A Realization that GUI Dependence can be Harmful

After an arduous three days without my laptop, I finally have it back in my possession. I managed to get by using an old Thinkpad running Linux, a Windows XP desktop, and a spare G4 Mac Mini running OS X (all three of which saw very, very little use while I had my MacBook Pro). Every bit of my email is stored server-side (IMAP) and any important files were accessible on a backup drive, so it was really only the computing environment that changed.

Despite only the environment changing however, I observed something interesting: I felt a lot less creative and even mentally (and perhaps even emotionally) handicapped without my laptop. It's the first time I can remember feeling that way from something as simple as a piece of electronic machinery. I'm convinced it was the graphical user interface (GUI) I became attached to and, being someone who hates feeling attached or in any way dependent, the experience has encouraged me to continue moving towards console-based solutions for my daily computing needs.

Maintaining things on a remote console means the environment will stay the same regardless of the computer I'm using to connect. The "computing environment" essentially becomes the console window itself. Advantages to using console-based programs are numerous, that is once you get past the learning curve. But the same way a one-finger typist isn't very productive until he learns to type, console-based apps won't allow you to be productive until you become familiar and comfortable with the environment.

For all real-time communication (IRC, AIM, and Jabber) I've switched to using screen + irssi + BitlBee. Previously, I was using irssi for IRC and Adium for instant messaging. For email, I've been meaning to set up mutt for quite some time, but both the complexity and my daily reliance on email have caused me to procrastinate.

But I realized my console-migration doesn't need to end with IRC, IM, and email. For example, when my coworker mentioned the idea of an IRC Twitter interface, I looked for one and discovered tircd, an IRC proxy to the Twitter API. This made me realize that even things like posting to my blog could be done through IRC with the right proxy (similar to the way I'm currently blogging from the command line). And if a particular IRC proxy does not exist, I can just as easily write one myself and share it with the community!

How Last.fm Uses IRC

Richard Jones, one of the co-founders of Last.fm, has a writeup describing how Last.fm uses IRC. I'd really like to see IRC used for more stuff like this, including communication in general. (In the comments, one guy describes how him and his friends use their own private IRC server for communication.) It's sad that a lot of people don't even know what IRC is, let alone use it. If you're one of those people, check out The IRC Prelude and the Wikipedia page. If you're using Windows, check out the free mIRC client (I use irssi on Linux) and if you don't feel like installing anything, check out the awesome web-based client Mibbit.

Why I no longer have an AIM profile

For the past few years I've been using naim to communicate over the AIM and IRC networks. When my workplace agreed to use GoogleTalk to communicate, I thought I was doomed to a graphical IM client -- that is until I discovered Bitlbee.

Bitlbee "tunnels instant messaging traffic (including MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber) to a virtual IRC channel". This means I can use a console IRC client (such as naim or irssi) to connect to a Bitlbee server and then communicate over all those different IM networks from a single spot! Whether I'm talking to someone on AIM, Jabber, or IRC, it all looks like I'm talking to someone on IRC. So I setup a Bitlbee server at home and started using it to communicate with office workers (GoogleTalk uses the Jabber protocol).

A few days ago naim stopped communicating with the AIM network and rather than trying to restart naim to get the connection working again, I added my AIM account to Bitlbee and started using it to talk to my AIM buddies. Little did I know, however, that my AIM profile was gone. Apparently (unlike naim) Bitlbee doesn't support AIM profiles at all.

No big deal. Profiles are overrated anyway. 🙂 But for history sake (and to make this post a bit more interesting to read) here is my retired AIM profile:

Have a look at my blog and gallery.

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Hello, my name is Raam Dev.