Look what came in the mail today! I am in complete shock. I signed up, whew, a long time ago. I think I submitted “google is awesome” in binary as my reason for wanting to be a Chrome Netbook test-pilot. Guess that worked.
Category: technology & science
Sweet Linux Media Apps For Vacation
So I just got back from a nice vacation with my family. I borrowed the department Asus Eee Pc 900 for the trip. It had CrunchBang Linux on it, which wouldn’t update anymore. I reformatted it with Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition in about 45 minutes. Everything worked with the base install. Sweet.
On my Dell Inspirion lappy running Ubuntu 10.04, I installed and tried several DVD ripping utilities. I settled on Thoggen which was much simpler than the others. I ripped several DVDs into .ogv format, copied them to the netbook with my 2GB USB flash drive. Boom.
Then I installed VLC on the netbook to play them. “F” for full-screen mode is your friend. Awesome.
The default screen saver and power management settings were not conducive to watching a 2-hour video. I found Caffeine, which allowed me to override the power management settings for a specific period. Perfect.
Not long after we got on the road, I noticed my wife’s iPod Nano is missing all of its playlists. GTKPod to the rescue. I plugged in the iPod, specified the model, mounted it, re-created a few playlists, and wrote them right back to the iPod. All without iTunes. Easy-peasy.
Spriglet #16: Simple HTML signatures in Gmail
- Create your signature in HTML in a text file named temp.html. Here’s mine:
Adam Spriggs //
sprignaturemoves.com //
twitter.com/wvpv //
816-555-1212
"what others do with talent, I do with obstinate fixation"
- Open temp.html in your browser — in another window
- Enable Labs in Gmail
- Enable the Canned Response feature
- Compose a new email
- Highlight your signature in the other browser window
- Drag it into the body of your e-mail
- In the Canned responses drop-down, choose new canned response.
- Name it “html sig”
- Click Settings turn off the signature
- From now on when you compose an e-mail, simply choose “html sig” from the canned response drop-down.
- Voilà
LEGO Pirate Movie
(h/t geekologie)
Copy and paste in vi + some other tips
I use vi a lot at work. It really became a lot more useful when I figured out how to copy and paste blocks of code.
All of these are done in command mode:
shift-v = select a line
ctrl-v = select a rectangle
Y = yank selection to buffer
P = paste from buffer before cursor
p = paste from buffer after cursor position
dd = delete a line (this also moves the line to the buffer, so you can still paste it)
Here are some other handy ones:
u = convert a selection to lowercase
u = undo previous action (if nothing is selected)
ctrl-R = redo an action
gg = go to the top of the document
G = go to the end of the document
###gg = go to line number ###
:%s/blah/whee/gc = replace “blah” with “whee” globally with confirmation
:%r~/whee.txt = insert text into the current document from a file (~ = your home directory)