just in case anyone has had problems connecting to national city bank with GnuCash, i have found a fix to this…
you have to trick it into thinking you are running a later versions of quicken.to do that, you need to go to the AqBankingWizard, go to user configuration, and in the OFX tab, change the APPVER value from <blank> it defaults to 1200, to 1800.. this will let it rip.
if you not gotten this far with the national city bank setup, you probably need to find the values to enter for OFX. rather than duplicate them here, where i might forget to update them, go to their wiki pagemach-zehnder on it to find the info.
okay, i have decided to play with seaside for my next round of goofing
around with web development. i wanted to make sure that i was setting
something up that would lend itself to a web app rather than a web
site. so, in order of appearance, here are the thing i am gonna play
with writing in seaside.
asset management system - where i work, we have about 12
machines. each has software that has licenses, and we sometimes
transfer those licenses around. it’s a good idea for us to keep a
track record of what employee has which machine, and any
permutations of that information. although this would be totally
easy to do with pretty much antyhing, it would be a good candidate
to try with seaside.
rhapsody scrobbler - i use last.fm like crazy. i also use rhapsody
like crazy. unfortunately, they don’t mix. what you listen to in
rhapsody does not count on your last.fm scrobbles. so, i decided to
fix this. i wrote a library of functions in ruby that take the xml
feed from rhapsody and scrobble it, all the while keeping track to
make sure there are no repeats. by adding a multi user interface to
this, i bet some folks out there would like to have something like
this.
amateur radio log - yes, there are millions of them, but i think it
would be fun to make one that uses google maps and calculates
distances, etc. it could be run locally, or on a multi user
server. it might also incorportate LOTW i would imagine. i dunno
how crazy i will get with this, as i currently use paper and pen
for logging, but it would stil be a good exercise.
the only thing that i wonder about is how the multi user and multi
role systems will work. i tried this before, and seemed to have some
trouble with it, but i will keep you posted.
obsessing about a new technology. a new framework, a new programming
language.. or something .. it’s now time to start going OCD on
something new. for the past year or so, i have spent a TON of time in
the world of ruby on rails. while i totally still like ruby on rails,
i have found that lately, i have been writing things that are more
like web applications than web sites. i have found where alot of the
limitations of javascript an rails programming are, and i would like
to try out something a little different. i have narrowed it down to
two candidates. i would love some input on this:
Seaside - this is a really neat web app framework built on squeak smalltalk. a few months ago, i read a whole bunch of the tutorials,
and did a bunch of them. i spent some time getting the gist of
squeak, but i really didn’t have the time to get a complete grasp on
it. i was considering it for a project i was working on, but i
wasn’t able to find the libraries to make it fit my needs. i
finally used rails for the project. now, i would like to give
seaside another shot.. doing something fun.. and learning
smalltalk. not that smalltalk will be terribly transferable to other
projects, but it would just be fun.
Google Web Toolkit - this is google’s offering in the ajax arena. my
only worry is that this will not interface well with a database. the
other thing to consider is i haven’t worked seriously in java for
four years or so. i figure i can read a book and get up to speed
pretty quickly, so i am not too worried about that. i have also
wanted to get back up to speed with java to learn to program the
blackberry and tivo platforms. i am also totally interested in the
debugging possibilities with running jruby on rails.
while i really really think the whole idea of smalltalk and seaside
sound interesting as hell, i still can’t make a decision on what to
obsess on next. if smalltalk/seaside catches on, i will be way ahead
of the game, and have lots of fun. java is probably not going
anywhere, so this would be a good option also.
like alot of folks, i was persuaded to drop emacs in favor of textmate for a short while. although i really like some things about textmate, there were a ton of things i cannot live without that emacs offers. mainly, they are:
buffers - this is just a great idea. an idea like crack. when you
start using buffers, you are pretty much locked into it.
tramp - while it was kinda cool being able to work on files
remotely using cyberduck, it’s nowhere near as fucntional as using
dired in tramp mode.
org-mode - pretty much my whole life is tracked in org mode. i
haven’t seen anything nearly as hardcore as org-mode for textmate.
about a month ago, i saw that a whole bunch rails guys are starting
to migrate over to textmate, so it thought it might be a good idea to
list out some extensions i can’t live without. for those who are just
starting out using emacs, this should get you going:
ido - this is sort of like quicksilver.. sorta.. it tries to guess
what you are going to type in file find mode. it will make you very
lazy, but it’s totally worth it. whenever i work on a machine
without it, i get pissy.
org-mode - if you take lots of notes, and have a life organized by
tasks.. and even want to use latex to pretty up your files, this is
the way to go. there is so much to this, that it might be a good
idea to watch carsten’s video on it. and scribble some notes while
you watch.
w3m-mode - sooner or later, you are gonna end up wishing you could
just view a bit of html as wysiwyg. most likely when you get an
email in gnus that has been formatted in html. this is a quick way
to check it out.
anything-mode - this mode keeps track of what you have been working
on and what you have been typing. it then tries to guess what you
are trying to do when you start pecking away.
boxquote - if you use mailing lists at all for support (and who
doesn’t?) it makes alot of sense to break apart your text before
posting it.. boxquote puts:
snippets - this is really a rip off (that i can tell) of
textmate. i think the snippets are exactly the same. still, it’s a
great idea, and it rocks.
rails - there are a ton of ways to do this. i suggest you try as
many as you can find. development is a really personal thing, and i
found that no approach and no IDE really works like you want it
to. culling the best approaches from everywhere is the best, but
starting at that link will give you a good takeoff point.
jabber-el - if you use twitter or identi.ca, you should probably
think about accessing them through jabber. this plugin lets you do
that with no weirdness. this is a good way to follow microblogging
with a sensible (plaintext) interface.
that’s all i can think of for now, but i would really like to hear
what everyone else can’t live without in emacs.
This week, I found two things that I couldn’t do without. Well, I suppose I could, but I would spend a whole lot more time writing code
than I would have in the past.
The first tool i found was Streamlined. The trick with this is that it
allows you to simply define your models and their relationships, and
quickly build admin interfaces for them. While I am not sure if it is
the quickest way to build forms for general use, it really smacks an
admin interface around.
The other tool I found was UploadColumn. The trick here is that you
can quickly and easily upload files to your app. The files are deleted
when the object is deleted, you can use ‘magic’ columns to save file
sizes, mime types, and a whole bunch of other useful info.
The problem is, I needed both functions, but there was no really easy
way that I could see to do it. There were parts all over the net, but
nothing really worked. So.. I hit it for a bit, and hopefully someone
can save some time from my toils.
To get these pieces working, you have to do the following:
Add a column to your model for the file. You should probably do
this to your migrations.
At the very least, add this to your model:
uploadcolumn :file
See the documentation for full details on how this works. There are
lots of other settings you can hit here.
from vendors/plugins/streamlined/templates/genericviews, copy
form.rhtml, new.rhtml, and edit.rhtml to the view direcotry of the
model you are working with.
Find the spot in form.html that generates the listing, and put
this in there:
You will also need to change the block so that that will only be
evaluated when you hit the file part of the form. The whole thing
will look like this:
okay, now that sirius has changed their channels all around, i decided
to spend a little bit of time this evening setting up all my presets.
the channel lineup has changed so much over the past few months, that i
gave up on keeping track of them. as en exercise in playing with the
tables in org-mode in emacs, i used them to set up my new
channels. unfortunately, my receiver only lets me use 3 banks of ten
channels each. if i had one more bank, i think i would have been much
happier.
i should point out that i have sirius hits one listed in postion A-0 so
that i can at any point go to the top of the lineup of channels. this
comes in really handy when you are on a long road trip and you need to
just flip through one hundred and some channels without recycling too
quickly.
also, has anyone noticed that sirius hits 1 is ALOT louder than all the
other channels? hmmm..
when i first started driving, gas was somewhere around $0.79 cents a gallon.. i drove a VW, and the fuel capacity was about ten gallons.. so, for $7.90, i could fill a totally empty tank to capacity.
today, i drive a honda accord.. it has a 14 gallon tank, and it was bone dry yesterday. i pulled up to the pump, and decided to put only ten bucks in, since i wasn’t going anywhere this week (at least in my car.)
at $3.79 a gallon, this is how much gas was put in my car..
just wanted to chime in that i am having the same problem with my K2 that i have seen several people (most recently TF3KX) have been having.. the problem being that a newly built K2 has massively reduced sensitivity..i have been working with gary over the past week, and we almost have this thing solved.. unfortunately, it’s now the weekend, so elecraft is probably closed until monday. but man, i would like to have this thing running, and off my bench by this weekend..really quickly, all my voltages match what they need to be, based on the chart in the manual..i have double quadruple checked all my parts and placements, and everything is go..here is the one clue that i think someone might be able to say.. “oh! i know what that is..”the last suggestion gary made to me before the weekend is to touch T7 with my finger.. when i do this, the volume should go up..here’s the trick..when i touch T7 with me finger, the volume goes down to almost silent..i have septuple checked T7 for correct orientation, etc..so i am hoping this clue will jog something in someone’s mind this weekend..thanks!73 de kb8qpt
the last time i was in santa paula, where i was born, i was with my dad. we had a rental car, and tank full of gas, and an afternoon to kill. we drove all over santa paula, and i had him show me where he lived when he was growing up.. where the lived when they got married.. and had him tell me all kinds of stories about the people i had known when i was a kid.
i urge anyone who wants a new take on things to do the same thing.. hang out with one of your parents, and have them tell you about their childhood.. and your childhood.. and all the people that came in and out of your life..
this picture is the house that my parents lived in when i was born. it’s hard to believe that i used to sleep in the same cradle in this house so many years ago that my baby paloma sleeps in now… so long ago.. so far away..
was turned on to today’s artist, jesca hoop, from an old friend back home, steven vega. he grew up down the street from me, and we did catechism and school together until i left town. he was also a drummer, but but he was way more serious about it. he’s got a dream job over at DW Drums now.
anyway, i totally dig jesca’s sound. today’s song, “Intelligentactile 101″ has a feel that reminds me of merril bainbridge’s song “mouth”. i liked it enough to buy the album. i have an amazon prime account, so i still buy cd’s instead of digital downloads. hell, i still buy and listen to vinyl.
