sudo apt-get install ruby1.9.1
sudo gem1.9.1 install compass
sudo echo "PATH=$PATH:/var/lib/gems/1.9.1/bin:$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.9.1/bin" > /etc/profile.d/rubygems1.9.1.sh
compass version

I’m not a Ruby on Rails developer, and I’m not overly familiar with Ruby configuration, Rails, gems, etc., but the above steps were found on a couple of mailing list and forum posts.

I’m still finding my way round the mixins, features and syntax that compass offers, but very much believe in the power of using such a framework to cut down on manual CSS typing and future maintenance issues. I’ve started building up my own framework and am looking forward to using it in future projects.

Here are the steps on the command line required to use it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Here’s my gdb backtrace in case anyone is having the same issue and searches for terms that appear in it.

GNU gdb (GDB) 7.2-ubuntu
Copyright (C) 2010 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.  Type “show copying”
and “show warranty” for details.
This GDB was configured as “x86_64-linux-gnu”.
For bug reporting instructions, please see:
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gdb/bugs/>…
Reading symbols from /usr/bin/clementine…(no debugging symbols found)…done.
(gdb) run
Starting program: /usr/bin/clementine
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
[New Thread 0x7fffeaa22700 (LWP 5437)]
[New Thread 0x7fffdee24700 (LWP 5438)]
virtual bool QxtGlobalShortcutBackend::DoRegister()
[New Thread 0x7fffde5d9700 (LWP 5439)]
[New Thread 0x7fffdddd8700 (LWP 5440)]
[New Thread 0x7fffdd5d7700 (LWP 5441)]
[Thread 0x7fffdd5d7700 (LWP 5441) exited]
[New Thread 0x7fffdd5d7700 (LWP 5442)]
[New Thread 0x7fffdcdd6700 (LWP 5443)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd7fff700 (LWP 5444)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd77fe700 (LWP 5445)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd6ffd700 (LWP 5446)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd67fc700 (LWP 5447)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd5ffb700 (LWP 5448)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd57fa700 (LWP 5449)]
[New Thread 0x7fffd4ff9700 (LWP 5450)]
[New Thread 0x7fffcffff700 (LWP 5451)]
[New Thread 0x7fffcccd6700 (LWP 5453)]
[New Thread 0x7fffc7e8e700 (LWP 5454)]

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
[Switching to Thread 0x7fffc7e8e700 (LWP 5454)]
0x00007fffced5be4c in orc_sse_set_mxcsr () from /usr/lib/liborc-0.4.so.0
(gdb) bt
#0  0x00007fffced5be4c in orc_sse_set_mxcsr () from /usr/lib/liborc-0.4.so.0
#1  0x00007fffced6209a in orc_compiler_sse_assemble () from /usr/lib/liborc-0.4.so.0
#2  0x00007fffced521f5 in orc_program_compile_full () from /usr/lib/liborc-0.4.so.0
#3  0x00007fffcf5fc177 in ?? () from /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvolume.so
#4  0x00007fffcf5fb27c in ?? () from /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstvolume.so
#5  0x00007ffff403d161 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstbase-0.10.so.0
#6  0x00007ffff403d77d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstbase-0.10.so.0
#7  0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#8  0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#9  0x00007ffff403d7c9 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstbase-0.10.so.0
#10 0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#11 0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#12 0x00007ffff403d7c9 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstbase-0.10.so.0
#13 0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#14 0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#15 0x00007ffff403d7c9 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstbase-0.10.so.0
#16 0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#17 0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#18 0x00007ffff403d7c9 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstbase-0.10.so.0
#19 0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#20 0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#21 0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#22 0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#23 0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#24 0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#25 0x00007ffff47fc12d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#26 0x00007ffff47fc9ee in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#27 0x00007fffc80b6675 in ?? () from /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstflac.so
#28 0x00007fffcd1d758d in ?? () from /usr/lib/libFLAC.so.8
#29 0x00007fffcd1d7920 in FLAC__stream_decoder_process_single () from /usr/lib/libFLAC.so.8
#30 0x00007fffc80b4b80 in ?? () from /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstflac.so
#31 0x00007ffff4825c93 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libgstreamer-0.10.so.0
#32 0x00007ffff4ae973f in ?? () from /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#33 0x00007ffff4ae77e4 in ?? () from /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0
#34 0x00007ffff76ec971 in start_thread () from /lib/libpthread.so.0
#35 0x00007ffff0ec592d in clone () from /lib/libc.so.6
#36 0×0000000000000000 in ?? ()

One minor issue which I resolved (at least for now) last night was annoying pauses in GNU/Linux (Ubuntu), which I use as my main operating system. These roughly second-long pauses in which my mouse input wasn’t actioned seemed to occur particularly often when doing things like switching tabs in Thunderbird’s settings dialogue boxes amongst other things.

They hadn’t always been present, and I was pretty sure they were because of some adjustments I had made to operating system settings on account of using a SSD (solid-state drive), which were intended to increase long-term performance and wear levels. I’d followed most of the tips from these pages:

• New to SSDs?
• Four Tweaks for Using Linux with Solid State Drives
• Geek Sheet: A Tweaker’s Guide to Solid State Drives (SSDs) and Linux
• Linux Filesystems for Modern SSDs and TRIM Support

Following the advice given, I’d enabled TRIM support for my ext4 partition by editing my fstab file. However, after making that and other changes, a process of elimination showed that it was this adding of the ‘discard’ option that had introduced the annoying pauses.

I’m now running without ‘discard’ (TRIM) enabled on my Crucial RealSSD C300. Hopefully the drive will “recover” well enough without TRIM. I’ll also try re-enabling ‘discard’ every time a new kernel is installed to see if this issue gets sorted.

My first idea was to buy a pre-built system, perhaps from Dell. But after doing a bit of reading up on the current landscape of PC components, including a Custom PC magazine or two, the bug bit me and I decided to build myself. I’ve purchased my components from SNOGARD and Mindfactory – both German retailers.

Only the graphics card is to come – hopefully tomorrow – so I can start work and test the core components either tonight or tomorrow morning. Here are a few unboxing photos and some notes on the components I have so far.

Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Deluxe

A socket 1155 board which takes the new Sandy Bridge processors from Intel (see below). It also uses a new type of BIOS, allowing for mouse usage and a more graphical approach to changing settings. The Deluxe version comes with a front USB 3.0 plate which is important as my case only has USB 2.0 ports at the front. This motherboard also allows for three graphics cards to be used (the third limited to 4x), but I’ll probably only ever use two at most.

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K (“Sandy Bridge”)

The ‘K’ basically means it’s overclockable. Apparently, these processors can easily be overclocked substantially while still running cool.

CPU cooler: Thermaltake Frio

RAM: Corsair 12GB (3 x 4GB) Vengeance DDR3 (PC-1600, CL9-9-9-24, 1.5V)

It’s not the fastest RAM around, but the amount of it impacts on performance more than its latency.

Solid state drive: Crucial 128GB RealSSD C300 (SATA III)

I’m planning on putting both GNU/Linux and Windows operating systems and programs on this SSD, and am expecting this to make a world of difference to load times and responsiveness.

Hard disk drives: 2 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ (1000GB, 7200RPM, 32MB cache)

General data and backups to go on these.

Power supply: Fractal Design Newton R2 1000W

Case: Fractal Design Define XL Titanium Grey

I was considering using my old case, but decided to get a new one in the hope that it will be quieter. I can also perhaps use the old case for a cheaper PC as a standby. As you can see in the last photo, the new case is a lot larger than my old one.

Asus P8P67 Deluxe 1155 ATX DDR3

I went with a school class trip (my girlfriend is a teacher), and it was good to spend some time with teachers and kids. I helped with some very basic techniques/demonstrations and assisted in picking fallen beginner kids up (as well as my girlfriend who was skiing for the first time and who did very well!), and also got to ski with more advanced skiers on a few occasions. By the Friday, my turns were definitely getting better, and I did a red run or two without trouble. It was great fun, and I’m pleased I went.

The original reason for my trip to England was a two-day business meeting with a client and developer colleague. This happened Thursday and Friday of last week, and was really enjoyable and encouraging despite my having a cold and finding the length of our sessions a little long at times. The two gentlemen who myself and my colleague were meeting are extremely interesting to talk to and work with if you’re into visual methods of communication – this is what their business is all about in the context of teaching/learning – and I’m excited about the things we’ll be developing together.

When booking my flights for the meeting, I decided to stay on for a few days to allow me to visit my family. I’m sleeping at Ian’s (my brother) flat, and have spent some time with Mum and Dad, too. I think Mum really enjoys treating me to some of her home cooking, and so far I’ve had two meals from her: a lovely curry and a roast pork with apple sauce. I’ve also met some friends of Ian’s flatmate at a local pub, which was fun.

Only about a week after I’ll get back home to Germany, I’ll be off again to Austria for a class ski trip with Britta, a few other teachers and about 70 kids. I’ve only done a bit over a week’s skiing myself (slightly more snowboarding), but I got to the stage where I could consistently enjoy a good blast down a slope, so I hope to be of help to the beginners that will be among us.

Unfortunately, a fair bit of the time that’s left in between these trips in January will now have to be devoted to system maintenance/repair, as the PSU in my workstation PC blew up earlier this month. I’m hoping that the rest of the system will be okay once the PSU is replaced, but if, for example, the hard disks are shot then I have backups of data including client work. I wanted to get myself a new workstation anyway, and am in the process of deciding whether to buy the components and build it myself or to buy a pre-built system.

I’ve also been getting a lot of enquiries and requests for estimates for new work, at least some of which are going ahead and are required over the next few weeks/months. (I also had to let one potential new client know I couldn’t help them due to lack of time, but they said they hope to have more work for me to propose on in the future.) So it’s all go. Or, as my father always says when he gets back from the office, “busy, busy, busy!”

As a result, I am closing my Amazon account, as has Daniel Ellsberg and, no doubt, many others. This involves sending Customer Service a message from within one’s account pages.

Once I manage to set up an alternative means of payment for one of my domain name registering service providers, I shall also be closing my PayPal account for the same reason.

The command line utility which enables the conversion is called pdftotext, and is part of the Xpdf suite. It comes with Ubuntu (which I’m using for my workstation) as well as many other GNU/Linux distributions.

Using it to convert a single PDF to text is simply a case of giving it the filename of a PDF:

$ pdftotext catalogue-page-1.pdf

However, pdftotext expects one and only one filename, so getting it to process a whole directory of PDFs needed another command:

$ find ~/new-products/ -iname "*.pdf" -exec pdftotext {} \;

“Riad” posted this command, and here’s his explanation:

1. -iname : the “i” stands for ignore case, means your find will match .pdf as well as .PDF, .Pdf …
2. The -exec switch runs a program on each matching file. The name of the file is inserted into the command by a pair of curly braces ({}) and the command ends with an escaped semicolon. (If the semicolon is not escaped, the shell interprets it as the end of the find command instead.)

Google Wave really struck me with its potential when I first saw what it was about. Adding the persistence of email to the real-time nature of instant messaging in an environment open to multiple participants was one of those things that now seems so simple and blindingly obvious. During its preview I’ve successfully used it with two clients and a few friends, and avoiding email copying to multiple recipients in order merely to have a textual conversation was great.

So I’m extremely disappointed that Google has announced it doesn’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product.

I’m aware many people’s response to Wave has been one of confusion or apathy. Many seemed to think that it was pointless. But I believe expectations were misplaced.

I didn’t view it as replacing project management or instant messaging. I didn’t explore the various extra bits and pieces, or the advanced techniques. I didn’t read The Complete Guide to Google Wave to find out about all the extra cool things that could be done with it. I just thought the basic concept was great, and found that it worked.

Google was even going to open-source the protocol, allowing the whole world to work with the technology.

Google states “But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked.” But it’s currently only a preview. Carry on making it, and it has great chance of shining through in the end.

If Wave doesn’t see the light of day as a full product/protocol in the near future, something similar will soon after. Change does take time, and the full potential of good things is very rarely seen by the masses immediately. But we humans are social animals, and we will find better and better ways of communicating with each other over time.

Google: please let that Wave build.

Internet Explorer 6 onwards and recent versions of all mainstream browsers support the CSS fonts module.

Preparing the font files and CSS

The quickest and most efficient way of preparing font files and getting appropriate CSS to use them that I’m aware of is the Font Squirrel @font-face Generator. Here are a few notes on using it and choosing from its options.

My currently preferred settings

Adding fonts

Clicking the Add Fonts button allows you to select the font(s) you wish to use. If you don’t already have a font that is legal to use via @font-face, have a read of Where to get web fonts.

Font formats

Different browsers have different font format-reading capabilities, so more than one format of font is required. Each browser will only have to download one format, so don’t worry about extra bandwidth being wasted.

Very briefly: TrueType is used by many, EOT is the only format Internet Explorer can use, and WOFF can be used by Firefox. I use TrueType, EOT and WOFF (OpenType).

Alternate Formats

@font-face rules are well supported, so Cufón shouldn’t be necessary.

Font Options

I’ve found Add Hinting to improve font rendering in Windows, so I keep this option selected.

File sizes of fonts have been quite small, so I don’t feel the need to Simplify Outlines. And the same goes for Remove Kerning.

However, reducing file sizes without loss of quality is always a good thing to do, and subsetting fonts can really make a difference, especially if the font you are using has an extensive range of glyphs. So tick Subset Font… and spend a little time narrowing down the included glyphs to those you will actually use this font for with the aid of the font-face generator’s easy-to-use options.

I haven’t experimented with the Base64 Encode option as yet, but not all browsers can use it anyway.

CSS Code

I opt for the “Mo’ Bulletproofer” method from Richard Fink as it avoids Internet Explorer making requests of your server which result in 404′s. You can read technical details about the methods using the links under the fields at Font Squirrel’s page if you wish to know about the ins and outs.

Agreement

As you’re putting the resultant files in a publicly accessible place, download-able by all, it’s important that you use fonts that come with the appropriate permissions.

Download Your Kit

Once you’ve signaled your agreement, the download button will appear.

Testing

Extract the zip file you’ve downloaded and open up demo.html in a web browser to see the font at various sizes. Check that it displays in an acceptable fashion at the kind of size you’ll be using it in different browsers. Particularly look out for the display quality in Windows versions of browsers.

Using

Copy the actual font files (e.g. .eot, .ttf, .woff) to your website directory. I place them in a subdirectory called ‘fonts’.

Open up stylesheet.css in your text editor and copy the given CSS into an appropriate CSS file of your own that is used by your pages.

Example CSS:

@font-face {
    font-family: 'BallparkWeiner';
    src: url('ballpark_weiner.eot');
}

@font-face {
    font-family: 'BallparkWeiner';
    src: url(//:) format('no404'), url('ballpark_weiner.woff') format('woff'), url('ballpark_weiner.ttf') format('truetype');
}

font-family can be anything you like.

Unless you keep your CSS file and font files in the same directory, you will need to change the src urls in the CSS. For example, if you keep your font files in /fonts and your CSS files in /css, you would change

url('font_name.ttf')

to

url('../fonts/font_name.ttf')

Then style elements which should be displayed in the new font with CSS. An example:

h1 {
    font-family: 'BallparkWeiner', Georgia, serif;
}

Test in a variety of browsers, and enjoy your new-found typographic freedom!

Further reading

Nice Web Type has some excellent articles on technical details, font licensing information and where to get fonts which can be used with @font-face rules.