saurabh's comments

On: Ask HN: Little hacks that make your life easier?

[saurabh]

1. Synergy

I use Synergy to use my netbook's keyboard and touchpad for my workstation. I just zoom everything up on the workstation and lay back on the bed and code. Very cool. Bash alias on both systems is "synergize"

The next thing that I am going to do is switch the server and client roles automatically so that when I am using the workstation I would be able to control my netbook.

2. Tmux

I ssh to the workstation from my netbook and attach to a running Tmux session. Feels like working locally.

3. Redshift

Decrease brightness in the evening, I have a bash alias called "soothing" which does the job.

4. Wake on Lan

Start the workstation in the bedroom if I am in another room. Bash alias "wakywaky"

5. Map Caps Lock to Esc

Just do it. Useful if you are a vimmer.

6. Vimium

Useful if you are a vimmer.

7. A simple text file to track TODO's with vim

Vim makes it super easy to track TODO items. No plugin required. You can move around and makes changes quite fast.

[notduncansmith → saurabh]

I don't find myself needing Esc very often in Vim. Then again, I do have jk mapped to Esc, and ;; maps to Esc: which is usually why I want to leave insert mode in the first place.

I have Caps Lock mapped to Alt instead, which pairs nicely with various app hotkeys (Alt+T for iTerm2, Alt+E for Sublime, Alt+S for Skype, Alt+Space to pop Alfred, etc), plus the Cmd+Alt+whatever bindings for various things.

[mjdwitt → notduncansmith]

Moreover, pressing alt while in insert mode causes the next key to run as if pressed in normal mode. I usually use this instead of escape for those times when I don't want to go into command mode.

One caveat, however. I recently switch to OS X and have yet to figure out how to get alt/option to behave this way. Really my only major gripe about OS X vs. linux.

[sciurus → saurabh]

Related to #7, I use a shell alias to open vim with three splits:

    alias wl="vim -o $HOME/worklog/{todo,progress,done}"

Tasks flow down the splits. If you'd prefer tasks to go left-to-right, use `-O`.

[saurabh → sciurus]

Nice. I am stealing this. I have the leader mapped to <Space>. And I move around splits and tabs using this.

    "New horizontal split
    nmap <leader>s :split<CR>

    "New vertical split
    nmap <leader>v :vsplit<CR>

    "New tab
    nmap <leader>t :tabe<CR>

    "Easy close
    nmap <leader>q :q<CR>

    " Split navigation
    nmap <leader>j <C-W>j
    nmap <leader>k <C-W>k
    nmap <leader>h <C-W>h
    nmap <leader>l <C-W>l

    "Tabs like Vimium 
    noremap <S-j> :tabprevious<CR>
    noremap <S-k> :tabnext<CR>

[ejstronge → saurabh]

You should check out `:help CTRL-W_v` and most of `:help opening-window` in general; the first few of your shortcuts are already in Vim by default. I had similar shortcuts until a serendipitous trip into the help docs.

[saurabh → ejstronge]

You are right. I used to use them but pressing Ctrl was a pain in the pinky finger. :sp and :vs is 2 more keys to press. Using Space as a leader makes everything available at the flick of my thumb. I rarely ever move my eyes to the command pane.

I forgot to mention that I have mapped Space+P to CtrlP fuzzy finder. That too is a one pinch like operation, even though it requires two keypresses.

[lenage → sciurus]

Also related to #7, I use Todo txt(http://todotxt.com), and also create an alias to switch to my project folder

   cd ~/my/project/path && todo -+@ ls +project

that will show my TODO list

[ramoq → saurabh]

Give Planleaf a shot for (7). I use it to track everything. Just send an email to tasks@planleaf.com with a blank subject line and enter your tasks starting with a dash in the body. It will append to a personal todo list. Rinse and repeat. It sends awesome daily digests on all my tasks :)

On: Ask HN: Examples of Good Software Development Contracts

[saurabh]

You should spend some money and better ask a lawyer about to draft the contract. There is http://www.docracy.com/ though if all you want are examples to study.

[javajosh → saurabh]

All a lawyer does is copy/paste from LexisNexis and charge you $500 or more for the privilege. You're better off picking up a book on contracts and constructing your own, adding and removing clauses as needed. It takes an afternoon at a Barnes and Noble (or even a library!)

[borplk → javajosh]

I'm not a lawyer and I partially agree. But your comment just reminded me of some similar comments I've seen along the lines of "All a programmer does is copy/paste code from stackoverflow and charge you $500 for the privilege ... you're better off picking up a book on PHP web development and constructing your own, adding and removing features as needed."

[collyw → javajosh]

Do you think there is a marketplace for an application to do this?

I don't now enough about the details, but as someone looking to get into freelancing, I would be interested in some kind of "contract builder".

[radnam → javajosh]

Which book would you recommend?

[javajosh → radnam]

I don't remember which book I used. It was probably a NOLO guide. You could do a search on amazon for "contract books" and get a selection that would work well, or browse the legal and/or business section of a library or bookstore to find something that works for you.

[orware → saurabh]

Thanks for sharing the docracy.com link...that one has some really nice examples...and they're free :-).

On: How I bypassed 2-Factor-Authentication on Google, Facebook, Yahoo, LinkedIn

[saurabh]

I've always thought that the "Don't be Evil" mantra/motto/whatever is akin to people in denial telling themselves that they are "good people".

[danudey → saurabh]

If you need a rule to tell you not to be evil, you're definitely not good people.

[LeoNatan25 → danudey]

I don't agree with that. It's a statement that sets the company's policy. While obvious that people should not be "evil", a company motto setting it explicitly to be good is a welcome thing. Of course, Google is no longer that company, and they removed that policy statement after it became a mocking tool for critics.

On: Stay up late

[saurabh]

Dont stay up late. You will feel worse the next day. Get up early instead.

On: Show HN: Postman – A command-line utility for batch-sending email

[saurabh]

Ghostman

On: Whither print.css? A Rallying Cry for a Web That’s Fit to Print (2013)

[saurabh]

Have you figured out how to have headers and footers with HTML in it? I am currently trying to figure out a solution to this.

On: Ask HN: How do you get and stay in the "zone"?

[saurabh]

Try this:

http://www.di.fm/goapsy/‎

http://www.di.fm/progressivepsy‎/

On: AngularJS: A Retrospective

[saurabh]

I am using Restangular & ui-router in a project I am working on currently and its working great. Highly recommended.

On: Ask HN: What are the specs of your programming computer?

[saurabh]

I develop node.js and Django apps on a 1.6Ghz, 2GB ram, 11inch netbook after my old workstation with a C2D went bad. It's slow, but can get work done. I won't recommend others to work with this though.

On: Firefox 26 is released

[saurabh]

I use SMTube[1] for that.

http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/en/smtube