I tend to be a free thinker. Not exactly rebellious, but definitely not conformist either. Turns out, there is no ‘little’ rebellious, and I usually get labeled as a rebel, or troublemaker.

I’m ex-Navy, currently working at an Intel fab just outside of Phoenix. I don’t actually work for Intel, but one of their suppliers. It’s a mostly electronics tech position. Without getting into the whos, hows, or whys, it just isn’t working for me.

I’d really like to get back into some sort of web development or design.

Looking around and submitting applications the old-fashioned way is daunting at least, and depressing at worst. So enough with the standard resume. Here’s what I can do, why you should hire me, and what I want.

What I can do

I started messing around with HTML in 1996. I got my first web design job in 2000, where I started learning web development with SQL and Cold Fusion. Since, I’ve also worked in Flash, PHP, and a little ASP. I’ve worked directly with IIS and Apache, MSSQL and MySQL, on various Windows/Linux/Mac environments.

Currently, as in the last 14 months or so, I’ve been working almost exclusively in Ruby and Rails.

I’ve worked with several of the Macromedia Adobe products, including Flash, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and Photoshop. Since switching to Mac, I’ve been using mostly smaller apps for my designing, mostly TextMate and Coda.

I’m proficient with most versions of Windows, even though I’d prefer not to use it. Standard Windows apps like Office aren’t a problem.

Learning new systems/software isn’t a problem. I’m a self-motivated self-teacher.

Why you should hire me

Probably the most important: This is what I want to do. I’ve done web development and design as a hobby for years, and off and on professionally. It’s what I would do if I didn’t have to do something else.

I’m all about getting the job done. Not afraid to work overtime (paid overtime, of course) to finish a project. I’m used to working 12+ hour shifts, and used to being on time. I’ve got an excellent work record, both with my current employer, and before. I’ve averaged less than 2 unscheduled missed days a year.

I’m ready to travel. In the country and abroad, at a moments notice (this was a requirement for my last position).

What I want

My biggest concern is satisfaction. To be concise, less bullshit, more GTD. I’d much rather work in a small development team, and for a small company. I’m not so concerned with salary, as long as it’s enough to pay the bills. I’m wiling to relocate, depending on location. Schedule is important, as I’d like to get back into school before my GI Bill runs out.

I’ve got some recent code samples/design mockups. Since I’ve been out of the industry for a while, I don’t really have a current ‘portfolio’ together. I’m working on getting my own web-server up and running so I can show off some of my rails work.

Contact

If you’re reading this on my blog, you can reply to this post; via email, you can reply also. For everyone else, you can check out my blog at blog.bustikated.net

Inspired by a similar php solution found here, I decided to try and do this in Rails.

I quickly realized that something like this could be implemented as a plugin, in spite of it’s simplicity.

Google led me to this howto on creating generators, and following along with this and another of Urubatan’s guides, I was able to get a working plugin created.

Installation

As of right now, I do not have a public subversion repository. This should change within a week or two. The only way to install the plugin is to manually unzip it into your application’s vendor/plugin directory.

Get the zip here

This is my first plug-in, and was written more as a chance for me to explore plugin creation than out of necessity.

If you’re interested in creating your own plugin, you can read my notes by clicking ‘more’.

more

There’s a brouhaha going on over Apple forcing Safari 3.1 down the throats of Windows iTunes users, via the Apple Software Update app.

This is, in simple terms, idiocy.

Software Update on a Mac behaves this way. Wether you use iTunes/Safari/iLife/iWork or not, you get all the updates as they roll out.

How fucking hard is it to READ the screen BEFORE you click the install button and UNCHECK the items you don’t want installed.

Only 2 types of people would complain about something like this. Whiny little bitches, and morons.

I know I’ve posted about Ecto before, but I just wanted to say that I’m pretty happy with the direction it’s going. I’ve started using it again since the v3 beta, and haven’t been disappointed.

Someone re-made Metroid II by borrowing graphics from the later GameBoy Advance Games, and re-designing the sprites!

This is beyond kick ass. I give it 22 hours till Nintendo C&D’s this guy out of existence :(

full remake of the classic Game Boy title

to Love Safari

With one simple command, you too can force Safari to open all “new window” links as new tabs. Open up terminal and paste in this line. Don’t forget to restart safari afterward!

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

I wonder if there is a similar fix for WinSafari

[From Terminal Tip: Safari 3.1 brings true one-window mode – (TUAW)]

Why am I such a WeeWar junkie? For starters, turn based strategy games are awesome. Then you’ve got the fact that WeeWar is a pretty open game (ie the API). Combine all that with me needing projects just like this to learn RoR, and you’ve got full on addiction.

Since GoDaddy’s (expected) response of “Go Screw Yourself” to my Update Gem Request, I’ve had to resort to a less interactive means of showing off my mad bad Rails fu. I give you the awesome screenshot.

This is part of a table that will list unit attack & defense strengths, as well as movement ranges on the various terrains of WeeWar. This info can be helpful while trying to design your maps, esp when it comes to placing starting units.

As expected, I received a ‘you’re not important, so we’re not updating our system gems’ message from GoDaddy.

While this sucks, I’ve resorted to plan ‘b’ ship my mini, Hobbes, out to be colocated a little earlier than planned.

I don’t plan on renewing my hosting contract with GoDaddy, and I haven’t since I bought the mini, so I’m not really that upset by their response. The biggest disappointment is not being able to publish my lil weemap app.

WeeWar custom map makers and players will just have to wait a little longer. Hobbes should be online in a week or so.

Ok. I’ve re-uploaded the gems. Still nothing. I switched over to development mode and CGI instead of fastCGI and finally started seeing error messages. Turns out GoDaddy is running old system GEMs, and needs to update.

The biggest problem here is that I’ve frozen my rails version to my app’s vendor/ directory. There should be nothing else (core Rails wise) that is needed to run my app. I’m not using any non-standard gems, and my plugins are all in the app itself.

For more details on the exact issue I’ve run up against, see this ticket

This ticket has been listed as ‘invalid’. Such a shame that the core developers disregard those of us who eek out a meager existence on shared servers.

Mostly for my benefit later, but maybe helpful to you other rails newbs: I always seem to not be able to find this quickly when I want to freeze mah gems. It isn’t that hard, I’m just that absent minded.

rake rails:freeze:edge TAG=rel_2-0-2

rake rails:update:configs

script/about

sad

Thanks to the Daring Fireball for bringing me this sad news.

I’ve thrown together a lil rails app for providing feedback on WeeWar maps.

I’ll be honest, right now it isn’t that great. But I’m still working on it. Besides, it’s my very first published rails app. Hell, it’s my first published web app in a LONG time.

Which is your favorite WeeMap?

Due to the instability of the app, I’ve decided to release as private beta, you’ll need a key to join. Also, the app requires your weewar api key. The way it works is you provide your weewar login and api key to guarantee that you have the same name here as in weewar. It’s just better that way.

Let me say it again, yes this is a VERY early release. Yes there are several features that I want to add or fix. If you have constructive criticism or bugs, please leave comments. I hope to have a better method of leaving feedback up shortly (looking into lighthouse for tickets, and beast for a forum)

I’m not responsible for anything other than amusement that comes out of this app!!!

Oh, and the only way to get an invite is to ask ;)

Most of this was stolen directly from the Readme

Since I stole everything else, I figured I’d duplicate the donation link as well.

If you find this plugin useful, please consider a donation to the author to show your support!

Author’s Email: jonathan.viney@gmail.com

Installation

ruby script/plugin install
http://svn.viney.net.nz/things/rails/plugins/acts_as_taggable_on_steroids

ruby script/generate acts_as_taggable_migration
rake db:migrate

more

The Window

All of the action takes place in the window.

• Map – Where the action is
• Cash and income
• Inspector
  
  1. Name & Description of currently selected (hovered) terrain or unit
  2. The current unit is strong against these units
  3. The current unit is weak against these units
  4. The current unit can’t be used to attack these units
  5. Terrain effects on this unit
• Chat Window
• Player List

The point of WeeWar is to build an army and destroy your opponents.
To do this, you need to build units.
To build units, you need money.
To get money, you must capture bases.

Only bases generate income. The amount varies from map to map. This cash will be deposited every round.

Bases also build ground units and hovercraft.
Airports can build helicopters, and planes.
Ports can build hovercraft and ships.

Repair patches aren’t capturable. Repairing a unit on a patch totally repairs that unit!

Most units can either
1. Repair increase 1 or 2 HP
2. Move and stay
3. Move and attack

• Infantry & Hovercraft can capture if they are on a building. Infantry are a LOT weaker during capture.
• The Light Artillery, Heavy Artillery, and DFA units can not attack after moving.
• Planes can move, attack, and move again.
• Air units can’t be repaired.
• The Battleship can move and then attack twice.

Most units can only attack adjacent units, that is units they are right next to. Indirect units can fire on units in their range.

Terrain

• Different units move differently over the different types of terrain.
• Some units can’t cross certain terrains.
• Some units get bonuses or penalties in combat if they are on a certain terrain.

One step closer to getting my server up to production!

After several mis-steps, I’ve finally configured subversion in leopard server, and have mostly gotten Warehouse running.

I can’t wait to migrate all of my sites over to the server and get it live!

What kind of how-to would this be if I just sat around cooing about my own accomplishments? After all, I just stole the work from other people. And here it is:

Subversion

This page was instrumental in getting subversion up and running properly. A lot of other pages helped/got me started, but in the end I just wiped all of that other crap, and started over from the top of this page. When I finished, Subversion worked. That simple.

One gotcha, noted in the comments, is that for some reason OS X Server Admin seems to be fond of changing the line DAV svn to DAV off. Some vigilance in TextMate prevented this from bringing me down!

I’ll be posting more specifics about my Warehouse experience as soon as it’s actually working ;)

Disclaimer. I don’t drink Bud Light, and I don’t think Will Ferrel is funny, but this is pretty good.

Lately, I’ve been using the built in speech synthesis on OS X to read wikipedia articles out loud while I do other stuff. It’s cool, but requires either a little patience or “lower standards”.

If you’ve tried this, or you do try it, you’ll see what I mean. The layout of the articles isn’t designed to be read this way. The speech service wasn’t designed to parse HTML documents, but rather flat text.

Staring with the directions found here after a quick google search, I set up an automator action to request text, and then read it to the desktop as an aiff file.

I chose the San Francisco article as a good example, and copied the text into TextMate. I made some quick edits, adding periods after all of the headings, for instance, to force “Alex” to pause properly, and removed all of the footnotes.

The reading went well, after a few minutes I was presented with a 100+mb aiff. After manually adding it to iTunes & playing around with some quality settings, I settled on the AAC podcast setting. The convert ran quickly, and reduced the file size by almost 90%.

Finally, I went back in and added this action to my automator application, so that the iTunes import and conversion happens automagically. The important thing here is to remember to set iTunes’ conversion preferences before running the automator app.

Don’t forget to change the quality back to your normal music ripping standard!

Links

• Here’s the Disk Image containing my Automator Actions.
• The sample text file
• The compressed result