Matthew Lang

For a long time I've wrestled with a number of different terminal apps and tools in the hope of improving my productivity at the command line. Initially I used iTerm2, a terminal emulator for macOS, as my preferred terminal app. Then I also started using tmux, a terminal multiplexer, on top of that. Then came along Vim, the open source text editor, and I started using that as well.

This was the first time in a long time that I had started using all three again. The benefit of using this combination of tools is that I could run both my command line and text editor within a single app and very rarely have to switch away from it.

One huge pain point I couldn't get round though was the simple act of copying and pasting text between Vim and other apps. Despite a number of attempts to get it working I've decided to call it a day on this trio of tools.

• Vim is a great text editor, but to be honest I'm faster coding with Sublime Text or even Atom for that fact. Yes, I use the mouse and yes I want to have features and plugins that don't require me to mess about with command line.
• tmux is great for managing different command line sessions within a single terminal emulator but I don't think it's a necessity. Lately I've been doing away with split panes and using multiple tabs.
• Which brings me to iTerm2. As great an application as it is, there's nothing that it offers that I can't get from Apple's own terminal emulator, Terminal.

So I stopped using Vim, tmux and iTerm2 and fell back to using Terminal and Sublime Text.

I've went full circle from starting with the basics, adding more tools to the stack, before reducing the tools I need for the terminal right down to the absolute basics. One app for the terminal and one app for editing source code.

I can see the case for using tools like tmux and Vim. Maybe you spend most of your day in a terminal as a system administrator and you're faster with Vim. Maybe you need to manage multiple servers on a daily basis so splitting panes in tmux suits your line of work. I get it. I understand why these tools exist and why you would use them.

Sometimes though scaling back is just as much a benefit.

The complete list from Nicholas Bate.

A story of one man and his music.

Tonight I discovered that my music library has gone missing. I maintain a massive library on my computer - 46,680 song, not that I am counting (yes, I have a backup but restoring the backup creates an incredible amount of work for me).

— I still have my iPod by Kurt Harden

Kurt: Bite the bullet and restore the backup. Yes it will be hard work but you'll have your beloved music back.

I'm bookmarking this as an essential. I'm surprised I haven't read this post before by Merlin Mann, but then it was a long time ago.

Essential advice for bloggers.

Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can't stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person's obsessions take them?

— What Makes for a Good Blog by Merlin Mann

Hat tip to Patrick Rhone for this.

This weekend was something of a bust. It's that time of year when kids of a certain age turn from innocent little chaps and madams to plague carrying monsters. Little Drew started us off with a case of the lurgy last week and it's ran rife through the house. There's still a couple of us fighting on into this week. Hopefully by next weekend we'll all be back to full health.

On a more positive note this weekend saw the return of what for me is the greatest show on Earth. The Super Bowl. I get that not everyone likes it, but there's no denying it was a great game to watch.

I had no intentions of staying up to watch the game though having already started my lurgy phase and the fact that I was working the next day, so I recorded the game in the hopes of watching it the next day.

I already knew the score before watching the game, some media blackouts you just can't get through unless you unplug your wireless router but I needed that for work.

It certainly wasn't a disappointing game. The Falcons routed the Patriots in the first half but the momentum of the Falcons started to die in the second half. Despite the rocky start in the third quarter the Patriots stepped up and proved that there were more than capable of matching the Falcons in their first-half.

With the game tied, the Super Bowl went into overtime for the first time. The Patriots opted to receive the punt, made the drive to the red-zone and scored the touchdown. Game over.

It's hardly seems fair to decide a game like this, maybe they should play the whole overtime quarter regardless of the number of possessions each time has and decide it on points.

Anyway, that's the Patriots and the Brady/Belichick combo with their fifth Super Bowl win. So the countdown begins to the next season.

Me and Ethan are Packer fans but Jennifer and Drew like the Patriots and no-one was as happy as Drew was when he discovered that his team had won the Super Bowl.

I often joke with Jen that my mid-life crisis will involve buying a top-end mountain bike without telling her until I take it out the shed for it's first ride.

I think I've found the very bike.

Amazing how people have put Minecraft to such a creative use.

via kottke.org

Work the plan. It's all you need to know to get things done.

via PEDAL Consumption

... from my man in British Columbia, Curtis McHale.

Cal Newport's book Deep Work has been circling the blogs I follow for the past year. I finally took the time to read over the summer. It's such an enriching book (I'm still reviewing my notes for it) and in an age of social media distraction I would say it is a must read.

Don't just take my word for it though. Read the words of Julian Summerhayes who has a rightly so put together a worthy post to reflect the content of the book.

... for the recommendation Kurt.

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Amidst the chaos of the world, I was glad to be taken away for a few minutes with the Rockin'1000.

I know, from reading my friend Kurt Harden’s blog, that we may not see completely eye-to-eye politically. But, a fact of which I’m absolutely certain of is that we could sit down around a campfire with two fingers of whiskey and a decent cigar each and come around to more that we agreed on than disagreed.

— Campfire Diplomacy by Patrick Rhone

What a great idea. I just wish I lived a little closer for this little pow-wow.

Finally broke out the other stack of Field Notes notebooks I got with my Black Ice editions. Dedicating a notebook to sketching ideas for web based products like themes and web sites. First port of a call though is a new landing page for DigitalBothy.

by Nicholas Bate.