iPhone Home Screen

Its always fun to look over someone’s shoulder and see how certain technology is used so I thought I’d share my setup. In this case, I’m talking about the home screen of my iPhone since it where I keep the most trafficked applications.

Here is a break down of my home screen (left to right, top to bottom):

• OmniFocus - Inspired by the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen, this is the best app to implement David’s teachings perfectly via software. This app is heavily used (hence being in the first position). Sync’s perfectly with the desktop and truly is my digital brain. Well done OmniGroup!
• Groundwork - At one point I tried to do accomplish all professional work within OmniFocus (and still do when I’m the solely responsible). The only problem is that OmniFocus is for single use and doesn’t work well in a team/collaborative setting. This is why it is handy to have Groundwork around to sync with your Basecamp setup. Perfect for checking status and not loosing ideas while on the go.
• Nezumi - Almost all my Ruby on Rails apps are running on Heroku. This is a handy app for managing your apps while from the road. It is limited in function but having log, reboot, and console access is a nice backup plan.
• Ego - Sounds bad but is actually quite useful when it comes to tracking Google Analytic, Feed Burner, and Twitter stats for various my Ruby on Rails applications.
• Messages - Default iPhone app, sometimes useful. I don’t really use SMS much but keep it around since others like to communicate that way. Personally, I think SMS should die much like email.
• Tweetie - Another app that makes managing multiple Twitter accounts easy. I use Tweetie on both the iPhone and desktop.
• Skype - My favorite instant chat client. I use no other. Obviously, very handy to have on the phone. Also, a great way to save on SMS text costs.
• Calendar - Default iPhone app. What can’t be done (or doesn’t make sense to do) in OmniFocus, is done here. Syncs perfectly with my desktop app. No complaints.
• Maps - Default iPhone app. Always handy and now on the 3GS version of the phone, it does a pretty good job of keeping track of where you are in real-time.
• 1Password - So passwords suck and just about every web site and application known to man does it their own special way. The only way to deal with the chaos is to use 1Password. I love having this on the iPhone because it syncs with my desktop client and allows me to easily cut and paste complicated 20-character or more passwords into my local iPhone app configurations or web pages. BTW, as you might have guessed, this didn’t truly become useful until Apple enabled cut and paste support.
• Dropbox - While some people might like Evernote, I still find files and folders extremely handy. This app does all the heavy lifting of keeping my files and folders synced between all machines. Plus they give you up to 3GB of space for free. Brilliant.
• Billings - When I was running my own consulting company (actually, I still do), this app was used a lot. I keep it around now because I like track my open source and personal project work. I’m mostly curious as to how much time I spend on things and like to know whether my speed is increasing over time.
• AccuWeather - So far the best weather app for my tastes. Since I live in the mountains and ride a metal steed, it is wise to know what is brewing. Especially in the dead of winter.
• Clock - It’s what gets me up in the morning. Also handy for when you are in the kitchen.
• Calculator - For those calculations that would take too much brain power to compute.
• Convertbot - For unit conversion calculations. Handy when cooking or in the garage. It’s also an elegantly designed application and worth looking into if nothing else to help inspire your own designs.
• Phone - While I don’t use the phone much, it does give me access to my contacts.
• Mail - Used often with Inbox Zero discipline. What can’t get processed immediately gets scheduled via OmniFocus.
• Safari - Used mostly for info lookup. Always handy in a pinch and for testing your own sites, of course.
• iPod - Besides, the OmniFocus app, this is probably the secondly most used app for constant learning. Audiobooks and educational podcasts are heavily consumed.

For a list of the apps mentioned above and other iPhone related news, check out my iPhone page for more info.

Last Day

© Trinity Brewing Company

Today is the last day working for my current client. Its been an interesting experience and I plan to write more about the banking industry soon but, for now, I’m looking forward to moving on and getting back to doing what I really enjoy, which is working with the Ruby language.

So where am I headed? Well, I’ve been hired, full time, to work at Pactimo - a high-end bicycling apparel shop. All of their software is written in Ruby using the Rails web framework. Development will be on the MacOS and Linux systems. As for me, I’ve been bestowed the title of “Director of Software Development”. In essence, I AM the software team. Yeah, yeah, I know. Oooh, fancy title. No, not really. It means that I’m looking at some long days and sleepless nights for a while but…for those who know me…I wouldn’t have it any other way. Its an awesome opportunity and I’m honored to take the helm.

I’ll have more to say about Pactimo in the future, for sure. As for today, I just want to mention that some of the crew and I will be hanging out for happy hour (5pm) at the following location to celebrate. Swing by, if you are around:

Trinity Brewing Company
1466 Garden of the Gods
Colorado Springs, CO 80907

To new beginnings!

Zombie Party

Fall is probably my favorite season of the year. The change of colors, the piles of leaves, pulling the snowboard out of hibernation, etc. It’s also the celebration of several personal holidays as well as kicking off an entire end-of-year holiday season starting with Halloween.

This year Halloween falls on a Saturday and we are throwing a Zombie Party! Here are the details:

• Location: Our House (Kate and Brooke)
• Date: October 31st (Saturday)
• Time: 7pm to whenever
• Beverages: A special punch - drink at your own risk. Feel free to BYOB as well.
• Food: Various snacks that, while quite tasty, are sure to make your stomach churn while looking at them.
• Activities - We’ll have games, some prizes perhaps, and two movies playing in the background. We’re thinking “Shaun of the Dead” on the LoFi while “28 Days Later” plays in the HiFi theatre.

The only real requirement is that you arrive to the party as a zombie. The scarier the better. Kate has made sure to send out an evite to the event but this is reminder and a notice to some who might not have gotten the evite to come join us. Leave a comment here or email me directly.

It’s going to be one hell of a good time. Hope you can make it!

Eco Festival

Today is the Eco Festival which, for Kate and I at Local Dish, is the final culmination of the work we have been putting into Local Food Week. It has been a lot of effort with software development, marketing, news announcements, sponsorship, gathering of recipe ingredients, contestant judging, etc. All worth it, of course, now that we can announce the winners of the recipe contest.

So if you are in the city today and have time to swing by Rock Ledge Ranch (at the base of Garden of the Gods), please do. Kate and I will be on stage between 12pm-1pm announcing the recipe contest winners as well as cooking and providing free samples of the two top recipes (because the results were very close). Just look for us, wearing these shirts:

See you at the Eco Festival today!

Tags: Local Dish

Ein

In an effort to surprise my wife for her upcoming birthday, I drove out to Wetmore, CO to pick up a 8-week old Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppy from a local breeder. My intent was to present the puppy on the day of her birthday (by leaving him with friends first). However, during the drive home, I realized that was going to be complicated and possibly traumatic for the little guy. So I gave him to my wife early. She nearly bowled me over in happiness when I surprised her. He’s a cutie, that’s for sure:

We named him, “Ein”, after the data dog of the same name from the Cowboy Bebob series (one of my favorite anime). Hey, it all relates to tech in one form or another. He’s learning fast and already can tackle the stairs with those short legs. The bathroom training…well…that’s going to take some time still.

Tags: Ein

Number to Fraction 1.0.0 Gem

I have released a new gem called Number to Fraction that is a compliment to the already existing Ruby on Rails NumberHelper methods. This gem allows you to use the following method in your views:

number_to_fraction 3.75

Which will yield the following string output:

3 3/4

There are limitations to this gem at the moment as you can only generate fractions less than 1/10ths. Yeah, I know, this is lame but can be handy for small fractions. If you need an example of how this gem is being used in a production environment, check out the ingredients for this recipe on the Local Dish web site.

If there is a math wizard in the audience that could help me flesh this gem out fully then let me know. This happened to solve my immediate problem so it might work for others as well. There is definitely room for improvement.

Memorial Weekend BBQ

© Brian Chu

We are hosting a BBQ this upcoming Memorial Day Weekend and you are invited.

Drop by for some much needed fun, sun and barbecued food any time between 2 p.m. until whenever on May 23rd. We’ll provide delicious skewered meats and a few sides. A growler or two from Trinity might be on hand as well, although feel free to BYOB. Music, company, card/video/board games upon request. Please RSVP by May 15 by emailing me directly or commenting to this post.

See you there!

Invalid Gem Format

Sometimes when installing Ruby Gems, you run into errors. Yeah, I know, sounds crazy, but it happens. For instance, while installing the heroku gem using the following command:

sudo gem install heroku

I got back this error on the command line:

ERROR: Error installing heroku:
invalid gem format for /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/cache/rest-client-0.8.2.gem

While opening up the rest-client-0.8.2.gem file in TextMate, I discovered it was completely blank. After I deleted the bogus rest-client-0.8.2.gem file and tried again, both the heroku and dependent rest-client gems were installed properly. My guess as to why this happened is because I typed in the system password (i.e. sudo command) incorrectly on my first attempt at installing the gem. Silly me for using complex passwords.

Wedding Reception Registration

For those of you who have been following along, I have talked about our Elopement and plans for a Wedding Party…well, I finally completed work on a little Ruby on Rails site hosted by Heroku. The site is live and running now. So check out the site, learn more about what is happening, and R.S.V.P. today!

It’s going to be a fun time so don’t let this pass you by.

Paypal Fraud

Ever get an e-mail like this?:

(click to view)

The first clue that this e-mail is fake is that the sending address has “Inc” in the “support@PayPal.Inc.com” e-mail address. Secondly, if you choose to click on the “dispute transaction” link from the e-mail, you’ll see an address like this in your browser:

http://81.21.68.248/www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr=cmd=p/index.php

Which yields the following web site:

There are many things wrong with the site such as funky characters showing up, etc. Lets hope that most people will not fall prey to this Trojan horse attack. Here is the official Paypal link to report phishing attacks like this one.