Computing – Page 2 – Rob Allen's DevNotes

Automatically converting PDF to Keynote

I use rst2pdf to create presentations which provides me with a PDF file. When it comes to presenting on stage, on Linux there are tools such as pdfpc and on Mac there's Keynote. Keynote doesn't read PDF files by default, so we have to convert them and the tool I use for this is Melissa O'Neill's PDF to Keynote. This is a GUI tool, so I manually create the Keynote file when I need it… continue reading.

Posted on 30 March 2017 in Computing, rst2pdf Leave a comment

Keyboard shortcut to resize Finder columns

I like to use Finder in Column mode (⌘+3). i.e. this view: One feature of this view is that you can resize all the columns to fit by alt+double clicking on the move handle between each column. There doesn't appear to be a keyboard shortcut for this operation though, so I created one using Keyboard Maestro. Keyboard Maestro can move the mouse around the screen and click with it which is exactly what I need.… continue reading.

Posted on 22 February 2017 in Accessibility, Computing, Keyboard Maestro One comment so far

Making Slack accessible on macOS

I've written before about how I tend to use my Mac via the keyboard as much as possible to minimise pain in my arm. Possibly the best application on macOS to facilitate this is Shortcat which enables me to point and click at any UI element in any native Mac app. I rely on it a lot and it makes nearly every app I use accessible to me. Recently, Slack updated their desktop app so… continue reading.

Posted on 26 January 2017 in Accessibility, Computing Leave a comment

Automatic OCR with Hazel and PDFPen

I have a useful scanner as part of my networked HP printer that will scan directly to a shared directory on my computer. Once there, I want the file to be renamed to the current date and the document OCR'd so that I can search it. To do this, I use Hazel and PDFPen and this is a note to ensure that I can remember to do it again if I ever need to! Firstly,… continue reading.

Posted on 11 January 2017 in Computing View all 9 comments

Using Phive to manage PHPUnit

I recently came across the Phive project and have had a play with it. Phive is part of phar.io and is intended to manage development tools such as PHPUnit in preference to using Composer's dev dependencies. The main advantages of Phive are that it uses the phar file of the tool and only keeps one copy of each version rather than downloading a new copy into each project. How it works Phive stores one copy… continue reading.

Posted on 4 January 2017 in Computing Leave a comment

SSH keys in macOS Sierra

Now that I've upgraded to macOS 10.12 Sierra, I noticed that SSH required me to enter my passphrase to keys every time I used them. This was a surprise as it's not how 10.11 El Capitan worked. This is how to fix it. Firstly, add your SSH key's passphrase to the keychain using ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa (or any other key file). You can now use your SSH key without re-typing the password all the time… continue reading.

Posted on 27 December 2016 in Computing View all 5 comments

Using CharlesProxy's root SSL with home-brew curl

Once I installed Homebrew's curl for HTTP/2 usage, I discovered that I couldn't automatically proxy SSL through Charles Proxy any more. $ export HTTPS_PROXY=https://localhost:8888 $ curl https://api.joind.in/v2.1/ curl: (60) SSL certificate problem: self signed certificate in certificate chain More details here: https://curl.haxx.se/docs/sslcerts.html curl performs SSL certificate verification by default, using a "bundle" of Certificate Authority (CA) public keys (CA certs). If the default bundle file isn't adequate, you can specify an alternate file using the… continue reading.

Posted on 7 September 2016 in Computing, PHP Leave a comment

Notes on keyboard only use of macOS

It's been a while since I could use a trackpad without pain and even longer since I could use a mouse or trackball. Currently I use a Wacom tablet as my mouse which works really well as long as I don't use it too much. Fortunately, keyboard usage doesn't seem to be a problem (yet?), so I try to use only the keyboard as much as possible on macOS (née OS X). These are some… continue reading.

Posted on 6 June 2016 in Accessibility, Computing View all 3 comments

Installing 32 bit packages on Ubuntu 14.04

This had me stumped for a bit, so I've written it down. If you have a 64 bit version of Ubuntu and want to install a 32-bit package, you simply add :i386 to the end of the package name like this:

$ sudo apt-get install libstdc++6:i386

1	$ sudo apt-get install libstdc++6:i386

However, this didn't initially work for me as apt-get couldn't find the package:

$ sudo apt-get install libstdc++6:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package libstdc++6
E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libstdc++6'

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$ sudo apt-get install libstdc++6:i386

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done

E: Unable to locate package libstdc++6

E: Couldn't find any package by regex 'libstdc++6'

It turned out that my installation only had the 64 bit architecture configured which you can tell by running:… continue reading.

Posted on 30 November 2015 in Computing View all 8 comments

Git submodules cheat sheet

Note: run these from the top level of your repo. Clone a repo with submodules:

    $ git clone git@bitbucket.org:akrabat/dotvim.git .vim
    $ git submodule update --init

1 2	$ git clone git@bitbucket.org:akrabat/dotvim.git .vim $ git submodule update --init

View status of all submodules:

    $ git submodule status

1	$ git submodule status

Update submodules after switching branches:

    $ git submodule update

1	$ git submodule update

Add a submodule:

    $ git submodule add git://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible.git bundle/vim-sensible

1	$ git submodule add git://github.com/tpope/vim-sensible.git bundle/vim-sensible

Update all submodules to latest remote version

    $ git submodule update --remote --merge
    $ git commit -m "Update submodules"

1 2	$ git submodule update --remote --merge $ git commit -m "Update submodules"

Update a specific submodule to the latest version (explicit method):

    cd bundle/vim-sensible
    git pull origin master
    cd ../..
    git add bundle/vim-sensible
    git commit -m "update vim-sensible"

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cd bundle/vim-sensible

git pull origin master

cd ../..

git add bundle/vim-sensible

git commit -m "update vim-sensible"

Remove a submodule:

    edit .gitmodules and remove this submodule's section
    $ git rm --cached bundle/vim-sensible
    $ rm -rf bundle/vim-sensible
    $ git commit -m "Remove vim-sensible"

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edit .gitmodules and remove this submodule's section

$ git rm --cached bundle/vim-sensible

$ rm -rf bundle/vim-sensible

$ git commit -m "Remove vim-sensible"

or

    git submodule deinit bundle/vim-sensible    
    git rm bundle/vim-sensible
    git commit -m "Remove vim-sensible"

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git submodule deinit bundle/vim-sensible

git rm bundle/vim-sensible

git commit -m "Remove vim-sensible"

Docs: Manual page on submodules Git book chapter on submodules LornaJane's guide to submodules

Posted on 24 February 2015 in Computing

Category: Computing