/categories/software/ Recent content in Software on Personal Site of Tim Child Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:35:11 +0000 /2011/04/15/my-jenkins-nginx-proxy-script/ Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:35:11 +0000 /2011/04/15/my-jenkins-nginx-proxy-script/ Here is a very simple configuration for nginx to proxy Jenkins (the new name for the un-Oracle’d Hudson) [cc lang=“bash”] server { listen 80 default; server_name bld-master localhost; root /var/lib/jenkins; access_log /var/log/nginx/jenkins.access.log; location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/; proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; } } [/cc] /2010/10/02/netgrowl/ Sat, 02 Oct 2010 09:43:24 +0000 /2010/10/02/netgrowl/ I needed to test sending growl messages to machines running Growl, using just Python. There was a problem trying to find scripts, old websites were not responding, and there was a distinct lack of being able to get anything off the group easily but I chanced upon a script that worked. Fearing that the site it is hosted on might also end up biting dust, I made my changes to the script and have uploaded it to GitHub: /2010/04/22/python-plugin-systems/ Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:01:17 +0000 /2010/04/22/python-plugin-systems/ There is a lot of interesting information about creating plugin architectures using Python all over the web, but its in fairly disparate places. This is an overview of the documentation that I found as of April 2010. Firstly Dr André Roberge has some very interesting posts, as well as a talk at PyCon 2009 on Blip.tv entitled Plugins and monkeypatching: increasing flexibility, dealing with inflexibility. He is also the author of Crunchy which uses a plugin system. /2010/03/21/using-hudson-to-build-sphinx-documentation/ Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:47:32 +0000 /2010/03/21/using-hudson-to-build-sphinx-documentation/ I have become quite the fan of both Hudson and Sphinx. At Cantemo we are using Hudson for Continuous Integration testing, and its a large improvement over buildbot which I was trying before. For documentation at the moment I am using Sphinx, a python based documentation generator. We require the documentation to be updated at the same time as the development and tests are built so it is becoming second nature to build documents soon after development is done. /2010/03/20/postfix-and-gmail/ Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:07:03 +0000 /2010/03/20/postfix-and-gmail/ I have been using Hudson as a continuous integration server for a short while now and I am super impressed. I have it running on Debian and is really quite feature-full. One thing that I did have a problem with was with the standard Debian 5 Java environment there was a problem using TLS for mail it seemed, and I didn’t just want to send stuff to gmail’s SMTP server all the time so I configured a local Postfix SMTP relay on another server. /2009/10/09/newnewswire/ Fri, 09 Oct 2009 07:58:32 +0000 /2009/10/09/newnewswire/ I have posted about NetNewsWire many times on here before. Its been my favourite news reading application for a couple of years now (if not more) but recent development has severally hampered the usability of the software. It seemed to be when they changed it to support sync to Google Reader – not a bad idea by any means, but releasing the software before it was full tested and working was a huge mistake. /2009/07/08/google-chrome-os/ Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:02:11 +0000 /2009/07/08/google-chrome-os/ Wow, Google have announced the release of the Google OS. Although it wasn’t entirely a shock its nice to see that they are promoting something from the ground up. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html Looking forward to trying it out even if I don’t have a netbook. /2009/01/29/hilarious-look-at-adobes-ui/ Thu, 29 Jan 2009 11:58:46 +0000 /2009/01/29/hilarious-look-at-adobes-ui/ So what’s wrong with Adobe’s UI: Well this is a very funny tumbl log of plenty of comments of things that could be done better: [http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/ ]1 Things that particularly standout are issues with there cross-platform UI. Although praised by many as a good example, it just shows that some of the finer details are missed. Via UIEye. /2009/01/19/ui-design-in-the-open/ Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:42:00 +0000 /2009/01/19/ui-design-in-the-open/ This is just great: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/01/redesigning-a-u.html A summary of the post that basically Bug Labs has hired IDEO to redesign their hardware user interface for BUGbase and to do it in the open. Updates on the design process can be sees at: Bug Blog, Bug Community, and the IDEO blog. /2009/01/10/working-with-svn-on-os-x/ Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:24:25 +0000 /2009/01/10/working-with-svn-on-os-x/ I use SVN (subversion) quite a bit, even at home to manage my own files, but recently I have been running the beta version for Versions by Sofa and Pico. It turned into an excellent way of using SVN, being very visual and supporting everything that I needed, but alas the Beta period ran out and they released Versions 1. Now I was all for buying this application, but the purchase price of 39 Euros totally puts my of. /2009/01/09/2008-applications-of-the-year/ Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:17:52 +0000 /2009/01/09/2008-applications-of-the-year/ So here are my most used OS X applications of the year, in no particular order: Spotify. This is just an excellent music application, the speed with which the streams start is simply amazing and I don’t find that I get that many adverts in the way of the vast array of songs on offer. Textmate. I probably use this more than any other application on the Mac, for me hands down the best text editor that I have ever used and I find more and more features in it everyday. /2008/12/16/this-is-awesome-papervision/ Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:34:58 +0000 /2008/12/16/this-is-awesome-papervision/ This is really really awesome, and you have to really check it out for your self. Its a little flash application that uses a webcam or other camera attached to your computer to project a little ‘Proto’ guy on top of a printed piece of paper. They have even got some code released for it. Check it out here with some images and video, but it really works better to try it yourselves: /2008/08/04/creating-workflow-diagrams/ Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:22:01 +0000 /2008/08/04/creating-workflow-diagrams/ I haven’t seen any good examples recently of workflow diagrams, at least not more technical ones based around software, services and workflow. Creating a diagram like this its always nice to see other examples of how people have approached the problem but in this scenario I have yet to see anything. Even Edward Tufte came short on this, though the diagrams and illustrations he provides examples for are excellent. So this is what I came up with to illustrate a workflow with our software in a newsroom environment. /2008/07/21/my-top-ten-os-x-applications/ Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:38:57 +0000 /2008/07/21/my-top-ten-os-x-applications/ Its been a year with this Mac Book Pro that I am using so I thought that I would round up with my top ten Mac software – the software that I would install first of all after a crash. Quicksilver. This is a must have on the Mac. I find out something new about it every week if not everyday and it makes using OS X even easier and more streamlined. /2008/06/21/django-one-form-two-models/ Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:25:04 +0000 /2008/06/21/django-one-form-two-models/ This post is a work in progress is now working I am glad to say. I have been working on a django site which needs two models updated for one post. It is actually using models very close to that on django-forums and I have created a forms.py file: <br /> class ThreadForm(forms.ModelForm):<br /> class Meta:<br /> model = Thread<br /> exclude = (‘forum’, ‘sticky’, ‘closed’, ‘posts’, ‘views’, ‘latest_post_time’)</p> <p> def clean_title(self):<br /> title = self. /2008/04/18/looks-like-django-is-really-taking-off/ Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:42:56 +0000 /2008/04/18/looks-like-django-is-really-taking-off/ Since the introduction of Google’s appengine which includes support for some of Django’s code, and the template system there has been an incredible amount of press for Django. At the moment there is no backend support for AppEngine in Django (and DB2 support is still lacking – there was a blog post about a year ago but nothing seems to have happened since, and I would love to be proved wrong on that one) but it must only be a matter of time before this happens so for the moment you have to disable the ORM support. /2008/02/28/microsofts-worldwide-telescope/ Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:12:54 +0000 /2008/02/28/microsofts-worldwide-telescope/ This looks really awesome, Microsoft research have combined the feeds from satellites and telescopes all over to create a window into the universe. The Ted video will show more: There is more information on their website http://wwtelescope.com/ and release should be in spring time sometime. /2008/01/18/macheist/ Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:50:34 +0000 /2008/01/18/macheist/ Today I purchased the MacHeist bundle of OS X software. This will be available for the next 5 days and includes quite a few applications and gives a major saving on buying them alone for the amazingly cheap price of $49. On top of this it also gives money to charity. The included applications are: 1password – a password manager. I currently use KeepassX because its cross platform CoverSutra – a iTunes player Cha-Ching – A personal money organiser. /2008/01/17/sun-aquires-mysql/ Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:02:45 +0000 /2008/01/17/sun-aquires-mysql/ News just in, Sun acquires MySQL. MySQL makes one of the most popular opensource database in the world and they have just acquired it for $1billion. More about it here: http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/pr/2008-01/sunflash.20080116.1.xml /2008/01/16/netnewswire-now-free/ Wed, 16 Jan 2008 08:50:04 +0000 /2008/01/16/netnewswire-now-free/ One of my favourite applications and one of my most used applications on the Mac is NetNewsWire from Newsgator and it has been since I started using it. I have found it to be the best way to deal with Newsfeeds for me, the integration of browser, the ease of use and probably the way it syncs with its online counterpart has kept me away from other solutions. My first thoughts when I found out that it was now free was “I paid for that! /2008/01/02/fixing-the-screen-backspace-and-delete-key/ Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:58:15 +0000 /2008/01/02/fixing-the-screen-backspace-and-delete-key/ When running screen sometimes there is a problem using the backspace or delete key and you get the dreaded “Wuff Wuff” message. Try editing ~/.bashrc And adding: alias screen='TERM=screen screen' /2007/07/09/django-and-osx/ Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:56:23 +0000 /2007/07/09/django-and-osx/ Those who have been here before know that I am a big fan of the Django python webframework, and also a big fan of OS X. So I thought that I would install Django on my MacBook Pro. I did have it all installed on my G4 laptop, but I am going to be using it with at least two different databases on this machine. I am not going to give a complete, what I typed style install, just an overview because it is fairly easy. /2007/07/05/wpf-and-mdi/ Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:46:07 +0000 /2007/07/05/wpf-and-mdi/ Just been using Windows Presentation Foundation ( WPF ) to prototype an application that I am working on and althought Microsoft Expression Blend is a fantastic tool I am finding some frustrating limitations with WPF already. Chiefly amoung these is support for Multiple Document Interfaces or MDI. I was hoping to create an interface where I could open and close windows within an application ala Photoshop, After Effects, Director or any application in the last 10 years to do with media creation but Microsoft have decided, in their infinite wisdom, that MDI is a no no. /2006/11/08/zussaweb-now-with-newzbin-ids/ Wed, 08 Nov 2006 16:57:28 +0000 /2006/11/08/zussaweb-now-with-newzbin-ids/ The modification I made to zussaweb the PHP frontend to HellaNZB is now available in sourceforge for downloaded as a 0.3 release. They tidied it up abit, but I am glad it made it in after all the requests and emails that I got for this feature. Now perhaps I should integrate a Newzbin RSS feed!! /2006/10/25/firefox-2-is-released/ Wed, 25 Oct 2006 15:11:17 +0000 /2006/10/25/firefox-2-is-released/ So firefox 2 the latest release from Mozilla is out to the public today, and so I am typing this to you from it. I think its looking good, though I am not sure what it is doing to the padding on the backend of WordPress. I am really liking the built in spell checker. Its a nice feature particularly when you spend a lot of time typing into websites. /2006/07/26/django-with-apache2/ Wed, 26 Jul 2006 18:31:40 +0000 /2006/07/26/django-with-apache2/ One thing that I feel is harder than it should be with django is getting it working with Apache2. Sure the built in webserver is nice for development, but there comes a time when you need to step up and use a webserver for development that you can also deploy the site upon. I have used Apache a lot in the past, but recently I have decided to move over to installing everything the Debian way, and this will reflect that. /2006/07/16/hellahella-on-apache-2/ Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:00:46 +0000 /2006/07/16/hellahella-on-apache-2/ I have been using hellahella using paster serve and I must say the performance was terrible. I don’t think that it is mean’t to be run for any length of time which is at odds with hellahella, the web interface to hellanzb, which is. I have documented before that I am using hellanzb to manage my nzb files, and hellahella makes it even easier and with integration with http://www.newzbin.com it is even better (how about one click downloads, unrar, par, and ready to view – yes I have it! /2006/06/15/interesting-django-video/ Thu, 15 Jun 2006 07:35:42 +0000 /2006/06/15/interesting-django-video/ Nice hour long video on Django, from a google presentation here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-70449010942275062 Worth watching if you are thinking about getting in to the Django framework. /2006/05/29/django-and-python/ Mon, 29 May 2006 20:12:07 +0000 /2006/05/29/django-and-python/ At Vizrt there is alot of python, and although I wish I could have jumped on the bandwagon and started messing around more with Ruby, I am enjoying working with python where the scripts are properly authored. So I was looking for a nice framework that would give me Rails style speed of prototyping web applications whilst using Python and after looking at the usual suspects (Turbogears, pylons, zope & plone) I am again playing around with Django again. /2006/02/24/pop3-server-for-osx/ Thu, 23 Feb 2006 23:17:52 +0000 /2006/02/24/pop3-server-for-osx/ I need a pop3 server for osx for testing an application that I am thinking of building. I would like it small as in lightweight, osx switch on/switch offable and with little dependancies. Anyone know of one? /2006/02/03/vmware-free-version/ Fri, 03 Feb 2006 08:20:42 +0000 /2006/02/03/vmware-free-version/ Just read on the register that VMWare is going to offer a free version of its server product. There is no mention of this on their site yet unless they are talking about the VMWare Player which can be used to host VMware / Microsoft and Symantic virtual PC sessions. I am really interested to see where they go with this. For instance at home it would make for a really good test system and its a good competitor to Xen running on Linux. /2006/01/10/joomla/ Tue, 10 Jan 2006 19:29:46 +0000 /2006/01/10/joomla/ Been messing around with Joomla, and so far I am really impressed. I must admit one of the features that I am looking forward to implementing is WordPress in Joomla – best of both worlds perhaps? I am not sure, as I haven’t installed it yet, but one of the resources I found interesting seems to have disappeared: a tutorial on setting up a Joomla template, luckily I have managed to rescue it out of googles cache. /2006/01/07/wordpress-2/ Sat, 07 Jan 2006 00:31:55 +0000 /2006/01/07/wordpress-2/ Yes, its finally here, WordPress 2. I am currently using WordPress 1.5 on this blog and 2 other sites I have developed so I am not going to upgrade for a while on those 2 sites because they are working very well, but I might test with this blog – well perhaps after just doing some upgrades that I have been planning for a while. Here are some of the new features: /2006/01/04/ruby/ Wed, 04 Jan 2006 08:54:43 +0000 /2006/01/04/ruby/ Ruby and Ruby on Rails is the language of the moment it seems, getting good press from all those that try it and even converting .net users. I admire the evanglism for a small budget, nowhere near that of .net for example Ruby and Rails have produced videos showing the ease in producing a blog in 15 minutes, a wiki, shown some high profile applications, made the most hyped web technology (AJAX) of 2005 easier and much more – for 2005⁄2006 very uptodate ways of marketing rails and ruby have been produced and got quite a lot of developers interested in the technology. /2005/12/06/camino/ Tue, 06 Dec 2005 14:52:56 +0000 /2005/12/06/camino/ Well I have used Firefox for ages now, and although it is my preferred browser on Linux and Windows, for Mac it is less than ideal. As I have previously noted Mac users are used to their usual way of working, and although somethings could be improved, such as adding decent package management (the fink project goes someways to rectifying the situation – but one has to ask why this wasn’t included as standard) others are quite well thought out. /2005/11/29/new-firefox/ Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:20:09 +0000 /2005/11/29/new-firefox/ The new Firefox browser is almost with us, and I have signed up as a last minute Beta tester. As soon as the browser is out, and it should be followed by a new video marketing compaign, which I can’t wait to see – I am sure there will be main opensourced versions of it to come. As soon as it is up I will post again. /2005/10/04/thunderbird-junk-filter/ Tue, 04 Oct 2005 20:39:34 +0000 /2005/10/04/thunderbird-junk-filter/ I’ve been using Thunderbird for a year or perhaps more now, and although I like it I have always been thinking that the Junk filter wasn’t working properly. Well it seems I over trained it. Everytime I got Junk email I pressed it, apparently this is not the way, and since clearing it out its been a lot better. Trouble is it is not perfect still. I am using AVG to filter for virus and trojans but now I am going to try POPfile. /2005/10/01/ex-ie-developer-talks/ Sat, 01 Oct 2005 22:32:24 +0000 /2005/10/01/ex-ie-developer-talks/ Very interesting post on the blog of Ex-Internet Explorer UI Developer Scott Burkin about why he switched to Firefox. I don’t understand why people are still using IE at all anymore, but I guess there are just people that think its ok – the truth is it has had some security bugs, but they are fixed quickly, and they haven’t led anywhere yet. IEs integration into the OS worries me when using it aswell. /2005/04/18/adobe-and-macromedia/ Mon, 18 Apr 2005 13:24:37 +0000 /2005/04/18/adobe-and-macromedia/ Adobe and Macromedia jointly announced today that Adobe is to acquire all Macromedia stocks for approx $3.4 billion. This will make them in effect a huge creative monopoly with Adobe getting all the nice frontend developer tools that they found so hard to make themselves. Apparently though, this merger will not happen until approved by the stock holders and government regulators for obvious reasons. For more information I recommend reading the Adobe FAQ: /2005/03/16/cool-colorization-technique/ Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:05:51 +0000 /2005/03/16/cool-colorization-technique/ This is very cool, putting borders of colour on to a black and white image or piece of motion footage this method can then colourise (english spelling?!) the image and it looks like it works really well. http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~yweiss/Colorization/ /2005/03/02/putty-update/ Wed, 02 Mar 2005 12:39:53 +0000 /2005/03/02/putty-update/ There is a new update to the best SSH tools on Windows, Putty, available to download now. This fixes a security hole and if you need a ssh client or you are already using it you are advised to upgrade. Download here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html Also glad to hear they are now using subversion for version control now. /2005/03/01/skype-on-pocketpc/ Tue, 01 Mar 2005 13:19:26 +0000 /2005/03/01/skype-on-pocketpc/ I have recently been using Skype around the house, to make calls to friends on mobiles in the UK, to offices in the US and the only problems I got was trying to use it to call Norway, but I am sure this will get resolved at some point in time. I have a cheap headset bought from Ebuyer which is plugged into the motherboards built in sound card, leaving my other high quality cards plugged in for other duties. /2005/02/09/new-google-product/ Wed, 09 Feb 2005 18:16:23 +0000 /2005/02/09/new-google-product/ Yes, they don’t site around for long. Google maps is the latest and very nice it is too. Of course it is nothing mind blowing but then they have been working and buying some interesting things recently so hopefully it will be a case of more than its sum of parts. http://maps.google.com /2005/02/02/photoshop-scripting-support/ Wed, 02 Feb 2005 18:03:00 +0000 /2005/02/02/photoshop-scripting-support/ I have been a long time user ofAdobe Photoshop scripting support. Firstly with using Javascript, and VBScript and then going on to build programs that interact with Microsoft SQL Databases using Visual Basic. I was starting a new project and I am now using Photoshop CS which has the scripting built in now. A very welcome feature. I haven’t yet tested the backwards compatibility but I will be doing so soon. /2005/01/14/giganews/ Fri, 14 Jan 2005 22:02:21 +0000 /2005/01/14/giganews/ Just got a Giganews account, and its very good indeed. I am impressed with the transfer speed which always manages to successfully max out my broadband connection. I like the fact that you can get a full searchable list of groups and that the retention is up to 50 days. I am using the great newsreactor news reader after trying newsbin, agent, outlook express and several others this was very simple and fast to use and has most of the features that I am looking for. /2004/12/22/make-firefox-faster/ Wed, 22 Dec 2004 18:33:40 +0000 /2004/12/22/make-firefox-faster/ This can make a great difference on Firefox if you have broadband or faster http://devnulled.com/archives/2004/12/how_to_make_firefox_faster.php /2004/11/28/firefox-101-is-out/ Sun, 28 Nov 2004 12:42:36 +0000 /2004/11/28/firefox-101-is-out/ New update to Mozilla Firefox is out with various bug fixes. The latest download also fixes some issues that users have been having upgrading so go ahead now if you didn’t want to be an early adopter! /2004/11/09/firefox-10-released/ Tue, 09 Nov 2004 10:45:00 +0000 /2004/11/09/firefox-10-released/ Yes, the time has come, Mozilla has released Firefox 1.0 for download. The site is still abit slow at the moment but I am glad to see that it lives up to the hype. Now I just need to install it on all my machines and on my linux box. /2004/10/04/interpolation-software/ Mon, 04 Oct 2004 08:46:54 +0000 /2004/10/04/interpolation-software/ So what to use to interpolate your photos, well I have been using Genuine Fractals Print Pro for many years now but there are a couple of newcomers on the market, with the surprise being Adobe Photoshop CS. Apparently, and I have yet to test, using “bicubic smoother” option when upsizing will give you excellent results within certain ranges. I wouldn’t use it for downsizing – “bicubic sharpening” being the favoured method still.