Keymando Finally Released!

August 3rd, 2011 0 Comments

Well it finally happened. Monday, August 1st, I released my application, Keymando. A little over two years in the making, after many long nights, it’s finally for sale in the Mac App store.
Keymando began as a simple global hotkey mapping utility that allow users to use vi-like hjkl navigation instead of arrow keys. Initially called “ViKing” because of its vi user focus, it grew into an entire key mapping and automation tool poised to completely change the way you get things done on the Mac.

Controlling a Sprinkler System with an iPhone, Arduino, and Sinatra

July 25th, 2011 5 Comments

Sasha felt the need to make a cameo.

Using dbext.vim with SQL Server on OSX

June 16th, 2011 0 Comments

dbext.vim is a great vim plugin for accessing just about every kind of database through your vim editor.  The description from its website:

“This plugin contains functions/mappings/commands to enable Vim to access several databases. Current databases supported are: Mysql, PostgreSQL, Ingres, Oracle, Oracle Rdb (VMS), Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere, Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, Microsoft SQL Server, DB2, Interbase and SQLite and ODBC are supported.  New to version 5.x of dbext introduces the support for Perl’s DBI layer.  If the database you are using is not *natively* supported by dbext, but has a DBI interface, dbext’s standard feature set is available.  For those already using dbext, the DBI interface should provide a performance boost when running statements against your database.  DBI also provides an ODBC bridge, therefore any ODBC compliant database is also accessible.”

I had a little trouble getting it connected to SQL Server from OSX so here are the steps I took to get it work.  Hopefully it helps someone else.

Using Microsoft SQL Server with Rails on OSX or Linux

May 17th, 2011 1 Comments

Background

I used Mac Ports for this setup so your milage may vary if you’re using something else like Homebrew. Mac Ports installs its files to /opt/local so you’ll have do some translation if you’re using something else.

My project is on Rails 2.3.x and I haven’t tried any of this with Rails 3.x so use at your own risk. Please leave feedback if you know how to getting it working on Rails 3.x setups. Thanks.

Fixing Vim Auto-Complete Slowness in Large Projects

May 13th, 2011 0 Comments

If you’re vim auto-completion is incredibly slow when you’re in a directory with a lot of files or large files, the fold method could be the cause of your problems.

Try

:set foldmethod=manual

and see if that speeds up auto-completion.

The following site has a script to put in your .vimrc that will allow you to keep your foldmethod setting and only adjust it to manual when insert text, which is what is causing the slowness.

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Keep_folds_closed_while_inserting_text

Submitting a MacRuby app to the Mac App Store

February 9th, 2011 0 Comments

If you’re trying to upload your MacRuby application to the Mac App Store and get the following error:

Package “com.your.app.id”: Bundle at “YourApp.app/Contents/Frameworks/MacRuby.framework” in Payload not declared in Package info

Opening Existing Tabs in Chrome

January 28th, 2011 3 Comments

I recently decided to get rid of my Fluid instances of websites like Gmail and Remember the Milk. The primary reason I used them like stand alone apps was because I could quickly switch between them using my app launcher of choice, Quicksilver. However, now that I’m using Chrome for these sites there was no way to quickly access them without cycling through a bunch of tabs.

Enter the Chrome Duplicate Tab Detector extension. This extension will open the tab of the site you’re trying to access if it is already present. There was one hitch with the current functionality which was that the url of the existing tab and the one you were opening had to match exactly. This wouldn’t work for sites like Gmail that append parameters to the url when changing folders or composing mail.

So I forked the code, made the small change to fix this, and made it available here:

https://github.com/downloads/kevincolyar/chrome-duplicate-tab-detector/chrome-duplicate-tab-detector.crx

Thanks to mbhutton for creating the original chrome extension.

UPDATE: Now ignores # style parameters like http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Ffeedproxy.google.com%2Ffailblog

Zlib Error on Ubuntu 10.10 with RVM

January 15th, 2011 0 Comments

If you’re getting a “no such file to load — zlib” when trying to install gems, make sure you

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

Pretty Vim Color Schemes in iTerm2

January 3rd, 2011 6 Comments

If you’re using vim in iTerm2 on your Mac, make sure you select ‘xterm-256color’ in the Report Terminal Type under Terminal Emulation.  This will let vim know that you’re using a terminal capable of 256 colors.

Conway’s Game of Life on a Pumpkin

October 25th, 2010 1 Comments

The Final Product