MirthLab

Vim University

2012-02-17T13:56:56-10:00

I just stumbled across a fairly new site called Vim University. Like Vimcasts it looks like a good resource for Vim tips and tricks.

What I don’t necessarily like is the old-standard Learning Vim is going to be horrible for a while but you’ve just got to grin and bear it advice given in the Surviving Your First Week In Vim post:

The first hundred vim commands you execute will be your most painful, so get through them as quickly as possible. Don’t leave vim except in for major emergencies.

And:

After just three weeks, most people are significantly faster than they were in their old editor. Don’t put off learning this awesome tool any longer.

Like Yehuda Katz this type of advice is exactly why I could never jump into Vim. In the real world, you need to get stuff done and three weeks is a really long time to be fighting with a new tool. Inevitably I’d give up, frustrated and discouraged, and swear to never try learning Vim again.

Eventually I did learn Vim, but for me the sticking point was when I started using Janus which essentially makes Vim look and act like TextMate out-of-the-box. Eventually I started exploring more of the power that Vim has to offer, but I was able to get comfortable using Vim as my everyday editor quickly and grow into using more powerful features as time went on.

Fountain: Markdown for Screenwriting

2012-02-17T13:50:51-10:00

Fountain:

Fountain is a simple markup syntax for writing, editing and sharing screenplays in plain, human-readable text. Fountain allows you to work on your screenplay anywhere, on any computer or tablet, using any software that edits text files.

Taking its cues from John Gruber’s Markdown, Fountain files are eminently readable. When special syntax is required, it is straightforward and intuitive.

Though I’m no screenwriter, I could have used something like this while working on a script for a friend’s Kickstarter campaign video.

Understanding the Git Workflow

2012-02-17T13:21:58-10:00

I’ve used several version control systems over the years: SVN, Mercurial, Bazaar and even Perforce. (Shudder.) Usually I’d have to learn whatever system was already in place before I was brought into a project. For the most part I would only learn what was necessary to get work done with the tool. More recently though, I’ve been using and really digging into Git.

I came across Benjamin Sandofsky’s article Understanding Git Workflow and it blew my mind a lil’ bit:

In a perfect world, every change in your revision history is succinct and stable. There are no checkpoint commits that create line noise. There are no giant, 10,000 line commits. A clean history makes it easy to revert changes or cherry-pick them between branches. A clean history is easy to later inspect and analyze. However, maintaining a clean history would mean waiting to check in changes until they’re perfect.

[…]

Git is revolutionary because it gives you the best of both worlds. You can regularly check in changes while prototyping a solution but deliver a clean history when you’re finished. When this is your goal, Git’s defaults make a lot more sense.

I was intrigued because he very accurately describes the Git workflow I use (and worse yet, the one I’m used to) and explains all its warts. He then explains the new-to-me intended workflow:

Create a private branch off a public branch.

Regularly commit your work to this private branch.

Once your code is perfect, clean up its history.

Merge the cleaned-up branch back into the public branch.

It’s step 3 that I was missing. I guess coming from an SVN background, rewriting history seems a bit taboo to me. He shows some great, practical examples in the “Guidelines and Examples” section including how to use Git’s powerful interactive rebase mode.

Making Rounded Rectangles Look Great

2012-02-17T13:16:35-10:00

Mike Rundle on designing rounded rectangles:

If you really think about it, most interfaces (especially for iOS apps) use tons of rounded rectangles in different shapes and sizes. Long and skinny ones with lots of shine. Squarer, flatter ones with some texture. Smaller, slightly inset ones with photos inside. The list just keeps on going.

He lists some great tips and even has some example Photoshop documents to download and check out.

iMessage Comes to the Mac

2012-02-16T08:00:21-10:00

Along with the announcement of the next version of OS X (dubbed Mountain Lion) Apple has posted a beta of the new Messages app that will replace iChat:

Send unlimited iMessages to any Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

Start an iMessage conversation on your Mac and continue it on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

Send photos, videos, attachments, contacts, locations, and more.

Launch a FaceTime video call and bring the conversation face-to-face.

Messages supports iMessage, AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Jabber accounts.

I’ve been looking forward to this type of integration with the Mac since iMessage was first announced.

Zach Holman: Scaling GitHub

2012-02-01T17:17:48-10:00

Zach Holman on Scaling GitHub:

A month after launching, GitHub hosted one thousand repositories. Three years later, we host over three million. In the same time we’ve gone from one thousand users to over a million.

An interesting look at the technical and organizational practices that GitHub uses to keep their team lean, happy and productive.

Magnus: Ten One Design's New iPad Stand

2012-02-01T16:49:08-10:00

I love the minimalist design of Ten One Design’s new Magnus iPad stand:

Magnus is first machine-crafted from pure aluminum and then hand-finished using the latest manufacturing techniques. After that, customized magnets are installed into the base, and rubberized feet are fitted to the bottom surface.

Unfortunately it only supports landscape mode since it leverages the iPad’s own built-in magnets.

How To Work From Home Like You Mean It

2012-01-13T14:46:27-10:00

Kevin Purdy:

Dressing for work and “arriving” on time, eating lunch on a rigid schedule, shaving, brushing, and so on seems pointless at first. But not doing these basic preparations is the start of a steep, Teflon-coated slope to all kinds of other transgressions. If you’re not dressed well enough to greet the UPS delivery person, you’re giving yourself license to hide. If you’re hiding, then you imagine nobody can see Netflix open on your second monitor.

Telecommuting sometimes feels like it’s equal parts blessing and curse. On one hand you have total freedom. On the other hand, you have total freedom.

I had been working for myself for many years before taking an actual office job. (You know, the kind you have to get up and drive to.) The lack of freedom was a big shock at first but it taught me that often productivity and structure go hand-in-hand. After leaving that job and going back to working for myself I found that I craved a structured schedule. Yes, it helps me be productive during work hours, but another great — even if unanticipated — outcome is that it helps me define boundaries for time I shouldn’t be working.

Learn To Speak Vim

2011-12-30T14:42:47-10:00

I’m a relatively new convert to Vim having only made the switch from TextMate about six months ago. This post by Yan Pritzker would have likely saved me some trouble in those first frustrating weeks:

Using vim is like talking to your editor in ‘verb modifier object’ sentences, turned into acronyms

learn some verbs: v (visual), c (change), d (delete), y (yank/copy). these are the most important. there are others

learn some modifiers: i (inside), a (around), t (till..finds a character), f (find..like till except including the char), / (search..find a string/regex)

learn some text objects: w (word), s (sentence) p (paragraph) b (block/parentheses), t (tag, works for html/xml) there are others

It’s a great primer if you’re considering making the switch.

Also, be sure to check out Janus if you’re looking to smooth the transition to Vim from another editor (like TextMate). Janus is a Vim distribution that includes some sensible default plugins and key bindings so Vim won’t drive you crazy while you’re trying to get your bearings.

Moving to Jekyll

2011-12-29T16:45:24-10:00

After battling with WordPress for years I finally decided to try Jekyll. Like others who’ve made the switch, I grew tired of the poor performance, overly-complicated publishing system and constant need for management of WordPress. I found myself spending more time fiddling than writing.

When the JohnnyA WordPress Hack hit Media Temple a little over a year ago, I tried to do some damage control and repair my blog. I thought I had wiped out the hack, but over the next few months it — or something like it — would continually reappear. Eventually, I realized that I had stopped writing altogether because I was tired of dealing with it. This blog has languished since then.

With the new year approaching I figured I’d start afresh with a new blogging platform. After looking at a few alternatives, I decided on Jekyll. Jekyll bills itself as “a simple, blog aware, static site generator” and it eliminates some of my major pain points with WordPress right out of the box:

The generated site is just a bunch of static HTML files so it’s fast and secure.
Jekyll doesn’t need to be constantly updated with security patches since it’s not actually running code in production.
There’s no “content management” or “publishing system” to get in the way. Everything is stored as simple, editable text files.

Additionally, I had a few requirements of my own that I wanted to meet with the migration to Jekyll:

Use Vim (or any standard text editor) to write posts.
Use a Git-based workflow for managing posts and updating the blog.
Host it on Heroku (for free).
Use Compass and SASS for layout.
Be able to use syntax highlighting in posts (without javascript).
Be able to easily write from anywhere.

Each of these items is a direct result of some pain point I experienced with WordPress. My goal was not just to move off of WordPress, but to really create a better work flow that would reduce friction and in turn encourage me to write more.

I’m still polishing some rough edges, but so far I like my setup. I’m planning some follow up posts that go into more specifics, but for now I’m just enjoying being off of WordPress.

Installing iOS 5 Beta 1: Error Code 3002

2011-06-06T15:00:24-10:00

I was getting an Error 3002 when trying to update my iPhone 4 to use the new iOS 5 Beta. Although it doesn’t seem to say it anywhere, you need to use a Restore option to install it. (Instead of an update.)

Just be sure to do a backup first. You’ll be prompted to restore from an iTunes backup right on the device after the restore process is complete. Then you’ll be good to go with all of your existing data.

Happy Testing!

Seth Godin on True Leadership

2011-03-15T10:36:30-10:00

Leadership means embracing the failure of your people if it leads to growth.

There are so many great tidbits in this video that it’s hard to pick just one quote. A must-watch.

iPhone OS 4.0.1 Signal Strength Display Change Graphics

2010-07-15T11:12:22-10:00

Apple just released the iPhone 4.0.1 update that changes the way signal strength is displayed. The new graph looks pretty weird to me since it’s no longer linear. I made some quick graphics of the changes:

Old display (Pre 4.0.1)	iOS 4.0.1

To make the change easier to visualize, I did some combo graphics. The first is an overlay where the red represents the new bars and the second is an animation showing old and new states:

Overlay	Animation

Apparently the bars themselves now also represent a more accurate depiction of signal strength. AnandTech has a detailed write up of the changes. I’ve noticed that where I have normally gotten the full five bars at my office, I am now hovering around four, with the occasional 5.

CSS3 PIE: CSS3 decorations for IE

2010-07-13T12:03:10-10:00

CSS3 PIE: CSS3 decorations for IE:

PIE makes Internet Explorer 6-8 capable of rendering several of the most useful CSS3 decoration features. […] PIE stands for Progressive Internet Explorer. It is an IE attached behavior which, when applied to an element, allows IE to recognize and display a number of CSS3 properties.

Looks great. One of the most challenging aspects of web development has always been designing for the lowest common denominator of browser features. Tools like this help raise the bar for IE in a (mostly) hassle-free, consistent way.

PIE currently has full or partial support for the following CSS3 features:

border-radius

box-shadow

border-image

multiple background images

linear-gradient as background image

Using the Mac OS X Color Picker as a Stand-Alone App

2010-03-26T10:50:12-10:00

I’ve been looking for a good, simple, system-wide color picker. The built-in Mac OS X one is great, but it needs to be launched from within an existing application. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to use it as a standalone app? That’s exactly what Spot Color does:

Spot Color is a simple application that allows you to use the standard Mac OS X color picker as a stand-alone app. This allows you to quickly grab colors without having to be in an image editing app like Photoshop. Since it uses the built-in color picker, you can utilize the system wide color picker plugins and swatches.

It’s just a simple application wrapper that launches the system-wide color picker. The same exact thing can be done with Apple Script but it was way to sluggish to launch and I found I just wouldn’t use it. Besides, Spot Color has a cute icon. And it’s fast and light-weight. (I tried a similar app by Matt Patenaude called simply “Colors”. But it felt a little chintzy.)

The reason this is so useful is that the built-in color picker on Mac OS X is extensible and there are some really great plugins available. These are the ones I use:

Developer Color Picker: Provides color definitions in a variety of developer-friendly formats including NSColor, UIColor, CGColor, Hex and RGB. Written by Wade Cosgrove of Panic, inc.
Hex Color Picker: Displays the hex code for any color in a slightly different way than the above plugin. Very useful for web development. If you just need hex values, you can probably get away with just this plugin.
Mondrianum 2: Loads themes from the Adobe Kuler community.

The source code for Spot Color is on github too, which is always nice.

I also sometimes combine this with Digital Color Meter (found in the Applications/Utilities/ folder on your Mac) since its zoom view makes it a little easier to pick colors from the screen.

flashblockdetector: Javascript That Detects Flash Blocking Extensions

2010-03-15T17:02:42-10:00

Mark Pilgrim just released this nifty little flash block detector:

This is a pure-JavaScript library that detects whether Flash is blocked on the current page due to a Flash blocking extension. The current version can detect

FlashBlock #1 for Chromium / Google Chrome (Windows/Mac/Linux)

FlashBlock #2 for Chromium / Google Chrome (Windows/Mac/Linux)

FlashBlock for Firefox (Windows/Mac/Linux)

ClickToFlash 1.5.x (Mac/Safari only)

Pretty cool, but there’s a small catch:

If a Flash blocker is active, your callback function will be called almost immediately. If no Flash blocker is active, your callback function will be called after the 5 second timeout.

(Via Mark Pilgrim.)

HumbleFinance: Dynamic Charts with HTML5, Canvas, and Flotr for Prototype

2010-03-12T11:47:19-10:00

HumbleFinance:

HumbleFinance is an HTML5 data visualization tool written as a demonstration of interactive graphing in HTML5. It is similar to the Flash tool on http://finance.google.com/. The tool itself is written entirely in JavaScript, using the Prototype and Flotr libraries. It can be used to display any two 2-D data sets of real numerical data which share an axis.

Between this and gRaphaël I’d say there’s a lot of potential for open technologies to be a real, viable alternative to Flash based charts very soon.

jQuery Masonry

2010-03-11T13:06:49-10:00

jQuery Masonry:

Masonry is a layout plugin for jQuery. Think of it as the flip side of CSS floats. Whereas floating arranges elements horizontally then vertically, Masonry arranges elements vertically then horizontally according to a grid. The result minimizes vertical gaps between elements of varying height, just like a mason fitting stones in a wall.

Came across this for the first time today. Reminds me a lot of the old Grid-a-licious WordPress theme. Also, it’s hosted on GitHub so you can grab it there too.

html5media: JavaScript That Enables 'Video' Tag For All Major Browsers

2010-03-11T09:23:39-10:00

html5media:

HTML5 video tags make embedding videos into documents as easy as embedding an image. All it takes is a single <video> tag. Unfortunately, not all browsers natively support HTML5 video tags.

… and that’s where this clever little stop-gap script comes in. It replaces the video tag with a Flash Player if the video tag is not supported natively in the current browser.

Daily Deeds: The Other Side of "Getting Things Done"

2010-03-09T10:08:14-10:00

For me, apps like Omni Focus or Things — although great at managing tasks — don’t give you a complete picture of the things that need to get done. I’m talking about things that you’d like to do, maybe even every day, but that maybe don’t fit into a particular project or “Area of Responsibility”. Things that guide you to a bigger picture goal and remind you that checking off tasks is not the be-all end-all of your life or career.

As is often the case, Rands nails it in this article from 2008:

The curse of any effective task management system is that you get really good at capturing, prioritizing, and executing tasks. To the point that you start to believe that merely completing a task is helping your career. After a solid decade of rampant task management, I realized I needed to augment tasks with a system that would strategically guide and remind me that my job was not to do things, but to remember the interesting words in my title: manager, engineering, and products. That’s what I do.

What I needed was a guiding force behind these tasks, a way to remind me that I was pushing towards a goal and defining and refining a strategy.

He calls this a “Trickle List” and I highly recommend you read the entire article for a clearer picture of what exactly it is.

The problem, for me, with a Trickle List was just that I’d forget to mark stuff off since my list wouldn’t be with me all the time and having to build the list every day (on paper!) becomes a chore. Just yesterday an iPhone app was released that aims to fill this gap digitally. It’s called Daily Deeds and it has a super simple, clean and usable interface.

I still use Things as my task manager, but Daily Deeds seems to fit the bill as a Trickle List replacement very nicely. It’s a great (albeit simplistic) app that allows you to set daily “habits” that you can check off as you do them. Having it on your iPhone means that you have your list with you all the time and adding new habits can be done right away. (By the way, I love that they chose to call them habits since essentially that’s what I’m trying to form by using this app.)

At first I thought that I might want to see finer grained control over the time-frame for habits. Say, I only need to do something once a week, or once a month. After giving it some thought though, I’m inclined to think that those tasks should stay in my task manager as recurring tasks. Daily Deeds is better suited for just that: things you’d like to try to do each day.

One thing I would like added is the ability to see some stats about my habits. On average, how often have I watered the plants? There’s a nice calendar view that helps in this regard, but having some cold-hard stats would help define the things I really need to work on.