No Flash! I have to admit this could be a great thing for many* web developers.
* Sorry Flash dev buddies… :/
Jolicloud is a really interesting project that just came out in public beta (er… “pre-beta”? I’m not sure what the deal is with that.) It’s a streamlined OS based entirely around cloud services and intended for netbooks. The UI is designed with these parameters in mind. Basically it’s really simple to use and gets you to your gmail, facebook, twitter, audio/video streams, pandora, etc, quickly and easily.
I just installed it on my beleaguered old Asus eeePC 701 (ie the 4G), and even on this very limited hardware and small screen resolution, it’s running great, and so far has been problem-free.
Of equal importance is the fact that the installation process was a total breeze. I’ve gone through the sheer hell of putting ubuntu on this thing before and so was wary to try anything new but this was a very easy experience. You create a USB booter on your main computer (in my case mac) and just boot right into the almost automated install process. Very smooth, and of critical importance for the Jolicloud team to get right. Great job guys.
If you’ve got a netbook or other secondary portable computer sitting around, I’d recommend giving this thing a shot, I think it’s going to be fun to use for the purpose it was intended for… easy cloud-based computing and other computing that doesn’t require a whole lot of processing power.
There’s a list of compatible devices here, though I wonder if it’s entirely complete, seems like you should be able to install this on a lot of hardware. Maybe it’s a driver issue.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention one of the biggest advantages of Jolicloud: it’s FREE.
How a Web Design Goes Straight to Hell - The Oatmeal
Sad but so often true. Right down to the comic sans. Thanks Halon for the link.
Disappearing local datastore on Django app engine
This frustrated me so I’m posting this quick note in case it helps someone else sometime. Apparently Google App Engine’s local server will occasionally just delete your local datastore for no reason. Just disappeared into thin air. Suggestion: if you use the Google App Engine launcher, when you launch the server the console output will print the location of your local datastore. I’d back that thing up just in case.
Of course there’s also GAEBAR, which is great, but it’s a little hacky and a lot more hassle. If you simply would like to make a backup of your local datastore, you can just do a quick cp of the file.
Percussion Lab - Live & DJ Sets from Around the World
Lots of great, free, downloadable sets here for the IDM enthusiast. Great job Praveen Sharma!
I’ve become a big fan of Google App Engine and recently started using their dead-simple-to-use Memcache Python API. If you’re on App Engine, look into this for dramatically improved response/load times on your data-heavy pages. I’m blown away with how easy this is.
Testing out Tumblr API, ignore
Chris: I'm testing out the Tumblr API, writing Python methods in Django
Computer: Cool man, whatever. Yawn.
Automatic merging and versioning of CSS/JS files with PHP
This is total WIN. If you find yourself having to work in PHP, and you write heavy, application framework-enhanced Javascript, as I do frequently, Ed Eliot’s script for merging, versioning and cacheing JS and CSS is totally awesome.
Combine Ed’s script with Martin Kliehm’s modified version of Ed’s combineJS.php script and you have geek *bliss* (well…. you *are* still working with PHP, but whatever, you know what I mean. Oh how I miss you Python/Django.).
Ed has written an updated version of his script that integrates JS min for smallest-possible JS files, however it requires that you compile a C script on your server. Martin’s modified version will run on pure PHP, which is great when you’re dealing with a host that limits a competent developer’s ability to do such things.
One of my clients’ site is hosted on Yahoo Small Business, which totally sucks and is extremely limiting on a modern developer, but this combo worked like a charm, even on Yahoo hosting. (Yahoo, listen up and get with the program. It’s 2009, going on 2010, and we simply need more. At least get us some SSH access man, I mean come on.)
I run a media server on a mac mini that sends music and other stuff throughout the house. Previously I used VNC to get in there and control it, but this thing is definitely better for the specific purpose of controlling an iTunes on another machine in your network. VNC is great and all but UI-wise it’s slow and choppy. There’s even key-strokes and such that work even if the app isn’t in focus, so you can just minimize and mostly forget it while you’re busy hacking away on other stuff.
I’m also aware of Remote for iPhone but that still requires opening up the phone each time you want to change a track, which is less ideal when you’re sitting at your computer working.
Haters of iTunes and other “i” applications may remain silent at this time. Consider my hand pre-raised in your face. Ed Colmar I’m looking at you.
