Tutorial: Setting Up iText and RJB in Mac OS X
I’ve been looking for a solid PDF library to use with Ruby on Rails. After researching various possibilities, including prawn and Ruby Ghostscript, I finally decided on iText. Continue Reading…
Technology
Blackboard Tip: Have Messages Delivered via Email
Ferris State University uses Blackboard (sadly) for its online classes. For a while, there were times that I didn’t know if I was receiving a message from a teacher or other student. After digging through the settings, I found an option to automatically forward all messages to my personal email account. Continue Reading…
Terminal Tip: Symbolically Linking Wildcard Filenames
I am currently researching a Dropbox-based preference syncing solution for Mac OS X. In my research, I came across a really handy terminal tip. If you want to symbolically link (
Facebook… Lite?
For all of you that despise the new Facebook layout, there is an alternative: Facebook Lite. Continue Reading…
Mac Tip: Navigate Text by Word
If you use a Mac, there are tons of text navigation tools at your disposal. One of the little known is navigating text by word:
- Move your cursor between words: alt + Left or Right Arrow Key. This lets you jump between words in a sentence. This is helpful when you find that you mistyped a word earlier in a sentence, and you don’t want to use your mouse to move your cursor to the right spot.
- Move your cursor between paragraphs: alt + Up or Down Arrow Key. This lets you jump to the beginnings and ends of paragraphs, and is very useful when navigating large amounts of text.
- Delete the previous word: alt+delete. If you want to delete the last word you typed, this combination is handy.
- Delete the next word: alt+forward delete (fn+delete on laptops). Similar to the previous tip, this deletes the word in front of your cursor.
Do you have any other text navigation tips?
Update: Added the paragraph navigation tip.
The New (New, New) Facebook: My Favorite Update
Facebook has been through several iterations. Through those, I think they have made a lot of great improvements. They’ve added more features for people to communicate and share with, added the ability for third parties to extend Facebook with custom apps, and allow for other web sites to share information within a user’s feed. However, with one of their updates, giving the ability of custom apps, a new form of spam has come. Continue Reading…
Facebook Feature Request: Daily Updates
As far as social networking goes, Facebook is one the best out there. It has a huge feature set, can be extended by apps, and almost everyone I know has one. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t areas for improvement.
I honestly hate getting emails every time something occurs. Someone tagged me in a post or a photo, someone wants me to join Farmville or Mafia Wars, they think I’m a family member, etc, etc, and etc! I have over 5000 Facebook notifications in my Gmail (yeah, I don’t delete anything). It gets a little overwhelming.
Facebook, how about an option to subscribe to daily, weekly, or even monthly updates, instead of alerting me 500 times a day? Please?
Does anyone out there agree?
Wii Finally Found a Wiimote!
For Christmas, Joy bought me a Wii. Being one of the best gifts you can get this year, I was excited to start building a game collection and finding other additional things to go along with it. I ordered my copy of New Super Mario Bros. (which I’m expecting in the mail by Monday), an additional off-brand Wiimote, and a neat charging station with rechargeable batteries for the Wiimote. It was all working great, except that the off-brand Wiimote didn’t fit in the charging station properly!
I decided to take the Nyko Wiimote back and replace it with an Official Nintendo model. After I made the return, I went to grab a Wiimote. Completely. Sold. Out. Across all of Big Rapids. Even more so, across this entire part of the state (I check on Walmart.com for a 100mi radius)! Now what? Continue Reading…
Easily Copy or Move Files to Dropbox
If you’re an avid Dropbox user like myself, you may find that getting files to your Dropbox folder isn’t always the easiest task. If you’re rooted deep into the filesystem, sometimes you want a quick way to send a file to your public folder without having leave your current location. Well, now there is an easy to use solution (Mac OS X only). Continue Reading…
That’ll Be a Cinch!
When it comes to window-management, Mac OS X wins hands-down. Exposé and Spaces are a great way to manage open windows and applications within your desktop environment. However, I’ll have to admit that there is one Windows 7 feature wish I had on my Mac: AeroSnap. Being able to drag a window to the top of the screen to have it maximized, or to the left or right of a screen to create a split-view is awesome. There was no easy Mac solution to incorporate this amazing UI feature, that is, until now. Continue Reading…