[Mon Aug 24 15:53:13 CDT 2015]

Here is a feature of GNOME 3 that many people won't know about. You can easily resize the windows to fill half the screen by using the keyboard shortcut Super+Left/Right Arrow. That comes in handy when writing code or comparing files side by side. Other useful GNOME keyboard shortcuts can be found here. {link to this entry}

[Thu Aug 20 15:37:38 CDT 2015]

This week, I needed to install VMWare Player on my Debian laptop, and am happy to report that it was pretty straightforward. I didn't have to do anything special to get it installed. Simply download it from the VMWare website (I downloaded the 64-bit version), change the permissions on the downloaded file to make it executable, and run it as the user root (using sudo should work too). The Debian Wiki also has a VMWare page that could be of some help although, as I said, I didn't need it. Finally, I also found a good place to download virtual images for both VMWare and VirtualBox. It's called OS Boxes. {link to this entry}

[Mon Aug 17 16:10:26 CDT 2015]

If you try to install a 64-bit version of an operating system in your instance of VirtualBox you, like me, may run across an error like this:

Error message:
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine SLES 12.
VT-x is not available. (VERR_VMX_NO_VMX).
Result Code: E_FAIL (0x80004005)
Component: Console
Interface: IConsole {8ab7c520-2442-4b66-8d74-4ff1e195d2b6}

To solve this, you will have to go down to the BIOS and enable VT-x mode. In the case of the Lenovo Thinkpad T530, you will need to select the Security section in the BIOS configuration screen, and then make sure you enable both Intel Virualization Technology and Intel VT-d Feature. That should take care of it. {link to this entry}

[Thu Aug 13 08:41:45 CDT 2015]

I know, here is my pet peeve again. Troy Wolverton, of the San Jose Mercury News (the epicenter of Silicon Valley) tells us why he is no longer wearing his Apple Watch. Nothing very surprising. It's pretty much what I've been talking about since before it even released. I just don't see any "must-have" feature in that device, at least not yet. For the time being, it strikes me as the typical expense for gadget lovers out there, who would buy pretty much anything that Apple releases, especially if it is accompanied by enough hype (and, let's face it, Apple knows how to do that). {link to this entry}

[Tue Aug 11 16:52:12 CDT 2015]

A quick tip I learned from a coworker. When you need to debug a shell script, simply add the following line to the top of the file:

export PS4='+(${BASH_SOURCE}:${LINENO}): ${FUNCNAME[0]:+${FUNCNAME[0]}(): }'

Also, run it with the usual -x option. That will print the file name, together with the actual line of code in the outpout. For example:

$ cat /tmp/testing 
#!/usr/bin/env bash
export PS4='+(${BASH_SOURCE}:${LINENO}): ${FUNCNAME[0]:+${FUNCNAME[0]}(): }'

echo "Hello!"
echo "How are you?"

who


$ bash -x /tmp/testing 
+ export 'PS4=+(${BASH_SOURCE}:${LINENO}): ${FUNCNAME[0]:+${FUNCNAME[0]}(): }'
+ PS4='+(${BASH_SOURCE}:${LINENO}): ${FUNCNAME[0]:+${FUNCNAME[0]}(): }'
+(/tmp/testing:4): main(): echo 'Hello!'
Hello!
+(/tmp/testing:5): main(): echo 'How are you?'
How are you?
+(/tmp/testing:7): main(): who
jortega  :0           2015-08-11 07:00 (:0)
jortega  pts/0        2015-08-11 07:00 (:0)
jortega  pts/1        2015-08-11 16:52 (:0)

{link to this entry}

[Thu Aug 6 16:39:16 CDT 2015]

Here is a nifty feature of the GNOME Shell that I had no clue that existed and found by accident. If you enter the shell and type digits to carry out a mathematical operation, it will show you the result. This definitely works for simple mathematical operations. Here is a screenshot:

{link to this entry}

[Thu Aug 6 16:30:19 CDT 2015]

Here is a very annoying "feature" of LibreOffice: the file recovery widget that shows up on startup. Well, it sort of makes sense. It's OK, I suppose...except when it's not OK, of course! Did it ever happened to you that, for no apparent reason, it doesn't manage to recover a file, yet it doesn't make it go away either? Yes, I suppose it happens when the original file was deleted from the filesystem. I don't know. I didn't bother to check. The thing is that it would be nice if the file recovery widget gave the user a choice on what to do when it fails, including the choice to simply ignore that file recovery the next time the app starts. But it doesn't, of course. So, what do you do? Simply hit the Escape key when you see the widget, then cancel it. That will make it go away. {link to this entry}