Alan Kleymeyer's Blog

I don’t always test my code

Alan — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 23:33:55 +0000

oDesk

Alan — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:18:27 +0000

I got some part time work using oDesk in 2009 and had a very good experience.

Reviews: 1 2

Windows Explorer Command Window

Alan — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 05:58:48 +0000

There are some PowerToys or registry settings you can make to add a context menu in Windows Explorer to open up a command window for the selected folder. Two built in methods in Windows 7 are:

1. Right-click to bring up a more detailed context menu containing “open command window here”
2. Edit the address path in a Windows Explorer window and enter “cmd”

Migrating to new mac

Alan — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 23:30:33 +0000

Copy Mail over:
copy entire mail folder over from HD/Users/~/Library/Mail
copy over ~/preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

Safari Bookmarks:

Copy ~/Library/Safari/Bookmarks.plist from one Mac to the other.

WordPress plugins

Alan — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 05:22:32 +0000

I love WordPress. I use it for all my web sites. Most hosting services offer it for free. I manage three primary Wordpress sites. My own blog, laketravislacrosse, and laketravisparents.

Below are plugins I recommend for WordPress

Members highly recommended for collaboration.
NextGen Gallary for simple photo management. Can be used to rotate through images. I use it to highlight VIP sponsors.
iFrame. Wordpress doesn’t allow iFrames for security reasons. This plugin supports iFrames which are necessary for embedding things such as a Google Form or PayPal buttons.
AWPCP for Classified Ads
Exclude Pages From Navigation. I found this plugin searching how to remove pages that showed up in the Classifieds Menu created by the AWPCP plugin. Previously, I had made pages private to keep them from showing up in the menu which is related to the theme I am using. Now with this plugin I have better control of whether a page should be on a menu or not.

Why use Android?

Alan — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 22:41:19 +0000

This is why Dave uses it.

I use it to test our Android version of TabbedOut. I was able to buy a no contract phone for about $150 and sign up for a 200mb data plan for $15/month. That compares to $200 for an iPhone and about $90/month total plan. I don’t use my phone as a computer so 200mb is actually plenty.

Prefer Interfaces over Base Classes

Alan — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:12:05 +0000

Why Java Extends is evil

Let it crash programming

Alan — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 02:06:01 +0000

I’m not sure I’m sold on the notion of “Let it crash programming”. Here are some posts on the subject.

1 2 3 4

Dog For Sale

Alan — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:21:51 +0000

A guy is driving around the back woods of Montana and he sees a sign in front of a broken down shanty-style house: ‘Talking Dog For Sale ‘He rings the bell and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the backyard.

The guy goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.

‘You talk?’ he asks.

‘Yep,’ the Lab replies.

After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he says ‘So, what’s your story?’

The Lab looks up and says, ‘Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA.

In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping.’

‘I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running…

But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals.’

‘I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I’m just retired.’

The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

‘Ten dollars,’ the guy says.

‘Ten dollars? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?’

‘Because he’s a Bullshitter . He’s never been out of the yard’

Working with Adobe Illustrator Files (.ai)

Alan — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 04:19:28 +0000

I received a logo created with Adobe Illustrator but didn’t have anything to view it. Or so I thought. Jon has a great post on how you can view .ai files by renaming them as PDF files. He recommends InkScape as a free opensource vector based editor that can import .ai files.