I've been cursing the wireless card in my computer since I pieced it together last week. It's an Asus PCE-N13. It didn't require any extra driver installation under either Windows 7 x64 or Ubuntu 10.10. However, the signal was very poor in Windows, with constant drop-outs, and it would not detect any networks at all in Ubuntu.
I haven't found a solution to Windows problems yet, but I blacklisted a few modules in Ubuntu, namely by adding these lines in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf:
blacklist rt2800pci
blacklist rt2800usb
blacklist rt2x00lib
blacklist rt2x00pci
blacklist rt2x00usb
Now Ubuntu is connecting like a champ. Blazing fast, and reliable. It seems to be using the rt 2860sta driver instead of the blacklisted ones now.
I originally found this information on the Ubuntu forums: http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1579053&page=2
In the name of ergonomics, I'm training myself to not touch the mouse and keep hand movement to a minimum. Here's a few tips that have been the most helpful to me:
- changing tabs in firefox: use alt-numbers. I keep gmail open in tab 1, so switching to it would be alt-1. mostly, my most recent tab is the furthest one out in my bloated tab bar. To get to the last tab, press alt-9. Great for quickly checking any email, then switching back to whatever else I was reading.
- Code editing with emacs/vimpulse. I'm no pro, but I have used vim for about 5 years, thanks mostly to Gentoo Linux tutorials. I admit to being the typical noob, and staying almost exclusively in insert mode. As part of my experimentation, I followed the superb vimtutor tutorial (just type in vimtutor at your command prompt if vim is installed). vim is awesome! you can move about so easily! However, all of my internet reading suggested that the architecture of emacs would get me a little further in the long run. In emacs, moving around in files is not quite as easy. This is where vimpulse (or viper) comes into play. It lets me use vim commands to move around, but allows me to do so within the framework of emacs. Best of both worlds!
I'm out for now, but I'll update this post or make new ones as I explore.
Learned a really handy trick today. To open a windows command prompt from Windows Explorer, you can click in the address bar (the cookie crumb trail in Windows 7). It will turn into your full path. Delete the whole path, and type cmd, then hit enter.
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