December 2011
4 posts
Bose Cinemate Series II Review
For the past few months we’ve been renovating (or paying someone to renovate) our game room downstairs. It’s finally usable again, and I had been thinking about simplifying the home theater/stereo setup for some time. In the past, we had the following setup:
Samsung 42” LCD
FIOS Cable/DVR
Onkyo Receiver
PS3
Wii
JBL front towers, center, rear bookshelf surrounds
I wanted...
Facebook buys Gowalla →
November 2011
11 posts
Crosby to return Monday →
Awesome. Totally awesome.
Kindle Fire tries to do a lot, and fails at almost... →
You get what you pay for.
Tools of the trade
I’ve been wanting to compile a list of the software & services I use to make my worklife just a bit more easy & enjoyable, so here we go:
Harvest Time Tracking & Invoicing. This is seriously one of the most well done services I have ever used. I can’t live without it. The companion iPhone app is also fantastic.
Beanstalk Hosted Source Control. Git or Subversion...
Jawbone UP Battery Problems
Apparently what appears to be a large percentage of Jawbone UP bands are experiencing an incredibly early death. The batteries appear to be failing on devices within a week of ownership. I’ve had this occur to two friends already, and there is a forum post detailing many users’ experiences of the same issue.
So far I’ve charged my band once and haven’t had any issues, but...
Digital inheritance
I’m a collector. As a society I believe we largely are collectors - the antique market is absolutely immense. Ever since I was a kid I’ve always been amassing something. I believe the order went:
star wars figures
stamps
coins
baseball cards
comics
magic cards
cd’s/dvd’s
video games
mid-century-modern furniture
tobacco pipes
While numbers 9 and 10 are still...
Jawbone UP Review
The Jawbone UP is the latest in a series of hardware+software health monitoring tools to come our way. Having worked at Bodymedia way back when, I’ve always had an interest in these devices and their complimentary software. The UP is a $100 bracelet that you wear at all times (yes, even in the shower) that helps you track your sleep, activity & diet. The hardware accomplishes the tasks...
Mou - Markdown Editor for OS X →
October 2011
2 posts
1 tag
Spicy Vegetarian/Vegan Spaghetti Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 Sweet Onion, Chopped
1 Green Bell Pepper, 1/2 chopped, 1/2 sliced thinly
1 Red Bell Pepper, 1/2 chopped, 1/2 sliced thinly
4 Cloves Garlic, Minced
2 Bay Leaves
1 1/4 tsp Oregano
1 1/2 tsp Basil
1/2 tsp Rosemary
1/2 tsp Marjoram
1/4 teaspoon Thyme
1/2 tsp Red Pepper Flakes
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
Plenty of Ground Black Pepper
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2...
September 2011
7 posts
One of the best things you could ever buy -... →
This thermos changed my life
Purge!
If you’re like me, you love OS X, but perhaps have found one nagging problem with it. For quite a long time, the OS is a memory hog and doesn’t like to release inactive memory even in scenarios where it is badly needed. I’ve sought out fixes for this over the years with no success, but I’ve finally found an answer (well, it’s honestly a workaround for Apple’s...
Big Pour Week 2011 Calendar →
1 tag
La Prima Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Review
After the recommendation of a friend, while I was in the Strip District yesterday I stopped by La Prima to pick up a new roast after running out of the India Monsoon Malabar I had from Prestogeorge. Although I’ve been drinking espresso at La Prima for many years now, this is my first time purchasing whole bean at the shop, so I was very anxious to try it out. The beans themselves looked...
August 2011
5 posts
1 tag
Simple jQuery django-ratings implementation
After having to implement ratings in a project last week, I decided to throw together a little sample project on github in case anyone else wants to use it. The rating stars themselves come from the jQuery raty plugin, and the model for storage uses django-ratings. Get it here.
Killing a "frozen" Dock in OS X
For some reason, my OS X dock is kinda oddly freezing in place tonight, and while it still functions it is just behaving very bizarrely. If you need to restart the Dock, there’s a way to do it via command line - just type killall Dock.
1 tag
python, ascii & unicode
Like me, perhaps you’ve been trying to serialize some data (in my case using vobject to create ical output) and ran into:
‘ascii’ codec can’t decode byte… blah blah
Well, I discovered a great way to do unicode conversion today and wanted to share. You can use smart_unicode() and force_unicode() to convert items prior to serialization or whatever else your...
Yet another OS X text editor - Chocolat →
How many text editors without true auto-completion can we have?
Twitter releases TwUI kit for OS X →
Somehow I missed this last month
July 2011
1 post
NSArray or NSSet, NSDictionary or NSMapTable →
oldie but a goodie
June 2011
7 posts
1 tag
PyCharm + Django runserver "Inappropriate ioctl...
While I am by no means opposed to coding in a text editor such as TextMate, the convenience of an IDE with code-completion & integrated debugging is always a preferred option when available. I’ve been doing all my Django development in TextMate and a command prompt and it’s by no means painful, but there are some repetitive actions that could be simplified, and code-completion...
“Rails is busy optimizing for the anal superior coder who wants to learn things...”
– stevecoast
1 tag
Converting Django Models to UML →
Incredibly useful time saver here. In case anyone runs into problems using it, I first had to install graphviz using macports, then used pip to install pygraphviz, then was able to use it successfully.
2 tags
Windows 8 - 10 years behind Apple.. or not?
Microsoft appears to finally be taking a step in the right direction with what they’ve shown us thus far with Windows 8. As with Windows Phone 7, they are actually innovating instead of merely copying the competition, their typical strategy in the past when they had the comfortable lead to do so. There’s already been much heated discussion regarding the subject, ranging from the...
August 2010
1 post
2 tags
Beerby released for iPhone
I’m proud to say that Beerby 1.0 has been accepted into the Appstore by Apple on its first submission. Beerby is an application for users to track, share, and find beer while competing with their friends along the way. It’s the first application released that is powered by the Levlr Game Mechanics platform we’ve been working on for a few months now.
The basic feel of Beerby is a...
June 2010
1 post
2 tags
getting django to work with pydev on os x
I figure I may as well make public mention of this since it gave me some trouble while trying to get django and pydev/eclipse to play together nicely this evening. By default if you went through the standard route of installing django the framework will reside in:
/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django
Pydev did not find this directory in the auto config for the PYTHONPATH, so when you...
March 2010
2 posts
“i hugged a kangaroo today”
– Phil
Embury - Strip District Speakeasy
I can now say that I have finally ventured to Embury - a 1920’s prohibition-era styled bar in the Strip District. It’s on the first floor of the Firehouse Lounge, and I must say I was highly impressed with the venue. After reading about it several months back in the local paper, I’ve been wanting to head down there for some time. Friday presented the prime opportunity, as several...
February 2010
4 posts
Snowtorious!
Phil: my new favorite term for this snow
Phil: Snowtorious BIG
Shawn: lol
1 tag
Sazerac
The Sazerac, which is probably my second favorite cocktail anymore, is sometimes called the original cocktail. It’s a perfect drink for the Super Bowl this evening if you feel like supporting the Saints, due to the drink’s origins in New Orleans. It’s an extremely refreshing mixture of rye whiskey, bitters, simple syrup, and absinthe (or pernod) garnished with a lemon peel.
My...
1 tag
“…the web is just a canvas. Or perhaps a better metaphor is clay —...”
– Jesse James Garrett