Farktronix

I just want to drop files onto my Dock icon!

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:05:29 -0500

I’ve spent days reading post after post after post after post that purported to solve the mystery of how to hook up the magic pieces just right to enable files to be dropped onto your app’s icon.

However, since none of the links I trawled included both up-to-date and complete examples, I figured I’d put one together for whoever has to fight this battle in the future. Caveat emptor, but really, it’s as simple as hell, so you can’t go wrong.

DockDrop.zip, 19KB, version 1.0 - GitHub

If you’re interested, the nitty gritty magic bits that need be plumbed up just right:

Make sure your delegate implements NSApplicationDelegate, and that it is set as the delegate of NSApp.

Implement application:openFile: in said delegate.

Ensure you have a proper CFBundleDocumentTypes entry in your app’s Info.plist (see the example’s plist).

Speaking of dock shenanigans, John Winter, the Dropzone author, wrote about how the Chrome browser launches itself without bouncing the dock icon. It’s not for every app, but it’s perfect for Dropzone. If you want to be able to drag a file onto your dock icon, this trick may also be for you.

And in case you have trouble remembering: “There’s...

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:43:05 -0500

And in case you have trouble remembering: “There’s no ‘i’ in team, and there’s no ‘h’ in sync.”

Apple Publications Style Guide

"It actually makes a lot of sense to me that Apple would be in favor of equal rights for homosexuals...."

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:31:10 -0400

“It actually makes a lot of sense to me that Apple would be in favor of equal rights for homosexuals. After all, I never wanted to have sex with a dude until I got my iPhone. Because my iPhone is a man and I want to have sex with it. I want to gay marry my iPhone. Of course, I’ll need to have the size of the headphone jack increased before we can consummate our bond. Just kidding. It’s already big enough.”

- Colbert Destroys His iPhone to Fight Gay Marriage

"For Windows 7, management decided to alter the engineering structure of the Windows organization,..."

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:31:26 -0400

“For Windows 7, management decided to alter the engineering structure of the Windows organization, especially in the WEX [Windows Experience] division where I work. Instead of being fairly hierarchical, Steven has 3 direct reports, each representing a particular discipline: Development, Test and Program Management. Under each of the discipline leads, there are 6 development/test/program management managers, one for each of the major groups in WEX. Those 2nd level managers in turn have a half a dozen or so leads, each one with between 5 and 15 direct reports. This reporting structure has been somewhat controversial, but so far IMHO it’s been remarkably successful.”

- Engineering Windows 7 : Engineering 7: A view from the bottom

That’s a lot of people- if I did the math right, it’s about 1,000 people just in that division of Windows.

I understand that writing Windows is a huge undertaking, but when you have that many cooks in the kitchen things are going to move a lot slower.

Congrats, Spencer and Ambrosia!

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:06:50 -0400

Congrats, Spencer and Ambrosia!

T-Mobile announces their Android-based G1 phone The excitement...

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:50:46 -0400

T-Mobile announces their Android-based G1 phone

The excitement in the crowd is almost unbearable!

iPhone Band - Smoky Bubbles (via khtno73)

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:21:49 -0400

iPhone Band - Smoky Bubbles (via khtno73)

"If you already know what recursion is, just remember the answer. Otherwise, find someone who is..."

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:55:00 -0400

““If you already know what recursion is, just remember the answer. Otherwise, find someone who is standing closer to Douglas Hofstadter than you are; then ask him or her what recursion is.””

- Definition of Recursion

"Felix http://bit.ly/1tWIab LOST his camp on burn night. Left the playa 2 days later. Today we packed..."

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 15:05:52 -0400

“Felix http://bit.ly/1tWIab LOST his camp on burn night. Left the playa 2 days later. Today we packed up his tent, bike, wallet, camera & car”

- One of the better Burning Man stories I’ve heard. That must have been one hell of a drug trip.

http://twitter.com/danger_ranger/statuses/917056761

You can read his thoughts on it on his twitter page

"On certain operating systems(3), GDB is able to save a snapshot of a program’s state, called a..."

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 19:14:00 -0400

“

On certain operating systems(3), GDB is able to save a snapshot of a program’s state, called a checkpoint, and come back to it later.

Returning to a checkpoint effectively undoes everything that has happened in the program since the checkpoint was saved. This includes changes in memory, registers, and even (within some limits) system state. Effectively, it is like going back in time to the moment when the checkpoint was saved.

Thus, if you’re stepping thru a program and you think you’re getting close to the point where things go wrong, you can save a checkpoint. Then, if you accidentally go too far and miss the critical statement, instead of having to restart your program from the beginning, you can just go back to the checkpoint and start again from there.

(3) Currently, only GNU/Linux

”

- Debugging with GDB: Running

I’m not sure how long this has been around, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it and it sounds pretty damn cool.

Quick Fact

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:53:21 -0400

rickyv:

The number of children in China who take piano lessons > the total number of US children

Cool stat, but I’m going to call [citation needed] on this one. Here are the numbers I could find:

“According to Music Trades magazine, published in Englewood, N.J., an estimated 40 million children in China take piano lessons…”

- China’s ‘piano fever’

Children under the age of 18 in the United States in 2008 (projected): 74.1 million

- childstats.gov

Even if you just consider the children under the age of 12, you’re still looking at roughly 50 million children in the US.

Permanently Removing Files From a Git Repository

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:39:16 -0400

What do you do if you accidentally check in some large or confidential files to a git repository and you need to remove all traces of them?

You can do a `git reset —hard [commit id]^` to move head to one revision before those files were checked in. They no longer show up in a git log. They’re gone, right?

Resetting will remove the files from the history in the current branch, but they could still be referenced by other branches, and they’ll be referenced by the reflog for at least the next 90 days. Even once you’ve removed all references to that commit, it’s still going to sit around as a dangling commit in the .git/objects directory, taking up space.

The story is the same if you go back and —amend the commit to remove the files, since the original commit will still exist in the objects directory.

If other people clone your repository, they’re still going to get the dangling commit. However, if they’ve already cloned and they pull they won’t get the file.

Here’s what you need to do to truly remove all traces of that file:

1) Remove all references to that commit from any branch. This can be tricky. Look through the history of all of your branches for that commit and remove it.

2) Remove all references in the reflog: git-reflog expire —expire=”0 days” —all
(being able to remove just the offending commit from the reflog would be great, but I couldn’t get any variation of git-reflog-delete to work for me)

3) You can now see that the commit is dangling by running a git-fsck. If that doesn’t print that the commit is dangling, go back to step 1 and try again.

4) Clean up the dangling commits by running git-prune

The files should now be gone from your objects directory. To be extra sure, you can run a git-fsck —verbose and look at all of the commits ids that it scans to make sure the commit has been completely removed.

How to Get a Faster iPhone Sync: Disabling Backup Yeah, about...

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:40:38 -0400

How to Get a Faster iPhone Sync: Disabling Backup

Yeah, about that…

hypotamoose.muxtape.com

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 22:16:03 -0400

hypotamoose.muxtape.com :

Inspired by lemurmaster, I made my own muxtape of jazz.

"Built-in Screen Capture Utility: With the iPhone 2.0 software installed, hold down the Home button..."

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:39:32 -0400

“Built-in Screen Capture Utility: With the iPhone 2.0 software installed, hold down the Home button and press the Lock button and your screen will flash—and an image of your phone’s screen gets saved to your Camera Roll’s images.”

- Iphone 2.0: iPhone 2.0 Update to Add Polish (and Apps)

It’s finally out!

Helvetica (Credit to Doug Crowder for the idea)

Tue, 27 May 2008 19:19:00 -0400

Helvetica

(Credit to Doug Crowder for the idea)

Lastgraph is back and even more amazing than...

Sat, 24 May 2008 16:41:00 -0400

Lastgraph is back and even more amazing than before. Beautifully done.

(my full graph is here)

Good Programmer Resumes (or: Jake Marsh Is A Douche. OMFG.)

Fri, 09 May 2008 14:41:00 -0400

sulciphur:

Answer: yes, it does matter. Most of those acronyms and phrases aren’t even languages, and you’re trying to come off as a programmer, and a professional one no less? Let’s see you whip something up in “Ajax frameworks” big guy. Using buzzwords on your resumé to make yourself sound more learned is an immediate and epic FAIL.

I agree, although with a little less spite (maybe I should take up this smoking thing everyone is talking about.) However, it’s good to list some programming languages or technologies on your resume.

The assumption is that you can be hired, sat down in front of a computer and you’re writing code using those technologies within 30 minutes. If you need to spend a significant amount of time re-learning anything listed on your resume, it shouldn’t have been listed in the first place.

Anything you list on your resume can and will be used against you in an interview. If you listed C++, expect to get questions about templates and reference counted strings. If C is on your resume you’d better be a whiz with pointers. If you list something like SQL you should be able to explain more than just a SELECT statement.

Getting a general programming question wrong in an interview is one thing, but not being able to answer a question about a technology you listed counts against you in a huge way.

Now for my big gripe? The “summary” section of resumes. They usually end up reading like personal ads and they add absolutely nothing to the resume:

“I’m a motivated, self-starting professional with great interpersonal skills that enjoys puppies and long walks on the beach.”

"Chess is a battle, Go is a war."

Thu, 08 May 2008 13:58:38 -0400

“Chess is a battle, Go is a war.”

- (unknown)

“Congressman that ho!” Mike Gravel Lobbies for the...

Wed, 07 May 2008 22:48:58 -0400

“Congressman that ho!”

Mike Gravel Lobbies for the Obama Girl Vote (via marco)