Blogs

Feb
20
2012

Using iPad to hold your photos while on vacation

Working on computer on the roadA family member recently sent a question to my wife about how to keep photos safe while traveling.

And speaking of road trips, we are heading to Hawaii and are planning on getting an iPad for entertainment along the way. We are wondering if you have used your iPad as a photo transfer station from your EyeFi card to your iPhoto at home. Does it work that way? We don't have a laptop, so we were thinking an EyeFi card would allow us to take pictures and upload them to our iPad (and ultimately our computer) for safe keeping. Or, would we be better off taking the card to the local Costco to get a cd made to make sure we have the pics safe and sound? Thank you for any insight you might be able to offer.

This is a workflow I've spent quite a bit of time on over the years. My thinking is definitely affected by two instances of losing photos I'd really like to have back.

The first instance where I lost photos was years ago on a business trip to Wichita of all places. I'd taken some photos on the plane as well as some pretty nice sunset photos. I'd reviewed them on the camera's (tiny by modern standards) screen and shared them with colleagues on the trip. When I downloaded the photos I didn't notice that the card was evidently corrupted in some way and only a portion of the photos were saved to the computer. Thinking that all was well the card was formatted and I went on shooting. Had I caught it in time I could have likely used some card recovery software and gotten back at least some of the photos.

Feb
19
2012

Make Facebook more useful by blocking apps

The last thing I wanted to do is publish one of those annoying posts where someone tells you how to make Facebook better. So here it is. This is a recipe that I find works for me and recently sharing with a couple of friends has worked for them. It's not a secret recipe for untold wealth or making life better. It is a way to make something like Facebook enjoyable for how I want to use it.

Simply put the main method here is block apps. Not just the invites to join apps but the whole app themselves. I've blocked hundreds of apps in the years I've been using Facebook and it makes the experience much more enjoyable from my point of view. There are, of course, a few exception to the block 100% of apps rule, but just a few.

Sometime back I noticed that while I could make my news stream cleaner by ignoring the latest "spammy post a day app" that someone had added, perhaps unknowingly. When I would visit their page I'd be treated to a sea of spammy posts and only a few meaningful ones. By blocking the apps entirely I get the real things they have to say when they say them and not the rest.

Feb
4
2012

Drush make and Pressflow

A quick note on using Pressflow as the basis of a Drush build using Drush make can be a little confusing as the changes necessary to use the newer github-based repository aren't abundant. So without further ado here's what works:

projects[pressflow][type] = "core"
projects[pressflow][download][type] = "git"
projects[pressflow][download][url] = "https://github.com/pressflow/6.git"
projects[pressflow][download][tag] = "DRUPAL-6-24"

Note that the previous instructions around the web tend to be problematic because the tarball file contains a git repo which Drush make doesn't know to strop since it's getting it as a tarball instead of from git.

Dec
1
2011

Create custom Adjix short URLs with Alfred

Alfred.app Logo Although I use it all the time it turns I haven't written here about Adjix. There is one mention in some issues but nothing that spells out just how awesome it is. The short version is Adjix is hands down the single best URL shortener out there. While it deserves it's own post suffice it to say you can use its power and still retain a copy of your links on your own S3 drive. Future proofing at its best.

But this post isn't about that. It's about using your own custom domain and setting up a URL shortener that works from Alfred. Alfred is itself another awesome tool that deserves yet another post. Inspired by a post on Dirt Don I set out to create a url shortening shortcut. (Recursion is encouraged).

So based on this post I setup a quick shell script shortcut in Alfred. The properties end up looking something like this:

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