I use a Fedora Core 2 machine for a lot of my development work (well, mainly compiling and running, since I develop, when possible, with VS 2005). I've found the desktop to be generally usable, if perhaps a bit unstable (I'd say Gnome on FC2 hangs just as much as IE does on XP, which is pretty often).

Sometimes I use IRC. I've realised that mIRC *really sucks*. Especially when I try to get it working with Korean input. Pretty much everything makes it hang (full CPU usage). Apart from that, it's just not that nice. However, mIRC combined with AppLocale is the only IRC client I've been able to work with Hangeul input and display.

At any rate, I've been using X-Chat for a while on my FC2 machine. It seems far better. Today I wanted to go into a Korean chat room. Hmm, shouldn't be hard right? Somewhere I should be able to click something and get a Korean IME... right?

So I searched. And asked. And read lists. And downloaded and installed a lot of RPMs. And I'm still no closer to getting any CJK support at all. Apparently whoever develops this stuff didn't think that 'foreign' language input should be that easy. The closest I came to getting any decent info was some Japanese guy basically saying that the Gnome/FC2 people are dumbasses for not getting this working right and easy.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I just really don't know how to use computers and figure things out. At any rate, it's just nice to see such solid reminders of why MS shouldn't give a damn about “Linux on the desktop” coming to steal their users away.

For what it's worth, getting pretty much ANY input method installed on Windows XP is this simple: Start -> Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Details -> Add. That's it. Maybe you'll have to insert the CD and reboot. After this, you'll get the Language Bar, and can flip between IMEs till your heart's content. Considering this isn't anything so revolutionary or new, but a simple, “boring“ core functionality item, you'd think that the desktop linux people would have it down solid by now eh?

I was looking for some lyrics today and ended up here: http://music.imbc.com/iMBCMusic/iMRefAllOfMusic.asp?ArtistID=3603

Seeing the MP3 button, I hit download. The next intermediate page had the title: “More Click Better Life”. Well, yea, I suppose they're right :)

I just found a feature that probably few people use, relative to the number of total Word users. Even though I'm running English Windows XP, my default IME is Korean. By pressing right-alt, I can switch between Roman and Hangeul mode.

However, every now and then, I forget to switch, and end up typing (and usually sending, since it's IRC or IM), English, but in Hangeul mode. So, if I were to write, “Hi, how are you?”, it'd come out as “ㅗㅑ, ㅙㅈ ㅁㄱㄷ ㅛㅐㅕ?” The same is in reverse. If I was to say “언녕!” it'd write “dkssud!”.

What's cool is the Word is smart enough to recognize this common mistake, since “dkssud” or “ㅗㅑ, ㅙㅈ ㅁㄱㄷ ㅛㅐㅕ” are extremely rare sequences in those alphabets, but common in the other one. So Word automatically corrects the text, and flips your mode. End result? You don't need to worry about switching manually, even if your document uses both English and Korean. Very cool.

I've had it mess up on me one time (in fact, since it's such a transparent feature, I only *thought* it existed before -- I'd type something and think that it flashed and flipped over, but never really tested it) -- typing “cmd”, as in a “.cmd file”, triggers it and it outputs “층” (cheung) instead.