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Yank Ring, a super easy vim Yank Register

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:09:53 +0000

It’s a secret for no one, I love VIM. But one of the most annoying moment is when you copy a line somewhere (yy) then you delete a line somewhere else (dd) and finally you want to paste the previously yanked line somewhere else. Well, we’ve all been there haven’t we?

Where is the problem?

The problem is that when you either yank or delete a line/char/multiple lines, vim copy what you’ve just done in a global register, and overrides the previous content.

One of the solution is to use “ (double quotes) to set your register before doing the overriding action.

For example

"ayy

Will copy your line in you register a

and

"ap

Will paste the content of the a register

But let’s be fair, we all make mistakes, and there are times when you forget to yank your stuff in a specific register, and this is where the problem occurs, because you usually end up in a serie of undo to retrieve your text back.

Yank Ring as a solution

While helping a friend today who is starting with Vim, it was pretty clear that the register wasn’t a good solution, and we found Yank Rink.

It’s a pretty cool solution that will allocate different registers to your copy/delete operation, so every time you copy/delete something, it’s won’t override the previous one.

You can then use Ctrl-P to swap between the allocated registers, making finding the right one a breeze.

Finally it offers you :YRShow and YRSearch to respectively show and search the content of you registers.

So if you’re stuck in a yank hell, I would definitively recommend looking at this plugin Yank Rink.

The new FreelanceAround.com has been released

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:02:02 +0000

Yesterday, we released a new version of FreelanceAround. The first version was an attempt of MVP to see if freelancers were interested in meeting each other during working hours. Our answer is that, yes people are interested, but our product wasn’t the right answer!

What’s new in this version?

Well, first of all we’ve made a massive redesign on the application. The first version had been coded in less than 5 working days, so the design had been neglected.

Now the homepage shows you a nice map, where you can see the upcoming “get-togethers”. On the right hand-side, there is a list of freelancers who have visited the page recently, as well as a “Create a get-together” call-to-action.

The second big change is that we removed the ability to check in.

In the V1, users were invited to check in to let people know where they were at a certain point in time, with the hope that someone might join them to work in the same cafe. The truth is, it would be a nice addition when we reach a critical mass, but at the moment, it doesn’t fit the role as we don’t have enough users engaging with the site.

So we’ve decided to create what we call “Get-togethers”, which are mini informal meetups. You just say where and when you’re going to work outside and people will be able to express their interest via the FreelanceAround website.

This is the page to set up a get-together:

And this is the page where you can show your interest for a get-together:

No excuses now if you feel lonely in your home office!

You can now setup as many get-togethers as you want for free. To do so, just head to FreelanceAround.

We’ve got plenty of improvements to do next year, but I would love to see if people use this get-together feature first.

We hope that you like the app / concept, and that you’ll let us know it in the comments or even better give it a try and set up a get-together!

As a developer, I start to really like Unity desktop, light review

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 12:03:34 +0000

Last week I wrote a post about installing and configuring Openbox on Ubuntu. As I said, I’ve been playing around with window managers for quite a while now, and Unity, wasn’t to my taste. But I recently installed Ubuntu 11.10, and here are my thoughts.

Forget what I was saying, Unity is really good

Ho boy, what a change since 10.04, where Unity was half baked, slow as hell and full of bugs. Today, even if there are some remaining glitches, it became more mature, focused on the user experience of the computer, and I have to admit I start to like it.

It’s packed with features that makes my development life a lot easier (I’ll detail the ones I really like just after). I’m not sure that my mum would notice them, but as a dev, I can tell you that they came with something really interesting.

So I admit I was wrong. Unity is good, and it’s now replacing my Openbox setup on my machine. Let me explain why.

The Mac user test

Note: this is not a full review, I’m only talking about the changes that I noticed and that I’m going to use everyday. If you’re looking for a full Ubuntu 11.10 review, I’m sure Google will help you.

Yesterday was Bristol Hack Night. A friend of mine, Theo, was there. He usually likes to wind me up on the Linux vs Mac os flame war. And I’m a good client.

But yesterday was a bit different, I boot up the computer, and the first thing he noticed was the login screen:

Ho, that’s a nice login screen!

This is the new LighDM login screen, and it does look really nice.

So after this positive note I continued to show him the latest improvements made on Unity, that are going to make our developers life easier.

The first one is the new Alt-Tab feature, which include screenshots of applications, grouped by type from all the virtual desktops. With 3 terminals open for instance, it looks like that (ALT-TAB + down key)

Second improvement is on the Unity Dash itself. It is a lot quicker than before and typing the first letters of the app’s name + pressing enter starts the app immediately.

Lenses on the dash are accessible with the ALT key, and give you access respectively to Applications, Files, Music and Supports filters (see on the right).

Compiz grid system (look in compiz manager) gives you a pseudo tiling function. Not as good as Pytyles but good enough to be noticed.

The Ubuntu branded software centre got a revamp and now looks lush. It also has got a sync option, which lets you sync your apps between different computers.

The Ubuntu One integration is now slick and fast, and gives 5GB for free.

I use it to store my important files like configs, fonts and docs. So I know that if I reinstall the computer, they will all be in the same place.

Downside/Regressions?

There are some downsides on the customization side of Unity. From what I understood it’s because of the gnome-shell integration/GTK3, the amount of themes compatible is not big for the moment, but I’m sure this is something that will be corrected over time.

Conclusion

Those features, plus a massive performance improvement completely sold me on Unity. I’ve been using it for a week now, and it works really well on my 13” laptop screen or on my big widescreen monitor.

I found the new ALT-TAB and grouping search very useful, and helping me a lot on daily basis.

If you add things like multi arch system, online accounts setup, the easy setting menu, you have a very powerful setup.

What about you, do you like the new Unity?

How to create multiple facebook Omniauth strategies for the same application

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 12:09:43 +0000

In a previous post, I talked about testing Facebook login with capybara. Today I just want to share a quick “recipe” that I used to create multiple Facebook logins. Let me explain.

What is the problem?

In the next version of myDrinkaware, we have a fairly common Facebook login button.

Using Devise and Omniauth, this is defined in your initializer with:

config.omniauth :facebook, APP_API, APP_SECRET

But my problem was that I needed 3 different sorts of login! 1 for the website and 2 for Facebook apps, which are embedded in the code.

I couldn’t use the same login Strategy because I needed the :iframe option on the Facebook apps login (if you don’t put the iframe option, you’re going to run into the “Redirect to Facebook” problem). And obviously, depending on the login Strategy, the redirection will be different after the login.

The solution

I’ve created an omniauth.rb initializer like this one:

Then edit your devise.rb to reflect the new Facebook apps:

Finally, make sure that you have one callback method per new Strategy:

And now you should be able to login using:

Let me know if it has been useful ;)

How to install and configure Openbox, a windows environment for Hackers

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:39:30 +0000

OpenBox is a very lightweight and easy to hack desktop environment for Linux.

Major distributions are usually shipped using Gnome or KDE, and now Ubuntu is shipped with Unity, but I’m sure you’ll find an Openbox package in your distribution repos.

There is even a Ubuntu base distro shipped with a tweacked OpenBox with default: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Main_Page.

I’ve never really tried it as the default apps installed and the default there do not appeal me, but if you need to install something on a light computer or a netbook, it might be a good option.

Why do I love OpenBox so much?

I’ve been a Linux user for a long time and as far as I can remember, I’ve always hated KDE. Too much “stuff”, too much bling-bling and too much mouse usage.

Before falling in love with OpenBox, I was using Gnome. I liked its simplicity but found that I still had to use the mouse too much.

Unfortunately all good things end. Now Gnome 3.0 is in the pipeline and Unity is mainstream.

I don’t dislike these projects and, to be fair, Unity is pretty good for a “normal user”. Nice, polished (as much as it can be for a first version), easy to use, and we can see that Windows 8 and Unity tend, to a certain extent, to remove the gap between mouse and fingers (touch) for the future.

But I don’t find Unity (or gnome 3 or Mac OS) good enough for daily development tasks. I’d rather lose the eye candy and have a super fast, solid, tweackable window Manager.

Again, I’m not saying than Openbox is for everyone, but if you’re a serious hacker, you should give it a go. I’m sure you’ll love it!

I discovered Openbox with Arch Linux about a year ago. Even if I’ve now abandoned Arch Linux on my development machine (back to Ubuntu) I have kept Openbox: easy to use, 0 bling bling, everything accessible via shortcuts, and the smallest memory footprint you can find.

From time to time I boot to Gnome or Unity, just to be sure that I don’t miss anything. But usually, after 15 minutes I am back onto my minimal setup. Blazzing fast! This is what I’m missing with the other ones.

OpenBox feels like a developer’s dream to work on.

What should I expect after an initial Openbox setup?

Well, barely nothing if you don’t have what you need. Openbox is just a minimal window manager, so there won’t be any panels, background manager, launcher or anything. So basically the first time you launch OpenBox you’ll have nothing but a black background and a right-click mouse menu to launch applications.

But once the setup is finished, you have a super fast working environement, with multidesktops, a background manager, super shortcuts, launcher(s), and a minimal memory footprint.

Please let me drive you to this wonderful world of Openbox installation and customization…

Installation

Installing Openbox is super easy. I assume here that you use a Debian base distribution. If you don’t, just replace apt-get install by your favourite package manager.

1. OpenBox and Obconf

OpenBox manager makes it easy to change the number of virtual desktops, names and themes.

You are now done. If you logout and login choosing the Openbox session, you should now come to a very empty screen.

Right click on the desktop to get to the menu and access applications.

3. Tint2

Tint2 it the bar that includes Systray, a windows list, clock and all that jazz. Easily customisable, it’s really lightweight and supports dual screens the way you choose (active on both screen or only 1 of them).

To change the Tint2 config, you can update the Tint2rc file, or use tint2wizard.

4. Compositing

In order to have transparency, you need to install (and run) a composite manager.

I like xcompmgr because it’s lightweight. People who want more effect will prefer cairo-compmgr. It’s up to you.

5. Docky

This is the Mac OS dock replica. I like to have one of those for quick access to windows and widgets.

6. Application launcher (synapse & gmrun)

Synapse is a quick launcher bar and gmrun is a quick command bar. Both are useful to have for applications that you don’t use everyday or if you don’t want your dock to be crowded with too many icons.

7. File management

Some prefer to stay with Nautilus, some move to PacFm. I’m personally a big fan of Thunar.

8. Background

In order to have background images, I’ve choosen Nitrogen. Simple, effective and compatible with a dual monitor.

9. Copy paste clippings

Parcellite is quite good for that

10. Tiling

Pytyle2 provides a very good solution if you want pseudo tiling on your desktop.

View Pytyle2 webpage and install instructions

Install everything in one go

If you want to install all those softwares in one go:

Configuration

The beauty of OpenBox resides in its mimimal configuration. You only have a few important files.

1. For Openbox

Themes

Themes are stored in

All those file are really easy to configure. Just open them and you’ll find help at the top.

To change a window behaviour or config (like theme), I use obconf.

I usually don’t bother too much about the menu as I launch everyhing using shortcuts or Synapse. But if you really want to use this menu, you’ll find on Google some easy way to update it with what you have in your Gnome menu for example.

2. For Tint2

Regarding Tint2, I think the easiest way to configure it is to use http://code.google.com/p/tintwizard/

3. For Pytytle2

4. For Nautilus

Nautilus is responsible for the desktop background in Gnome, so you need to disable this feature with the following 2 commands:

If you want to enable this feature again (because you want to go back to Gnome, and want the desktop background) just change false to true.

This it it!

5. My config

You can find here my config files on my github

Just copy the files in the right location, logout and login again with Openbox this time (small select box on the bottom)

7. My shortcuts

Shortcuts that I use all the time

W = Windows KeyC = Control KeyA = ShiftA = Alt Key

C + A + Up: Toggle maximize, remove decorations on window
C + A + Down: Minimize window
C + A + Left: Move to left virtual desktop
C + A + Right: Move to right virtual desktop
C + S + left/right: Move active window to left/right virtual desktop
W + left/right: Move window to left/right monitor (only with dual monitor)
W + S + up/down/left/right: Grow to edge up/down/left/right (pseudo tilling)
Button 2 on tint2 window: Close the window
W + T: Open gnome-terminal
W + G: Open Google Chrome
W + B: Open Firefox
W + F: Open Thunar file manager
C + Space: Launch synapse
C + A + Space: Launch Gmrun
Alt + A: Active tilling on desktop
A + U: Deactivate tilling
A + C: Cycle master tilled window
A + L or H: Expand/Reduce master tilled window
A + K/J: Focus next/previous tilled window

Screencast

A quick screencast giving you a glimpse of what you can have by following this tutorial.

Final word

I hope I gave you the OpenBox bug. I think it’s one of the best Linux environment to work on.

Let me know if it inspired you or if I can help you to set up anything.

Generate a 'share with facebook' link that embed summary, title, images but without OG Data

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:37:00 +0000

I’m currently working on the next version of My Drinkaware app, and yesterday my feature card was to share some information on Facebook.

Easy right?

Yes, sharing with Facebook is usually super simple. Either you have the normal ‘Share with Facebook’ link or button, which will retrieve the OpenGraph data from your page, or you have to create your own link containing all those information.

The problem

One of the new features of My Drinkaware is the ability to share what you drink shown as equivalents in food (burgers, kebabs, donuts) or exercises (running, cycling, swimming).

The feature card noticed that I needed to create a small ‘Share with’ button* that would share the user invite link + the contextual equivalence summary + the context equivalence title + the contextual equivalence image (burger, runner…).

Here is en example of the box:

And here is what you want to achieve:

My solution

Obviously, you can go crazy and create a system, which passes the OG data in the url and create them on the page rendering. I’m sure that it would do the job, but it wouldn’t be very efficient.

The Facebook Sharer documentation does not help us a lot here neither (as usual?) as they don’t mention any key parameters that you can pass to your link, that would make it rendering your chosen Summary, Title and Image(s) selection.

In order to to do this, your link must start with the s=100 parameter, then contain a p[title], p[summary] and p[images][x] parameter with the relevant data.

Because I needed to create this kind of link all around the application, I created my own help, which generates the url for you.

So you can now have something along those lines:

Simple, but effective. I hope it can be useful to someone else!

The Imperial March played by floppy disk

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:53:25 +0000

Ok, it’s Friday afternoon, and I’m sure you’ll love this video of the The Empire Strikes Back Imperial March played by floppy disk :)

Happy procrastination :)

5 basic rules to produce good and targeted content

nathalie@wealsodocookies.com — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:26:10 +0000

The good thing with being your own boss is that you can manage your time as you like and therefore make time to work on personal projects.

Besides project management and the daily running of the business, I work on a project called Happy Daddy Magazine, which we launched in August this year. It’s got nothing to do with web development. It’s an online magazine/blog for dads and dads-to-be.

And then your question is: as a mum-to-be, why and how do you write a blog for dads?

The answer to “why” is quite straightforward: when I found out I was pregnant, Nic obviously searched for more information, about what to expect during pregnancy and what it’s like to be a dad. And he couldn’t find much. The truth is, there are a tons of mummy blogs out there but very few information sources for dads. We saw it as an opportunity and decided to do our own website.

As to the “how”, well I just follow 5 basic rules:

Never forget your target audience

This is the most important advice I could give to anyone writing a blog. Your audience is your business so never forget who you’re talking to. Any good copywriter must be able to adapt to their client and their audience. Once you’ve got that in mind, you can write anything.

So every time I write an article, I remind myself that it’s going to be read by men rather than women. I choose the topics carefully, avoiding all girly stuff, and sometimes use a different tone or expressions.
Get a second opinion

Even though I can adapt to a male audience, I can’t help the fact that I’m a woman, and pregnant on top of that. So when I’m not sure about a topic or the way I’ve written an article, I discuss it with Nic so he can give me directions.

He sometimes proof-reads my posts if I have any doubts. And if I feel, for some reason, that I’m not the best person to write about a certain topic, such as what it feels to find out you’re going to be a dad, then Nic will do it.
Do your research

Research is important. You need to know what’s happening around you if you want to keep up. I read other dads’ blogs, I follow them on Twitter and therefore get a better understanding of what they want and don’t want to talk about. You can’t just write as if you were in a bubble, not paying attention to your readers’ expectations and your competitors’ work.
Don’t pretend you’re someone you’re not

When writing on the blog, I don’t pretend to be a dad. It would be totally wrong and counter-productive. It is clearly indicated that I’m the author of the posts and that we’re working as a couple on this project (even though I have more time to spend on it than Nic).

Pretending to be someone you’re not is not sustainable and, more importantly, I think you lose a part of honesty and authenticity, which is essential for such a personal project. The personality of the person writing the blog could be what makes it a success (or a failure).
Be aware of your limitations

When it comes to communication and promoting the website, I do most of the online stuff - Twitter, Facebook, blogs etc. However, we’ve known all along that I can’t possibly be the face of Happy Daddy Magazine offline. I can and do talk about it, as a project done with my husband. But I can’t appear as the main contributor, it just wouldn’t make sense. So be aware of your own limitations or you are at risk of losing credibility and damaging your business.

These 5 basic rules work for me as a mum-to-be writing a dads blog. But beyond that, they work for any copywriter who wants to produce good and targeted content.

Working with your spouse - pros & cons

nathalie@wealsodocookies.com — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:55:03 +0000

Nic and I have now been working together for about 6 months - long enough to reflect on what it means to build a business with your spouse.

When he asked me if I wanted to work with (for?) him, we weren’t even married yet. At the time, I was about to quit my job, which was making my life hell, and sending applications out. He had carefully thought about it and basically needed someone to help him with the business. I didn’t say yes immediately. Taking the decision to work with your future husband is not an easy one. I took a week to think about it and finally accepted the offer.

Six months later, I still think it was the right decision. It takes time and effort to build a business and a marriage at the same time and I’m not going to give you any tips on how to do it. One you can find plenty of advice just by googling it. And two I believe it depends too much on your personal circumstances and your relationship.

What I can tell you, however, is the pros and cons I have found when working with my husband.

Cons

Let’s start with the cons - just because I’d rather finish on a positive note…

No real separation between work and home

Anyone will tell you that you should have a clear and healthy separation between work and home, especially when you work with your spouse. Easier said than done… Let’s face it, when you work from home, with your husband, you can’t just leave work in the study at night.We’ll spent some nights at the pub talking about work, and I’ll find myself doing housework some days. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is being able to understand when the other is not in the mood for talking business and back off.

Danger of cutting yourself from the outside world

Not going to an office full of people every morning has been a massive change for me. My office is about 3 metres away from my bedroom and the only person I might meet there is my husband. Although I found the peace and quiet very refreshing in the first few weeks (a tiny office with 5 strong-headed and sometimes loud female colleagues can be overwhelming), I soon felt the need to go out and have a social life.

You’re very conscious of your spouse’s feelings

You need to be careful when expressing criticism to your spouse. Remember that he/she is the same person you share your bed with, and you don’t want to start a personal war. I’m stubborn, always right and quite sensitive. Above all, I can’t stand losing face in front of Nic. He is stubborn too and very forgetful. Because we don’t want to hurt each other’s feelings, we found new (and better) ways of communicating - chats in a neutral environment or well-considered emails. There’s nothing wrong with communicating by email with your spouse. On the contrary, it allows you to really think about what you want to say and how you want to say it. You can read it over and over again before you send it to make sure you won’t start a fight. It’s actually pretty effective.

Pros

Now with the pros…

Lots of fun!

It’s important to have fun in your job. It’s even more important when you’ve deliberately chosen to work for yourself or for/with your spouse. And working with your husband should be fun because you share a lot more than just an office space and paperwork.

Understanding

If you’re married to someone, there’s a good chance you know and understand the person well. I don’t want to endorse any cheesy clichés, but you don’t necessarily need words to know when is a good or bad day, when you can joke or when you should just remain silent. Working together actually brings in a brand new level of understanding in a couple. It might take some time to be on the same page, but when everything is in place, it’s great. I know, for instance, when Nic doesn’t want to be disturbed for anything. I put on my headphones and just get on with work. He understands when I’m having a bad day and can’t get anything done. He just tells me to go out for a couple of hours to clear my head.

You get to spend more time together

Not only do we spend time working together, but I also feel that we have more quality time together. With my previous job, I was leaving home at 7.45am and coming back at 6pm, 5 days a week, with nearly 1 hour commute each way. A standard working day for many people. The difference today is that our working hours are quite flexible and we take time to have a lunch break together, or go to a coffee shop or to a pub for a drink after work. I also have some housework done during the day, so we don’t have to do it at night or during the weekend. Ironically, it is also easier to spend time apart doing our own stuff. When you already don’t get to spend much time together, you’re torn between being with your mates or being with your wife. Now that we work together, we need to spend time apart and don’t feel the least guilty about it!

Working with your spouse might not be for everyone but for me, the pros largely outweigh the cons and I wouldn’t have it any other way.The next challenge is working together and having a baby at home. Nic is already looking at getting an office somewhere. Probably a good idea…

photo credit: Jason Pier in DC

Weekly roundup, 2011 week #33

nicolas@wealsodocookies.com — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 13:05:31 +0000

Crawling the web every day, we’ll try and compile every week our best discoveries of the developer and startup worlds.

Earlier this week, on the 13th of September, it was programmer’s day. I hope you enjoyed it. In our office, we celebrated with double chocolate cookies!

If you like javaScript, you’ll love code hero. This games allows you to manipulate your surroundings using javaScript. Sounds brilliant!

I can’t remember were I heard about Nerdy Day Trips, but I found the idea and execution astonishing. I’ll use it next week for a nerdy trip in Bristol ;)

Is Fsck gem the best idea ever or just the dumbest thing available on Github? I’ll let you judge that.

I have to admit, I love productivity tips porn. If you’re like me, make sure you read Laws of productivity PDF linked on this blog post.

Writing beautiful code makes your life easier in the long run. We all know that. So checkout this Ruby style guide and applaud.

Ho and this week pyromaniac released puffer, a new Rails Admin for Rails 3.1.

Yeah, it’s Friday!

It’s Friday, you’re allowed to procrastinate a little bit, and because I’m a Lego fan, I wanted to share with you this fantastic video: