Using Different Color Schemes with Vim
Hey!
If you have been using the Linux console text editor vim (or: Vi IMproved), you have probably noticed already that at times - especially in files with a large amount of comments - the default color scheme on a black background is less than ideal. Dark blue on black is pretty hard to read and can strain the eyes a lot.
So today I went out to see if somebody had come up with a solution for this particular problem. I saw people who changed console colors by exporting and overwriting certain system variables, and others who edited the default color scheme.
The simplest solution I have found to this problem is just switching the color scheme. You can do that by typing the following in the already open vim session:
:colorscheme desert
where desert is just an example for the scheme of choice. Desert - for me - has just the right color for comments: aquamarine / light blue.
If you are satisfied with the scheme and would like it to be applied each time you launch vim, you can just edit /etc/vim/vimrc (or in my case with CentOS: /etc/vimrc) and add the following line:
colorscheme desert
with desert again, of course, being the chosen color scheme. This would apply this setting automatically for each vim instance that is launched system-wide. If you do not have access to the system-wide preferences or prefer just using it for your own user account, edit the ~/.vimrc instead.
The blog entry I got this tip from (Asher's space) has further instructions on how to edit existing color schemes and even a link to a blog post that explains how to edit the dark blue color for directories in ls listings with color, but I did not feel the need to go that far. If you are interested in that topic I can only encourage you to visit the original post.
Thanks for reading!
Update (2012-01-04):
Okay, looks like pingback isn't working, so here's a direct link to the original blog post:
vi code highlighting: change the default comments color from dark blue to light blue (https://asher2003.wordpress.com/)
New Old Blog URL
Hello and a Happy New Year 2012!
Yesterday evening and early today I decided to implement something that has been flying around in my head for quite some while. I enabled SSL for my website - including this blog! - and at the same time moved the blog back to its original URL: http://blog.plee.me/
Now, as some of you might know, that subdomain URL has always continued to work even though I switched the URL to the subdirectory one for a while. However, instead of invalidating one or the other, both will still work. If you visit a link pointing to http://www.plee.me/blog/... you will be redirected to the new subdomain one.
So, with SSL being enabled as well, you can also reach this blog via https://blog.plee.me/, which I would strongly advise you to use over the unencrypted one. It's quite unlikely that I will post highly sensitive content on here to justify SSL encryption, but hey, it's fancy, and who doesn't like fancy stuff, right? 
In order to not get any warning due to untrusted certificates, however, I recommend (not only for my site's sake but for a number of other privately or non-commercially run websites throughout the whole web) you visit http://www.cacert.org/ and get the root certificates for your browser so that CAcert will be trusted as a Certificate Authority.
Alright, that's it for now. I think I will have some relevant stuff to write about in 2012, so stay tuned.
Don't hold your breath though 
Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, I have actually been active on Twitter again for the last half year or so, and I'm intending on keeping that trend. So swing by there if you like The link/info is on my main website.
Thanks for reading and sorry for any inconvenience.