sethmason.com The internet resource for all things Seth Mason.

jQuery and Friendfeed experimentation

Messing around with the Friendfeed API and Jquery.

Google Code Search to the rescue

Use Google Code Search to find code samples in public source code.

Machine specific startup files in BASH

Here’s a helfpul tip if you use a couple of different machines and need specific things set up on a specific machine.

Cost of try/catch in JavaScript

Testing out how expensive computationally a try/catch is versus an if check.

HOWTO: Invoke a shell script on a file on save with emacs

Here’s a handy emacs lisp function I wrote to automate the automatic execution of a shell script when a file is saved in emacs.

Emacs Tips

So, for no particular reason, I’ve started learning emacs. Been checking out a few sites with tips and tricks. Trey Jackson’s blog seems pretty promising.

Lisp Fun

Interested in learning Lisp? A new site has launched with screencast episodes about developing an application in Lisp. The site is LispCast and so far there are three videos up.

Intellij IDEA and Linux: Not Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate

I love me some Intellij and I love me some Linux. Unfortunately, they don’t play too well together. Lots of keyboard shortcuts do operating type things.

Editing Huge Amounts of Files Easily

Where I work, we have tons of HTML files that are publishing using our custom Content Management System. Sometimes, we have to change a single line on every single page. The latest case was a and change that needed to be made. Rather than use publishing and database resources just to make this change, I use the power of the shell. Specifically, I use find, sed and a shell script that I wrote. It’s based on a shell script in the Unix Power Tools book.

Vim Tip: Select Column

How many times have you wanted to replace a column of text with something. With vim it’s easy. Just use CTRL-V to select a column using a visual block.

Just Cuz'

OK, I’ve decided that the next programming langauge I learn is Lisp. I just love all the parenthesis I guess. An excellent Lisp tutorial is Peter Siebel’s book Practical Common Lisp.

Fun stuff.

Command Line Fun

If you use the command line in bash, you should check out the CDPATH environment variable. It’ll make your life tons easier.

Ten Keyboard Shortcuts for IntelliJ IDEA

For my day job I use Java quite a bit. And to edit I use IntelliJ IDEA. I used to use Eclipse but work paid for an IntelliJ IDEA license and I’ve become hooked. The refactorings and clean interface are a boon to my productivity.

Linux Cut and Paste

Since I’m in the process of switching to Ubuntu I’ve been hunting down tips and tricks. One great resource is the Ubuntu Blog. Today they had a great tip for copying and pasting in GNOME.

Cygwin And SSH Tip

Auto completion for ssh under cygwin was driving me nuts. It wasn’t parsing the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file like it should have and using those values to auto-complete.

.bashrc Fun With Subversion

Do you use Subversion a lot from the command line in bash? Then this tip is for you.

Got Ugly SQL?

Sometimes you have a bunch of SQL statement is very long, very verbose and very unreadable. Would you spend minutes of your time to format the SQL in strings so that it’s readable in your source code? Well, I’m about to save you a metric ton of time. Use SQL Formatter and it’ll do al the grunt work for you.

Keeping It Real Safe And Real Easy

OK, I’ve fallen in love with putting my home directory in Subversion.

Debugging Is Sexy Good Times

I love me some JSON. The problem with it is that it’s not too human readable when you need to see what it’s returning.

Writing Tests For Fun And Profit

Learning a new programming language historically starts off with the class “Hello World” example. I’ve probably done something like that a bazillion times. From there you take more steps into advanced parts of the language. If you are smart, you save your example programs to refer back to them later. But there’s a better way. And that better way is to write test cases that exercise the capabilities of the language you are trying to learn. This also works for new libraries within a language you are trying to learn.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to sethmason.com. This site is basically an experiment to set up a site that’s a resume of sorts for prospective employers to look at and get a better idea about me. It will feature articles about technology that reflect my depth of knowledge in the field.