Save more than 10% battery life with adblock

As I mentioned before, I bought a netbook recently. Naturally I was experimenting with ways of getting the most out of the built-in battery. I just realized that blocking flash based moving ads on websites can enable you to save more than 10% battery life.

Here is the main result.
the power consumption of the netbook is:

1. 11.2 Watts before blocking, and
   
2. 9.5 Watts after.

So, if you are on the go and doing web browsing, and would like save some battery power, block ads.

Notes:
1. link to adblock: http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865/
2. in order to see power stats, use the linux command "gnome-power-statistics".

how to switch/reassign keyboard keys in linux / ubuntu / fedora

I recently bought a netbook which came with a good size keyboard. However, due to the space constraint, the netbook producer, turns out, combined the Page-up and Home, and Page-Down and End keys. Well, as a touch typist and a programmer, I often use Home and End keys, and it is certainly a pain to be able to access them only via a Function key like Fn+Page-up=Home. So I did some googling, and here is the result.

1. Install Xmodmap
in ubuntu do: sudo apt-get install xmodmap
in fedora do: sudo yum install xmodmap

2. get the "keysym" name of the keys using xev
keysym of "home" key is "Home"
xev
press the Home key
KeyRelease event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
root 0xaa, subw 0x0, time 3028114, (288,433), root:(289,515),
state 0x0, keycode 110 (keysym 0xff50, Home), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False


via xev: keysym of "Page up" key is "Prior"
xev
press the Page up key
KeyRelease event, serial 33, synthetic NO, window 0x1800001,
root 0xaa, subw 0x0, time 2825051, (322,253), root:(323,335),
state 0x0, keycode 112 (keysym 0xff55, Prior), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes:
XFilterEvent returns: False


4. switch keys by doing two assignments
xmodmap -e "keysym Home = Prior" -e "keysym Prior = Home"

Crazy pace of decreasing per GB cost of hard-disk data storage

At the year 2000, the cost of hard-disk storage was ~$20 per GB. A quick calculation gives that a TeraByte disk that we can purchase for ~$100 nowadays would cost ~$20,000 about 10 years ago. Isn't this mind blowing?
See http://www.alts.net/ns1625/winchest.html for the hard-drive prices by year.

A "must read" book on sustainable energy.

Sustainable Energy - without the hot air by David MacKay

Developed countries heavily rely on fossil fuels as an energy source which are expected to be consumed up in 50 years or so. Additionally, fossil fuels are the main cause of global warming as you might already know. In the not too distant future, we have to get off the fossil fuels. Well, how can we do that without compromising in our living-quality? David MacKay gives a quite coherent answer to this question in his book where he processes and summarizes immense amount of information on the energy subject. A striking feature of this book is that it is accessible for the average Joe.
This book is available online for free at: http://www.withouthotair.com/

here is a guest blogger from wordpress: QuantumBee writes on quantum entanglement

Quantum entanglement is one of the hot topics of modern physics. QuantumBee gives a brief account of this topic which is accessible for the average Joe.
http://quantumbee.wordpress.com/

next "wave" on internet music: GrooveShark

It is literally possible to stream every song on earth to your computer via "www.grooveshark.com". Note that this website is legal, and currently has agreements with big music companies. I guess they are planning to make money via ads displayed on the website or you pay < $10 to avoid these.

How to create a foiltex pdf presentation?

STEPS
1. Include the following lines in the main tex file:

\documentclass[landscape,dvips]{foils}
\usepackage{graphicx} % This may not be necessary
\usepackage[pdftex]{geometry}
\geometry{headsep=2.0em,hscale=0.80}

2. compile the *.tex file with the latex command:
latex filename.tex
3. view the file with xdvi:
xdvi -paper a4r filename.dvi

4. convert the dvi file to pdf:
dvipdf filename.dvi