Fighting with screen and backspace

When using Mac OS and ssh-ing into a Linux box (I got a small Synology server @home), you might have encountered the issue, that on the Linux machine, the backspace key is not working properly.
Well, for me, it worked nicely - except using screen sessions - here it sent DEL (delete) commands instead of backspace (erase).
It took me quite a while to figure this bastard out: First, I thought, there's something wrong with my Linux box (login shell) or the screen config. However, it turned out it was the Mac OS terminal that did not send the proper code.

Fix: go to your Mac OS terminal preferences -> Settings -> Advanced and enable "Delete sends Control-H"

Done! For now …

Using Notepad++ to render Graphviz figures

Graphviz is a really neat tool to quickly draw (un)directed graphs of various kinds. I really like the way one can just stick together the nodes by elementary text commands.
On Windows you can use "gvedit.exe", but I don't like how the input text files and the graphics are displayed and just recently I encountered an issue where it would not render my *.gv files even they are valid (they rendered using the command line tools). Seemed to be an file encoding issue.
Since a colleague of mine (who does not like using the command line) asked me to setup the "rendering system" on her PC, I was looking for and found a feasible setup:

• Notepad++ - to edit the source files
• NppExec Plugin - to call the command line tools and render the graphics
• SumatraPDF - to display the rendered PDF file

Here's how to do it:

• Download & Install
• Graphviz
• Notepad++
• SumatraPDF (of course you may use a different PDF viewer, just make sure it is able to update the preview when the pdf file changes)
• Goto Plugins -> Plugin Manager -> Show Plugin Manager
• Install the NppExec plugin
• Configure the NppExec plugin (Reference)
• Press F6 (run command) and enter the following script (all in 1 line)
  dot "$(FULL_CURRENT_PATH)" -Tpdf -o "$(CURRENT_DIRECTORY)\$(NAME_PART).pdf"
  It calls "dot" from the Graphviz tools (which should be in your system PATH), passes your current Notepad++ file and renders a *.pdf file. You find a full list of available output formats in the documentation.
  
• Save it as "dot" script
• Update / render the graphics with Ctrl+F6 (run previous command again)
• SumatraPDF will immediately update the graphics so you don't need to close and reopen the generated file.

Welcome

During my studies, work and free time I come across a lot of "interesting problems". Some solutions require extensive Internet research and usually combining the findings of several independent sources.
After having (some kind of) a delicious.com account for more than 7 years, I finally decided to publish my findings so others can also benefit.