Andrew McCloud @amccloud - Tumblr Blog

How To Split Amazon Payment Between Two Credit Cards

In the process of purchasing all the new goodies for my new place I decided now would be a good time to exercise a line of credit through Amazon. Unfortunately Amazon gave me a lackluster credit limit that only covers about 1/4th of my carts total.

I now need to split the payment across two payment methods. The credit card issued by Amazon and my Visa debit card. This is problematic because while Apple's online store offers a way to do this, Amazon does not. Fear less, I've figured out a simple way around this limitation – by using this Amazon's Gift Card.

Purchase this Amazon Gift Card with one payment source. In my case I purchased a gift card with my Visa debit card.

You can purchase the Amazon gift card here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004LLIKVU/?tag=amz-gift-card-20

Select the email gift card, set the amount, and send the gift card to yourself. You will be emailed a code. Copy that code as we will use in the next step.

This is not limited to two payment sources. You can purchase a gift card with each payment source you have.

It appears $2,000 is maximum gift card amount you can purchase.

It can take up to 15 minutes to receive the gift card.

Now that you have your gift card code, when you go to select the payment options for your cart you're able to select a primary payment source – in my case my Amazon credit card.

Then input all of your Amazon gift card codes as secondary payment source.

Edit: I've also created a video tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w15S4eYtQ9g

That's all there is to it. Hope this hack helps other!

#amazon #hack

Django 1.5 Custom User GeoManager

AttributeError: 'GeoManager' object has no attribute 'get_by_natural_key'

Using geo fields on a Django model requires the use of GeoManager. Custom User models require an object manager that implements BaseUserManager.get_by_natural_key. If you're trying to add geo fields to your custom User model you'll need create a custom manager that mixes a user manager and GeoManager. Lucky us, this is a piece of cake!

http://gist.github.com/4291351

#django #opensource #python

Create Text & Online Versions of Emails Automatically

For this i've created django-firstclass. Firstclass is a proxy email backend for Django that allows for global email transformations such as automatically creating a plain text version of html emails or automatically creating an online version of the email that can be read in browser.

My goal was to have this be a drop in solution requiring no change to a code base. I also wanted this to be flexible enough so that it can work with a wide variety of projects. I accomplished this by adding a middleware pipeline to Django's email process. I've bundled a few useful middleware in and plan to add a few more. Creating your own middleware is simple. Middleware is a single Python class that defines process_message.

For example if you wanted to create a middleware that would add a tracking pixel to all of your emails:

http://gist.github.com/3048960

You would then simply add TrackingPixelMiddleware to FIRSTCLASS_MIDDLEWARE.

https://github.com/amccloud/django-firstclass

#django #python #firstclass #opensource

Currently 99% of All Backbone.js Apps Are Broken

Javascript and Backbone.js is an async world. This also means request are async. If you're fetching results for a collection and blindly expecting your collection to match those results, showing them to a user – you're gonna have a bad time.

Currently slow request can cause havok on the the state of your collections and models. Imagine this scenario: A user search for 'javascript' first and then 'dom'. The 'javascript' search hangs so the user never got to see the results. They then search for 'dom' and that response comes in right away while the 'javascript' search is still pending. The user is presented with books on 'dom'. The old 'javascript' request now responds. The collection and the users UI is abruptly changed to books on 'javascript'. Not good! backbone-safesync tries to remedy this by aborting old request.

https://github.com/amccloud/backbone-safesync

Thanks to rpflo in #documentcloud for bringing this to light.

#backbonejs #javascript

Backbone Bindings

When working with Backbone it is common to re-render a whole view when a model attribute has changed. We can do better than that. Inspired by bindings in Cocoa (iOS & Mac) applications, I've created a library that allows you to bind element properties to model attributes, with optional transformation in between. I wanted bindings to be as simple as Backbone.View.events.

http://gist.github.com/2691450

See it in action here: http://jsfiddle.net/T2MSu/3/

https://github.com/amccloud/backbone-bindings

#backbonejs #javascript

Backbone Dotattr

I've created a little utility for accessing deep attributes in Backbone.js models with dot-syntax.

http://gist.github.com/2663112

https://github.com/amccloud/backbone-dotattr

#backbonejs #javascript

MSN Love for iChat 6.0 & Messages

Apple has introduced a new service plugin system for connecting iChat 6.0, and now Mountain Lion's Messages, to other IM networks like MSN, IRC, and iMessages. The folks over at BrainJuice have released an awesome plugin i've been using for a while that is in beta called Cocoon. For those interested in the technical details about the implementation of iChat and Messages service plugins see Apple's documentation.

Download the Cocoon MSN plugin

Mount the DMG and follow the installation directions.

Once installed open iChat or Messages Preferences go to the accounts tab and press the "+".

Select MSN under account type and enter your MSN username and password.

Click done and you're all set. You should see your MSN account added to your Accounts list and a section appear in the main buddy list window.

Bonus! There is also an IRC plugin that you can install.

#ichat #messages

TextMate 2 Bundle Directory

TextMate 2 alpha has been released but where is the TextMate 2 bundle directory?

~/Library/Application Support/Avian/Bundles/

The application support directory has been renamed so that it does not interfere with TextMate 1 bundles. From my testing (not absolute) TextMate 1 bundles work with TextMate 2.

#textmate 2 #tips

Quick Optional Model Fields Trick

This is just something I do now. It's DRY, saves a few keystrokes, helps stay under pep8's 79 character limit, and improves readability in my opinion.

http://gist.github.com/1526444

#django #tips

Custom Facebook Chat Smileys! Rage Face, Domo Kun, and more!

It's been revealed that you can use Facebook profile ids with brackets [[ ]] to show that profiles image in Facebook's chat. For example the Poker Face profile - https://www.facebook.com/129627277060203 - take the id 129627277060203 and put it in brackets like so [[129627277060203]].

Here is a collection of a few profiles courtesy of Reddit. If you have more tweet them to me @amccloud and I will add them to the list. Copy and paste the number and brackets.

Poker Face [[129627277060203]]

Forever Alone [[227644903931785]]

OK Guy [[100002752520227]]

Me Gusta [[164413893600463]]

LOL Guy [[189637151067601]]

Fuck Yeah [[105387672833401]]

Problem? [[171108522930776]]

Yao-Ming [[218595638164996]]

Troll Face [[171108522930776]]

Are you kidding me? [[143220739082110]]

Not bad Obama [[169919399735055]]

Mother of god [[142670085793927]]

Cereal Guy [[170815706323196]]

Socially akward penguin [[98438140742]]

No [[167359756658519]]

Gentleman [[168040846586189]]

Challenge Accepted [[100002727365206]]

Domo Kun [[250128751720149]]

Pokeball [[236147243124900]]

Pikachu [[326134990738733]]

Spongebob [[334954663181745]]

Pedo bear [[148935948523684]]

Dark Letter A [[107015582669715]]

Dark Letter B [[116067591741123]]

Dark Letter C [[115602405121532]]

Dark Letter D [[112542438763744]]

Dark Letter E [[115430438474268]]

Dark Letter F [[109225112442557]]

Dark Letter G [[111532845537326]]

Dark Letter H [[111356865552629]]

Dark Letter I [[109294689102123]]

Dark Letter J [[115636698451811]]

Dark Letter K [[116651741681944]]

Dark Letter L [[115807951764667]]

Dark Letter M [[106596672714242]]

Dark Letter N [[108634132504932]]

Dark Letter O [[116564658357124]]

Dark Letter P [[111669128857397]]

Dark Letter Q [[107061805996548]]

Dark Letter R [[106699962703083]]

Dark Letter S [[115927268419031]]

Dark Letter T [[112669162092780]]

Dark Letter U [[108983579135532]]

Dark Letter V [[107023745999320]]

Dark Letter W [[106678406038354]]

Dark Letter X [[116740548336581]]

Dark Letter Y [[112416755444217]]

And for the holidays!

Copy and paste this:

[[106596672714242]] [[115430438474268]] [[106699962703083]] [[106699962703083]] [[112416755444217]] [[115602405121532]] [[111356865552629]] [[106699962703083]] [[109294689102123]] [[115927268419031]] [[112669162092780]] [[106596672714242]] [[107015582669715]] [[115927268419031]]

Also don't forget to checkout custom Facebook timeline covers over at changecovers.com

#facebook

My Django 1.4 Project Template

Django supports custom project templates as of 1.4. This is a feature i've been dreaming for and since have created what I consider - and hope - is an improved project template for most.

https://github.com/amccloud/django-project-skel/

Changes and additions

Global templates, static, and fixtures directory.

Collects static and media into public/{static,media} respectively.

Django admin activated by default.

Django timezone setting changed to UTC for sanity.

HTML 5 base template with simple 404 and 500 error templates.

Discourages storing credentials and secrets in the repository.

Encourages the use of local_settings.py and accompanying __local_settings.py template.

Encourages the use of virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper.

Encourages the use of pip and requirements.txt.

Encourages the use of git.

Includes a .gitignore for the usual junk.

Automatically builds a README with installation notes.

How to use

django-admin.py startproject --template https://github.com/amccloud/django-project-skel/zipball/master --extension py,md yourprojectname

Contribute on GitHub

#django #1.4 #opensource

Lion iChat Growl Notifications

I just finished a pretty much flawless installation of Lion and found our that Chax for iChat does not support OS X 10.7. The growl notification option in Chax is something that greatly improved my workflow and productivity; I needed it back. AppleScript to the rescue, but first we need to install the Growl helper application.

Download and install Growl from http://growl.info/.

Save this AppleScript to: ~/Library/Scripts/iChat/Growl.applescript

If ~/Library is hidden run in Terminal: chflags nohidden ~/Library

http://gist.github.com/1242000

Open iChat Preferences, click the Alerts tab, select the event Message Received, check Run this AppleScript script, and select Growl.applescript that you saved earlier.

That’s it! You should now have iChat Growl notifications with Lion.

#ichat #messages

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