Programming on iPad

In the middle of January I purchased an iPad app called Koder. This app lets you edit text files from iCloud, Dropbox or FTP server. And then I thought: would I be able to code properly with this thing? Turns out you can!

But there are certain constraints. You can code in any programming language you want, but you are stuck when it gets to code execution. iPad doesn’t have any compilers or anything similar, so you need to get a workaround. The easiest way to do it is with Javascript. You set it to connect to your website via FTP and there you are, editing files on the web, executing them via Safari on iPad. It’s the same with any other web oriented language (as long as you connect via FTP).

I managed to get it working with Python too. On my home server I created a new FTP account just for coding from iPad. Then I went to the App Store and searched for SSH client. Got that and connected to my server, cd’ed to the created FTP directory and started executing Python scripts. Easy peasy. You can do this with any other language, acctually.

But. I wanted to see if it was possible for iPad to replace my laptop/PC, just for the sake of coding. Short answer: no. This kind of work process is slow and frustrating and we don’t want that, do we? But this could be a great idea for the next big iPad app. Make an app that let’s you connect to your server via SFTP, include an editor and make it possible to run that file on a server (and then produce the output to the app). I’d buy that, could be absolutley brilliant for quick fixes.

Sublime Text is my new favorite text editor

I used a lot of text editors and all of them had something that I liked and something that I didn’t. But a couple of weeks ago I found Sublime Text 2 and it was the love at first sight.

What it is

It’s very minimalistic, clean and on steroids. You can do a lot of things with it. I like a lot how it’s designed: there aren’t many GUI elements that would distract you, just your opened file and file switcher. Everything is done via keyboard - file switching, CTRL+SHIFT+P opens a quick access input to your snippets, bookmarks, file manipulation tools and everything else.

Multiple selection

You know that vertical selection thing every other text editor has? Well, that’s useless. Sublime has multiple selections! Woot? Just hold down CTRL and click somewhere in your file and POOF, multiple cursors at work. And you can even put a cursor to every word (that the current cursor is at) in the file with ALT+F3. This functionality throws “search and replace” feature to the trash can.

I know Sublime Text 2 is not Vim, but I prefer GUI editors over console/terminal ones. There’s much more stuff Sublime Text 2 can do, but it would take me ages to describe them all. Just google Sublime Text 2, give it a spin and profit.

Pogoplug running Arch Linux

I’ve already written about purchasing Pogoplug Classic - that little personal cloud thingy. It arrived a month ago and I’ve been pimping it since then. Now I think I’ve got it running as I want it, so here’s a quick follow-up post on what I’ve done with it.

What can it do

Pogoplug with it’s default software is useful, but it’s useless. Default software allows you to access your attached hard-drive from anywhere (via mobile apps and web UI) and share your printer locally. But, if you want a more useful device, you simply install Arch Linux ARM on it. And if you do that, you can do anything - sky is the limit.

My setup

I attached two 1TB hard drives to it, one is used for movies, music, photos and TV shows, the other one for my personal files, backups and downloads.

This is the software I installed: Samba for HDD sharing, Transmission with FlexGet for automatic torrent downloading, MiniDLNA for media streaming to my TV/iPad, Cups with Apple AirPrint for wireless printing, Webmin - web based control panel, SFTP to access files when I’m not at home and Postfix (email server).

I’ve configured Webmin to notify me over email if any of the sevices goes offline.

The community

The Arch Linux ARM forum is amazing. The people who make Arch Linux are always willing to help, users are brainstorming to solve different problems and there are a lot of user written tutorials and how-to’s available. You need this kind of community, because there are a lot of updates to the kernel and OS related stuff and many things can go wrong.

I deffinitely recommend this device to anyone, who is looking for a small, cheap and useful home media server (or any other home server).

Why would I write?

Today I was thinking about writing in general. How to write, why to write and what to write about. Everything seems easy in my head, but as soon as I start writing, everything collapses. And then I thought: why would I even write?

Peace of mind

Everytime I start writing, my mind shuts off completely. I concentrate on my subject and just write. Nothing else. And that’s a good thing. This is one of the few things I do that clears my mind. I write a lot, but not every text is public, those texts are only for my relaxation.

Language training

My primary language is Slovenian, but most of my writings are in English. I do that so I can train my writing style and grammar in a foreign language. Every person needs a widely known language to communicate and therefore English is the best choice. I try to upgrade my writing style from time to time and this can’t be achieved without trying.

Those are two things I think why I should write, in fact, why anyone should write. So, after writing this block of text, I’m gonna keep on writing and improving myself.

Jekyll

Not so long ago, a fellow twitterer - @Smotko - tweeted that he built himself a new website. It didn’t take long ‘till I discovered he built it with Jekyll. There was a click in my brain and I couldn’t believe that I forgot about Jekyll. I dived into it the first minute I realised that.

So, here I am, with a completely new website (again). Jekyll looks awesome and I’m totally cool with writing in Markdown. Website works, but I’m far from finished (layout changes, CSS styling). When it’ll be finished, I’m sure I’m gonna tweet about it.

So, for now, goodbye.

PS: I imported some articles from my Tumblr, so I can test different things. :)

Pogoplug - the best solution for home server

A couple of days ago, I decided to replace my network printer and HDD with a home server. I searched the hell out of internets and came up with a couple of ideas on how to achieve that. But one solution stands out - Pogoplug.

Pogoplug is a little device you plug into your router, attach some extarnal HDDs onto it and voila - those drives can be accessed from anywhere. But there is this one little thing I like the most on this device - Pogoplug is open and it lets you do anything you want it to do. You can enable SSH access from web interface and start playing with it. The people over at Arch Linux ARM have made an OS that works flawlessly on this device. Sum that up and you have a 40€ device with Linux running on it. This is pretty epic if you ask me. There are a lot of packages you can install: from Samba for filesharing, CUPS for printer sharing, AirPrint for printing from iOS devices, Transmission and FlexGet for auto torrent downloading, DLNA media servers, ProFTPd server and many many more.

This is possibliy the best solution for a small home server with low maintenance level. There were some other solution, but those required a computer box, which are a bit more pricey (>300€).

So, I went on and bought one. Just for the heck of it.

Idea - How to share great articles from Google Reader

Today we learned, that all good things really come to an end. Google decided to kill one of the best sharing features it had. Sharing interesting articles to people who use Google Reader and follow you.

I’m not happy about that, so I immediately started looking for alternatives. Long story short: I found nothing similar to that. Nothing. Nada. Ništa!

So a little idea popped into my head. And just so you know, if you want to bring this idea to life, go ahead and build this. Me and many others would be grateful.

Web service to provide an RSS feed from links you throw at it

This does not need to be complicated, KISS. You only need to register an account (heck, Twitter auth is enough), select the title of the RSS feed and when you’re logged-in, you see the text filed to enter the URL for the linked article/site. The most important thing would be bookmarklet/browser addon. Without that, it’s pretty much useless.

The Instapaper bookmarklet is one of the best. If you’re in Google Reader, reading your articles and while doing that, you click Send to Instapaper bookmarklet. And BAM! Currently selected article is posted to Instapaper. I’d like that kind of bookmarklet for this web service.

So, if anyone decides to build this, please, let me know. I’m willing to help with all my powers (there are not many, but can be useful).

Google Analytics Real-time - quick review

Today, Google announced real-time Analytics. You know, so you can watch who’s visiting your website, in real-time. And I must say, it’s pretty solid, even though it just launched.

Here’s a quick review of the interface and the product.

Review

Interface is straight-forward and you can access all the important parts of this dashboard easily. The best part of this new dashboard is, that you can measure your social media impact and campaigns. This makes it much easier to see which contents of your site are trending and from where all the visitors come from. Graphs in right top corner are slick and quick. As soon as you get a new visitor, the graphs start moving. And so does all the other charts on this dashboard. And everything is smooth.

Competition

I assume you’ve at least heard of Chartbeat, a similar product, but it’s available for quite some time now. At this time, I think Chartbeat is the best tool for real-time analyze, but the amount of users using Analytics will soon define the winner of this “war”. Today I found out about Reinvigorate (thanks @starksimon), which also has some pretty neat stuff (ex: heat maps displaying user clicks), but as I said, I think that the userbase of those products and will determine the true winner. But I can be mistaken.

UPDATE: Just so you know, the real-time dashboard in Analytics is just a dashboard, separated from other parts of Analytics. Your data in your reports is STILL refreshed every 24 hours. But I’m sure this will change in near future (as it’s out of the beta).

PS: This post was imported from my old Posterous blog.

Why I love Spotify

Spotify was still in private beta when I heard about it. But I managed to get my hands on it. I didn’t like it at that time, I thought it was over hyped. But in this years’ first quarter, I gave it another try. I was not disappointed.

Here are the reasons why I’ve been using Spotify daily for quite some time now. This is my personal opinion and if you have something to say, please, start a conversation on twitter or in the comments.

Love the way you play

I’ve tried some other music streaming apps, but to be honest, Spotify was the only one to deliver painless streaming. Every time. And this is one of the biggest advantages against other apps or services.

Let’s build a playlist

Collaborative playlists. One of the best features. The only problem with this (and the same applies to normal playlists) is, that you can add more than one instance of the same song to one playlist. I hate that. You add a track and somebody else adds the same track, again. There could be at least a warning when doing so. But overall, collaborative playlists are nice and a great way to discover new music.

Offline mode

Well, you’re not online all the time, but you need to listen to some music when there are no interwebz around. Offline playlists are the solution. Create a playlist, click Available offline and you’re done. Of course, you have to wait for Spotify to sync all the music to your hard drive first. Then you’ll be able to listen to your music offline.

A lot of music for not-so-much money

This is the best part of Spotify (and any other music streaming service to be fair). You pay some money to the company and you get millions of songs. To be exact, you pay approx. 15€ a month. And if you’re a music junkie like I am, you’ll pay that price and enjoy the music.

PS: This post was imported from my old Posterous blog