vim stuff

Make vim more usable by putting these in your .vimrc 

set background=dark

set ignorecase

set number

set fo=tcq
set nocompatible
set modeline

syntax on

" set default comment color to cyan instead of darkblue
" which is not very legible on a black background
highlight comment ctermfg=cyan

set tabstop=4
set expandtab
set softtabstop=4
set shiftwidth=4

highlight LiteralTabs ctermbg=darkgreen guibg=darkgreen
match LiteralTabs /\s\  /
highlight ExtraWhitespace ctermbg=darkgreen guibg=darkgreen
match ExtraWhitespace /\s\+$/

" Show me a ruler
set ruler

" Set up puppet manifest and spec options
au BufRead,BufNewFile *.pp
  \ set filetype=puppet
au BufRead,BufNewFile *_spec.rb
  \ nmap <F8> :!rspec --color %<CR>

" Enable indentation matching for =>'s
filetype plugin indent on

Vim: How to delete the first n characters from every line or region

deletes the first 5 characters of every line

:%s/^.\{5}//gic

Alternatively:

:v

visual mode, then

0

then CTRL +V for visual block

tada!