A good one-up would be a Doctype sidebar, akin to Edgewall’s Python Sidebar.

• Fun. It’s a good translation to the handheld platform, no less fun than Guitar Hero III on my PS2.
• Portable. It fits nicely in my backpack or in the center console of the car.
• Decent sound. Not great, but much better than I expected. Maybe comparable to 64Kbps MP3s?
• Fast access to game play. Long startup and load times are a pet peeve of mine. In a single informal time trial, it took 37 seconds from turning on the DS to seeing the fret bar display in career mode. Not bad. Closing the handheld’s lid means the game is available instantaneously, any time. The PS2 wastes nearly two minutes of my time before I reach a song.
• Judy Nails. Mmm.

Cons:

• Limited track selection. Only 25 songs total.
• Small fret bar. The buttons would feel more comforatable if half an inch or so was added to the total width of the bar.

Overall, a great buy for a GH fan like myself. Great if you’re into branded accessories, too: picks, cases, and even a Guitar-Hero-branded Nintendo DS. Dang.

• External Editor 0.7.4
• Thunderbird 2.0.0.14
• MacVim 7.1 (28)

External Editor’s editor is set to: /Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/MacOS/Vim -g --nofork. Works like a charm.

May 19, 2008, 11:03 AM. 8 lbs, 8 oz, 20″ long. Our healthy baby boy. Named after his great-grandfather, Marshall Turner Moulton.

I could say a lot. I will say: I am so proud of my wife for all her hard work, digging deep within herself to find the strength to push after so many hours. Thank you for this gift.

Let’s start at the beginning. My ~/.ssh/config file has many entries structured like so:

Host bob
    HostName robert.example.com
    User backstrom

This setup allows me to SSH to robert.example.com using the shortcut ssh bob. This shortcut could be made even shorter, though. I have a script (say, host-ssh) in my $PATH with the following content:

#!/bin/sh
HOST=$(basename $0)
ssh $HOST $@

Now I can ln -s host-ssh bob to symlink host-ssh to bob, and bob becomes a shortcut for ssh bob. At this point, the following commands work as expected:

adam@local:~$ ssh bob
backstrom@robert:~$ exit
adam@local:~$ bob
backstrom@robert:~$ exit
adam@local:~$ scp -q myfile bob:
adam@local:~$

So, onto screen. Imagine that my workstation has screen, but my remote server “bob” does not. I can mimic the functionality by running screen locally and connecting each window to bob in its own SSH session. (In the past I have done this via exec bob so I have one less exit to type during disconnects.) However, screen allows you to set a custom shell. You can leverage this to force an SSH connection to a specific server whenever a new window is created. Just launch screen with screen -s bob and every ^A-c will automatically run your new SSH shortcut. Seamless, if you have public keys set up.

I’ve had a great time at Stonewall. There are so many opportunities to get your hands dirty and be involved in all kinds of projects in a company this size. I’ve done such a wide variety of things here, from implementing more dynamic content onto the company website, to moving furniture and cutting heavy rubber matting for use as floor protectors. I’ve changed hats many times and found a good rhythm here, but I’m ready to switch gears and do the kind of work I’ve always hoped to do. It’s bittersweet, but I’m excited for the change.

So, thanks. It’s been a good time, and I’ll remember it fondly.

Here are some good resources I found while digging into this:

1. Secrets of tabs in vim
2. Notes on using Vim and Python — check out the autoindentation based on file name, just below the main table
3. Converting tabs to spaces

Bonus: check out vimrc in the python “Vim” folder for other helpful files.

I didn’t find any documentation on expiring trees before their time, so: yes, you can edit a simple text file and expire a tree early. (Honestly, it may be acceptable to rm -rf a tree; I really don’t know. I’d rather let dirvish-expire do whatever cleanup it has to do, not being familiar with the code.) I happen to be removing some trees that didn’t back up correctly, as general maintenance.

Each backup tree contains a “summary” file. This file includes an Expire line:

Expire: +14 days == 2008-03-30 02:06:38

My original expire-rule expanded to 14 days from the date of backup, which was March 30. If I want to delete the tree right now, I can change the date after the equality test:

Expire: +14 days == 2007-03-30 02:06:38

Anything in the past is sufficient. Run dirvish-expire, and the tree will drop out of your vault.

Second: numerical rating + single space + file name.

Useful for command line tomfoolery.

Update: while we’re on the subject, an interview.