I have a new blog at http://jace.zaiki.in/

I’m in the process of migrating content over from this blog and will redirect the feed and links when done. For now, please update your subscription manually. The new blog’s feed is at http://jace.zaiki.in/feed.atom. Thanks for keeping track through these silent months. I’m writing regularly once again.

Ubuntu ships FreeType with the bytecode interpreter enabled. This works very well for common typefaces such as Vera, DejaVu, Verdana and Georgia at small sizes but somehow doesn’t for other typefaces and sizes.

After some tinkering, I came up with a configuration that works for me:

1. Open the Terminal and type sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
2. Choose Autohinter, Automatic for subpixel rendering, and No for bitmapped fonts.
3. Under System → Preferences → Appearance → Fonts → Details, choose Subpixel and Slight.
4. Restart OpenOffice (including the Quickstarter) and Firefox. These two don’t reflect changes automatically.

We’re making two choices here:

1. Native bytecode interpreter vs the autohinter. I’m not completely sold on one over the other.
2. Full vs slight subpixel rendering. Full looks fantastic at small sizes (8-9pt) but terrible when large. Slight is less well defined at small sizes, but acceptably well shaped for larger sizes.

Further reading: Comprehensive Ubuntu Font Configuration Guide (written for Gutsy but also applicable to Intrepid).

Update: Disregard the above. The blurriness at small size gets unbearable after a while. Go back to native interpreter, full subpixel hinting, and setup custom workarounds in your ~/.fonts.conf file. Here’s mine:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM "fonts.dtd">
<fontconfig>
    <match target="font">
        <test qual="any" name="family" compare="eq">
            <!-- Twitter uses Lucida Grande. The site looks terrible without
                 hintslight enabled. -->
            <string>Lucida Grande</string>
        </test>
        <edit name="autohint" mode="assign">
            <bool>true</bool>
        </edit>
        <edit name="hintstyle" mode="assign">
            <const>hintslight</const>
        </edit>
    </match>
</fontconfig>

My friends at the Tactical Technology Collective are organising Info-Activism Camp in February 2009. From their description:

The Info-Activism camp will bring together 120 rights advocates from the global South with technologists, designers and activists for a week long hands-on workshop to share skills, tools and tactics in digital advocacy.

Info-Activism is an approach to advocacy that recognises the artful use of information and communications as a primary tactic in successful campaigns.

The camp provides a space for intensive learning and doing, a structured 'skill-share' environment for experienced advocates that will give them the confidence and know-how to leverage the limited resources they have to create greater impact. During the week, participants will learn how to creatively integrate new technologies in to their advocacy and create long lasting connections with other advocates and tech-activists.

The camp will give rights advocates the practical skills, tools and techniques to use technology to:

• Gather and analyse information and facilitate evidence-based campaigning
• Create and disseminate targeted, accessible and engaging information for advocacy efforts that have impact on targets and mobilise support
• Increase participation from affected communities
• Enable cooperation and coordination with allies
• Minimise security and privacy vulnerabilities

If you’ve been to any of TTC’s earlier Source camps, you’ll know them to be true camps, held away from urbanity in a full time week-long camp, technology driven, and yet focused on practical applications for the activist. These events are great places to meet folks who care about changing society for the better.

The venue is yet to be decided. It is likely to be near Bangalore. Application forms will be available later this month. More information here: Info-Activism Camp - February 2009, India.

Within the space of just a week, no doubt owing to the Acer Aspire One and MSI Wind becoming available. But for its weight, the Eee PC 1000H is a very compelling selection, with a comfortably sized screen, large keyboard, excellent trackpad and high quality speakers. Staples is selling with the full capacity 6-cell 6600 mAh battery. Earlier Eee PCs including my 701 were sold with a lower spec battery than elsewhere in the world.

... is hard after years with a Mac.

I’m using Windows as a way to detox, as a way to get away from dependence on the computer’s storage as data hub and move towards the cloud. I’m tired of lugging a laptop around everywhere and don’t see a solution in a lighter device. My digital life will have to be distributed across multiple special purpose devices with overlapping functions, with my data accessible across them.

Using Windows makes this migration so much easier.

It’s been two months now with my Eee PC and I’m pleased as punch. This is easily among the most useful gadgets I’ve acquired.

The Eee PC is incredibly small and light. It fits everywhere, even in my camera bag with the camera also in it. Despite the miserly 800x480 resolution, or perhaps because of it, I keep all windows maximised and work distraction free. The screen’s just wide enough for a column of text, which makes it a great ebook reader. OpenOffice with read-only documents defaults into viewer mode, which is great. I no longer have to convert stuff into PDF to make a comfortable reading experience, like I needed to do on the Mac. Vim, with my customised vimrc, works splendidly for editing in reStructuredText, my text markup format of choice.

When I’m not working with documents or code, I’m working with people, and XChat when maximised once again delivers the goods. I can keep the device aside, an eye on the conversation, while I’m working on something else.

Because it’s always in my bag, I can pull it out when waiting at a coffee shop, make a note, read something, or otherwise generally be productive instead of twiddling thumbs. The device is low profile and the keyboard comfortable. The battery life isn’t great, but I’ve managed to stretch it as much as 3:30 hours. It lasts long enough between the average visit to the power socket.

That said, the quibbles:

• The trackpad’s scroll area is way too sensitive. I use a scroll mouse occasionally just for the scrolling comfort.
• The PgUp/PgDn keys are overloaded on the arrow keys. Navigating documents a page at a time is that much less convenient.
• Boot time with Hardy is several seconds longer than it should be, while suspend-to-ram sucks juice.
• I miss Skim. It made reading and annotating PDF on the Mac such a joyous experience. There’s nothing like it on Linux.

All minor. The device overall gets two thumbs up.

Seth Godin shares my take on reading business books. In How to read a business book:

... How to read a business book... it’s not as obvious as it seems.

• Bullet points are not the point.

If you’re reading for the recipe, and just the recipe, you can get through a business book in just a few minutes. But most people who do that get very little out of the experience. Take a look at the widely divergent reviews for The Dip. The people who ‘got it’ understood that it was a book about getting you to change your perspective and thus your behavior. Those that didn’t were looking for bullet points. They wasted their money.

My notes on Twitter:

two kinds of business books: the absolutists who tell you what is good for you, and the relativists who tell you what they experienced. 03:14 PM April 14, 2008

the more i read, the more i prefer adapting from the relativists than kowtowing to the absolutists. 03:14 PM April 14, 2008

I’m currently reading What Management Is by Joan Magretta and totally loving it. Blossom’s in Bangalore has it for Rs 160.

1. Damn, this thing is light.
2. Damn, this thing doesn't fit my pocket. It's a computer, not a phone.
3. The keyboard's tiny! How will I ever learn to touch type on it?
4. This thing is light. It doesn't stay put when I type.
5. Where's the keyboard backlight? I'm supposed to adjust ambient light now?
6. It froze! Thrice! Ah, the community forums have the answer. Something oddball with the wired network settings seeking a network. Turn it off. Who plugs in anymore anyway?
7. Why doesn't this thing just connect to my wireless network when I turn it on, like my Mac does? Why doesn't Apple make this thing?
8. It's so tiny, it won't sit on my lap like a laptop. I need new postures.
9. Look ma, it's so small, I can hold it with both hands and thumb-type! Just like with my phone!
10. I think I can get used to this keyboard. I typed this entire post on the Eee PC itself!
11. Eh, why don't my Mac keyboard shortcuts for extended characters work? How do I get smart quotes in this post? Why doesn't Apple make this thing?
12. I see major lifestyle changes happening.

I’m in the market for an ultralight laptop to serve half-way between my cell phone (Nokia E61i; very portable and always on me, but painful for anything more than a few hundred words) and regular laptop (Apple MacBook Pro; all round performer but not a joy to lug around). The primary use will be for email and extended note taking. There appear to be only two suitable candidates available for purchase in Bangalore today.

The MiLeap Y or Eee PC, oh which one will it be?

What would you pick and why?

My blogging these days is largely confined to Twitter, with the very occasional picture on the moblog.

I’ve long regarded blogging as an outlet for self-expression first, everything else a distant second. My work-related responsibilities and associated communication needs have grown tremendously over the past year, taking away much of the energy otherwise channelled into such expression. Barcamp Bangalore has similarly taken its cut.

What’s left works rather well at crafting an expression in 140 characters.

Earlier this year, I applied to NRC-FOSS for funding for a project to build an open source OpenID Provider wrapper around existing SQL and LDAP-based authentication databases. They haven’t made up their mind yet, but in the meantime I figured I’d release my spec. Here it is.

Gracie and Crowd provide similar functionality, though I’m not sure they serve my exact use case.

I spent last week in Laos, taking a much needed vacation. Pictures and text forthcoming.

Rajiv Poddar thinks so. I’m not quite convinced that is the case. Consider this:

To my mind, BCB3 was the peak and the decline has started. One of the most attractive aspects of Barcamp was its simplicity. It was easy to find who was attending and who was talking about what. With each Barcamp it got progressively difficult to do so. With BCB4 it was impossible to get a quick snapshot and I dont expect BCB5 to be any different.

To think of it, the significance of Barcamp has also diminished over the past year with more events and unconferences cropping up. Barcamp itself has played an important role in germinating these events. These spinoffs have taken over the role of bringing together people around a narrower common interest.

That focused events are reducing Barcamp’s significance is indeed true. What Rajiv appears to have missed, though, is that as these communities gain traction and find their focus, they will want to move on and manage themselves, leaving Barcamp to newer communities seeking similar exposure. The collective format is designed around encouraging this.

This will mean each Barcamp has its own flavour in terms of what sort of participant it attracts, and this may not appeal to everyone, but Barcamp was never about dictating who’s allowed in and who’s not — or what they’re allowed to discuss.

The compliant about it becoming harder to understand what’s happening in the event, however, has merit and deserves consideration.

Registration of collectives for BCB5 is now open. Here’s the explanation on what’s new.

Based on discussions over the last few weeks, we're now using web forums instead of the wiki for collective registration. This means you’ll need an account at the forum in addition to your existing wiki account. This is inconvenient, but the forum hopefully provides a better interface than the mailing list and its online archives.

I’ve posted to the forum explaining how collectives may register.

(I’m on vacation through next week. Will be missing out on much of the action, but the break’s badly needed.)

Shourya Sarcar interprets Gandhian thought for folks interested in BCB5:

But, lately, one of Gandhi’s quotes have been striking me hard inside. It’s forcing me to get out of my comfort zones, realign my biases and admonish myself more effectively.

Be the change that you want to see in the world

And that’s my only request to people who want to see changes happening in Barcamp Bangalore 5, coming up somewhere around November this year.

Let’s not just say, “This did not work”, “The auditorium was not effective”, “The sessions were boring”. My challenge to you (and myself) is “What are you going to do to effect a change ?”

Positive emails are one way to make a great start. I have observed that there are two primary types of emails that come in

1. This went wrong
2. This went wrong and I wish this would be the way it was

We need to create the third category: This went wrong and I wish it was this way and THIS IS WHAT I AM GOING TO DO ABOUT IT.

The rest of the post deals with common gripes and possible constructive responses. Link.