Gnome 3

In Linux, there are many different desktop environments you can use. Gnome, KDE, XFCE, and LXDE - to name a few. Actually, those are the only ones I've used. I'm personally a Gnome fan, but I use LXDE on Lubuntu on the older computers in my house. The only major distribution that I know of (other than OpenSuSE) that distributes Gnome 3 is Fedora 15, which I have installed on my laptop (dual booting with Windows).

Gnome 3 is very different from other desktop environments. The application starter is completely different from what I'm used to...

Meanwhile, the application switching interface is substantially different, because of the lack of taskbar. A major issue that I found is that Alt-Tab doesn't work the way it's supposed to. When you press Alt-Tab in Gnome 3, you switch between applications, not windows. In order to switch between windows, you have to press Alt-`. However, this command only switches between windows in the active application.

The other thing I don't like about Gnome 3 is how there's a close button, but nothing else - and also how the title bars are a bit oversized. My screen isn't particularly high resolution (it's only 1366x768), and it's not really pleasing to see title bars that are unreasonably big.

I would probably say, though, that Gnome 3 is 90% usable if I used a netbook (with the exception of the Alt-Tab issue), because I always felt the "new desktops" (Unity on Ubuntu 11.04, Gnome 3 on Fedora 15) were more suited for smaller screens - especially in Unity because the windows automatically maximize.

Irene

Hurricane Irene was one of those rare hurricanes that directly impacted the northeast. From North Carolina to Vermont, there was damage from Irene. In my state alone, there were over 600,000 power outages caused by the storm.

My uncle in Bucks County, Pennsylvania reported to me that his "whole area [was] flooded and the bridges into Jersey [were] closed!" I also heard that he lost power, going to my grandparents' house in Columbia County (2 hours away). In fact, my family was still vacationing in Wildwood, New Jersey until Chris Christie forced everyone out (although I still think he should be forced out of office).

In Norwich, Connecticut, the flooding made it up as far as the train tracks. The Merritt and Wilbur Cross Parkways were closed, because trees line those roads, and could come crashing down on people trying to leave.

Up here in my town, luckily, the most damage I've heard so far are intermittent power outages. We also had a water main break this morning, but I don't think that's really related (although it's pretty ironic that after getting about 6 inches of rain, there's hardly any water pressure).

Cats

From time to time, people ask me why I love my cat, Sweetz, so much. In this blog post, I will outline why.

• Most non-cat people think cats are mean. Sweetz is appropriately named (although he is male).
• He's always there for you (and I mean always).
• I've been with him since February 2003. He's been part of my life for 8 1/2 years.

Now on to why I love cats in general.

• Unlike dogs, you won't hear them from five states away....at 2:00 AM.
• Kittens are the most adorable animals ever.
• Egyptians used to worship them.
• Cats can run faster than I drive.

The New Jersey Shoreline

My uncle on my dad's side rents out a condo every year in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. Now, I live in Connecticut. Why would I be going to New Jersey? Well, my family is almost entirely located in Pennsylvania. Their closest shore is in New Jersey (and no matter how much they hate it, they can't deny that). So, I spent the past few days in Wildwood Crest.

Now, I'm the only person in my family who doesn't hate New Jersey. The waves out there are amazing. The shore in general is just magnificent. Sure, I'm incredibly sore all throughout my body (and a wave smashing into the back of my knee, thereby cracking it, didn't help) - but we hardly get any waves in Connecticut.

Contrary to the stereotype of New Jersey being filled with traffic, we hardly hit any traffic on the way there or on the way home. Getting home (by way of NJ-47 North to NJ-55 North to NJ-42 South to I-295 North to US-1 North to I-287 North/East to Hutchinson Pkwy North to CT-15 North to I-91 North) hardly had any traffic, besides a bit of traffic (which we got around) in Camden, then Piscataway, and lastly in White Plains (which, to be fair, is in New York).

Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable trip.

Photography and Highways

On the Christmas of 2006, I got my first camera. It was an HP Photosmart M425. It had a tiny screen, but otherwise it did the job. With that I started to get interested in photography. I opened up a Flickr account in mid-2007. The one thing I photographed a lot was highways. Back then, I lived with my mother in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Every other weekend, I would go up to Connecticut to see my father. This involved a 450 mile trip every two weeks. As a result, I was very interested in highways, and I enjoyed photographing my trips.

Ever since I was in second grade, I've been developing a fictional place called "Ianistan." The main feature of Ianistan is its very intricate highway system. Highways have been replaced, relocated, and purged over the past 10 years. Originally, the system had no order. Recently, I renumbered every road in the system. I removed the Northeast Route system. I removed Northeast Route 9, the ultimate highway throughout the northeast. It's been replaced by a more realistic set of highways.

Anyways, back to photography, the original subject I wanted to write about here...

This past Christmas, I got a Nikon Coolpix L22. Yes, I'm still using a point-and-shoot to do my photography. Unfortunately, I don't have $550 for a DSLR camera. I really wish I did. But because I want to be a math major, I don't think it's really worth it right now. However, I'm trying to do my best with what I have. If that's a point-and-shoot, that will do.

College

I just realized something today. This time next year, I will be entering college. I might be at Binghamton University, Marist College, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts Amherst, or Eastern Connecticut State University.

I've been spending the past 8 years wondering about what the year 2012, my year of high school graduation, would hold. My senior year is still 16 days away, but I'm satisfied with the progress I've made in the K-12 schooling system so far.

It amazes me that the 2012 school year is so close. It amazes me that I can vote in the next presidential election. It amazes me that I still don't have my driver's license. It simply amazes me that I've made it this far.

Office Suites

Yes people, I am back to blogging. I didn't fall off the face of the earth or anything. I just haven't been in the mood to blog recently.

About 20 minutes ago, I obtained a New Jersey saltwater fishing license for my upcoming trip to Cape May. I found a really crazy route to get there to avoid the Garden State Parkway.

Anyways, I have been playing around with several different office suites recently. I have used every version of Microsoft Office, starting with Office 97. I used Office 2007 Professional until today, when I felt bad, since it's really my uncle's copy, and Office 2007 requires activation. As a result, I installed Office 2000 Professional, the last version of Office to require activation. Then I realized that it would probably be unfeasible to use an 11 year old set of software on my 1 1/2 year old computer, running Windows 7. I mean, I run Office 2000 on my Windows 2000 machine, but that computer is from....2000.

I later decided to try out Corel WordPerfect Office X5. I generally liked it, but it had to go through this weird, slow conversion process every time I loaded a Word 2007 file. Because the world is transitioning to Word 2007/2010, that would be an issue. Therefore, WordPerfect Office was just...out.

I eventually settled on an office suite which I have used numerous times in Linux. I now use LibreOffice. It's a free office suite which supports many file formats, although it has some issues rendering Word 2007 files. Nevertheless, it's what you're getting for free, and it works perfectly fine.