TechKnack

Recently I set up an SVN repository in the hopes that maybe I can show off some of my programming work to potential clients (or maybe just other people who are interested). I ran into sufficient trouble during setup that I thought it would be a good idea to give a run-down of my [...]

One thing it seems bash has no tool for is padding strings. If you want to left-pad a number (say, 3) with zeros to a certain “string width” (say, 5 characters wide), you could do:

$ echo `printf "%05d" 3`
00003

However, this only works with numbers. Actually, it only works with integers (bash can’t handle [...]

In my daily work on linux, I constantly have several tabs open in my console app for various CLI activites. Normally, when I log in to a session, Yakuake auto-starts and I immediately open four tabs in it. Tab four becomes a system monitor through the use of the “top” command, tab one [...]

I love the feeling of power that comes from doing something that google couldn’t help with
In this case, I’ve spent the past couple days messing with Conky (yes, it is as addicting as they say). A google search will tell you what it is, and another will show you all the cool [...]

As I use Win7 more and more, there are things that I notice it doesn’t do that linux did do. Virtual desktops, certain programs minimizing to the systray, clipboard history. Small things, things that you normally would take for granted if you had them, but things that become very noticeable when they’re suddenly [...]