When you’re fighting page limits — conference submissions, journal requirements, or just fitting content on a poster — reducing LaTeX’s default spacing is essential. Here are the practical approaches, from gentle to aggressive. Basic Spacing Adjustments Start with the most impactful changes. These target the whitespace around floats (figures, tables) and captions: \setlength{\textfloatsep}{1pt} % Space…
The x86-64 architecture on Linux follows the System V AMD64 ABI calling convention. Understanding this is essential when writing assembly, optimizing code, debugging, or interfacing with C libraries. Register usage for arguments Integer and pointer arguments use these registers in order: RDI — first argument RSI — second argument RDX — third argument RCX —…
LaTeX is a document preparation system widely used for scientific and technical documents. Most modern workflows use pdflatex or xelatex to compile directly to PDF, avoiding the outdated DVI → PostScript → PDF pipeline. Debian/Ubuntu sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install texlive-latex-base texlive-latex-extra texlive-fonts-recommended For a complete installation with all packages: sudo apt-get install texlive-full…
If you’re working with Microsoft Office 2007, converting documents to PDF or XPS format requires an additional add-in since native support wasn’t built into the original release. Installing the Save as PDF or XPS Add-in Microsoft provides a free add-in that enables PDF and XPS export across eight Office 2007 applications. Download it from Microsoft’s…
To convert a PostScript file to PDF suitable for publishing, use ps2pdf from the Ghostscript suite: ps2pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer file.ps file.pdf The /printer setting produces high-quality output appropriate for publication. Other available quality settings include: /screen — lowest quality, smallest file size /ebook — medium quality, reasonable file size /printer — high quality, suitable for printing…
Evolution is a full-featured personal information management suite that handles email, contacts, calendars, and tasks. It includes enterprise features like native Microsoft Exchange support and integrates deeply with GNOME’s ecosystem. To troubleshoot issues, migrate data, back up configurations, or secure your setup, you need to know where Evolution stores everything. Evolution follows the XDG Base…
NetworkManager is the default network management tool on modern Fedora, RHEL, and CentOS systems. You can configure static IPs either through the CLI or by editing configuration files directly. This guide covers both approaches for Fedora 41+ and RHEL 9+. Identify your network interface Start by listing all available network interfaces: ip link show or…
PowerPoint exports slides at 96 DPI by default, which is too low for professional printing. Print shops typically require 150 DPI for acceptable quality or 300 DPI for high-quality output. The UI export options in PowerPoint don’t reliably control the actual output DPI—you need to change a registry setting on Windows or use alternative methods…
Flash is dead on the web. Adobe ended support on December 31, 2020, and all modern browsers removed plugin support years ago. If you need to view Flash content in 2026, you have two practical options: the Ruffle emulator or running legacy applications in isolated environments. Why Fresh Player Plugin and PPAPI Don’t Work Anymore…
Watching for filesystem changes and triggering actions is essential for development workflows—recompiling after source edits, restarting services when configs update, or running tests during coding. Linux’s inotify subsystem provides kernel-level file monitoring, and inotifywait makes it accessible from the command line. Installation Install inotify-tools on your system: Fedora/RHEL/CentOS: sudo dnf install inotify-tools Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt…
Configuring an HP all-in-one printer’s scanner on Linux requires HPLIP (HP Linux Imaging and Printing) for device support and SANE (Scanner Access Now Easy) for scanning functionality. The main gotcha is that a working printer doesn’t guarantee a working scanner — they use different subsystems and need separate configuration. Installing Required Packages Start by installing…
SSD storage is standard across modern hosting providers. DreamHost and competitors have shifted entirely to SSD-backed shared hosting. The marketing claim of “200% faster page loads” deserves skepticism, but SSD-backed hosting does deliver measurable I/O improvements for realistic workloads. This post covers practical performance measurement techniques on a shared hosting account where you lack root…
Programs need to shut down gracefully—saving state, closing connections, flushing buffers—rather than terminating abruptly. A daemon might receive a termination signal and need to persist in-memory data before exiting. The challenge is catching these signals in C and responding appropriately. Signal basics The kill command sends SIGTERM by default. This signal is catchable and allows…
Vim remains one of the most efficient editors available on Linux and Unix systems. While it has a steep learning curve, the payoff in speed and capability is substantial once you develop muscle memory. This guide covers practical configuration strategies, essential keybindings, and workflow improvements that actually matter in daily use. Setting up your configuration…
Choosing the right cloud storage service requires understanding how each platform handles data consistency. This post covers the current consistency guarantees from the three major providers and how they affect your application design. Amazon S3 S3 is a key-based object store built for Internet-scale workloads. The consistency model is now straightforward across all operations. S3…
mailx (heirloom-mailx) and s-nail are lightweight CLI tools for sending email from scripts, cron jobs, and system alerts. They’re especially useful in corporate or campus networks with internal SMTP servers that don’t require authentication. Installation Debian/Ubuntu: apt install heirloom-mailx RHEL/CentOS/Fedora: dnf install mailx Alpine: apk add mailx Arch: pacman -S s-nail s-nail is a modern…
UDP (User Datagram Protocol) defined in RFC 768 provides a lightweight alternative to TCP. Unlike TCP’s stream-oriented approach, UDP delivers discrete packets — each recvfrom() or recvmsg() call returns one complete datagram. The tradeoff is real: you gain speed and lower overhead, but lose automatic reliability guarantees. Your application must handle packet loss, reordering, and…
Measuring time accurately matters for performance profiling, benchmarking, and latency-sensitive applications. Linux provides several APIs with different tradeoffs in resolution, overhead, and reliability. Understanding which to use prevents subtle bugs in production code. POSIX Time APIs: gettimeofday and clock_gettime gettimeofday() and clock_gettime() are the standard POSIX calls for reading system time. gettimeofday() returns seconds and…
Jeff Dean’s foundational work on large-scale distributed systems at Google established performance metrics that remain essential for making sound architectural decisions. While absolute numbers shift with hardware advances, the relative orders of magnitude have proven remarkably stable. These latency figures represent the raw cost of fundamental operations. Understanding them prevents decisions that seem reasonable in…
Printing PDF annotations with fidelity across different readers requires understanding each tool’s specific workflow. The fundamentals haven’t changed much, but modern versions offer more reliable options than they did years ago. Adobe Acrobat (Full Version) Acrobat provides the most control over annotation printing, but requires explicit configuration before print. Enable annotation printing in preferences: Open…