Random Geekery
Collecting my attempts to improve at tech, art, and life
Blogspot
An archive of posts originally maintained on Blogspot, also known as Google Blogger, from 2006 to 2012.
Oh yeah, Ryan Davis is awesome
Aug 20, 2012
Found out about this talk from Ryan Davis at Cascadia RubyConf because of an incensed reaction to it from Giles Bowkett on his blog. Thing is, I like the talk. I even like the bits that Bowkett doesn’t. Of course, I wasn’t one of the folks specifically mentioned, and he was. So there’s going to be a different perspective there.
Elaborate Answers To Simple Questions
Apr 14, 2011
tl;dr: Use string methods instead of importing string. Build email messages with the standard email library.
Apr 11, 2011
This is more of a personal reminder than a big announcement or anything like that. I have a tendency to get an idea in my head and then lose it when a bright shiny object comes into my field of view.
A Glance at Client-Side Frameworks
Mar 16, 2011
Blogspot ·
I was one of those lucky suckers who got a Google CR-48 netbook a few months back. Although I've failed miserably in making it my primary machine, it has gotten me thinking a lot more about browser applications and JavaScript frameworks. That's good. It got me out of my twelve year server-side rut.
Jul 27, 2010 (Updated Mar 27, 2015)
Blogspot ·
I haven’t updated this blog in a while, and to be honest I don’t really plan to. I tend to dump my thoughts of the moment on Google Buzz, while the content I intend to improve and maintain is still at my site.
Apr 6, 2010
I'm in the Perl phase of my language obsession rotation. I've created a handy language obsession table you can use to simulate the behavior for your favorite GURPS Geek campaign.
Mar 4, 2010
Blogspot · coolnamehere ·
I’m working on tying together the blog and my site. A little JQuery magic expands the RSS feed of this blog for visitors to coolnamehere. I’ll improve the integration over time, probably by adjusting the template used for the blog. Meanwhile, I have more incentive to use Blogger.
Aug 23, 2009
Find it at perl.org. I can stop whining - for a little bit, at least.
In Which Brian Whinges About The Perl 5 Release Schedule
Jul 2, 2009 (Updated Mar 27, 2015)
Python Blogger Refresh Part 2 - Settings
Jun 12, 2009
Blogspot [Python Blogger Refresh] · blogger · gdata · python ·
Python Blogger Refresh, Part 1
Jun 9, 2009 (Updated Jun 12, 2009)
Blogspot [Python Blogger Refresh] · blogger · gdata · markdown · python ·
Quick Praise for JVM languages
May 15, 2009
Blogspot · groovy · java · jruby · ruby ·
I’ve been digging a lot into the Java world in the last few months at work. Not Java specifically, because the language still bugs me. Why does Java bug me? Honestly at this point my disdain for Java is more a habit than anything based on reality. I just don’t enjoy the language.
May 28, 2008
Blogspot · javascript ·
JQuery’s my favorite JavaScript library by a long shot (very straightforward approach to manipulating page elements), and the JQuery UI makes it even better (so much shiny). I’m looking forward to using it in future projects.
Sadly, I need to hunker down at work and get back to my YUI stuff. YUI’s nice, but it is a lot more complex than JQuery. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s worth the extra overhead, or if I’m missing some way to make things easier.
Lots of Nifty Newness for the Church Site
Feb 14, 2008
Blogspot · design · wordpress ·
I volunteered a little while ago to be the maintainer for the Green Lake United Methodist Church. One limitation of the site is the fact that the Webmaster was a barrier to getting new content online. It’s a common problem, and had nothing to do with the maliciousness of the Webmaster. It’s just the simple fact that the Web dude is the only person who can post content. If the office manager wants to post the Worship schedule, she has to ask the Webmaster. If the pastor wants to present a message, she has to talk to the Webmaster. And it goes on and on. Eventually the Webmaster implodes, because you can only handle being the bottleneck for so long. The pressure becomes especially great when there is time-sensitive information that needs to be posted. You end up with a site that looks essentially static for months at a time.
PHP's extract and compact functions
Jan 30, 2008
I’ve been brushing up on my PHP basics lately. Why? Well, it never hurts to revisit things you think you already know. There is a good chance you will discover something you didn’t know after all. For example: this time I learned about PHP’s
extractandcompactfunctions.Jan 8, 2008
I just saw Petr Krenzelok’s giddy announcement on the REBOL mailing list that a public alpha of REBOL 3 is available today. I’ve been waiting to see this for a while and can’t even begin to describe how excited I am.
PageTemplate for Site Generation Part 2
Jan 7, 2008
Blogspot · pagetemplate · ruby ·
I’ve got my code filtering Markdown and now I want to stuff that filtered content into an HTML page. I could just use
maruku#to_html_document, but I need the ability to add details like a title and site-related links.PageTemplate for Site Generation
Jan 6, 2008 (Updated Mar 28, 2015)
Blogspot · pagetemplate · ruby ·
So I was looking at my Python Blogger client and I tried implementing the same thing in Ruby. gdata-ruby confusion stymied me. I still don’t know whether library issues or my own ignorance blocked me.
Jan 3, 2008
I'd really love to master an editor. Any editor. Vim has been my weapon of choice for years, but Emacs has always intrigued me. It's easier to use than Vim, but the Elisp language is the real draw. Vim's configuration / scripting language is awkward at best. Elisp is cryptically lispish, but at least it is possible to break it down without wondering what the heck
<sfile>is supposed to be.Adding Categories to the Python Blogger Client
Jan 2, 2008
Blogspot · blogger · gdata · python ·
Update 2009-06-09
I’ve revisited the code for Blogger posting with Python. Start with the Python Blogger refresh to see the new starting point.
Dec 29, 2007
Update: I turned my offhand comment about how I fixed my problem into more of a step-by-step guide, in case some poor soul is in the same spot and finds me via Google.
Dec 28, 2007 (Updated Mar 28, 2015)
I’ve revisited the code for Blogger posting with Python. Start here to see the new starting point.
Dec 20, 2007
Had to reinstall OS X late last night because something left our trusty iMac in an unbootable state and a simple Repair from the install disc wouldn’t do the trick. This happened after running a system update, but I’m not sure I can blame Apple for this one. I also happened to interrupt a syncing iPod during that session. It’s possible that either of those things could have whacked the filesystem tree. Of course, I would expect the iPod sync to whack the iPod. Still, I’m not exactly an expert on these matters.
Dec 5, 2007
I decided to install Perl 5.10 on all my machines after the thrill of installing ActivePerl 5.10 beta on my Windows VM last night. Yes yes, it is true that strange things will thrill me.
Nov 27, 2007
xcb_xlib_unlock issues - Java on Fedora
Nov 26, 2007
I decided to install the Sun JDK on my new Fedora install today. Tried downloading the JDK/NetBeans self-installing bundle. It didn’t work. I got an error in xcb_xlib:xcb_xlib_unlock - something about a failed assertion. While running the installer. Drat.
Jul 3, 2007
PHP may not be my favorite language, but the last couple of years have seen profound improvement. I got the urge to start playing with Zend Framework last week. It isn’t too shabby. Yesterday Zend made a 1.0 release, which is a good milestone for PHP types to learn about MVC and ACLs etc. You know, other than the ones who are already using CakePHP. You’re probably doing just fine.
I'm too cheap to buy a radio alarm
Jun 29, 2007
Blogspot · applescript · os x · unix ·
I have trouble waking up on time. That’s probably because I have trouble getting to bed on time. You can tell I have trouble getting to bed on time, because it’s 1:40 in the morning right now and I’m writing a little blog post instead of going to bed.
Coolnamehere is open to the Commons
May 2, 2007 (Updated Mar 28, 2015)
The contents of coolnamehere are now officially available under the Creative Commons Attribution License. I am a coding geek by profession, but my main contribution to the world at large seems to be the odd assortment of notes, tutorials, and random tangents that make up coolnamehere. The site has become more useful to people as it has grown and evolved. It just doesn’t make sense to keep the material locked down under traditional copyright terms. If somebody wants to redistribute the Python Babysteps Tutorial for some strange reason, I say “Let them.” All I care about is that people know I’m the original author of that particular … let’s call it a “masterpiece.”
Mar 9, 2007
I haven’t been on the Rebol3 AltME world for a few weeks, mainly because AltME isn’t working correctly on Linux. The only time I log on is on my OS X machine if I remember or on Windows via VMWare if I’m not too busy. Turns out that Maxim (pointillistic.com, I think) left a message for me that reMark is available for messing with. I think the idea is that you can use reMark to build static Web sites, very similar to the way that WebMake or ZenWeb do. This is Rebol, of course, so the approach is going to be a bit different.
Stripping out contact popup for now
Feb 6, 2007
The host switch broke my contact form. That’s okay, though. I wasn’t happy with it in the first place. I’m just using a plain old email link for now. Sure, it’ll put gmail’s spam filter through the wringer, but it’s quick and easy.
Feb 3, 2007
FM. FXRuby Media. Or f-m, as known on Rubyforge. I probably should have gone for fmm or something like that, but these things are always more obvious when it is too late.
Feb 3, 2007
The old Web host was fine, but I have been missing A2 Hosting recently. I just set coolnamehere under them. While I’m at it, this blog is officially the coolnamehere site news blog - in addition to the general geekiness you’ve been seeing here lately.
Jan 30, 2007
A few weeks back I wrote up a GUI front-end for mplayer. It works nice enough, but it suffers from a few aesthetic issues:
I've Been Experimenting With CakePHP
Sep 22, 2006
I’ve been experimenting with CakePHP over the last couple of weeks for a project. It’s definitely not Ruby on Rails, but it has a lot of charm. This library provides a MVC system for PHP applications, but the really interesting thing is that you can just drop it onto your Web server space with no fuss or bother. You don’t even have to worry about clever mod_rewrite rules if you don’t want to.
Mar 28, 2006
But at least now I have learned enough to actually get stuff done in Windows. That, and enough of my favorite tools have been ported over that I don’t have to feel homesick.
Feb 12, 2006
I’ve been experimenting with several excellent editors for Windows, including UltraEdit and Crimson Editor. The experiments will continue, but for now I am going to stick to a Windows install of Vim. Becoming familiar with Windows doesn’t mean I have to drop everything I already know in the dust!
Jan 7, 2006
Blogspot · pagetemplate ·
I snuck out a couple of new PageTemplate releases over the last week. There were no significant changes. The main bugfix is that PT should now work okay in an environment where $SAFE > 0. This means you can finally use stock PageTemplate in your mod_ruby projects. I don’t have any major plans for PT in the near future. I really need to improve the tests, so I can know for sure that the package does what it’s currently advertised to do. Much later, I want to split the library into components so that people who want the bare minimum can use a PageTemplate::Core module which would be equivalent to PT 0.3.2.