A workaround for screen backlight change delays

This article is for you if you’re one of the many unlucky laptop owners who are faced with unbearable delays while changing screen brightness (it can take several seconds for screen brightness to change after pressing the function key responsible for changing brightness).

I wasn’t able to locate the source of this problem, nor fix it with any available online resources, of which there are many (e.g. here, here, or here. Thus, to avoid further frustration, I decided to use xbacklight (which works without any delays) and assign it to a different key combination.

Changing screen brightness in accordance with human perception

Since the kernel update to version 3.16 in Arch Linux the function keys for changing screen brightness in my laptop have ceased to work (at least in Openbox). While I was struggling with the problem, I discovered that xbacklight works well and gives a nice smooth transition effect between brightness levels, so I decided to use it instead. But it did not work exactly in a way I expected it to.

Installing the GOG version of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings on 64-bit Arch Linux

The Linux version of The Witcher: Assassins of Kings has been recently updated on GOG with the latest patch (version 1.0.0.4) and I decided to try and install it under 64-bit Arch Linux with multilib support. And, as you may guess, it didn’t work out too well…

Migrating Ruby on Rails applications from Heroku to Openshift

I’ve been using Heroku quite happily for some time now, and I still think of it as of a good platform for development purposes or hosting small web applications. However, I have not used any paid features of Heroku, because the initial step from $0 to $35 for one dyno is a bit too much for my taste.

But fortunately, the IT world constantly evolves and from time to time something new pops up. And if it seems interesting, I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t try it out.

MPlayer's features for geeks: watching movies in a terminal

The idea of watching movies in a text console may seem weird at the beginning, but it’s not as weird as you would think. I actually used it recently two or three times as a fallback solution, that allowed me to continue watching in spite of crashed graphical environment. Because if you like to play with bleeding-edge software, things tend to blow up from time to time. And if things blow up, it’s good to have some kind of “plan B”.

Conky in Enlightenment 17

I’ve been following Enlightenment for the last few years, hoping that it would finally stabilise enough to be suitable for daily use. And of course, I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t try to use it after a stable 0.17 has been released. But apparently, Conky behaves differently on E17 and Openbox. And what would life become without Conky, may I ask?

There are actually two aspects here. We need to ensure that Conky looks and behaves properly, and we need to find a way to launch it after logging in.