Bob Zoller

PhoneGap "deviceready" gotcha

Tue, 03 May 2011 16:06:59 -0700

I was hacking on a PhoneGap app yesterday, and at one point the deviceready event stopped firing. Poked around and discovered that phonegap.js actually redefines document.addEventListener with its own custom version. My problem was that I was attaching the event listener before I loaded phonegap.js … which meant I never called their custom addEventListener and hence never got the event.

A ruby script that inserts proper TimeStamp nodes into a Google Latitude KML export.

Tue, 03 May 2011 16:00:40 -0700

I got the idea to use my Google Latitude history to fill in missing GPS data for pictures I take on my DSLR. I use Aperture, and the free Maperture Pro has the ability to import KML files, but the output of the Latitude KML download wouldn’t work. After some digging, I realized that Latitude doesn’t insert proper timestamp elements in the KML output. I hacked up this ruby script to parse the description elements (which contain the full timestamp) and insert the actual timestamp elements.

Caveat: the Latitude data is not great… but it’s usually better than nothing.

create a simple .deb package

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:12:58 -0700


#!/bin/bash

# This script should be run from within the directory with the wav files.

# First, create the empty tree under a new "build" directory
# (the name "build" is completely arbitrary here)
mkdir -p build/usr/bin

# Put the sounds in the sounds directory
cp -v degrib/src/degrib/degrib build/usr/bin

# move into the build directory, make a docs directory
cd build
mkdir -p usr/share/doc/degrib

# write the README file
cat > usr/share/doc/degrib/README  control 
Description: degrib from the NWS.
 
 more info: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/degrib/
END

# Setting this environment variable fixes Apple's modified GNU tar so that
# it won't make dot-underscore AppleDouble files. Google it for details...
export COPY_EXTENDED_ATTRIBUTES_DISABLE=1

# create the data tarball
# (the tar options "czvf" mean create, zip, verbose, and filename.)
tar czvf data.tar.gz usr/bin/ usr/share/doc/

# create the control tarball
tar czvf control.tar.gz control

# create the debian-binary file
echo 2.0 > debian-binary

# create the ar (deb) archive
ar -r degrib-amd64.deb debian-binary control.tar.gz data.tar.gz

# move the new deb up a directory
mv degrib-amd64.deb ..

# remove the tarballs, and cd back up to where we started
rm data.tar.gz control.tar.gz
cd ..

Lea-Anne line dancing

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:38:56 -0700

Lea-Anne line dancing

The Magic Behind Amazon's 2.7 Billion Dollar Question

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:13:36 -0700

The Magic Behind Amazon's 2.7 Billion Dollar Question

Robin Thicke - Lost Without You

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:09:17 -0800

Robin Thicke - Lost Without You

Scott Weiland - Interstate Love Song

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:01:15 -0800

Scott Weiland - Interstate Love Song

crazy chinatown parade float

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:01:15 -0800

crazy chinatown parade float

Scott Weiland - Unglued

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:01:15 -0800

Scott Weiland - Unglued

The Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan - Open Source Funding « blog maverick

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:32:49 -0800

The Mark Cuban Stimulus Plan - Open Source Funding « blog maverick

8th Annual Year in Ideas - Drone-pilot Burnout - NYTimes.com

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:32:33 -0800

8th Annual Year in Ideas - Drone-pilot Burnout - NYTimes.com

70s - The Futuro house

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:50:06 -0800

70s - The Futuro house

Jaydiohead :: Jay-Z x Radiohead :: Minty Fresh Beats

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:47:04 -0800

Jaydiohead :: Jay-Z x Radiohead :: Minty Fresh Beats

Rate limiting with memcached

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 20:47:04 -0800

Rate limiting with memcached

Samuel Smith's Organically Produced Lager Beer

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:30:32 -0800

delicious.

Johnny 5 Combo Kit

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:33:20 -0700

Johnny 5 Combo Kit

Bloggers Are Hard to Please and Hard to Pitch: Some Mistakes in Pitches from Startups

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 12:55:47 -0700

Bloggers Are Hard to Please and Hard to Pitch: Some Mistakes in Pitches from Startups

script/runner script that doesn't require an absolute path

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:59:31 -0700

the output from Rails’ script/runner -h says you can create custom scripts with a fancy shebang line:

You can also use runner as a shebang line for your scripts like this:
-------------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/bin/env /Users/bob/Projects/glowworm/script/runner

Product.find(:all).each { |p| p.price *= 2 ; p.save! }
-------------------------------------------------------------

but I hate the idea of hardcoding a path like that. Here’s a workaround: open up your new script, something like script/my_custom_script and fill it like so


#!/usr/bin/env ruby
unless $0 =~ /runner/
  system("#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/runner", __FILE__)
  exit 0
end

puts 'your code goes here'

file search similar to TextMate's CMD-T, in bash.

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:39:19 -0700

I’m a command line guy. I code Rails apps in vim. I’m happy. I am, however, slightly jealous of TextMate’s CMD-T feature, where you can open a file just by typing a part of the name.

Dusty pointed me to a vim tip for CMD-T like search in vim, but I don’t usually open files from within vim - I do it from the command line.

Here’s my hacked up way to get the same feature from within my normal bash shell. It requires dialog, which I installed with a sudo port install dialog.

add this code to your .bash_login (or equivalent)

function _vfind {

  find -E . -type f -name "*$1*" ! -regex '.*/(\.git|\.svn|vendor|log).*' | sed 's/^\.\///' > /tmp/_$$_vfind_files

  FOUND=`wc -l /tmp/_$$_vfind_files | awk '{ print $1 }'`

  if [ "$FOUND" = "0" ]; then
    echo 'no matching files...'
    return
  fi

  cat /tmp/_$$_vfind_files | awk '{ print NR " " $0 }' | xargs dialog --menu 'Choose a file:' 0 0 0 2>/tmp/_$$_vfind_num

  tput clear

  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    FILENUM=`cat /tmp/_$$_vfind_num`
    vi `awk "FNR == $FILENUM" /tmp/_$$_vfind_files`
  fi

  rm -f /tmp/_$$_vfind_files /tmp/_$$_vfind_num
}

alias f=_vfind

Close and re-open your terminal, or simply source ~/.bash_login, and try it out:

# cd my_rails_app
# f helper

And here’s what you get:

Arrow around, hit enter to open a file, or escape to cancel. We’ll see if I stick with this in my daily workflow ;)

shared git repo (using ssh transport)

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:57:00 -0700

As a quick followup to my last post, here’s the steps I took to make my remote git repo usable by a group of developers, not just me:

/etc/group

After you’ve added accounts for everyone, make a group and add everyone to it. This line should look something like:


coders:x:114:bob,docyes,phillip

git repo-config

After creating the remote repo (git —bare init), we need to set the core.sharedRepository variable to “group” - this tells git to create directories and files with group-write permissions.


git repo-config core.sharedRepository group

fix permissions

Now that git will do the right thing, we need to fix the permissions on the existing files and directories.


sudo chgrp -R coders .
sudo chmod -R g+ws .