Misspelled nemesis club
A blog about life, technology & databases
Firefox rendering/scrolling slow on Linux? Try reseting page zoom
Nov 23rd
For months now, I’ve found Firefox on my Linux laptop to sometimes be sluggish and a CPU hogging, particularly when scrolling. T-Mobile UK and Engadget were the worst affected. Visiting t-mobile.co.uk saturated the CPU for several seconds whilst rendering. The result looked horrible – grainy, and badly pixelated.
I’d attributed this to X, Nvidia, browser sniffing, Flash and Javascript/CSS. Of course it was me all along. Firefox 3 has a feature called Full Page Zoom, it doesn’t just resize text, it scales everything on the page. I had zoomed these pages, then forgotten.
If any of this sounds familiar, try reseting your zoom level:
- Visit the page that scrolls slowly or looks pixelated.
- Either press Ctrl + 0, or click Edit → Zoom → Reset.
- If text is now too small to read, enable Edit → Zoom → Zoom Text Only, then zoom in with Ctrl + +.
Firefox should now scroll the site smoothly and quickly. The zoom level is remembered on a per site basis, so repeat this for any other pages affected. If you would like to control zoom from the toolbar, try the PageZoom extension. If you would like to set the zoom globally, try No Squint (courtesy of AncientPC on Al-Osaimi Techlog).
The question remains why Full Page Zoom can be so sluggish, and under what circumstances. Also, why does Try Firefox 3 full page zoom on Mozillalinks performs so poorly for me, regardless of page zoom.
Another Python cheat sheet
Nov 18th
I couldn’t find a Python cheat sheet that I liked, so I made another.
It’s rough, but pretty usable. I need to make better use of space/colour, choose a clearer font and link it into the Python docs.
The license will be either Python Software Foundation License or CC-Attribution. Comments and suggestions welcome.
Barriers to year of linux on the desktop
Oct 31st
This post is a tribute to Linux Hater who sadly has retired. He was insightful and right about many things, although sometimes a bit too whiny.
Linux currently holds about 1% market share on the desktop. It has gained 0.5% in 2 years, whilst Mac OS X has gained 3%, and MS Windows has lost 4%. In the browser market Firefox is now nudging 20% market share. Can Linux ever achieve that?
A single ‘Year of Linux on the desktop‘ is unlikely, but it’s a popular meme, so lets to play.
It’s some number of years in the future. Ubuntu ‘Satisfied Squirrel’ has built on slow, steady growth. Linux desktop share now nudges 20%. What might this future Linux desktop be like, compared to now?
This week I have been mostly learning…
Oct 23rd
- The XBox 360 (Xenon), Wii (Broadway) and Playstation 3 (Cell) all use an IBM licensed PowerPC CPU.
- The Ubuntu spell-check dictionary includes ‘SPARCstation’, but not ‘PlayStation’.
- YSlow rocks.
- Users of IIS should not believe the official docs on HTTP Compression, instead go to Coding Horror.
- MythTV has a several second delay, changing between live channels, the delay is inherent to the architecture.
- FreeView are renumbering their channels and apparently removing friendly channel numbering from their broadcasts, in favour of firmware updates.
Honey I hid the dot-files
Oct 6th
Backing up my home folder this weekend, in readiness for the Ubuntu Intrepid beta I spotted some unusual path names scroll by:
~/.local/share/applications
~/.local/share/desktop-directories
~/.local/share/gnome-do
~/.local/share/mime
~/.local/share/Mono Paint
~/.local/share/Trash
~/.local/share/tracker
It turns out that the hidden folders $HOME/.local/, $HOME/.config, and $HOME/.cache are default values, specified by the Freedesktop.org Basedir specification. To override these values one may set some environment varibles:
$XDG_DATA_HOMEfor user specific application data.$XDG_CONFIG_HOMEfor user specific configuration data.$XDG_CACHE_HOMEfor user specfic ‘non-essential’ data.
The BaseDir specification has shades of the Windows user profile file structure, but in a good way. Agreeing on such cross-desktop conventions will solidify Linux as a desktop platform for ISVs, but there’s still a way to go.
Other Freedesktop.org specifications build on BaseDir, for instance the Trash specification. So now Gnome’s trash applet knows where a deleted item should be restored to.
Job Seeking
Sep 28th
It’s been Five years since I moved to Birmngham, to begin work with Defence Estates. I’ve enjoyed my time there, the people are fantastic and I’ve learnt much. It’s now time to move on; I want to find new challenges and broader horizons.
If you’re looking for a DBA, a system administrator, someone skilled in GIS support, or in application support – then please email me or call me. My CV is online (as MS Word, OpenDocument, or PDF).
SubHuman GTK theme: making GTK play nice with Fitts
Sep 20th
In Fitts’ Law and Minimalism vs GTK+ and Qt I complained about the excessive use of borders and padding in GTK+ and Qt. Here’s what I’ve got so far (click for unscaled versions):
Although work in progress still, I think the window looks cleaner already. Most importantly the chat history scrollbar now lies flush with the window edge. To achieve this, I’ve created a customized gtkrc and made a small patch for pidgin.
More >
Fitts’ Law and Minimalism vs GTK+ and Qt
Sep 18th
It all started with the Pidgin chat window, which is surrounded by several pixels of padding. To my eyes the padding doesn’t achieve anything, it just wastes space and detracts from the clean, minimalist lines of the Buddy List. After much fumbling, I managed to change it in the Pidgin source code . Bug 6987 with patch was duly filed.
Now I’ve become obsessed, I’m spotting extra borders and pixels in nearly every application on my desktop.
Commenting is now fixed, sorry
Sep 18th
Anybody who tried to register on this blog during the last 6 months or so, would not have received an activation email. So many people will have been unable to comment. If this has happened to you sorry for the inconvenience.
This WordPress installation can now send emails, thanks to the Configure SMTP plugin by Scott Reilly.
If you have any problems, please email me, my address is alex@moreati.org.uk.
Free/Open Source Government: part 2
Jul 7th
On 31st March the British Standards Institute (BSI) submitted an updated vote of approval, on ISO 29500 (MS OOXML). The move surprised many, myself included.
In September 2007 the BSI had voted ‘No – with comments’, attaching a long list of reasons. The response had been prepared in the open over the web, using the BSI OOXML Wiki. It was applauded by many, including members of other national standards bodies, a BSI report to the All Party Internet Group (APIG) stated:
BSI has been making its scrutiny process transparent by assembling comments on the Web in public view, and is recognised as leading the international scrutiny effort. The German standards body DIN are adopting a similar process, and one US standards committee member has written “when I compare [our process] to the BSI’s excellent work developing detailed comments on a publicly-readable Wiki, I think we in the US should be ashamed …”
The wiki hasn’t been substantively updated since October 2007. I’ve been unable to find any stated reasons from the BSI for the reversal of their position or in fact any announcement by BSI of their final vote.
On 30th April the UK Unix Users Group (UKUUG) requested judicial review of the BSI’s reversal. In June this application was rejected by a Judge. On the 19th UKUUG appealed, the BSI made no public comment. Unless it becomes public record in court, their reasoning will remain secret.
This post isn’t about the BSI or ISO 29500/OOXML. More >
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