Using 2 Computers to Avoid Distractions

In Disconnecting Distraction Paul Graham writes:

I've found a more drastic solution that definitely works (in reducing distractions): to set up a separate computer for using the Internet.

I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web.

Disconnecting my work computer from the Internet isn't really possible for me since much of my work requires me to be online (phpMyAdmin etc). But it got me wondering whether I couldn't reduce distractions by installing all the distracting software and sites (Skype, Pidgin, iTunes, Facebook etc) on a my laptop, (the Distraction Machine!), and removing all the distracting applications from the my desktop and then placing the laptop right next to my desktop.

I am using Synergy so both computers can be controlled by a single keyboard and mouse and share the same clipboard.

Now when I really needed to concentrate on work I shut down the Distraction Machine and carry on working. And the effort required to boot the laptop, login, and start each distracting application has massively cut down on the amount of timewasting each day.

After trying this for 2 weeks later and my distractions have been reduced to the

New Version of Keynote

Great! There's a new version (fork) of my favourite open source PIM, Keynote.

The fork is called Keynote-NF http://code.google.com/p/keynote-nf/

Will cPanel be the next IDE?

Will cPanel, and phpMyAdmin on cheap hosting accounts become the next generation of IDEs? I'm starting to think they will. I've used phpMyAdmin exclusively for years to maintain my MySQL database and while it's a bit clunky it gets the job done.

Now imagine a future cPanel/phpMyAdmin-like control panel with a Google Documents style Ajax text editor, (maybe even an Emacs style one like 9ne) and some basic revision control like Site5's Flashback and you will start to get a pretty okay IDE. It may never be quite as good as Visual Studio or Eclipse, but the low cost and remote access would be pretty compelling. As would be the ability to immediately have your work running on the Internet.

And since your IDE's now on the Internet why not include discussion forums, and Freenode IRC chat rooms, and even collaboration so more than one programmer can work on the code at once? You could even have context sensitive help information based on the code, like Google Adsense.

Whatever happens I'm sure that a whole new generation of programmers will find the ability to create Web 2.0 style LAMP applications for a few dollars a month much more compelling than paying $1000 for Visual Studio, and then again for SQL Server or Oracle. And possibly another nail in the coffin for Microsoft's API.

Wayback Machine Bookmarklet

One of my favourite features of the Google Toolbar is the ability to see a cached snapshot of a web page that is currently down. This has reduced the frustration no end when researching information on the web.

As if Google's cached snapshot feature wasn't useful enough, the Wayback Machine goes one louder and lets you see cached versions of a web site up to 1996. As an example Yahoo's homepage from October 20th, 1996.

As soon as I found the Wayback Machine I wanted a button on my browser to view previous versions of a web page I was looking at. So I thought I would build my own button on the toolbar using a bookmarklet. A bookmarklet is a just a URL bookmark (favourite in IE ) that contains Javascript that runs when you click it.

By placing bookmarklets on the browser's links bar you can effectively extend your browser with little Javascript programs. By creating a bookmarklet with the following Javascript you can view previous versions of the current page in your browser:

javascript:window.location="http://web.archive.org/web/*/"+window.location;

Installing the bookmarklet

To install the bookmarklet either bookmark the following link, or better yet drag the following link onto your links toolbar.

Wayback Machine Bookmarklet

IE will issue a security warning when adding links that contain Javascript, but bookmarklets are usually quite safe.

How it works

This bookmarklet works by constructing a URL from the Wayback Machine's URL and the browser's location. It's very easy to build other bookmarklets which can perform other tasks by constructing urls based on the browser's location.
For example here's a bookmarklet that shows similar pages for a URL you are visiting.

javascript:window.location="http://www.google.com/search?q=related:"+window.location;

Google Similar Pages Bookmarklet

More on bookmarklets

There are quite a few bookmarklet sites on the web:

• Bookmarklets more bookmarklets
• Doc JavaScript

Using Wildcard's in Windows Explorer

I always wished that Windows Explorer allowed wildcards in the address bar, but there is a poor-man's way to do that. Let's say you want to filter a folder by *.doc :

1. Navigate to the location you want to search in Windows Explorer
   
   
2. Press the Search button on the toolbar
   
   
3. Enter the wildcard into the search criteria and press search. You have to put the wildcard in quotes. For example "*.doc"
   
   
   
   
   
4. Notice that it's filtered the files by wildcard. You can control whether to search through subfolders or not from the "More Advanced Options" menu above the search button.