Private Tutoring: Embarking on a New Adventure in 2021

The following is the same text that I shared on Twitter today, with minor edits.

Dear colleagues,

At the beginning of 2021, I formally left the UND Press. This move surprised a number of people, as I’ve made no secret of how much I’ve enjoyed working in academic publishing and how highly I think of my former coworkers and authors. Nevertheless, I’ve been considering this move since late 2019. Here’s the story:

As I’ve said to many of you, the one thing I missed in publishing was teaching. I discovered, though, that I really enjoyed working one-on-one or in small groups with authors, whether providing publishing advice or writing guidance. I finally asked myself, “What if I blend what I miss most in my current profession—teaching—with what I enjoy most in it—the one-on-one experience?” In short, I decided to become a private tutor.

I have at least two family members who have gone into private tutoring, so in retrospect it may be in my blood! Today, I teach students at a variety of levels (mostly undergrad and high school), with a focus on English language, literature, and writing & composition. If you would like to learn more about my services, drop me a line! And thank you to all of you who have supported me, past and present!

Here's to an amazing 2021 for us all!

Vim 8.1 has a terminal!

So it's been a long, long, long time since I posted—but I've not been idle! On the contrary, I've been trying all kinds of new things. And yesterday, I discovered that Vim 8.1 has a terminal!

This is a game-changer! Not only is the terminal there, it seems fully functional and very responsive. I like it better than my terminal emulator on OS X.

Furthermore, it works with my currently-existing customized setup seemingly flawlessly. I use cmus to play music files in the background while I work, and I use Karabiner to map my multimedia keys to cmus' controls. Until now, this meant having the terminal open in the background while working.

Now I can open the terminal in MacVim, open tmux (yes, it works with tmux), open cmus, and use my usual key controls without any fiddling.

Did I mention that it automatically makes use of my shell preferences (customized zsh)?

Kudos to the Vim team for pulling this off!

Changing backgrounds in AwesomeWM

AwesomeWM is, well, awesome! I like the vim-like keybindings and flexibility. Not being a Lua coder, though, sometimes configuring it can be a challenge. Recently I decided to set my background to rotate on a timer. Code for this can be found at http://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Cycling_Random_Wallpaper_Or_Xscreensaver.

I used the basic 3.5 version code given, but found one drawback: When you want to change the wallpaper, you have to put the wallpaper image in the appropriate folder AND manually add the filename to your rc.lua file; the reverse if you want to remove a wallpaper. Why not just be able to add the file to the directory and let Awesome figure out the reset?

I wrote a script called wallpaper_to_array and put it in my PATH:

#!/usr/bin/env zsh
FILES="\"$(ls -l $1*jpg | cut -d '/' -f 6 | tr "\n" " ")"
FILES2="$(echo ${FILES//' '/'","'} | rev | cut -c 3- | rev)"

printf 'wp_path = '\""$1"\""\n"'wp_files = { '$FILES2' }'"\n"

This could probably be cleaned up a bit, but it works on my system. Then I replaced the lines in rc.lua that began "wp_path = ..." and "wp_files = ..." with

awful.util.eval(awful.util.pread("wallpaper_to_array /path/to/wallpapers/"))

Basically this used a zsh script to create a string that can be evaluated as Lua code in the rc.lua file, at Awesome's initialization.

Now all I have to do is add/remove the wallpaper image and restart AwesomeWM!

In search of the perfect editorial setup

Preface: Computers should be flexible enough to easily bend them to our needs, at least when it comes to reducing time spent on repetitive computing tasks. In my case, that means a work environment where I can find and manipulate information about book projects under review, whether files, emails, or database records. In an ideal world, I'd type in a name, and pull up all of the database records, emails, and file folders relevant to that name. But my files are stored on my hard drive, the emails are on Google, and the databases are in FileMaker Pro. One of my long-term projects is linking these together in some fashion so that I make my dream come true. (There's a lot of website that help programmers set up an integrated and efficient environment, but I haven't found much for helping editors.)

A previous attempt: Last year, I set up a private FMP database on my desktop that linked to all the other databases I use. Through various APIs, it also could search Gmail, various file storage platforms that I use, and even include a link to the folder on my hard drive where a project could be stored (clicking the link would open the appropriate window on the desktop). I also created a field to enter a single search term, connected to all of these resources.

Now, instead of typing a name into my computer's search function, waiting for it to pull up a list of possible results, then selecting the correct folder, then typing the same name into the database to pull up the book's record, then typing it again into Gmail to pull up relevant emails... it was all there with one search. The amount of time I saved typing must have been phenomenal. The only downside was that I had to enter the link to the local hard drive folder manually for each project.

Then I had to change the path all my projects were stored at. Suddenly, all the links to local files were useless! It was back to an extra search on the local hard drive again. And I felt no inclination to re-do all the hundreds of links already extant.

A new hope: This time, I wrote a bash script that opens the given folder on the desktop. Then I aliased it to the brief command "po" (short for 'project open'). It's much faster than the computer's built-in search function, since it's only searching a single directory:

#! /bin/bash
PROJECT_PATH='<insert your path here>'
open "$PROJECT_PATH""$(ls "$PROJECT_PATH" | grep -i "$1")"

Now, if I want to open a project's folder, I just go to the terminal and type "po <search term>". It's still an extra step compared to my ideal, but it's faster than... Oh, I mentioned that. But really, it's pretty snappy!

My next step will be to see if I can convince FMP to run the command when I type a search term into the given field. Then I'll be back to my original setup, with the additional advantage that I won't have to enter links manually anymore!

Fonts of Pleasure

Back in the day, I struggled through learning LaTeX for several reasons, one of which was the superb Computer Modern fonts that it comes with. Was there a chance that one could use said fonts in other contexts--like, say, a word processor?

Enter Latin Modern, a slightly-edited version of CM for other contexts. Last week I downloaded and installed LM on my laptop and have set it up for my word processor, my terminal emulator, web browsers... The most random and pointless sites now look the very picture of dignity!

"Font" means "source". Beautiful fonts are a source of beauty, and it is only right that we make use of them.

Lenovo Thinkcentre: Odd BIOS beeps, hangs on boot

My desktop computer, a Lenovo Thinkcentre M52 9211, suddenly refused to boot the other day. Instead, it would give a series of beeps: three, then one, then three, then four. Then it would do nothing (except run the fan).

After digging around online, I found this gem:

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T61-and-prior-T-series-ThinkPad/Beep-code-3-1-4-3/td-p/44259

It's for a different line of Lenovos, but the basic idea was that by taking out the RAM and blowing away any dust, the computer could be restored to normal working order (after re-inserting the RAM, naturally). So that's what I tried.

And it worked. :)

I wonder if this holds true for all Lenovos? All IBM PCs?

Removing reviewers' names from MS Word comments

This is too cool!

Needed to review a ms's reviewer's name/initials from a Word file. A search led me to http://cybertext.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/word-removing-reviewer-names/ where I found a solution.

In my case, I tried using a standard text editor (from Linux: gedit) to edit the zipped document(s), but for some reason that corrupted the file and Word wouldn't recognize it any more.

Next I tried completely unzipping the files and editing them on OS X. Again, problems opening the docx after I rezipped the file.

Finally, I opened MacVim, dragged the zip file onto it, and was able to browse the archived files in MV. I did a couple quick substitutions as per the directions above, and then saved and quit. Upon reopening the Word file, all looks perfect!

Neat to see how some rather technical skills can solve significant acquisitions/publishing issues!