As much as I know I should be focusing on JavaScript, I keep feeling the pull of Java, so I got my environment together on Windows 10 for Java and Groovy, and I "fixed" the Geany text editor/mini-IDE so it's no longer blurry on my HD screen.

While the java command and the Groovy console both worked, the javac (used to compile a Java program) and groovy programs did not work until I set their paths in Windows settings (more detail later).

Why Groovy? I have a programming book by Adam L. Davis I bought on LeanPub called Modern Programming Made Easy, now published by Apress, that encourages the use of Groovy as a way for beginners to learn without all of the rules and the need for compilation of "real" Java. Groovy takes Java and presents it as a scripting-style language with much simpler syntax. I took to it right away. (More on the book and its author when I clear up the status of both.)

I like to use Geany as my text editor for Java because I can compile and run a program without leaving the editor. That's why it's called a mini-IDE. Plus I'm lazy that way. Geany will also compile and run your C++ code and run your programs in Perl, Python and Ruby. I've never gotten it to run Node. Instead, I use Visual Studio Code for Node.

I did the C++ homework for my Intro to CS class in Geany when the programs were short, moving to NetBeans when I had too many sets of brackets and wanted to take advantage of the automatic formatting, which is your very good friend when writing programs with level upon level of brackets.

Back to my Windows problems:

After a medium-strength Googling, an OpenOffice forum page gave me the trick to fixing the blurriness of this GTK app.

More details on all later ... (but if you go to the page linked above, you can probably figure it out).

If you want to write things like words and sentences, doing it on mobile phones or tablets sucks. Bluetooth keyboards and mice and their intermittent connections to phones and tablets also suck.

The same holds true for programming. Writing code on phones and tablets suck. What sucks even more is that Android's primary programming language is Java, yet it's harder to develop and run Java code in Android than it is to write Perl, Python, JavaScript and Ruby.

I even wrote C++ on an Android tablet. It was a pain in the ass, but I did it. Those languages that aren't Java are "easier," but the experience remains poor.

Even though I use a few Google Chrome "apps" for programming-like tasks (Secure Shell, which is pretty good; and Text, which is super-rudimentary), even a Chromebook is better than a tablet or phone.

Right now my laptop is so nice, I hate using my desktop computer at the office. Now it's screen seems blurry (because it is), and I hate the standard-issue Lenovo keyboard. That's a backwards way of saying that I like a nice laptop keyboard. It has to "click" a bit, meaning it can't be too mushy.

I can certainly see (and am seeing) laptops that incorporate tablet/phone hardware and software. I would absolutely welcome the "intents" present in Android apps that allow you to easily share content from one app to another. Windows now has an app store, though most of what's in it is shit. (I do like the Fitbit app for Windows, though.)

Tangents be dammed. To make things with words, you need a proper keyboard.

Installing node.js in Fedora is no problem. You just run sudo dnf install node, and you're off to the JavaScript-in-the-console races. But it's slightly more complicated in Debian and Ubuntu.

Since there's an old amateur radio package called node for communicating on packet radio nodes, Debian and Ubuntu use the package name (and shell command) nodejs. So you would run nodejs when you would normally run node.

But you don't have to do this. And you don't have to resort to any Linux/Unix tomfoolery either.

Both Debian and Ubuntu have a package called nodejs-legacy that makes the symlink for you. Then you can run node by typing node in the console.

Since it looks like there is no node for amateur radio in Debian Sid or Experimental, I'm thinking that the node-vs-node.js problem will go away at some point in the near future -- when Debian declares its next release stable, and in turn when Ubuntu bases its future releases on versions of Debian that have "re-resolved" the issue. (Since I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 in the Windows Subsystem for Linux, this hasn't happened yet.)

Until then:

$ sudo apt install nodejs nodejs-legacy

I just installed the Java Development (aka the JDK) and was trying to test Java in the browser by going to the WebSDR page to listen to software-defined radios over the Internet.

The last time I listened to WebSDR, you needed Java in the browser to make it happen.

I had no idea that Java in the browser is no longer a thing.

I confirmed my JDK was working via the Windows command line, and I also learned that WebSDR now uses HTML5 in place of Java.

I also learned from the KFS WebSDR site's About page that the inexpensive Softrock radios that are behind most SDR sites are available for purchase both pre-built and in kit form from Five Dash Inc..

I've also seen SDR radios in the range on eBay.

I'm tempted ...

Learn more about SDR in these two subreddits:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/RTLSDR/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/sdr/

But the big thing I learned: no more Java in the browser.