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…
These four languages share functional programming roots but diverge significantly in syntax and design philosophy. Here’s a practical reference for anyone transitioning between them or evaluating which to use. Basic Function Definition OCaml: let add x y = x + y let rec factorial n = if n <= 1 then 1 else n *…
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,…
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,…
By default, WordPress contributors can submit and edit their own posts, but they can’t upload media files. If you want contributors to attach images or documents to their submissions, you’ll need to grant them the upload capability. Method 1: Using User Role Editor Plugin The User Role Editor plugin is the most straightforward approach for…
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…
When you need to rsync against hosts behind NAT gateways or port-forwarded SSH services, the standard port 22 won’t work. The solution is the -e flag, which lets you specify a custom SSH command with your desired port. Basic usage Use -e to pass custom SSH arguments: rsync -avxP –delete -e “ssh -p 13022” username@example.com:/remote/path/…
Several tools can convert .doc and .docx files to PDF from the command line. Here’s what works in practice. LibreOffice (most common approach) The standard command is: libreoffice –headless –convert-to pdf –outdir /path/to/output/ /path/to/file.docx This works well on systems with X11 available. However, on truly headless servers, –headless doesn’t fully suppress X11 requirements—LibreOffice will still…
Gnuplot can output directly to EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) format, which is useful for including plots in LaTeX documents and other publishing workflows. Direct EPS Output The simplest approach is to set the terminal to postscript with the eps option before plotting: set terminal postscript eps enhanced mono “Helvetica” 14 set output “my-plot.eps” plot sin(x) This…
You’ve accidentally broken a file and need to restore it from an earlier commit without touching anything else in your repository. Here’s how. Restore a file to a specific commit To restore my_file.name to its state at a specific commit: git checkout commit_sha1 my_file.name Replace commit_sha1 with the actual commit hash. You can find it…
Running your own Python installation on Dreamhost (or similar shared hosting) gives you control over the version, packages, and dependencies without relying on system-wide Python. This is especially useful when you need specific Python versions or packages the hosting provider doesn’t support. Why Use a Custom Python Installation Shared hosting environments typically ship with outdated…
GNOME 3 removed the GUI option for customizing window title fonts that existed in earlier versions. The setting is still configurable, but you’ll need to access it through command-line tools or configuration editors. Using gsettings (Command Line) The simplest approach is gsettings, which directly modifies the configuration: gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences titlebar-font ‘Sans Bold 10’ To…
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/…
By default, libvirt stores VM images as files in /var/lib/libvirt/images/. While functional, this approach limits flexibility. LVM (Logical Volume Management) provides better control over disk space, snapshots, and performance tuning. Using LVM volumes as libvirt storage pools lets you manage VM storage like block devices rather than files, giving you faster provisioning, atomic snapshots, and…
When you work with multiple git servers or need different credentials for different hosts, SSH’s config file lets you specify which key to use for each server. This is cleaner than managing aliases or environment variables. Setting Up ~/.ssh/config Create or edit ~/.ssh/config and add entries for each server: Host git.example.org Port 22111 IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa.git.example.org…
Linux systems can have multiple timer sources available, and the kernel selects one as the active clocksource. Understanding what’s available and how to view or change the current source is essential for performance tuning and troubleshooting timing-related issues. View the Current Timer Source Check which clocksource is currently in use: cat /sys/devices/system/clocksource/clocksource0/current_clocksource This will output…
sbt (Scala Build Tool) isn’t available in the default Fedora repositories, though Scala itself is. Here’s how to install it properly. Using the Official Repository The most reliable approach is to add sbt’s official repository to your system. This gives you automatic updates and avoids manual RPM downloads. Create the repository configuration file: sudo tee…