This morning I was confronted with a grammar question for which I just don’t know the answer. Consider the phrase “an essential truth;” now put “essential” in parentheses. Is the indefinite article supposed to be “an” or “a” in that phrase? I’m stumped; my advice was to remove the parentheses entirely, so the phrase remains [...]
Smart Grids series reposted
I just republished an article I’d worked on for Red Hat, called “Smart Grids.” It’s got twelve parts already, with two more not actually finalized; I’d been pulled off of the smart grids article and never quite got back around to it. I’d still like to, though. It’s a good walkthrough of an “Internet of [...]
My Actual Skillset
Recently, someone said that I needed to put more of the things with which I’m experienced on my resumé. They’re right, but it’s not an easy task, for a few reasons. The main reason is that it’s too long. If you can name a mainstream language, chances are I’ve done something meaningful with it. Perhaps [...]
The LinnStrument looks awesome
Geert Bevin pointed out the LinnStrument this morning. Color me jealous – that thing looks awesome. It’s basically a MIDI controller built on a pad, largely on a grid – much like a stringed instrument’s notes are, except providing expression and note control and you move your fingers around. There’re demos of using it to [...]
To-do lists: todo.txt is awesome, but wunderlist is next
I’m admittedly really bad about keeping track of the things I’m supposed to be doing at any given time. As a result, I work best when something (or someone) is in front of me, reminding me that I need to do something by a particular time; I usually don’t have a problem executing, but I’m [...]
Two cool fonts
I have a thing for handwritten fonts, and I found two new nice ones this morning, courtesy of DZone: Note This! and Where Stars Shine the Brightest, both hosted on http://dafont.com/. They’re both pretty old fonts, but they’re pretty (and free for personal use). Add in A Dripping Marker and you have three very clear, [...]
What’s the protest over SystemD?
I’ve been watching people go to war over SystemD for a few years now, it seems, and I just realized that I’m not sure exactly what the fuss is about. SystemD is a service initialization mechanism for Linux. It replaces a few older packages, like SysVinit. A lot of people seem to hate it with [...]
Screenshot capture on Windows: Microsoft wins.
I’ve been trying to find a good, convenient analog for GNOME 3’s screen capture utility on Windows 8.1, and it turns out the best of them seems to have been delivered with Windows itself. I’m really bad about screen captures. I don’t normally think in ways that are easily expressed with visuals; I prefer fractured [...]
Synergy 1.6 beta released
The Synergy Project announced the release of Synergy 1.6 beta, which among other things offers an autoconfiguration mechanism. Synergy allows you to use one mouse and keyboard for multiple computers – almost like a software KVM (although chances are they’d say it was exactly like a software KVM.) I’d tried it before on Fedora and [...]
Compose Key for Windows
One of the things that drives me crazy about Windows (among many) is the missing “compose key,” a key sequence that allows me to enter unicode sequences easily. For example, if I want to use the word “clichés” properly, I want an easy sequence to enter, like I have on my Linux installation. Enter WinCompose. [...]