Beesbot

Setting up my chromebook

Nov 01, 2023

I'm a developer and I love using chromebooks. Here is my cheatsheet for setting one up.

NextJs, Rails and Graphql

Jun 08, 2023

I am taking a deep dive into React and NextJS. I want to stand up something a bit complex to play with so I'll make use of my turnkey rails project that designed to standup a rails app and includes scripts to stand up a ruby graphql.

Bash script that can run things in parallel

Apr 18, 2023

Want to take your long running commands and run them at the same time. How about having them report back when they are done and if they threw an error.

Use Fetch API to query Graphql for a React Component

Feb 06, 2023

The trend right now with frameworks like Next.js is to move data fetching back to the server side. This means things will be fast and you often wont need the fancy client side caching that you traditionally spent all kinds of energy setting up on the client side.

Docker Rails - Turnkey and tidy

Jan 13, 2023

I want to play around with rails. Why can't I just run a command and have a fully setup app ready to go in docker?

Make and bash are the future

Oct 05, 2022

There are not a lot of modern / fun books on the subject of bash and make. You can learn it but no one advocates for it like it's the most fun ever. Well it is (once you learn it) the most fun ever. So we can no longer say that no one told us.

Add a partial to rails 7 scaffold

May 27, 2022

Rails 7 removed table generation and I want it back. Reading the guide did not help me so I dug into the source and found a way.

Git configuration that rocks

Jan 02, 2022

Here is some git configuration that I wish was default.

duet 5 - chrome os, arm64 and docker

Nov 30, 2021

I am the proud new owner of the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 5 and I bought it specifically to do development with the Linux features of the Chrome OS.

Getting back into blogging

Nov 16, 2021

It's been 2 years and I was so heads down in work and personal challenges that I didn't have time to fixup the blog.

Windows Subsystem for Linux & Terminal Colors

Feb 07, 2020

You want to use Windows Subsystem for Linux and find the terminal to be a quagmire of garbage colors. Well install the Windows Terminal Preview

Fluentd Data Processing

May 16, 2019

I've had the opportunity to dig into fluentd and how to build a data pipeline. Here are some of my tips for anyone getting started.

Beware. Polymorphism is a lie and inheritance is rarely needed

Apr 25, 2019

Polymorphism is a lie, inheritance breaks encapsulation and classes reduce flexibility. These things are very exciting features of programming languages when you first learn them and therefore can be prone to overuse. Those statements would have shocked me years ago, how did I get here?

Easy Vim Color Schemes

Apr 07, 2019

I use vundle now and found the following to be the easiest way to change your color scheme

Vim Plugin Manager

Mar 28, 2019

Setup your VIM plugins by following these instructions

Make your meetings not suck

Mar 20, 2019

Consider that making meetings not suck, is all about written artifacts

Microsoft Surface Go + Ubuntu 18

Feb 09, 2019

Dual boot the Microsoft Surface Go

Rails 5.2 Loaded

Aug 01, 2018

It's become a tradition for me to document my recommendations on how to load up a rails project and get started. Here is my guide for the latest rails version.

Hosting Django on Debian with Apache & libapache2-mod-wsgi

Mar 21, 2018

Hosting Django on Debian with Apache & libapache2-mod-wsgi was a bit tricky, so I thought I would document my experience.

Python Test Case Mocking

Mar 14, 2018

The way to mock in a Python TestCase without tons of nesting and with the flexibility to test success, failures and exceptions.

Selenium Chrome Browser with Extensions

Feb 22, 2018

A how-to on getting selenium to launch a chrome browser with extensions

Youtuber Hardware and Software

Jun 21, 2017

So my kids want to be youtubers and I want to keep them excited about it.

Middleman Deploy to Github User Pages

Feb 19, 2017

An updated article on a simple approach to deploying middleman on github user pages

Middleman Permalinks in Frontmatter

Jan 25, 2017

Give your middleman page any url you want with permalinks

Active Record Mysql Master Slave

Feb 12, 2016

Connecting activerecord to a mysql master / slave cluster. Including an approach to no pool connections

Nao Robot Tells Encounter at Farpoint

Jan 06, 2015

Experimenting with Nao Robot's new dialog engine, wikipedia and star trek

Rails Scaffold for a Model in a Module

Dec 11, 2014

Need to create rails scaffold for a Model that is inside a Module?

Cache Jquery Ajax

Oct 20, 2014

Here is a very simple approach to caching Jquery ajax calls

Rails Multiple Databases

Oct 20, 2014

There are a few tricks to integrating a rails app with a legacy database. Here is what I've learned...

FluentNao and Events

May 17, 2014

I thought it might be fun to write up a post showing how to handle events like voice recognition with FluentNao

Interactive FluentNao

May 16, 2014

I'll show you how to set up Fluent Nao code to interactively control Nao

DNS Primer

May 06, 2014

I got tired of being confused about DNS settings so I asked Mike.

Deploy middleman-loaded to Github Pages

Mar 27, 2014

Here I explain the different github pages offerings and how to deploy middleman to to them.

Rails 3, Test:Unit, Spork & Guard

Mar 19, 2014

There are a lot tutorials (all different); here is how I got Rails 3 & TestUnit working with Spork and Guard

Object Oriented Javascript

Feb 10, 2014

Build your javascript in an object oriented and maintainable way

Import ovpn File on Ubuntu

Dec 12, 2013

The new network manager doesn't include openvpn and even after installing that it doesn't include an option to import your ovpn file. Here are the straight forward steps to getting set up.

Generate a SSL Certificate and Using it

Nov 27, 2013

A task not done all that often and always difficult to have go smoothly. Here is the flow for generating an SSL Certificate and using it

Jekyll the Amazing Static Site Generator

Sep 25, 2013

You're used to thinking cms or wordpress for building websites that require templating or ease of editing; but in my experience 90% of the time it ends up feeling like your "killing an ant with a sledgehammer".

Dell, Windows 8, Ubuntu & Grub Challenges

Sep 23, 2013

Windows is "taking over" the boot process, you can fix the problem by using the Windows bcdedit command and by disabling secure boot

Groovy on Grails & Ubuntu

Jul 18, 2013

Grails makes extensive use of groovy and even more interesting is the way they have wrapped some mature favorites (junit, ant and hybernate) with the groovy language.

Ubuntu Rocks

Jul 10, 2013

Ubuntu is fantastic, stable and you'll truly enjoy it. Here is a list of things to get a good developer machine up and running

Control Nao Robot from Interactive Python Shell

Jun 29, 2013

See how to control the Nao Robot from the interactive python shell. Meaning you type the commands, press enter and Nao moves.

Jenkins & Selenium

Jun 19, 2013

I have in the past used Atlassian Bamboo for build automation and to run automated tests. While I love that solution, it costs money and not everyone wants to buy it.

Ruby for Monitoring & Testing

May 30, 2013

Wither you're developing in Ruby, PHP, .NET or a javascript RIA, you will gain benefit by automating monitoring, integration tests & load tests. In my recently professional experiences I have found Ruby to be a fantastic technology to use to accomplish this initiative quickly and easily.

Ubuntu & TMUX

May 20, 2013

First off from the tmux website... "tmux is a terminal multiplexer. What is a terminal multiplexer? It lets you switch easily between several programs in one terminal..."

Functional Ruby Fu!

May 15, 2013

For some strange reason I keep forgetting ruby folding functions. So to be kind to my my future self, here is how it works.

Learn Ruby on Rails

May 01, 2013

List of my favorite resources for learning & teaching newbee programmers how to develop with Ruby on Rails.

NaoScript

Apr 21, 2013

I have been programming Nao for some time and doing motion has been challenging. So like any good software developer would, I set my mind toward making it easier, faster and more intuitive.

Ubuntu & .NET MVC

Mar 15, 2013

Mono.net and Mono Develop have come a long way; it's not only reasonable to run/develop .NET MVC on linux, it's damn near preferable.

RBEnv, Ubuntu and Bundler

Feb 10, 2013

A howto for setting up ubuntu with rbenv and more; for ruby on rails development.

Makey Makey Inventors Kit

Jan 05, 2013

Ruby script that uses the curses gem to capture commands from Makey Makey and use a case statement to tell me which fruit / vegetable I touched

Nao Colored Object Detection

Jan 04, 2013

The Colored Object Detection module was developed by Vincent Berenz and can be added to NAO

What Can Nao Do?

Nov 20, 2012

Nao recognizes my face, understands when I speak, talks back and recognizes programming books.

Video for the Web

Nov 18, 2012

Here is a non-experts take on the most basic rules of the road for preparing video for the web.

Ubuntu & H.264 Codec

Nov 15, 2012

Encode amazing looking video with the H.264 codec on ubuntu