Category: Article

Correctly Setting the VMWare Provider for Vagrant on Windows

When you purchase the VMWare provider for Vagrant on Windows you learn that the provider name is vmware_desktop. The only time that you will ever use this name is when you install the provider and the license. If you use that provider name anywhere else you will get message

The provider ‘vmware_desktop’ could not be found, but was requested to back the machine ‘default’. Please use a provider that exists.

The correct provider name is vmware_workstation.
You might mix up the two names when specify a provider when you are bringing a box up. I did it. He did it. It is easy to do, especially if you scan a box page to find the provider name. The name there is for the name to install the license, not to start up a box.
This “issue” has been around for over a year and wastes about an hour of your time if you are facing it on Windows.

How to Handle and Large Slow Org Files

When some of us open large Org mode files, Emacs becomes nearly unresponsive, and nearly unusable. My stock advice has always been to call #+STARTUP: showeverything or do a binary search more or less to figure out which package is stomping Emacs. In this post, though, Puneeth explains that the issue may go away entirely for some of us.

First Hatha at YogaOne @yogaonemke Fox Point Report

On Sunday I attended the “Vinyasa Flow L1-2” class. Catherine taught it in Fox Point. This was my first class in a long, long time. Too long. It was so great to get back.

Catherine is a delightful teacher and she taught a delightful class. Let me elaborate.

I haven’t done hatha for a long, long time. Too long. I really haven’t done much of anything physical for a long time, either. That is the problem. No, that is the opportunity. Everything is either an opportunity, or not worth pondering.

I went to class without a clue about how I was going to get through 60 minutes of hatha. I mean, I knew that I couldn’t. I banked on being able to just stop and rest. I did, and that was fine.

I needed help overcoming the inertia of doing nothing, and this was my chance, so with a gentle nudge from my good friend to help me along, I went, even though people would probably figure out pretty quickly that I wasn’t attending class as my warm up for my Cirque du Soleil interview later that morning.

Nobody chased me out of the studio, it was no big deal. I didn’t run away from the whole thing, either. I did hatha for 20 minutes, rested for 20, and did the final 20, and that was no big deal. The last 20 was a lot easier floor stuff. The world didn’t end. Instead, the world expanded.

Could somebody going to yoga be embarrassed about being clueless? Yes. Could they be insecure about the whole thing? Yes. Might they wonder why the heck they are there when, everyone else there seems to be an expert already? Yes. I didn’t think any of it, though.

My mind didn’t even bother to start telling me those stories. Catherine created an environment where the minds of her students could be illuminated by the luminosity of that which is gentle and kind, so that they could just do their practice. There is work to be done, and you have to be the one to do it, but when you have a kind and masterful teacher, it is a delightful experience because you can utilize your energy for your own good, instead of your own detriment with doubt and fear. Catherine was super.

The whole thing was really, really great. I’m going to the beginner classes next, with the goal of working on strength and flexibility. Part of me wonders of some beginner-yoga motorcycle-riders classes will spontaneously be scheduled as Spring nears.

CB750F: Day 36: Forward Progress

I couldn’t find a throttle plate rod for the carburetor on ebay. I couldn’t even find the part on the microfiche. A kind soul sent me the link for that part though, used, on ebay. The search term is “carb linkage assembly”. Another kind soul explained that some of the carburetors on the ’79 CB750F were recalled and maybe half the bikes got the work done. He went on to explain that the carburetors were very different between ’79 and ’80-’83, and even more, that the carburetors were very different between the supersport and the classic. Great to know; great to know. Those should be here soon. The other option presented was to weld some steel in there and tap out a new thread. That may still happen, we’ll see.
The next project is to rebuild the front suspension.
Addendum: 2015-02-09
Here is the Motamec Tools Thread Insert Nut & Stud Rivet Gun Riveting Rivut Blind Riveter that was suggested on Facebook. Very cool.

Building Web Apps & Services with Entity Framework and Web API

Building Web Apps & Services with Entity Framework and Web API.
If you already know JavaScript, C#, an ORM, and IoC, and all of the other stuff for dealing with, then this is a fast-track to getting on-board with them on the MS platform. Yea, it is fast, but you can get the details elsewhere. This is the place just to see it happen. So many value-adds are referenced in the video. Don’t want to talk it up to much, but it is just very valuable. The major failing here is that the examples are no longer correct though, so you have to do research just to make sense of what is happening and how to implement it.

Windows Azure: The Big Picture

Windows Azure: The Big Picture.
You won’t view anything in this video and say “Oh my goodness I never imagined you could do that with a computer”. What will happen though is that now you will know how Azure lets you do that with a computer, all of their offerings from virtualization to networking to message queues covered. That is great to know. I chose this video specifically because it is the shortest. Further digging is required.

C# Tips and Traps

C# Tips and Traps.
Each session contains 5-10 pieces of information. The topics are varied and unrelated. That is OK. Basically, everything that you learn here, you ought to know. They are things that will, were you to not know these things, would easily identify you as not being a real .NET developer. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t learn anything here that will radically change your contribution. Rather, it is just little things, that, if you don’t know them, you will look really stupid, not dumb, just stupid. You probably won’t even remember them either, that is, until you run into that situation. At that point, you will recall “Hey I saw that video…” and that is where it pays off. Even just stuff like partial classes and functions, I haven’t thought about that for a long time, and hey, thanks for the reminder. Another nice one is seeing how easy it is to implement debugger visualizations with annotations. Knew you could, but didn’t realize it was that easy. So if you have 2-3 hours, then watch it, at 2X.