Derek Hildreth’s Blog

Sunday Drive to Mesa and Cave Falls

Heather and I went out for a Sunday drive down through Yellowstone and Targhee national forests while listening to Johnny Cash’s greatest hits collection along the way.

We stopped at Cave Falls and took a couple of pictures. It was a pretty neat waterfall because you could get into the cave and look right up into the falling water. We’ll probably end up going back to the area next summer to hike up to some of the other eight waterfalls in the area.

After Cave Falls, we headed up towards Lower and Upper Mesa Falls. We’ve been there before, but by the time we got there it was too dark to see much. There was another time that we had attempted it, but the roads were blocked off to normal traffic because they were not maintained past a certain point so that the snowmobiles could ride on them. So, we finally made it which felt pretty good. We took in as much scenery as we could and then headed back home for the day and finished it up with a movie and snacks.

As always, we hope you enjoy the photos and video!

Day Trip to Mesa Falls and Cave Falls

Hey, Gnome! I Have Some Advice…

I’ve been using Gnome ever since I switched from Suse to Ubuntu Linux and I gotta say, although it’s not as customizable as KDE, Gnome is clean, easy to use, and well refined. Now, this isn’t a KDE vs Gnome flamewar, but there are some things that I believe Gnome is missing in order to provide an even greater desktop environment. So, during the last few months, I have been writing down mental notes on what I think needs to be incorporated into the next release and I would like to share them with you.

The List:

Better Screensaver Options.

I know ths sounds strange, and a lot of the computer gurus and uber geeks are going to dissagree, but Gnome is in desperate need of a better screensaver program. The gurus and geeks will say their favorite screensaver is pitch black because there is no reason take up precious processing power just to display something that will never be seen anyways while away from the computer. But to the average computer user, there is nothing more dissapointing than when they can’t setup their screensaver to their preferrence. For example, a lot of people (like myself) love the GLSlideshow screensaver. But, at first glance, there isn’t a way to customize where the pictures are being taken from. It shoud be as easy as point and click, but instead you have to use the help guide to figure out how to customize it with cryptic command lines and file names. Another example is the GLText screensaver. Again, the average user should be able to just point and click to change the message that it shows, but instead you have to hunt down the configuration file someplace in the filesystem in order to change the text displayed. Gnome needs to have an easy to use, all inclusive screensaver applet that will allow users to easily configure their screensavers.

Restore from Trash.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I would love to see this functionality incorporated into the trash bin. Again, this isn’t a KDE vs Gnome vs Windows debate, but really…. KDE and Windows has had this functionality for a long time now. I erase a file sending it to the trash bin, and then I learn later that I actually need that file. So, after a quick right click and “restore”, it’s placed neatly back into the original directory from which it came. In Gnome, I have to cut/paste it into the directory myself. It can’t be that hard to incorporate this into the trash bin, can it?

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=474071

Data Transfer Speed (Read/Write) Read-Out.

The other day, I bought a new USB flash drive from SanDisk (4GB) and I wanted to see exactly how fast the read and write speeds were in Mbps, but to my dismay, I realized that the “Coping Files” dialoge that appears when you copy/paste from one directory to another didn’t include a “details” drop down, or even a simple speed rate read-out. I would love to see a drop-down button that gives you much more details about the files that you are transferring. Again, this is something that is incorporated into KDE and Windows, but not Gnome.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=474074

Add a “Rename Files” option when copy/paste files instead of only “skip and replace”.

This one is a little harder to explain, but the principle is very simple. For example, when you move a file named “mydocument.txt” from one directory to another directory with a file of the same name, you’ll get a warning message that says “A file with this name already exists” and then it will give you an option to either skip the file, or replace it. How about a “rename file and copy” option that prompts you for the new file name and then continues to move the file.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=474076

Thumbnail view while browsing.

Here’s a situation that occurs very often, and I’ve heard of others having the same frustraiting dilema. You’re online trying to upload a file or picture to your blog or web service by using the “Browse…” button on the website. You’re browing around your files only to realize that you’ve forgotten the file name of that perfect picture you want to upload. So, you go to right-click and change the view from “details” to “thumbnails” and it’s not there! So, now you have to open the directory, find the picture, remember the filename, and then find it in the upload dialoge on the website. I would love to see a “view as” and an “arrange by” option when you right click in nautilus.

“View As” dialog on right-click menu in nautilus.

This feature request is pretty much the same as the one before it, but it would be great to have a “View As” option when you right-click in nautilus. I know that you can use the “View” option in the window toolbar, but it would be much easier to use the right-click option. The method that I use now is Ctrl+1 to display icons in details view and Ctrl+2 to display them in thumbnail view, but not every user likes to use keyboard shortcuts.

Make installing software from source easier.

This would be huge. Maybe there is already a program that will do this that I don’t know about, but it would be great if Gnome could figure out a way to make it as easy as double-clicking a tar.gz file and automagically compile, make, and install it seamlessly into the Gnome application menu. This is another one of those things that the computer guru or professional would be able to understand and comprehend easily, but grandma and grandpa would be, needless to say, in the dark. Installing software is one of the hardest things for a user to get used to in Linux, and I think that if you can make it easier for the average user to install a new piece of software, then there would be more people converting to Linux.

Choose to “decline” updates so update icon doesn’t sit in notification tray forever.

This one may not be specific to Gnome alone, but I know that in Ubuntu, there needs to be a simple way to “decline” an update or “ignore” an update so that the update utility doesn’t sit in the notification panel forever. I invision that a user will choose the updates that they want by clicking the check box next to the item, and then leaving the other items unchecked. When they click “Apply”, a dialog box will pop up asking the user if they would like to ignore the unchecked packages for future updates. I know that updates are important and that there is a rare time that one would not choose to accept the updates, but there are other cases that the update actually breaks something in the system and the user will want to decline the update forever or until the bug has been fixed in a later version. Yet another example of the problem with not being able to decline the updates is when the user is running a newer version of the software. For instance, I’m running Kernal 2.6.22, but the update manager is suggesting a ‘downgrade’ to 2.6.20. I want to decline this until it offers me a version greater than that.

Get more “Add to Panel” accessories!

I love the “Add to Panel” accessories, but there aren’t enough options or they are out-dated with cheesy graphics and what-not. Can there be some more applets added to the panel? Right now, I don’t have anything in mind, but it would be kinda neat to see some more innovation in this area. Speaking of, I really like the “weather” applet and I would like to see a “forecast mode” where it will get the forcast for the next week or so.

This is all I can think of at the moment, but if you (the readers) have any other suggestions, please feel free to put them into the comments below. I would like to hear what you have to say about your experience with Gnome as well. I really think that these things (or at least some of them) could be incorporated into the the desktop environment to bring the end user an even better desktop experience.

[digg=http://digg.com/linux_unix/Hey_Gnome_I_Have_Some_Advise]

Labor Day Weekend at the Cabin

From Labor Day at …

There was one word that I heard more often than any other this trip to the cabin: “motorbiking”. And that’s exactly what we did. Shortly after arriving at the cabin around 7:30PM on the 1st, Heather and I handed off Qeirstyn to the Grandma’s and took the opportunity to quickly go out on Devon’s new motorbike to give Heather a crash course in how to ride a bike. She did awesome! And if you consider that the bike she was riding was much to big and heavy for her size, she did even better. For the first few minutes, I had ran beside her in order to make sure she was doing okay, and then to my surprise she had told me to stay put! She had taken off on her own down the main road and shifted into third gear before slowing back down again to a perfect stop. It got to be pretty dark after an hour of riding, so we headed back to the cabin where we ended up playing an exciting game of “kick the can”. It was so dark, that we were able to lay down and hide out in the middle of the yard. The ‘taggers’ would step on your hand and never even see you. Heather had a close encounter with a mouse in her hiding spot when it scurried right in front of her face while she was lying down!
The next morning, we went out for yet another motorbike ride that took up most of the day. This is where the picture taking started. We rode in groups with just about one motorbike or four-wheeler per person. Along the way, we took a random stop and discovered these huge crickets! Heather picked one right up, but I was a little more hesitant. We ended up finding the perfect picnic spot and settled down for a couple of hours to let our bodies rest from the vibrations of the motors. Heather and I had switched out our four-wheeler for the motorbike that Cody and his fiance, Sarah, drove up on, and started to head out. Unfortunately, we got a flat tire and rode back home in the truck with the motorbike loaded in the back. After settling down, we got some pretty cute pictures of Qeirstyn in the tire swing out in front of the cabin. I remember swinging in that as a kid, and it has been around for a long time so it was pretty special to see her in it. Once we had thought that our weary bones we rested up enough, Heather and I went out for another bike riding lesson. Again, to my surprise, she had insisted on driving the bike all the way down the cabin road, through the main road, and to the riding spot by herself. I followed on the three wheeler. When we got there, it got dark a lot faster than we had anticipated, so we headed back to the cabin. Heather not only rode the bike there, she drove it all the way back in the dark! She did great.
On September 3rd, Heather and I went out for yet another quick motorbike ride to get some pictures and video of her riding around. She did excellent that time too. She’s learning very quickly and she’ll be a great rider once we can find her a bike that fits a little better. So, that was the end of the bike riding of this labor day weekend and the pictures as well! We would’ve taken more pictures, but the camera battery died out.