SED – Insert text after match

General syntax:

• sed “s/search-for-regex/& replace-with/” filename.txt

Example:

• sed "s/BEGIN AS/& \n\nSET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL READ UNCOMMITTED/" Plans_s.sql

Explanation:

• s/search-for-regex/replace-with/ = search and replace command
• & = the matched text (effectively leaves the matched text alone rather than “replacing” it)
• \n = carriage return

Mind Manager

• http://www.mindjet.com/products/mindmanager-8-win/overview
• This product has been around for several years now.
• I’m very satisfied with how quickly I’m getting up to speed reading “Mind Manager for Dummies” on my tablet/eReader.
• The book helps understand the serious potential these Mind Mapping tools have for pulling together all the different types of material we try to mange ourselves with these days… web pages, PDF’s, docs, eMails, project plans, diagrams, etc. etc.
• The book also made me realize that the UI actually operates on a few very simple choices available to getting started beyond staring at a blank page
• I really like the “brainstorm mode” where you work with a single edit box and the enter key.  You get to stay in heads down brain dump mode as fast as you can spew out ideas, the tool throws each phrase out on the diagram as a box and then when you’ve emptied out, you go back and connect all the boxes… it’s a pretty neat feeling.
• It is very liberating to have a tool make the jumble in your head look this “pretty” so quickly.
• You can cut and paste ANYTHING from the Windows landscape into your diagram to be a “box” that can be related to other boxes… I have been using Outlook & OneNote messages as my rudimentary “idea gathering notepad” but the automatic graphical layout of Mind Manager feels much more expressive even for a very non-right brain guy like me… it’s sorta like being able to relationally diagram everything you’re trying to think about
• There are tons of templates on the mind manager web site that give an idea of what it can be used for… meeting notes, project planning,  requirements gathering, balanced score card, status report, presentations, brainstorming sessions, etc.
• It’s quite capable at exporting into more traditional formats like PowerPoint & HTML to share with others… it will readily “flatten” out the visual hierarchy into a text only MSWord outline document.
• MindJet also has a “Catalyst” product which claims to be an online collaboration environment enabling Mind Mapping in groups… I haven’t tried this yet but it makes a ton of sense at face value… makes me immediately wonder about mashing this with Google Wave.
• As they say, a picture is worth 1000 words…
  • ok yes this is admittedly very trivial content but that’s actually one point of benefit… namely, flushing the trivial things out of the preciously limited forefront of your head so you can get on to bigger and better things

Google Wave – WOW

http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

For all you folks working on any kind of collaboration solution, this seems like THE thing to have on your radar…

It’s not just a standalone product but an API to be woven into our own mashups.

Here’s the gen-x attention span version… very handy to start getting a quick feel.

Watch the long video directly on YouTube so you can maximize it.

Seems like this was announced this May (at the Google “I/O”  ’09 conference).

Just a sampling of immediate highlights:

• EVER-Y-THING is REALTIME!!!  anybody watching the “Wave” space can make edits (think of it as very robust chat) and everybody also gets to see all the updates being made in realtime…
• folks that are then invited to the wave later can “replay” the collaborative edits from start to finish with change tracking highlights to call out each edit
• it’s combined eMail & IM in same space
• Everyone eMail-like response thread get hierarchically structured (ala forums)
• The “extensions” that have already been developed to run atop the Wave API are amazing…
• Like at the very end of the demo… they show a chat with instant language translation!! … one person chats in english which translates to the other guy in french (and vice versa) and they can both type and see what they’re saying in real time... the other web mashups where they enhance existing online services (e.g. bug tracker site) with Wave’s realtime collaboration abilities are very drool worthy

 

Magic Motorcycle Juice

Credit where credit is due, I got this recipe from a colleague named Gary Phelps works out of Baumholder Germany.

Start with a 2 gal plastic gas can so you’ve got a nice easy carry container and plenty of room to work with.

• 1 Gal of the best apple cider you can get your hands on
• 1L Vodka (cheap)
• 1/4 to 1/3L Brandy (cheap)
• 6 oz Cinnamon candy (“Cinnamon Hearts” work well)

Wait for the candy to dissolve and then have at it.

During the cold season, warm it up and top it off with whip cream.

Warning: Has been known to cause tattoos and children.  Consume at your own risk! ;-)

Continuous Ink Supply System (CISS)

The "CISS" ink kit I went with is <$60 USD and if you're a friend I’d obviously help you set it up… this unit has been working solidly for two years now.


Once you get your head around this ink tank thing, it’s a totally simple concept which just works… It feels SO awesome to finally flip the bird to the whole cartridge rat race and let your family crank out ink sucking job after job without a care in the world!
It took me a while to understand a couple things and I can save you the learning curve.
Once it’s setup you literally don’t have to think about ink ever again but for a level check every six months and dump in some more super cheapo bulk ink if anything is low.
The rare ink refilling moment is potentially a little messy if you miss the tank spout … but nothing major if you work the whole affair inside of a big Tupperware container or some such… and then you just dump any spillover down the sink because it’s so dirt cheap.

I’ve been getting replacement bulk ink for ~$15 per each 8 oz. bottle of color from Atlantic Inkjet.
8 oz is a ton of ink compared to a little cartridge... for reference, the cartridges for my Canon only hold 13 mL... that's 0.43 oz... so a bottle is 18.6 times the size of a cartridge... if you assume you can get recycled cartridges at 1/3 retail (~$5) [Amazon reference]... you’d still be looking at $93 for the same amount of ink you get for $15 in a bottle… that’s a factor of 6 at least… I’m typically happy if I can cut a recurring expense in half… divide it by 6 and you’ve significantly changed the game.

Interview Notes – Are you a team player?

Assuming some form of this question will never die evokes a significant response from my background threads…

• fundamental work perspective (FWP) #1  - it’s easy to knee jerk a “yes, of course i am!” with the idea that you think you can get along with just about anybody… but a flip side of the coin is to consider those non contributors that take advantage of the true contributors in a team… “the leech” would be at the malicious end of the spectrum but in general it’s pretty challenging to assemble a group of people with skills sets matching well enough that they can all just be thrown in a box and expect them to be a productive team… if that’s the best management you are capable of, then you should probably focus on highly productive individuals first and plan on learning the next level if you’re lucky… anyone that’s asking me “am i a team player” is begging all sorts of questions about how good they are at forming teams… have they ever led a team to multiple reproducible successes… and now define that success… how was it measured?
• FWP #1.1 – i do however get that positive responses to one’s own “teamwork capacity” is the kind of ammunition one needs in these moments rather than “dodging” an interviewers questions with more questions… so something i truly believe down deep goes something like this… the things that each one of us “know” or understand should absolutely not be held as guarded secrets to protect & justify one’s own existence… I’ll admit, this may be the attitude of someone that has been extremely “lucky” with one solid job after the next ever since i left college and that is now a 16 year run… part of that luck i think is that software development is just such a critical need under any rock you turn over… the world i see needs way more developers than it has on hand… there are just SOOOO many problems that need solving… and that leads me to my point… the knowledge we each have should be absolutely “given away” to our fellow employees in the trenches with us as fast as one can possibly accomplish the knowledge transfer by whatever means available… (over beers after work is one of my personal favorite knowledge transfer opportunities! :)  AND THEN once we all know what we know, we can finally move on the to “good stuff”, right??  i mean the stuff i know, by definition, must’ve been fairly easy to comprehend… so lets all get to that level and then help boost each other up to the next level and the next and the next and maybe after a while we’ll really be “somewhere”… so in a nutshell, i do not believe in “hoarding knowledge”… i flippin hate people that practice this behavior… i pity them for their small mindedness… i initially assume they learned it from some other hoarder and try to sit down with them in a non charged moment and see if there’s any hope of seeing things differently… i wanna whack the managers that allow this to happen with the bozo bowling pin and tell them to WAKE UP…  you’re wasting your own valuable resources, in these lean times!?!  that is not good for the shareholders dude/dudette…
• i ‘spose i’m just puking out the obvious at this point but this is the core reason for formal education… to get us up to some baseline knowledge set so that a human’s life isn’t wasted solving the same stupid things generations did prior… so we can EVOLVE… please please please GOD, we NEED to evolve… we are still such children running around doing such mindless things… don’t get me wrong, life is generally good, but MAN do we “waste” it on trivial pursuits… myself doggedly included

GPS / Mapping / Garmin - Tips

• GMapToGPX – Export Google Maps route to GPX which then imports to all Garmin stuff ,etc.
• Garmin Connect.com – Seems like a fun way to start posting our routes and sharing.
• MapMyRide.com - route sharing forum that does have Germany content