On Comments

You would probably think that after writing this blog for so many years and dealing with all manner of comment I would be immune to it, but comment snark probably bugs be more now than it ever has. There's something deeply infuriating about someone coming onto my little corner of the Internet and behaving rudely. It's completely uncalled for and lowers the level of discourse for everyone.

Generally speaking, though, commenters here are exceptionally well behaved, and I'm quite proud of the quality of my readership. Even some of my snarkiest commenters have turned out to be really nice guys in the end who are just having a bad day. Guys, I totally get the bad day thing.

But comment snark is my kryptonite!

For whatever reasons, comment snark — and by that I mean condescension, rudeness, or any general lack of graciousness — really gets to me. It ruins my day. Almost as much as good comments can make my day. So, rather than stewing about it every time, I've decided to simply institute a comment policy.

We SysAdmins love ourselves some policy, so I've added a whole page for them called "Policy," and it's here you can find my comment policies. The basic rules are simple, though: keep it polite and civil; snark will be dealt with by me, case-by-case, in whatever manner I see fit. And if you're asking for help, be clear and thorough regarding your issue and what action you'd like taken.

Thanks to everyone who comes here to read and comment on this site. Your readership is hugely appreciated.

On Vacation

Beginning Tuesday (Hey! That's today!) I'll be on vacation for the week. But don't worry! You'll still get your regular, US Recommended Daily (well, not quite daily) Allowance of systemsy goodness while I'm gone. How, you say? Well, through the magic of scheduling, of course.

Never trust a blog engine that doesn't allow you to schedule posts in advance, I always say. And since Wordpress certainly has such a feature, I've queued up a delightful peppering of articles to amuse, inform and entertain you throughout the week.

Feel free to comment (I know how you love to comment), but bear in mind, I won't be responding until after I return. So expect delays.

Okay! Off I go!

Whee!

Allow Me to (Re)Introduce Myself

My name is Systems Boy. Hi there.

We have a new look today. It's based on a WordPress theme called Blue by Sean McPherson of Brambling Design. I've taken some liberties with Blue, enlarging some of the fonts, changing some colors and widening the post area. But the basic look remains the same: clean, simple, but still kinda fun. I really like it.

I've foregone the traditional Systems Boy logo this time out. I love it, but it can be a pain to deal with and many themes don't easily allow for banner images. Plus, I like the idea of preserving the simplicity of the Blue theme and sticking to designing mainly with text.

As so often seems to happen (by which I mean twice), today's new look coincides loosely with the anniversary of the blog, which is May 29th. This year TASB turns four. Wow. Four years. I never thought I'd be doing this for so long. And still liking it no less.

Today's makeover was also at least partly inspired by fellow systems blogger Jay Young, with whom I share very similar tastes in themes. Seems every time I go to use one he's already grabbed it, forcing me to go my own way.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who stops by. Your visits are always appreciated.

Enjoy the new look.

Scripts Part 8: Toggle Hidden Files

Yes, you read that right. It's time for another entry in the Script Sharing category. It's been a damn long time since I've posted anything here, but I've actually been doing a lot of scripting, and I just realized that I had some potentially useful stuff lying around. So hopefully I'll be able to post some new stuff to this section once and a while.

Also, in reviving the Script Sharing series, I realized that all the old scripts were missing. Seems when I switched ISPs a while back, I forgot to move over the archive. Well, never fear, they're all back now.

Today's script is actually an Automator workflow for the Finder. (What sort of workflow designer would I be if I didn't create the odd Automator workflow every now and again?) This workflow will turn hidden files on and off in the Finder. To enable it, simply unzip the below-linked download and place the resultant file in your Workflows folder (~/Library/Workflows/Applications/Finder).

To access it, right-click (or control-click) anywhere in the Finder and navigate to More->Automator in the contextual menu. Select "Toggle-HiddenFiles" and your Finder will restart. When it comes back up, you'll notice that hidden files are no longer hidden. To reverse the effect, simply repeat the process. Rerunning the script will re-hide invisible files.

So, here's the script:

Toggle Hidden Files Workflow

Enjoy!

Subscribers

Lately I've been getting a lot of users registering to the site, but fewer and fewer comments. So I've become suspicious of these new user registrations as the only advantage to registering is that commenting becomes ever so slightly easier. That and the fact that a lot of the names just sound so spammy. So I've turned off the ability to register as a user of this site. Having the feature enabled has just been generating a lot of unwanted and unnecessary email for me, and is really not advantageous to anyone else, including spammers. In addition, I've pretty much disabled comment moderation, thus bringing the advantages to registering as a Subscriber down to a firm zero. My spam filter seems to be handling the spam plenty well, and the three or four people who ever leave comments here are very well behaved, so I don't anticipate any problems.

If, for some reason, I'm missing something about the user registration feature, and people are registering — or would like to register — for legitimate reasons, please let me know and I'll re-enable the feature.