Making changes to your development setup easier

As I'm occasionally assigned new projects at work and as those projects progress, I find the need to update my development environment on a regular basis.  Having the ability to customize my setup allows me to be more productive.

To that end, I have defined a few bash aliases which help make this process easier for me.  These aliases are defined in my ~/.bash_aliases file.

#  config bash

alias   cfgb='gvim ~/.bash_aliases'

# config vim

alias   cfgv='gvim ~/.vimrc'

# source my bash aliases to pick up any new changes

alias   redot='source /home/rod/.bash_aliases'

You'll notice that I have an alias to make changes to my vim setup.  It makes sense to also have a vim macro to read any new configuration settings or vim macros.  This macro is defined in my ~/.vimrc file.

" source .vimrc ro pick up any new macros

map \.  :source /home/rod/.vimrc^M

Default apps for 2023

Lately, I've seen a lot of the "what apps am I using" type posts, apparently prompted by a podcast episode.  You can see a collection of what a number of people are using here.  I find these interesting as they're a good way to discover new apps which I hadn't been aware of previously.  These are the apps I use for my iPhone, Mac, and Raspberry Pi at home as well as the Linux and Windows machines I use at work.

• Mail Client: Apple Mail, Outlook at work (barely tolerable but dictated by the IT team)
  
• Notes: Apple Notes for shared notes, Editorial for notes I don't want on the cloud (such as those containing sensitive information such as birthdays)
  
• Chat: iMessage
• Camera: Apple Camera, Night Capture for evening sky photos
• Photo Management: manual sync into directories on my Mac
• Photo Editing: Preview on Mac, IrfanView on Windows
  
• Calendar: Google Calendar - I like it for its ability to do custom repeats and for ease of having more than 2 notification reminders
• Browser: On Macs I use Safari for lightweight browsing for its ease of sharing bookmarks with mobile devices, Firefox for general browsing because it has a richer collection of security plugins.  At work I use Chrome (barely tolerable but dictated by IT).
  
• Backup: ChronoSync
• Read It Later: Instapaper
• RSS: Inoreader (web and app)
• News: RSS feeds from news sites which lets me keep up with events without being distracted by things I'm not interested in such as sports
  
• Podcasts: Overcast (great performance and the best UI of any app on my phone, bar none)
• Books: Kindle, Audible, Libby, Hoopla
• Database: Tap Forms (good sync between mobile and Mac)
  
• Personal Finance: GNUcash
• Password Management: 1Password - with 600+ non-trivial passwords to remember, this is a must
• Music - Apple Music, Remote app to control desktop from my phone
• Editing (code and general) - MacVim on Mac, GVim on work machines (Windows and Linux)
• X Servers - XQuartz on Mac, VcXsrv on Windows
• SCP client - WinSCP on Windows, scp from the shell on Linux/Mac machines
• Terminal emulation - putty on Windows and Linux machines
  

We lost another dog to cancer

About a month after we lost our dog Bandit to osteosarcoma in March, we adopted a sweet female pit bull mix named Greta.  The jump from an 84 pound Lab, Shepherd, Husky, Pit mix who was strong enough to be considered a force of nature to a 49 pound pit bull mix made Greta seem petite.

Her happy personality was on display from the moment we picked her from the animal shelter.  She happily cuddled in my wife's lap for the 30 minute ride home.

She had had a rough early life, having been bred at least twice by the age of 2, followed by being abandoned in a fenced outdoor holding pen at a shelter in West Virginia.  Luckily for Greta and for us, she was transferred to the Loudoun County Animal Shelter which is where my wife discovered her.

Despite having shorter legs than Bandit did, Greta loved accompanying my wife on 2-3 mile walks once or twice a day.  She found people much more interesting than other dogs or toys and had a number of friends in the neighborhood.

Bandit had always wanted to be a lap dog but Greta was actually small enough for that to be a regular occurrence.  It's hard to tell whether she enjoyed it more or whether we did.  She was extremely affectionate.

 

In early September, we noticed some swelling on her neck, so my wife took her to the vet.  To the vet's surprise, it was not an infection but instead turned out to be lymphoma and a fairly advanced stage at that.  Apparently that's rare in a dog so young.  She was prescribed steroids which did a wonderful if somewhat temporary job of reducing the swelling.  It was lovely having an extra 6 weeks of time with her where she was relatively symptom free.

Unfortunately once the final dose was done, her swelling came back with a vengeance.  It quickly advanced from being an uncomfortable nuisance for her to starting to obstruct her breathing.  I'll never forget the look in her eyes which seemed to question why this was happening to her.

She was sweet and loving to the end, despite all she was going through.  We'll always miss her even though she was only with us for 7 short months.

Tim Sullivan's The Teacher has left me wanting more

 One of my favorite authors, Tim Sullivan, mentioned in his latest newsletter, that fans could sign up to read an advance excerpt from his upcoming book, "The Teacher".  I couldn't resist the offer because I'm addicted to his excellent mystery novels which focus on Detective Sergeant George Cross.  Plus the opportunity to get a headstart on the next installment was too much to resist.  

DS Cross differs from most of his colleagues by being on the autism spectrum which gives him an incredibly focused approach to investigating crimes as well as a unique way of interacting with other people.  Sullivan's writing skill makes Cross a compelling and sympathetic figure.  The mysteries are well plotted and peopled with a believable cast of characters.

So how did I enjoy this latest book in the adventures of DS Cross?  I loved it!  I can't wait for the book to be released so I read the rest of it and find out what happens next.

Scalzi's latest book, Starter Villain, is great fun

I finished John Scalzi's latest book, Starter Villain, yesterday.  After careful thought, I rated this book highly both because of the eagerness with which I anticipated it and the sheer joy it brought me while reading it. I listened to the audiobook version narrated by Wil Wheaton who invitably enhances SciFi or books aimed at those of us with geeky interests. Starter Villain is filled with Scalzi's characteristic humor, entertaining plotting, and a fair amount of topics to contemplate once the book is finished. In the end, I rated it this way because I'm still smiling having finished it meanwhile anticipating his next book.

Cory Doctorow's new book is really good

I shouldn't be surprised about how good Cory Doctorow's new book, Red Team Blues, is.  I've been a fan of his books for about 20 years.  His books invariably involve new trends in technology and their possible consequences.  Cory definitely has the technical chops to write convincingly about emerging technologies.  He's an activist and has been involved with the EFF (Electronic Freedom Foundation) for many years.  Cory also has a frequently updated blog called Pluralistic which features an interesting article and lots of links, which often involve technology and its unintended consequences or occasional intentional misuses.

Red Team Blues follows the adventures of a forensic accountant (which apparently can be a much more interesting profession than the position title would imply) named Marty Hench.  Hench specializes in the cybersecurity and accounting involved with digitally accessed assets such as cryptocurrencies.  In Doctorow's capable hands this premise becomes a gripping detective novel and a cutting edge one at that.

I backed the audiobook version on Kickstarter.  Cory resorted to using this method of funding because Audible won't carry books without DRM and he insists on allowing readers to own the books they purchase.  As an added bonus, Cory got Wil Wheaton to narrate the book.  I always enjoy Wil's narration and I think he does an especially good job on books with a technology or a SciFi focus.

I strongly suggest you check this book out.  It's very compelling and made me wish I needed to commute to the office more often so I could have finished it quicker.

An easier way to edit remote files

 

My main development machine at work is an Ubuntu desktop machine which I've got set up with cross compilers and a number of other development tools.  It's reasonably fast but because it runs Linux, it can only be connected to our lab network at work.  This used to mean having to ssh into the machine to edit files which on a fast network with X11 forwarding means I can use a GUI editor.  However I've been noticing a maddening amount of network lag between our lab network and the corporate network which means I end up waiting several seconds for things like cursor movement to take place.  That can break my train of thought.

Fortunately I discovered that WinScp has the ability to not only transfer files between systems but it can also allow me to edit files on those systems.  I launch WinScp, tell it to connect to my development machines, navigate the the appropriate directory, right click on the file I want to edit, and select launch external editor.  It can be configured to use your choice of editors on the Windows machine where WinScp is running.

Once you make the request, WinScp transfers the file to your local machine and launches your editor of choice.  Once you're done editing, it transfers the updated file back to the remote system.  The actual editing all takes place on your local Windows machine so it prevents network lag from causing a painfully slow editing session.