. So, it's quite useful for me to having it accessible as much as possible. Currently, the best available option to have Freeplane's file  mobile on iPhone and iPad is using iThoughts. It is not perfect and many aspect not translated well between them, but it's usable and good enough for my need for now.

Here is some tips and notes of using iThoughts as "mobile" Freeplane :

• Turn off "Resolve Auto Attributes" under "Export Options" group in iThoughts. This will map auto/blank attributes on iThoughts to defaults to Freeplane which is better than having to deal with confusing translation of Auto/inherited attributes
• iThoughts only know edge color, so every node color (text, background, edge) will all translated (flattened to be more exact) to edge color on iThougts. The bad thing about this is that it's a lossy translation, so when you re-open on Freeplane, all node-related color are back to default except for the edge color
• Icons compatibility is quite limited. Some typical groups and sequences like flags and numbers are in-sync as some punctuation-based icon like question and exclamation icon is in-sync too. So, use icon sparingly and test for compatibility
• Even after yo have established your personal convention you might still see some surprises on maps/nodes. This usually some Auto format issue. Try to reset the format to Auto on iThoughts and/or Default in Freeplane and reapply the needed formatting. This usually get the format in-sync again

iThoughts is a good app in itself, but it's Freeplane compatibility it's just medium level. Although it would be ideal to have full Freeplane  app but with some tweaks above  iThoughts could do the job for now.

muCommander to "complement" Finder in OSX Lion

I recently found muCommander File Manager. It's simple, dual-pane file manager (as a bonus, it's also multiplatform due to it's java usage). It supports natively several file protocol e.g: smb, ftp. However, the biggest use of it for me currently is that it can open windows share when Finder can not.

I have many issues with Windows Share in Finder and it can break the workflow sometime. muCommander help with that in many cases. On some other needs, it does not entirely solve the problem since it can not mount it and only allow transfer. This means I can not open the file directly through the share but need to copy it locally first. Still, it's a good help for now until Apple fix the interoperability with Windows Share.

Apart from that, I probably won't use it much beyond helping the windows share issue above. and some occasional need for dual pane.  It's a nice looking File Manager but a little too simplistic for my needs.

Manage Linux system services using sys-rc-conv

There's a good tool to help manage system service in linux : sysv-rc-conv that I start to used just recenrly. It's much better than having to deal with /etc/rc*.d stuff.

I don't know why I haven't used it before, probably because of the name :). It does describe the context and function well but not exactly easy to remember and pass around.

Integrating Apple Ecosystem

Early this year I got some iPhone app project to start. So, it began my serious usage of Apple Ecosystem. I start to use together iMac, iPhone4 and iPad2. It's been a very involving process to get them integrated into my current workflow (which up till then was mostly Windows-based). Most of my previous system is still used except for HTC Touch Pro2 which is replaced by iPhone4. Below are some notes on the integration process :

• Moving to The Cloud. My previous main GTD system is synced directly using cable with my HTC-TP2 act as the central on the synching with Laptop and Desktop with WMDC and BirdieSync as a glue. With the inclusion of the new devices it would no longer possible (or at least very impractical) to keep doing it. I guess this is what the clouds are made for. I now rely on Google Map, ToodleDo and Dropbox for most of the syncing.
• Java-Based software are ported well. Java works. I got jEdit, Freeplane, Astah working and ready to use on
• Mutliplatform software do it's job well. Firefox and Thunderbird has no issues here.
• Most of the software has comparable counterparts. Most of the software has more or less a comparable alternative on each platform. Some are better but some are less fancy, so overall it's a draw, I guess. I miss TortoiseSVN quite a lot in iMac.

Apart from the software it's mostly the adaptation that take some time. I don't like to just imitate what I did on other platform to another one. It's more satisfying, and useful on the long run, to try to understand first the new platform different approach and to migrate the needs as natively as possible before improvising more later on. For example, I tried built in Mail and Calendar on iMac for sometime before switching back to Thunderbird+Lightning.

So far, I enjoy the new systems and it brings many fresh views, new approach and utilities.

jEdit on Mac : How to get better font rendering

Text Editor is one of the first software I look around when I start using Mac. I am a jEdit user on windows but I figure I tried what's available natively on Mac first, in case there's something better and works natively. Long story short, jEdit is still the best option for me.

It runs quite well on Mac but somehow it seems something is a bit miss in the way it renders font. The characters are a bit blurry, although not too bad and I still managed to ignore it for sometime. However, after a while, the difference with the native editor like TextEdit start to raise some curiosity about the difference on how they render the font.

The discussion here, finally shed some lights on the issue. Below is what need to be set on jEdit (quoted from the original post) :

Edit the file: /Applications/jEdit.app/Contents/Info.plist

.. somewhere around line 66 you'll see these options

      Properties
     
        apple.awt.textantialiasing
        true
        apple.laf.useScreenMenuBar
        true
        apple.awt.antialiasing
        true

.. just after those lines, add the following extra properties:

        apple.awt.graphics.UseQuartz
        true
        apple.awt.rendering
        quality

.. restart jEdit, and you should have much nicer font rendering! :-)

It looks much nicer after it and give me even less reason to try to move from jEdit.

Install Kubuntu 11.04 on Samsung N150

I had a Samsung N150 from the office and installed it with Kubuntu 11.04 not long ago. Below are some notes to get it working acceptably. It's more of a high level notes/todos on setting things up for guides and reminder and not meant for the detailed to-the-letter instructions (read : familiarity with ubuntu/linux is assumed).

• The basic installation. There is nothing special here as it went quite straightforward.
• Changing the network-manager with wicd. My wifi can not be connected with the defallt-installed network-manager. Removing network-manager and replacing it with wicd (together with it's kde integration) solve the problem.
• Add xorg-edgers to apt-source and do updates to get video driver hardware acceleration (http://ppa.launchpad.net/xorg-edgers/ppa/ubuntu natty main). This way, the 3d efffects on kde will run smoothly.
• Fix the brightness setting : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/udev/+bug/574250. Installing samsung-backlight and samsung-tools mentioned on the article does not help in my case (only working once after install and the brightness setting fail to work again after resboot).  The solution I end up settling in is making script to encapsulate the solution using setpci as referred on the article. It is not user friendly but good enough for me and since I don't change brightness too often it i not really a big deal.

Despite it needs some research and tweak to get it working to a usable state, it is interesting to use when it is finally working. The kubuntu netbook-style desktop need sometime to get used to but after it I can appreciate how it makes the work on the netbook and and it's utilization become more efficient, most notably the screen real estate.  It does that without compromising the usability too much. Also, having the application menu integrated to desktop in a popup/vertical way is very cool too.

Base Setup : HTC Touch Pro 2

I own HTC Touch Pro 2 for more than half a year now (replacing my previous HP iPaq 912c). It takes some time for the various apps and setting to settle in. For me personally, it's not just about using of the gadget itself but more about how it integrates with my personal workflow. That is also why I still stick to Windows Mobile currently as many things that I use still not yet available in other platform.

Here's a brief overview of the setup of the essentials :

• Shell and Core App : SPB Mobile Shell+PocketBreeze+PocketInformant. These are the basics and I probably won't use a gadget if I can not setup a comparable feature on it
  
• Desktop Sync : BirdieSync + Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC). Having complete and reliable synching to desktop is essential otherwise it will be a pain to have to sync manually or having a gap in data between mobile and desktop. Birdiesync (event, tasks, contacts, etc..) and wmdc (files, notes, etc..) does all that I need
  
• Outliner : Freeplane for Windows Mobile. I wrote this app myself (branching from PocketFreemind project on which I am one of the developer too). I used Freeplane a lot, especially for things that can not be captured by the structured information manager. This allow me to have access to it on the go
• Spredsheets : Excel Mobile. Spreadsheet are great for certain type of data and I have some main personal files on this form that makes the existence of it on the gadget is very important. Windows Mobile comes with it out-of-the-box so it's already well-covered right from the start
  

Those are the essentials that makes up the base of my mobile setup. There are other apps that I use frequently but they are functionality specific while the above are has more of a dashboard/control-center/base-system feel to them.

Setup Kubuntu 8.04 KDE 4 Remix on Toshiba Satellite 2450 Series

KDE 4 is finally released officially in Kubuntu 8.04, so it's time for me to reinstall stuff in the laptop (Toshiba Satellit 2450). Recently it's been running kubuntu 7.10 with 3d card fail to configure and I have no patience/time left to fix it. It was working in previus kubuntu, so I have a good hope that things will be better this time plus I have been itching to test KDE 4 (I had been staying away from previous betas). So, here's the recap.

The installation went really smooth. There's nothing new with ubuntu/kubuntu here, it's been known to have trouble-free installation process (although it's been known to cause a little pain afterwards :) ). Restart then login shows a welcoming KDE 4 experience, quite slick.

Now, the fun begin. The network is not working and there's no graphical setting that I can use anywhere to set the ip and stuff. It's been quite well-done in KDE 3-based system-settings, so this is quite a major drawback. A little googling "inspire" me doing things manually below :

put this on /etc/network/interfaces

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address ...
gateway ...
netmask ...
network ....0
broadcast ....255

and this in /etc/resolv.conf

nameserver ...
nameserver ...

and finally execute this manually (and put in /etc/init.d/rc.local for auto-execution in booting)

route add default gw ...

Once the network works, it then quite typical fix, upgrade, install, remove, etc.. .

The next surprising thing was Firefox looked really really ugly. I remember this is the same case with the early days of kubuntu, the gtk use default look and feel (which is very bad). Easy enough, there's gtk-engine-kde4 to the rescue. Installing and setting it through SystemSetting->Appearance fixed it.

The next worth mentioning is about nvidia proprietary driver installation. I am a bit skeptical due to previous experience. But again, another round of googling, "inspire" me again (since I am not exactly doing what's in it nor the situation exactly the same).

In my case, it actually much more simpler (no need for Envy). There's a proprietary driver ready to be enabled (downloaded and configured) in the system. It's on DriverManager accessible form the StartMenu. Just need a click in enable checkbox and it automatically download and configure it. However to get it working, it still need one line in "Screen" section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf :

Option "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP"

After video card acceleration working, the rest of the time is spent playing with desktop effects, which is quite interesting and fun.

Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 4 sure is worth it, although I really think the Network Configuration matter is a very very major flaw. It put people who isntalling it in a very difficult situation to troubleshoot. In a system where it's not a problem (preconfigured successfully in certain system?) it could be fine, but not in many cases, I think. Besides with no network configuration GUI available to play with, there's so little hint on what to do next.