Monthly Archives: December 2018
The Second Computer I Ever Used
In a continuation of the theme, The 8-Bit Guy’s “Commodore History Part 3 – The Commodore 64” is great technical breakdown of the second computer I ever used. It’s really interesting to understand the technical reasons for the various features and limitations of a computer that you used as a child. The 8-Bit Guy’s channel in general is quite good, it’s particularly interesting if you have a technical background but aren’t really familiar with the specs and conventions of late 1970s to mid-1980s home computing.
Continue readingThe First Computer I Ever Used
My elementary school had a number of Apple II, Apple II+, and Apple IIe computers in the early 1980s. This was my first exposure to computers in general and I’ve only started to appreciate how fortunate I was to have a few teachers who were quite interested in computers even though there wasn’t really any computer class offered until I was in high school.
In my search for interesting info on the Apple II, I came across this really interesting video from the 8-Bit Guy walking through a restoration of an Apple II+.
James Mattis Just Quit
For the first time since this whole saga began, I’m actually kind of worried. As much as I don’t agree with his ilk, I have every reason to think that Mattis is a serious man who thinks deeply and without animus.
The nature of his resignation is something I’ve never seen in my lifetime.
Visual Studio Code
I’ve started learning Go, so I decided I’d try to get a good IDE. It seems like there is some sort of consensus that Microsoft Visual Studio Code is the current hot thing in the Go developer world, so I figured I’d check it out.
I must say that I’m mildly impressed. It’s available for OS X, Windows, and Linux and it’s pretty simple and extensible for most small projects.
Not only this, but it turns out that the source is all available under an MIT license as well! Here I am going on about Microsoft’s latest cross-platform, open source development tool. I never thought this day would come…
An Excellent Git Tutorial
I was searching for a walk through of a bit of a screwy merge I have to do in a Git repo tonight, when I came across these videos by David Mahler. It wasn’t what I needed, but this is one of the best explanations of the core Git (and revision control) concepts for a beginner.
If you’re just learning Git, or looking for a refresher, check these out.
Continue readingAn Advanced Introduction to GnuPG
If you’re loooking for a bit of light reading before bed, this might be just the answer: An Advanced Introduction to GnuPG.
Sleep tight!
On a mostly related note, I’m going to move all of my (admittedly trivial) secure e-mail to my ProtonMail account. If you have any reason to contact me securely, I advise you e-mail with GPG at gmobrien at protonmail dot com as of December 2018.
The Art of Writing Linux Utilities
I’m midway through a small project to migrate some old utilities I originally wrote many, many years ago for FreeBSD and that I’ve migrated from system to system over the years with small tweaks and various cross-platform improvements. It’s been a while since I’ve done any real programming so I’ve been reading some refreshers on things like documentation best practices and I stumbled across a good article, that’s aged quite well I thought was worth sharing.
It appears to be an IBM document from back in the day when they were making a big effort to enterprise-ify Linux and improve the level of documentation and tools for developers, but somebody at Harvard saw fit to host a mirror.
Moving from GitHub to GitLab
No big editorial, just a note for folks who have reason to use any of my GitHub projects and read the blog…
From here on, I’ll be maintaining any public software over here: https://gitlab.com/gmobrien