The fad motto goes “Move Fast and Break Things”. I believe it came from Zuckerberg himself, and is plastered all over the walls at Facebook, right? It might be a great blurb to follow at Facebook (although I don’t think it is), but at what costs? When you break things, you end up with more consequences than […]
Monthly Archives: May 2013
Beginner’s Guide to Vim
I recently switched from using Sublime Text 2 to Vim. Sublime is an awesome text editor, but I enjoy using command line tools and am intrigued by the massive following that Vim has. Also, three of the developers I work with use Vim and seem to know a lot of the tricks that make Vim indispensible. Although I […]
Searching for a word in git code commits
Sometimes you need to find when a certain piece of code was first introduced into your code base. Perhaps you’re wondering who wrote the first version of a certain function. It’s pretty easy to find what you’re looking for with git’s log command. All you need to do is use the -S flag with it: This will […]
How to set up phpMyAdmin with nginx
It seems that phpMyAdmin is generally served with Apache or lighttp, since those are the options the Ubuntu package gives for configuring during the install. However, I use nginx for my web server. This is how you can use nginx to serve phpMyAdmin. Install nginx and phpMyAdminIf you haven’t installed nginx and phpMyAdmin yet, do […]
Linux and Choice
I ran across this message from the Red Hat mailing list today on Hacker News: Linux is not about choice. Even though it’s from 2008, it stills strikes a chord with our community. In it, Adam Jackson has this to say about the “Linux is about choice” idea: If I could only have one thing this […]
Replacing Google Reader with rss2email
So Google is killing the Reader service. This has caused quite an uproar in the technology community. As a longtime user (since 2008) of Google Reader, I went in search of a replacement. I had used NewsBlur, newsbeuter, and even thought about creating my own RSS fetcher. But in the end, all of these options were lacking. A while back I […]
Using Conky as an Always Visible System Monitor
Many panels for Linux desktops have system monitor applets that can be added. They allow you to keep an eye on certain aspects of your machine: CPU usage, RAM usage, CPU temperature, outdoor temperature. However, I sometimes like to use my desktop without a panel, so I needed an alternative to these applets. Conky is […]
Recording Internal Audio with Linux
I often need to record the audio that is playing on my computer. With Linux, or Ubuntu namely, it’s pretty easy to make an mp3 or ogg recording of audio that is playing on your machine. First, you need to install a program called PulseAudio Volume Control, or pavucontrol. In Ubuntu, you can install pavucontrol […]
Reducing RAM Usage in Ubuntu
Like it or not, Ubuntu has grown to use more RAM than it did in past releases. When Canonical began using Unity and took away the Unity 2D option in Ubuntu 12.10, many users with lower-end machines started to notice. However, configuring Ubuntu just the way you want and like it is still possible. That […]
The Always-Growing Openbox Guide
Table of Contents How I became an Openbox user Setting Up Openbox Handy Openbox Tweaks Place new windows in the center of the screen How I became an Openbox user If you’d rather get to the good stuff about setting up openbox, go here. There has been a lot of backlash against Ubuntu’s choice to migrate […]