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It's been almost a year since I switched to using a Mac from a PC.  Since then there have been a number of other converts.  Our entire household now uses Mac computers and I know other people who are switching as well.  I wanted to list out some of the software that I've found helpful over the past year.  Note that this is mostly from the perspective of a web devleoper

• Transmit – Great FTP clients that even supports S3 – http://www.panic.com/transmit/
• Sequel Pro – Must have manager for anyone who deals with mySQL – http://www.sequelpro.com/
• Time Out – Prevents eye fatigue by prompting you to take breaks – http://www.dejal.com/timeout/
• Text Wrangler – Good text editor – http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/
• Apple developer tools – Install these from the disk that comes with your Mac.  The program I use the most is FileMerge
• Growl – notification software – http://growl.info/
• Adium – IM client – I love how it can be tucked away off screen – http://adium.im/
• Hyperdock – I use this to manage my windows – allows them to be made full size or part size by dragging them around the screen – http://hyperdock.bahoom.com/
• USB Overdrive – http://www.usboverdrive.com/USBOverdrive/News.html - a necessity for running my Evoluent Vertical Mouse – http://www.evoluent.com/
• Typinator – a shortcut text expander program – http://www.ergonis.com/products/typinator/
• Alfred – quick launcher application – http://www.alfredapp.com/
• Clean Archiver - take the junk out of the standard mac compression – http://www.sopht.jp/en/cleanarchiver/
• Jing – great for quick screen casts – http://www.techsmith.com/jing/
• Jumpcut – clipboard app that keeps a record of your latest clipboard cuts – http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/
• iStats Menus – allows you to keep an eye on our processor and memory – http://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/

There are a lot of other programs that I use that are more well known, but these form the foundation of smaller apps that make computing on the mac even easier.

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My wife was reading an article in the NY Times about a man who was rushing into marriage because he need to get onto his girlfriends health insurance before his ran out.

My reaction: Is health insurance the new social glue? How many times have you heard that someone is doing something, staying at a job, even staying in a relationship because of the healthcare benefits? I suspect most everyone has heard someone say something along those lines.

I don't think there is any doubt that this "benefit" is providing a certain amount of glue. Something that I've never thought of thus far is: with the prospects of a nationalized healthcare system, what would become of that glue. My guess is it would lose it's stickiness.

I'm definitely not out to make a political statement on this one, my thinking here is purely philosophical. I'm not out to say it's better or worse without the current glue, but rather: how sad is it that this is one of the core things that's holding our society together is health insurance. Not love, not family, not a sense of duty, but health insurance.

Your thoughts? Comment.

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I am beginning to understand that love is fundamentally messy. Think about God’s seedbed for love, the family. Conceiving children is messy. Giving birth to children is messy. Raising children is messy. There’s absolutely nothing clean or aseptic about this process, it’s a big mess. Move from the family to another display of God’s love, the cross. What a mess: betrayals, denials, beatings, and then finally a bloody crucifixion.

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”

Jesus was not afraid to get dirty. He touched lepers and dead bodies. He hung around with the “dirty people” like the tax collectors, prostitutes and other “sinners”. The Pharisees on the other hand had spiritual OCD. They hated the idea of getting dirty.

Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

In opposition to the Pharisees, Jesus’ chief teaching on love has to do with someone picking up a half dead person from a ditch. Can you imagine what the Samaritan must have looked like as he pulled into the inn to drop off the injured person? This would not have been a pretty picture.

If we’re going to love we must be willing to get dirty. We must not allow the spiritual OCD of this generation to define our behavior. Instead, we must follow the Samaritan and the Lord down a dusty, dirty road where wounds bleed and blisters ooze.

Perhaps we can do this we can do this because we know the One who can cleanse us and make us whiter than snow. Perhaps we can do this because we believe that whatever dirt that sticks to us in showing love to God’s creatures will become sparkling diamonds of radiance in the kingdom of our Father. Perhaps it would be accurate to say that the dirtier we get in loving, the more brightly we will shine in the kingdom (God loves a good paradox).

Look to the forerunner. He became a mess in his endeavor to love us… and in exchange was given a name that was above every name.

It would be a mistake to relegate all benefits of the dusty, dirty road to the future. Perhaps the greatest glory of walking this muddy path is that Jesus is there with you. It’s a dirty road, but now a lonely road. It’s a messy road, but he’s there with you. With the lowest of the low, you take up fellowship with the King of Kings.

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I installed the Minimalist Gmail plugin (thanks to Life Hacker). The great part about this extension is that it allows you to populate the Google links list with your own custom links.

If you're one of the many user chagrined by Google's recent removal of the reader link in the Gmail header, this is a quick and easy way to get it back. Supposedly they are bringing it back, but until then enjoy the extension.

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Tracking 404 pages is a part of being a web master. I was using a service called Link Patch, but they recently shut down. Why this never occurred to me before I don't know, but I thought, why not just track 404s as an Event in Google analytics. I tried it and it worked like a charm.

Here is the code I placed on my 404 page:

<script type="text/javascript">
	// log 404 in google analytics
	_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Error', '404', '<?php echo $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']; ?>']);
</script>

This will place the url for the page in the events menu under the "Error" category

What I love about this approach is that:

• Groups multiple errors together to help me track trends
• Allows me to filter and get reports across date ranges
• Get reports emailed to me on a weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly basis

I think this is going to be a great shift. I just sorry I didn't set it up earlier!

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When I pondered my conversion to Mac, one of the biggest issues for me was the ability to operate two large computer monitors side by side.  As a developer this is a huge issue for me, so you can imagine my dismay when after going to the Apple store and talking to “genius” they simply turned around and Googled my question (something I had obviously done many times before).  After looking around I did discover that there was a device that would do what I was looking for. 

This tutorial applies strictly to Mac Book pros (Mine was new in Sept of 2011 and is running 10.6.5).  If you’re using a desktop mac or another mac book I can’t promise similar results but here’s what I did.

The Device

The device that allows you to go dual and even triple screen on your mac book is the Matrox DualHead2Go DP Edition.  Some of the other device versions will work, but they won’t give you the resolutions you want to run 24” inch monitors.  If you want to go big on you monitors you’re going to need to use the DP (display port) edition.

The Adapters

Because I was operating DVI monitors I needed three different adapters!  2 DP to DVI adapters to connect the unit to the monitors and 1 Mini DP to DP adapter to connect the Mac to the Matrox unit.  I definitely didn’t appreciate all the extra costs of the adapters, but I was a man on a mission so I did it anyways.

Mini DP to DP Adapter

The Software

The software Matrox PowerDesk allows you to tell the OS what monitor (laptop or “dual screen”) should be the primary.

Little Annoyance, but Working Great!

One of the primary annoyances is that it treats the dual monitor setup form the device as a single monitor, so you can see that the task bar is completely stretched out across the top.  This really doesn’t cause too much pain except when I need to get to the file menu and I’m using the left monitor.

On the other hand the great part about this is you can stack a ton of stuff in your application bar at the bottom – fill it up as it will stretch all the way across the bottom if it needs to. 

Lots of cords need to be plugged in when you “dock” your mac, but nothing too overwhelming there.

Other Tips

You’ll need a USB hub.  The Matrox unit takes up the mini display port AND A USB port for power. 

Overall

Overall I’m very pleased with the results.  I work primarily off the two main monitors, but I can put secondary applications like script logs and skype on the less dominant lap top monitor.  If you are a developer you’ll definitely benefit from this arrangement.  Also, if you like my desk, check out this post.. I made it myself.

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I’m currently working on a project where I wanted to use DOMPDF to export html from magento.  With some help from some folks who got DOMPDF to work with Zend I was able to get it working with Magneto.

Step 1

Copy the dompdf folder to the lib directory of your magento install.

Step 2

Edit app/Mage.php to include the following code

include_once 'dompdf/dompdf_config.inc.php';
spl_autoload_register('DOMPDF_autoload');

This goes around line 52 inside the else statement right after

 include_once "Varien/Autoload.php";

Step 3

Use the code.  Here’s an example of what I  am doing inside on of my custom contollers

public function printAction(){

        if ($quote = $this->_iniQuote()) {

            $html = $this->getLayout()->createBlock('crm/quotes_print')->toHtml();

            $dompdf = new DOMPDF();
            $dompdf->load_html($html);
            $dompdf->render();
            $dompdf->stream("sample.pdf");

         }

    }

Basically that’s it.  Pretty straight forward and seems to work like a charm.

NOTE:  This was done using DOMPDF 0.6.0 beta1 and Magneto 1.4.0.1

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I have 5 boys, so needless to say there’s a lot of activity in our house.  Our 2nd son is by far the most active (at the moment anyhow) and Amy and I couldn’t resist buying him some rock climbing holds for his birthday.  Originally I was going to mount them on the back of our garage, or outside somewhere, but the other night the idea came to me.  Use some wood I had lying around to build an indoor climbing wall for the basement.  I literally thought of this and built it the next day.  The kids helped and within a matter of hours they were climbing away and having a great time!

Here’s the finished product.

Idea

The ideas was to use two pieces of plywood I had lying around to make a triangle structure. The more I thought, the more refined the idea.  Using bolts to connect the wood accomplished a couple of things.

1. Theoretically I could change the board length at the top and bottom to change the angle of the unit and make it steeper or easier.
2. The bolts make the whole unit disassemble into a fairly portable unit.  This is great if you want to take it outside, take it to a family runion or just stow it away when not in use.

Another port of the idea was to attach indoor/outdoor carpeting.  This protected the kids from splinters (it was really rough plywood) and makes it a little more weather proof if I take it outside (If I take it outside I would also paint the side boards because they are not pressure treated.

If you build something like this I hope you’ll use your own creativity to improve the idea.

Parts List

• 40 Climbing holds from EMS
• 2pc.  4 x 8 plywood (I used B Grade)
• 2×4 lumber – various lengths depending on the size of your unit
• 4×4 lumber – for the base
• 4pc. 4” Galvanized 1/2” Bolts
• 4pc.  6′” Galvanized 1/2” Bolts
• 16pc. 1/2” Galvanized Washers
• 8pc. 1/2” Galvanized Nuts
• 6’ x 8’ section of indoor/outdoor carpet
• 8’ Poly Rope

Step 1: Build the Frames

• The frames are made of 2×4 lumber.  My wall was going to be about 5-1/2’ tall so I cut my 2x4s just a couple inches longer. 
• I used a jig saw to round the ends of the height boards.  That allowed the unit to be pivoted and got rid of sharp edges when the kids were climbing.
• I screwed the whole thing together with 2-1/2” in screws. 
• I spaced the cross supports about 6” from either end.  A little bit longer on the top.Make sure you measure from one end.  Because the rounding of the he 2x4s will make them uneven, you don’t want to measure from both sides.

Step 2 – Cut and Drill the Support Lumber

• On the top I simply used some of the remnant 2×4 to create the connection points.
• On the bottom I used some old 4×4 lumber that was lying around in the backyard.  This gives a nice solid base and also some durability if I do place it outside.

Step 3 – Drilling the Holes

• This was hardest part of the project.  if the holes are off then the unit will not hinge properly.  In the end I basically made my holes on center in the 2×4 lumber.  So for instance a 2×4 is 3-1/2” wide.  So I centered my holes at 1-3/4” from the sizdes and ends. 
• On the bottom I centered my holes more toward the top of the 4×4 so that only the 4x4s are touching the ground.

Step 4 – Test Fit

Once the holes are drilled then you can test fit the structure by inserting the bolts.  Everything should come together nicely.  If it doesn’t make your adjustments now before you mount the plywood

Step 5 – Attach Plywood

• I cut my plywood down to about 5-1/2” feet.
• I attached all over the frame using 2” decking screws.  If you built your frames correctly it should mount perfectly
• I left a little bit of room at both ends so that the 2x4s just peak out on either side of the unit – this allows the carpeting to be tucked under the unit.

Step 6 – Attach the Carpet

• I got some indoor outdoor carpet.  This stuff is really inexpensive and gives the climbing wall a very nice finish.
• I cut the carpet to be a little longer so that it could be wrapped around the ends.
• Glue the carpet down with some adhesive and then staple the carpet on the “bottom” of the plywood. 

Step 7 – Layout and Attach the Climbing Holds

• I am no expert at climbing layouts, so we basically laid them out in a way that made sense for small guys. 
• After laying them out, the boys and I screwed them down.

Step 8 – Assemble and Finishing Touches

• Once the glue has dried (the label says 24 hours, but my boys were not going to wait that long) then attach the top with 4” Galvanized 1/2′” bolts
• Connect the bottom with 6” Galvanized 1/2” bolts
• When talking this over with a friend, we talked about the possible need for an additional support to fix the angle.  After tightening down the bolts, I saw no need to to add the additional supports, but depending on your angle and and lumber its something you might want to consider.
• To finish it off I attached poly rope by drilling a hole into one of the supporting 2x4s to add some interest and variety to the climbing. 

Let the Fun Begin

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We by no means have a lot of children by historical standards, but according to our current culture standards the reactions we get are quite the opposite. One of my little jokes when people remark about how many children we have, I say that I'm just making up for all the people who are not having children. Well it turns out that my joke is really no joke at all. Here's a short video on a stable population.

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Just a few minutes ago I was visiting a site looking for Canadian proxy addresses so I could test my country specific detection script. The moment I opened the proxy page my mouse started flying all over my screen. I thought my computer had been infected with some sort of screen sharing virus and immediately set to work at shutting down the computer.

Just then my wife walked up and saw the look on my face. I told her what happened and she had an idea. She went downstairs and came back up to report: my six year old was playing with my bluetooth mouse

Kind of coincidence of timing! But I'm glad my computer can't be hijacked just by opening a web page

Moral of the story: Keep track of your bluetooth mouse!

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