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A reasonably good thriller about a group of scientists over-wintering at the South Pole with a killer in their midst. The descriptions of the cold alone will chill you. A good summer-time read – when it’s nice and hot outside.
Ever wonder what happens when you hit send in Gmail? This wonderfully whimsical presentation gives you a look inside Google’s data centers as it traces an email on its journey.
For some time now I’ve been using the Solarized color scheme for my editors and console windows. The one place I wasn’t having any success with Solarized was running Vim in iTerm2. After much searching and some trial and error experimenting I finally found the root problem.
##Root Problem
You must have syntax on in your .vimrc in order for colors to work.
##.vimrc Here’s the relevant portion of my .vimrc file:
syntax on
set background=dark
let g:solarized_termtrans = 1
colorscheme solarized
Without syntax on the colors from the Solarized theme do not appear for me in either Terminal or iTerm2. The let g:solarized_termtrans = 1 setting controls transparency. Without this setting the scheme looks horrid in Terminal. The g:solarized_termtrans setting seems to have little or no effect in iTerm2.
In both Terminal and iTerm2 I have the terminal type set to xterm-256color.
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This Alex Hawke adventure has the Chinese and French threatening a world war over oil. While I find these books to be formulaic and predictable they are enjoyable. Think of them as a really good hamburger. Not a preformed fast-food burger, a homemade one. Better than junk food but still not necessarily good for you. Just two more titles to go and I’ll have finished off all the currently available Alex Hawke stories.
I added the /usr/bin/chflags nohidden ~/Library command to my .zshrc.
Through her piano studio my wife purchased an educational license for Sibelius 5 several years ago. As a beginning cellist I have made use of one of the two active licenses her purchase included. I’ve reformatted Suzuki pieces to better see the repeated patterns and created sheet music of tunes I wanted to learn. I am by no means a Sibelius expert but I enjoy having a music notation tool at hand.
Recently I needed to reformat my computer’s hard drive and re-install the operating system and all the applications. Prior to doing this I tried to de-register the copy of Sibelius I had on my computer unsuccessfully. Every time I tried I got an error message saying the Sibelius server could not be reached. This morning I tried to install a fresh copy of Sibelius on my computer only to have it not work. The application installed and when started asked for the serial number but then said “your serial number appears to be corrupted”. The message also said to contact Sibelius support.
Some support calls are better than others. Some support calls are supremely frustrating. This support call was fantastic.
After navigating the usual maze of options I ended up talking to a representative called Larry. Larry listened to my situation and asked if I was using Max OS X 10.7, or Lion. When I said yes he said we could fix my situation in about 5 minutes.
First he had me create a Sibelius Software directory in the /Library/Application Support directory. Once the new Sibelius Software directory was in place he had me adjust its access permissions. This addressed the “corrupt serial number” issue. Next he walked me through the phone registration process to record the Sibelius generated computer number for my laptop with the serial number for our copy of the application. He also took care of removing the license registration for the previous incantation of my laptop - the one that disappeared when I formatted the hard drive. He then politely pointed out that the CD version of Sibelius would not be stable on Lion and strongly suggested that I download the latest version our license entitles us to own, version 5.4. With Sibelius 5.4 downloaded and installed everything is working perfectly again.
The call was over in about 5 minutes. Larry was responsive, helpful, and knowledgeable.
The icing on the cake however, was the follow-up email. Not only does it give me a case number and the option to contact Avid (Sibelius) for more help, it very succinctly and completely recapped the support call I’d just had. Complete with links to articles in their knowledge database for the two steps we’d taken to get me working again. Outstanding. In just a few minutes I went from being frustrated by a dialog message that said to call support to being completely satisfied and then astonished at the level of support.
Avid (Sibelius) has got customer support nailed.
Tomorrow marks the day that my employment at Kansas State University ties the third longest stretch I’ve had at a single employer in nearly 30 years of professional work. As a consultant in the late 1990s and early 2000s my engagements changed frequently at times, making for shorter tenures as an employee for any one company.
My longest stretch at one employer was from June 13, 1988 through December 31, 1996, or 3,078 days. Number two on the list clocks in at 1,673 from October 17, 1983 until June 10, 1988. Today my K-State employment reaches 1,231 days which ties the previous number three, my self employment from October 17, 2000 through March 18, 2004.
All told I’ve work 10,282 days. If I work until my 65th birthday I’ve got 5,036 days to go. Working until I’m 70 bumps that count up to 6,836 days.
It is worth noting for any date-math savants in the audience that these durations were calculated using the DAY360 function in Google Speadsheet, which means each month has 30 days. So the durations are accurate to within 5 days per year.
You should read this.
Made my head asplode.
(via: @cameronmoll)
On the eve when North Carolina amended their state constitution banning same gender unions or marriages it seems appropriate to link to this graphic.