An Unexpected (Partial) Work-from-Home Day

Four and a half years after going work from home, yesterday, for the first time, I executed one of my key job duties remotely. Each month I run a process called the “Page & MCBA Number Update.” To describe it briefly, I load all the items in the month’s PREVIEWS catalog (typically about 3,000, plusContinue reading “An Unexpected (Partial) Work-from-Home Day”

Mixing MATE and the i3 Window Manager

So, I have been tinkering. Back in June, I installed Linux Mint 22, with the MATE desktop to an empty partition on my system and configured it to look like old-school GNOME 2. It’s a nice environment, something to have fun with, like using Compiz to turn my desktop into a cube and then spinningContinue reading “Mixing MATE and the i3 Window Manager”

Revisiting a Retro Linux Desktop

Over the last month, I’ve return to a project I worked on in the fall — making a theme for the CTWM window manager for Linux. I started working on it in October, and reached a point where it looked nice enough, but it wasn’t finished. The config was messy, and I planned to revisitContinue reading “Revisiting a Retro Linux Desktop”

Coding Myself a VPN Toggle

At fifty, I am becoming the Linux nerd I feel I should have been at twenty-five. I had a problem. I wanted an easy way to connect and disconnect from Diamond’s VPN. Yes, I could use the Network Connections interface in Linux Mint, but sometimes it expands while I was navigating to the VPN toggleContinue reading “Coding Myself a VPN Toggle”

Building a Dock in Linux Mint Cinnamon

One of the cool things about Linux Mint is that the Cinnamon desktop environment is built from CSS, and with a little custom code you can do some interesting things, like turn a panel — in Windows parlance, a taskbar — into a dock. Like here! That dock at left? It’s CSS, and not veryContinue reading “Building a Dock in Linux Mint Cinnamon”

So Smart I’m Dumb

Let’s begin with this: Windows XP, running in a virtual machine on Linux Mint. Hell, I even configured the Quick Launch toolbar, and the single screenshot I have of my XP days shows I never used the Quick Launch toolbar. So, why do I have a Windows XP virtual machine running under Linux? Yesterday morning,Continue reading “So Smart I’m Dumb”

Office Space, Three Years On

Last week, Diamond entered the fourth year of work-from-home. I work out of the offices two or three days a week — it depends on the kind of work I’m doing and the projects I’m working on — and have, honestly, since the end of March 2020, but full time in the office, for mostContinue reading “Office Space, Three Years On”

Retro Cool Computing

I am a well-known crazy person. Normal people do not install WindowMaker on a perfectly fine Linux Mint installation just for kicks. Nor do they then make an icon for their work VPN connection with the company logo so it looks nice in the dock. Out of the box, so to speak, WindowMaker had theContinue reading “Retro Cool Computing”