New Toys

SwissTool™ Spirit Plus Ratchet

I’ve been on vacation in Bar Harbor, Maine and have enlarged my portable toy collection somewhat. I usually carry a knife with me at all times, plus I usually have a multi-tool at hand someplace nearby (bag, backpack, etc.)

I used to carry around a Leatherman (AKA the Pocket Survival Tool) but I eventually stopped. One reason is because it would become too easy or too hard to open and shut. The version I have (not all do) has knobs for changing the tightness but I could never get it to be the right firmness for opening. I wanted it hard enough to open that it doesn’t flop open randomly if I put it down or drop it in a pocket but easy enough to open that I don’t have drop everything and use both hands to open or shut it. Or worse, needing so much force to open and shut that it became a hazard.

In addition, it had no locks for the blades. I scared myself silly a bunch of times trying to use the knife and it would lurch half shut. Fortunately, the other half of the handle prevented it from shutting completely and I didn’t have anything valuable in the way. The Leatherman was an attractive idea, but a lousy product. I’ve long since stopped carrying it.
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Jenkins

Jenkin's Logo

We have recently started using Jenkins at work and it is awesome.

Jenkins describes itself as a continuous integration software, but it really is more. You can use Jenkins to build, test, and do cron jobs, etc. It’s very powerful and really useful.

Not only is very useful, it is being developed and improved quickly. Bugs get fixed rapidly by a very motivated team of developers. Combined with its extensive list of plugins, Jenkins becomes amazingly useful in a variety of situations.

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Git Tip: empty branch

Got Git?

Ever wanted to make an empty branch (with no history in it) in git? It’s not hard…

Why would you want to do this? Well, for example, I have a new project in github. I’m trying to implement it in several ways, jRuby, Java, Qt, etc. Having separate branches is really handy.

Another reason you might want to do this is for upstream tracking. I used this to cold-start a branch where I commit all the changes of an upstream project and then merge them into my customized branch. Git makes tracking an upstream project much easier.

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