Recent
Broken KDE Plasma 5.6 on Linux Mint 18
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Opinions
KDE
I’ve been a long time KDE user, loved the KDE 4.0 SC when it first arrived and probably one of the most vocal supporters for it when people were hating it. Since my recent job move, I’ve been using Linux desktop full-time. Since Linux Mint 18 was the only distro which supported WiFi/Display/Multi-monitor/HDMI out on my Lenovo E41-80(which comes with Skylake chipset), I stuck to it with the Cinnamon desktop.
Chef Zero, Cookbooks and Data Bags locations
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DevOps
Chef
I like chef-zero a lot. There’s so much overlap between chef’s products: chef-zero, chef-solo, chef-apply - yes, each have their own uses, but I digress. Chef-zero has been relatively pain-free for me - except when I tried to get it running - trying to figure out why it wasn’t fetching the cookbooks was so annoying! I went and RTFM couple of times, no dice. Then I decided to not skim read and read the entire thing.
DevOps Diaries: When Terminator terminates your MySQL imports onto an AWS Instance…
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DevOps
Aws
I have begun to use Terminator quite a lot. Terminator’s quite handy when you want to connect to multiple servers on a single terminal thanks to its split pane feature. (And yes I know about tmux & screen - I have screen on my servers, don’t want to get into the headache that is nested screen panes).
Few days back we were preparing for a big migration & deploy and I was tasked upon to prepare a failover just in case the migration goes wrong.
Bash bashings..
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Tips & How-To's
Bash
Linux
Popd
Pushd
Since my new job involves lot more of Linux, shell scripting bash and automation, I’ve been trying to brush up my Linux skills. Ran into this “problem” today where there’s an init script which handles unicorn start/stop/reload and we were debugging some kinks around this. The init script had a chain of cd to the directory and the unicorn invoke script. Was trying to figure out why unicorn wasn’t starting up, till I read a bit more and dropped to using echo to understand what’s happening
Review of Supergiant Games’ Transistor
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Gaming
Games
Reviews
Transistor is the second game made by Supergiant Games following up on their previous game, Bastion. Bastion didn’t hold my attention long enough so I really can’t say much about it, except at first glance, Bastion seemed to have great artwork and music.
Story # Transistor follows the story of Red, a singer in a city called Cloudbank who gets nearly killed. She manages to escape and acquires the Transistor - a sword-like weapon.
GOG Connect – import few of your Steam games into Gog.com library
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Gaming
Games
Steam
Gog.com(formerly Good Old Games) is part of CD Projekt Group - the publishers of the fantastic Witcher series of games. GOG started off as a firm which (re)distributed classic games without DRM and ensuring they run on modern systems.
Off late, they have evolved into digital distribution - and they’re going against the likes of Steam (and to much lesser extent, Origin). Most digital distribution platforms tend to push their own brand, force you to use their clients and lock you down to their own platform - so not having all your eggs in the same basket is a good thing.
Some thoughts on the PlayStation 4
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Gaming
Playstation 4
Few months ago for our second wedding Anniversary, after much discussions on what to get for each other - we decided to get a PlayStation 4. This was a rather surprising decision considering
I’ve never been a console gamer(barring the SNES clones that Dad got for my Brahmopadesham) I’ve had a fairly decent gaming computer and spend a lot of time in front of the computer than a TV I really don’t like playing with controllers and pretty bad with it Few months back Subbu lent me his PS Vita loaded with.
Implementing and Triggering Google Now Cards & Gmail actions from Email
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Tips & How-To's
Programmming
For every Barcamp event that comes and goes by, I try to think of what new thing I can do to make it a bit better. Off late, I’ve been using Inbox by Gmail almost exclusively. I love the product, particularly for the cards that show up that gives you a brief info about the mail(ex: Event reservation details/Flight details etc) without even opening the email.
I noticed that Meetup does the same.
Some thoughts on Grand Theft Auto
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Gaming
Grand Theft Auto
I’ve always loved the Grand Theft Auto series, but more so as a sandbox/stress-buster than as a story line game. The first GTA game that I played was GTA II, but that was quite some time back. I don’t remember much about it - all that I recall was it it was a top down game taking a car rushing through the streets and that’s about it. I got annoyed with it and didn’t touch it.
On Undertale
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Gaming
Undertale
Undertale is a game that’s been getting rave reviews from quite a few people - critics or otherwise. Some choice comments
IGN:
It’s hard to express just how much I adore Undertale without spoiling anything significant, but that’s what I love about it. It tells its story in such a dynamic way, and with such a great understanding of the RPG player’s mindset, that it couldn’t have been told in any other way.