eRambler

I can't believe it's taken this long to create tools that allow simultaneous editing of markdown documents, but they're finally here.

For the SC Track competition entrants were asked to design a better bug-tracker.

The SC Config category asked competitors to make it easy to make software that runs on any platform. How did they get on?

Still letting your text editor break lines for you at 80 characters? Take back control!

Entrants to the SC Build category were invited to create a replacement for the venerable make tool. How did they do?

Before @softwarecarpentry, there was Software Carpentry. What happened to it?

In which I continue to avoid actually writing by moving to a new static site generator

I’ve had my eye on the Fairphone 2 for a while now, and when my current phone, an aging Samsung Galaxy S4, started playing up I decided it was time to take the plunge. A few people have asked for my thoughts on the Fairphone so here are a few notes. Why I bought it The thing that sparked my interest, and the main reason for buying the phone really, was the ethical stance of the manufacturer.

I’m a nut for automating repetitive tasks, so I was dead pleased a few years ago when I discovered that IFTTT let me plug different bits of the web together. I now use it for tasks such as: Syndicating blog posts to social media Creating scheduled/repeating todo items from a Google Calendar Making a note to revisit an article I’ve starred in Feedly I’d probably only be half-joking if I said that I spend more time automating things than I save not having to do said things manually.

I admit it: I’m a grammar nerd. I know the difference between ‘who’ and ‘whom’, and I’m proud. I used to be pretty militant, but these days I’m more relaxed. I still take joy in the mechanics of the language, but I also believe that English is defined by its usage, not by a set of arbitrary rules. I’m just as happy to abuse it as to use it, although I still think it’s important to know what rules you’re breaking and why.