Zoom Virtual Background for Short/Coffee Breaks ("I'll be right back!")

You might know that Zoom has a non-verbal feedback option under the Participants list that includes a "need a break." You could use this to indicate when you have stepped away, but it is intended to indicate to the speaker that you are requesting a break.

So what is an option to indicate to everyone that you have stepped away and aren't just having video problems? One option is to create a virtual background that includes some status signage (or, alternatively, you can make the signage part of your profile picture that shows when your camera is off). Here is an image I put behind me to indicate to others that I've stepped away very briefly and will be back soon.

You can download and use the image above. You can also download the PowerPoint version so you can make edits to it. Here I am with my virtual background behind me. Of course, normally I would only put this up when I was out of the room. :-)

Another option is to print out a tiny version of the image above and hang it in front of your camera. :-)

UPDATE: Another option for this is to combine Zoom with a virtual camera from mmHmm. mmHmm has "Be right back" options that you can quickly switch on and off with far fewer steps than raw Zoom.

Dollar Shave Club: My review and a cheaper alternative

I recently signed up for the Dollar Shave Club (DSC), which is a site that lets you paying $6 every 1 or 2 months for 4 razors by mail (and you can pause your subscription at any time). It turns out that you can get the exact same razors for much cheaper with no monthly subscription so long as you're willing to buy in bulk. Apparently DSC gets its razors from Dorco USA, which you can buy directly from on-line. In fact, you can buy retail handles with trial razors from Dorco too. For example, for $6, you can try out a Dorco handle and two razors, and then you can buy 36 replacement cartridges for less than $1/razor.

I tried my "4X" DSC (or Dorco USA) razor for the first time this weekend. It was an OK razor. It had a nice heavy handle, but the angle of the pivoting head was not as steep as I'd like, and the moisturizing strip was far too thick. Consequently, it was very awkward to get into small nooks -- like under the nose. The "4X" razor doesn't have a trimming edge either (the more expensive 6-blade "Executive" model does), which would really improve matters. But after the shave, my face felt pretty good. It just took a lot longer to get through a full shave. So I'm not sure I can fully recommend these razors over, say, Schick Quattro Titanium disposable razors, which actually have a trimming edge and are pretty cheap from local stores or from Amazon (around $7/3 razors).

DSC also sent me a tester of their "Dr. Carver's Easy Shave Butter," which actually burned my face a bit as it went on (but I have sensitive skin). My face was fine afterward. But using Nivea For Men Active3 Body Wash for Body, Hair & Shave worked just as well without the sting. So I'm not sure I can recommend the Shave Butter either.

So I'm torn. It's possible that the 6-blade+edging "Executive" unit will be better. Either way, in the long run, it's cheaper to buy from Dorco USA directly, and I like the idea of dropping the subscription service. Dorco USA also sells other razor models and even disposable models. They also sell razors designed for women, whereas DSC just tells women to buy the 4X. The 4X has a handle which is somewhere between what you'd want for the face and the leg, but I think it's biased toward face shaving. So the lady's models at Dorco USA are definitely recommended if you need to shave legs.

So that's my brief review. tl;dr -- Check out DORCO if you like DSC's blades but don't like the subscription service.

References:

• Dollar Shave Club
• LifeHacker: "Forget Dollar Shave Club; Buy the Same High Quality Razors for a Third of the Price" 
• Dorco USA Razors

Looking for a cheap Bluetooth-capable portable MP3 player? Buy a no-contract smartphone and don't activate it!

My father needed a portable Bluetooth-capable MP3 player with large or expandable memory. Portable MP3 players with such features typically sell for $80+ (Trio mini), with the nicest units being at least $150 (iPod nano) or much more. The cheap models have terrible battery life (3 hours for Trio mini). Creative solution? He bought a no-contract LG Optimus Exceed 2 from Verizon Wireless for less than $50 at Best Buy and used a 16GB microSD card that he already owned.

LG Optimus Exceed 2, Prepaid (no-contract) Phone from Verizon Wireless

This particular no-contract phone is fast, runs Android 4.4.2, and can be used without activating. In fact, it is very easy to bypass the initial activation screen with a special key sequence – volume up, volume down, back, home – pressed after restart at the language selection screen. After bypassing that screen just once, the phone is happy to run unactivated indefinitely after that – it will never present that activate screen again. Use airplane mode to prevent phone from looking for a network to save battery, and flip on WiFi and Bluetooth. It's like a $50 iPod touch. Nice deal.

You can get this phone from a number of places, as shown in links below. Of course, there are other no-contract phone choices you could make (check all no-contract carriers – Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile USA, T-Mobile, etc.). If you're willing to compromise on the phone software or other capabilities, you can get decent "MP3 player phones" for $30 or even $20.

• Amazon.com ($50)
• Best Buy ($50) 
• Fry's Electronics ($40)
• Walmart ($50)
• Verizon Wireless ($80 and claims full retail is $249)
• LG Life's Good (info page)

For example, you can get essentially the same phone from Boost Mobile packaged as the LG Realm for only $35 on Amazon right now. It's $40 from other retailers.

LG Realm, Prepaid (no-contract) Phone from Boost Mobile

So that's like a $35 iPod touch. Even nicer deal!

How we fixed our Ikea wardrobe after the bar fell

Our apartment has no bedroom closet space. There are two coat closets and a linen closet all clustered in the same wall between the living room and office and near the bathroom, but there is no storage in the bedroom. So a while back, we bought three large Ikea wardrobes that fit nicely next to each other down one of the walls of our bedroom. This particular wardrobe model was one of Ikea's budget options (i.e., it was not one of their crazy customizable types; it basically came as a complete unit). The closet bar (shown here without the shelf that is usually above it) should attach to the closet using a plastic insert like this (click on the image for a larger and clearer version):

As you may be able to see, there is a large vertical scrape a few inches beneath the plastic insert. That scrape came into our lives when the plastic insert on the left side of the bar failed ("wardrobe malfunction"), which sent the awkward-shaped metal closet bar (and the clothes hanging on it) into the floor of the wardrobe. As you can see, there is a cantilever-type support jutting out from the plastic insert that sheared off (pretty clean cut, actually):

Ikea often keeps spare parts like this on hand that you can grab for free in bins from the store, but we didn't want to drive all the way to West Chester to look for them, and we were pretty sure these wardrobes were discontinued and these (likely specialized) parts were not available. So we went to Meijer instead (it was too late to go to a hardware store to find real closet accessories) to look for a way to hack together a good pre-fabricated furniture fix.

Just before we were about to give up, we found these corner braces that looked like the perfect size and shape for our problem. They were about $2.50 for a pack of 2 (in case any of the other supports ever break later).

So here's how we used a corner brace to support the closet bar:

As a bonus, the screws that came with the corner brace were short enough to not protrude out the side of the wardrobe. They were self-tapping screws, but I didn't trust them in the Ikea-style formica-covered particle board, and so I pre-drilled some small holes first, and that worked pretty well. We used a zip tie to fix the bar vertically; however, we also experimented with binder rings that we had stowed away in our office supplies. The binder rings actually provided a much tighter fit so that the bar didn't wiggle at all; however, as strange as it sounds, the zip ties were a little more discrete as they hugged the corner brace snugly.

[ I should note that I took off the shelf to get easier access to the closet. That meant pulling out the three small brads/nails attaching the masonite-ish backing. Because the area moment of inertia of that backing is very high, I think it provides significant support to the closet structure as a whole. So afterward, I pulled the closet out and put the nails back in a different spot. I probably could have left the shelf in through the whole fix. ]

I almost like the look of our fix better than the Ikea insert (which looks like it has a tenuous hold on the bar anyway).

[ You can also find this post at Jessie and Ted's blog. ]

How to put "1 of ..." page numbers on a LaTeX letter

Someone e-mailed me recently to ask how to add "1 of LAST_PAGE" page numbers to a LaTeX letter document. I generated the sample LaTeX document fancy_letter_numbering.tex to show how it's done using the fancyhdr and lastpage packages.

Here is my response, which gives more details:

I have attached a sample letter with "1 of ..." page numbering throughout. fancyhdr works with "letter" just as well as it works with "article." You just have to treat "\opening" just like you do "\maketitle."

In particular, put this up in your preamble:

\usepackage{lastpage}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\fancyhead{}
\fancyfoot{}
\cfoot{\thepage{}~of~\pageref{LastPage}}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt}

Then, after each "\opening" (in the case of a single letter, there will only be one), put the line:

\thispagestyle{fancy}

Otherwise you will get page numbers on every page except for the first one.

Of course, you will have to run LaTeX (or PDFLaTeX) at least twice to place the "LastPage" label properly and generate the correct page refeference.

[ Additionally, you may further customize the headings and footers making use of all of the nice features that come with the fancyhdr package. ]

Making MacVim work with Vimperator's external editor feature

Because I'm a vim user, it's naturally for me to use vimperator on top of Firefox.

Today I posted a tip on vimperator.org that helps me use Vimperator on my MacOS system. I'm reposting that tip here.

To make a long story short, try an editor setting like

:set editor='bash -lc "mvim -f \$*" mvim '

or (if you prefer gvim)

:set editor='bash -lc "gvim -f \$*" gvim '

Then you should be able to hit CNTRL+I to launch an external editor for textareas. There are simpler solutions and explanations below.

---

Shelling out to external commands is hairier in OS X than it is on other platforms.

In my case, I use MacVim, which includes a script mvim that can be called as

mvim -f ...

so that the script will wait for the GUI to exit before it exits. This functionality is identical to the gvim found with other Vim distributions (including older Vim distros for OS X).

My mvim script is in /usr/local/bin. Unfortunately, the PATH environment variable that sits behind user processes has to be set in an special ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist file, and the default PATH does not include /usr/local/bin. If you don't believe me, try

:!env

As you can see, those environment variables are very different from the ones you'd expect in a "login shell." You could go add an appropriate environment.plist file to match your login shell, but then you'll have to keep it up-to-date after every change to your shell profile. As a consequence, it's probably a good idea to

:set shcf='-lc'

Then you'll notice that :!env gives you more expected results. However, Vimperator won't run the editor unless it can find it in what Firefox thinks is the PATH, and so shcf won't help you.

A simple solution is to

:set editor='/usr/local/bin/mvim -f'

For most people, this solution will be perfect. However, some will notice that their favorite utilities (e.g., /opt/local/bin/par or /sw/bin/aspell) will not be accessible in the editor (unless the environment.plist file is modified).

So the final solution is to use bash as your external editor, and have it operate as a login shell that calls your editor of choice.

:set editor='bash -lc "mvim -f \$*" mvim '

Here, bash calls mvim and passes "mvim" as $0 and everything following bash as $1, $2, and so on...

Make Vimperator's "Y"ank behave like Edit-Copy

Because I'm a vim user, it's natural for me to use vimperator on top of Firefox.

Today I posted a tip on vimperator.org that is derived from a suggestion someone else made on the vimperator mailing list. I'm reposting that tip here.

Vimperator has no choice but to copy selected text using the functions provided to JavaScript by Firefox. Unfortunately, these functions sometimes do not provide the expected behavior for certain types of lists, PRE environments, etc.

To make sure that "Y"anking results in the same thing as using Edit->Copy, add the following to your .vimperatorrc:

js <<EOF
mappings.addUserMap([modes.NORMAL], ["Y"], 
    "Yank the currently selected text",
    function () {
        buffer.getCurrentWord();
        events.feedkeys("<C-v>" + 
          (/^Mac/.test(navigator.platform) ? 
            "<M-c>" 
            : "<C-c>"), true);
        setTimeout( function () {
          liberator.echo("Yanked " 
                         + util.readFromClipboard(), 
                         commandline.FORCE_SINGLELINE);
        }, 20 );
    });
EOF

The code should work well on all platforms (even the Mac, with its "M" key). If it isn't working perfect for you, increase that final "20" until the behavior works how you'd like it.

Viewing man pages and text files in Skim

As discussed on the Skim wiki, it is possible to view man pages (and more) nicely formatted as a PDF in Skim.

If you use bash, try adding these lines to your .bashrc:

function skimcat () { cat $* | enscript -p - | open -f -a Skim; }
function manp () { man -t $* | open -f -a Skim; }

Alternatively, if you use tcsh, try adding these lines to your .cshrc:

alias skimcat="cat \!* | enscript -p - | open -f -a Skim"
alias manp="man -t \!* | open -f -a Skim"

Then you'll be able to do skimcat to cat files to Skim, and you'll be able to use manp to view man pages formatted in Skim.

NOTE: You can actually pipe anything that is PostScript (or PDF) formatted to Skim (via the open command shown above).

Tedly Quick Searches

If you're not familiar with keywords and quick searches in Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Camino, you should check out "Fifteen Firefox Quick Searches" and "Firefox and the art of keyword bookmarking." Mozilla quick searches and keywords shave hours off each of my weeks (if not days).

I've posted my quick searches, and you can save them and import them into your own Mozilla bookmarks. For instructions on how to do this, see the quick searches post from above. My quick search bookmarks are basically an improvement on the bookmarks given in that post. I've fixed some annoying things about her selections, and I've added a few more.

If you do use my bookmarks, be sure to modify the local one and change the zipcode from 43210 to your zipcode.

Google School: Synonyms and Info

From Google School:

Google School: Rank Wikipedia articles in your results

If you want to get general background on something with Google, append the word "info" or "information" to your search term.

If your words appear in the title of a Wikipedia page, Google will list that article at the top of your results, for a convenient way to search both Google and the Wikipedia at once. --Gina Trapani

Also, from Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day, by Gina Trapani:

Synonyms (Chapter 9, p. 223)

Search for synonyms using the tilde (~) next to keywords. This comes in handy when you are searching for a concept rather than for a specific word or sequence. For example:

• ~nutrition ~information muffins returns exact matches as well as matches on Muffins Food Facts and Muffins Vitamin Information.
• ~car turns up information on trucks and vehicles.
• A search for ~pen yields pencils, graphite, and sketch.

Top 10 Computing Energy Savers

Top 10 Computing Energy Savers

Reducing the amount of energy your hungry computers eat up every day won't only save you money on electricity bills, it will reduce your carbon footprint. If you haven't thought about how much electricity your gadgets use up every day, now's the time. Turns out just a few changes in habits and system settings can save you money AND the environment. After the jump, have 10 ways to reduce your energy consumption and compute greener.

The site lists 10 tips for reducing the amount of energy your computer (and other devices) waste. Each tip has a link giving more information (e.g., what a "smart power switch" is).

Using Skim with MATLAB

I found a hint for using TeXShop as a MATLAB previewer on OS X, primarily because plots look better in PDF and TeXShop auto-updates files from disk. This was a tip from back in 2005. Since then, MATLAB's OS X plotting has gotten a lot better. Additionally, Skim has been invented.

Because of the advances in MATLAB, this may not be a useful hint anymore, but give this a try sometime:

figure(1);
set(gcf, 'Visible', 'off');
plot(x, y);
print(gcf, '-dpdf', 'figure1.pdf');
system('open -a Skim figure1.pdf');

Now, I believe there's a way to do this without having to plot first. That is, I think there's a way to plot to PDF without first generating that figure.

What's cool about this is that any future updates of the PDF will cause Skim to update automatically. Therefore, Skim becomes your plot viewer. That might be nice, right?

OptOutPrescreen.com - stop getting credit card offers!

This was suggested on NPR's Day to Day today to opt out of getting credit card and insurance offers in an effort to save money while also saving paper.

Go to OptOutPrescreen.com to do this. They'll submit your request to the credit bureaus, and eventually that'll stop creditors and insurers from sending you CRAP.

A LaTeX Bulletin Board

Every once in a while I get an urge to create a topic blog. Those blogs receive the most traffic and probably do the most practical good in the world, right? I have trouble coming up with a topic though... If I had to chose one, I would probably make a LaTeX blog. Certainly I don't have the background in TeX to be a TeXpert, but I do pretty well among my peers with my LaTeX.

Well, I'm not ready for that yet. However, I just found a LaTeX bulletin board that I think might be more useful than comp.text.tex (a USENET newsgroup) for the young LaTeX user.

http://www.latex-community.org/

I don't know how long that's been around. Give it a look if you need some LaTeX help. Search through the archives for some useful tips and solutions.