Normally, a spring soccer match would not garner a tremendous amount of attention, even in a soccer-crazed area like the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. corridor. But UMBC’s contest vs. Georgetown, a.k.a., “Kicks for Chase,” on the evening of Saturday, April 13, at Retriever Soccer Park should be an exception.

First off, the game pits a pair of great programs coming off magical 2012 fall campaigns. The Retrievers won their second America East title in three years, advanced past Old Dominion and played defending national champion North Carolina to a scoreless draw in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. (The Tar Heels advanced on penalty kicks.) The Hoyas stunned the collegiate soccer world by making it to the national title game, falling, 1-0 to Indiana.

But the real importance of the 7:00 p.m. match-up at RSP is the cause it supports. The teams are raising funds to benefit children born with Down Syndrome in the memory of Chase Bugarin.

In September of 2012, former UMBC soccer player Bryan Bugarin ’97, psychology, and his wife Amy welcomed a son, Chase Ryan Bugarin. Chase was born with Down Syndrome along with other serious complications. After an 11-week fight, Chase passed away and though he is no longer with us, his memory lives on. He is survived by parents Bryan and Amy along with siblings Jordyn (9) and Brayden (2).

Admission to “Kicks for Chase” game is free, but donations are being accepted for The Arc Foundation of Harford County (Northern Chesapeake Region). Patrons may donate the day of by cash or check. Checks can be made payable to The ARC Northern Chesapeake Region and donators can mark “Kicks for Chase” in the subject line. If you cannot attend the game, but would still like to donate, please mail checks to: UMBC Athletics, c/o Kelly Fahey, Assistant AD for Student-Athlete Affairs, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, Md. 21250

In addition, 100 percent of all t-shirt, food and beverage sales will be donated to the ARC.

Read the full story here, originally published on UMBCAthletics.com.

Summer Dissertation House at UMBC: July 9-12, 2013

Spend 4 days writing … make progress on your dissertation!

Summer Dissertation House at UMBC: July 9-12, 2013

Spend 4 days writing … make progress on your dissertation!

I recently decided it was finally time to part ways with TextMate, my trusty companion for these last few years, and start the hunt for a new editor. After a quick Twitter poll the unanimous advice was that I should try Sublime Text 2.

After a few weeks of using Sublime Text I can safely say that it’s the best editor I’ve used. It’s fast, extendable and hasn’t ever crashed on me. That said, that no editor is perfect and Sublime Text does require a fair bit of initial configuration.

After you’ve downloaded & installed the editor, the first step to configuring Sublime Text 2 is to install the package manager. I’m hoping in future versions of the editor this package manager will come bundled, but for now it requires a separate installation. Run Sublime Text, Press ctrl ` (control backtick) to open the editor’s console, and paste in the code listed here.

Once the manager is set up, you can install packages with ⌘⇧p (command shift p) and typing Install Package.

Theme - Soda

Sublime’s initial look leaves a lot to be desired. However, luckily there’s a beautiful theme called Soda. To install Soda, open the package manager (⌘⇧p), type ‘Install Package ↵’, and then ‘Theme - Soda ↵’.

To activate the theme, open Sublime’s preferences ⌘, (command comma), which is a JSON file, and set the "theme" key to "Soda Light.sublime-theme" (Remember to check commas).

{
      "theme": "Soda Light.sublime-theme"
    }
    

You may have to restart the editor, or at least open a new window, for the theme to activate.

Extending the editor

There are a few other packages to install:

• SideBarEnhancements - Adds useful file operations to the sidebar, such as ‘New file’, ‘New folder’ etc.

• AllAutocomplete - Allows autocompletion across open files.

• TrailingSpaces -Strips trailing whitespace from files.

Follow the same steps as before to install the packages, ⌘⇧p and "Install package".

Tabs & Spaces

The default indentation style uses tabs instead of spaces, and it’s likely that you’ll want to switch this (unless you solely program in a language where that’s the convention, such as Go). Open Sublime’s preferences (Settings - User or ⌘,) and add:

{
      "tab_size": 2,
      "translate_tabs_to_spaces": true
    }
    

If you’re anything like me, and dread trailing white space, then you should install the TrailingSpaces package. You’ll need to change the default preferences for the plugin too. Open TrailingSpace’s preferences (Preferences -> Package Settings -> TrailingSpaces -> Settings - User), and add:

{
      "trailing_spaces_include_current_line": false
    }
    

Also add this to your global user preferences (⌘,):

 "trim_trailing_white_space_on_save": true
    

Key bindings

There’s a key binding I used the whole time in TextMate: ⌘ ctrl r to reveal the currently opened file in the sidebar. You can add this to Sublime by opening the key bindings preferences (Preferences -> Key Bindings - User) and adding:

[
      {"keys": ["ctrl+super+r"], "command": "reveal_in_side_bar"}
    ]
    

Sublime’s fuzzy search (⌘ t) is incredibly fast and convenient, and it’s my primary way of navigating around my projects. As well as navigating by file name, you can go to a particular line in a file by typing :123 (colon line number) or to a particular method by typing #name (hash method name).

Command line

Surprisingly Sublime Text doesn’t come with a easily accessible binary, since this is probably the primary way developers will open the editor. That said, you can easily add support by creating a symlink:

ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/bin/subl
    

I also use an alias in my ~/.bash_profile file, allowing me to easily open a directory from the terminal:

alias e='subl . &'
    

Icon

Sublime’s default icon is fairly ugly, but there are a few replacements on Dribbble. One of my favorites is by Elliot Jackson. To install it, download the icns file and replace the application’s icon:

$ mv ~/Downloads/st2.icns /Applications/Sublime\ Text\ 2.app/Contents/Resources/Sublime\ Text\ 2.icns 
    

Pasting

One suggestion from Jason Barry is to use ‘Paste and Indent’ for ⌘V instead of the standard ‘Paste’. This adjusts your indentation to automatically match the context it’s pasted in. To do this, put the following in your Key Bindings - User file:

[
      { "keys": ["super+v"], "command": "paste_and_indent" }, 
      { "keys": ["super+shift+v"], "command": "paste" } 
    ]
    

More packages

A few more packages you may find useful:

• Git - Git blame/branch support
• CoffeeScript - .coffee syntax highlighting
• Eco - .eco syntax highlighting
• Stylus - .styl syntax highlighting
• Sass - .sass syntax highlighting
• SublimeLinter - lint code as you type
• GitGutter - show Git diffs in the gutter

Conclusion

So that’s a fair bit of setting up required for an editor, most of which you’d think would be the default configuration. Sublime Text 2 definitely needs a bit of polishing from a product perspective. The default website, icon, and theme are ugly to say the least, and it would be convenient to be able to install the editor through the App Store. A GUI for configuration would be a good idea as storing preferences in JSON files may appeal to programmers, but it definitely alienates designers.

That said it’s early days for the editor, and the core framework has clearly been built extremely well. It’s ridiculously fast, stable and very extendable. I love it and absolutely recommend you try it.