Zishan Rahman

He/him. 22. Computer Science @ King’s College London (ongoing PhD candidate, BSc First Class with Honours in 2023). Jumping from one thread to another.

5 minute read

You know, after I made my one-year-anniversary-of-moving-to-Linux-full-time post public yesterday, I suddenly had the drive to make more posts and other changes to this site. While writing the post itself, I didn’t think I’d make another post the next day and I’d just go back to worrying about placements and everything else. Well, here I am and I’ve decided to chronicle all the small edits (that aren’t blog posts) that I’ve made since September 2021, and that previously went unannounced on a blog post here.

Why September 2021? Because the last time I posted that year was the day before the month began: August 31st 2021. That was the last post I made before my formerly frequent posting of articles in this blog went into a grinding halt. I made another post on January 13th 2022 before the blog became dormant yet again for the longest time. Seriously, the gap between the Protégé/SPARQL tutorial and the one year of using Mint post is the longest it’s ever been. It’s like waiting for Radiohead to finally release a new album after A Moon Shaped Pool (Bet that will age well! /sarcasm)!

So, when I’ve not been posting in the blog, what other changes have I made to the site? Glad you (never) asked! In ascending chronological order:

  • I made a bunch of edits to my Internet Archive upload post.
  • I changed my bio to denote the fact that I was in 2nd year.
  • I added this certificate I got for completing a tiny course at Kings so I could add it to my LinkedIn profile (on this site, you’ll find the link to it in my author profile and at the footer/bottom section). Also, I realise I’ve never linked to it within this website until now, so here it is now!
  • A few days after I posted my Protégé/SPARQL tutorial, I optimised most of the image files I hosted on my site (at the time) as they were taking so long to load (on both my laptop and smartphone).
  • I edited the ‘archive single’ template in the Minimal Mistakes theme to not truncate post exceprts up to a character limit and instead let them be read fully on my home page.
  • I increased the pagination number of posts from 5 to 6. That just means that, on my home page, you’ll see the 6 most recent posts instead of 5, then you’ll see the next 6, then you’ll see the next 6 et cetera.
  • I made a small but vital alteration to what is now my old CV. It previously used to say I was looking for a part-time placement. That was never true and an oversight on my part, so I had that bit changed to full-time industrial placement. Both the webpage itself and the PDF document had to be changed to fix that human error.
  • I changed my age in my bio from 19 to 20, for obvious reasons.
  • I added a link to my new LaTeX CV hosted on GitHub in my old CV page.
  • Finally, as discussed in the last post (the one year on Mint one once again), I retoactively added a table of contents to my Protégé/SPARQL tutorial.

I’m pretty sure that’s everything.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Hello? Aren’t you forgetting something?

What?

INVISIBLE VOICE: Or, rather, someone?

OK, who in the living daylights are you?

INVISIBLE VOICE: Dude, you should know who I am. You created me!

Oh yes, of course. I added you in to my one year on Mint post.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Because you thought I was funny?

And also because I needed to clarify who you were in the first place. Also, that question you asked wasn’t funny in any sense.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Did I really need clarification as to who I was?

Yes:

The old version of the article had the Invisible Voice without clear denotion. This was the excerpt that was later changed.

That could be anyone asking if I care to explain why, even the reader!

Sorry you have to read through all this, dear reader.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Why be sorry, dear reader? You get to read the inner machinations of Zishan’s mind as he decides what to write next!

You say that one more time and I will think you out of existence.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Bite me, Zishan.

You’re invisible.

INVISIBLE VOICE: That was a metaphorical expression.

And you are my metaphor.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Ouch!

Invisible Voice, you’re making this article much longer than it needs to be. The reader(s) is/are getting fed up!

INVISIBLE VOICE: Well, it’s your fault for not mentioning me in your bullet-point list!!

I forgot, OK?!

INVISIBLE VOICE: Dude, you literally track changes made in this website with a GitHub repository! GitHub uses that repository to deploy this very website! All it took was a single line change and the commit you pushed last night soft-launched me into the world! HOW CAN YOU FORGET THAT?!

I have a life, Invisible Voice. This blog has been dormant for the longest time.

INVISIBLE VOICE: And you literally added me into yesterday’s post on the same day you posted it.

I really need to start planning more of my blog posts in advance.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Zishan, I think it’s time we end this now before it really spirals out of control. There’s no reason this blog post should take 5 minutes to read.

You’re right, but I wanted to announce some changes to this site, like my CV page!

INVISIBLE VOICE: Mate, you could always create a new post for the changes you make when you make them.

I rarely get the time, you know. That’s why I made this post in the first place!

INVISIBLE VOICE: Well, make the time, then!

Oh, you think it’s that easy?

INVISIBLE VOICE: Yes. If you’re homeless, just buy a house! 😂

😒

INVISIBLE VOICE: That wasn’t funny?

No.

INVISIBLE VOICE: Alright, let’s end it.

We shall.

I’ve got some ideas as to what I want to do with the CV page of my site, as well as some other projects I would like to work on in the near-future. This time around, I plan to announce those new things accordingly in this very blog, so remember to--

INVISIBLE VOICE: Stay tuned!

That was my line!!

You May Also Enjoy

I’m not the biggest user of Vim/Neovim… but it became REALLY useful for a funded project I did

19 minute read

For that same project I hosted a conference presentation for back in July, I decided to start using Vim/Neovim (Neovim specifically) for a very specific reason that ended up being very useful to me for said project. This article goes into depth about how I got to using Vim/Neovim, and also how I continued using Neovim afterwards from there. This isn’t going to be a tutorial, though I will show the most useful Vim/Neovim commands I’ve learnt so far (as of the time this article goes live). Hope you enjoy it!

I Upgraded My Uni Laptop To Linux Mint 22. It Went Alright… Eventually.

19 minute read

Getiing the webcam drivers to work was a bit of work, but I eventually got there in the end. The rest of the process went somewhat smoothly (keyword: somewhat). Now that I actually remember (mostly) how mintupgrade worked during the upgrade process, I can actually write an article about it!

Using Linux Mint As My Daily Driver: Three Years On. Well… An Anthology Of Sub-Articles About Me Using Linux For The Past Three Years (With Some Comparisons To Windows Here And There).

84 minute read

Well, the time has finally come to do one more of these, and this year I took the time to plan out what I was going to say. Things are a quite different, now that I am effectively using a different laptop now that my red one got borked. Also, this post is far longer than what I usually write, but I split it up into subsections that can basically count as articles in their own right. I hope you enjoy reading through all of this as much as I have enjoyed writing all of this!

A (Not So) Brief Update On My Life And What I Want To Do With This Website, Now That I’m Doing A PhD And Have Just Co-Hosted My First Conference Presentation

15 minute read

I last wrote a blog post in 2023, my yearly Linux Mint anniversary post. It’s been almost a year since then, so now is time for an update, now that my life and career path have both changed considerably. Long story short: I started a PhD in February and I just co-hosted my first conference presentation with my PhD supervisor. I’m very much looking forward to it, so read on for a brief-ish summary of what’s going on in my life (as of Tuesday 9th July 2024).