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Installation Install and enable the cron daemon. sudo pacman -S cronie sudo systemctl enable --now cronie.service systemctl status cronie.service # should be active (running) Setup To edit crontab, run crontab -e If you get an error like this, /bin/sh: line 1: /usr/bin/vi: No such file or directory crontab: "/usr/bin/vi" exited with status 127 pass the following commands: set -Ux EDITOR emacs set -Ux VISUAL emacs This defaults to emacs across different Fish sessions. Then with crontab -e add jobs like this. ...

The previous post about fast navigation involved getting to the right directory in the file explorer. Zoxide achieves that functionality for the terminal. To install, run the following. (fzf, fuzzy finder, is optional.) sudo pacman -S zoxide fzf Next, initialize the shell. For Fish, add the following to ~/.config/fish/config.fish. zoxide init fish | source This step differs for other shells: Shell File Line Bash ~/.bashrc eval "$(zoxide init bash)" Zsh ~/.zshrc eval "$(zoxide init zsh)" Fish ~/.config/fish/config.fish zoxide init fish | source Once configured, Zoxide will note your use of cd. It will remember the places you visited. You will be able to then jump straight to the relevant directory. ...

Background I have been using the Search functionality within the Dolphin file manager for KDE Plasma increasingly recently; however, the speed with which the results would show up left much to be desired. I went looking for faster options and chose Baloo indexing with KRunner, which runs a lot faster than Dolphin crawling through the directories on every search. Setup Step 1: Check the current state balooctl6 status If it says “not running” or “could not be opened,” proceed below. ...

Notes on My Recent Exploration of Emacs I briefly tried to use Emacs Doom, but I quickly realized that configuring it properly would take up quite a while, and would involve deleting quite a lot. So I went back to modifying my own init file to suit my writing workflow. I saw that Doom divided up the config files by functionality, and I decided to give that a try. And so now my setup looks the way described below. Also, it has a lot more functionality than it did in my earlier basic config. ...

All I wanted was to use magit today, but Spacemacs, which I have used for years, wouldn’t allow me. I could not figure out what the problem was—it likely had something to with dependencies that were out of sync. Failing to resolve the issue, I decided to reinstall emacs and configure it from scratch (with some great LLM help). The fruits of this tinkering are in the init.el file below. It is only about 160 lines long, but covers the vast majority of my requirements surprisingly well. This is a brief log of how this config file came about. ...

Background I have been using the note-taking software, Obsidian, for a little more than a year, and it has been a major quality of life upgrade for me. Prior to this, I used Evernote for several years, thanks to the recommendation of Tim Ferriss. Initially, I was a happy customer, but over the years, the subscription costs mounted and the quality of the app degraded. I tested Joplin and Notion but they proved inadequate for my needs. Finally, I landed on Obsidian, finding it through the videos of No Boilerplate. My usage pattern has settled down enough over the past year for me to be able to discuss it. ...

Calendar A calendar is to be used for the following. Time blocking, Marking events that will occur regardless of your presence, Marking due dates. I am using the Full Calendar plugin. Every event is a separate note under a specific folder. The events appear in a calendar timeline. Task Manager A task manager is used for tracking all tasks associated with projects. Be as specific as you need to be. Tasks do not necessarily have due dates. Set scheduled dates and priority for tasks as required. ...

The Three Phases of Password Hosting For the longest time, I hesitated to use a password manager. Trusting a cloud service for such an important matter did not sit well with me. For years, I kept all my passwords in a notebook. This was the pen and paper phase. It worked, but over time, the content grew too large. Changing passwords got messy. And if I lost my notebook (which, fortunately, did not happen), I would be in trouble. Maintaining a backup ultimately meant taking photos and trusting internet-touching devices and internet-based services. ...

Just found out about this neat tool called imagemagick. I’m using it to compress jpg images small webp images for use on this blog. Install it (in arch-based linux) using this command. sudo pacman -S imagemagick Then run magick image.jpg -resize 1600x -quality 75 image.webp to create a compressed version of the image. Here the max pixel width is set at 1600 px, and the quality is at 75 (moderate compression). ...