Removing tags on Github /  by Paulo Fierro

I love git and Github but I don't have any git-fu, as in I don't know how to use the command line version of git to save my life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine using the Terminal and for some tasks I even prefer it. But for version control, a GUI does it for me and in this case my app of choice is Tower.

And while Tower is great, and the web interface on Github is good too I recently ran into something I couldn't do with either (or I couldn't figure out).

Deleting tags.

I use tags all the time. Bookmarking commits — what's not to like? For simple things like "this is version 1.1" which we can come back to and branch off of if we need ship a bugfix for 1.1, while at the same time developing new features on the main branch. And for things like "this is where I was before that sketchy merge".

For the first example, this is probably a tag we want to keep and add some release notes. But for the latter, we might want to delete it when we're done. Once we've done testing and QA and everything is good we can nuke that sucka.

So in Tower you can right-click a tag and delete it but if I then push and check "Push All Tags" the tag doesn't get deleted. The next time I pull that tag will come back because I didn't delete it from Github.

We can do this on the command line as follows:

  1. Delete the sketchy tag locally: git tag -d sketchy
  2. Delete the tag on Github: git push origin :sketchy
  3. Push the change: git push --tags

If you added any release notes (and you should) they'll now show up under your project's releases as drafts that are no longer tied to a tag (because you deleted it). To remove it, click to edit it and then Delete Draft.

Paddleboarding & SUK /  by Paulo Fierro

Recently Niqui and I have become addicted to paddleboarding. We've started doing paddlefit with the guys from Waterman and renting boards in the weekend to go paddle around Seven Mile Beach. This is especially beautiful at sunset.

A week ago we made the jump and picked up a cheap deal on a second hand board on eCayTrade which we've been sharing.

This resulted in us doing what we call a "paddle run". Start at Governor's Beach and one runs the 2.5km down to Royal Palms while the other paddles. Then we switch and head back. Good fun, but the runner always wins.

Being summer and there not really being much wind I was intrigued when I saw this video on how to SUK:

Tried it out yesterday but it didn't really work out, there simply wasn't enough wind. I also fear the my kite is too small (12m) and/or the SUP is too big (10' x 29" x 4.5") but I intend to giving it another bash. 

Playing sound through two displays /  by Paulo Fierro

On my desk sits a 21" iMac which is plugged into a 27" Apple Cinema Display. The iMac is a great machine, but the audio quality is better coming out of the Cinema Display — larger screen, probably better speakers.

​My desk on May 17

So when I'm playing music I always select the sound output to come from the Cinema Display. You can Option+click the Volume icon on the menu bar and select either "Display Audio" or "LED Cinema Display", both mean the same thing. If I want to use the iMac speakers I select "Internal Speakers".

But what if I want to use both? Madness right? After looking around I found that you can create a "Multi-Output" device using the Audio MIDI Setup app.

So after doing that I created a multi-output device called "Both Screens" with output going to the built-in iMac speakers as well as the Cinema Display.

The only downside is that you have to control the volume from the app doing the playback, e.g. iTunes. Whatever volume you had the selected display at is what's used so you may want to swap back to it, set the right volume and then swap back.

Dual monitor sound output. Hell yes.