Good Users
It's just really nice to get an occasional respite from the annoying clueless people in #xfce. Very often I ask myself why I even idle in there at all, given that the majority of the traffic is completely OT, or random people whining about their pet feature not being included, or having problems that many others have had and they could solve themselves by reading the FAQ or clicking the help button in one of the settings dialogs.
But tonight I had the pleasure to talk to someone with a feature idea who was willing to talk it out with me, and was understanding of why it is difficult and maybe not the highest priority. And even more impressive, he was willing to do some of the necessary legwork himself to maybe kickstart the feature. Kudos.
I understand that most people don't do any coding and wouldn't be able to hack their way out of a paper bag. But that's not an excuse to bitch and moan and expect the developers to bow to do your bidding. It's not even an excuse to expect the developers to even consider what you have to say. Sure, it would be nice if I had the kind of time (and patience) for that, but I don't. And until and unless my paycheck comes from someone who hired me to work on Xfce, I probably never will.
People don't even realise sometimes that they don't even need coding skills to help. The documentation could always use people looking at it and improving it. It wouldn't hurt to have a support-type person watching over Bugzilla, answering and closing common bugs that get reported. And in this case, the guy I was talking to was willing to do a little research into how his particular feature ("switch user" functionality piggybacking on GDM or KDM if running) could be implemented. I'm not saying it'll get implemented immediately if the required information is acquired, but it sure as hell isn't going to happen at all if someone's not willing to do the homework.
Anyway, I didn't intend this to turn into a rant; just wanted to express some gratitude that there really are appreciative people out there, and while they may not be as vocal as the complainers, their presence negates the effect of a lot of repetetive, annoying crap I sometimes take from users.
Mini-rant
When someone warns you in August about the potential for a trademark dispute, you change the name then and there, and you don't wait until February when you get sent a cease-and-desist letter.
Mailwatch
Today I released version 1.0.0 of the Xfce Mailwatch Plugin. Pasi and I worked our asses off on it, and I finally got around to doing a real release. We feel pretty confident about it, so I decided to go for 1.0.0. Enjoy.
Impressions
It's interesting how you can see someone in a different context and realise how little you know about that person, even someone you've known for the better part of year. More to come later.
They Dream Down There
Those of you who know me, know my feelings.
Then this happened.
For the safety of mankind, I had to warn them
Blarg
So, yeah. I don’t do a lot of engineering, and interestingly I have lots of ties. And right below the ties is the theatre, which is where I grew up.
You scored as Engineering. You should be an Engineering major!
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What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
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I Guess I’m in the Right Field
Granted, I don't do as much actual engineering as I'd like, but at least my mind is in the right place:
You scored as Engineering. You should be an Engineering major!
Engineering - 92% Mathematics - 83% English - 83% Philosophy - 67% Chemistry - 67% Linguistics - 58% Dance - 42% Sociology - 42% Biology - 42% Journalism - 33% Psychology - 33% Anthropology - 33% Art - 25% Theater - 25%
Fun Links
A revolutionary car design that promises 330MPG
An interesting take on advertising
A nifty microcontroller project that might be fun to play with sometime
A nice take on work and doing what you love
Xfce
I went through and moderated a whole bunch of comments. Sorry if your post took a long, long, long, long, long, long time to show up ;-)
That said, several people wanted to be sure we were all here. Short answer: Yes. Xfce development is still happening. Long answer, I’m tired and my butt hurts from sitting in an office chair all day, so Dev News has slacked to an all time low.
Sysprof
Anyone have any hints on how to build sysprof?