Like all of you, I love vim, but occasionally want more out of it, or for it not to do something. Sometimes these are features that exist on one linux machine I use and I immediately know I must have it on mine. Sometimes something just gets too annoying. Here are useful things I've found:

Today I found out about the command make -j. You might be thinking: well yeah, if you specify make -j2 make will use two threads, and make -j4 will use four, what's interesting about that? That's the awesome part - you don't have to specify a paramater! The entire command is make -j with no parameter passed to j. In this instance, make simply uses all available threads!

A word of caution: This worked fine on my work machine. However, when it was tested on a home server-style machine (a headless box used for dev work) running an Ivy Bridge 3770K, with 16GB memory, the entire system locked up hard enough to require a hard reboot. This may be a one-time issue, but run this with care.

In C/++, there exists a keyword 'register', which specifies that the variable should be kept in a CPU register if possible.

The compiler will optimize certain variables to sit in the register and the compiler can refuse to put a specified variable into the register if there is not enough room, but it can also be specified manually.

I don't think anyone has used this keyword in years, and for good reason, but it's there.

At the end of June, I drove for just over three thousand miles, starting from Hamden, CT and ending on San Jose, CA. I packed up all my stuff from my apartment in Boston into the trunk of my car, spent a night at my parents' house, and took off.

I took CT34 to I-84 to I-80 about 1/3 of the way into PA, which I followed until just before the bay area, at which point I switched to 680. I went through Massachusetts first, then Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, then finally California. I just skirted around the edge of Colorado and came very close to Michigan, but never went to either of those states.

I slept in Macedonia, Ohio; Clive, Iowa; Rock Springs, Wyoming, and then reached my destination in San Jose.

I ate at a Denny's in Gary, Indiana (don't do that) and a little diner named Harold's Koffee House in Omaha, Nebraska. I got a beer at Twin Peaks, Clive; I clearly thought "twin peaks" referred to mountains. It does not. I am not a clever man. I was pleasantly surprised to find that despite the place, their beer is cheap and served in large mugs I grabbed Subway near Salt Lake City. I ate a large bag of chips and a pastry and drank a 12-pack of water and four cokes and that was enough.

Interesting things I'll remember, in no particular order: