Dog Found Me @dogfound-blog - Tumblr Blog

The Not-Martin Special aka The Mark Special

The following post is inspired by The Setup

Mark Sheridan

Software Developer, iOS Ninja, Ragnar Enthusiast, Husband

May 24, 2012

Who are you, and what do you do?

I am Mark Sheridan. I was born in Dublin, Ireland on July 19, 1985. Even though I got married last summer, my name is still Mark Sheridan. In case any of you were wondering…no that is not a recent picture. It's from 3 years ago.

What do I do? I currently work full-time for a software integration consulting company, you all know the company, since it will probably only be my coworkers who read this anyway. I love spending some free time working on side projects, both technical and around the house. I also enjoy hookers and blow running and watching the tube, although not at the same time. By tube I mean television, although YouTube is kinda cool too.

What hardware are you using?

For work, I use a sweet MacBook Pro, pimped out with 8GB of RAM and a 500GB HD. I also use this machine as my media server at home, which I'll explain a little further on.

I finally brought myself to buy a 16GB wifi iPad last month. I was originally going to get the iPad 2 when the price dropped by $100 to save some money, but decided on getting the new iPad when Best Buy offered it to me for $50 off the regular price. Not sure if many people know this, but I found out that Best Buy cannot return products to Apple when customers return a product, therefore they are forced to sell the item as at discounted "Open Box" price. So, there happened to be a returned iPad when I went. I snagged it for $449, opened it up and the plastic was still on and all. Win!

On the mobile side, I use a 16GB iPhone 4. Since I'm a guy, I got the black one, not the white one, because that's for girls. I also have a Motorola Razr as my work phone that I have only turned on maybe twice in the past year.

At home I currently have phone service through Optimum, but am in the process of porting my home phone number over to Google Voice and using the OBi110 to save money!

And what software?

My favorite app on my MacBook is Plex. Like I mentioned before, I use my MacBook as my media server at home. I have an Apple TV 2, and the unfortunate thing about it OOTB is that you can only stream videos that exist in your iTunes Library. The problem here is that iTunes only plays MP4 video files. I have many AVI and MKV files that I want to be able to stream to my Apple TV. The solution? Jailbreak the Apple TV and install the Plex client. Then, I can access my whole video library from the Apple TV and stream with no video quality loss. Win!

I use Dropbox for backing up all my important files and pictures to the Cloud. Thanks to my good friend Martin for giving me the mechanical turk. I won't get into details about what that actually is, but let's just say after he turked me, I had a lot more room for storage! (That's what she said!) (And by that, I mean I have the max amount of free space allocated by Dropbox for now)

For my music collection, I bought in to iTunes Match. I did run into an issue with using iTunes Match though, that I had to find a work around for. Apparently, you cannot load audio files onto your device (iPhone, iPod, iPad) that cannot be synced up to iCloud. The problem here is I download a certain radio show that has a lower bit rate in the file, therefore iCloud does not upload it. The work around to this is I use a software called Switch to convert the audio files to a higher bit rate file that iCloud can use. Now I can keep listening to my favorite show on the go! =)

On my iPhone and iPad, my most used apps are Mail, Messages, Facebook, Instagram, Runkeeper, Twitter, and Words With Friends (or as my wife calls it, Pooping With Friends)

What would be your dream setup?

To be honest, I hate this question. I believe we are always chasing a dream setup. By the time we get what we want, there are new things out! It's an ongoing game of cat and mouse. And what's life if it doesn't involve dreaming?

@trumrk out!

#the setup

Bags, Bags & More Bags

In December I graduated college. In January, I started my first job that paid more than minimum wage, had benefits, and was full time. Needless to say I have some remnants of my days as a broke college student. Some of them such as my car are not easily replaced. Others such as my laptop bag and case are definetly doable. Currently I use a stained canvas Disney grocery shopping bag that I got from the grocery store in Disney World, and my laptop lives in a 6 year old Built pyschedlic printed neoprene sleeve. Upgrade? I think so! Espcially because I may be traveling for work soon and while my office accepts me for my poor choice in laptop transport. I'm not sure if the customer I'm going to be working for will. I'm a big fan of having a single large bag and then putting my laptop, extra sweater, wallet, and whatever else I need for the day in it. There are a few actual laptop bags included in my selection. Here are some of the bag and laptop sleeve combinations I have been considering. Admittedly some of these are out of my price range, but a girl can dream, can't she… Since its almost summer I couldn't resist considering a bag with some color. The office can be rather grey literally the floor, cubicles, walls, and ceilings are all grey. I love bright colors especially in accessories. Here are my yellow selections. 1. An actual laptop bag for those who want their work things better organized and don't want to carry around a massive tote. Super fun print. $118.00

Link 2. The cut outs on this one remind of vacationing somewhere in the mediterranean. $128.00

Link 3. The combination of the yellow with the leather accents keep this bright bag looking a little more professional. $98.00

Link Another great color to consider is orange it goes great with khakis and browns and makes me smile when I look at it. 4. A slimmer tote that keeps it together definetly a little more expensive. $345.00

Link 5. Fantastic print without being obnoxious. Leather bottom will hold up well to wear and tear. $295.00

Link 6. Another laptop bag this one is leather with croc embossing. It also comes in a great royal blue shade as well. $295.00

Link Of course neutrals are a more versatile option. And according to Stacy and Clinton from TLC's What Not To Wear metallics are neutrals. Many of the metallic bags out this year are more subdued shades somewhere between gold and silver. Oooo shiny things! 7. The preforated pattern on this tote gives it a little something extra. $288.00

Link 8. The bow is just too cute and the two tones of metallics are fabulous. $198.00

Link Last but not least is the classic black bag. Just like the little black dress its perfect for nearly all occasions. 9. Love Flea bags except for the price. The other issue with this one is I have a 15in and I'm not sure if it will fit in the hole …. thats what she said. $440.00

Link 10. It's got leopard nuff said. Oh and did I mention its on sale. $149.90

Link For laptop sleeves I believe neutral is best, at least for me. It lets me coordinate with different bags and although loud patterns are fun. I prefer a more staid laptop case especially in a professional environment. I have a great Knomo envelope for my Macbook Air, and would also like my 15in Macbook Pro to coordinate. Though its not mandatory because I don't plan on carrying both at once. 11. I mean who can say no to Jimmy Choo. Although I can say no to the $595.00 price tag. Its gorgeous and one day when I have the money to blow just maybe I'll get one, but not before I get a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes.

Link 12. This is my current front runner in the black laptop sleeve catgeory. I love the fact that it's patent with gold accents and would go great with any bag. $90.00

Personally I'm in love with the felt and leather trend thats been going on in laptop sleeves recently. I know Daniel in his previous post on bags had some fantastic options. Well here are a few more. 13. Simple envelope design. $69.00

Link 14. Another fabulous option I love the leather accents on this one. $79.00

No clue which bag and laptop sleeve I'm going to choose. I'm leaning towards the Sam Edelman leopard and black leather tote and the Ted Baker plack patent laptop sleeve. Once I get my new set up I'll tweet out a picture of it on @bearrrclough. Oh and let me know which combination you like best. The following post was written by one of our favorite people @bearrrclough.

My quest for a laptop free existence….

I guess the title is a bit misleading. What I am referring to is a laptop free existence for my personal life. With work, I think I will always need a laptop…or maybe not! But that’s beside the point.

So I recently purchased my first iPad 2 and quickly realized how lame my Dell laptop is. Not just because of the PC vs Mac thing but how every time I want to use my laptop I have to get it out of the desk, boot it up, most likely plug it in and wait for it to get its self together. All while I grow increasingly impatient.

The day I met the iPad I immediately wanted to free myself from the laptop. I love the instant gratification of turning it on and having it ready to do what it’s told (that’s what she said). I also love fact that it rarely needs to be charged and fits in my pocket book. (Girls get it).

So, what does that mean? How do I make this happen?

Since I’m lucky enough to work for a technology company, I enlisted a few of my co-workers to assist. As I see it, I have three areas to address in order to make this happen

Music

Photos

Files

Music was an easy one since I have all of my music in iTunes and own an iPhone 4S – iTunes Match. Done. Files were easy too since I’m already a Dropbox user and don’t keep anything locally. All I had to do was download the app to my new iPad. Done and done.

Photos are going to be the hard part. I’m not just talking photos taken on my iPhone or iPad (who does that...) since I use Photo Stream but all of the photos I’ve taken in the almost 10 years I’ve owned digital cameras.

Of course there are options but I’ve yet to find one that is the right answer. There are the obvious ones like external hard drives, DVD backups and online storage services like Picasa, Amazon S3 (what the hell is an S3?!?), etc. Ideally, I’d like to use an online service but from what my techy co-workers tell me they don’t all work well with the iPad. Actually, I think I’m the first one in my office to attempt the laptop free existence which is kind of cool since I’m no tech geek. Maybe I’ll get some street cred now. Probably not (sad face).

Unfortunately, this blog does not conclude with the answer. And my quest continues……unless anyone has some suggestions?!?

Please Help!!

The following post was written by one of our favorite people @sea_n0te. Follow her on twitter for more info on project managing, Asian foods to avoid while in Asia, best beaches in NJ, gardening and drinking a good glass of Pinot Grigio.

If you would like to give some advice to @sea_n0te on how to become laptop free, please at-reply @dogfoundme

#iPad #laptop-free

Overview of Programming For Open Source Embedded Hardware

Sometimes you just need an embedded solution. Whether its because you're just too lazy to get out of bed to turn the lights off at night or you want to automate watering your plants, embedded hardware is for you. There are several options out on the market for hobbyists looking to rapidly prototype. Below I'm going to give an overview of two of the most user friendly options for switching from more traditional development to rapid prototyping.

Arduino Overview

Pros: Arduino is arguably the most popular open source platform. There is a large community supporting this device with new libraries and shields coming out all the time. Almost any project you can imagine has a tutorial written for it. The processor is an 8 bit Atmel AVR. Arduino comes in several different models, the Uno, the Mini, the Pro Mini, the Pro, and the Mega. If thats not enough there is also the LilyPad platform that is meant to be sewn into clothing. Some of the shields (specially designed add ons that don't require any soldering) that are currently being produced handle GPS, ethernet, bluetooth, cellular, LCD screens, water sensors, voice recognition, electro luminescent wire, gaming shield, and the list goes on. With a simple break out board you can even control you're iPad from an Arduino.

Cons: It's not programmed in machine code so you only have as much control over memory as the Arduino programming language affords you.

Programming Language: The Arduino uses ,you guessed it, the Arduino programming language which is based on wiring. It's sort of like C++. They provide you with a free IDE that handles compiling and loading your code onto your Arduino, its pretty sweet as these IDE s go. The main class has a very simple structure, and you can add additional helper classes to better organize your code. OOTB Arduino prints to the console while its connected to your computer which makes debugging way easier than staring at blinking LEDs. Here's an outline of the structure of an Arduino program.

https://gist.github.com/2571305

Libraries: Arduino has a multitude of libraries written for it. Below is a smattering of possibilities.

Arduino Basic Libraries

Playstation 2 Library

A Library that allow Arduinoes to talk to each other

Twitter Library

Arduiniana Library

Netduino Overview

Pros:Netduino Programmed in straight up .NET Micro Framework. Two options the Netduino and the Netduino Plus which comes prepackaged with ethernet connectivity. Atmel 32 bit microcontroller. These are a bit faster than the Arduino's. These babies have shield compatibility with Arduino so any shield listed above can be used with Netduino. Basically if you want to program in C# these are for you, although the community surrounding Netduino is not as large.

Cons:

The software to program these puppies only runs on Windows. So if you are a Mac or linux user you need a VM that runs Windows. Basically you have to interact with Windows to use these.

Programming Language:

Netduino uses C# with the .NET Framework.

https://gist.github.com/2584856

Libraries: All the libraries that can be used with the .NET framework.

netduinoHelpers

Happy Making!

The following post was written by one of our favorite people @bearrrclough. Follow her on twitter for more info on rocking climbing, knitting and if you want brownies with walnuts or pecan bars, DM her and she'll happily make them for you (I'm not joking).

#arduino #netduino #opensource #rapidprototyping

Uploading files with Quicksilver & CloudApp

We at Dog Found love Quicksilver. The only thing we might love more right now is CloudApp…sorry Droplr . (. So we thought why not combine the two! CloudApp already gives you the feature of taking screenshots and having it automatically upload the file to your CloudApp account and saving the generated URL to your clipboard.

Wouldn't it be greate if you could use Quicksilver to select one or more files and have them be sent to your CloudApp account AND, AND also have that great feature of getting the URL that CloudApp generates for you after it uploads the file for you?

That sounds great and all, so how are we doing all this exactly? How are we going to combine Quicksilver and CloudApp?…RUBY!!!Another thing we love at Dog Found. So we went ahead and wrote a little Ruby script to make this all happen.

Prep work

There's a little bit of prep work to get all this hooked up together. You'll need the following gems installed in your system.

https://gist.github.com/8743eedf251a1789eea0

The Magic

This Ruby script was written specifically with Quicksilver in mind. The reason why this script works so great with Quicksilver is because of The Comma Trick. If you haven't used that feature before, we highly recommend it. Using the Comma Trick, you can select multiple files through Quicksilver and send it to a corresponding action.

Let's take a close look at the pieces that make this script work. Below we can see that the script takes in a array of file paths and either creates a archive file if there are multiple files or uses the lone file path supplied to Quicksilver.

https://gist.github.com/452d4c449285276da67f

Next, we use the CloudApp APIs to authenticate CloudApp account and use the CloudApp Client class to upload the file (either the archived file or the single file) to our CloudApp account. We've set the privacy setting here to private by default.

https://gist.github.com/58891196a66cb564f512

But instead of having you type in your email address and password for CloudApp, we use the security command to retrieve the credentials from your Keychain.

https://gist.github.com/003874d753b9e0e274d5

Just make sure to allow the script access.

After the upload has completed (successfully or unsuccessfully) we immediate send a Growl notification to the user to give them the status of the file(s) they chose.

https://gist.github.com/2e5f7cd40954fbc597b2

The last few steps are executed if the CloudApp upload is successful. First we place the URL generated by the fileupload to the clipboard.

https://gist.github.com/80035b353cf3bbc3b912

And finally, if a zip file was created because 2 or more files were selected, we just do a bit of cleanup and delete the zip file from the /tmp directory.

https://gist.github.com/8c1ed380eb73a0391346

In order to use the script in Quicksilver all you need to do is place the script the in Actions folder, which is normally located in ~/Library/Application Support/Quicksilver/Actions. You can even change the icon of the file so that you get a fancy icon in the Quicksilver HUD. We used the following replacement icon.

Hopefully, you find this script useful. If you'd like a copy, we've put a gist up on our github account. Enjoy!!

#cloudapp #quicksilver #ruby

Just Throw It In The Bag?

So you read our previous post and now you're saying to yourself 'DFM, now that I have The Setup what can I do about being on the go?' or in other words 'Now that I'm set up, how can I get down?' (that's what she said).

Today we'll look at a few ways to carry your hardware (and yourself) in style. Each category will include a Basic option, for traveling without breaking the bank, and a Deluxe option. Both will get you where you need to go without settling on quality or aesthetic.

The Minimal

I don't like carrying more than I need. In order to travel light - perhaps even sans charger - I turn to a notebook sleeve.

Basic: WaterField SleeveCase - Ballistic Nylon exterior with (optional) Leather Trim sized to fit your specific notebook in the orientation of your choosing. Optional features include external pockets, shoulder strap, and an enclosing flap.

Deluxe: HardGraft Heritage Folio - Wool Felt exterior with external Tanned Leather pocket for 15" notebooks in a horizontal orientation. This sleeve has a very sleek, distinct "bespoke signature style".

The Casual

For everyday pack-and-go, a backpack is a practical, comfortable choice. Keeping with the idea of not carrying more than I need, here are a few slim profile selections.

Basic: Incase Compact Backpack - Nylon exterior with a faux-fur lined notebook pocket. The interior highlight color is both decorative and practical, helping you to find your belongings more easily.

Deluxe: Tumi Dror Backpack - Fabric exterior with geometric accent pockets. The Dror line is based on transformation, allowing this backpack to double as an over-the-shoulder and triple as a tote.

The Professional

When the two-strap won't cut it, a messenger bag is a great way of suiting up your accessories.

Basic: J.Crew Laptop Messenger - Cotton twill exterior with faux leather accents and dedicated internal notebook compartment.

Deluxe: Jack Spade Leather Field Messenger - Leather exterior with a herringbone lining. This classically structured bag will nicely compliment your modern computing hardware.

The following post was written by one of our favorite people, Daniel Duma. Daniel is one of the members of Fr3sh Dance Crew. Dan's the one with all the arrows around his head…

#bags #laptop

The Martin Special

The following post is inspired by The Setup

Martin Santiago

Software Developer, Apple Geek

April 12, 2012

Who are you, and what do you do?

I don't really like to talk about my flair...So let's just get to the meat of things (that's what she said).

What hardware are you using?

I'm currently using a MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM. This machine is my primary development machine that I hook up to a 2008 24" Apple Cinema Display, which I only have because a friend of mine moved and couldn't bring it with her. Even though the monitor is 3 years old, it makes my 3 month old LED monitor look like a turd. I can't, correction, won't go back to a non-Apple display.

I use an Apple Wireless Keyboard and an Apple Magic Trackpad. I picked up the Twelve South MagicWand to seamlessly snap the two to make a megatron input device.

I also have a Mac mini with 8GB of RAM that I use as a media server. The Mac mini is connected to a 3 TB external hard drive to house all my media. To round off my Apple arsenal, I have a white 16GB iPhone 4S. I can honestly say that the iPhone is the best computer I've ever owned.

I bought the Nest when it first came out. I absolutely love it. It is such a beautifully designed piece of hardware

I've always had a thing for pens and notebooks, so on my desk are several Pigma Micron 05, fine point, .45mm pens in Sepia (because real men write in Sepia) . I use those pens to write in Kokuyo Buncobon Dot Cover A6 notebooks, which I have about half a dozen on my desk. Also on my desk is a an old pair of Bose QC15. I've had them for about 7 years and they are still as good as new. The only thing I've had to replace are the ear pieces.

My chair of choice is the Herman Millers Aeron chair. Arguably, the best designed chair ever made. I had one at my very first job out of college and naively thought that's how companies equipped their employees. When I moved on to my next job and realized that wasn't the case, I simply put my head down and quietly weeped. The chair is that good. The one I currently own was obtained through a trade with a friend; he got an old 21" iMac G4.

Finally, the desk...it's a 48" Spotlight Ebony from Crate and Barrel that I got on sale (floor model). It's simple and most importantly, it's got a dark finish.

And what software?

My main staples on my Mac are Xcode, iTerm2, Ingredients, Kaleidescope, Gitbox, Snippets and Sublime Text 2 for development.

I use Google for mail and chat via Sparrow and Messages. Chrome is my browser of choice. My current Twitter client is Osfoora, but I'm really just waiting for Tapbots to make a Mac client.

Cloudapp and Dropbox for sharing and backing things up.

For productivity, I'm a big Omni fan, so I use OmniFocus for GTD'ing and OmniGraffle for diagraming. I use Notational Velocity for note taking. And I use Delibar for bookmarking with Pinboard.

QuickSilver for making me use the keyboard more. Soulver for calculations. 1Password let's me managed all my password and secure information. And BetterTouchTool for improved gestures.

I use iA Writer for focused writing and Mars Edits for blogging.

For music, I use iTunes Match, although I sometimes use Spotify.

Last but not least on my Mac, I use TotalFinder as my finder replacement. I'm obsessed with Chromimum tabs

On my iPhone, I don't actually use that many apps. I primarily use Sparrow, Tweetbot, Instagram, Downcast, Kindle and Instapaper. Probably in that order...

What would be your dream setup?

I would love a 15" MacBook Air with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD that I would connect to a 27" Apple Cinema Display. And I wish that Bose made bluetooth version of the QC15. Other than that, I constantly crave for more memory and even more battery life for all my Mac and iOS devices. I'd love to get 10+ hours on a Mac laptop without plugging in.

#thesetup #usesthis

Clutch.io - WTF is that?

Today's topic is all about a new up and coming service called Clutch.io.

So, what is this new service and how can it be useful to me? In this article, we take a deeper look into the service and provide thoughts on its usefulness.

Clutch.io in its simplest form is a service to help speed up development time, and allow for instant deployments of features for iOS applications. What this does is allow the developer to push releases of their application to the users without having to wait through a lengthy submittal/approval process.

The service acts as a great hybrid approach for applications that contain a mix of iOS, CSS, Html, and JavaScript. By using this hybrid approach, this allows your development team to not be limited to developing in only Xcode.

Let's go a bit deeper

that's what she said...

First, we need to create an account, and setup our application within the site. The service does offer a free account for developers that want to deploy one (1) application for a user base of up to 5,000 users/month. And of course there are additional tiers of pricing to suit your needs. The service also includes a free demo application, which allows you to get your hands dirty! Once you create your account, you have two options: Create a New Xcode Project or Migrate an existing Xcode Project.

Two great options here. First, providing a template project is a great way to get started with a new service. Second, providing a migration option is key to allowing developers with already successful applications in the App Store to become more successful on their next release.

So, in my quest to learn more about Clutch.io, I chose the option to download the new project template. Simply, opened up the project in Xcode, hit Run and we have a sample application ready to start with. Once the app is running, you need to add the Device ID to you application on the site under "My Apps" In a matter of minutes I have the skeleton application running and I haven't yet lost interest!

The final step is to setup Development Mode on your system. This can be done easily, by running the following commands from a terminal window:

https://gist.github.com/5ce3abc91167c6a6c17e

Then navigate to the directory in your project where the Clutch.io source files live, and run the following dev command:

https://gist.github.com/47a92357e759503cacf8

… And BOOM! We are all setup.

So, what does this mean? What have we just done? Go back to Xcode and Run the Xcode project again, and you should see that you're now in Development Mode! This means that you have a connection setup between the CSS, JavaScript, and Html files in your local {Xcode Project}/clutch directory with the web view in your iOS simulator. Now, when you click the reload button showing on the bottom left of your simulator screen, the updated content will load directly from your project's clutch directory.

The ability to update an iOS application without touching iOS code, pretty neat huh?

#ios #clutch.io #javascript #instantdeployment #thatswhatshesaid #application

Top Eight Best Tech Geek Beers

Who comes to mind when you think of a craft beer aficionado? Society generally associates beer drinkers with the blue collar crowd, myself spending many years swinging a hammer and knocking back some light beers. Firefighters are well known for their beer drinking prowess and I have been one for 20 years but its either Coors Light or Miller Lite on tap. Of course the sports fan is another but many times arguing over Coors, bud or miller like they are debating over Chevy or Ford.

Where I have been surprised to find a large group of craft beer fans is the tech community. The majority of tech geek beer drinkers I work with (meant with the utmost respect) would any day pick a craft beer over one of the staple light beers the rest of the free world is known to consume. Maybe its the science involved in the brewing process that attracts us, possible the complex flavors, or the tech geek in us that goes so well with being a beer geek. We can leave this theory for some psychology/sociology geek to theorize, for now here are my top eight beers for tech geek programmers:

Java the Hut - CB & Potts Brewery

The name refers to coffee and not the programming language or cult classic movie, but what better type of beer for those late night debugging sessions than a coffee porter. A deep, dark caramel/brown with a nice thick creamy tan head. A strong roasted coffee smell with a bitter roaster coffee taste upfront and in the finish. Great for a pint but wouldn't want another.

Tallgrass 8-bit Pale Ale

Very good hoppy beer with a strong malt backbone makes for a nice well balanced tasty beer. But this one is all about the can, inspired by the classic video games of the early 90's that retro gamers will appreciate.

Delirium Tremens

What better beer for a night cap after an all day coding marathon that already has you seeing pink elephants. Golden brown in color with a nice citrus aroma. Delicious Belgian beer with heavy carbonation that isn't too much. Complex flavors that finish nicely that will have you coming back for more!

Wild Dog Doppelbock Open Source Beer 2007

Brewed by Flying Dog as part of the Open Source brewing effort led by Flying Dog to develop a beer using open source methodology. Only 5000 made so be fortunate if you get one, but the recipe is open source so you can brew it on your own which I plan to do soon.

Firestone Walker Abacus (13.0) ABV

No list is complete without a good barley wine and this one will not disappoint. This complex rich high alcohol beer has been aged in 20-year-old Heaven’s Hill Bourbon Barrels for 14 months. The pour is extremely dark mahogany with maroon hues. The first taste will explode your taste buds with the strong bourbon and wood notes coating your mouth. Through the finish the brown sugar and vanilla flavors come through and it finishes off very smooth. Truly one of the best barley wines I have ever experienced, just watch out the 13% ABV will sneak up on you quick.

Drakes 1500 Pale Ale

Recommended to me by Daniel Drennon from LA Weekly as one of the best IPAs. After my first draft I could easily see why, loads of Simcoe and Amarillo hops which offer a huge aroma of pine and citrus. Delicious bitter taste throughout. What makes this a great programming beer is the lower ABV and it is an amazingly delicious IPA. Can knock back a few while cranking out some code and no worries trying to decipher it the next day.

Pliny The Elder by Russian River Brewing Company

Pure beer excellence! Searching for this beer brought me to my favorite watering hole in Redondo Beach, CA called Najas Place. Pours a golden amber with medium head with a grapefruit and hoppy aroma. Hoppy up front taste with bitterness following and finishes clean and crisp. An amazing IPA perfect after a long day of coding!

Mojo Risin - Boulder Beer Company

2 Years in a row voted best beer at the Atlantic City Beer Fest, and it was a hands down winner for my vote. Preferable to get on tap than in bottle, but the bottle still will blow you away. Pours a clear dark copper color with a one finger light beige head. Beautiful overwhelming hops smell, strong and piny with a hint of lemon. Huge taste, piney hops will throw your head back with a nice malt backbone to balance it all out. Amazing hop flavors with out much bitterness. Sure to get your mojo on the rise with this!

Happy Coding!

The following post was written by one of our favorite people @mdpiot. Follow him on twitter for more info on beer, fire fighting and transcontinental commuting.

#beer #coding #geek

Hubot, Twitter and Capistrano! Oh, my!

Since this article is our inaugural post we thought we'd kick things off by talking about one of our favorite topics: Automating Rails Application Deployments

One of the best tools for deploying web applications (especially on multiple servers) out there is Capistrano. It makes deployments super, duper easy and painless. If you aren't using Capistrano, then you're missing out.What are you still doing deployments manually on each server?!?! It's 2012!!!

Another useful tool out there right now for automating things like deployments is Hubot. Hubot is a github project that started out as a Campfire bot, but has since been rewritten to allow other types of adapters. Hubot is written in CoffeeScript on Node.js, which means you can bring in a ton of JavaScript libraries.

In this post we will be using Hubot and Twitter to automate the deployment of a Rails application to EC2 using Capistrano. You'll be able to have your Hubot do a capistrano deployment for you but just sending it a tweet. Your Hubot will reply back to you with the status of the command you asked it to run and provide you with a pastebin URL that contains detailed output of the commands that were executed.

If you have not setup a deployment of a Rails application to an EC2 instance using Capistrano, you should read the following article: How to Deploy a Rails app to EC2 in less than an hour using …

For reference, here is a sample deploy.rb file configured for EC2:

https://gist.github.com/2a7692fa83e9a84d00ea

Prep work

You'll have to do some prep work to get your environment ready. First, you will need to install and start Redis. Next, we'll need to set some environment variables:

https://gist.github.com/2144089

HUBOT_TWITTER_KEY This is the consumer key you get after creating a new Twitter application.

HUBOT_TWITTER_SECRET This is the consumer secret you get after creating a new Twitter application.

HUBOT_TWITTER_TOKEN This is the access token you get after generating the access token and token secret as the user you created the app under.

HUBOT_TWITTER_TOKEN_SECRET

This is the access token secret you get after generating the access token and token secret as the user you created the app under.

PASTEBIN_API

This is the api key used to post to your pastebin account (if you don't have one, sign up for one. it's free…).

Deploy your own Hubot

Head over to github and clone the Hubot repository. Once that's been completed run the following command to create a directory where your Hubot will do its thing:

https://gist.github.com/2d5282d7a6fcad445913

Integrate the Twitter adapter

To use Twitter as the interface for your Hubot you will need to make some modifications to the package.json.

Add the hubot-twitter and request dependencies to the package.json:

https://gist.github.com/2144192

After editing the package.json run npm to load all the dependencies.

https://gist.github.com/6768f7e4a85ed6f987cf

Build your script

Now we get to the good stuff. Building your Hubot script. We'll use CoffeeScript here to make the magic happen.

https://gist.github.com/2144096

So let's take a look at this script and breakdown what it's doing. Hubot is checking what command it is being told to do. If it sees that either "cap" or "capistrano" is the command being issued, it goes ahead and executes the command it was issued. The Hubot script will take the output of the command it was issued and send it as a pastebin.

Now all that is left is to start your Hubot

https://gist.github.com/57ebbfd8377867a2193a

Tweet to deploy

Send a tweet to your hubot to check the deployment configuration.

Your Hubot should reply back to you with a status that includes a link to the pastebin.

Here's the output of the command that we've sent to pastebin.

https://gist.github.com/1ae1b12890af11c0f675

Bitchin, right? If you are interested in getting your hands dirty with Hubot and view the source, head over to the github repository.

Hubot is a very useful and and fun tool. This article focused on automation (specifically Rails), but Hubot can do much, much more. If you don't believe me, take a look below: Robots with distinguished mustaches don't lie…

#hubot #twitter #github #capistrano

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Dog Found Me