Code quality, clean code, refactoring, maintainability, and software engineering best practices.
If you’re using the AddThis Welcome Bar with WordPress, you may see an unwanted gap appearing at the top of your page. This happens because AddThis injects a placeholder div that reserves vertical space: <div class=”addthis_bar_placeholder” style=”height: 46px;”></div> The 46px height creates a visible gap that disrupts your layout, especially on themes with fixed headers…
Sharing a router with roommates means dealing with bandwidth conflicts. When someone’s running torrent clients, streaming, or other bandwidth-intensive applications without limits, everyone else suffers. Here’s how to handle it systematically. Start with conversation Before implementing technical controls, talk to your roommates. Most P2P and download applications have built-in rate limiting. Asking someone to cap…
If you’re using AddThis share buttons and want tweets to automatically include an @ mention to your Twitter handle, you need to add the tw_via attribute to your Tweet button element. Basic Implementation Change your Tweet button markup from: <a class=”addthis_button_tweet”></a> to: <a class=”addthis_button_tweet” tw_via=”yourhandle”></a> Replace yourhandle with your actual Twitter handle (without the @)….
Broken symbolic links accumulate over time and can cause confusion or errors when scripts rely on their targets. Identifying and cleaning them up is a regular maintenance task. Basic approach Use find with the -xtype l test to locate broken symlinks: find /path/to/directory -xtype l The -xtype l flag specifically matches symbolic links that point…
Domain registration pricing has commoditized significantly over the past few years. Most registrars cluster around similar price points, and permanent discounts are increasingly rare. Rather than chasing one-off coupons that expire or have restrictive terms, understanding how registrars price domains and what you actually need will serve you better. Current Market Rates As of 2026,…
Writing effective paper reviews is essential work in academic fields like information retrieval, machine learning, systems research, and most technical disciplines. Whether you’re reviewing for a conference, journal, or internal research group, the goal is the same: provide constructive, specific feedback that helps authors improve their work and helps decision-makers assess contribution. What Makes a…
WhatsApp dominates global messaging, but several strong alternatives exist depending on your use case, privacy requirements, and regional adoption. Here’s what’s actually worth considering in 2026. Messaging Apps Built for Mobile Signal The gold standard for privacy-conscious users. Signal uses end-to-end encryption by default for all messages, calls, and group chats. Open source, no ads,…
This is fundamentally a decision about display technology and your reading habits. Here’s what you need to know. Display Technology The standard Kindle uses e-ink technology with a backlit display that requires external light sources — sunlight, a lamp, or overhead lighting. It’s readable but not ideal for low-light conditions. The Paperwhite adds a front-lit…
A4-sized PDFs—particularly technical papers and academic documents—render poorly on Kindle devices. The small fonts become nearly unreadable, and Amazon’s “Send to Kindle” feature often destroys formatting in the process. You need a tool designed specifically for this workflow. Why Standard Conversion Fails Amazon’s email-to-Kindle conversion assumes reflowable text content. Technical papers with multi-column layouts, equations,…
Over time, internal and external links on your site inevitably break — pages get deleted, domains expire, content moves. Finding and fixing these broken links improves user experience and helps with SEO, since search engines penalize sites with dead links. Automated Checking Tools Several web-based tools can scan your site and report broken links: https://www.brokenlinkcheck.com/…
Which ones are good systems conferences? Top ones by ACM and USENIX: OSDI: https://www.usenix.org/conferences/byname/179 SOSP: http://sosp.org/ Other SIGOPS Events: http://www.sigops.org/conf-sponsored.html EuroSys: http://www.eurosys.org/ SoCC: http://www.socc2013.org/ (SoCC 2013) ASPLOS: http://www.sigplan.org/Conferences/ASPLOS/Main VEE: http://www.sigplan.org/vee.htm USENIX ATC: https://www.usenix.org/conferences/byname/131 NSDI: https://www.usenix.org/conferences/byname/178 IEEE Conferences: ICDCS: http://www.temple.edu/cis/icdcs2013/ (2013) IPDPS: http://www.ipdps.org/ Other related ones and workshops: HPCA: Search HPCA ConferenceSC: http://www.supercomp.org/IEEE CLUSTER: http://www.clustercomp.org/ HotCloud:…
OCaml’s int type size depends on your platform’s architecture. On 64-bit systems, int is 63 bits; on 32-bit systems, it’s 31 bits. This catches many people off guard when they test bitwise operations. Here’s why: OCaml uses one bit as a tag to distinguish integers from pointers at runtime (the least significant bit). So on…
OCaml provides robust FFI (Foreign Function Interface) capabilities for calling C code. This is essential when you need to use existing C libraries or write performance-critical sections in C. Using the Unix Module The simplest approach for Unix/Linux system calls is the built-in Unix module, which wraps common POSIX functions without requiring manual FFI binding….
The default OCaml toplevel lacks basic readline features like history, line editing, and command completion. Here are the practical approaches to fix this. utop: Full-Featured Replacement The best option for daily interactive OCaml work is utop, a replacement toplevel that provides: Syntax highlighting with color output Command completion (for identifiers, keywords, library functions) Parenthesis and…
Fedora uses RPM packages managed by DNF, but you’ll occasionally encounter software distributed only as .deb files (Debian format). You have several options: convert the .deb to RPM, extract and repackage it, or use containerization. Here’s what works in practice. Using alien to convert .deb to RPM The simplest approach is alien, a tool designed…
Your iPhone’s touchscreen can serve as a remote input device for your Linux desktop or laptop. Here are the most practical approaches. WiFi Mouse Method The WiFi Mouse application lets you control your Linux system’s cursor and clicks from your iPhone over a local network. Setup: Install the iPhone app: Download WiFi Mouse from the…
iPhone’s Photos app doesn’t display EXIF metadata by default, but the timestamp information is embedded in every photo. You need to access the EXIF data to see when a photo was actually taken. Using the Photos App (Built-in) Starting with iOS 15+, Apple added some native EXIF viewing directly in the Photos app: Open the…
Use usermod to add a user to supplementary groups. The -a (append) flag is critical — without it, you’ll remove the user from all groups not explicitly listed. usermod -a -G group_name user_name To add a user to multiple groups at once: usermod -a -G group1,group2,group3 user_name Options explained -a, –append Append the user to…
Question2Answer renders the sidebar before the main content div in the HTML output by default. If you need the main content to appear first in the DOM (useful for accessibility, SEO, or mobile-first design), you’ll need to customize your theme’s output. The solution involves overriding the body_content() function in your theme’s qa-theme.php file. This function…
Question2Answer supports third-party authentication through social login plugins. Here’s how to set up Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ login integration. Prerequisites You’ll need: A Question2Answer installation (v1.8.x or later) Admin access to your Q2A instance Developer accounts and API credentials from both platforms Getting API Credentials Sina Weibo: Register as a developer at https://open.weibo.com/ Create…