Every so often, there’s something about KDE that really impresses me. This time it’s text selection in KPDF. I’ve just tried to copy some code from a pdf into kdevelop, so I had to activate the selection tool. Surprisingly, it’s a rectangular selection tool - you select the area you want, and then choose whether you want the text, or an image of the selected area copied to the clipboard. Ingeniously, I wanted to copy the code without the line numbers - not a problem.

It’s the little things like this that really impress me about linux and KDE in general. A couple of months ago I upgrade my linux box for the first time in three years, and the more I use it, the more impressed I get. “KIOSlaves” are fantastic too, and are one of these really simple and obvious things that come in really useful. I can’t find a simple explanation of them though, so maybe I’ll need to write a “KIOSlaves in fifty words” entry at some point.

I guess some of you will be aware that I’ve started putting some of my favourite photos online at Flickr. So far I’ve put up a selection from a trip to the North Downs a fortnight ago. I’m saving my Flicr account for my best artistic stuff - there were loads more photos from the North Downs of us all having a good time, but they weren’t as artistic so they haven’t gone up there. Unless I start paying, there’s only enough space for the most recent 200 uploads, so it’s not an ideal solution.

Eventually, I hope to get something set up on our big box under the stairs in our flat (”beerwarmer” is its name, for it mainly warms the beer), and then perhaps I can show off my collection properly. In the meantime, it’ll either be flickr, or the good old DramSoc photo collection.

2Mb? 2Mb? Pah. By the end of the month, our connection will be a whopping 8Mb. Which goes nicely with our new Terabyte machine in the cupboard (beerwarmer is its name, for there be beer in that cupboard too).

Still, I guess Dan should be grateful that they have electricity that far out of town…

So, another power cut across South Ken, but this time I’m in work. I found out about it by one of my colleagues coming into the machine room, and asking if I was playing with the switches. He said he thought our link to South Ken was down, which would have been D-Day for us - we have a four core fibre running for 8km through London streets, and no backup or alternative to ward off the enivitable JCB / fibre combo.

But no, pinging google worked, so it looked like the machine room was out. Pinging a machine in Civil showed that it was off-net too, and a phone call from our Faculty IT manager let us know that it was a widespread powercut.

Nice way to round off a Friday - widespread chaos. Pub anyone?