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I’m always learning new things in the ultra-useful vi, just finished creating some abbreviations with iab (see :h abbreviation) following Tip #610.

One of the comments in the page includes some useful examples, I quote:

You simply iab your most common typographical misteaks with the correct spelung and Robert’s yer father’s brother.
eg
iab teh the
iab seperate separate
iab shit Microsoft

Gosh, haven’t thought about that last one.

Reading some posts at the improved Rojo, I promise to write about it this week, I was thinking: “boy, how nice being able to read my favorite pieces of content from just one simple interface.”

Then the what if appeared. What if we could have the ability to comment in every blog or website without visiting it? Imagine a universal method for comments. Something like RSS is becoming for easily reading your favorite sites.

I resisted the temptation to google this before posting, maybe there’s somebody already working in some kind of reverse-syndication system and I’m just another silly guy with a dumb idea. It doesn’t matter, there are millions of us already.

Ideally feed reader and comment writer should work under the same user interface. Going one step forward we could ask for having our content management systems or blog tools integrated with these features. Imagine writing your content, reading feeds and posting comments from one single location.

In fact, we already have the writing and commenting part, we call it a trackback.

There is, of course, the big problem of spammers using a commenting tool like this, but I think captcha-like or validation features would help.

We already have the technologies for such a platform, would it work? What ya think?

I got it! I’ve been working with two screens on Windows during many years, and when I completely moved to Linux I wasn’t able to get it working again, even if Fedora Linux has dual head support.

A couple of years ago, I had written about using two monitors with one PC, and the article is still receiving many hits. Many people are looking the way to do this. I decided to give it another try yesterday and got it right this time.

Working with just one screen, when you’ve been using two during a long time, is almost unbearable. My ATI x700 graphics card didn’t worked with Fedora Core 4 dual head. I later discovered the problem was me, I haven’t looked in the right places.

This is a problem with most recent ATI cards, which use their own drivers, not included in Fedora.

I started making changes in /etc/X11/xorg.conf, backing up the current copy first, and using the control panel provided by ATI’s driver, but I couldn’t see if it was working because X died, my screens were getting blank, and I couldn’t see what was happening when restarting X.

My solution?

In the computer with the two screens I opened a terminal window, as root, made my change for dual head in ATI control panel, clicked apply, and run init 3 to restart in text based mode.

Then I used my other computer, also running Fedora (but it could have been using any operating system, I just needed SSH access) and SSHed, as root again, to the one with two screens, and run init 5 to restart X. Halleluyah! It worked, but the images were in the wrong side.

I played a little more with ATI’s control panel, repeated the init 3 and init 5 steps above and got it right. Although, I could have just changed cables.

Now my desktop is looking great!

I can continue writing the spanish version of my book about telecommuting, with my word processor in one screen while I have reference material in the other.

If you are going to work with two screens, you better get some of these spectacular screen savers. Enjoy.

Puedes leer este artículo en español

Technorati tags: dual-head | fedora | two-monitors | multiple-screens

Want to know how to use the Internet and your current skills to work away from the office and spend more time with your family?

In Telework People I’ll tell you how to do it.

Teleworking, or telecommuting, means doing your job away from the conventional office. It means working online. From anywhere.

You can earn much more money than you’re currently making by teleworking, but to do so you need to know a few tips and techniques I’ll share with you.

Get the book today for only US$ 22.22:

Update: You can now get the printed edition at Lulu.

disponible en español

Who’s This Book For?

Everybody can telework! No matter if you are an employee, busy manager or entrepreneur. You can start teleworking today.

You will find useful advice and ideas in this book.

Forget about rush hour, endless meetings with a stressed boss or the annoying chit chat of the guys in the next cube.

You can telework from home, a coffee shop, a bench in the park and even from a plane 35,000 feet up!

Teleworking is about people, and that’s why I’ve included cases from people I know. Friends and colleagues all over the world.

You’ll also know what I’ve learned in the last eight years, while working happily from home, including my mistakes, so you won’t repeat them.

Grab a free sample of the book

What Does The Book Contain?

In this 140 page downloadable PDF book you’ll find:

• The benefits of teleworking
• Ideas for convincing your boss to let you work from home
• What you need to telework
• Jobs suitable for teleworking
• How to start
• How to manage an online team
• How to spend more time with your family
• How to avoid becoming a workaholic
• Real cases from my friends and colleagues in many countries
• Useful resources for teleworkers

Unconditional 60 Day Money Back Guarantee

If for any reason you think this book is not for you, you can get an immediate refund. No questions asked, just contact me and let me know.

How To Buy?

Telework People costs only US$ 22.22. You can buy using any major credit card or Paypal.

You will receive an email with a link to download the PDF once you complete your order.

Get the book and start teleworking, and changing the way you live and work, today.

Update: You can now get the printed edition at Lulu.

disponible en español

Imagine a radio station playing just the songs you like, and giving you the ability to tell when a song doesn’t fit your tastes and not playing it anymore. That is what Pandora does.

Pandora is a web based service that allows you to create your own music stations. Stations that “learn” what kind of music you prefer based on the choices you make. Pandora only needs a web browser with the Flash player plugin installed, that is almost any computer in the world.

Pandora rewards our curiosity, hence the name. It’s a great way of finding new music. No matter if it’s the latest hit by a mainstream artist or an unknown local band from Biloxi, Mississippi.

I signed up to Pandora a couple of months ago and I instantly loved it; thus, when I got a newsletter written by Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora and who started the Music Genome Project in 1999, I decided to ask him for an interview.

Tim replied quickly and we had a talk over the phone yesterday.

Here you have it, Tim Westergren from Pandora, at Ventanazul.

Continua leyendo …

I knew Yahoo had a new web based email application running in beta, hence I signed up for the waiting list three weeks ago. Today when I logged in to my Yahoo Mail account a greeting page appeared telling me I could start using the new system, it also told me that my operating system was not supported yet (Linux, Fedora Core 4) and that I could experience some problems, but everything is working fine.

This is my review about the new guy in the web based mail arena.

Continua leyendo …

This one is going fast. I already have 6 referrals signed up under my account to win an iPod Shuffle and I’m just waiting for 3 of them to complete one offer, maybe they already did it but getting the credit can take some time.

Recently Freepay has imposed a time limit for all its sites. For the iPod Shuffle contest I have until May 30, 2006. They want people to complete the offers faster, but this could be a problem if you don’t get it quick.

Well, I still have some time and hope to get there soon. I’ll let you know.

Update: My new book is already available for purchase. Get your copy of Telework People now.

I’ve started working in a book about teleworking. I already told some friends and got many nice messages from all over the world offering help with feedback and translations, thank you all! It will be a really challenging project, a global book, and I’m sure it will be fun.

I would like to ask for your help; I’d like to know a little more about your teleworking experiences. I am including my own and a basic list of questions that you could use as guidelines.

Plese feel free to let the Shakespeare in you go wild and tell us all of what you think is relevant about your life as a teleworker.

Continua leyendo …

Long time I don’t post here, and now that I do it is to write, again, about winning an iPod. The good news is that I’m about to get mine.

When I first signed up at FreeiPods I never thought that a post in the blog would be enough to get my referrals, well, I was mistaken. I have already four people who signed up and completed an offer, I only need one more sign up to get the iPod.

I was thinking how I could get that last sign up, started reviewing my server access logs and noticed that Forums Ventanazul were getting many hits (even more than the home page and the blogs), so I designed a banner:

Well, what do you think? Will I get my preciousss … err … I mean, my iPod?

I don’t really believe in getting things for free, there are so many multi level and affiliated marketing schemes online, most of them just scam, that most of us doubt there could be any serious offer, you know, they say there’s no free lunch.

I already own an MP3 player, well, actually an Otis Audio Book Player, courtesy of Audible, which can also play music, but they, yep, the same they, say nothing compares to an Apple’s iPod, right? Well, I believe them.

Being unable to afford the 299 bucks I decided to look for iPod offers online.

After reading this Wired article , and realizing that giving away iPods could perhaps be a serious business model, I decided giving FreeiPod a try.

FreeiPod give you a free iPod after participating in one of their sponsors offers and referring 5 more friends, who will have to also choose an offer. They only accept US residents at this time.

I chose the offer from RealRhapsody, the Real Networks music service competing with Apple iTunes. At US$ 29.99 for a 3 month subscription, I think is well worth the money, in fact, I’m currently listening some Green Day at RealRhapsody.

Some of my friends are going for the BlockBuster offer, first two weeks are free and you can enjoy lots of movies.

Now I need the 5 friends for completing the process and getting my precioussss … errr … I mean, the iPod.

So, if you want to have a chance of getting a free iPod and helping me in getting mine, just sign up here.

One last detail: you will have to use Internet Explorer at FreeiPods, their site doesn’t work right with other browsers.

Keep rocking baby!

The folks at Slashdot run an article about the World Community Grid Project.

The World Community Grid Project aims to solve complex computing problems using grid technology, which allows distributed computer resources to work together. By harnessing millions of otherwise idle PC’s, the Grid could be able to trim the time it takes to find answers to complex problems from years, to months.

IBM is one of the organizations behind this project and so far there are more than 50,000 people participating.

Joining is easy, just download a small installer, run it and will run whenever your PC is idle. The software is secure and doesn’t affect the way you work. You don’t need to be online for the software to work, it just downloads a task when is connected, can work on it while offline and will send its results back to the grid when your PC is back online. You don’t have to do anything else.

Currently the Grid is working on mapping out every protein in the human body, this will help in finding the cure for several diseases.

The project maintains very useful statistics about donated time, organized by individuals, teams and countries.

This is an excellent chance to be part of something good for humanity, you can join now and then be a part of Ventanazul’s team.

Now you can do something to help the world, er, well, at least your computer can.

Geez, maybe we can even find the answer to the last question:

“How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?”

I was reading Sebastian Fiedler’s Sebloggin and he wrote about using a dual monitor setup.

I am working that way for more than 3 years now, it is one of the better investments I have made in hardware, my productivity has really increased along with my screen real state.

I use a video card from ATI, I can’t remember the exact model but there are many cards with dual monitor support in the market.

My current setup uses a 17″ display as the main one, using 1024x768, and an older 14″ for secondary stuff at 800x600. I work with Windows XP and Red Hat Linux (I have not even tried to test dual monitors under Linux yet) and I would love to get a Mac!

Since I started working with two monitors I was very satisfied, but I did not realize how useful was until I moved to another house. I was a few days working with one monitor, I could not get used to opening and closing some many windows so many times, it was really annoying.

As a web developer sometimes I program, sometimes I design.

Using Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator in a 17″ 1024x768 screen is the least you can ask for, and nothing beats just grabbing some files from your second monitor and dropping them in the first one.

I always have what I call “regular use apps” opened in my second monitor: File explorer, email client and MP3 player.

The main monitor is used for graphics applications, Dreamweaver when I am doing CSS, XHTML or some client/server side programming and web browsing.

If you design web sites is great to drag windows and see how your creations look in different resolutions.

I strongly suggest you try a two monitor setup, once you do, I assure you there is no way back.

Sebastian writes about using a dual monitor setup with a laptop, I use a desktop but maybe someday I would try with a laptop, I’ve got to get one first

April 2006 Update: I got two monitors working with Fedora Linux. Take a look.