Developer Run — Tips, Linux and Software Development stuff and minimalism

Browsing web with keyboard

Before Firefox decided to throw away it's main advantage, there was an awesome plugin that allowed to browse the web without mouse — Vimperator. Now it is impossible with current API but there are several extensions¹² that try to bring back some of this functionality.

Some very basic keyboard navigation exists in Firefox by default. If you press ' or /, quick find will allow you to search link by text. Then press Enter to navigate - no mouse needed. But because Firefox does not allow to change hotkeys - this feature is pretty annoying, as / is usually reserved for search on many sites.

There was also my favorite uzbl browser (seems abandoned) and Next browser (looks very promising).

For the experiment, me show how to achieve basic keyboard navigation in almost any browser with 3 simple commands!

There are many [blog posts] like it, but this one is mine. ©

Of course, you can take Hugo or Ghost. But why? Using minimal tools without bloat² feels so refreshing!

You write some markdown posts in multiple or even single file
You take mustache templates and language of your choice to render markdown and generate some semantic HTML files
- [Optional] Bonus points if you are also generate RSS feed¹
- [Optional] Add some counter
You add Water.css to make pages look nice
- [Optional] If you want to be original, pick nice color palette
You test things locally, using livereload
You deploy (for free) your pages to surge.sh, netlify.com or Github pages
- [Optional] you set up Cloudflare to get free SSL and speed things up
You buy one of these new silly domains

And we are online!

PS: don't forget that you can deploy your blog to Tilde as well

#Tip

2FA Device from Scrap

Let me tell you about a gadget that I'm especially proud of. It's not elegant or inventive in any way, but I really like it, because it was built from scrap parts, extremely simple and does its job well.

The requirement was to create 2FA device, so multiple persons could use it. One of the possible solutions could be to use an old smartphone, but you know about security of old smartphones right?

Brutal Doom Tips

Holidays are the best¹ time to play games. If you are playing Brutal Doom this holidays, here are some tips for you! (If you don't know what's Brutal Doom for Doom 2, just skip this post)

About "smart" washing machines

Ok, so now they have these "smart" washing machines with Bluetooth which has no any real use. What we really need, is the washing machine to use Bluetooth to detect Airpods our any other gadgets forgotten inside of pockets. I would definitely buy one.

#SmartHome

Wi-Fi connection tip

Did you know, that in Linux you can connect to Wi-Fi from the terminal using a nice GUI-like interface? Much more convenient than editing wpa_supplicant.conf. If you use NetworkManager you have CLI tool already installed. Just type:

nmtui

Wi-Fi from terminal!

#Tip #Cli

Tilde

Ok, so now this blog has representation in Tilde¹. Why? Because it is so cool if you are nostalgic for The Olde Web. Or for multi-user servers in the computer lab. Cozy getaway from the bloat of modern web. Join now!.

tilde.club is not a social network it is one tiny totally standard unix computer that people respectfully use together in their shared quest to build awesome web pages

What to do there? Chat like a haxxor in weechat, read RSS² in newsbeuter, create l33t home pages in public_html and see what other folks are up to by running top.

#OldShool

Why do we need images in terminal?

Kitty is a wonderful terminal app for Linux and macOS. But it gets much controversy and angry comments like Why the heck do we need images in the terminal?

Answering this question:

Plotting graphs and getting knowledge from Wolfram Alpha
Not all scripts output text nowadays, especially ML stuff. Why leave the terminal to review computation results?
Some CLI file managers have preview feature. Cool, but Double Commander is still the best.
QR codes are convenient. Just pipe output to qr to quickly transfer snippets of text to your phone.
Printing large HQ album art of the currently playing song in Spotify. Albumart in Spotify App is very small. Some album covers have great details and interesting to look at. It's part of the experience!
Printing color-adjusted xkcd in your terminal, to match terminal color scheme. Because where to read XKCD, if not in the terminal, right? I really like it white on black because this way it looks like a chalkboard doodle.