Mental Drizzle

Al Jachimiak has built, rescued, and installed systems in all major operating systems. He is also the founder of Catalyst Custom Technology, LLC.

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Your first mistake might be assuming that people are rational. Your second mistake could be assuming that people are eager for change. And the marketer’s third mistake is assuming that once someone knows things the way you know them, they will choose what you chose.

Seth Godin (via typeaffair)

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I used this IFTTT recipe and the instructions above to automatically push a blog post to google plus.

You do need to setup google voice for this to work, but it's free!

How to post to Google+ stream via email or gmail? Step by Step Instructions Requires Google voice account reveals your unique google+ email then start posting

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...This area is called the human exclusion zone."

This video is awesome because the speed, efficiency, and safety of these robots makes me excited for the future of autonomous cars.

This video is scary because of the need for a "human exclusion zone."

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Escaping in HTML

I was writing a bunch of HTML the other day and I needed to escape an ampersand (&).

Some characters are reserved in XHTML; for example you cannot use the greater than or less than signs or angle brackets within your text beacuse the browser could mistake them for markup.

I needed to refer back a few times so I thought I would share the resource I found:

escapecodes.info

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This is a sweet article on the programming of Pac Man and the individual AI of each ghost in PacMan.

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Not Scrollspy and Not Affix

I was working on a client website and decided to include some user interface components inspired by Twitter's Bootstrap. If you check out the Bootstrap docs you'll see that the sections of the current document are affixed to the side of the screen using Bootstrap's affix.js. Then as you scroll, each section is highlighted as the id passes through the section on the right. This is achieved with scrollspy.js.

I really enjoy the UX/UI that this combination add to a web page. This combination makes gives the nav menu two functions. It provides the user with a navigation menu. But it also provides the user with context of the document immediately upon initial load, and continues to do provide that context while scrolling through the document.

My first attempts did not go as planned. Bootstrap's affix.js and scrollspy.js work very well within the bootstrap framework. However, this was a Wordpress project based on a different framework so I had to find some alternate solutions.

ddscrollspy

To replace scrollspy.js I found this little JavaScript plugin. Ddscrollspy worked where Bootstrap's scrollspy.js wouldn't. Specifically, the Bootstrap script would only highlight the last <li> in the div. After an hour of fiddling around with scrollspy I searched for an alternative and ddscrollspy worked as advertised immediately after configuration.

jQuery Stickem

Bootstrap's affix.js worked a bit better than scrollspy did. The only problem is that it flickered, a lot, when you got to the part where affix-end needed to happen. This issue is tracked pretty well over at github. In my case, I think the root cause was that I wasn't working within the Bootstrap framework. For me, the Bootstrap Docs work very well in all browsers.

A quick search lead me to jQuery Stickem. This plugin worked very well. To make it work in Wordpress, it took a bit of theme manipulation, but that was sorted pretty quickly.

Document Ready vs. Page Load

It turns out that with jQuery Stickem, I was still having a problem at the end of the scroll. The navigation box would jump to the bottom of the page too quickly.

Both jQuery Stickem and Bootstrap's affix.js rely on calculating the size of the div that is being watched. Unlike the Bootstrap docs site, my documents contained images.

After a bit of investigation I found that the images were my problem. The height of the div changed after I was running the jQuery Stickem script. The height change was caused by the images loading. The solution was (found at csstricks.com) to run the script in the head with:

$(window).bind("load", function() { // code here });

instead of:

$(document).ready(function{ // code here })

Chris Coyier says that

...this [script] will wait for images to be finished loading, so that you can measure their widths and heights accurately...

Essentially, the (document).ready(function{}) code won't provide you with accurate heights if images or other DOM manipulations are involved.

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Updating Ruby on Rails

Are you a developer?

Do you have Ruby on Rails installed - anywhere?

DO THIS NOW!!!!

Open a terminal

Type in this: gem update rails

That's better...

After reading this article, I ran around to all my everyday machines and made sure I was up to date. The scariest part for me was this:

There are many developers who are not presently active on a Ruby on Rails project who nonetheless have a vulnerable Rails application running on localhost:3000. If they do, eventually, their local machine will be compromised. (Any page on the Internet which serves Javascript can, currently, root your Macbook if it is running an out-of-date Rails on it. No, it does not matter that the Internet can’t connect to your localhost:3000, because your browser can, and your browser will follow the attacker’s instructions to do so.

To keep tabs on the situation, check in at the official Ruby on Rails blog.

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Installing Ruby on Rails

Over the past month, I've invested in some new hardware. In order to keep a consistent development workflow, I had the opportunity to install RoR on Windows 8, Mac Mountain Lion, and Ubuntu. _________________________ ### RailsInstaller.org If you are on Windows or Mac the first thing you should do is visit [RailsInstaller.org](http://railsinstaller.org). This is a great project by EngineYard. On windows this will install the following: 1. Ruby 1.9.3-p125 2. Rails 3.2 3. Bundler 1.0.18 4. Git 1.7.6 5. Sqlite 3.7.3 6. TinyTDS 0.4.5 7. SQL Server support 3.3.3 8. DevKit On Mac you will get: 1. Ruby 1.9.3-p194 2. Rails 3.2.7 3. Git 1.7.9.6 4. Sqlite 3070500 5. osx-gcc-installer 4.1 6. JewelryBox 1.3.0 7. RVM 1.14.2 8. SM 0.10.3 _______________________________ ### Command Line Install When it came time for my Ubuntu install, I couldn't find any Linux packages that were as convenient as the Windows and Mac installers. However, I did find these instructions [here](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/articles/how-to-install-ruby-on-rails-on-ubuntu-12-04-lts-precise-pangolin-with-rvm). This great write up worked well for my Ubuntu12.04 desktop. Bonus! Since it is a command line install, this write up works for your headless Ubuntu servers too! I should note that [Digital Ocean](https://www.digitalocean.com) is a company that provides competitively priced virtual private servers.

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Proxmox, Linux, and Java

I took a look at my sweet custom built server and decided that I was underutilizing my resources. I could be doing so many more cool things with 16GB of RAM and a quad-core CPU. After looking around at free and open source solutions for virtualization, I decided to dedicate the hardware to Proxmox. Proxmox is an opensource KVM hypervisor that is fully administered through a browser window. Check it out [here](http://proxmox.org). Things had been going really well with my Mac and administering VMs in Proxmox. However, I was having trouble in Linux. In both Ubuntu 12.01 and LinuxMint 13, I couldn't keep a Proxmox window open without crashing the browser. It turns out that Proxmox uses a Java appelet to serve up a VNC connection to the VM desktops. On a Mac, you need to install the Java plugin yourself and you generally get it straight from Oracle. However, on Ubuntu and Mint OpenJDK is pre-installed. This is a nice feature to make the distros a bit more user friendly out of the box. However, OpenJDK and Proxmox did not get along well. The solution ended up being to uninstall all instances of OpenJDK and IcedTea. Then I followed [these instructions](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Java) to install the proper version of Java7 from Oracle. FYI - the instructions are a bit easier (add a ppa and then apt-get install) than the instructions on the Java site (manual download, unzip, copy and more).

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Modern UI Meta-Data

I found this while poking around on t.msn.com. FYI - that site only was reachable from IE on my Windows 8 VM. This looks like specific code for putting a webapp into the start menu in the Windows 8 Modern UI.

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Surviving the Windows 8 Transition

Windows 8 was just released and I was recently able to get my hands on a copy. Here are some thoughts on what sys admins and technical support staff will need to deal with as organizations transition to the next Windows operating system. Touch Based!?! Yes. Microsoft has designed most of the OS level interactions to be touch based. In fact, every device (including phones, tablets, notebooks, and desktops) sold in the retail Microsoft stores has a touch screen. Instead of questioning the wisdom of this decision, lets just dealt with the real question: How to accomplish the OS level interactions with only a mouse? Start - The start button is gone. However, a swipe from the top of the screen straight down the middle of the screen will get you the "modern" UI version of the start menu. To access this with just a mouse, you will have to put your mouse in the lower left hand corner, wait for the start icon to appear, DON'T MOVE, then click. Your reflex to move over the icon will be strong. When you move to hover your cursor over the icon; it will disappear. Resist the urge! Settings - Many different hardware interactions that existed on the Vista and Win7 start menus are missing from the "modern" start UI. All settings, device properties, search, and sharing have been moved to the... (sigh) 'charms' bar. The charms bar is normally accessed by swiping in from the right side of the screen into the desktop. With only a mouse, you will need to move your mouse into the upper right hand corner and then move straight down when the bar moves out from hiding. Minimized Programs - In Vista, windows introduced aero with the ability to hover over minimized programs in the bottom task bar and see a miniaturized version of the window. These programs have been moved to the left side of the screen and they are now hidden. To view running or minimized programs, use a swipe in from the left side of the screen into the middle of the desktop. With only a mouse, this is done by moving your mouse to the upper left hand corner of the screen. This will reveal a portion of a rectangle. Moving your mouse over these shapes will reveal the mini representation of the window. For fearless and intuitive users, knowing those locations will help you to get through most everyday tasks and 80% of administrative tasks. More casual users will need some guidance and perhaps even training to regain their comfort level and productivity. Where is the (fill in the blank) <\u>? Easy answer? It's in there somewhere... Control Panel: This is confusing and is likely to leave even the most seasoned techs and super users extremely frustrated. After about 8 hours of testing, I'm now able to reliably find the old control panel. One important thing to understand is that the Settings Menu can deal with two different types of settings: (1)settings in the legacy style for desktop and (2) settings that relate specifically to the Modern UI. If you are looking at your desktop, you should be able to summon the 'charms' bar and click on "Settings". The menu that opens up will have the Control Panel listed near the top. If you are in a Metro app or at the Modern UI start screen, summoning the 'charms' bar and clicking on "Settings" will only get you Settings that relate to the "Modern" UI. Desktop: The desktop as it is presented in Windows 95 through Windows 7 is still present, albeit without a start button. If you need to find your way back to familiar territory, the desktop is a large tile in the new start menu. Shutdown Menu: The selections for restart or shutdown are no longer part of the start menu. You can find shutdown in the Settings portion of the 'charms' bar. Unlike the Control Panel, it is persistent through both the desktop settings and the "Modern" UI settings.

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Pretty URLs with Nginx and Wordpress

I recently had to hack through a server and Wordpress to get permalinks to look good and function. Here's my solution;

Found this answer on Stackoverflow:

add this and remove any non-specific rewrite rules:

try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php;

The only thing missing was where to put that line of code. This post pointed me to insert that line before the first location declaration.

Once I did that, then I restarted the Nginx daemon with:

sudo service nginx restart

The I went into the permalinks section of the Wordpress installation.  The permalink setting I like is the "Post Name" setting.  Choosing that radio button sets the url structure as:

/index.php/%postname%/

Unfortunately this setting still returns 404's when you enter the structure of the site.  I then chose the "Custom Structure" radio button and deleted the index section of the structure to get:

/%postname%/

Then you get happy pretty urls!  

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This very helpful article shows how you can make iOS6 maps better (so it works when I finally get around to installing it).

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Presenter Console in LibreOffice

I am currently preparing to give a talk at the Ohio LinuxFest on September 29, 2012.  I was thrilled to be invited!  I'll be talking about Amahi - Powerful, Simple, Home Server.

I have played with several different presentation programs.  I was most familiar with Power Point and have been impressed with the ease of use of Keynote in both desktop and mobile versions.  However, since this was a Linux conference, I committed myself to using LibreOffice Impress.

As I wrapped up the creation of my presentation and started rehearsing my talk, I found myself wanting a notes view.  This is a view that gives the presenter a view that includes notes, a timer, a clock and sometimes a view of the current and next slides.  I had found this in PowerPoint and found the notes view in Keynote presenter remote on my iPhone to be really convenient.

Creating slides in Impress was much the same as in PowerPoint and Keynote.  However I had a very difficult time finding the notes view for LibreOffice. 

Here is my solution:

1 - Download the Presenter Console Extension

Many sites instructed me to download the Presenter Console Extension and then enable it in Libre Office.  I could not find the extension at the LibreOffice extension site.  It turns out that the extension is still an Oracle product.  If you aren't familiar with the split from OpenOffice to LibreOffice, you can read about it here. Long story short - the download link above takes you to the Oracle site, not LibreOffice. 

2 - Enable the extension in LibreOffice

From the top toolbar: [Tools > Extension manager]

3 - Use Multiple Screens

If you are practicing your presentation using only your computer, you will not be able to see the presenter console.  You need to have a second monitor connected to your computer and enable that monitor as a second screen (NOT mirrored displays). 

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Tolerable Mobile Advertising

I recently found an article on the NY Daily News in my rss feed. When I clicked through to the site on my phone, I found a decent website and simple mobile ad at the bottom of the screen.

I like several things about this ad.

- It's simple.

- It doesn't take up a lot of screen space.

- It's interactive and dismiss-able.

The last two points are of particular importance. From a users point of view, I appreciate the ability to make the ad go away. From an advertiser's point of view, the ability to dismiss the ad is a way to give the user incentive to look ad the ad. As long as the ads stay small, this seems to be a tolerable mobile advertising solution.

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Teaching Without Trying

Usually this blog contains tech related information. However, I had an experience on vacation that is worth sharing... One calm morning, I took my daughter and her cousin out on a canoe ride. First we all put our life jackets on. Next, the girls listened patiently as I explained canoe safety and paddling. Then we set out to put the canoe in the water. There was about 60 yards and a flight of stairs between us and the water. If you have ever tried to carry a five person aluminum canoe, you know that this can be a difficult task. You should also know that the girls were ages 7 and 11 and their weight combined was probably the same as the boat. We tried to lift a little and drag the canoe to the water, but the grass beneath us was impeding progress. So we all lifted the canoe and shuffled ten steps - then rested. Then we repeated the process. It was a chore, and we looked like we were struggling. A couple aunts and uncles stepped in and offered assistance. I waved them off and without thinking said "If these girls want to go on a canoe ride, we will get the boat to the water ourselves." This off-hand remark carried more weight than I thought it would. We had a nice boat ride and returned to the shore. I mentioned to the girls that we had to put our oars, life jackets, and the boat away before doing anything else. I lifted the boat back up to the level of the lawn and needed to wash the sand off of my head before helping the girls carry the boat back to its resting place. I walked back to the lake and rinsed the sand off my arms and head and went back to assist in carrying the boat. By the time I got back, two little girls, who weighed approximately as much as the boat, had gotten the boat 90% of the way back to where we started! I was startled. Had they really done it? There was no body else around... I learned a lesson that morning. If you set your standards and expectations high, you may struggle to achieve your goal. But, the act of setting that seemingly unachievable goal puts it into the realm of possibility. Those two little girls did something really difficult that morning and taught me something in the process - without even trying.

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Social Media is all about people.  Not apps.  Not APIs.  And certainly not whether you have $50 bucks or not.  

I've made a lot of important connections using social media.  I've had some great conversations with people that are way above my pay grade. I'm also able to keep a virtual finger on the pulse of several different industries - all with the swipe of my thumb.

Twitter has been catching a lot of flack lately for their recent changes to their API.  This has brought a lot of attention to other social media services like app.net. 

However, too many people are focusing on the media side of social media.  If one type of media becomes to cumbersome or constrictive, another will rise to take its place.  

There needs to be a bit more focus on the social aspect of social media.  Too many people are focusing on how they communicate rather than why they are communicating.    Like the pony express, telegraphs, and telephones; your twitter-Facebook-dribbble-pinterest-reddit-foursquare-linkedin account is all about people.  

Focus on people and the rest all falls into place.