Matt Jones Tech
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  • Intro to Ranger

    What is Ranger?

    Ranger is an open source Github project that aims to streamline and simplify directory navigation on any computer. If you’re relatively new to the terminal or only use it rarely, this may not be a big deal for you. However, if you use the terminal on a regular or even daily basis, this tool may be invaluable. Unlike a typical GUI layout found on Windows or Linux machines, Ranger gives you 3 columns of folders at once. This allows you to see one directory up, your current working directory, and one directory down.

    Why is this Awesome?

    If you’ve used Apple’s Finder, you’ll know there’s a file view called “Column View” that allows you to navigate in and out of folders with speed, just using the arrow keys. Ranger essentially brings this speed to every platform, inside the terminal.

    Column view in Apple’s Finder window

    If You’re New to Terminal

    If you’re like me and just starting to use the terminal for the first time, there’s a good chance you know the commands “cd” and “ls” (on linux or mac) or “dir” for Windows. Those commands absolutely do work, and you can still use them if you like. However, it’s also nice to know of some nice alternatives! So instead of typing out long directory paths and risking typos, now you can just run “ranger”. In addition to fast file navigation, you can also get ASCII previews of image files, text previews of documents, and even look inside zipped files!

    Just Scratching The Surface

    Finally, this article is meant to be a very shallow, surface-level introduction to what Ranger is and what it does in a very general sense. Be sure to check out the full documentation to discover the VAST amount of control you can get out of Ranger. That’s all I’ve got for now. Thanks for reading!

    matt

    June 11, 2019
    General Computing, Linux, Web Development
    computer, file navigation, open source, organiztion, ranger, terminal

  • Earning BAT on Brave’s Ad Network

    What’s a BAT? What’s Brave? How does all this work?

    Brave is an internet browser built off Google’s Chrome browser. So what makes it different? Brave’s mission is to solve the ever-growing problem of ads that track you and follow you around wherever you go. Brave’s goal is to pay its users every time they view an ad. Seriously? Yes, seriously. They also want to give users the opportunity to pay their favorite internet publishers directly in exchange for an ad-free experience online. It comes with a built-in ad blocker as well as a built-in wallet to keep all your loot when you browse. Why not try out Brave for yourself?

    What’s BAT?

    BAT stands for Basic Attention Token. It’s a cryptocurrency used to pay Brave’s users and Brave’s publishers. When you first download Brave, it’ll ask you if you want to create a wallet. As a promotional effort aimed at early adopters, for a limited time Brave would fill your wallet with as much as 25 BAT (about $12 at the time of this writing)! You may not get a wallet full of BAT now, but as a normal user, Brave keeps track of how many HTTPS upgrades, ads and trackers blocked. Every now and again you’ll see an ad while using Brave, but odds are they are ads that verified on Brave’s network. In other words, these are ads that clients pay the users (through Brave) to see. So check your wallet every now and again!

    How Do I earn BAT?

    As previously mentioned, BAT can be earned simply by viewing ads on Brave’s network. However there’s even more opportunity as a verified Brave publisher. As a content creator working with Brave, you can create your stuff like normal (YouTube videos, Twitch streams, blogs, etc), but if another Brave user stumbles across your content, Brave allows those users to pay you directly! Users can make one-time tips to your favorite publishers, or schedule monthly contributions at any amount you like.

    As a user, you feed your wallet using an external crypto account using BTC, ETH, LTC, or BAT. As a publisher, your earned BAT tokens end up in an account managed by Uphold. If you don’t have an account with Uphold, you will be required to create one when signing up for the Brave publisher rewards program. Once the coins are in your Uphold account, you can do with them whatever you like. Either spend them, invest them, or put them into your own Brave wallet.

    matt

    May 14, 2019
    General Computing, Lifestyle, Web Development
    ad block, ad-blocking, advertising, BAT, brave, browser, cryptocurrency, web

  • What is HTML?

    What is HTML? Hypertext Markup Language is the standard way to format text for use on web pages. So if you ever find yourself needing to edit a webpage or create one from scratch, this is the most basic way to display anything on a page.

    Basic Structure

    HTML is broke up into several different elements, noted by tags. You can write anything you want on your web page, but these tags are at the core of HTML and are used to give your text its structure. Tags are noted with angle brackets <> and wrap around the text that it affects. It should be noted that the tags need to go in a specific order, like so:

    <!DOCTYPE html>
    <html>
         <head>
              <title>Page Title</title>
         </head>
         <body>
              <h1>Heading</h1>
              <p>Paragraph text.</p>
         </body>
    </html>

    Let’s break that down. The first tag is <!DOCTYPE html> and that’s just a one-time declaration to help the computer understand that it’s about to read an HTML document. That way, it knows what to expect. You don’t need to close this tag.

    Next, it’s the <html> tag. Everything, the whole page, is contained inside this tag.

    The <head> tag is where you keep file path references associated files, like CSS files for styling, Javascript files for functions, and other page metadata like titles. The <head> tag closes with a forward slash and closes out all the page metadata before the <body> tag begins.

    Finally, the <body> tag surrounds the main content of your page. Inside this tag, you’ll find lots of tags like <p> (paragraph text), <h1> (largest header text) through <h6> (smallest header text), <ul> (unordered list AKA bullet points), <ol> (ordered list AKA numbered), <a> (anchor tag, used for making clickable links) and <form> for forms. There are several more, but those are some of the most common tags you’ll find.

    Why Tags?

    These tags server two main purposes. The first and primary purpose is to tell your web browser how to interpret all the text coming from a web page. Is it a title? A paragraph? A list? Table? This provides the overall structure of the page. HTML is often referred to as the “skeleton” of the web page. It’s functional, but not necessarily the most beautiful thing out there.

    Additionally, tags provide a great element that CSS files can use to apply style. So instead of applying a style to ALL text in an HTML document, CSS can select just the headings (<h1> tags) and apply styles to just the text inside those element tags.

    That’s it for the basics! There are tons of free online courses and videos out on the web to help help get to grips with the basics of web design and development. In this day and age with so much of our lives existing on the internet, it definitely doesn’t hurt to know some of the basics of how the web works.

    matt

    March 5, 2019
    General Computing, Linux, Web Design, Web Development
    computing, internet, linux, portfolio, web design, web development, website, wordpress
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Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 1 Thess 5:21