Coredump

My work setup is like this: I have two monitors, one for a maximized Thunderbird window, and the other for a PuTTY window, Firefox, Outlook (minimized to tray, and only used for calendar reminders mostly), and IE. Well, I do open other windows, but I tend to use the above most often.

I use PuTTY extensively to manage remote Unix systems. I also like my desktop uncluttered, so instead of multiple PuTTY windows, I only use one. I log on to a “jump” host, fire up `screen`, and I’m all set.

At home, I have a similar setup. Below is my .screenrc:

# Default sessions
screen -t MISC 4
screen -t EVEY 4
screen -t INES 3
screen -t IANDEXTER_COM 2
screen -t IANDEXTER_NET 1
screen -t HOME 0
 
# Scrolling buffer
defscrollback 99999
altscreen on
 
# PuTTY fix
term xterm
termcapinfo xterm ti@:te@
 
# Status line
hardstatus alwayslastline
hardstatus string '%{= kG}%-Lw%{= bW}%50> %n %t %{= kG}%+Lw%< '
 
# Key bindings
bindkey -k k6 detach
bindkey -k k7 quit
bindkey -k k8 hardstatus alwayslastline
bindkey -k k9 hardstatus alwaysignore
 
# Other stuff
startup_message off
autodetach on
defutf8 on
crlf off
setenv LC_CTYPE en_US.UTF-8

The Default sessions section opens up windows for my other hosts (guess how I name my boxes ;)). I also have a pretty large scroll buffer — useful when tailing logs. The hardstatus lines show the sessions and highlights the active one. I got the (not-so) fancy-schmancy color codes from here. Lastly, I bind the F6 to F9 keys to, respectively, detach the screen session, quit screen, toggle off the status line, and put it back on.

My .screenrc at work is more or less the same, except for the sessions I open. I can also tellscreen to use a different shell (I’m an unabashedly Bash fan, heh) apart from what is default in the systems I manage.

October 15 is Blog Action Day, and all bloggers are urged to participate by taking a stand against poverty.

Originally uploaded by tonyocruz.

When using Tortoise SVN client to access my Subversion repositories from Windows, I tend to forget to set up keyword expansion (unlike in the Linux command-line, where one can always invoke svn propset svn:keywords "Id Date Author" somefile).

In Tortoise, this can be done by enabling auto-props in the configuration. In Windows Explorer, right-click to get to the Tortoise context menu:

(Yes, I’m a bit O.C. so even my resume is under version control. :P)

Edit the Subversion configuration file, specifically the following properties:

[miscellany]
...
enable-auto-props = yes
...
[auto-props]
*.txt = svn:keywords=Date Id Rev Author URL;svn:eol-style=native
*.html = svn:keywords=Date Id Rev Author URL

This tells Tortoise to expand the keywords specified for the given files. Note that this works only on new files added to the repo after the configuration has been modified.

I was on the RH300 rapid track training last week. The five-day training included the Red Hat Certified Engineer examination on the last day.

The instructor (GyachI lead developer and Linux Users Group Singapore founder, Greg Hosler, no less) facilitated some very interesting discussions, interspersing them with his own copious experience not just with Red Hat but with Linux development in general. To say that we learned a lot from him would be an understatement.

And, as a bonus, I passed the exam. I’m now an RHCE. After getting the RHCT certification (for RHEL 4) two years ago, I planned on taking the RHCE exam immediately the next year. Well, two years is not that bad, considering the changes that had happened.

Now, looking forward to the RHCA certification. Heh. (I wish!)

A nifty feature on WordPress 2.7-’hemorrhage’, Plugin Browser/Installer, lets you to select and install plugins from a web browser. There’s no need for the typical download-unzip(-FTP, if you don’t have shell access) workflow that we currently have.

A nifty feature in the nightly build, Plugins Browse/Installer

You can search using plugin names and descriptions, tags, or author. Once you find the plugin you need, installing it is just a matter of clicking on the link. The link provides the description of the plugin, much like what’s available through the WordPress plugin directory. You can even activate the plugin from the same popup overlay.

Speaking of the nightly build, the dashboard sports a new look — sidebars instead of header tabs:

WP 2.7-hemorrhage dashboard sports a new look