Author: Steven Ovadia

How He Does It: Robert Caro Explains His Research and Writing Process

December 12, 2019

I’m not sure if this is really a tech kind of post, but I’m hanging it upon the hook of my interview with The Plain Text Project, where I discussed how I edit on paper.

I just finished reading Robert Caro’s Working, and in it he mentions using triple spacing so he has plenty of room to write in his edits. This article talks about that process:

Caro writes his drafts longhand on white legal pads, three or four times. Then he types these drafts on an old electric typewriter, using legal paper and triple spacing to leave lots of room for editing. Some drafts have more pencil marks than type.

I don’t leave that much space when I print, but I might begin to leave more than my 1.5 line spacing, as more room for writing is always helpful when marking things up.

And just to bring this around to software, one of the things I love about Typora, my Markdown editor, is that you can print from it directly, without converting the work to a PDF or HTML.

How He Does It: Robert Caro Explains His Research and Writing Process | The Elements of Writing

Want the Greenest Device? You May Already Own It

December 10, 2019

I have a lot of issues with the political reporting of the New York Times but I absolutely love their weekly Tech We’re Using, which focuses on the tools their reporters use to do their jobs.

This interview with Kendra Pierre-Louis, the paper’s environment/climate reporter (or “Gloom is My Beat,” as her Twitter bio says) has a lot of great stuff about sustainable tech, for which I have a soft spot, for the obvious reasons, but also because it’s something my wife has written about.

I really related to this particular quote from Pierre-Louis:

I can say I tend to hold on to electronics for years — I once had a laptop that lasted nine years. Toward the end, people teased me about it because it was, physically speaking, a brick. I got my workout carrying that thing around.

I’m guessing she had a ThinkPad. Those things are indestructible.

Want the Greenest Device? You May Already Own It | The New York Times

The Linux Setup – Kezz Bracey, Web Designer/Developer

December 4, 2019

I found Kezz on Twitter and I’m so glad I did because this is a wonderful interview. First of all, I love the KDE details. Because while I don’t use KDE, I respect it. I wish I could tame it the way Kezz has. Instead, I tend to bow to its will, when really, if I knew how, like Kezz, I could bend it to mine. I also appreciate the screencasting information. I don’t do it very often anymore, but I do know that at some point, there were concerns about the lack of a good Linux screencasting program. Apparently that’s no longer an issue, which is great to hear.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow me on Mastodon here and follow me on Twitter here.

  1. Who are you, and what do you do?

    I’m Kezz Bracey. My primary profession is as a web designer/front end web developer, though in recent years I’ve been focusing on teaching. I do this via courses and tutorials I create for Tuts+, though I plan to expand on this via my own site over the coming months at http://www.kezzbracey.com.

    I also like to dabble a little in game development as a hobby, as well as digital art and music production.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I switched over to spending more time on Linux than any other operating system after waiting a few years for the promised Mac Pro update that never came. I wanted hardware that was powerful enough for my game development (and gaming) hobbies, but I also wanted a good environment for all the command line based tools that are a big part of web development today.

    MacOS could give me the development environment I wanted, but with restrictive hardware. Windows could give me the hardware I wanted, but was an unpleasant environment for command line work and web development in general. So I searched for “Alternative to MacOS” and discovered ElementaryOS, which immediately captivated me. I tried it, loved it, and started transitioning over as much of my workflow as I could. I was able to then buy the hardware I wanted and have my smooth development environment, too. Since then I’ve distro-hopped quite a bit, but I still prefer every Linux distro I’ve tried over Mac or Windows as excellent web dev environments.

    That said though, as much as I love Linux for practical reasons as a development environment, I also love the ethos of community-developed systems and software. When using company-driven software I sometimes run into problems stemming from what’s good for the company not being good for me, whereas I always feel confident that the goals of the people in the Linux ecosystem essentially align with my own. And I absolutely love having control over my system so I can set everything up perfectly to be a beautiful and efficient place to work.

  3. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

    At the moment my main distro is Manjaro with KDE because I really enjoy the package management and the near-bleeding-edge-but-not-quite update cycle. Of all the distros I’ve tried, Manjaro provides me with what I need the most consistently.

    However I also have KDE Neon on a partition at the moment, so I can use DaVinci Resolve for video editing, as it’s quite hard to get that up and running on an Arch-based system, plus I have ElementaryOS installed as there are some really interesting apps being developed for their AppCenter and I like to check in on them.

  4. What desktop environment do you use and why do you use it?

    I use KDE and it’s my single most-loved aspect of working on Linux. As a front-end web developer, I of course love to tinker with and customize user interfaces (UIs) and that is something KDE arguably allows for the best among all desktop environments. When I hit a point of friction that’s slowing my workflow down in some way, there’s always a method to modify it in KDE. I can move around KDE so smoothly and fluidly that in comparison I feel like I’m walking through mud when I have to use Windows or MacOS, or even some other Linux desktops.

    A big part of why I love KDE so much is also the Dolphin file explorer. It’s absolutely perfect for what I do thanks to the in-line terminal, excellent file previewing capability, split pane, tabs system, and toolbar controls customization. When I have to use another operating system/desktop environment, I feel Dolphin’s absence quite notably.

    As an extra note, I’ve also found KDE has the best support for 4k/HiDPI and handles screen recording without producing artifacts.

  5. What one piece of Linux software do you depend upon? Why is it so important?

    If I look at “depend upon” as meaning a piece of software I’d have to boot into Windows without, that would have to be the Figma design tool, despite it not technically being Linux software. The reason is that as wonderful as the coding side of development is on Linux, the graphics side is still challenging if you are in UI design. But the fact I can access Figma from my Linux install, (through the browser or the unofficial figma-linux app), allows me to spend more time booted into it than I would otherwise be able to.

    However if we’re talking more specifically about Linux-native software made primarily for the Linux community, it would have to be SimpleScreenRecorder. I use it for screen recording my courses whenever I’m able to produce them on Linux, and it does a wonderful job of capturing high quality video with essentially no impact on performance. It’s a fantastic piece of software.

  6. What kind of hardware do you run this setup on?

    My main machine is an i7 processor, RX480 GPU, 16GB RAM, with a couple of SSDs.

    I also have a couple of other Linux machines, though. I have an Asus Zenbook running Arch with KDE, and a handy little Surface Go running Manjaro with KDE. And if anything with a Linux kernel counts, I also have a Moto X4 running LineageOS.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Sure thing! Here are a couple. The first is of my straight up desktop and terminal with screenfetch, the second is of my physical desktop space, including my little Go with Manjaro tablet, and the third is with the “Grid Tiling” extension running and a few of my favorite applications.


desktop and terminal


physical work space


grid tiling

Interview conducted November 18, 2019

The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.

You can follow me on Mastodon here, follow me on Twitter here and subscribe to the feed here.

Gmail Hooked Us on Free Storage. Now Google Is Making Us Pay

November 29, 2019

I’m not saying Google was/is running a long con with Gmail. However, if they were, it’s pretty smart to train users not to delete, but to archive, so that they’re slowly using up “free” storage space. Then, years later, completely dependent upon a product and out of “free” storage space, you can begin to charge them. And while the charge might be nominal at first, it’s easy to see how a company might eventually increase the price, knowing how many people depend upon a service.

Please. Buy a domain and use it for your email. Even if it just ties back to a “free” service. This will let you eventually leave the “free” ecosystem without upending your life.

But, also, maybe check-out a paid service, like Fastmail, so at least your costs are predictable.

Gmail Hooked Us on Free Storage. Now Google Is Making Us Pay | Bloomberg

A little less automation, a little more friction, please

November 26, 2019

“But perhaps we shouldn’t expect Big Tech to provide the solution, because for many companies efficiency is the business model. So we shouldn’t expect them to introduce more friction, as they will lose revenue.”

Reading about the techniques used by technology companies to keep us captive engaged, I’m reminded of casinos, where there are no windows or clocks to remind you it’s time to go home.

So as a reminder to myself, and anyone who needs to hear it, it’s time to go home!

A little less automation, a little more friction, please | The Correspondent

Firefox at 15: its rise, fall, and privacy-first renaissance

November 21, 2019

Firefox has gotten much better; especially in terms of memory usage. I switched to it at work on Windows and haven’t looked back. But the reason I was open to revisiting Firefox was a desire to want to escape Chrome. And I spent my first few hours with Firefox making it behave like Chrome, which wasn’t hard at all.

So yeah. Try Firefox because it’s not Chrome but stay with it because it’s good.

Firefox at 15: its rise, fall, and privacy-first renaissance | Fast Company

Back to windows after twenty years

November 19, 2019

This is a post from David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, about switching to Windows from Apple, mostly because of not loving the new MacBook keyboards.

He reports that Windows didn’t work for him either and it made me wonder where Linux fit into his math. Over in the comments, Hansson says he’s open to trying it.

Based on his issues with Apple and Windows, I suspect Linux will be a great fit.

Back to windows after twenty years | Signal v. Noise

Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours

November 14, 2019

This is a very thoughtful essay about how so much of our technology is access and not ownership. It’s sort of a mainframe model, where we’re using terminals to connect, but there’s nothing local for us.

Of course, I say us, but I try to own my technology. I’m not an ebook person. I use Netflix, but I buy DVDs of things I love. And while my CD collection is constantly shrinking, I at least buy MP3s (rather than streaming). So there are choices to be made in terms of what we actually own.

Everything is Amazing, But Nothing is Ours | alexdanco.com