So, I have this old Pentium 166 box laying around, so I thought I'd stick Linux on it (of course). At first, I used DeLi Linux and it ran quite well. The problem is, the project changed directions, to ConnochaetOS. They took a more modern take on things, using kernel 2.6 and other modern applications. Most of the newer applications don't run quite well on an older box. So, after finding a mirror of a DeLi Linux that I cloned to a local server, I now had a working respository.
The last week, I've been tinkering with Google's Analytics API. What I wanted to do was have daily reports on my website which then tweets the difference from yesterday to today. The ideal situation was I would have it SMS me the results. The problem is that my phone carrier (Rogers) complicates things. For most carriers, you can email a carrier-supplied address (5555555@att.com for example) which in turn would send an SMS to that address. But, what Rogers does is once you receive a text, you have to respond back with REPLY to view it. Stupid huh.
To get around this, I subscribe to my bots account via text message and for every new tweet, I get a text message.
Kobo just released their Vox eReader a couple of days ago and I've had the chance to play with it this weekend.
It's quite heavy compared to other ereaders. I found that it's even heavier than the mighty Kindle DX. See below for a comparison to a Canadian quarter.
(As you can see, there's some nice greasy fingerprints on it). Having never played around with Android before, it's quite easy to use. After firing it up the first time, it had to update the firmware, which over wifi, takes a while. After the update, I was finally able to play with it. Checking the version info in settings revealed that it's running Android 2.3.3 atop kernel version 2.6.35.3.
I made this little tool the other week: it's a simple URL to QR code generator that uses AJAX so it's even zippier. Check it out here: http://qrer-snacsnoc.dotcloud.com
It uses the PHP QR Code library to generate the QR codes. I set it up so it caches URLs that have already been generated which make it faster to deliver the image.
After playing around with WorkSimple 1.3.5 (and apparently not doing much testing), login.php doesn't redirect on login and cp.php strips HTML. Download the attachments below and replace cp.php and login.php with the new versions. Save the new versions as cp.php and login.php respectively and upload them to your WorkSimple install directory.
I've never played with any geolocation tools before but I thought I'd take a whack at it. After stumbling across GeoHelper, I thought I'd test things out with it. Well, after finding that the only reverse postal code lookup is Canada Post, I might as well make my own.
Download GeoHelper and script at the bottom of the page and place it in the same directory. That's pretty much it, the code explains itself. It can also do a reverse lookup on IPs.
I finally did what I always wanted to do: add external antennas to my 701. Drilling the holes were a bitch. First, I tried at the right hinge, but the end of the RP-SMA connector was too large. Then next to the VGA port and no luck, Oh, but perhaps next to the second USB port on the right hand side? Nope. Well, what I ended up doing was putting the connector on the outside. Check out the picture:
Edit: here's a better picture
I've been making lots of new changes to WorkSimple, paving the way for WorkSimple 2.0. I'll be going over old code and re-implementing some things. I used Twig for templating instead of a custom made method since it seemed easier and more convenient. Templates now are much more customizable and flexible. Check out the screenshot for what it may look like (the colours suck, I know).
Worked some more on Pasteros, cloud based text storage lately and added some more features. Now you can download a paste or view it raw. Also, it displays how long ago the paste was submitted. The design colours still suck of course. There's an API (of some sort) so feel free to check it out.
