I keep forgetting this one, so here it is. vmstat -s -SM | grep "free memory" | awk -F" " '{print$1}' It pipes vmstat output through grep and awk to pull just the number – no units, no labels, just the gigabytes sitting there doing nothing.

This is a paper I wrote exploring how brain-machine interfaces could change the way we interact with computers. The core idea was simple: most interfaces still demand motor work — hands on a keyboard, fingers on a mouse. What if you could skip that entirely? The problem Human-computer interaction has come a long way. Touchscreens let you bypass the mouse. But you still need hands. For some people — those with motor impairments, for example — that’s a real barrier. Even for everyone else, there’s something inherently slower about translating a thought into a hand movement, then into a keystroke or click. ...

This is a collection of research projects and applications I worked on using neural networks. Most of the video demos linked below are no longer available — the servers they lived on have been dead for years. I’m keeping the descriptions because they capture what the work was about. What is a Neural Network? An artificial neural network (ANN) is an information processing system inspired by biological nervous systems. It’s made up of a large number of interconnected processing elements — neurons — that work together to solve problems. Like people, ANNs learn by example. You configure them for a task, whether that’s pattern recognition or data classification, and they figure out the solution through a learning process. In biological systems, learning means adjusting synaptic connections between neurons. Neural networks do the same thing. ...

Download Full Guide: OTC Flow Document Sales Order T-Code: VA01 Setting Value Company Code 4700 Sales Document Type ZOR Sales Area 4700/10/10 Header level: Sold-to-party: 1000991 Ship-to-party: 1000991 PO Number: ‘Test’ Payment term: 0001 Item level: Material code: 1000309 Order Quantity: 1 Plant: 4702 Press Enter Item billing: INCOTerms: CFR (Cost and Freight) Save Delivery T-Code: VL01N Setting Value Delivery Document Type ZLF Shipping Point 4702 Enter the Sales Document number from the previous step. Make sure the Delivery Date is set — it should pull through from the Schedule Lines in the Sales Order. ...

I spent a fair amount of time working on SAP implementations back in the day, and one of the modules that came up again and again was Order to Cash. People throw the term around in meetings like it means something obvious, but if you ask five people what OTC actually covers, you will get five different answers. So here is my take on it — not a textbook definition, but what it looks like from the inside. ...

I spent a fair amount of time on SAP implementations, and testing was always one of those areas that people talked about in the project plan but never really thought through until something broke. So here is a review of some testing practices I encountered — what worked, what did not, and what I wish someone had told me earlier. Methodology Matters (Even If You Think It Does Not) Every SAP project has a methodology. Sometimes it is a proper one — Deloitte’s Thread Manager, IBM’s Ascendant, SAP’s own Roadmap through Solution Manager. Sometimes it is “we did something similar last time, let’s do that again.” Sometimes it is nothing at all, and the project is winging it. ...

Back in the ’80s the Bee Gees crooned “Staying Alive.” In today’s parlance, that would be “Staying Online.” Corny reference aside, the point is: building a web presence is one of the most important things you can do for your personal and professional life. But what does that actually mean? Is it just getting an email address? Putting up a website? Something about your online conduct? It’s all of those things and more. It’s closer to creating an identity — the online version of who you are. ...

I needed a simple way to track a scrum project without investing in a tool, so I built a spreadsheet template. It’s not meant to replace anything serious – just something to get the structure down on paper before things get messy. You can grab it here: scrum-tmpl-100212 It’s got three sheets. The first is basic project info – organisation, project name, scrum master, product owner, start date. The second is the product backlog, laid out by sprint with room to track effort against each release. The third is an impediments log, so when something blocks the team you write it down with a category, date, and who raised it instead of letting it get lost in a standup conversation. ...

I’ve written enough project proposals over the years to know that the hardest part is usually the first page. You sit down with a blank document, a client’s RFP, and a deadline that’s already too tight, and you wonder where to start. So I made a template. Not because it’s brilliant, but because it stops me from spinning my wheels every time. You can grab the Word file here: proposal-template.doc ...

I’ve seen too many teams treat proposals and contracts as paperwork – something you rush through on the way to the “real work”. That attitude costs money. I’ve watched deals fall apart because someone skipped a step, or signed something they didn’t understand, or assumed the other side was on the same page. So we wrote a procedure. Not because we’re a big company with a compliance department, but because we kept making the same mistakes. ...