David Acevedo's Blog

I'm doing Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial  book this weekend and I wanted to get the notifications right. Took me a while to get it to work. Since this is a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot I'm running into a few issues. I'm running ruby 1.9.2 using rvm since Ubuntu only included 1.9.1. I'm also using the Gnome 3 Shell as I prefer it to Unity. 1) The first issue was that the execjs gem that is installed by default by Rails 3.1 requires the Spider Monkey Javascript engine to be installed in Ubuntu. ( sudo apt-get install libmozjs185 libmozjs185-dev or use Synaptic and search for "spidermonkey" which is what I did ). Or you can comment it out of your Gemfile as it doesn't seem to affect anything in the tutorial. 2) The second issue was that I wanted the nice Growl-like notifications for autotest . The instructions on the automate everything website got me there but don't install the gem 'redgreen' it's buggy. Here is ...

I've just re-installed my Ubuntu Linux partition and I'm loving the Gnome 3 Shell (way better than Unity) but that will be a later post. This post is about command line utilities that I install right away on my Ubuntu box. You'll notice something right away about them. 1. htop -- System Monitor Htop is the more easy on the eyes version of top. A incredible valuable utility is like a system monitor for the command line. Perfect for figuring out what process crashed your X-session, and killing that process. 2. mc (aka midnight commander) -- File Manager Midnight commander is a file manager that is aware of the mouse, so you can navigate the file structure. It's the easiest way to manage files from the command line or see how a folder structure is laid out. 3. jed -- Text Editor In the Unix world there are two kinds of people: vi people and emacs people. These are the two main text editors for the terminal from the days of old. Vi now vim (vi - improved) i...

I have a Logitech trackball which I love. I bought it when my wrists started hurting after hours of long Photoshop sessions. The switch to the trackball fixed all that. It allows me to hold my hand in the perfect position and it's great for most browsing with one exception: It lacks a middle-click wheel. This presents a bigger problem than it seems, as design seems to be removing the scroll bars at the edges of windows in favor of small slits. So to get around this you can emulate a scroll wheel or use the middle click to activate a scroll motion on various programs. Logitech has a utility that sets this up in Windows but in Ubuntu you have a better (if more hard-work required) option. The Ubuntu option is better because unlike in Windows you can emulate the wheel with the track-ball by holding down a button. This is the option I like to use. In Ubuntu you write a configuration file to set up the trackball to work the way you want it. I have to re-create this...

This is going to be my first rails web app, but I'm going to build the heart or the mechanics of it in Ruby first. This is my next big personal project. I'm putting it ahead of all other ones because this one has major usability. What is Ephemeris? Ephemeris is a program that calculates the phases of the moon and the time for sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset for any location on the planet. There's a lot of math I don't have a clue how to do involved. So here are the end goals By supplying your location (say Los Angeles) and a date you can get: MoonPhase in a neat little graphic of the day Sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset Ability to create a moon calendar for the month(s) supplied. Ability to create a sunrise/set moonrise/set table for month(s) supplied. Give the exact time of full moon and new moon.  The all the times should be accurate to the timezone of your location.  First step is finding the math to calculate this and code it in Ruby. Th...

There are things that I'm postponing until I land a job. So these are the things I'll get myself as a present as soon as I'm employed. 1. Become a subscriber to KPCC and KCRW. Total cost $60.00 ($30 e/a)     I listen to these stations an awful lot, though less lately as most news seem to be depressing. I absolutely  adore their mission of bringing information in an clear, clean effective way. I want to support them! They totally deserve it. 2. Buy clothing at Patagonia. Total cost average $65.00 each piece or more.     I may do this without the job anyway, I like the store, it's ecological and repair policy and the clothing is made to be used like I use it: Till it falls fucking apart. I've got my eye on a pair of Duck pants and Duck shorts. I'd rather wear those than khakis and they seem way more comfortable than jeans. I have to try the on next time I'm there. 3. A Flash with battery pack and remote trigger. Cost $200.00 for flash + $100 for remote...

A new version of iTunes 10.5 came out for Windows with compatibility for iOS 5. After upgrading my boot time jumped a huge amount of time. Here is how to tame the Windows Boot back into shape when you have installed iTunes. 1. First install Soluto (mentioned in my Windows utilities post ). Then go to chop boot and look for these processes Apple Application Support Bonjour -- this one is optional Mobile Devices (Apple Mobile Devices Support) And set all three to "Delay." Unless you only use your computer for iTunes/iOS support from the minute you start the computer, there is no real reason for those to hold up the start-up of your computer. 2. Then open Run... and type 'msconfig' and go to the start up tab. On Windows 7 you can just type it on the Start search bar and it will fire right away. Don't ask me why but when things are set up here sometimes they conflict with Soluto. Go to the Startup tab and look for any processes that shouldn't ...