Posts

One of the first things I look for on a fresh installation of a laptop is how to enable tap-to-click automatically. Most window managers and desktop environments make this easy with a control panel that has toggles or drop-down menus. However, this requires a little more effort in i3. Fortunately, there are two routes to get it enabled: in xorg’s configuration or via your i3 configuration. Via the i3 configuration The advantage of this method is that it’s easy to configure and test out quickly....

The i3 window manager delivers a lot of what I like: simplicity, speed, and configurability. Some things, like tray icons, magically appear in other window managers. These items require a bit more configuration within i3 to get them set up well. In this post, I’ll explain how I handle tray icons in i3. Basic configuration The tray icon configuration is within the bar configuration for i3. You control it via tray_output....

Mentorship stands out as one of my favorite parts of working in technology and I’ve been fortunate to be on both sides of mentoring relationships over the years. One common aspect of career growth is the ability to come up with a solution and then persuade other people to get on board with it. Not every change is a winner, but if you feel strongly that your solution will improve your product, transform your customer experience, or just make everyone’s lives a little easier, how do you convince other people to join you?...

Everyone has an opinion for the best way to manage containers, and there are many contenders depending on how much complexity you can handle and how much automation you require. One of my favorite ways to manage containers is docker-compose. Overview of docker-compose docker-compose uses a simple YAML syntax to explain what your desired end state should look like. The compose specification covers all of the relevant configurations for containers, volumes, networks, and more....

In the summer of 2009, I had an idea. My workdays were spent deploying tons of cloud infrastructure as Rackspace acquired Slicehost and we rushed to keep up with the constant demands for new infrastructure from our customers. Working quickly led to challenges with hardware and networking. That was a time where the I Can Has Cheeseburger meme was red hot just about everywhere. We needed a way to quickly check the public-facing IP address of lots of backend infrastructure and our customers sometimes needed that information, too....

Emojis brighten up any message or document. They also serve as excellent methods for testing whether your application handles strings appropriately. (This can be a lot of fun.) 🤭 I constantly obsess with efficiency and shortening the time and effort required to get my work done. I noticed that I could type short text emoticons like :) and ;) so much faster than I could use emojis. This simply would not do....

Every new trader in the stock market must wade through a myriad of tools, platforms, and websites that claim to have the best stock market research around. Some are free, some are not, and some cost so much that they eat into plenty of your profits. This post rounds up all of the best research options out there that you can have for free (or almost free). I’m sure I missed a few, but these are the ones I rely on most often....

🤔 This is another post in a set of posts on options trading. If you are new to options trading, you may want to start with some of my earlier posts. After writing my original blog post about selling options contracts in the stock market, I received some feedback saying that the post jumped over too many steps and used too much terminology. I went back, re-read the post, and found lots of room for improvement....

After the recent snow apocalypse that swept through Texas followed by widespread power crisis, I realized that my UPS monitoring strategy needed improvement. One had batteries that were near death and my other two had loads that were not well balanced. I have a few CyberPower UPS units and an old APC UPS. Although CyberPower does offer relatively expensive monitoring cards that puts the UPS on the local network, none of them worked with my 1350/1500VA units....

🤔 This is another post in a set of posts on options trading. If you are new to options trading, you may want to start with some of my earlier posts. You did your research. You waited for a good time to sell a put option. You received a decent premium for your option trade. Now your trade has turned into a loss. What can you do now?...