Who am I?

Just a silly person from Poland. My name's Karol Urbański, I'm 18 years old and I like coding. And games. And math. And physics. And... I think that's the extent of what you could possibly care. :)

What is this site?

Just a thing to keep track of a few things I do, nothing too fancy. Also, I intend to create a wallpaper repository. Finally, I want to write some guides on tarting your desktop up. Not that I'm an authority on the subject, but it could be helpful to someone.

Euugh, why the orange?

Because I like orange. Shut it.

Euugh, why the black background?

Because white isn't good on the eyes.

...sounds like something a woman would say (oh snap!).

Ok, I'm sorry for that one. But, really. White makes sense on paper, since it doesn't glow in your face for hours at a time. White doesn't make sense on a monitor, since it's gonna hit your eyes hard. I found that changing to black backgrounds pretty much removed any eye strain (and believe me, I sit in front of a computer for a long time sometimes). Since I'm a 'black' person when it comes to backgrounds, most of my tutorials will be based on fancying the desktop exactly for blackish backgrounds. Don't fret though, I'm not racist, so I'll be throwing links with white stuff as well. ;)

What do you code in?

I code mainly in the famous Swiss Army Chainsaw, perl. Why perl? Because perl is certifiably awesome, that's why. Also, it rewards cunningness a lot, and lets the programmer do something exactly the way that programmer wants. Also, since it's definitely up there in regards to difficulty, coding in it is an exceptionally edifying experience. Finally, you know that feeling you get when you're stuck in one point of the program or you're staring at 40 lines of code wondering how to optimise them, then think up a hack that's 2 lines long and faster and you feel like a king? That's basically every other line in perl ;).

Simply put, I love the language. So, this entire site is coded in perl.

I also program in C. In C, because C is better than C++. Less cluttered, more concise, less retarded. I also know C++ but if I chose that over C if I had the choice I'd be stupid.

I know a bit of lua (helpful for awesome), I know some bash, I know php and html. About bash: just because I know some of it doesn't mean I use it that often. In fact, most of my awesome3 gizmos are coded in perl, even though bash would probably be better. Again, I love the language and can't resist coding in it. :)

Operating systems? Software of choice? Do you use IDEs for coding?

I'm still mainly a Windows XP user. I like gaming, and Windows is basically the only platform for that. XP, because I don't like Vista. I might try Windows 7 in the future, however. On Windows, I use x-chat for my IRCing needs, foobar2000 for my audio, VLC for my video and Notepad++ for coding. I sincerely recommend N++, it's a great editor for any coder. For my browsing needs, I use Firefox, the best browser. :)

I do have a dual-boot system, however. The second system is my relatively fresh install of Arch Linux, which is my first actual experience of Linux on my machine. Why Arch and not some classic like Ubuntu or Debian? Well, I wanted a system where I would have to get under the hood, and where I would really learn using the command line, arguably the most powerful tool in Linux. That throws Ubuntu and its derivatives out - that system is not exactly cmdline based. Besides, I didn't want to be cliché. I also wanted a system with a rolling release, and Debian's problematic with that. I don't regret my choice of the system, it's insanely customisable and quite lightweight (though it's not Debian lightweight). What software do I use? Well, for coding/editing I use Vim. Yes, Vim. Why not emacs? Because I don't want to get carpal tunnel syndrome. Why not nano? It's a bit too crude. Vim has a lot of illogical commands, but a single afternoon devoted to learning it is enough to be a lot faster with editing than with any other editor, so I use it :). For browsing I use Firefox with the vimperator extension, which adds vim controls to Firefox. Notice a pattern? For video again VLC, mc for file edition, urxvt as the terminal emulator, awesome3 as the window manager, weechat for ircing, ncmpcpp for music and a heckton of other stuff. I'm adding new software to my arch install on a daily basis.

And, since I can't resist, a joke. How do you generate a random sequence of characters in Linux?

Start up Vi and tell a new user to quit!

How do I contact you?

Why would you want to do that? You can mail me at d3xtero at the very well known host provided by google. Or, you can drop by #sda at irc.speeddemosarchive.com and catch me there.

Ok, that's enough. Or wait! This site is best viewed on larger desktop resolutions, but I have love to the lowres folk and it should work fine on a 1024x768 monitor too. Best viewed with Firefox. In older IE versions the min and max width don't work without crappy javascript hacks, so I didn't bother to make sure it works there. You have been warned. Yeah, now that's enough.

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