Wed, 20 Jan 2010

3G is not broadband

With the wealth of information available on the internet, I find I'm using it more and more to learn about new things, to remind me about things I have failed to retain or indeed to discover those new subject areas that I should gain some understanding of.

Unfortunately (for me), more and more material is being presented in video format, particularly with the increasing ease with which one may create and upload something to YouTube and similar sites. This is good - with both visual and auditory stimulation information tends to be better retained. However, I am currently limited to 3G bandwidth (as in HSDPA from a mobile provider, not 3Gbit/s - which would be lovely ;-) ) and I'm finding that this pretty much precludes me from using video. It's no longer reasonable to have to wait 8 times the length of a video clip to download it.

Interestingly, given the Irish governments recent underwriting of 'broadband expansion' within the country through the medium of HSDPA coverage, their own website defines broadband as (from broadband.gov.ie):

"Broadband is an always-on Internet connection that gives you high-speed access and downloads for a flat rate monthly charge.
Everything works faster, from downloading emails and files (such as pictures & mp3's) or streaming movies and radio."

I'm not sure where they've run tests from, but in real world testing where I'm situated more than a few metres from the transmission mast / basestation, and there is more than just me as a subscriber in the area, video just does not work. Neither does VoIP / Skype or a number of other things that depend on reasonable, consistent latency - particularly on the uplink. I was amused to notice, in fairness, that the Broadband Technologies page on the same site does not list HSDPA/HSUPA as a broadband technology (rightly, in my personal opinion.)

I await the delivery of actual broadband to my house, so I may enjoy the occasional video from the internet once more...

posted at: 07:22 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Mon, 18 Jan 2010

Linux and Keyboard Layouts

I write in English and Irish reasonably frequently, with an occasional sojourn into German and French too. Of course, there is also a requirement that I be able to correctly punctuate and accent the names of colleagues with non-Anglicised names too - so that leaves me with some fairly extensive requirements for keyboard layouts. My operating system of choice is Ubuntu Linux and I consider myself fortunate that the international flavour of the developers appears to have rubbed off on its multi-lingual configuration.

If you want one language and layout, simply choose System | Preferences | Keyboard and choose the Layouts tab. There you can add or remove layouts at will - I prefer the Ireland UnicodeExpert layout as it allows me to type English, Irish, German and French (and probably other languages too) without changing layout at all. Note that if you want to add this layout 'by language' it's under English, rather than Irish or Gaeilge/Gaelic.

Once you have selected this keyboard layout you can, of course, type in English as normal. Note that it's a 'UK' keyboard layout rather than American (i.e. the quotation marks are above the number 2 and the @-sign is above the single quote character. Also, the hash is next to the Enter key and the monetary pound sign is above the 3.) To get letters with fadas on them, as required for Irish, simply use (usually) AltGr + vowel. AltGr + o produces ó for example. This makes typing as Gaeilge go han-shimplí ar fad. Níl a lán rudaí níos éasca ar chor ar bith.

As well as this feature - the ability to get fadas (or French acute accents) with a single key-combo, things like umlauts are not too difficult: a simple AltGr + : (colon) followed by a vowel will give an umlaut over the letter. AltGr + : followed by 'e' gives ë - easy-peasy. Note that AltGr + ; (semi-colon) will do - it 'implies' the Shift key, saving you from having to be a concert pianist or an emacs user to key the keystrokes right. AltGr + ^ (the 6 key) and an appropriate letter puts a hat over the letter. AltGr + ~ (tilde) puts a tilde over letters like 'n' for Spanish (I think...) There are lots more characters and languages supported without changing keyboard layout.

posted at: 12:25 | path: /technical | permanent link to this entry