The vi editor is a powerful editor. Problem with it is that it is only for the command line which means that many preferences are not accessible via a 'Preferences' page. You need to know how to set preferences using commands.

Recently I've found out how to change the tab size in the vi editor. I think by default the tab size is 8 characters, which is too long for coding with proper indentation. To change it to a four character stop, use the following command in command mode:

:set tabstop=4

I have KDE and Compiz-Fusion installed on openSUSE 10.3 running for some time now. Some time ago, I encountered a strange problem where the ALT-F1 key combination does not bring up the menu any more. Also the I don't know what I did to cause this but I managed to solve it thanks to the openSUSE wiki.

Part of my work requires me to play with the ASUS Eee PC. In particular, I've got to install on the Eee PC SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 10 SP1. The process is more difficult than it sounds. I'm blogging about it here so that other people who are interested in doing the same thing can share my experience and theirs through comments.

I've submitted a Cool Solutions article with Novell on how to prepare the iPrint client for use with Ubuntu Linux. The article can be found at http://www.novell.com/communities/node/4208

Hope this helps someone out there. Comments are welcomed :)

After getting the Eee PC installed with openSUSE using the USB installation method (http://en.opensuse.org/SuSE_install_from_USB_drive), I'm now trying to use the Eee PC as what a 'normal' user would (versus a power user/developer). What I've found out in the short period of usage is that the application Inkscape, a vector drawing program, does not work quite well out of the box.

From the blog aggregator planetsuse.org, Garrett LeSage posted about using the Compose key to enter different typographical characters such as —, ®, ©, ², ¿, ¡, ÷ etc

Interested? Read his posting to see how it works.

By the way, the post is for Linux only. Enjoy.

This Bash command does the job pretty well...

ps axo com,sz

So apparently Gmail knows I'm Chinese. Or so I think. In the past when I log out of Gmail, it will say "Please wait..." Recently, perhaps through some heavy-duty data mining, it told me to "请稍等..." (Chinese for "please wait") instead. I thought that I had turned some settings in Firefox to display Web pages in Mandarin or I revealed through my emails that I'm Chinese - in which case that would be a serious case of privacy invasion, I think.

And all of a sudden, it now speaks to me in English again. I thought it was a mistake on Google's side. Turns out, it is! Another guy (Joe Shaw) who has entries in Planet SUSE's blog aggregator also has a similar problem. Well, mine is seemingly resolved now. Hopefully Joe's get resolved soon too.

Tip: If you are observant, you will see that when you try to login to Gmail's site, the login page is SSL-secured. Once you log in though, the page is not transmitted through SSL. If you want to keep your connection SSL-secured, you have to login with this address https://mail.google.com instead of http://gmail.com

Basically if you specify right at the start that you want SSL connection, Gmail will keep that for you.

2014-06-24 update: In the process of moving my blog, the Chinese characters got corrupted due to improper encoding handling. I shall leave it as it is. Also it seems that the problem Joe Shaw had was of a different nature - he was complaining about spam which is something different.

If you are using Linux and are facing problem with Java applets running correctly on Firefox, AND you have googled to the ends of the earth but still can't solve the problem, check this post out. The solution in my scenario is remarkably simple.

While openSUSE is a great Linux distribution, I can't say the same for the mailing list's search function. For many weeks now, the only result that came back from the search is:

Sorry, the search is disabled! Come back later

Someone in the mailing list suggested that a workaround is to use Google's site specific search function. In the search box, prefix the search terms with the term:

site:lists.opensuse.org

For example, if I want to search for "usb boot support", I will type the following in the search box.

site:lists.opensuse.org usb boot support

Granted, it's not perfect, but it's a temporary workaround. shrug