2013 Posts

The Internet is abuzz with the news that President Obama is calling on every American to learn how to code. And while I think it’s a good idea for everyone to have a basic grasp of computer technology and a basic understanding of the role computer programmers play in the world, I have some very specific thoughts about whether or not everyone knowing how to code is really a good idea.

So this past week I attended the first (I think) Cocoaconf to be held within a reasonable distance of Huntsville. In this case, a mere 3.5 hours away in Atlanta. Overall, I’d say this was a very good conference. It was small (I’m guessing about 150 or so attendance). The location was easy to get to, and the conference in general seemeed well organized.

Since it’s been awhile since I wrote a post about what I use in regards to software, perhaps it’s time that I did that again. So here’s a list software I’m using in 2013:

I moved the dystill website to Jekyll and Bootstrap. This was pretty simple overall, since the site is just one page. It was more a task for converting the custom CSS I wrote to use the matching Boostrap libs. I also added the neat little ubiquitous “Fork me on Github” ribbon you see on a lot of sites. Go check it out at dystill.org.

So you may notice that rebeccapeck.org now has an entirely new look. It’s not just a new look, but a ground-up re-architecture of my blog.

On November 27th, 2012, I became a Dad. My little girl, Scarlett, was born at a little past 8pm that night. Being that she’s coming up on nine months here in just a few days, I thought I would look back on what lessons I’ve learned in the nine months since she’s been on planet Earth. This post could alternatively be titled: What I wish people had really told me before becoming a Dad.

Download I recently added a Mac mini to my setup at home, that I’m using to drive my in-home “video on demand” system. With many of the TV’s in the house on AppleTVs, any TV in the house can watch any movie in the library at any time. I put the mini (headless) in the closet, along with the Drobo and a printer. But, the new Mac mini lacks an optical drive. So, how to continue ripping the DVDs I already own? The solution, it turns out, is to continue doing the actual work on my iMac when it comes to ripping, filtering the files through iDentify and MetaX. But I don’t want to have to go to screen sharing on the Mini and add a file to iTunes. I want that to happen automatically. That’s where Automator - one of the most underrated pieces of software that comes with every Mac - comes in. With Automator, you can attach an action to a folder, so that that action will be performed whenever anything is added to that folder. So here’s what I did to get files from a folder into iTunes: Create a folder somewhere on your system. I put mine in my user directory. Open Automator. From the dialog box, select “Folder Action.” At the top, where it says “Folder Action receives files and folders added to,” select “Other” and select your new folder. Search for an action called “Set Var of Value”. Drag that action over to the right. From “Variable” select “New Variable.” Call it “Source” Search for an action called “Import Files into iTunes”. Drag that action over to the right underneath the variable action. Be sure to select “Library” from the empty dropdown. Search for an action called “Get Var of Value”. Drag that action over to the right underneath the iTunes action. Be sure the selected variable is “Source”. Search for an action called “Move Finder Items to Trash”. Drag that action over to the right. Search for an action called “Run AppleScript.” Drag that action over to the right. In the AppleScript action, paste this: on run {input, parameters} tell application "Finder" to empty trash return input end run Save the action. You’re done.