Wednesday, June 30, 2010

sc - command line spreadsheet

No surprise to folks who read my blog, I really dig on command line apps.  Well, after another visit to my favorite web based list for cli apps (thanks Jared Lee) and started to play with sc (available even in Lucid 10.04 repos).  This app is for command line spreadsheets.

Command line spreadsheets, well, yes.  I actually have a few use cases where a sqlite database would be way over the top but there is some math I would prefer not to do by hand.  That's what spreadsheets are good for.  sc comes to the rescue.

While I'll confess there is no easy import/export via csv or some other stuff, it is very versatile and does offer a text export which calculates the formulas and shows the layout as if you were using the app.  Let me show you a few quick shots.

First, using the app:


















Second,  the format of the file while being used by sc, bear in mind this is also clear text:

















Lastly, this is what the text export of the same document looks like:













I hope this might give you some ideas on how to use this quick, simple and easy to use program in your personal workflow.

--
CafeNinja
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Click to support

Our model isn't much different, it just for the right purpose.   I have seen, reviewed and supported the AdBard network, which I have to confess while not actually earning me money, is doing better than the google ads on this same blog.  I think it's like $2.00 vs. .36¢.   The point I'm making here is the AdBard network actually do generate revenue.  And by the two (very weak) metrics I have, it earns more faster than google ads.

Let's just take a moment to stop and think about how ad supported stuff works.  This thought occurred to me when listening to some of my IRC buddies talk about the scripts and apps they were using to interface with ideni.ca.  While I think the technical aspect of some of these apps are new, noteworthy and interesting, I'd just like to make sure that everyone takes the time to visit the identi.ca page, reload until they seen an interesting (or not) advertisement and click on it.

I remember when there was this new search engine out there.  And my wife enjoyed it so much that she would visit the page and JUST click on the advertising links on the side in order to support them...and they are google.   If service companies that we use like identi.ca don't get that revenue it means they must look for other ways, which could be invasive posts in your feed or could be the kind of stuff twitter (yuck) is doing.

Help your favorite open source movement, project, etc. by clicking on their ads to help them get the funding.  If you enjoy opensource software and see a chance to help out, not by donations, but clicks, you will actually be helping!  do it!

-- CafeNinja

  Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Discovered Nugget - nmon

 I have to confess that I picked up on this little command line gem as a result of my subscription to a paper magazine.   Linux Magazine had a feature written by Charly Kühnast describing the application "nmon".

This app was a simple "sudo apt-get install nmon" away and was in my Ubuntu 10.04 repos with no further setting changes required.  The application does need to be run in a terminal.  It does not require root permissions and has a great many monitors that are available for viewing in both a real-time and a collection mode depending on how geek your statistic and performance needs are.

I have a screen shot here of the application running in a tall 1/2 wide screen with just a few (not all) of the monitors activated.



I was quite impressed with the monitors/sensors available and if I read correctly there is even a "plugin" system by which monitoring scripts might be plugged in to display monitors that are not predefined.

In my set up I have activated all except memory and processes and run the "htop" command in the a terminal adjacent which then shows almost all possible performance real-time data available in one manageable and comprehensible screen.

Enjoy this app and add it to your list of favorites to use while embracing the command line.

--
CafeNinja


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.