2023-05-24 00:00
Out of the shadows ¶ For the majority of the time I use a dark theme. Throughout the winter months I have been under the blankets bingeing on Nordic Noir and dark drama but now it is ti… Read More
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Articles on graphic and web design, XHTML, CSS, Photoshop and Illustrator
2021-10-07 23:00
Mist envelops the soft hills,
Smothering the quiet, monochrome hues.
I watch life evaporating from the leaves,
As they prepare to fall, and end this cycle.
Dark, lifeless days are to come,
A… Read More
2017-09-12 23:00
Introduction
Vault is an excellent tool for managing secrets. It can be used by both machines and humans and has a modular design and strong security models. Some of the secrets it can stor… Read More
2017-09-10 23:00
What is the xargs command in UNIX?
The xargs command in UNIX is a command line utility for building an execution pipeline from standard input. Whilst tools like grep can accept standard i… Read More
2017-09-10 00:00
No shorthand method
The ioutil package offers some of the common operations needed when working with files but nothing for copying files. Go tries to keep things lightweight so as operation… Read More
2017-07-12 00:00
What is the watch command in UNIX?
The watch command runs a given command repeatedly and displays the output, refreshing the screen with each interval. This allows a command to be watched… Read More
2017-05-12 01:00
What is a statusline in Vim?
The statusline in Vim is the bar along the bottom of the Vim window. By default it does not show when you open Vim until there is more than one window. The stat… Read More
2017-05-05 01:00
Changes in tmux 2.4
tmux continues to move on apace which is great news for the project. Since version 2 there have been several breaking changes to configuration options. This is fine if y… Read More
2017-04-26 00:00
Using templates in Vim
The Vim philosophy encourages users to automate repeated actions and provides a rich toolkit with great documentation to achieve that. One example of this type of mic… Read More
2017-01-25 01:01
In a previous post I worked through getting a Kubernetes cluster up and running on a local machine using minikube. Within this cluster I have one deployment of a simple Hello World Go applic… Read More
2017-01-25 01:00
Over the last few weeks I have been learning Kubernetes. Here is how I got set up and started learning.
To experiment with Kubernetes I used minikube to run a local cluster. This has depend… Read More
2016-10-21 00:00
BBC Radio feeds
To the annoyance of some the BBC removed support for Windows Media and have migrated to using the AAC codec and http streaming. The good news is that the AAC streams are hig… Read More
2016-10-20 00:00
Vim 8 brings native third-party package loading
Vim 8, released on 12th September, added a new feature of being able to load third party packages natively.
Plugins keep growing and more o… Read More
2016-10-19 00:00
What is the more command in UNIX?
The more command is a command line utility for viewing the contents of a file or files once screen at a time. It supports navigating forwards and backwar… Read More
2016-10-18 00:00
netrw - the unloved directory browser
The netrw plugin normally ships with vim and is the default filebrowser. It gets a bad rap and ships with all kinds of features likes remote editing… Read More
2016-10-17 00:00
What is the kill command in UNIX?
The kill command is a command line utility to for terminating processes. It is normally a shell builtin meaning the command is called from a users shell… Read More
2016-10-14 00:00
What is the touch command in UNIX?
The touch command is a command line utility to update timestamps on files. UNIX and UNIX like operating systems store timestamp information for each fil… Read More
2016-10-13 01:00
Yarn is a better npm client
Yarn announced itself at a new package manager for JavaScript. Eventually the project may look at creating a registry but for now it is simply a better npm clien… Read More
2016-10-12 00:00
What is the cp command?
The cp command is a command-line utility for copying files and directories. It supports moving one or more files or folders with options for taking backups and pre… Read More
2016-10-11 01:00
What is the mv command in UNIX?
The mv command is a command line utility that moves files or directories from one place to another . It supports moving single files, multiple files and di… Read More
2016-10-10 01:00
What is the ln command in UNIX?
The ln command is a command line utility for making links between files. It supports creating a hard and symbolic links to data on disk.
What is the diffe… Read More
2016-10-07 01:00
What is the rm command?
The rm command is a command line utility for removing files or directories.
How to remove a file
To remove a file pass the name of a file or files to the rm comm… Read More
2016-10-06 00:00
Corrupt ZSH history file
If you use zsh for your shell very occasionally you may find the following message appearing indicating a corrupt history file. This is normally after a reboot.
z… Read More
2016-10-05 00:00
s/iPhone/Pixel
With the announcement of the Pixel phone Google has made a play for the top end of the smartphone market. The marketing video is a direct swipe at iPhones. Hey! We’ve g… Read More
2016-10-04 00:00
What is the ls command?
The ls command is a command-line utility for listing the contents of a directory or directories given to it via standard input. It writes results to standard outpu… Read More
2016-10-03 00:00
What is the tail command?
The tail command is a command-line utility for outputting the last part of files given to it via standard input. It writes results to standard output. By default… Read More
2016-09-28 00:00
What is the fc command?
The fc command is a command line utility for listing, editing and re-executing commands previously entered into an interactive shell. The fc command is a shell bui… Read More
2016-09-27 00:00
What is the cal command?
The cal command is a command line utility for displaying a calendar in the terminal. It can be used to print a single month, many months or an entire year. It sup… Read More
2016-09-26 00:00
What is the du command?
The du command is a command line utility for reporting file system disk space usage. It can be used to find out disk usage for files and folders and to show what i… Read More
2016-09-21 00:00
What is the sha1sum command in UNIX?
The sha1sum command computes the SHA-1 message digest of a file. This allows it be compared to a published message digest to check whether the file is… Read More
2016-09-20 01:00
What is the pwd command in UNIX?
The pwd command is a command line utility for printing the current working directory. It will print the full system path of the current working directory… Read More
2016-09-20 00:00
Setting up logging on Cloudfront
Cloudfront supports logging to an Amazon S3 bucket. Create the bucket first and then edit the Cloudfront distribution. Under the general tab specify a Bucke… Read More
2016-09-19 00:00
What is the df command in UNIX?
The df command is a command line utility for reporting file system disk space usage. It can be used to show the free space on a Unix or Linux computer and… Read More
2016-09-16 00:00
What is the wget command?
The wget command is a command line utility for downloading files from the Internet. It supports downloading multiple files, downloading in the background, resumi… Read More
2016-09-13 00:00
What is the traceroute command in UNIX?
The traceroute command shows how a data transmission travelled from a local machine to a remote one. A typical example would be loading a web page… Read More
2016-09-12 00:00
How do I configure wifi using wpa_supplicant?
The wpa_supplicant command supports the configuration and administration of wireless networks on Linux. First the wireless network interface… Read More
2016-09-09 00:00
What is the mkdir command in UNIX?
The mkdir command in UNIX allows users to create directories or folders as they are referred to in some operating systems. The mkdir command can create… Read More
2016-09-07 00:00
What is the file command in UNIX?
The file command determines the file type of a file. It reports the file type in human readable format (e.g. ‘ASCII text’) or MIME type (e.g… Read More
2016-09-05 00:00
What is the ps command in UNIX?
The ps command reports information on current running processes, outputting to standard output. It is frequently used to find process identifier numbers. I… Read More
2016-08-25 00:00
What is the ping command in UNIX?
The ping command sends ICMP ECHO_REQUEST packets to network hosts and reports on the response from the remote server, outputting to standard output. It c… Read More
2016-08-21 00:00
What is the regex package in Go?
The regex package is part of the Go standard library and implements regular expression search and pattern matching. The package implements the RE2 syntax an… Read More
2016-08-15 00:00
What is the fmt command in UNIX?
The fmt is a simple text formatter that can set the column width for a file, files or standard input and write it to standard output. It supports setting… Read More
2016-08-10 00:00
What is the comm command in UNIX?
The comm command compares two sorted files line by line and writes three columns to standard output. These columns show lines that are unique to files on… Read More
2016-08-10 00:00
What is the join command in UNIX?
The join command in UNIX is a command line utility for joining lines of two files on a common field. It can be used to join two files by selecting fields… Read More
2016-08-09 00:00
What is the shuf command in UNIX?
The shuf command generates random permutations from input lines to standard output. If given a file or series of files it will shuffle the lines and writ… Read More
2016-08-08 00:00
What is the fold command in UNIX?
The fold command in UNIX is a command line utility for folding contents of specified files, or standard input. By default it wraps lines at a maximum wid… Read More
2016-08-07 00:00
What is an exit code in the UNIX or Linux shell?
An exit code, or sometimes known as a return code, is the code returned to a parent process by an executable. On POSIX systems the standar… Read More
2016-08-05 00:00
jq is a fantastic command-line JSON processor. It plays nice with UNIX pipes and offers extensive functionality for interrogating, manipulating and working with JSON file.
How to pretty p… Read More
2016-08-04 00:00
What is the cat command in UNIX?
The cat command in UNIX is a command line utility for concatenating files and printing to standard output. It may be used to show the contents of a file i… Read More
2016-08-03 00:00
What is the grep command in UNIX?
The grep command in UNIX is a command line utility for printing lines that match a pattern. It can be used to find text in a file and search a directory… Read More
2016-07-28 00:00
What is the tee command in UNIX?
The tee command in UNIX is a command line utility for copying standard input to standard output. It supports writing whatever it is given from standard in… Read More
2016-07-26 00:00
What is the uniq command in UNIX?
The uniq command in UNIX is a command line utility for reporting or filtering repeated lines in a file. It can remove duplicates, show a count of occurre… Read More
2016-07-19 17:16
What is the cut command in UNIX?
The cut command in UNIX is a command line utility for cutting sections from each line of files and writing the result to standard output. It can be used t… Read More
2016-07-19 05:39
SSH Connections
If you are making anything on the web before long you will find yourself using SSH. SSH allows you to connect to and work on remote servers.
ssh -p 8675 [email protected]… Read More
2016-07-12 19:20
What is the find command in UNIX?
The find command in UNIX is a command line utility for walking a file hierarchy. It can be used to find files and directories and perform subsequent oper… Read More
2016-07-01 00:00
Ideas are cheap
There was a time when Internet ideas were extremely valuable. Entrepreneurs guarded them with close secrecy and wrapped NDAs around even whispering about them. Today ideas a… Read More
2016-06-24 00:00
A diverse team
Like many businesses in London pebble {code} (a Digital Innovation consultancy) is made up of a diverse group of individuals. We have a number of EU Nationals working at pebb… Read More
2016-05-17 00:00
The deep sigh of a developer
It is rare today that as a developer you are working in isolation. Often you are reliant on other components in a product ecosystem to complete your development… Read More
2016-05-17 00:00
Agile the great disruptor
Now 15 years old it is indisputable that The Agile Manifesto has revolutionised software development. From the simple list of principles in the Manifesto a vibrant… Read More
2016-05-16 00:00
A recent World Economic Forum report asked chief human resources and strategy officers from leading global employers what the current shifts mean, specifically for employment, skills and rec… Read More
2016-05-16 00:00
Not the illegal hacking
Still to this day I find people who miss our definition of hacking. We are not talking about hacking into networks to steal passwords or industrial secrets.
The Oxf… Read More
2016-05-08 00:00
Many organisations are seeking to become more Innovative, Agile and Creative. A Design Thinking workshop is a practical way to get started with understanding how Innovation, Agility and Crea… Read More
2016-03-03 00:00
Back again
The Investigatory Powers bill is back and as a UK based Internet company we are very interested in seeing how this progresses.
In short it proposes the following:
Internet serv… Read More
2016-02-22 00:00
Women driven out
The tech industry has a major problem. Despite many of computing’s pioneers being female women are leaving the industry or not joining it at all. There are many the… Read More
2016-02-19 00:00
On 18th February 2016 I attended the Global Health Forum session at Imperial College, London on Frugal Innovation. Here are my notes on a fascinating afternoon.
Dr Yasser Bhatti
What are F… Read More
2016-02-17 00:00
It doesn’t work
In preparing for a production release I have been playing the role of QA tester. As a developer I have much more experience on the receiving end of QA and in my time I… Read More
2016-02-16 00:00
Constraints fuel creativity
Particularly in the NHS constraints are everywhere. Take this example
The NHS needs to meet £30bn funding gap expected by 2020-2021. Chronic condition co… Read More
2016-02-10 00:00
Standing in the future
Let us suppose that somehow a not-for-profit organisation has been established to allow anyone that wanted to to sequence and share their DNA profile. I am not intere… Read More
2016-02-09 00:00
The Goal
To deliver a continuously improving recruitment process that can scale and hire top talent.
Beginning from a standing start
Towards the middle of last summer our business had gro… Read More
2015-06-09 11:31
What was problem you originally pitched?
It is hard for pebble staff to know where people are working from on each day. Some staff are in the office for some of the day and others work remo… Read More
2015-02-09 12:37
In The Second Machine Age Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee eloquently document many of the changes that increased Artificial Intelligence is bringing. They go on to make a series of polic… Read More
2015-01-23 10:00
As part of pebble {code}’s upcoming Visualisation Hack Day we look at the life blood of Visualisations and how organisations can position themselves to take advantage of unlocking valu… Read More
2014-11-05 20:37
pebble {code}’s latest hack day theme was hardware. It happened to fall on Halloween. So the natural thing to do was to combine Halloween and hardware. So why not put a Raspberry Pi in… Read More
2014-09-19 08:47
The Scottish Independence Referendum has demonstrated the rise of peer-to-peer politics and will change New Labour style spin forever.
New Labour and Spin
When New Labour swept to power in… Read More
2014-05-30 10:14
We were warned
Nearly seven years ago Jeremy Keith wrote an eloquent article on why passwords are an anti-pattern. His argument was predominantly around the need for OAuth and not entering… Read More
2014-03-25 11:53
Cross-platform if you want
Node.js is cross-platform meaning it works on Windows, OSX and Linux. A large number of the Node.js community write Node.js on OSX and then deploy to Linux server… Read More
2014-03-14 14:26
Installation
Go is simple to install. You can install it on a Mac with
brew install go
I’m on Arch Linux and go is available in the main repositories. Packages are available for mo… Read More
2014-03-07 15:18
Businesses are increasingly looking to technology to solve a requirement to innovate. Hack days are now the domain of corporations looking to generate ideas and creativity quickly. But for b… Read More
2014-02-19 08:38
Outside in Request Headers
If you are writing web applications in an increasingly distributed world the chances are you will be using other web services outside your application. Often thes… Read More
2014-02-07 13:19
pebble {code} is a place awash with ideas. We look at traditional industries and see a wealth of opportunities for disruption from technology. We have written a short report on areas within… Read More
2014-01-24 15:39
RESTing in Request Response
Until the arrival of techniques like Comet request response cycles were the norm for the web with pages performing a full reload each time you moved to a new URL… Read More
2014-01-21 16:04
Chrome version 25 rolled out speech recognition so you can now invite users to talk to your web applications.
Basic usage
var recognition = new webkitSpeechRecognition();
recognition.onres… Read More
2014-01-13 21:34
How much charge do we have?
With the HTML5 Battery Status API you can gain access to battery information for the host machine of the browser you are using. The uses for this might be to red… Read More
2014-01-10 15:18
Pacman and AUR
Arch’s package manager Pacman is great. It makes it really easy to update and manage packages that you have installed. Updating is as simple as
sudo pacman -Syu
Befo… Read More
2014-01-10 12:22
The Snowden revelations have thrown the surveillance climate wide open and some have suggested that the behaviour of the NSA has broken the web’s security model for everyone.
At the 3… Read More
2014-01-09 15:39
The mighty Maciej Malecki created a European npm mirror for all the Node.js developers this side of the Atlantic. It is much faster to install packages from and takes some load off the main… Read More
2014-01-08 16:42
Harness tiny UNIX tools
Make is the original UNIX build tool. It existed a long time before gulp, or grunt. Loved by some, loathed by others it is at least worth being aware of how make wor… Read More
2014-01-07 20:30
The HTML5 Geolocation API is now widely supported and can be used across a range of mobile and desktop browsers. It is even supported from IE9 up in Internet Explorer. It allows you to reque… Read More
2014-01-06 20:30
Make things with your hands
I’m a programmer by trade and spend most of my day making virtual things. I design and create software that exists only on screens. Increasingly I’m… Read More
2014-01-06 10:28
‘Children change everything’
Everyone from your Grandmother to friends that don’t have children will tell you that having children will change everything. They are right… Read More
2014-01-03 07:50
Make me vibrate
Mobile and tablet devices have become hugely prevalent in how users access the web. So much so that Walmart reported that on Black Friday over 50% of traffic was via mobile… Read More
2014-01-02 17:00
Write command line utilities with Node.js
An underused feature of Node.js is the ability to write command-line scripts. This gives you the full power of Node.js as a network programming pla… Read More
2013-12-16 20:26
Hugs for everyone
It is Christmas. A time to give out love to all humanity. Even the ones you don’t really like. Christmas Hugs is a simple idea that you can use your browser and a we… Read More
2013-12-12 08:18
A chance to play
At their best hack days are a chance to connect with like-minded hackers (or makers if you favour the modern parlance) and play. By playing I mean experimentation, risk-tak… Read More
2013-12-10 08:08
Heroku has WebSockets
Back in October Heroku announced that WebSockets are now in public beta. This had been a blocker for many Node.js developers using the platform so was great to see. By… Read More
2013-12-09 12:55
Baby steps with OSX
Back in January 2006 I left an agency after three years and started freelancing. I was mostly a front-end developer who knew how to make things work in IE. I purchased t… Read More
2013-12-04 10:50
npm is amazing
Without doubt npm is the best package manger I have used. As an end user it is a delight to use and makes sharing code extremely simple. I have used a range of package manage… Read More
2013-11-29 12:53
Open Source Social Responsibility should be considered on a par with Corporate Social Responsibility. Businesses that use and rely on Open Source software need to play an active part in Open… Read More
2013-11-26 15:17
Most businesses are quite capable of self-organising and reducing or removing management layers. With increased autonomy for individuals and a community of employees that contribute innovati… Read More
2013-11-15 14:01
Docker is fantastic wrapper around Linux Containers with a brilliant collaboration workflow. If you do any kind of virtualisation you should seriously consider it.
What is Docker?
Docker… Read More
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