MySQL: unicode in console by default

Recently I became tired of typing set names utf8 at the beginning of each MySQL console session. Google search quickly suggested a solution: just add

[mysql]
default-character-set=utf8

to the ~/.my.cnf file.

Mercurial: finally as usable as git

I have always preferred Git to Mercurial and the main reason was Git having lightweight local branches. My typical work scenario with Git is: create a branch, code a task, merge the branch into the “master” branch. If anything happens along the way (urgent issue, for instance) – I can easily switch to a new [...]

VIM: ack instead of grep

I much prefer ack to the standard grep – it’s way better. If you are curious why – just open the ack page.
Replacing grep with ack in VIM is pretty easy: set grepprg=ack. But there’s a catch – ack does not output columns for search results, making search result navigation a nightmare – on each [...]