Tales of Wrangling Geodata

I just want to set it down and pick it back up when I'm ready

2026-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Old Man Yells at Cloud

I’m old. So old that I grew up reading physical books made of paper and glue. I would read for as long as I could, mark my place and set it down. I knew I could pick it back up in 5 minutes, 5 days, or next month and carry on from where I left off. I was in charge of what I read, and when I read it. I played video games, and if I hit pause to scratch my nose, go to the bathroom, or take out the trash, I knew that my paused game would sit patiently waiting for my return, as long as power was supplied. When I got email, I could leave my computer at any time and return to my outgoing message in mid composition. Books, video games, even old-timey computer software would let me dictate the timing of events. These conduits of information, entertainment, and communication where subject to my whim. I was in control.

Now I source information, entertainment, and communication from social media applications on my amazing do anything, go anywhere phone. It’s a wonder of modern technology. I love its power and flexibility. However I am not in control all of the time. email still behaves, but only a few other old-timers like me use it. I use Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook because that is where the people I want to communicate with are found. But I fucking hate it. In the middle of reading or watching something of particular interest, life will intrude. I’ll need to set aside my phone and deal with work or family demands. I’ll set down what I was interested in and go about more pressing chores. When I return though, it will be gone. The post I was reading or the video I was watching, will be lost in a chaotic mess of things that a social media corporate overlord has determined will be most profitable for me to “consume”. Just as a farmer decides what refuse should populate the slop he feeds his hogs and doesn’t consider their preference, neither does Reddit consider mine.

I want to pick my book back up and continue where I left off. I know how to go find what I had been reading on Reddit or watching on Facebook, but I resent the time it takes me to regain my place. I would be angry with a prankster who removed my bookmarks. I’m enraged that my agenda doesn’t merit consideration. I am now doubly thwarted from returning to my enjoyable activity and often I’ll be successfully distracted and become the reluctant victim of the manipulative application. I don’t have the discipline to just give up my bad habit, but I don’t think this is right. I’ve vented my spleen and I feel better.

Now you kids get off my lawn.

This text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License

This post was originally published in Geminispace, an alternative to the modern web. You can learn more about it at Gemini Quickstart. You can read about my decision to use Gemini protocol in Paul’s Introduction to Geminispace. If you are already using a Gemini browser you can view my blog content at gemini://sdf.org/paulmccombs/ .

Using Foot Notes with Links in Gemini Files

2026-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

Because of the enforced simplicity of the Gemini protocol syntax,* I have found I want to use foot notes (or more pedantically typographical notes) to indicated where in my text the links I’ve provided below are most contextually relevant. This has been particularly useful when mirroring Wikipedia content in my Gemini capsule.

When browsing my files using Amfora,† I found it very convenient and sensible to use the numbers that precede each of the links in a file as the cue embedded in the text. However when I began using Lagrange‡ on my phone, I faced a problem. The presentation of the Gemini file is determined by the client, and Lagrange doesn’t display numbers in front of each link.

So I decided I would use symbols found in the following set for that purpose. This is demonstrated in my mirrored excerpt of the Wikipedia article on Gosling Emacs.§ The first six symbols are documented as traditional in the Wikipedia article on typographic notes.‖ The remainder have more ad hoc use patterns.

Find “* Project Gemini FAQ” at gemini://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq.gmi

* Project Gemini FAQ

† Amfora

Find “‡ Lagrange” at gemini://skyjake.fi/lagrange/

‡ Lagrange

§ Gosling Emacs - Distribution: find at: gemini://sdf.org/paulmccombs/gemlog/../mirror/gosling-crisis.gmi

‖ Wikipedia article: Note, typography

Traditional Symbols                Extended Symbols          
==========================	   ==========================
Asterisk      	     	 *	   Number sign/Octothorpe   #
Dagger			 †	   Greek letter delta       Δ
Double dagger		 ‡	   Diamond-shaped lozenge   ◊
Section mark		 §	   Downward arrow           ↓
Parallel lines		 ‖	   Manicule                 ☞
Pilcrow	 		 ¶	   Apple command key symbol ⌘
				   ISO symbol for control   ⎈

Emacs Will Survive

2026-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

This is a response I made to a Reddit post that I’ve expanded and embellished. I’m sharing it here for future reference.

The poster appeared to be questioning the investment of the considerable time required to master Emacs, and was concerned that Emacs would not persist with the particular features that mattered to them. I have experienced bitter disappointment as a user of software whose time was cut short. Software that was taken in a direction that just didn’t work for me and was stripped of many useful features*. So, I understand how this question can be a concern, especially to someone who has been burned.

But, from my perspective, Emacs is as immune to this problem as any piece of software can ever be. Its development is hosted and controlled by the GNU project[1], an organization founded on and dedicated to free software. It has gone through a copyright crisis[2] and any code of questionable provenance has been replaced with clean code. All subsequent contributions are dedicated[4] to the Free Software Foundation[5]. Its code is secured for the ages, with countless copies of the code in the hands of fans, engineers and zealots. Any hostile force that assumes control of Emacs development will be answered with a fork to preserve the desired functionality. Among Emacs’ users are the most stubborn and quixotic software developers in the world with neurodivergent thinking that will brook no compromise. Spending time with Emacs users it seems that there is no feature too small to fail having its own community of rabid adherent’s. While I don’t have the skill to fork Emacs if it goes astray or gets hijacked, some of the users do, and they have will to follow through.

At fifty years old and counting[6], if Emacs can’t survive intact there is no hope in the world. As they say, hope springs eternal, and In my dreams our grandchildren will be using Emacs.

Microsoft OneNote for Mac, circa 2018

GNU Project Philosophy

Find “Gosling Emacs” at gemini://gemi.dev/cgi-bin/wp.cgi/view?Gosling+Emacs

Gosling Emacs

GNU Emacs Copyright Assignment

The Free Software Foundation

Emacs Timeline

Original Reddit post that instigated this post

I see often that one should use the gui instead of using emacs in terminal. My use case relies on using it in the terminal - and everything seems to work very well. Anyone knows if using emacs via terminal will be abandoned at any point or will the terminal front end always be supported?

Reddit: r/emacs: emacs terminal

Tech Tip: When Pasting UTF-8 into Terminal Emacs Doesn't Work

2026-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

I ran into an issue pasting text from a Reddit Comment that I had originally written on my iPhone in the Reddit iOS app to Emacs running in terminal on NetBSD on the SDF.org cluster. Instead of the text pasting in, it gave an error: “Wrong type argument: char-or-string-p, 134217826”.

It turned out that my iPhone had put fancy apostrophes in the Reddit comment. I didn’t have the same problem with GUI Emacs on MacOS on my personal computer. At least the problem didn’t take the same form. The text would paste in, and flag the fancy apostrophes as not conforming to the default ASCII encoding. GUI Emacs then allowed me to replace the fancy apostrophes with basic ASCII ones and save the file with the default encoding. Unfortunately I needed a solution that worked on terminal Emacs while connecting to NetBSD with an SSH terminal app running on my iPhone. Terminal Emacs required the encoding of the pasted text to match the default encoding to allow any editing at all.

A fair bit of Google searching turned up an a detailed solution on julialang.org.

; Solution provided by Ivo Welch on discourse.juilialong.org Feb 2018
; "The answer are the following entries in the .emacs.d/init.el:

(setq locale-coding-system 'utf-8)
(set-terminal-coding-system 'utf-8)
(set-keyboard-coding-system 'utf-8)
(set-selection-coding-system 'utf-8)
(prefer-coding-system 'utf-8)

(define-coding-system-alias 'UTF-8 'utf-8)

Terminal Emacs woes

Thanks to Ivo Welch’s simple solution. My terminal Emacs on NetBSD default’s to UTF-8 encoding and I can paste text composed with an iOS app freely. Fortunately I’m generally typing Gemtext, so Unicode text will work fine for my purposed.

Updated 2026-06-07

Paul's Introduction to Geminispace

2026-05-30T00:00:00+00:00

Internet enshittification

In November 2022 Cory Doctorow first wrote about what he called the “enshittification” of Amazon. In January 2023 he provided the following definition:

… a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, holding each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

In recent years I’ve been feeling the pinch of being the product and not the customer. I was mystified by how Facebook makes money showing me videos that make no sense, tired of YouTube’s exploration of exactly how much advertising I can tolerate, and fed-up with Reddit changing the iOS app interface seemingly day to day. I began longing for a refuge. My dissatisfaction with Reddit was exacerbated by them locking away my tech support comments in their proprietary system, vulnerable to being disappeared at any time, and taking much of my authorship value.

Angered and dismayed I vowed to change my habits, but didn’t see my way forward.

How monopoly enshittified Amazon

TikTok’s enshittification

If you are not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product being sold.

Gemini sounds cool, but how can I publish?

Not long after Geminispace was formed out of the void, I knew I wanted to give it a try. Gemtext spoke to me with its plain text format and formatting left to the client software. It had everything that WWW meant to me in 1995, but thoughtfully protected from the kind of expansive commercialization that spawned enshittification. A heady dose of nostalgia for a middle-aged man like me.

But, I didn’t just want to read, I wanted to publish. I looked to see if I could publish on my web hosting provider NearlyFreeSpeech.net, but they were adamantly focused on the HTTP protocol. Their single minded focus is what attracted me in the first place. In my searching I saw some mentions that the SDF Public Access UNIX System let you publish Gemtext and it intrigued me.

The time was not yet ripe

So I checked SDF out. It was so cool. Because I had been slowly returning to my command-line computing roots it was so very appealing. SDF was free to try before you buy, so to speak and I played with it for a few days. But things didn’t quite click for me. I got mixed-up in a way I’m not now able to understand and I couldn’t get things to work.

Clued in by what I had been reading, I went to an Interim computer festival, where I thought I might be able to find someone to help me, but it was crowded and I chickened out. I did see lots of neat old computer stuff though and I met a favorite retro-computer YouTuber of mine Adrian Black. I didn’t harvest any fruit that day, but I did plant a seed.

Find “SDF Gemini” at gemini://sdf.org/

[ SDF Public Access UNIX System .. Est. 1987 ]

The Interim Computer Museum Events

Adrian’s Digital Basement

VCFPNW 2026, that sounds like fun

Geminispace remained on my mind. Enshittification continued apace. I still watched YouTube, still used Facebook to keep in touch with my mom, and still used Reddit as a venue to provide technical assistance. To be honest, I won’t ever quit the enshittified web cold turkey. But I felt bad about locking up material in Reddit’s proprietary dungeon, as meager as the content was.

Then Adrian Black said he was coming to Vintage Computer Festival Pacific North West in Tukwila Washington, practically in my own back yard. It would be like the Interim Computer Festival, but more so! I looked into the VCFPNW and saw they needed volunteers. I resolved to volunteer, then I would have to go, I couldn’t shy away from the meat-space socialization. This was a step in the right direction.

I volunteered. I didn’t chicken out. I went to set up on Friday afternoon and met some cool people, my kind of nerds who loved old computers and command-line culture. I was energized. These are the same people who run SDF, this is interesting.

Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest

Welcome to Super Dimension Fortress - This is how to publish!

I went home that night and signed up for SDF again. This time it made sense to me. Things worked for me. What was my problem before? I didn’t remember, and it didn’t matter. I read the FAQ and the help. I learned I could publish a capsule in Geminispace and was eager to begin.

Over the next two days I volunteered at VCFPNW 2026. I got energized and inspired by playing with hardware text terminals connected to a VAX. I played Tetris on a VT510 connected to an ancient Unix server. Then I went home and played with NetBSD ON SDF. I set up my Gemini space and started learning how to publish my first Gemini capsule, a quick rehash of my vanity website The Lazy M 8 Ranch.

Tetris on a VT510 (26k photo)

SDF Gemini site setup, getting started

Find “The Lazy M 8 Ranch” at gemini://sdf.org/paulmccombs/

The Lazy M 8 Ranch

Inspiration

As I continued reading about Geminispace, I found some inspiration in the Project Gemini FAQ. Solderpunk described how to publish material first in Gemtext then also in HTML, and provided alternative methods to do so.

§2.9 I’m kind of on the fence about publishing in Geminispace…

If you like the sound of Gemini in principle and you’re tempted to set up a capsule but you’re worried that it’ll be a waste of time because you’ll only have a tiny audience compared to publishing on the web, or you don’t want to feel like you are excluding people who don’t know about Gemini yet or don’t want to use it, don’t despair! You can bihost your content in Geminispace and the web simultaneously

…

Both “teams” can see your content the way they presumably like best, and you can feel good about doing your individual part to make the average website a tiny bit less awful than the status quo.

Find “Project Gemini FAQ - §2 Getting started in Geminispace” at gemini://geminiprotocol.net/docs/faq-section-2.gmi

Project Gemini FAQ - §2 Getting started in Geminispace

The Future

Now that I’ve started journaling here at SDF, I hope to implement this plan:

Write entries in Gemtext format first to publish here.
Programmatically convert entries to publish in HTML at my existing blog, Tales of Wrangling Geodata.
Convert my archive of old entries to Gemtext to publish here.
When I contribute a worthwhile comment on Reddit, publish it here in Gemtext as well.
Eventually create a publicly accessible archive of all my material in a central location.

Tales of Wrangling Geodata

This post was originally published in Geminispace, an alternative to the modern web. You can learn more about it at Gemini Quickstart. If you are already using a Gemini browser you can view my blog content at gemini://sdf.org/paulmccombs/ .

Return access to Puget Sound QGIS User Group blog archive

2025-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

The PSQGIS Meetup ran for a few years, bringing together users of the QGIS free geographic information systems software in the Puget Sound area to learn and share information. Meeting in person from 2015 until early 2020, and via Zoom until August 2023. Minutes were posted from the meetings until late 2019, along with a variety of resources, that while dated can still be helpful to some.

The Problem

The psqgis.org domain was released due to the ongoing cost and lack of traffic. Due to poor planning on my part, we lost web access to the content, which I would like to make available in as a static archive. The domain was subsequently picked up and redirected to a site apparently written in Italian. The source files to generate the site were still available on GitHub but we could no longer access it via the GitHub URL. The GitHub URL was redirected to the psqgis.org domain, which the was redirected by the new owner of the domain. To make things even more inconvenient, we also lost access to the GitHub account that owns the source repository as it has an email address in the psqgis.org domain, and logging in requires authentication via email to that address.

The Saving Grace

Fortunately my GitHub account still has permission to merge pull requests on psqgis.github.io and I was able to remove the redirect from GitHub. So, at least for now, the content can be accessed at psgis.github.io.

Memory Hole

2025-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

Original Post

Just a quick note, to say I want to stop giving the effort I spend helping people use QGIS to Reddit to sell to the AI overlords. So I’m purposing my heart to put anything that I feel is useful on my blog, Even if it is published on GitHub (owned by one of the AI overlords), at least I control the domain and keep a copy of the information on my machine.

Problem, can I remember how this blog works? It’s been almost 6 years since I posted anything. I guess if this is online, I remembered.

Things I’m getting hung up on:

What is the name of the software I’m using? Oh it’s Jekyll.
- Seems to be installed.
- Try:
  
  bundle exec jekyll serve
- Nope:
  
  Could not locate Gemfile or .bundle/ directory
- Google some stuff.
- Try:
  
  gem install jekyll bundler
- Hmm, that barfed with:
```
ERROR:  While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError)
You don't have write permissions for the /Library/Ruby/Gems/2.6.0 directory.
```
Well, maybe I don’t need to get it working locally, push it up to GitHub and see if anything happens.
- Oh shit, git is still configured to use my password, which GitHub stopped supporting years ago I think.
- Dink around look how something I’m using now is configured.
- Hmm, still problems. Can’t find repository.
- Oh yeah, for some stupid reason I have this repository under a different GitHub username.
Hey I think that works, but I still need to have a local preview working.

Update 07 Sep 2025

I have a new computer since I last used Jekyll and I was obliviously trying to use the system install of Ruby which is not recommended. Instead I’ve now installed Ruby 3.4.1 and chruby to manage my Ruby environment. In the environment I ended up with the command to serve a local version of my site is simply:

jekyll serve

Down the Emacs Rabbit Hole

2019-11-20T00:00:00+00:00

I update this post periodicaly in order to keep my Emacs configuration notes all together. The main content follows the change log.

Change Log:

November 20, 2019 Replace linum mode with display-line-numbers mode
May 17, 2019 Change the theme and the default font
April 7, 2019 Auto Complete Config fix; Add Saving Sessions and CSV-Mode to list of enhancements to explore
March 7, 2019 Added list of enhancements to explore, and added a note about Orgzly.
January 17, 2019 Figured out how to push-to-deploy.
December 1, 2018 Fixed formatting and updated with experience installing Emacs on a completely fresh 2018 Mac Mini with Mojave.
October 4, 2018 Initial blog posted.

I’m Late…

Over the years I have followed the holy war between vi and Emacs with some interest. As a university student and a GIS Analyst using various versions of Unix, I was handed vi and taught to use it. vi was omnipresent and could be learned to a passable level in a short amount of time. So, I was a vi user. Emacs was alluring though. The old joke, that Emacs is “a great operating system, lacking only a decent editor”¹, was both a draw to and a caution against it’s use. I tried it out a few times, but the requirement to learn so many commands with multiple meta keys was too much bother. I would give up after an hour or two, when I had to look up open a file for the eighth time.

At the same time, I was experimenting with various ways of keeping track of my huge backlog of “to do” items. Often hundred’s of items long. Tracking it in a Word document, tracking it in an excel spreadsheet. Using tabs in steno note book. When I finally gave up the fight and switched from paper notes to Microsoft OneNote, I started keeping the list in there. It did not work that well. Also, I have an ever growing fear that when Microsoft decides to move from OneNote to the next great thing, all my notes will be locked inside its proprietary file format. I’ve been burned with that problem in the past.

I became aware of Org Mode. It was built within the platform that is Emacs. It uses plain text files. It has fantastic miraculous sounding capabilities. It can be version controlled with git. I can store it in the cloud. I’ve become familiar with using Markdown and Jekyll to publish my blogs on GitHub and I love the plain text files being used for markup. So I took a serious stab at using Emacs for the first time.

My initial attempt is partially documented below in Aquamacs. While at the same time using it on my Windows 8.1 computer at work. That became frustrating because of the differences associated with Aquamacs. So I’ve set out to document fully how I got Emacs with Org Mode and all its other wonders in Homebrew.

Homebrew

Install Emacs
1. Install Homebrew
2. At terminal prompt type brew cask install emacs
3. For MacOS 10.14 (Mojave) it is necessary to allow Emacs to control your computer. It will prompt you when it tries to do something that is not yet permitted. This is a setting in the Security & Privacy panel in System Preferences under the Privacy tab with Accessibility selected.
Configure Interface - add items to init.el
1. Line Numbers:
  - create file ~/.emacs.d/init.el and add:
    (global-display-line-numbers-mode t)
  - Note: Previously I was using linum-mode, which predates display-line-numbers-mode. I was experiencing significant typing delay in an approximately 2,000 line org file on Windows 10 at work. I determined that turning off linum removed the delay. I have changed my MacOS configuration as well for consistency.
2. Recent Files
  - Add to init.el:
    (recentf-mode 1) (setq recentf-max-menu-items 25) (global-set-key "\C-x\ \C-r" 'recentf-open-files)
3. Visual Line Mode - wraps lines on word breaks
  - Add to init.el: (global-visual-line-mode t)
4. Turn on Parenthesis Matching
  - Add (show-paren-mode 1) to init.el
5. Configure MELPA repository for packages
  - Add to init.el
    (require 'package) (add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/")) (package-initialize)
Markdown Mode for Emacs
1. Install package.
  - M-x package-install [RET] markdown-mode [RET]
2. Pandoc
  - At Terminal Prompt type brew install Pandoc
3. Add to init.el inside the (custom-set-variables section before the final ):
  - '(markdown-command "/usr/local/bin/pandoc")
Org Mode
1. Add to init.el:
```
(require 'org)
(define-key global-map "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)
(define-key global-map "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)
(setq org-log-done 'time)
```
2. For each .org file you want to participate in the Agenda open the file and issue command C-c [
3. Create a Custom Agenda Command
  - NOTE you can use: M-x customize-variable [RET] org-agenda-custom-commands
  - Otherwise, add the following text to init.el inside the (custom-set-variables section. The “n” option was included already I added the “L” section to do a 2 week agenda with log mode turned on.
    '(org-agenda-custom-commands (quote (("L" "Time (L)ine - Biweekly Report" agenda "" ( (org-agenda-start-day "-14d") (org-agenda-span 14) (org-agenda-start-on-weekday nil) (org-agenda-start-with-log-mode '(closed clock state)) ) ) ("n" "Agenda and all TODOs" ((agenda "" nil) (alltodo "" nil))\ nil))))
4. Org files in the cloud. I have started experimenting with Orgzly and keeping an org file synced on my Android phone, my laptop, and my desktop. It’s working OK so far.

Auto-Complete

Install package.
- M-x package-install [RET] auto-complete [RET]

Add to init.el:

;; Set up configuration for auto complete
;; Among other things the first line pops-up doc strings for functions
;;  highlighted in AC's suggestions list, while in Emacs-Lisp mode.
(ac-config-default) 
(global-auto-complete-mode t)
(add-to-list 'ac-modes 'markdown-mode)
(add-to-list 'ac-modes 'org-mode)

Spell Checking
1. At Terminal Prompt
```
brew install aspell --with-all-langs
which aspell
```
2. Copy the response from last command. Similar to: /usr/local/bin/aspell
3. Run Customize… from Edit->Spell menu
4. Set ispell-program-name variable to /usr/local/bin/aspell or other return from earlier prompt command.
5. Run Spell-Check Buffer from Edit->Spell menu
6. NOTE Flyspell can work but needs a functional mouse-2 click which requires hackery for macOS track-pad.
Magit: git version control
1. M-x package-refresh-contents [RET]
2. M-x package-install [RET] magit [RET]
3. Test version numbers: M-x magit-version [RET]
```
Magit 2.90.1, Git 2.17.2 (Apple Git-113), Emacs 26.1, darwin
```
4. Add a global key binding for magit-status to init.el
```
;; Configure magit
;; https://magit.vc/manual/magit/Getting-Started.html#Getting-Started
(global-set-key (kbd "C-x g") 'magit-status)
```
5. NOTE Regarding push-to-deploy One of the things I hoped to accomplish with Magit in emacs is a simple solution for publishing my static hand-crafted personal website. I was struggling because default behavior requires using two branches and then automating the merge to the master branch using git hooks, which was on my list to figure out, but since I don’t ever edit the files on the server, push-to-deploy is more straight-forward. In the remote repository on the web server you only need to configure git with git config receive.denyCurrentBranch updateInstead
6. NOTE I have not yet learned how to clone a repository with Magit
Time to tryout a different look: Change Default Font and Theme I elected to use the handy GUI interface for this as I did it originally on my work computer (Windows) quickly while on break.
1. Download the hipster coding font of your choice. I ended up downloading Fira Mono and Ubuntu Mono from Google Fonts. Install them in the usual fashion for your operating system.
2. Click on Set Default Font… on the Options menu and find the font you chose on the list.
3. Click on Custom Themes on the Customize Emacs sub-menu on the Options menu and browse the themes listed there. I selected leuven because of how it renders an org mode document. After you decide which one to keep click the Save Theme Settings button. Just kidding! That worked on my Windows 10 Computer at work, but not on my Mac. I found some directions on Stack Overflow, which were slightly dated.
4. These Directions worked on MacOS for me:
  1. Type: M-x customize-face [RET]
  2. At “Customize face (…):” prompt type: default [RET]
  3. Edit Font Family value to match what you see in the Fonts dialog. In my case “Fira Mono”.
  4. Uncheck all of the other options. If you do not those settings will override the settings in any subsequent theme that you choose in the Custom Themes buffer.
  5. Click the _Apply and Save__ button. This will make a change in your init.el file like this:
    (custom-set-faces ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom. ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful. ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance. ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right. '(default ((t (:family "Fira Mono")))))
  6. Exit the buffer using the graphic button in he tool bar at the top of the screen.
Topics to explore in the future:
1. CSV-Mode - Allows column alignment and sorting by column. Also transposing columns and rows.
2. Saving Sessions This looks very helpful to get figured out, so I don’t have to keep loading the same files over and configuring my windows.
3. GNUS - research for use as e-mail client. Rejected Mu4e as too complicated.
4. Elfeed - RSS Feed Reader
5. Bookmark Plus
6. Buffer Menu
7. Abbrev Mode

Aquamacs

Things installed or configured

line numbers
word wrap
auto-complete
org-mode
markdown-mode
pandoc

Config customization

/Users/paulmccombs/Library/Preferences/Aquamacs Emacs/Preferences.el

;; This is the Aquamacs Preferences file.
;; Add Emacs-Lisp code here that should be executed whenever
;; you start Aquamacs Emacs. If errors occur, Aquamacs will stop
;; evaluating this file and print errors in the *Messages* buffer.
;; Use this file in place of ~/.emacs (which is loaded as well.)
(require 'org)
(define-key global-map "\C-cl" 'org-store-link)
(define-key global-map "\C-ca" 'org-agenda)
(setq org-log-done t)
(setq org-agenda-files (list "~/org/work_org_mode/work.org"))

/Users/paulmccombs/Library/Preferences/Aquamacs Emacs/customizations.el

;; Added by Package.el.  This must come before configurations of
;; installed packages.  Don't delete this line.  If you don't want it,
;; just comment it out by adding a semicolon to the start of the line.
;; You may delete these explanatory comments.
(package-initialize)

(custom-set-variables
 ;; custom-set-variables was added by Custom.
 ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
 ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 '(ac-modes
   (quote
    (emacs-lisp-mode lisp-mode lisp-interaction-mode slime-repl-mode nim-mode c-mode cc-mode c++-mode objc-mode swift-mode go-mode java-mode malabar-mode clojure-mode clojurescript-mode scala-mode scheme-mode ocaml-mode tuareg-mode coq-mode haskell-mode agda-mode agda2-mode perl-mode cperl-mode python-mode ruby-mode lua-mode tcl-mode ecmascript-mode javascript-mode js-mode js-jsx-mode js2-mode js2-jsx-mode coffee-mode php-mode css-mode scss-mode less-css-mode elixir-mode makefile-mode sh-mode fortran-mode f90-mode ada-mode xml-mode sgml-mode web-mode ts-mode sclang-mode verilog-mode qml-mode apples-mode markdown-mode gfm-mode org-mode)))
 '(aquamacs-additional-fontsets nil t)
 '(aquamacs-customization-version-id 308 t)
 '(aquamacs-tool-bar-user-customization nil t)
 '(global-auto-complete-mode t)
 '(global-linum-mode t)
 '(global-visual-line-mode t)
 '(markdown-command "pandoc")
 '(ns-tool-bar-display-mode (quote both) t)
 '(ns-tool-bar-size-mode (quote regular) t)
 '(package-selected-packages (quote (auto-complete auto-correct markdown-mode)))
 '(text-mode-hook nil)
 '(visual-line-mode nil t))
(custom-set-faces
 ;; custom-set-faces was added by Custom.
 ;; If you edit it by hand, you could mess it up, so be careful.
 ;; Your init file should contain only one such instance.
 ;; If there is more than one, they won't work right.
 )

Foot Notes

[1] Editor war, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia (last visited Oct. 11, 2018).

QGIS: A Free and Open Source Geographic Information System

2018-06-06T00:00:00+00:00

I have published an article introducing QGIS to an audience familiar with commercial GIS software on the blog for King County GIS: GIS & You.

A Government Worker at SOTMUS 2017

2018-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve got a new article about my trip to State of the Map US 2017 up on the blog for King County GIS: GIS & You.

It’s focused on how municipal government can benefit from and contribute to OpenStreetMap.

Dillinger.io - A Quick Way to Edit Markdown

2017-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

I got a tip from a friend today to try writing my Markdown with Dillinger. I don’t think it’s new or anything. When my copy editor complained about the Markdown codes getting in the way of editing. I had her try it, and it solved the problem nicely. I good first experience.

MySQL: What in the Hell is the --secure-file-priv option?

2017-02-16T00:00:00+00:00

Task: Retrieve Data From a Dump File

A coworker had some MySQL dump files but no longer had a MySQL installation. I thought it would be a quick job to convert the dump files into something more portable.

I could do a quick install of MySQL on my Mac, bring in the dump file and export it to a portable format. I’d just use Homebrew to install it and I’d be rolling. Wait! Homebrew is hosed on my computer. So first a detour to get Homebrew working.

Installing MySQL on a Mac with Homebrew

The directory permissions were changed when I upgraded to OSX 10.11 (El Capitan) I hadn’t had cause to figure out the fix. In the process, I also upgraded to macOS 10.12 (Sierra).

When Homebrew is working it’s a dream. Open source software is installed just like it would be in Linux with apt or yum. After a bit of googling I found instructions to uninstall Homebrew.

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/uninstall)"

Next I followed the one-step instructions at brew.sh

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

and I was back in Homebrew action.

A not-to-quick

brew install mysql
mysql.server start

and I was ready to roll¹ with MySQL. Or was I?

What in the Hell is the –secure-file-priv option?

With many thanks to Stack Overflow The dump files were loaded into my brand new MySQL server: In mysql:

create database sailwx_info_shiptracks;

At terminal prompt:

mysql -u root -h localhost sailwx_info_shiptracks < duwamish1.sql
mysql -u root -h localhost sailwx_info_shiptracks < duwamish2.sql
mysql -u root -h localhost sailwx_info_shiptracks < duwamish3.sql

After some poking around I found this SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE syntax for MySQL. The more portable alternative to the dump files I’d started out with. I thought my job was complete, but then found an error I didn’t understand.

select * from reportSources into outfile '/Users/paulmccombs/reportSources.txt';
ERROR 1290 (HY000): The MySQL server is running with the --secure-file-priv option so it cannot execute this statement

Oh, That’s What it Means!

I googled my heart out and read many pieces of advice across several different forum postings. No one had a complete answer though, hence I’ve been inspired to share my struggle and triumphant solution. The first key to removing confusion was learning this a change at MySQL version 5.7.6

“secure_file_priv can be set to NULL to disable all import and export operations.

The server checks the value of secure_file_priv at startup and writes a warning to the error log if the value is insecure. A non-NULL value is considered insecure if it is empty, or the value is the data directory or a subdirectory of it, or a directory that is accessible by all users. If secure_file_priv is set to a nonexistent path, the server writes an error message to the error log and exits.

Previously, the secure_file_priv system variable was empty by default. Now the default value is platform specific and depends on the value of the INSTALL_LAYOUT CMake option, as shown in the following table.”

Many of the forum posts I found were written before this change and were horribly confusing. The default value of secure_file_priv for the Homebrew install of MySQL 5.7.17 was NULL, which prevented me from writing with outfile entirely. To change secure_file_priv I first had to find the configuration file. According to my research it was named my.cnf and located in one of dozens of different places depending on who you believe. The forum posts I found were split between many versions of MySQL and various operating systems.

The Solution

I found the secret! Just ask mysql where it was looking for my.cnf.

mysql --help | more

Which returned in part the following list of locations:

“Default options are read from the following files in the given order: /etc/my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf /usr/local/etc/my.cnf ~/.my.cnf”

The Homebrew install does not create a my.cnf by default, so I had to make one of my own. I decided to put the configuration file in my user directory and found this helpful tip on what to put in it.

After creating ~/.my.cnf with the following contents, I was ready to try creating my outfile again.

[mysqld]
secure_file_priv               = ''

At terminal prompt:

mysql.server restart

In mysql:

mysql> select * from reportSources into outfile '/Users/paulmccombs/reportSources.txt';
Query OK, 12 rows affected (0.04 sec)

Success!!!

¹ Note here I am starting MySQL manually because I don’t intend to have the server running on my computer all of the time. Just for the one project. So there is no need for me to set it up to auto start.

Exploring Relations in QGIS

2015-11-11T00:00:00+00:00

Last night I shared a presentation on Relations in QGIS 2.10 at the November Meetup of the Puget Sound QGIS User’s Group.

The Puget Sound QGIS User’s Group is a great group where we get together and learn how to use the various features of QGIS. We all pitch in to share what we know and learn more in a fun atmosphere.

Make A Custom Symbol for QGIS

2015-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

This is a document describing what I had to learn to create a custom point symbol to use in QGIS. This process involved some workarounds that appear to be unique to Apple OSX 10.10.

In order to accomplish this task I needed to:

Do some research¹.
Have QGIS installed on your computer.
- I am running version 2.8.2²
Have software capable of creating an SVG file.
- In my case I chose InkScape is an open source vector drawing program that natively creates SVG files.
- In order to use Inkscape with OSX 10.10³, first install XQuartz. I had to overcome a bug where InkScape will not launch⁴.
Import or draw the design that you want to use for your custom symbol.
- In my case I’m trying to create the brand of my grandfather’s ranch. Which so far looks very rough, but the possibilities are promising.
Save the drawing out as a SVG file.
Alter the SVG file so QGIS can control the fill color the border color and the border width.
- Do more research⁵
- Open the SVG file in a text editor.
- Find the line in your saved SVG file that reads style="fill:#4d4d4d;stroke:#000000;stroke-width:1;stroke-linejoin:miter;stroke-miterlimit:4;stroke-dasharray:none;stroke-opacity:1"
- Delete that line.
- insert the following line in it’s place.
- fill="param(fill) #FFF" stroke="param(outline) #000" stroke-width="param(outline-width) 1"
Use your new marker symbol in QGIS.
- Open the Layer Properties window for a point vector layer.
- Change to the Style tab.
- Expand the single listed Marker symbol to see the Simple marker layer.
- Click to highlight the Simple marker.
- Change the Symbol layer type to SVG marker.
- Look for a text box containing a full path and file name. Click the button to the right with three dots.
- Browse to the SVG file just edited and Open it.
- Now the various attributes are available to adjust.
Add custom SVGs to the QGIS interface.
- Collect all the SVGs you want to make available into a directory.
- Open the Options window from the Settings menu.
- Select the System tab.
- Click the Add button above the Path(s) to search for Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) symbols list box.
- Browse to the directory where you have placed your custom SVGs.
- Click the Choose button.
- Now you will see your custom symbols as choices when you go into the SVG marker window.

Footnotes

StackExchange is often the first step in me learning how to do something. ↩
The most current OSX installer is available from Kyng Chaos. Be sure to install the packages listed under Requirements. ↩
Download Inkscape for OSX. ↩
See the InkScape forum for a discussion of the problem. I was not able to get the solutions discussed to work. I found that I could launch the executable that is hidden inside the .app bundle. If Inkscape is installed in the Applications directory, the application can be launched at the command line by typing “/Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/MacOS/Inkscape”. To simplify things for myself I added that command as an item on the X11 Applications menu. So I can start InkScape by launching the X11 app installed from XQuartz, opening the Applications menu, and choosing the InkScape item I added. ↩
Found the basic instructions and some more details for Inkscape generated SVG files. jgrocha provided the clearest answer and the one that put it all together. ↩

Let's Access Some Proprietary Data Formats

2015-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Working to solve a image processing problem, I found this enticing tutorial from Brian T. Jacobs.

It’s instructions to compile GDAL for OSX using Homebrew so it can read MrSID compressed images and ESRI’s File Geodatabase vector data format.

I’ve had really nice experiences installing software with Homebrew, but I understand that if you already using MacPorts there can be conflicts.

First Post

2015-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

Experimenting with creating a blog using Github pages. I’m not sure how it will work out.

I intend to write about useful tips and discoveries I make for working with geodata and open source software.

Thanks are due to Jonathan McGlone whose great tutorial I used to get this blog up and running.

Updated 11 Nov 2015: I’m posting some older items migrated from the Lazy M 8 page. Just incase you were wondering why this isn’t listed as the first post.

Puget Sound QGIS User's Group

2015-07-07T00:00:00+00:00

Some beginning users of QGIS including myself, have started up a Puget Sound QGIS User’s Group.

We’re just starting out. If you’re interested in taming the power of GIS with open source software, QGIS is for you. It runs on Java, supporting Windows, Mac, and Linux.

2014 FOSS4G Notes

2014-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

I attended the FOSS4G¹ 2014 conference in Portland Oregon.

It was a lot of fun and packed with great information. I’ve published my notes on GitHub.

Footnotes

Free and Open Source Software for GeoSpatial conference is held annually by OSGeo. ↩

Correct Addressing Is In The Details

2014-08-10T00:00:00+00:00

Check out the OpenStreetMap Seattle meetups, they’re a ton of fun.

Yesterday, I gave a short presentation at their OpenStreetMap 10th Anniversary Event. Check it Out: Correct Addressing Is In The Details