September 2011
5 posts
gitolite tutorial →
Best tutorial I’ve found so far for setting up gitolite. Simple as pie.
gitolite tutorial →
Best tutorial I’ve found so far for setting up gitolite. Simple as pie.
Ruby Mixin Tutorial - Juixe Software: Freshly... →
Ruby Mixin Tutorial - Juixe Software: Freshly... →
VsVim →
July 2011
5 posts
Altering my habits
Switching jobs has done an interesting number on the way I work on code (and
the tools I use to do so). I’ve gone from writing client/server .NET application
code in a pure Windows environment to writing Ruby and web code in a 60%/40%
Mac/Windows environment. I do all my development on a Mac now, I test on all
major platforms and browsers (virtual machines make this easy). Seems like...
Lion hiding your Library from you?
I’ll take that back, thank you very much.
chflags nohidden ~/Library/
(found via Macromates blog)
Thoughts on Spotify vs. Rdio, so far
Disclaimer: my brother is on the Rdio development team, but I’ve been an Rdio subscriber prior to him joining the company.
Background
I loved Lala. I remember getting my invite. I remember importing all my music. I remember listening to it on hours on end at work. I remember Lala getting shut down. Then I was just told to patiently wait for Spotify. The wait was too long.
I found Rdio...
The theory of B: why I love bad movies →
“What were they thinking?” whether contemplated in silence or shouted in frustration is the driving force behind a good bad movie. It keeps us wondering and coming back for more.
I think Cody Walker nails it on the head with this one.
June 2011
12 posts
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iChat + Rdio for Mac: a union at last
Today, Rdio for Mac was updated to v1.11 with some basic AppleScript support. This is great news. Yesterday I worked on a little script using Python and the Rdio API that would retrieve the name of the track that was somewhat-recently played and updates your iChat status accordingly (using an AppleScript/Python bridge called appscript). It was ugly but it got the job done. Now that Rdio has...
May 2011
4 posts
The end of a chapter, the start of another
Starting May 31st, I’ll be leaving my post at National Marketing Resources in Kearney, MO and beginning a new gig at the publishing and content syndication firm Andrews McMeel Universal in downtown Kansas City. I’ll be making a transition from .NET programmer to Ruby developer, a move I’ve been eyeing for some time now. I’ve worked with the fine people at NMR for almost 4...
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April 2011
5 posts
Here it comes again
Please don’t mind me; I’m going to be cross-posting all my stuff over from Posterous. I’ll probably keep my Posterous online (like I did with Tumblr), but this will likely be my main benkreeger.com contact point from now on. I’ll be twiddling with my theme as well; I haven’t found a good one I like yet.
Also, please excuse any code samples. They’re hideous...
Getting MobileTerminal for iOS to recognize your...
This little bit goes hand in hand with this post (in fact, I’ve updated
that post with this information, too). This post assumes you’ve got a basic
working knowledge of bash and a way to edit text files on your jailbroken iOS
device; if you’ve already got a .bashrc file, it’s likely you meet these
requirements.
So you’ve got a .bashrc file created in your...
Record Store Day 2011: the bounty.
Unfortunately I missed out on the sold-out Foo Fighters’ Medium Rare, but I picked up Wasting Light anyway. I also grabbed a copy of the Mumford/Marling/Dharohar EP, which actually was a RSD exclusive. I’ve never been to a Record Store Day, but the turnout was very impressive. Can’t wait until next year!
Textastic + git: a match made in jailbreaker nerd...
The problem domain
I’m absolutely loving Textastic. It’s a text editor for the iPad with
syntax highlighting and a lot of those other niceties you’d like to have in a
text editor. It’s no TextMate (or Sublime Text), but if I’m editing
code on the go, it’s a godsend. The developer is very active in adding new
features and correcting any existing problems, too;...
February 2011
2 posts
Apple's iOS subscription model may be that final...
Typically when I post stuff, it’s either things that I’m passionate about, or it’s poop jokes. I don’t aim for the middle. And I’m shooting high with this one (I may throw in a poop joke or two, however). It’s something that has me a little steamed up. It’s about what Apple is beginning to do with their in-app purchase model and charging subscriptions in apps. I’ll preface this all with a...
Thoughts on The Daily
It’s a step in the right direction. However, it doesn’t merit a subscription. Not yet. If I wanted to catch up on gossip, I’ll scan the covers of Us! Weekly and People Magazine from behind my shopping cart at the checkout line. If I wanted to be wowed by a news app, I’d pull up Reeder — and I often do. And if I wanted an app to crash every other time I open it (which I don’t), maybe I’ll keep...
January 2011
1 post
Dependency injection demystified
“Dependency Injection” is a 25-dollar term for a 5-cent concept. That’s not to say that it’s a bad term… and it’s a good tool. But the top articles on Google focus on bells and whistles at the expense of the basic concept. I figured I should say something, well, simpler…Dependency injection means giving an object its instance variables. Really. That’s it. I enjoy reading other developers who...
December 2010
2 posts
Best of the oughts.
I’ve gathered my favorites from 2001 until the end of 2010 and put ‘em all in an epic playlist that clocks in at damn near 24 hours long. I thought about trimming it down, but I couldn’t, so here it is. Most of it is in (roughly) chronological order, so older stuff is first. Enjoy.
A sea change
Wikileaks does represent a sea change in the way we find out information. Previously, journalists were our gatekeepers, and they were fed information by government handlers and trusted sources. Things trickled out. You get stories like “The BBC understands” and “A senior source has told me…” and it’s largely unsatisfactory, a nod here and a wink there, when all you want as a consumer of...
November 2010
4 posts
Ramdisk problem while jailbreaking?
I was attempting to jailbreak my iPhone 3GS (old bootrom) to iOS 4.2.1 using redsn0w 0.9.6b4 under Windows 7 (x64) and kept getting stuck on the “uploading ramdisk” step. It’d get to a different point on that step every time I tried, but it would always get stuck. I found this post that helped out a tremendous deal. Just run redsn0w.exe in a Windows XP Service Pack 2 compatibility mode (I also...
Here's why Chromeo is the epitome of awesome.
Skinny Jewish man dances in headlights with countless women. You know you totally wish you could dance like that… AND have a Ph.D. in French literature. Although this appearance on Yo Gabba Gabba is awesome in its own right:
Basketball fan of the day? Try millenium.
This video has restored my faith in humanity.
This was our pumpkin this Halloween.
See the full gallery on Posterous
October 2010
4 posts
Little league soccer
Pretty sure I remember doing that once or twice.
Closer to the truth than you know, from the...
But a glitch ain't one
There are days where this seems to sum me up.
Quick! We need a story! Anything!
And we don’t have any time to verify!
September 2010
5 posts
The Mercury Prize: an Rdio playlist series
I’ve begun a playlist series for Rdio: one for each year the Mercury Prize has been given out in the UK. I’ve thrown in two songs from each album that was nominated and/or won, with the exception of those albums not available on Rdio at the time of playlist creation. So far I’ve got 2010, 2009, 2008, and 1992 (the first Mercury Prize year). I’ll be filling out the middle in the days to come, so...
The angry rich
Paul Krugman: These are terrible times for many people in this country. Poverty, especially acute poverty, has soared in the economic slump; millions of people have lost their homes. Young people can’t find jobs; laid-off 50-somethings fear that they’ll never work again. Yet if you want to find real political rage — the kind of rage that makes people compare President Obama to Hitler, or...
INAPPROPRIATE
I can smell a rat
scratch scratch scratch Laura and I have been hearing some awful sounds lately, at night. It started a couple of days ago with a scratching noise coming from the ceiling above our heads as we were lying in bed. It wasn’t anything major… it almost sounded Iike a shrub brushing up against one of our windows in the basement (that’s where our bedroom is). Not anything you can’t sleep over. Last...
What has happened before will happen again
Perhaps the closest parallel to today’s hysteria about Islam is the 19th-century fear spread by the Know Nothing movement about “the Catholic menace.” One book warned that Catholicism was “the primary source” of all of America’s misfortunes, and there were whispering campaigns that presidents including Martin Van Buren and William McKinley were secretly working with the pope. Does that sound...
August 2010
1 post
JailbreakMe.com →
You’re welcome.