Blog

The thoughts, opinions, happenings, and just plain ramblings of a seemingly boring person.

Work

Presenting: The Admiral Ackbar ‘ACK’ Emoji

Categories Geekery, Work

I'm sure that someone else has thought of this before, but after a quick search, nothing turned up, so I'm going to provisionally claim credit for this lightbulb moment I had today.

I was going about my usual work day on Slack. When acknowledging a request or fyi from someone else, I usually choose one of the many custom 'ack' (i.e. acknowledged) emoji reactions. BUT, this morning I just realised that Admiral Ackbar's name from Star Wars (revered and famous for "IT'S A TRAP!") starts off being spelled the same way! 🤯

So thanks to ChatGPT's newish image creation … Read more →

Working on a MacBook Pro (take 2)

Categories Geekery, Technology, Work

It's coming up on 3+ years that I've been working on a MacBook Pro, so earlier this year I was due for a computer refresh. I was extremely critical of the hardware of the 13" 2018 MacBook Pro that I received last time around, so I was very much looking forward to a replacement that would hopefully be better.

This timed well with Apple's migration from Intel chips to their own 'Apple silicon', but I was pretty sceptical of the architecture change. I worked in support when Apple migrated architectures from IBM PowerPC to Intel way back in the mid-2000s, … Read more →

Using a Stream Deck for Productivity

Categories Technology, Work
Steam deck mini on a desk next to a keyboard

The Elgato Stream Deck is a series of products that are basically a board of buttons with little LCD screens on each one. As the name implies, its main target customers are streamers, who often need quick access to buttons to control cameras, overlays, sounds, lighting, or special effects.

I am no streamer (ANGTFT), but I recently bought a Stream Deck Mini for productivity.

I work 100% remotely, and spend a lot of time on Zoom calls. I got sick of hunting for the audio and camera toggle buttons with my mouse in each meeting, as well as … Read more →

Migrating to VS Code

Categories Technology, Work
Friendship ended with Atom, now VS Code is my best friend

I should probably add a disclaimer to start this post. At the time of writing this post, I work for GitHub (and by extension, Microsoft (who own GitHub)). As a GitHub employee, I have no more insight into Atom's or VS Code's development or roadmaps than any other member of the public. Both Atom and VS Code are developed as open source communities on GitHub. All opinions in this post (and more generally on this blog) are always my own.

For the better part of the last 5+ years, I have used Atom as my editor of choice … Read more →

Working on a MacBook Pro

Categories Geekery, Rants, Technology, Work

Regular readers could be forgiven for thinking that I have an anti-Apple bias. Although I'm definitely not a fan of the company, I'd like to think that I am mostly objective when it comes to my views.

I've been pretty consistent in my position that I would never buy an Apple computer for my own personal use. The price-to-value return for my own circumstances isn't justifiable. I like the flexibility and customisation of Windows/Linux PCs, not to mention things that are practically impossible on a Mac, such as high-end gaming.

The one area where I use what I'm given (although, … Read more →

Migrating to Zsh

Categories Geekery, Technology, Work

A few years back, I posted on open-sourcing my .bashrc file on GitHub. Up until very recently, I'd been using the same configuration (with some additions and updates) ever since.

Now that I work on a MacBook Pro (btw, I've been meaning to write a blog post on that), and Apple recently announced that they will be changing the default shell in the next version of MacOS from bash to zsh, I decided to make the change myself.

I've always been tempted by the increased friendliness that Zsh has to offer. However, I couldn't really justify … Read more →

5 Years as a Technical Writer

Categories Technology, Work

This past month saw me pass a significant milestone since my switch to a career as a technical writer. If you can believe it, and I barely can, it has now been five years since I started work as a technical writer.

I have learned so much in the past five years. Not just on the products that I write documentation for every day, but also the nuances of writing, user experience, Linux, as well as valuable skills like using Git.

I have worked with, and continue to work with, some fantastic people. Now that you could say that I … Read more →

Talking at the UQ Engineering + Technology Careers Evening

Categories Life, Technology, Work

On Thursday night I had the privilege of speaking at the University of Queensland for an Engineering + Technology Careers Evening. It was aimed at high school students looking at studying engineering and tech at UQ, and I was (surprisingly) selected as a graduate success story to speak for 5 minutes on my academic and career journey. I have uploaded the slides from my presentation. It was the first time since our wedding that I've spoken in front of so many people! :S

I have to admit, it was a little strange talking about myself as a 'success' … Read more →

Work T450s and USB Switches

Categories Technology, Work

Lenovo T450sFor the past 10 months I have been using a Lenovo i7 T450s as my work laptop, and I have to say how impressed I have been with it. In my opinion, it's a great balance between portability and power. The SSD boots it up in a few seconds, and for the most part, it runs Fedora (with multiple VMs) admirably. The laptop keyboard is fantastic, and the dual batteries (one internal, one removable) last a while.

After my intense illness earlier this year, I have been doing a lot more working from home. As I use the same … Read more →

Open-Sourcing My .bashrc File on GitHub

Categories Geekery, Technology, Work

gitprompt_Lucas_bullettrain_tags I've posted some pretty nerdy things on this blog over the years, but this would have to be one of the nerdiest things I've ever posted.

I use a Linux operating system on my work laptop (Fedora, to be precise). We're now fairly entrenched in a git workflow for the documentation we write: asciidoc(tor)-based source, and GitLab CE or GitHub as the hosted VCS.

For the non-uber-tech-savvy: because of the git workflow (amongst other things), I spend a lot of time running commands in a bash shell (or command prompt). One of the files that controls … Read more →