Computer Tricks
Category archives for Computer Tricks
shopt
Posted by Greg Laden on August 20, 2015 
shopt Tomorrow I will shop. Yesterday I shopt. No,not really. The term “shopt” is a Linux Bash thing. If you don’t care about bash, stop reading now. If you find the command line interesting or useful and don’t know about shopt, this is your lucky day. Look at the word for a moment and try…
Making Microsoft Excel Work Better Using Non Excel Software
Posted by Greg Laden on June 14, 2014 
There was a time when I was the go to guy for anyone with Excel questions. I was using spreadsheets before they existed, and always kept up with the latest versions, and learned all the tips and tricks even if I didn’t need them. Later on, I started using other tools to do some of…
Designing a new Turing Test
Posted by Greg Laden on June 9, 2014 
OK, so the Turing Test is fraught with problems. First and most annoying is the apparent fact, though I will not stick up for this fact if challenged, that whatever you think the Turing test is, it isn’t. See Wikipedia for more on this. Aside from that, though, it’s totally dumb. The test, as most…
How do I unsend an email?
Posted by Greg Laden on May 21, 2014 
How do you unsend an email? Probably you can’t. Outlook had a thing that tried to do that but I don’t think it ever worked. Pretty much once an email goes, you’re done. But if you are using Google Gmail with a web interface you have ten seconds to unsend an email. So if you…
The Google Dr. Who Game
Posted by Greg Laden on November 23, 2013 
Have you played the Dr Who game on Google yet? It’s the google logo. Which they call a “Doodle” at Google. But since this is a Dr. Who “Doodle” it’s called a “Whodle.” The Google Whodle. The game involves going through a series of steps to retrieve each letter in the word “Google” from various…
What to do after installing Ubuntu 13.10?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 17, 2013 
NOTE: This may not be the blog post you are looking for. If you have installed Ubuntu 14.10 and want to tweak that, GO HERE. So, you’ve installed Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander and now you want to fix it up real nice? Here’s what I did. Enable Additional Drivers. Software Sources –> ’Additional Drivers’ in…
Linux Shell Scripting
Posted by Greg Laden on October 7, 2013 
I just finished “Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook” (Second Edition) by Shantanu Tushar and Sarath Lakshman. This is a beginner’s guide to using shell scripting (bash) on linux. Usually, a “cookbook” is set up more like a series of projects organized around a set of themes, and is usually less introductory than this book. “Linux Shell…
A new book on Markdown
Posted by Greg Laden on September 7, 2013 
Markdown is a language that anyone can make good use of if you write material that has to be formatted in any of a number of ways, but without the downside of using a word processor (which is likely to mess up your material) or writing detailed code (like HTML or whatever you’d have to…
Two OS X Mountain Lion Tips
Posted by Greg Laden on August 4, 2013 
I’m using the following handy tricks to make my iMac running Mountain Lion do cool things. 1) Define a keyboard shortcut to launch launchpad Go to Control Center, Keyboard Shortcuts “Launchpad & Dock” — check “Show Launchpad” and make sure the zone where you enter a key combo is active. I chose “Control-esc” — With…
Dropbox for iPhone
Posted by Greg Laden on July 17, 2013 
I know you probably already knew this, but I just discovered it and it works so well I wanted to pass it on. I installed Dropbox on my iPhone. Dropbox (in its current incarnation) more or less assumes that you are doing this to handle photographs. You have the option of forcing Dropbox to only…