SDF-EU

Some weeks ago I posted about SDF and my intention to become MetaArpa as soon as possible. I was interested in many of the services offered there, the most immediate ones were using gopher, screen + irc client. But after some connection issues I decided to ping sdf and sdf-eu, which is closer to my location.

PING sdf.org (192.94.73.15) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from SDF.ORG (192.94.73.15): icmp_req=1 ttl=241 time=237 ms

64 bytes from SDF.ORG (192.94.73.15): icmp_req=2 ttl=238 time=226 ms

64 bytes from SDF.ORG (192.94.73.15): icmp_req=3 ttl=240 time=228 ms

&&

PING sdf-eu.org (178.63.35.193) 56(84) bytes of data.

64 bytes from odin.sdf-eu.org (178.63.35.193): icmp_req=1 ttl=243 time=86.3 ms

64 bytes from odin.sdf-eu.org (178.63.35.193): icmp_req=2 ttl=243 time=86.0 ms

64 bytes from odin.sdf-eu.org (178.63.35.193): icmp_req=3 ttl=243 time=80.6 ms

So I decided to ask where to settle my home. The advice was, naturally SDF-EU. So here I am. I decided to take a screenshot of my everyday life at sdfeu. In the picture (which will also be the "Screenshot of the week") you can see me reading the bboard (Bulletin board) . Using mc (The midnight commander, file manager) and irc-ing with Weechat.

Note: Using blackbox as window manager (Debian Squeeze default)

Weechat

You know I have recently blogged a bit about Irssi, an extraordinary irc client I have been using quite a lot.

But I recently discovered Weechat Another extraordinary irc client. I like it because it offers some functionalities as defaults that you can only enjoy in Irssi using scripts (Which means searching, downloading and loading scripts into the client)

One of the outstanding features of Weechat is that you can toggle your filters with Alt + Shift + = (Pretty awesome)

Apart from that, I like to say that Weechat is like the console counterpart of X-chat a very popular graphical client. I took a screenshot of both applications at work at the same time for you to compare. Which one do you prefer? I choose Weechat

gopherVR

Here is a screenshot of my gopher site as seen using 3D client gopherVR. I hope you like it.

SDF

SDF (Super Dimension Fortress) is such an amazing discovery that I just can't seem to put into words how excited I am about it. Is it a bit geekish? Very likely, that's why I love it even more. I became an ARPA member from the very beginning. After a 30 day period I can become a MetaARPA.

I wanted to make a list of the most outstanding things that you can find at sdf. However the list is so huge that I do not think I have the energy to do so. That's why I have taken the easy way out which is linking to sdf's own recommended starter links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDF_Public_Access_Unix_Network

http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?faq

http://sdf.lonestar.org/index.cgi?access

Anyway, let me list some of the features (only a few) that I have tried so far:

shell selection, ssh, telnet, irc, im, mail, games, gopher, web browsing, text editting, file transfer (ftp, scp), compiling...

Enjoy!!!

gopher

Some of you may be wondering (as I did): Gopher? port 70?

Yes, strange as it may seem there is a thing called Gopher. I am no expert so I can only say two things about it based on my own personal experience:

1. Gopher is easy and fun!!!

2. I couldn't help creating a gopher site. You can see a screenshot below. (There are two screenshots in one. I opened two lynx windows)

My gopher site address is gopher://sdf.org/1/users/chals

There are many things that come to my mind right now but I imagine that the best way to learn about something new is by being a bit curious about it and investigating. I'll give you several clues:

a. Gopher is not supported by many modern browsers. Here you have several options:

-Install a browser with gopher support (Such as lynx or iceweasel)

-See a gopher site using a proxy such as http://gopherproxy.org/

-Learn about the overbite project

b. Hosting

-You can host a gopher site yourself using a gopher server such as pygopherd at gopher://gopher.quux.org/1/devel/gopher/pygopherd

-You can host your gopher site in a server. I recommend you http://sdf.org/

c. Contact

-You can find more information searching the web or searching gopherspace using Veronica

-You can find help on #gopherproject on Freenode.

Enjoy!!!

elinks

The first text browser I used with linux was w3m, then I moved to lynx and finally I discovered elinks (enhanced links). All three are great web browsers but elinks surely beats them all because you can do with it almost everything you do with a graphical browser, except obviously watching images or videos.

With elinks you can access your online accounts, you can open and close tabs, bookmark pages, review browsing history and in short you can browse the web as usual but without images which allows you to load pages faster. And after all if you are like me more interested in the matter than in the art you'll definitely give elinks a try. It's great. I have been using it for a while now and I'm still impressed. Besides even though there is a bunch of keystrokes to learn you can do most things using your mouse, so there is no real difference with any other browser. But as all command line programs it's the keyboard that counts.

By the way, you can see an instance of elinks if you click on the screenshots tag cloud on the right. Hope you like it.

Screenshot of the week 1

This weekend I have written a bunch of blog posts. (5? or more) but I didn't upload any screenshot so here is one. The posts dealt with several utilities I use on a daily basis (bluetile, gnome, irssi, elinks, ssh...) So I have taken a screenshot with several of those programs. There will probably be some more posts next week and I'll try to summarize them all in one or several screenshots. I hope you like them.

In this screenshot you can see three windows tiled using bluetile; there's bluetile's bar on the left. One of the windows shows my homepage as rendered by a command line browser named elinks. Another one my favourite ftp, sftp client filezilla. And last but not least irssi. In fact I've got irssi proxy running on that window. I connect to it using any other client like X-chat. Awesome isn't it?