Older articles (10/27)

1. Switching vim to use native package management

   This documents how I switched to vim’s new native package management.

2. Formatting a USB stick on FreeBSD

   This documents how to format a USB-stick on a recent FreeBSD system

3. Attempting a conky replacement in Python (part 2)

   In part 1 we say that a simple replacement for conky for generating a statusline for i3 can be achieved. But since it uses the subprocess module to call external programs it is pretty CPU intensive.

   The question now is if we can reduce that? For that we’re going to use mmap to look at the mailbox, and call sysctlbyname(3) using ctypes to get the remaining system information. Note that sysctl et al and the names used are specific to FreeBSD.

4. Attempting a conky replacement in Python (part 1)

   My window manager (i3) has a small bar on the bottom of the screen. I use conky to put a single line of (text) information there.

5. Setting the Razer ornata chroma color from userspace

   This documents how to set the (static) color on this keyboard from user space using libusb (built into FreeBSD) and pyusb.

6. Automating package updates on FreeBSD

   When updating my ports, I prefer to use packages when I have not changed the options of a port. This describes how I do that.

7. Nikon D70s tips and tricks

   Some tips on how I use my D70s

8. Adding text or graphics to a PDF file (again)

   In an earlier article I talked about using a picture environment in LaTeX to add lines and text over an image. In another article I showed how to draw with PostScript, including using Encapsulated PostScript to include arbitrary images.

   In this article I want to cover the pros and cons of these methods and introduce a third method: TikZ.

9. ImageMagick: convert vs Wand

   The ImageMagick suite has been in my software toolbox for years. It is my go-to tool for manipulating bitmap images. Over the years I have written several front-ends for specific tasks for in Python.

   In general, I have used the subprocess module to launch convert or mogrify from Python.

   With the release of Wand 0.5.0 which supports ImageMagick 7, I decided to try that by porting one of my scripts (foto4lb) to it. This turned out to be slower than using convert directly.

   But now it is 2021. Py-wand is at 0.6.7 and it is time to try again.

10. Installing Pelican 4

    Pelican is the static site generator that I use for my website. This allows me to write my website posts in almost plain text (actually a light-weight markup language named reStructuredText), which are then translated into HTML. As someone who has written his webpages in HTML by hand, I can tell you that this is definitely an improvement.

    Although I use LaTeX for things that require high-quality typesetting, these days almost all my other writings are in reStructuredText.

    The previous pelican version 3.7 was basically the last Python 2.7 application that I use. So now that pelican supports Python 3, I’m switching. Since Pelican 4 is not in the FreeBSD ports tree yet, I’m installing it myself.

    Note

    As of 4.0.1, Pelican is now in the FreeBSD ports tree and I’m using the port www/py-pelican. At the moment I’m still installing typogrify and smartypants by hand.