May 2012
3 posts
4 tags
Photo Stream, Dropbox, Hazel, and Automatic...
This article over at MacWorld gave me an idea: would it be possible to automatically back up my Photo Stream pictures to Dropbox without ever having to open iPhoto.
The answer is yes; you’ll need a little help from Hazel to do it, though.
This rest of this article assumes that you have Dropbox and Hazel installed.
Start by creating two folders in your Dropbox account, one named...
Writing This Blog With tmux →
Not this blog. My other blog. Or, I guess, my other other blog. I have three now. Because I’m not busy enough. Obviously.
If you have any interest in using Octopress, this post is worth your attention.
3 tags
A Thought Experiment: Pixel Art
We know we can draw a 45-pixel × 45-pixel square using an empty div and some CSS.
.square {
background-color: #fff;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
height: 45px;
width: 45px;
}
And we know that we can make the square’s background color red using jQuery.
$('.square').css('background-color', 'red');
If we take this snippet a bit further, we can alter the square’s...
March 2012
1 post
3 tags
Mapping JSON Object Arrays With CoffeeScript
This might be a well-known technique for some of you, but it was new to me when I stumbled onto it last week.
I have a Rails app that’s grabbing some JSON data via AJAX and using the resulting data to display a chart using Highcharts. If you haven’t seen it, Highcharts is a JavaScript library for displaying gorgeous, interactive graphs and charts.
Without getting into the full...
February 2012
7 posts
3 tags
Installing MacVim with homebrew and Xcode 4.3
If you’ve tried running brew install macvim since upgrading to Xcode 4.3, you might have run into this error:
Error: No developer directory found at /Developer
The error message is obvious; the solution isn’t. Try this:
$> sudo xcode-select -switch /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer
[enter admin password]
$> brew install macvim
You’ll only...
RSS Feed Changes
Hi there. If you’re an RSS subscriber (all 14 of you), please take a second to update your subscription. I was using Feedburner, but I ditched it. Here’s a link to the new RSS feed:
http://renaissancenerd.net/rss
Thanks!
Tumblr Architecture - 15 Billion Page Views a... →
(via High Scalability)
The amount of data Tumblr pushes around in a single day is absolutely harrowing.
9 tags
Using Rake, Pow, and TextExpander for Project...
TL;DR: I made a Rakefile to automate the creation of a project template that pulls fresh copies of either Twitter Bootstrap or the HTML5 Boilerplate from GitHub. I serve the template’s HTML with Pow, and I use TextExpander fills to generate boilerplate snippets.
Over the years, I’ve put together a number of project templates, each containing its own set of default HTML, CSS, and...
Bridging the App Gap →
Luke Wroblewski’s notes from Marco Arment’s An Event Apart talk.
Differences Between jQuery .bind() vs .live() vs... →
(via Web Dev .NET)
If you’ve looked at jQuery’s documentation lately, you might have noticed that .live() is on the chopping block and will soon be deprecated. This article’s a good guide to understanding why and what will replace it.
Ruby Trick Shots: A Video of 24 Ruby Tips and... →
Nice little screencast by Peter Cooper of The Ruby Show fame. Also, get more Ruby tricks by following @rubytrickshots on Twitter.
January 2012
7 posts
Tutorial: Rails 3.2 with Ruby 1.9.3 on Heroku →
This is a very thorough explanation of how to get a new Rails app running on Heroku (including how to use a custom domain). If you’re interested in doing such a thing, start here.
A Beginners Guide to HTML & CSS →
Just getting started with HTML and CSS? Go here.
“Over time, software builds up legacy. The old technology is baked in, and the...”
– Jason Fried
Or, put another way:
“The bones of your software are all the bad decisions you made early on ossified over time. Sometimes you have to break them to move on.” - Zachery Bir
JavaScript pattern and antipattern collection →
Hard to believe this is free.
3 tags
Standard CoffeeScript Procedure
Here’s a quick one that I’ve really started to like. I’ve taken to setting up new projects with js and coffee directories in the root of the project. Then, I use Jitter to watch the coffee directory for changes. It automatically recompiles the JavaScript files every time I save my changes.
Jitter takes two arguments: your CoffeeScript directory, and your compiled JavaScript...
Profiling CSS for fun and profit. Optimization... →
(via Perfection Kills)
Eye-opening and incredibly thorough. The news about border-radius bums me out; I love that property.
December 2011
11 posts
“If I wrote a post saying “Don’t pass arguments to methods, just...”
– ActiveRecord (and Rails) Considered Harmful - Literate Programming
This is something that I’ve been actively ignoring over the years, but it secretly bothered me.
I’ve posted a couple of articles recently that were critical of some of the things I enjoy using, including CoffeeScript...
“From a front-end development perspective, the mobile first approach also...”
– Tom Milway - How To Build a Modern Website in 2011
If you’ve been looking for a succinct, plain-English explanation of how responsive design works, here it is.
Skeleton →
Skeleton is “a beautiful boilerplate for responsive, mobile-friendly development.” It’s very lightweight, includes media queries for a handful of well-chosen sizes, and has been tested in all of the major browsers.
(via Steve Klabnik)
Write Better Cukes With the Rel Attribute -... →
Steve Klabnik uses Web standards to come up with an elegant solution for writing Cucumber tests that depend on clicking links. Smart!
Mou - Markdown editor for web developers, on Mac... →
I discovered Mou last night through a tweet from @wycats. It’s going to be pretty hard to trump Byword + Marked, but I’m liking the single window approach so far.
On Releasing Open Source Code →
Brent Simmons adds a couple of additional notes for Cocoa developers to Matt Gemmell’s open source post.
Open Source Code →
Matt Gemmell provides an overview of what to consider when—and how to go about—releasing open source code.
A Case Against Using CoffeeScript →
(via Ryan Florence Online)
Lots of valid criticisms here. Some of these issues can (will?) be overcome with time as the language progresses, but I agree with everything here. I’ve never been a fan of significant whitespace, which is why I tend to avoid Python. But CoffeeScript is still fun to experiment with.
4 tags
Node.js and Segmentation Faults
So, this will be (admittedly) short on technical details, but it might help some of you.
I tried to use Homebrew to update my install of Node.js. It worked fine—or so I thought. That is, the install ran flawlessly. But every time I tried to run something with Node, I got this:
Segmentation fault: 11
This was preventing me from updating NPM as well. For the record: Mac OS X Lion...
2 tags
CSS3 Keyframe Animations
I started working on the site for Clockpunch with an idea of what I wanted: screen shots that cross-fade, info boxes that each provide a description of a specific screenshot, and a highlight state for each info box that appears as each screen shot cycles.
My immediate plan involved some basic CSS for a box shadow and an orange border with a little jQuery to handle fading the box shadow and...
Clockpunch 1.0.0 →
Clockpunch is a simple iPhone app for tracking your work. I’ve spent quite a lot of my spare time over the last six months building this, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out.
More info, including some write-ups about the coding process, soon, probably starting with an article about CSS3 keyframe animations. The Clockpunch site currently uses jQuery for the box...
November 2011
7 posts
“90% of programming jobs are in creating Line of Business software.”
– Don’t Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice | Kalzumeus Software
I found myself nodding along in agreement with almost the whole article. Some of this is bubble-bursting if you haven’t been in the industry long (or are still in college), but it’s accurate.
glennr/uber-glory-tmbundle - GitHub →
If you spend any time using Git to work with others on the same project, you’ll eventually run into conflicts due to nothing but whitespace. The Uber Glory bundle aims to fix that. Per the readme, this bundle for Textmate does two things:
Convert Tabs To Spaces, And
Remove Trailing Whitespace
And it does it all when you press ⌘S. Super-smart.
Danger, Danger: High Voltage! Use Rails 3.1 for... →
(via Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots)
I’m looking forward to giving this a go on my next Web-based project (a simple promotional site).
A List Apart: Articles: The ALA 2011 Web Design... →
Obligatory. If you work on the Web, take a few minutes to fill this out. The results over the last few years have been an interesting pile of statistics (if you’re into that sort of thing).
GitHub Flow →
Scott Chacon, one of the developers at GitHub, posted this a while back, and I just got a chance to read it. It’s a great peek inside how GitHub functions.
WTF Mobile Web →
(via Daring Fireball)
Hilarious collection of bad mobile web experiences. A collection of anti-patterns, if you will.
October 2011
2 posts
Nick Bradbury: Tiny Apps are Hard →
Yes, yes they are. I love how mobile apps are forcing people (including myself) to focus on the features that are absolutely necessary.
“The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s...”
– President Obama on the Passing of Steve Jobs: “He changed the way each of us sees the world.” | The White House
Things have been quiet here lately, as I’ve been working hard on my first iOS app. I’d be remiss to not post something about Steve’s passing. Every person...
September 2011
2 posts
Four tips for learning how to program →
Lots of good advice from Jamis Buck at 37Signals.
“You need to learn Objective-C. Go mess with MonoTouch or whatever if you want....”
– Ash Furrow » Blog Archive » How to Write iOS Apps
Excellent advice.
August 2011
6 posts
Building a Game Mainloop in JavaScript →
Via this week’s JavaScript Weekly, which you should immediately sign up for if you haven’t already.
Don’t Fear the Internet →
Looking for a free video series that teaches “basic HTML & CSS for non-web designers?” This is it.
Our Simple Git Workflow →
An excellent write-up by Alan Johnson of Carsonified. This workflow is very similar to my own.
Updated iOS device and OS version stats from... →
Marco Arment posts a follow-up to his March article about iOS version adoption rates. Great info for any iOS developer.
“Cramp is a fully asynchronous realtime web application framework in Ruby. It is...”
– Cramp - Asynchronous framework for the web
FOSS Patents: Atari, EA, Quickoffice and... →
More good news for indie app developers.
July 2011
16 posts
When Patents Attack! →
(via This American Life)
If you have any interest in software patents—especially with regard to the Lodsys situation—give this a listen.
I have a newfound respect for Chris Sacca for speaking out.
“It may take several more weeks (though presumably and hopefully not much longer...”
– FOSS Patents: Lodsys fiercely opposes Apple’s motion for an intervention
At this point, Apple’s doing more than Google, but thanks to the legal system, none of this is going to move very quickly.
“In my opinion, the biggest challenge to being a generalist is establishing...”
– Defending The Generalists In The Web Design Industry - Smashing Magazine
1 tag
New Markdown Apps
If you’re a fan of Markdown, you’ll want to check out these two apps. Both are available on the Mac App Store, and neither is very expensive.
Byword
I heard about this while listening to the live stream of Back to Work this morning. Although it looks like one of those goofy distraction-free writing environments, it’s actually just a stripped-down text editor designed...