At Rails Conference Thru Monday

I'm at the Ruby on Rails conference thru Monday. Will try to post here and there when I run across interesting stuff.

OS X 10.5 Group Administration

Yesterday I needed to adjust the permissions to my server directories so I could have a PHP script create some files. There used to be a built in utility for this in OS X 10.4 (Netinfo Manager) but that appears to be gone from 10.5. So after a great deal of Googling I found this post.



OS X 10.5 has added an LDAP based directory service. And with the new service, all the group and user information is stored in the /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/ directory. Type sudo bash to get a shell as the root user and cd into the directory. Once there you can cd into the groups directory. All the groups on this system are listed with a .plist extension. All the files are in the standard Mac XML configuration format. You can simply edit the file using vi and add the user following the format you see in the files.



In addition, there is a command line tool, dscl, which can also be used to browse these files and make edits to them.

On Demand JavaScript

The the last couple of weeks I've ran across I few mentions about loading JavaScript on demand. I ran across this site and page: http://ajaxpatterns.org/On-Demand_Javascripts.

Very informative.

Looking for Good Tech Blogs, Sites

So I'm looking for some new tech related blogs or news sites. If you have any suggestions, please drop me a line in a comment.



As I redo my "My Yahoo!" page, I will post on a few of the sites and people I've found recently.

What is Digg's focus?

A quick observation about the social news site digg. When the site first came out, I really read it a lot. There were a lot of really interesting and useful tech posts all the time. Plus a lot of fun movie related stuff, etc... But at the start, it was still a very small niche site.



As the site grew, the designers broadened the appeal by adding non geek related topics like politics and sports. It has my understanding that this greatly increased the number of users on the site and has made it very successful. However, I have noticed that as the number of users has increased, the quality of the tech section has decreased. The bigger the site gets, the dumber the tech section gets. Now its to the point where the tech section is like a watered down Engadget. Lots of gear links, some high level net related stuff, and that's about it. All dessert, no meat, no veggies. So at this point, I'm probably gonna drop my links to it.



Now let me be clear, the new broader digg user base is not stupid. They just have different interests from the original digg users.



So it makes me wonder if they shouldn't have tried to keep digg a niche and broaden the appeal of their technology in a different way, maybe diggtech, diggnews, diggsports. Is information more useful when its more niche focused? I think it is. Maybe being big is not always a good thing.

My Yahoo! is Back

I wrote a few months back about giving up on My Yahoo! after using it for a number of years. During the last site redesign, Yahoo made the font size super tiny for My Yahoo!. So small that I considered the site to be unusable. And since there was no way to adjust the size of the font, I created to link for Yahoo! Mail and started using Google Reader instead.



Well setting up Firefox 3, I looked at the site again and to my surprise, someone actually implemented my suggestion. You can now actually select a "large" or "small" font for the page. Now I would consider the "large" font pretty small, but it is readable.



So My Yahoo! is back in my good graces. Yay! I still like their interface the best for reading RSS. Its very easy to scan titles, drill down, and find what you want.

The Phoenix has landed!

After spending the better part of a year traveling toward Mars, the Phoenix has landed on the surface. First images arrived shortly after touchdown. Some interesting numbers to ponder:

• 422,000,000 (miles traveled to reach Martian surface)
  
• 12,500 (initial entry speed in miles per hour)
• 3200 (distance in feet from Martian surface when the parachute separates)
  
• 2600 (heat shield temperature in degrees Fahrenheit)
• 900 (entry speed in mph after Martian atmosphere slows the craft)
• 250 (entry speed in mph after the parachute deploys)
• 125 (speed of Phoenix, in mph, when the parachute separates)
• 15.3 (number of minutes for signal from Mars to reach the Earth - on 25 May 2008)
• 7 (number of minutes for entire Entry Descent Landing - EDL)
• 0.5 (thickness of heat shield in inches of 'cork')

Urinal Games...

I know parents, who in their attempt to 'potty train' young boys, pour Cheerios into the toilet and tell the young lad "now try and sink them".

A more expensive version of this game has been produced by Yanko Designs (designed by Marcel Neundorfer) called the 'On Target' in which the 'participants' control the video game with... well... a stream of urine.

According to Yanko Designs the reason for doing this is the same as my friends when they use Cheerios at home with their young boys:

Recessed into a urinal is a pressure-sensitive display screen. When the guest uses it, he triggers an interactive game, producing images and sound. The reduced size of the target improves restroom hygiene and saves on cleanings costs - Yanko Designs

Note: Too bad Nintendo didn't invent this... they could have called the "Nintendo Wee".

Featured gadget: FXTrade Ticker

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer



Name: FXTrade Ticker
Author: OANDA Webgroup
Description: Shows foreign exchange rates, with live updates if you're an FXGame or FXTrade account holder

More information | Download gadget

Each week this blog features a recently added Google Desktop gadget that looks promising. If you'd like to see all new Desktop gadgets as they're published, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Run Firefox 3 and Firefox 2 at the same time

The Firefox 3 release candidate 1 came out recently and I wanted to try it out. However, I'm using Firebug for development so I can't replace Firefox 2 (Firebug for FF3 is still in development). So I was glad I came across this post.



Using the profile manager and a command line you can run both at the same time. In fact I'm posting this entry using Firefox 3!



First impressions. It does seem faster. Gonna miss the colorful icons and such for Firefox 2, this more "Maclike" inteface is just plain gray and dreary.

Don't Upgrade to Nebeans 6.1 if Using Ruby and PHP

I just wasted 15 minutes trying to upgrade to NetBeans 6.1 on OS X. Apparently with 6.1, the PHP language support no longer plays well with anything else. So you can run PHP but not Ruby or Ruby but not PHP (or Java for that matter). Freaking ridiculous.



Thank God I hadn't deleted 6.0.1. Just brought it back and my old project and I was good to go.



A word to the NetBeans developers. I need a simple Project project, that is not Rails, not PHP, not Java WAR, not anything, its just files. Cause sometimes I just want to edit freaking files! With my current project, I am editing a bunch of HTML files which use the Dojo JavaScript library. These in turn can be connected to test PHP scripts or JSPs for testing. I'm testing using PHP and Apache, but the files will be deployed in a J2EE application. NetBeans has great editing features, let me use them.

Google Doctype (Web 2.0 Cookbook kinda)

Also found a link to this on of Ajaxian. Google has launched what they call a web development encyclopedia doctype. Its really kind of an online cookbook with tips on DOM, CSS, and JavaScript. Everything is open source, and you are free to use it, etc... Plus it looks like you can edit any of it (not sure that is a good idea with code, lol).



Looks interesting. But right off the bat I don't see any attributions for the authors. And unless people get credit for their work, I'm not sure how much anyone would contribute.

Free Mastering Dojo Chapters

Finding a ton of stuff on Ajaxian today. They have some links to some chapters from a forthcoming Dojo book. Definitely worth a look.

Your First YUI Application

Found a link to this story on YUI on ajaxian. Haven't gone through the article yet, but it looks promising.

After I finish my current project in Dojo, I plan to take a look at some of the other libraries that are available. I'm very curious about what people are really using.

Also, I plan to keep an eye on the O'Reilly site the article was on: http://www.insideria.com/. Looks like a lot of stuff on Adobe Flex, maybe they will have some good posts. We will see I guess.

Featured gadget: Thesaurus

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer



Name: Thesaurus
Author: Benjamin Schirmer
Description: Thesaurus lookup for different languages including English, German, Dutch and Spanish.

More information | Download gadget

Each week this blog features a recently added Google Desktop gadget that looks promising. If you'd like to see all new Desktop gadgets as they're published, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Where the Bleep is Java 1.6 on OS X 10.5 Leopard?

Well boys and girls, I have been too busy with work to notice that Apple has finally released Java 1.6 for OS X. But only for 64 bit processers, if you don't have one of those in your system, you are out of luck.

But if you do, just run System Update and you should get the update. But after installation, when you drop to command line and run:

java -version

It still says version 1.5. Where the bleep is Java 1.6? You may ask. Well it located here:
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.Framework/Versions/1.6/commands

Just make symbolic links to the executables you wish to use.

BlackBerry Shortcuts (for the true geek)

Like most business professionals I'm addicted to my BlackBerry 8310 Curve. However, I'm also a geek so to enhance the geek experience I list some keyboard shortcuts...

• Alt+Escape to switch from one application to another (like the Alt-Tab in Win32 or Unix)
• View Event Log (didn't even know there was one!)
• From the Home Screen - hold down the Alt key and type (with your free hand) LGLG.
• Each item in the log is selectable by clicking to display the details.
• You can change the default logging level from warning->info->debug by pressing the 'menu' key and select 'options'
• Reboot blackberry w/o removing battery: Alt-RightShift-Delete.
• NOTE: The Right Shift key is in the bottom right (key: aA^). This is a quick reboot.
• Change signal strength display from bars to numeric in units of dBm (decibels per milliwatt).
• Hold the Alt key and type 'NMLL'. To revert hold down Alt and type "NMLL" again. readings from -45 to -85 are very strong signals. The lower (more negative the number) the weaker the signal.
• Help Me Screen - navigate to home screen then press and hold Alt-Shift-H. This is hard to execute as all three keys have to be pressed; easier if you press and hold the Alt and Shift with your left thumb. Hit the escape key to exit. Below is a list of items viewable in the Help Me screen
  
• Vendor ID
• App Version
• PIN
• IMEI - Internet Mobile Equipment Identifier
  
• Uptime - in seconds (does not automagically convert to hours/days/weeks, etc)
  
• Signal Strength - in dBm
  
• Battery Level - percent capacity
  
• File Free - in bytes
  
• File Total - in bytes
  

Ajax Pioneer Week at Ajaxian

Ajaxian is having a pioneer week on their site where they are showing some interviews with Ajax heavyweights. I'll update the links as they post their links:

• Sam Stephenson of Prototype


• Bruce Johnson of GWT


• Alex Russell of Dojo


• John Resig of jQuery

Sending Test Params with Dojo

I wanted to send some test data to a server script from Dojo but I didn't want to create a form. After a little snooping around I found out the content property the xhr object will do this. However, I didn't find a lot of examples of how I was supposed to format the field.

The documentation seems to indicate param=value, but that obviously wouldn't work. Below is an example of what works. Basic object literal format seems to do the trick. Just separate your name name:value pairs by commas and you should be good to go.

   1:      dojo.xhrPost(
   2:        {
   3:          url: 'ajax-student-test.php',
   4:          handleAs: "text",
   5:          timeout: 5000, // Time in milliseconds
   6:          content: { AppRequestType:"Initial Page Load" }, // Data to pass
   7:            
   8:          load: studentHandler, //Called on a successful response.
   9:          error: ajaxErrorHandler,   // Called in an error case.
  10:        }
  11:      );
  12:

Featured gadget: O&O DiskStat

Posted by Kathy Walrath, Technical Writer



Name: O&O DiskStat
Author: O&O Software GmbH
Description: Monitor your hard disks.

More information | Download gadget

Each week this blog features a recently added Google Desktop gadget that looks promising. If you'd like to see all new Desktop gadgets as they're published, subscribe to the RSS feed.

Comment Filtered JSON with Dojo

As you may or may not know, I'm working on a project at work using the Dojo JavaScript Framework. I have been working on the JSON examples. When I tried to use the standard xhr JSON handler for my JSON text, I got a message stating I should use Comment Filtered JSON instead.

So what the h*#l is comment filtered json? After must searching around and a little testing I finally figured it out. To prevent some other poor bastard from doing the same search, here is an example.

   1:{
   2:  "name":"South",
   3:  "type":"COED",
   4:  "size":200,
   5:  "students":["John Smith", "George Washington"]
   6:}
   7:
   8:/*
   9:{
  10:  "name":"South",
  11:  "type":"COED",
  12:  "size":200,
  13:  "students":["John Smith", "George Washington"]
  14:}
  15:*/

Lines 1 to 6 are regular JSON text. Lines 8 to 15 are comment filtered. To make JSON text comment filtered, simply put the text in a comment. That's it.

NetBeans Reconfiguring My UI

Just a quick complaint about NetBeans. I keep reconfiguring my UI by accident and I find this very annoying. For example, I'll try highlight some code, and cut and paste it. By accident I'll grab the edge of something and voila! Half my UI just disappeared. There really needs to be a dialog that says "do you really want to reconfigure everything idiot?" before I do it.

At least allow me to enable a setting to confirm UI reconfiguration before it happens. Just a thought.