Building simplicidade.org: notes, projects, and occasional rants

Notes

last update:

bash completion for chit

cheat is a very nice command line cheat sheet system. chit is a git-powered version, that even supports private cheats or project level cheats distributed using the git system. I've added a bash completion script to chit. It's very simple but it works for me. I've also sent a pull request to robin, so you might see it in the main chit repo in the future. Update: you can find the bash completion script in the master chit repo now.

Progress bars

Yes, progress bars. Those little graphical strips of color or animated graphics that you get to look at while you wait for something to happen in a computer. Apparently the subject is worth a four page paper by four authors. Two sad facts: I actually find the subject mildly interesting (maybe I should ask her on a date);Expect implementations of the Fast Power version in a jQuery/Scriptaculous/insert-fav-JS-UI-lib plugin soon.

How projects use git: Buildr

The best articles about distributed version control systems for me, are not those who explain the internals and the user interface, but how specific projects use those tools to get things done. I've come across posts about several projects and how they use git and mercurial, and I'm going to start publish them here. The first one is a couple of months old but still good: Buildr developers and how they where using a git-svn mirror.

The stars huddled together...

... and decided to align just for me. Last week I had a discussion with a friend. We have a small pet-project growing between us, and I suggested using free accounts at GitHub to collaborate. A couple of days, I got a call asking "But how can I hide the project?". It was mostly a WTF-moment for me. The concept of developing this in a closed environment wouldn't even register with my conscious thought.

Christmas

You know, its not too soon to start thinking about christmas presents. And to make it easier on all of you who are dyeing to know what to get me, I'll save you some time: FPV RC Racer. The clock is ticking...

A docking station

When I get to the office every morning, I need to plug all my external cables stuff. My laptop ends up looking like this: I wonder if Apple could make a Laptop with a connector for a docking station. I think their version of the concept is called "Second Mac at the Office".

Mobile Me

I haven't seen the Keynote yet (holiday in Portugal, spending the time with the kids out in the sun), but I did a quick drive-by-browsing across the Mobile Me Guided tour. I found the shorter video, about the Web version of the applications (at the bottom of the Mobile Me features page), much more interesting. The following details got my attention: the video demos are done not only with Safari on the Mac but also Firefox and IE7 on Windows;the URLs shown jump from http to https and back: it seems that secure access will be available, at least to the application, no mention of secure iDisk access;no support for IE6: the web applications will not support IE6.

iPhone 3G

I've completed the reservation process for my iPhone 3G this morning. I've asked for a 16Gb model. They don't have a box to select the white or black version, so I'll have to double check on that soon. My current mobile phone, a Sony Ericsson 608i will be two years old at the time I upgrade so my "upgrade phone every two years"-rule seems to hold up. Reading over the material online, it has most of what I wanted: 3G, and built-in GPS.

Sl^Hnow Leopard

It's now 10.5.3 time and I'm still running 10.4.11. That alone should tell you something about how I feel about Leopard. The Snow Leopard approach, a OS-cycle dedicated to "just" stabilization and performance, is a welcome investment on the part of Apple. It's interesting though. It seems that Apple is saying: we can invest an year just to digest and make what we have better, because there is no competition for the next 2 years at least.

LazyWeb: mode lines and encoding

Hi all, does anybody knows if I can modify the encoding that should be used with a specific file using mode lines? I have a project with a mix of utf8 and iso-8859-1 files, and I would like to "mode-line"-them to the proper encoding so that I don't have to remind me to do it. Thanks