Tag Archives: tools

Zellij over Tmux

Dev, , , ,

I like working in the terminal. It feels like the right thing to invest in to build small tools that compose well into bigger tools.

I’ve written before about using tmux as a way to turn one terminal into many so you can run tests and editors etc. It’s clunky, it’s wonky. If you get a good starting configuration from something like oh-my-tmux and you spend some time tweaking it and you learn how it works, you can get a LOT out of it. I am. But I just got a great recommendation from Ian Sudderth about an alternative.

Zellij is a screen multiplexer that does all the things that I need but comes with batteries installed and has good defaults and I’m loving it. It starts out with things like session restoration built in.

It’s DISCOVERABLE. I don’t have to look up a lot of info about how to use it – it walks you through it.

Commandline stuff doesn’t have to be hard anymore. I’ve already added it to my jumpstart for new environments. I’m going to be playing with this everywhere as a replacement for tmux.

An Ode to the Dremel

Pals, ,

It’s not the tool I use around the house the most. That’s probably the Skeletool I keep on my hip or my drill. I actually look forward to seeing how fast I can assemble flatpack furniture with my drill.

But the Dremel makes little impossible things possible in a small apartment.

Like when the top for my daughter’s favorite water bottle broke.

It’s a very short task to use the carving attachments to cut the sharp bits off and then use a sander to round over the edges.

A water bottle covered in cute pandas and goat stickers. In front of it, the top is roughly rounded over and sanded down where it was damaged previously.

Little things become easy. Or if we need to cut off a section of our outdoor tiles or small metals sections. If you can’t fit it in tin snips, you can still use the metal cutting disks to cut through it or score things enough to snap.

Default Apps 2023

Software, ,

It’s a blog trend!

Every once in a while, everyone wants to share the tools they are excited about.

When I saw Ankur Sethi’s post about it on Mastodon, I was in.

  • Email: Outlook (because work) / Thunderbird on the laptop
  • Calendar: Outlook (because work) / Thunderbird or a pinned google calendar tab
  • Reminders: put it in the calendar.
  • Chat: Beeper (because it handles everything) or Slack (because work/school)
  • Photos: the iOS camera app
  • Books: BookWyrm, Libby, CloudLibrary, Aldiko, and the Kobo app. But I only really use my Kobo.
  • Mastodon: Ice Cubes
  • RSS: newsblur
  • saving things to read later: Pocket – which syncs to my Kobo
  • Browser: Firefox
  • Search: duck duck go.
  • Music: play:Sub or Navidrome
  • Podcasts: Overcast
  • Audiobooks: I don’t. I don’t understand how the rest of you can. I’m glad you enjoy it.
  • Photo Editing: Whatever iOS provides natively or I use the GIMP on my laptop.
  • Todo: Vim and todo.markdown in project folders, Trello for family projects, otherwise, pick a time and put it in the calendar to get done.
  • Grocery lists: a pad of paper
  • Presentations: Vim and markdown -> pandoc -> reveal.js is incredible.
  • Writing: Vim
  • Code editing: Vim
  • Spreadsheets: Google Sheets
  • Budgeting: Google Sheets
  • Terminal: Whatever is handy, but tmux inside of it.
  • Git: the git commandline. (or fugitive inside vim).

For more of the tools other folks use, Robb Knight is collecting these lists on App Defaults.