Monday 29 April 2013
Tuesday 19 March 2013
Thursday 14 March 2013
The Old Reader: behind the scenes - Unexpected day: what are we gonna do about Google Reader death? Keep calm and carry on.
"We have been discussing this quite a lot recently, and we decided that paid accounts (the freemium model) are the way to go."
The Old Reader: behind the scenes - Unexpected day: what are we gonna do about Google Reader death? Keep calm and carry on.: . We have been discussing this quite a lot recently, and we decided that paid accounts (the freemium model) are the way to go.
The Old Reader: behind the scenes - Unexpected day: what are we gonna do about Google Reader death? Keep calm and carry on.: . We have been discussing this quite a lot recently, and we decided that paid accounts (the freemium model) are the way to go.
Friday 8 March 2013
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Battery Widget Reborn Is an Elegant, Smart Battery App for Android
Put this on my phone yesterday, will try on tablet. It seems really good.
Battery Widget Reborn Is an Elegant, Smart Battery App for Android:
Android: Battery Widget Reborn is one of the nicest-looking battery apps available for Android devices, with a clever circle battery meter and Holo Theme interface. But it doesn't just look good: The app delivers on essential battery stats and other information.
In addition to the resizable widget, Battery Widget Reborn offers battery usage stats (e.g., how long it takes to fully charge and how long your battery typically lasts), an estimate of when your battery will be empty, how much battery is being used by individual apps, and quick power settings.
It even comes with an auto flight mode to save battery at night and is highly customizable.
Currently in beta, the app is free and works on Android 2.3 and up. After the beta ends in a couple of weeks, there will be both a "Freemium Lite" and a Pro version.
Basically, if you want to keep an eye on your Android battery life, download this app, because it's a pleasure to use.
Battery Widget Reborn | Google Play via Android Community
Battery Widget Reborn Is an Elegant, Smart Battery App for Android:
Android: Battery Widget Reborn is one of the nicest-looking battery apps available for Android devices, with a clever circle battery meter and Holo Theme interface. But it doesn't just look good: The app delivers on essential battery stats and other information. In addition to the resizable widget, Battery Widget Reborn offers battery usage stats (e.g., how long it takes to fully charge and how long your battery typically lasts), an estimate of when your battery will be empty, how much battery is being used by individual apps, and quick power settings.
It even comes with an auto flight mode to save battery at night and is highly customizable.
Currently in beta, the app is free and works on Android 2.3 and up. After the beta ends in a couple of weeks, there will be both a "Freemium Lite" and a Pro version.
Basically, if you want to keep an eye on your Android battery life, download this app, because it's a pleasure to use.
Battery Widget Reborn | Google Play via Android Community
Monday 4 March 2013
Bake Healthy Cookies With Just Two Ingredients
These look good.
Bake Healthy Cookies With Just Two Ingredients:
If you want to bake a batch of cookies, but don't have staples like eggs or flour lying around, you can get by with nothing but bananas and oatmeal.
To make your cookie dough, just mix up two soft bananas with a cup of quick oats, adding more oats if it seems too runny. That's literally the entire recipe. Once your dough is mixed, just dollop it onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. When they're done, you'll have some healthy snacks that are easy to eat on the go. If you want to customize the flavor, you can sprinkle in some chocolate chips, cinnamon, or pretty much anything else.
2 Ingredient Cookies - Plus the Mix-Ins of Your Choice | The Burlap Bag via The Kitchn
Bake Healthy Cookies With Just Two Ingredients:
If you want to bake a batch of cookies, but don't have staples like eggs or flour lying around, you can get by with nothing but bananas and oatmeal.
To make your cookie dough, just mix up two soft bananas with a cup of quick oats, adding more oats if it seems too runny. That's literally the entire recipe. Once your dough is mixed, just dollop it onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes. When they're done, you'll have some healthy snacks that are easy to eat on the go. If you want to customize the flavor, you can sprinkle in some chocolate chips, cinnamon, or pretty much anything else.
2 Ingredient Cookies - Plus the Mix-Ins of Your Choice | The Burlap Bag via The Kitchn
Thursday 28 February 2013
Coded Smorgasbord: A Simple Misunderstanding
Coded Smorgasbord: A Simple Misunderstanding:
[Advertisement] Make your team a DevOps team with BuildMaster. Pairing an easy-to-use web UI with a free base platform, BuildMaster gets you started in minutes. See how Allrecipes.com and others use BuildMaster to automate their software delivery.
Some terrible code arises out of terrible business rules which no one truly understands. Some terrible code arises from laziness, sloppiness, or the need to just get it done now.
But there’s a special class of awful code that arises for a complete misunderstanding of how the language is supposed
to work. That gives us things like the loop Rasmus found:
$i = 0; for (;;) { $i++; echo "<input type="text" name="row[]"><br />"; if ($i >= 15) break; }
Semaj inherited a code-base which uses this “pattern” everywhere:
try { if (_staff == null) throw new NullReferenceException(); } catch (NullReferenceException) { _staff = _provider.GetStaff(); }
Who doesn't love using Exceptions to govern program flow?
Adam’s co-worker seems to misunderstand the purpose of an if statement:
if (dncrptList.Contains(destName)) { dId = SymmetricMethod.Decrypto(id); } else { dId = SymmetricMethod.Decrypto(id); }
Adam also points out that Decrypto would make an excellent name for a CS-themed super-villain.
And John found this one, which demonstrates PHP’s “flexibility”:
foreach ($category as $category) { /* do stuff */ }
The loop works just fine, but has the nasty side-effect of completely replacing the array with the last assignment to $category- the last element of the array. That wasn’t a problem until John later tried to add some features to the category listing and expected the array variable to still hold an array.
[Advertisement] Make your team a DevOps team with BuildMaster. Pairing an easy-to-use web UI with a free base platform, BuildMaster gets you started in minutes. See how Allrecipes.com and others use BuildMaster to automate their software delivery.Monday 25 February 2013
Join the Army, See Middle Earth
Join the Army, See Middle Earth:
Submitted by:
Unknown
Unknown
Tagged:
mordor
, lord of the rings
, The Hobbit
, millitary
, middle earth
, army
, joke
, monday thru friday
, g rated
mordor
, lord of the rings
, The Hobbit
, millitary
, middle earth
, army
, joke
, monday thru friday
, g rated
Tuesday 5 February 2013
The Sysadmin's PC
The Sysadmin's PC:
“Hey, can you give me a hand? This computer I built won’t boot.”
Alexander sighed, and went to see what Nicholas had done now.
Only a few weeks before, around the start of the year 2001, Alexander was full of hope and optimism for the new century. He and his co-workers called themselves the “AnyKey Men”: they fixed and built desktops, fed the printers, and showed the users how to find the “any key”. Alexander had a great IT manager, and some great co-workers, and was happy with his job.
Then his manager left. Alexander had been his right-hand man, and assumed he would be promoted. As much sense as promoting internally might have made, the job went to Nicholas.
Nicholas brought with him a raft of certifications purchased from a local training company. More important, he was the owner’s cousin. And more important than that: Nicholas’s mother assured everyone that he was very good with computers.
Nicholas believed his own hype, and came in the first day full of swagger. He didn’t understand what a command-line was, made a racially offensive “whooping” sound when Alexander mentioned Apache, and needed help finding the “any key”. Each time Alexander had to correct something or fix some mistake Nicholas had made, Nicholas hated him a little bit more. Alexander tried to explain to the owner that Nicholas wasn’t actually qualified, but simply got scolded for his “negative attitude” and his “sabotage” of his new boss.
And now, Nicholas was actively seeking out Alexander for help. He must have seriously screwed up this computer.
Alexander started by pushing the power button, just to see what happened. The fans spun up, but nothing else happened- no POST beeps, no blinkenlights, nothing. Alexander popped the side of the case, expecting to see something horrible and obviously wrong, but at a cursory glance, the only thing wrong was the sloppy cabling. He traced, disconnected and resat all of the key cables. The green LED on the mainboard lit up, indicating it got power.
That still didn’t fix anything. Alexander checked a few more obvious things, then reached in, past the rat’s nest of cables, to pull the heat sink from the CPU. It slid right off into his hand, because it wasn’t properly seated. There wasn’t a drop of thermal grease, either.
“You really need to put thermal grease on here.”
“I totally did,” Nicholas protested. “I used a bunch.”
Alexander ignored his obvious lie, and reached in to pull out the CPU
. It was a Socket-A style mount, which had a lever to release the chip. When Alexander pulled on the lever, it refused to budge. The CPU wobbled in the socket, something that the Socket-A mount was supposed to render impossible. It either was seated or it wasn’t.
Alexander put a little more force onto the lever, and after some unpleasant crackling, the socket slid open. The chip practically jumped out of the socket, overjoyed to be free of its restraints. A glob of thermal grease jumped out from beneath it. Nicholas hadn’t been lying.
Socket-A mounts, like most CPU mounts, were designed to allow a chip to enter one way. When the chip was oriented correctly, it would simply slide into the mount with no friction. Any other orientation would refuse to let the chip in. It was essentially fool-proof.
Everything is fool-proof until they invent a better fool. When the chip didn’t slide into place, Nicholas slathered an inch of lubricant on the pins and then jammed the chip into the socket like it was going into the backseat of a Volkswagen.
“Can you fix it?” Nicholas asked.
Alexander looked at the bottom of the chip. Pins were bent and a few were broken. By rights, the ceramic base should have given out with that kind of pressure, and it was only because fate loves idiots that the chip wasn’t broken into a pile of shiny pieces. “No.”
This wasn’t just any desktop that Nicholas had ruined. This particular computer was bound for the owner’s desk. Nicholas had proudly ordered the best parts available, and had spent weeks bragging about how awesome the computer would be.
The computer was broken, and Alexander was the last person to touch it. Nicholas cried to his cousin, who screamed at Alexander. Threats of unemployement flowed freely. Frustrated, Alexander returned to his desk and checked his email.
There was a note from his old boss. A new position had opened up, and he wanted Alexander to apply.
“Hey, can you give me a hand? This computer I built won’t boot.”
Alexander sighed, and went to see what Nicholas had done now.
Only a few weeks before, around the start of the year 2001, Alexander was full of hope and optimism for the new century. He and his co-workers called themselves the “AnyKey Men”: they fixed and built desktops, fed the printers, and showed the users how to find the “any key”. Alexander had a great IT manager, and some great co-workers, and was happy with his job.
Then his manager left. Alexander had been his right-hand man, and assumed he would be promoted. As much sense as promoting internally might have made, the job went to Nicholas.
Nicholas brought with him a raft of certifications purchased from a local training company. More important, he was the owner’s cousin. And more important than that: Nicholas’s mother assured everyone that he was very good with computers.
Nicholas believed his own hype, and came in the first day full of swagger. He didn’t understand what a command-line was, made a racially offensive “whooping” sound when Alexander mentioned Apache, and needed help finding the “any key”. Each time Alexander had to correct something or fix some mistake Nicholas had made, Nicholas hated him a little bit more. Alexander tried to explain to the owner that Nicholas wasn’t actually qualified, but simply got scolded for his “negative attitude” and his “sabotage” of his new boss.
And now, Nicholas was actively seeking out Alexander for help. He must have seriously screwed up this computer.
Alexander started by pushing the power button, just to see what happened. The fans spun up, but nothing else happened- no POST beeps, no blinkenlights, nothing. Alexander popped the side of the case, expecting to see something horrible and obviously wrong, but at a cursory glance, the only thing wrong was the sloppy cabling. He traced, disconnected and resat all of the key cables. The green LED on the mainboard lit up, indicating it got power.
That still didn’t fix anything. Alexander checked a few more obvious things, then reached in, past the rat’s nest of cables, to pull the heat sink from the CPU. It slid right off into his hand, because it wasn’t properly seated. There wasn’t a drop of thermal grease, either.
“You really need to put thermal grease on here.”
“I totally did,” Nicholas protested. “I used a bunch.”
Alexander ignored his obvious lie, and reached in to pull out the CPU
. It was a Socket-A style mount, which had a lever to release the chip. When Alexander pulled on the lever, it refused to budge. The CPU wobbled in the socket, something that the Socket-A mount was supposed to render impossible. It either was seated or it wasn’t.
Alexander put a little more force onto the lever, and after some unpleasant crackling, the socket slid open. The chip practically jumped out of the socket, overjoyed to be free of its restraints. A glob of thermal grease jumped out from beneath it. Nicholas hadn’t been lying.
Socket-A mounts, like most CPU mounts, were designed to allow a chip to enter one way. When the chip was oriented correctly, it would simply slide into the mount with no friction. Any other orientation would refuse to let the chip in. It was essentially fool-proof.
Everything is fool-proof until they invent a better fool. When the chip didn’t slide into place, Nicholas slathered an inch of lubricant on the pins and then jammed the chip into the socket like it was going into the backseat of a Volkswagen.
“Can you fix it?” Nicholas asked.
Alexander looked at the bottom of the chip. Pins were bent and a few were broken. By rights, the ceramic base should have given out with that kind of pressure, and it was only because fate loves idiots that the chip wasn’t broken into a pile of shiny pieces. “No.”
This wasn’t just any desktop that Nicholas had ruined. This particular computer was bound for the owner’s desk. Nicholas had proudly ordered the best parts available, and had spent weeks bragging about how awesome the computer would be.
The computer was broken, and Alexander was the last person to touch it. Nicholas cried to his cousin, who screamed at Alexander. Threats of unemployement flowed freely. Frustrated, Alexander returned to his desk and checked his email.
There was a note from his old boss. A new position had opened up, and he wanted Alexander to apply.
Monday 4 February 2013
Block Telemarketers and Robocalls for Good with the Raspberry Pi-Powered Banana Phone
Block Telemarketers and Robocalls for Good with the Raspberry Pi-Powered Banana Phone:
No one likes unsolicited and unwanted calls from telemarketers or robocalls from information-collecting bots, but putting a stop to them is troublesome enough that The FTC is offering $50,000 to anyone who can stop them. This DIY project, dubbed "The Banana Phone" for reasons you can see in the video, may very well qualify for the prize.
Here's how the banana phone works. When a robocaller or automated dialer calls you, the Banana Phone picks up, plays a song (in this case, it's Raffi's earworm we all know) and while the song plays, text-to-speech tells the caller to enter a four-digit passcode in order to be connected to the actual line they're calling. Automated dialers would give up at that point, but real humans would enter the number and get connected right away.
The Banana Phone cost around $100 to build, and uses entirely off-the-shelf products, including a Raspberry Pi and an Obihai phone-to-Ethernet adapter. Alex Ruiz, the man behind the project, explains and demos the setup in the video above. Alex has a landline and uses it to protect that, but we could imagine the system could be adapted for people who use a mobile phone or VoIP service primarily (although most of those services and smartphones have built-in tools to block unwanted calls anyway.)
He says it's worked pretty well so far, but it's obviously not a perfect solution to the telemarketer problem. For one, any human in a call center can listen to the instructions and enter the passcode to bypass it and get through to you—but considering most human call centers have automated dialers that only connect after registering someone picked up, it may be pretty effective there too. Of course, if everyone had one, marketing firms would find a way around it, but for the time being, it might be a fun DIY project and a decent way—albeit amusing to your friends and family—to protect your privacy.
The Banana Phone Project: The Evolution of Caller ID | YouTube via Hack-a-Day
No one likes unsolicited and unwanted calls from telemarketers or robocalls from information-collecting bots, but putting a stop to them is troublesome enough that The FTC is offering $50,000 to anyone who can stop them. This DIY project, dubbed "The Banana Phone" for reasons you can see in the video, may very well qualify for the prize.
Here's how the banana phone works. When a robocaller or automated dialer calls you, the Banana Phone picks up, plays a song (in this case, it's Raffi's earworm we all know) and while the song plays, text-to-speech tells the caller to enter a four-digit passcode in order to be connected to the actual line they're calling. Automated dialers would give up at that point, but real humans would enter the number and get connected right away.
The Banana Phone cost around $100 to build, and uses entirely off-the-shelf products, including a Raspberry Pi and an Obihai phone-to-Ethernet adapter. Alex Ruiz, the man behind the project, explains and demos the setup in the video above. Alex has a landline and uses it to protect that, but we could imagine the system could be adapted for people who use a mobile phone or VoIP service primarily (although most of those services and smartphones have built-in tools to block unwanted calls anyway.)
He says it's worked pretty well so far, but it's obviously not a perfect solution to the telemarketer problem. For one, any human in a call center can listen to the instructions and enter the passcode to bypass it and get through to you—but considering most human call centers have automated dialers that only connect after registering someone picked up, it may be pretty effective there too. Of course, if everyone had one, marketing firms would find a way around it, but for the time being, it might be a fun DIY project and a decent way—albeit amusing to your friends and family—to protect your privacy.
The Banana Phone Project: The Evolution of Caller ID | YouTube via Hack-a-Day
Wednesday 30 January 2013
Turn Any Browser Window Into a Quick-Edit Notepad
Turn Any Browser Window Into a Quick-Edit Notepad:
Notepads are awesome, but sometimes you need to just jot down a quick one or two line note that doesn't need to be saved. Software developer Jose Jesus Perez Aguinaga shares a simple way to do it in any browser.
All you need to do is type the following code into the browser's URL bar:
One line browser notepad | coderwall via ReadWrite
Notepads are awesome, but sometimes you need to just jot down a quick one or two line note that doesn't need to be saved. Software developer Jose Jesus Perez Aguinaga shares a simple way to do it in any browser. All you need to do is type the following code into the browser's URL bar:
data:text/html, <html contenteditable>Hit Enter, and start typing away directly in your browser window. The reason this works is that it uses the Data URI scheme to make a simple HTML page with the element, "contenteditable." If you decide you want to save it, you can do so in your browser and it will save as an HTML file. Otherwise, it's a fantastic little place to dump ideas that pop into your head that you don't need saved in an actual notepad. Of course, you don't have to remember the little line of code, you can enter it into your text expander for easy access, or just make it a bookmark. Head over to Aguinaga's site below and dig through the comments for a bunch of modifiers to the code to change the background, text size, and more.
One line browser notepad | coderwall via ReadWrite
Monday 28 January 2013
Wednesday 16 January 2013
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