Recently ran into an issue where an Acer VX 15 laptop would occasionally shut down. And I don't mean like going through the Windows shutdown process, I mean the laptop would be on one second then immediately off the next. This issue occurred while running on battery and never happened while plugged into the AC adapter.

The only official troubleshooting information I could find were these instructions for resetting the battery. Following these instructions had …

Often I find myself writing Python scripts to iterate over the files in a directory for fun and profit. This is so common that I wrote a simple helper function in Auxly called walkfiles(). The performance of walkfiles() always felt kinda sluggish, especially when compared to blazing fast utilities like fd. Only recently did I learn about os.scandir() in the Python standard library which is essentially a more performant os.listdir(). After some benchmarks …

As mentioned in previous posts, I really like fzf. If you are a Windows user, here's how you can use AutoHotKey and Launchy to search files and folders with fzf directly from File Explorer. The absolute path of the result file/folder will be copied to the system clipboard so it can be pasted into any application.

This AutoHotKey script will open an fzf file/folder search starting at the current File Explorer path:

;; This …

A super useful software utility is this week's pick.

Software:

• Fzf - Been using this utility a lot recently and it is a game changer for working in command-line terminals. I frequently use it for searching files/folders and searching through utility help output (e.g. rg --help | fzf). It's great for searching files too, especially in cases where the immediate feedback is helpful (as opposed to using something like grep).

It's been a while! Hope everyone had a great holiday season and New Year!

Misc:

• Taking Time Off - Sometimes you just need to take some time off. Rest, relax, and enjoy life!
• Jump Rope - When you're done taking some time off, why not try some exercise? Cardio has been the bane of my exercise world forever but I'm hoping to change that this year. After a few weeks of jumping rope everyday, I'm seeing results …

Haven't had a video game pick in a while. Let's change that :-)

Games:

• Hollow Knight - Still playing through this game but really enjoying it. This game has a beautiful art style and solid Metroidvania gameplay. Definitely worth a try for any fans of the genre.

Single pick for this week.

Shows:

• The Haunting Of Hill House - Recently binged through this show with my wife and we absolutely loved it! The story is engaging and well paced. There is an impressive amount of detail and clever moments in this show and it really feels like a labor of love.

Recently replaced the battery in my Nexus 6P smartphone. The process is kind of a pain and there is a lot of great info out there if you plan to try this on your own. Here are a few quick tips from my experience:

• The most difficult part for me was removing the glass piece that is glued over the camera. Several videos I watched recommended using an X-Acto knife but I ended up breaking …