May 12 2011

Easy ssh key setup

I seem to need to look up this little gem from time to time, so I thought I should just post it here so I can find it easily. If you want a dead simple way to send your ssh key to a remote server so that you can use key based authentication, just run the following command.

cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh [email protected] "cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys2"

Obviously you need to have an existing key generated and you need to adjust for the type of key you have and the server user/address.


Oct 30 2010

Task Based Time Tracking: Redux

If you have worked with me over the past few years you know I often try to find ways to reduce effort required with tracking time on a task by task basis. In fact, I’ve blogged about this topic before (see original post). I’ve tried many different setups including software packages, multiple spreadsheet setups, web based applications – you name it. All these solutions work, but they never really fit with my work flow or they added too much cruft to make me want to use them. Continue reading


Jun 16 2010

Building Debian Packages

I’ve been playing around with the idea of using debian packages to deploy updates to various servers (virtual machines, dev servers, production servers etc). I was curious to see how this could work for a variety of tasks, but mostly I needed a way to help keep our development virtual machine up to date without physically maintaining a virtual disc that all developers use. Because we each modify the vm to fit in our specific environment, the need to enforce the existence of *packages* and not specific *configuration* is paramount – this turned out to be a godsend for us.
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Dec 18 2009

Getting Things Done

If you are like me, you probably spend time every so often reassessing the methodologies and tools you use to organize your life or work. I find myself spending large amounts of time trying to streamline processes in an effort to squeeze every bit of productivity out of my day, but I usually find that my efforts make little difference, or I just revert back to old habits.

I’ve been on a work related productivity kick lately, I found myself spending too much time during my morning routine which eats into my work day. Things like RSS news feeds, facebook updates and email sorting were starting to take WAY more much time than it should. I’ve wasted hours on stupid facebook games like mob wars, and hours sorting through news feeds I never actually read, and more hours sorting through my email trying to maintain some sort of organization while retaining some resemblance to a task list. Continue reading


Mar 4 2009

Job Searching Tips

Searching for a job in this economy is a very difficult thing to do. Trust me, I’ve been there.

Around mid January I got a call from my manager telling me that I was being laid off. Now this was not a *total* surprise since there were 3 rounds of layoffs previous to this one, but it was still a shock. Truth be told I was actually searching for a new job since the second round of layoffs, but it is DAMN hard to find a job right now and I could not find anything. So, after a month of being on unemployment I can happily say that I start a new job tomorrow.

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