Corporate sponsors and event funding: Ask early, not often
If you’re hoping to get sponsorship funds for your event, it’s better to ask early than to ask often. And even better to ask professionally… For larger companies (i.e., the ones that actually do have a fair amount of cash for sponsorships) it is vitally important to ask early...
It’s time to retire the mom test
One of the more humorous ad series today is the Geico “caveman” commercials, featuring a caveman complaining about the stereotype of something being “so easy a caveman could do it.” Since we don’t have to worry about offending cavemen (or cavewomen), companies can safely poke humor at that demographic...
Tips: Making Vim easy
Vim’s flexibility and countless features are a major asset for experienced users, but a challenge for newbies. If you’ve always wanted to try Vim but were put off by your first attempts, you can start off gradually by getting to know Vim’s GUI and easy mode. This article is...
Vim tips: Using tabs
Before Vim 7.0 was released last May, I usually had six or seven xterms or Konsole windows open, each with a single Vim session in which I was editing a single file. This takes up a lot of screen space, and isn’t very efficient. With Vim 7.0, users now...
Training your Mutt
Mutt is a great mail client, in large part because it is extremely customizable. You can tweak Mutt’s behavior and have it do tricks that are nearly impossible to do with other mail clients — but it can be a bit daunting to get started with. Let’s take Mutt...
Vim tips: Working with external commands
Vim is a powerful editing tool, but there are some things it just can’t do. However, Vim lets you access shell commands and utilities without leaving Vim, and that lets you perform some amazing tricks. If you run :shell or just :sh while you’re in the editor, Vim (or...
Vim tips: Using Vim mappings and abbreviations
Vim ships with a lot of useful functions that make life easier when you’re editing text, but Vim is also an extremely extensible editor. If you find yourself typing the same long commands or strings of text over and over again, it’s time you learned how to set mappings...
Vim tips: Folding fun
The problem with writing and editing on a computer, versus having words on paper, is that it’s usually hard to compare text from different sections of a document when they don’t fit on the screen together. One way to do it is to use Vim’s viewports feature. Another is...
Vim tips: Moving around using marks and jumps
Editing in Vim can be a breeze, if you know how to make use of its more advanced features. Moving around files can feel like a slog if you’re stuck with the basic movement keys, but editing is effortless when you have command of marks and jumps. Basically, a...
Vim tips: Using viewports
A lot of folks use Vim, but many exploit only a small percentage of the editor’s features. Sure, you might know how to do the basics in Vim, but what about using more advanced features such as folding, split windows, and marks? With a little practice, you can really...