When you run crontab -e, git commit, visudo, or similar commands, Linux applications need to know which text editor to launch. This is controlled by environment variables and system configuration, with several methods available depending on your needs. Understanding EDITOR and VISUAL The EDITOR environment variable tells applications which text editor to use. A related…
You have internal hosts on a private network (like 10.0.3.0/24) that aren’t directly accessible from your workstation. They sit behind a gateway (bastion host) like gateway.example.org. You need seamless SSH access to these internal IPs without manually hopping through the gateway each time. Using SSH ProxyJump The modern, straightforward approach is SSH’s built-in ProxyJump feature….
The cut command is designed for simple field splitting, but it has a hard limitation: the delimiter must be a single character. cut –delimiter=”delim” -f 1,3 # Error: cut: the delimiter must be a single character This is a deliberate design choice. cut prioritizes speed and simplicity for common use cases like splitting on tabs,…
Tracking programming language adoption helps inform hiring decisions, tool investment, and technology strategy. Several indices measure popularity across different dimensions — job postings, GitHub activity, Stack Overflow traffic, and search trends — so no single metric tells the complete story. TIOBE Index The TIOBE Index ranks languages based on search engine results, counting hits across…
The built-in Print Screen workflow is cumbersome — capture, open Paint, paste, crop, save. There are better approaches depending on your needs. Snipping Tool and Snip & Sketch On Windows 7, the Snipping Tool is available through the Start menu. Press the Windows key, type “snipping tool”, and launch it. You get basic capture modes:…
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…
The TP-Link TL-WN725N v2 uses the Realtek RTL8188EU chipset. While kernel support has improved significantly, you may still need to compile drivers manually on recent Fedora releases. Check current driver status First, verify whether your adapter is recognized: lsusb | grep -i realtek If nothing appears, the driver isn’t loaded. Check if the kernel module…
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…
AddThis provides social sharing buttons for websites. If you’re using the AddThis Tweet button and want to add a via parameter (to attribute tweets to a specific Twitter account), here’s how to configure it. AddThis Tweet Button with via Parameter Modify the AddThis button configuration to include the tw:via attribute: <!– AddThis Tweet button with…
When you have shared Makefiles included across multiple projects in different directory structures, relative includes break. If common.mk tries to include release.mk and both files are in a subdirectory like external/, the include fails because Make uses the current working directory, not the location of the including file. For example, this structure works fine: Makefile…
When you need to combine multiple video files (like video1.mp4, video2.mp4, and video3.mp4) into a single output file, FFmpeg is the standard tool on Linux. It’s faster, more reliable, and better maintained than older tools like mencoder. Using FFmpeg with the Concat Demuxer The most robust approach uses FFmpeg’s concat demuxer, which properly handles file…
When a disk fills up or you’re doing a cleanup pass, finding the biggest files quickly saves a lot of time. Here are the practical approaches on Linux. Top 10 largest files in the current directory du -ah –max-depth=1 | sort -rh | head -n 10 Breaking this down: du -ah shows sizes for all…
Finding large files is something you end up doing a lot — disk fills up, you need to track down what’s eating space, or you’re auditing a directory before archiving. The find command handles this cleanly. Basic usage Find all files larger than 500MB under the current directory: find . -type f -size +500M 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…
GNOME Shell in GNOME 3 uses a specific font for the top bar, activities overview, and system notifications. You can customize these fonts using GNOME Tweaks or dconf to match your preferences. Using GNOME Tweaks (Recommended) # Install GNOME Tweaks sudo dnf install gnome-tweaks # Fedora sudo apt install gnome-tweaks # Ubuntu Open GNOME Tweaks…
The default GNOME Settings application doesn’t expose font configuration options. You’ll need additional tools to customize system fonts, but you have several approaches depending on your GNOME version and preferences. Using GNOME Tweaks GNOME Tweaks (formerly gnome-tweak-tool) is the recommended graphical approach for font customization. Installation On Fedora/RHEL: sudo dnf install gnome-tweaks On Ubuntu/Debian: sudo…
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,…
The passwd command is the standard tool for changing your password on Linux systems. It works across all distributions and doesn’t require administrative privileges for changing your own password. Basic password change Log in to your Linux system and run: passwd You’ll be prompted for: Your current password (to verify your identity) Your new password…
When managing user accounts on a cluster or application, you’ll often need to generate temporary passwords programmatically. Here’s a practical approach using Scala’s built-in utilities. Basic implementation with scala.util.Random For non-security-critical use cases, here’s a straightforward generator: def randomString(len: Int): String = { val rand = new scala.util.Random() val chars = “0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz” (0 until len).map(_…
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…