I run two external displays on my laptop; the brightness keys on the laptop don't affect them. I could probably find an app or extension for Xubuntu to handle dimming the displays, but since I spend a lot of time on the command line, it's just as easy to dim them from there with the help of XRANDR and a simple Bash script. This post outlines how to set the script up. I'll also cover an optional "night mode" that reduces blue gamma from the display.

Git is a powerful tool, but sometimes the redundant keystrokes are a pain in the butt. Should you really Add, Commit and Push all in one fell swoop?--No. There are plenty of good reasons not to. Can you? Yes. All it takes is a little scripting with Bash.

I've had a long standing problem with flexbox--particularly with flexbox columns. The proverbial Elephant in the Room has always been this: a mechanism for automatically letting content grow in one column (i.e., adding consecutive child items) and then overflow into the next doesn't really exist. Today, I look at a fix for this problem--and, all it takes is a little JavaScript.

More Bash Alias fun. This time we'll look at Git, Drush and a few others.

I'm feeling particularly nerdy today and I had a little extra time in my schedule. I recently discussed the utility of Bash Aliases; today, I decided go a step further and put together a Bash Script that allows me to build on that power even more. A Bash Script is basically an Alias on steroids, and if you've had any experience with PHP or JavaScript, there's a lot of overlap. Put on your nerd glasses and let's have a look.

Symlinks can be a useful and sometimes necessary part of working on the command line. They're often used with absolute paths, extending from either root directories or your user folder. If you're working on a removable disk, however, absolute paths might change depending on which user has the disk mounted. In this case, using relative paths for you symlinks is a great way to ensure they work regardless of who mounts them. Here's a look at how this can be done.

This is probably off topic, since it really has nothing to do with the technicality of the change, and more to do with 'why'. This may even be a controversial topic for some--so if you're not in the mood, feel free to dismiss this post for what it is: academic conjecture on a somewhat politically charged topic.

If you spend a lot of time on the command line, like I do, an important part of your workflow is getting things done both quickly and efficiently. Bash aliases can be extremely helpful in saving you time. This isn't a comprehensive list by any means, but hopefully it serves as a starting point--allowing you to optimize your terminal-based development work.

Quick and easy ways to Launch XAMPP from the command line with aliases.

Here's a pure CSS solution to the challenge of styling input check-boxes. The check-boxes also act as a trigger for displaying hidden content via the :checked psuedo-class. You might use this mechanism as a means for putting together drop-downs and accordion-menus, although the technique is most applicable to HTML forms. You'll find some 508/WCAG considerations here to make this UI as accessibility compliant as possible.