I wanted to paste a text file with my homework assignment into Gmail. Unfortunately, said text file was on the school server and I really didn’t want to permanently download the thing to my hard drive. So this is what I did:
This connects to the school server, retrieves graph.txt from my home directory, and copies it to standard out. I then piped the text into pbcopy, which is the Mac utility for manipulating the clipboard. After that, I switched to Gmail and did a paste.
I’m reading a book about the vi editor right now. For those less UNIX-inclined, vi is a command-line based text editor for UNIX systems like Linux, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X. It’s installed on basically every system (in some flavor or another. I prefer strawberry Vim, but I’ve been told the cinnamon variety deserves a second glance) and is remarkably easy to use.
It’s also more powerful than I realized.
The problem is that you need to find a good guide to vi. Its built-in help is wonderful reference, but it can’t get you up and running. For years, I’ve been bound to only a fraction of the commands. No more. Why would I use anything else?
A DOS prompt makes me sad. A bash prompt elicits unbridled joy in my heart.
The above quote came out of a rather interesting discussion in my early morning programming lecture.
And as stated above, this is my 100th post! I’d like to thank my kind readers and followers for making Zombie Zen a wonderful experience. To celebrate the occasion, I thought I’d send along a picture!
My name is Ross Light. I am an artist: my primary medium is programming. I also experiment with photographs, video, and the written language. My approach to blogging is slower paced than most other sites—my updates are infrequent, but each entry is significant.
