Advogato: Personal info for AlanHorkan

AlanHorkan is currently certified at Master level.

Name: Alan Horkan
Member since: 2002-09-14 15:39:05
Last Login: 2007-07-21 17:25:16

Homepage: http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/

Notes:

Code may not be my main contribution to Open Source but I make myself useful with a little bit of everything (usability, bugfinding, general helpful encouragement).
Alan particularly likes cross platform software like AbiWord, Mozilla, OpenOffice, and projects like Inkscape, Dia and the GNU Image Manipulation Program.

Alan is moderator of the Gnome Usability Mailing list.
Alan can often be found on irc.gnome.org usually on the channel #abiword.
Alan's email address is horkan a at maths dot tcd dot ie
Alternatively you can try contacting alanhorkan at Gmail or Yahoo! although these addresses get checked far less often.

LiveJournal for Alan Horkan
Technorati Profile for Alan Horkan

Projects

Contributor on Abiword
Helper on Mozilla
Helper on Freeciv
Contributor on Film Gimp
Contributor on GNOME Usability Project
Contributor on OpenClipArt.org
Contributor on GNOME
Contributor on Evangelism
Contributor on Inkscape
Developer on Dia
Developer on GIMP
Helper on GtkGraph
Contributor on Conglomerate
Contributor on GNU Paint
Helper on Gnumeric
Contributor on Sound Juicer
Helper on Eye of Gnome
Helper on GNOME UI Improvement Project
Developer on GNOME Games
Contributor on KDE
Contributor on Beer

Articles Posted by AlanHorkan

Mark Finlay a.k.a &quoSisob&quo 10 Jan 2004 at 19:45 UTC
&quoSecurity&quo Co-opted by Business Interests 15 Sep 2003 at 16:35 UTC
St Patricks Day 13 Mar 2003 at 18:41 UTC

Recent blog entries by AlanHorkan

Syndication: RSS 2.0

17 Aug 2008 »

Nokia Fail.

"Out of memory please delete messages".

Have megabytes of memory on the phone card and yet I'm being asked to delete messages, WTF?
Fail.
The backup and archiving options are less than ideal either. Sigh.

Syndicated 2008-08-17 12:09:43 from Alan Horkan

3 Jul 2008 »

Word of warning: Eee PC Linux Recovery DVD

New Toys:
A coworker bought himself an Asus Eee PC 700 for a modest €300. After the initial surprise of how small and light it is I got to play around with it for a while.

The custom version of Xandros (née Corel Linux) provided by Asus could hardly look more like Windows XP. The choice of this less popular distribution made life that little bit more awkward when I was struggling to get Citrix installed. When 3rd party software fails I'd be inclined to blame the 3rd party namely Citrix but since it works in Windows my coworker is more inclined to blame Linux and he threatened to buy the Eee PC with Windows next time since his children were already monopolising his new toy.

The very small tight keyboard layout with an undersized shift key got annoying fast, kept inadvertently hitting the up button. The smaller return key (or should I say "enter") is annoying but to be fair I'm used to it being two rows high and it isn't an unusual design choice (seen it on American keyboards layouts). I'm left wondering as to why designers do not elminate the Caps Lock key and the Function keys (F1, F2, etc.) and why it has both a Delete and Backspace key if space is at a premium.

Word of Warning:
In the limited time I had to play around with the Eee PC it was fun but I wanted to play with it more so I tried using the Linux Recovery DVD on a spare computer. I was hoping perhaps it was a Live DVD and I'd be able to setup a test Eee PC playground. I'm glad I used a spare machine since the *Recovery* disc overwrote something on the local hard drive. Don't try this at home. Having read the documentation further the smarter move would have been to get the Software Developer Kit (SDK) from the Asus website http://support.asus.com.tw/download/
and instructions are provided explaining how to setup the Eee PC inside VMWare. Although I didn't find it in my brief search I wouldn't be surprised to soon find a VMWare Player with all this already setup for you.

The Asus Eee PC has really grabbed a lot of attention (or was it the OLPC that started it all) and sparked a whole line of so-called "netbooks" but it will be interesting to see if they can capitalise on their first mover advantage, or hold on to a prestige position like Apple do. It is an impressive machine and I was almost tempted but little annoyances soon focussed my thoughts to more fun things I could do with the money.
In any case the software is what grabs me and I'm pleasantly surprised to see Linux in the mainstream.

Syndicated 2008-07-03 16:31:49 from Alan Horkan

11 Dec 2007 »

Brevity: Mournes 2007 Climbing Trip Report in Twenty Words

Climbing trip report in twenty words*.

Trinity. Mournes. Soup. Drink.
Flooding. Fire brigade. Four dinners. Mulled wine. Drink.
Pidgeon Rock. Climbing! Hot Ribena. Orange Monster. Drink. Porterhouse. Home.

* twenty unique words is close enough.

Syndicated 2007-12-11 01:36:49 from Alan Horkan

24 Nov 2007 »

As seen on TV!

Late on a Friday evening at the computer and with an episode of CSI Las Vegas playing on the television I unusually didn't switch channels as soon as the advertisements came and on was surprised to see Durex advertising a vibrator on television. Don't recall seeing Durex advertise on television before, so advertising a vibrator seems that bit more unusual and interesting.

Specifically:
http://www.discoverplay.co.uk/dial_up/the_range/vibrations.asp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e66tPREEHXo

<lj-embed id="1" />

Curiouser and curiouser.

Insert witty comments below about not having a girlfriend...

Syndicated 2007-11-24 00:30:46 from Alan Horkan

4 Nov 2007 »

Bad haiku

sad but true
a knocking on the window
hope it was you

Syndicated 2007-11-04 21:19:38 from Alan Horkan

357 older entries...

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