Neovim Paste and Indent

Today I learned that you can paste and match surrounding indentation at once. After selecting the line or block of lines to be pasted, use ]p instead of only p. Et voila.

I am embarrassed to think of the hundreds, thousands of copy-paste operations I’ve done that were immediately followed by selecting the newly pasted block and fixing its indentation. I need the read the friendly manual more.

Putting a Conditional Clause in an Ssh Config

Enough years ago that I no longer remember when I discovered this trick, I added the following clause to my .ssh/config file.

# Access GitHub even when port 22 isn't available
Host github.com
  HostName ssh.github.com
  Port 443
  user git

In a nutshell, this allows you to access GitHub over port 443, instead of the usual port 22. Various places block port 22 traffic; having this in your configuration file sidesteps that problem.

Until last week this worked perfectly. Then it stopped working, but only on my work laptop. Not on my personal laptop, not on the Linux admin workstation running in AWS, not from any of my collection of Raspberry Pies or the Intel NUC that is my IRC and mutt host, only from my work laptop.

Thanks to a GitHub repository, all my configuration files are shared between the various computers I use. The same .ssh/config worked everywhere but my work computer.

Recently my employer suffered an intrusion–we were hacked. Security has been tightened considerably. Including not allowing ssh traffic over ports that aren’t :22. As soon as I commented out the GitHub clause, all my git commands started working again.

Some searching and reading of the ssh man page and a little experimenting allowed me to create this slightly altered clause.

# Access GitHub even when port 22 isn't available
# Host github.com
Match user !<user> host "github.com"
  HostName ssh.github.com
  Port 443
  user git

The Match keyword allows you to place conditions on the directives that follow. The user and host keywords (must be lowercase) let me place a guard around the GitHub port 443 setup. If I am signed in as my work id, then the clause is skipped, meaning a normal ssh connection over port 22. For any other user the clause is used, to access GitHub. There are several other keywords that Match can operate against, allowing you to create some sophisticated conditional restrictions in your .ssh/confg file.

Do It Yourself Genius Playlist

For a long time Apple Music (nee iTunes) offered an option called “Genius Playlist”. You selected a track from your collection, and Apple generated a playlist of 25 titles that were somehow related to the seed track. I had 15 or 20 of these. It was my own personal radio station. One without ads or an annoying DJ talking over the intro or outro of a song.

I’m not sure when Genius Playlists were eliminated from Music, but I miss that option. So I set out to make my own. Once upon a time fifteen or more years ago, I remember reading an article where someone created a set of smart playlists that categorized tracks, and then a master playlist that used those category lists as its input.

What I have create are four category smart playlists:

1. Never Played
2. Not Played in 90 Days
3. Not Recently Played
4. Recently Played.

I also scrolled through the list of tracks and ticked the “favorite” star on several hundred tracks that I particularly like.

Never Played: Tracks that are favorites, and have a play count of zero.

Not Played in 90 Days: Tracks that are favorites, and that haven’t been played in the last 90 days, but have a non-zero play count.

Not Recently Played: Tracks that are favorites, that have been played less than 90 days ago, but more than 15 days ago.

Recently Played: Tracks that are favorites, that have been played in the past 14 days.

Each of these category lists is limited to 50 tracks are are selected randomly.

The master list draws from all four category lists. Where the category lists AND all the rules together-Favorite AND never played-the master list ORs the rules-Playlist is Never Played OR Playlist is Not Played in 90 Days OR ….

The master list is also set to only 25 tracks, randomly selected.

I understand that the Never Played playlist will eventually run dry. And I’m not completely satisfied with using date ranges for the rest of the lists. What would work better, but requires considerable work, would be to rate tracks from 1 to 5 stars, and build lists around ratings and play frequency. A long term project.

Use Asdf to Manage Neovim Nightly

I’ve been using the Neovim nightly build for some time. The way I have been accomplishing this is to update my local clone of the Neovim repository, and then make and install the application. This works, but it does take a little time.

With asdf and the neovim plugin I can easily update to the latest nightly version.

To add the neovim plugin to asdf

asdf plugin add neovim

To install the nightly build of neovim

asdf install neovim nightly

To make the nightly version the global default

asdf global neovim nightly

In order to update the nightly version you need to remove the old nightly version first, so I have this bash alias setup.

alias update-nvim='asdf uninstall neovim nightly && asdf install neovim nightly'

And, since asdf will let me have multiple version of Neovim installed, I could have the stable version on hand, and use it for a project if I wanted to.

Using asdf to Manage Software Versions on Macos

After reading Thorsten Ball’s Register Spill newsletter about New Year, new job, new machine I decided to give asdf a try. It’s a single piece of software designed to manage multiple versions of any number of other pieces of software. Like rbenv or rvm is to Ruby, asdf is to Ruby, and Python, and NodeJS, and, and, and.

Here’s how I set it up.

Step One

Clone the GitHub repository. Installing it via Homebrew apparently has some issues. Running this command will close the 0.13.1 version into the .asdf directory in your $HOME.

 git clone https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf.git ~/.asdf --branch v0.13.1

Step Two

Install some plugins to manage the software of your choice. You can get a complete list of plugins available by running:

asdf plugin-list-all

I actually piped the output through grep to make finding the software I wanted a bit quicker.

asdf plugin-list-all | grep ruby

With the plugin name and repository information, run:

asdf plugin install ruby

Step Three

Determine the version, or versions, of the software you want.

asdf list all ruby

Step Four

Install the software.

asdf install ruby latest

or

asdf install ruby 3.3.0

Step Five

Set the version globally. (It can be overridden on a project by project basis.)

asdf global ruby latest

There is no Step Six.

Using asdf means I have one set of software version management commands to remember, and one location where that information, and those versions, are kept. Better still, the version information can be shared, say with your team, ensuring everyone has the same versions of required tools installed.

Five Useful Bash Aliases

Here are five bash aliases that I find useful.

List contents of current directory, sorted by size

alias 'dus=du -sckx * | sort -nr'

Here is a breakdown of the command.

• du – command estimates file system usage
• -s – creates a total for each argument
• -c – creates a grand total
• -k – sets the block size to kilobytes. Using -m would set it to megabytes
• -x – skips directories on other file systems

The output of the du -sckx * command is then piped to sort -nr.

• sort – sorts lines
• -n – does a numerical sort
• -r – reverses the result, so it is in descending order

Show all currently assigned IPv4 IP addresses

alias inet='ifconfig | grep inet | grep -v inet6'

Here is a breakdown of the command.

• ifconfig – lists the current network interface configuration
• | grep inet – returns only the lines with inet
• | grep -v inet6 – eliminate those lines with inet6, i.e., IPv6

Depending on your OS you may need to use ip a instead of ifconfig.

List directory contents sorted by modification time

alias latr='ls -latr'

Here is a breakdown of the command.

• ls – lists directory contents
• -l – use the long format
• -a – do not ignore hidden files
• -t – sort by modification time, newest first
• -r – reverse the sort order

The mnemonic I use for this alias is “later”.

Look up a word’s definition

alias 'define=curl dict://dict.org/define:"$@"'

Here is a breakdown of the comment.

• curl – transfers a URL, in this case dict://dict/org/define
• "$@" – the search term provided

Make a password

alias makepass='openssl rand -base64 15'

Here is a breakdown of the command.

• openssl – runs the openssl command line tool
• rand – generates pseudo-random bytes
• -base64 – use base64
• 15 – make the resulting password 15 characters long

Setting Up Umami Site Tracking

In December 2005 I purchased a license for Mint, a website visitor tracking tool. Written in PHP and utilizing JavaScript, it was an elegant approach to understanding what kind of traffic your website was getting. Mint hasn’t been developed in ten years, and is no longer supported. I have had to patch the source code a couple of times in recent years to keep it functioning. Mint showed you visit (by hour, day, week, month, or year), session information, referrers, pages viewed, and information about the browser/platform used by the visitor. The site layout was beautifully constructed and a joy to use. Mint also allowed for plugins, called Peppers. There was at one time a fairly active set of Peppers you could add to gain further insight into your site’s visitors.

Both my wife and I have used and continue to use Mint. Largely since the current crop of visit tracking services or products are all aimed at competing with Google Analytics. They are complex and have noisy interfaces, and generally aren’t useful for our purposes. I have been looking for a new site tracking tool for years, but haven’t found one I liked. That is until I happened on to Umami.

The interface is simple, and, as my wife put it, “highly clickable”. It doesn’t try to be the next Google Analytics, but it does provide lots of useful information for owners of small websites. Visit counts, pages viewed, visit duration, and information about their location and browsers. Even better it is respectful of data privacy, and meets EU GCPR requirements. There is a cloud service and a self-hosted option.

Signing up for the cloud service was quick an easy. Once you add a site a tracking code is generated that you add to the HTML <head> section of your page. For my site, which is statically generated using Hugo adding the tracking code was simple. Adding the code to WorkPress for my wife’s site was a bit more complicated.

Her site uses a free version of a highly customize-able theme, which makes adding code, ah, tricky. There is a plugin called “Integrate Umami” that purports to insert the tracking code into your WordPress site, but I was unable to get it to work. Instead I found another plugin called WPCode that lets you, among other things, insert code into the <head> section of your site. That solved the problem of getting the tracking code for my wife’s site in place.

We’ve only had Umami for two days now, so it is too early to tell how satisfied we’ll be in the long term, but our initial reaction is positive. For now I’m leaving our creaky Mint infrastructure in place. It’ll be interesting to compare the numbers between Mint and Umami. Umami also provides some API documentation, it might be interesting to see if I can import at least some of the history from Mint into Umami.

Replacing a Dead Iphone

For the past 3 (4?) weeks my iPhone 14 Pro has been randomly rebooting itself. Once a day, maybe once a week. Annoying but not the end of the world. Yesterday morning the phone rebooted over and over. After each restart it work for a minute or two and then reboot again. After a quick search I learned that you can force stop an iPhone by quickly pressing and then releasing the up volume button, then the down volume button, and finally holding the power button until the Apple logo appears.

Doing that got it out of the endless reboot cycle. When I restarted it again it started and appeared to be working. I tried to make a backup to my laptop, but it rebooted in the middle of that process. More searching suggested that upgrading the operating system was something to try. The 17.1 release was out, but I hadn’t installed it yet. It took maybe 4 or 5 more reboots before I managed to get the upgrade to complete.

After the upgrade it seemed more stable. Still, I initiated a support chat with Apple. After collecting some diagnostics remotely, the support representative said that I needed to bring the phone in for repair. She said there was “stability issues”.

I did complete an iCloud backup, and for the rest of the day, my phone mostly worked. It only rebooted one more time (that I was aware of).

This morning it restarted and then it came up with the restore screen. This is an image of a laptop and a lightning cable. You need to plug the phone in. Doing that presented me with two options: restore or update. Restoring would keep the previous settings, updating wipes the phone and starts over fresh.

The restore failed twice in a row. I tried the update once, it also failed. I started another support chat, wanting to see how (or if) I could restore my phone to my iPhone 6S Plus. Between the 6S and the 14 Pro I had a 12 Pro. That phone was dropped and had a small chip in the edge of the screen. I traded it in last September for the 14 Pro, so the only device I could go back to was the 6S Plus.

As it turns out there are two reasons why that couldn’t work. One, you have to restore to the same OS version, and the 6S tops out at iOS 15. A long way away from 17.1. Second, you need at least as much storage. My 14 Pro had just over 130 GB in use. Far more that the 6S could ever hold.

I was able to make a Genius Bar appointment for the middle of the afternoon. The nearest Apple store is 125 miles away in Kansas City. After a quick shower and lunch my wife and I drove to Kansas City to the Apple Store.

The people there were very helpful, and frank. After reviewing the chat records the woman, whose name escapes me, said that the “stability” issue were an indication that the main board had failed. The only way this phone would work again would be to replace that board. It costs about $650.

The other option was to buy a new iPhone. Using the Apple Card I could make monthly payments, so $55-ish dollars a month instead of $650 all at once. In the end I decided to get the new phone.

After waiting about 20 minutes for the pick-up-in-the-store order to arrive after buying it online, I went through the setup and restore process in the store. The phone had to install the 17.1 update first, which took a good 30 minutes, the restore from iCloud started. Transferring the phone number from the old phone to the new phone was not straight-forward.

Since my old phone was inoperable, there was no way to confirm the switch using that device. So I had to sign into AT&T and initiate the transfer there. Fortunately I knew the sign in account and password. The representative at the setup table said most people didn’t know how to access their account that way. I had to have it send a code to my wife’s phone (also on the same account) and then have her forward that code to me. Having my laptop with me proved to be useful. I was able to use Messages on the Mac to chat with her.

One surprise silver lining was that my Apple Watch synced with the new iPhone. I didn’t even lose today’s activity rings. Having closed all three activity rings every day for the past 8 years, I wasn’t happy about the possibility that I’d lose my streak over a dead phone.

Once the number was activated, and the restore was progressing I was able to leave the store with a working phone. My iPhone 14 Pro case sorta fits on the 15 Pro. It fits well enough to protect it until a new case arrives on Tuesday. I also ordered a screen protector.

I did spring for Apple Care, for the first time ever. Had the 14 Pro been covered, I would have gotten a new phone at no cost to me. Even if the 14 Pro was damaged, I’d only have to pay a nomimal $29 to repair the screen, and then get a new phone. I have had iPhones since the 4 came out, and have never had one die like this. The iPhone 12 Pro was the first one that ever got damaged.

I am grateful that we were able to travel for 4+ hours today to get to an Apple Store. And that I can afford another $50 a month for a new phone—while still paying off the last 11 months of the new iPhone 14 Pro shaped paper weight I have. I am grateful that the Apple people, both on chat and in person, were friendly, helpful, and empathetic.

Apple Carplay Autoplay Automation

While Apple CarPlay is a wonderful feature to have in our car, there is one annoying aspect that has been bothersome. When you plug your phone in and start the car, it automatically starts playing what you were last listening to—music, audiobook, or podcast. Having to wait for the sound to start so that you can push the button to turn the audio off is annoying.

Searching online I found any number of articles with a variety of solutions. Everything from removing Music from the allowed apps in CarPlay, to buying a 99¢ blank track that you name so it is the first item in your music list, and so on. The best solution, and the one I implemented, was to use a personal automation.

Search for the “Shortcuts” app on your iPhone, and select the “Automation” tab. Create a new personal automation that is triggered by “When CarPlay Connects”. For the action search for “Play/Pause”. Tap on the Play/Pause option and select “Pause”. You will have the option to be asked to allow the automation each time. I opted for no, but I did opt to get a notification when the automation ran.

After setting this up, when I plug my phone in to the car there is a split second of sound and then the sound stops. It would be better if Apple would add an autoplay on/off option, but in the meantime being able to automate silence is acceptable.

Apple Carplay for the Win

My wife and I are on a two-week driving vacation. From our home in Manhattan Kansas we are driving to Worcester MA, with stops along the way in West Lafayette IN, State College and Scranton PA.

Our new (to us) Honda CR-V has Apple Car play, something I have wanted to have in a car since it was announced. The first two days of driving were over ground I’ve covered many times before, so I had the map displayed but didn’t really use it or need it. Leaving Tipp City (north of Dayton OH) this morning I wanted directions to get around Columbus, So I put in Wheeling WV as a destination, just to get the map pointed in the right direction.

The first thing I noticed was that, when the map is in give-you-directions mode, it shows the current posted speed limit. When you just have the map displayed but aren’t using it for navigation you don’t see that. (I guess you could tap on the map to bring up the information overlays, even without a destination.)

The second thing was that Siri would announce upcoming speed traps, apparently crowd sourced from other drivers who used the built in report feature to pass on that information.

The third thing, and by far the most impressive to us, was getting an announcement that I-70 East was closed ahead of us, with an estimated delay of 45 minutes (This estimate was at least an hour before we arrived at the start of the alternate route, by then the delay had grown considerably). We took the suggested alternate route, which put us on a 4-lane state road parallel to the Interstate. Several other cars took the same route, and several semis did as well. Most of the traffic continued on past the alternate route exit. From that exit you couldn’t see any sign of a road closure. My guess is the other cars were also using CarPlay and decided to follow the suggested alternate route. Not all the semis took the alternate, so maybe some trucks have CarPlay and some don’t? Is CB still a thing in the age of cell phones?

Part way along the detour, we could see the Interstate, and the east bound lanes were a massive parking lot. Miles of cars and trucks standing on the highway. Having CarPlay saved us hours of time and frustration today. This evening I did a Google search and learned that a semi and crashed against a barrier, caught fire, and dumped its load on the highway. It took several hours to clean up and reopen the highway.

This one event makes CarPlay worth it. I don’t ever want to travel long distance by car again without it.