I’m pleased to announce my latest plugin: Scribd_fu.
What it does:
Scribd_fu hides out in the shadows like a document converting ninja, just waiting to process your data into a convenient Flash format (like YouTube) with the help of the black majick of Scribd.com. Imagine imbedding huge documents right inline with your web UI, no downloading, no necessary programs on the client side to view your data. It’s pretty damned cool, and it works with Attachment_fu!
git is so fast that it makes me feel like I haven’t done much work. I used to wait so long for Subversion to checkin that I felt like I had accomplished something!
I’m more than slightly amused to announce the birth of a new Ruby on Rails plugin, Scribd_fu.
Scribd is basically the YouTube for Documents. It’s super awesome when you have a huge PDF that would take quite a tick to download; with this you can view your document in Flash format online, inline, and quick. Scribd_fu will allow you to seamlessly CRUD any document to a Scribd Document. The aim is to also feature full integration with the venerable Attachment_fu plugin. Scribd is a really great service with a ton of potential. It’s fast and reliable to boot.
If you’re a githubber, click that ‘watch’ tab and we’ll see where this goes!
With the latest firmware release for Apple’s Airport Extreme Base Station router comes the ability to use a connected USB drive as a Time Machine backup disk. I (and many others) have waited for this feature since Leopard’s release six months ago.
The big question is if it would work as expected. In my case, my Macbook easily found the drive and Time Machine recognized it. The initial backup (50G) took all night even with a supposed 100MB throughput. Subsequent backups were slow to complete, if they even started at all. Most of the time (80% or so), Time Machine would hang with “Preparing Backup”.
One other thing that slightly annoyed me was that Time Machine creates a sparse bundle image on the AirDisk containing your backups. I assume this is done as many people can potentially use the AirDisk for backups. This causes two mounts on your system instead of one. Not a huge deal, but it’s just one more thing that can fail. I don’t like things that can fail in a backup process, especially one that is designed to be so behind the scenes.
Right now, Time Machine is doing its initial backup again as a USB connected drive to my trusty Macbook. The AirDisk seems to still have some quirks that need to be ironed out.
Also of note, I suffered a hard drive crash last week and luckily I did have Time Machine backups. I have to say that restoring Leopard from Time Machine was effortless and it was also the very first time I’ve had a full restore of an operating system actually work in over a decade of Windows, Linux, and Mac usage!
Alright, this one is odd, but it works like a charm. I recently installed Safari 3.1 on my new MacBook and after a reboot I had no audio whatsoever (though the startup chime worked). When I messed with the sound via the keyboard buttons only a greyed out icon and a barred circle appeared. I also noticed a red LED inside my headphone jack (what the hell?)
The fix is to get a toothpick and stick it all the way into your headphone jack roll it around the edge of the jack until the light goes off. Yeah. I know. It really works though. I swear.
My audio was working again immediately without a reboot!
Finally. A politician that doesn’t feed on ignorance nor treats the people as children. Thank you Obama for finally speaking the truth.
I read somewhere once that governments used to sell hope and safety to its people instead of nightmares. I’d like to see the country rally around hope instead of the monsters in the closet.
I think my friends are starting a Darby-centric cult on MySpace. Suddenly they all use a Van Gogh painting as their avatar that is my creepy doppelgänger.
RESTful_ACL has moved from Google Code to GitHub! Why the move? Well, it’s basically due to git being the new black, and more fun than Subversion. I’m in the process of migrating all of my repositories.For anyone who hasn’t tried git yet, please do. It’s super simple yet really powerful. You can even import your existing Subversion repos to git by simply doing
Try it! It won’t screw your existing SVN repo. Honest.So without further adieu, Here is RESTful_ACL’s new home and for the impatient, you can clone the repo via:
I had two roundtrip tickets to Myrtle Beach, SC for noon today. We were just going for a few days to blow off some steam, and bought the tickets a week ago on a whim. In blows this gigantic record setting snowstorm and 2′ of snow. The normal snowfall around these parts is around 3″ per storm.
I spent most of the day yesterday shoveling the driveway in anticipation of flying out this morning. This morning comes and I look out the window and see that our road is still not plowed. I head out in a feeble attempt to shovel into the road!
If this wasn’t enough our kitchen sink starts leaking all over the floor and we’re out of kitty litter. We have two cats and the idea of them without clean litter for a few days makes my head swim of ruined carpets.
We realized that everything was seemed to be conspiring against our trip. Not one to tempt fate (and hey, I doubt we’d get out of the driveway), so we decided to eat the tickets.
I wish tickets were refundable when these types of circumstances occur. It’s no one’s fault, but I still lose $500.
30 minutes into a call to Travelocity… I hope something can be worked out!
Ah, Ohio.
UPDATE: 50 minutes into the call I’m told that I cannot cancel the reservation as the flight is on time and I also cannot move the reservation as I’d already checked-in online (when I thought I might be able to make it, hours ago). So I’m out $500. What a fucking racket. I wish I could get away with keeping money for non-rendered service. I was so frustrated that I did the retarded guy thing and slammed my fist down on my desk. I broke the center drawer whilst doing so.
