Recent Posts

51

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / NANY 2013: wordpress-basetheme

« Last post by justice on November 23, 2012, 07:54 AM »

I’ve released a first look at “WordPress Base Theme“, a bare bones base for your own themes:

* DRY (don't repeat yourself)
* KISS (keep it simple stupid)
* easily customisable WordPress base theme.
* uses post formats (standard and link have been implemented)

You can build on this to speed up your own theme development. It's so minimal that I wouldn't recommend it as your final site theme. Instead it makes it trivial to apply your design to a wordpress blog, or to build out from this starting point.

single view:





https://github.com/s.../wordpress-basetheme

There must be some wordpress users on DC, so feedback is welcome Pull requests are also.

52

General Software Discussion / Keyboard shortcut of the day

« Last post by justice on November 21, 2012, 03:33 AM »

I want to nominate ctrl-backspace for keyboard shortcut of the day. I have been using pcs for close to 20 years now and never realised that you could remove the previous word using ctrl-backspace!

Any unusual shortcuts you think we should know about?

53

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013: Carbon - website / blogging framework [alpha]

« Last post by justice on November 14, 2012, 03:07 AM »

Don't get too excited it's just Georgia. Unless you don't have that, and because I haven't specified a fallback, you will see some times new roman or something and that would explain your comment 

54

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013: Carbon - website / blogging framework [alpha]

« Last post by justice on November 13, 2012, 04:49 AM »

You sure you're looking at this?
http://screencast.com/t/GWPQ1E48g

55

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013: Carbon - website / blogging framework [alpha]

« Last post by justice on November 12, 2012, 07:49 AM »

My own site is now carbonated (still adding content)

56

Easy Screencast Recorder / Re: LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - Easy Screencast Recorder - v1.12.01 - Apr 22, 2015

« Last post by justice on November 07, 2012, 04:26 AM »

Captain Capture

57

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013: Carbon - website / blogging framework [alpha]

« Last post by justice on November 06, 2012, 03:30 AM »

Another screencast:
* Creating a new post using the admin interface
* Using the generate site feature to create a full static cache
* using the powershell deployment script to deploy to my host over sftp

In under 2 mins!
http://screencast.com/t/JRijwzqMA94

And:
carbon with better powershell support (in develop): http://screencast.com/t/ALcrjU7csKM

58

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: NANY 2013: Carbon - website / blogging framework [alpha]

« Last post by justice on November 05, 2012, 09:13 AM »

0.2.3 - refinement and bugfixes:
    config: Admin password now needs to be manually enabled
    cache: Correctly generate htaccess
    deployment: only replace hostnames in text files
    cache: only write cache when caching is enabled.
    theme: remove older articles link (non functional)
    deployment: new feature - replace hostname from a to b before deploying cached site

https://github.com/s...on/archive/0.2.3.zip

I also broke a bunch of links by changing my main website to a almost empty carbon install. (old site still available)

59

Living Room / Re: Files aren’t property, says US government

« Last post by justice on November 05, 2012, 08:52 AM »

As long as the government hasn't signed my acceptable use agreement which retroactively applies rights to files I've uploaded, they can't do anything! Muhaha.

But seriously,

Apparently your property rights "become severely limited" if you allow someone else to host your data under standard cloud computing arrangements. This argument isn't limited in any way to Megaupload -- it would apply if the third party host was Amazon's S3 or Google Apps or or Apple iCloud.   

There's a difference between services that are aimed at sharing information with the public, like Megaupload, and services that have private information, such as iCloud. Just need a few appeals and case law before they'll realise, hopefully.

60

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on November 01, 2012, 06:30 AM »

Yes, anything that you find otherwise is a bug and I will fix.

(I released 0.2.2 with bugfixes to the feed, will try and slow down a bit.)

61

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on November 01, 2012, 06:22 AM »

Sure, let me explain how caching works first using Carbon.

1. You want to develop with caching off (fully process every request). Carbon doesn't use a database, loads in content files and processes them according to your custom setup.
2. In production you can run carbon with caching on: static html get written to disk on first request and loaded in immediately on subsequent requests (this is about 5-10 times faster than Step 1):

[Select]

$this->Cache = new Cache($this);
if ($this->Cache->has_existing_cachefile()) {
exit(readfile($this->Cache->cache_file_from_url()));
}

3. Instead of running it like step 2 in production, you can go to /admin/generate. This will call every page so your cache is a reflection of your complete site.
4. Now you can copy the contents of the cache folder as a complete static site, that way PHP is never used. (I've included a powershell script carbon.ps1 that will do this for you if you use sftp.

62

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on November 01, 2012, 05:46 AM »

Carbon now has a website. You can see what i'm planning for upcoming milesones. There's a wiki for tutorials / carbon powered sites. You can discuss Carbon via IRC (#carbonframework on freenode) and Google groups.

Feedback request: Being so directly involved, I'd love to know, if you have checked out Carbon but gave up, at what point that was so that I can focus my time on making it accessible.

63

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on October 30, 2012, 11:09 AM »

Just tagged 0.2.1.
I've rewritten the framework using instances instead of static classes, which will help to implement unit tests where required in the future.
I've also managed to simplify the code in the process, it should be much easier to understand now:

Posts are listed in the index page. Pages contain a section of YAML followed by Markdown, by default.
Pages just contain markdown content, by default. In the _basic_ theme, pages are linked from the footer.
Configuration settings override the defaults.
Manage your data models and theming logic using the MVC classes in the _public/application_ folder.


Request object:

-   Cache
-   Log
-   Environment
-   Security
-   Controller
   -   Records
   -   Model
   -   View


Controllers (based on path, created uniquely for site):

-   Home (posts) default homepage
-   Admin (no model) administration section
-   Archive (posts) post archive
-   Errors (page) custom error pages
-   Feeds (posts) feed of posts
-   Images (file) content images
-   Pages (page) individual pages
-   Posts (post) individual posts


Model types:

-   File (present bare file)
-   Page (structure for pages)
-   Post (structure for posts)


View types:

-   Html (templated content)
-   Feed (xml representation)
-   File (download)

64

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Distro features matrix?

« Last post by justice on October 09, 2012, 08:48 AM »

desktop environment is the environment your desktop loads in (unity, gnome, kde). Distro is the distribution which is everything that is distributed towards you when you install an OS.

65

General Software Discussion / Re: Linux Distro features matrix?

« Last post by justice on October 09, 2012, 03:37 AM »

Look at the distros with the largest community as you will find the most help with any problems, unless you have a particular need that you are already aware off.
Community > features.

66

General Software Discussion / Re: moving items in sudirectories

« Last post by justice on October 08, 2012, 03:12 AM »

I'd go with the search box solution, but alternatively use Level

67

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on October 04, 2012, 10:29 AM »

Yes the MVC work is from scratch but inspired by CodeIgniter, I have used that in the past and can recommend it.
In the past I have found it difficult to neatly organise a project like this in the CI MVC model so I thought if I start from scratch I understand the foundations better.

It's won't be as robust as CI but then it won't have several years of little tweaks that make it harder to understand what's going on.

I'm trying to keep a separation between the mvc code and the system behind it so that people can just focus on their site structure and how it is generated.

Basically a request gets routed by Carbon::router to an appropriate
Application controller (based on content types).
The content gets filled in by the system's DataModel class which is passed through the application's Model (defines sections of content mostly). Once we have the content in the right structure it's sent to the application's View class that uses a very simple templater to generate the page.

Only using two models at the moment:

[Select]

public static $page_model = array(
'markdown|html' => 'content',
);

public static $post_model = array(
'yaml' => 'metadata',
'markdown|html' => 'content',
);

I'm taking the controller and model that is used and then use that to choose the right template file (pages.php for pages, archive.php for archive etc).

But for example you might add a Portfolio controller and model that sends things through to a portfolio.php template.

68

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my web framework

« Last post by justice on October 04, 2012, 09:44 AM »

Did you read the https://github.com/svandragt/carbon page? I made a "basic configuration" and "getting started" section with this in mind?

Hope this helps:

Installing Carbon in developer mode on a shared host
http://screencast.com/t/QgDYtKUFpG

Enable caching for production use
http://screencast.com/t/bRs6taeYUEQl

Generate a static site
http://screencast.com/t/KqP1GRhNTf

After the functionality is there, I will focus on making it easier to deploy content  / static site.

69

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on October 04, 2012, 07:24 AM »

Today you can post with images plus there's improvments to yesterday's work.

70

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on October 02, 2012, 12:26 PM »

New today: admin panel; static site generation; relative links; model & controller templates; bug fixes!

71

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / Re: Carbon - my new hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.

« Last post by justice on October 01, 2012, 10:13 AM »

You can now link to individual posts,  articles can contain yaml (key value pairs), and we have a post loop (show last 10 on frontpage). Things are progressing.

72

N.A.N.Y. 2013 / NANY 2013: Carbon - website / blogging framework [alpha]

« Last post by justice on September 28, 2012, 09:54 AM »

Carbon is a hackable performant (semi) static blogging system.. I intend this to be my NANY 2013 entry, however I'm getting too excited I've never build such a system from scratch but am familiar with PHP frameworks like CodeIgniter, SilverStripe etc so Carbon is class based, somewhat MVC and clearly written (I hope).

It should be considered early alpha, a first-look. There is no point using it in production yet, but you might want to have a sneak peak and give initial feedback.

Aims
* Easy to learn
* Easy to hack & extend
* Performant

There are many others. I find most of them too complex to extend, too fiddly to get running, or too hard to use. Because I wrote this one, I don't have these problems.

Source and information, issues etc on GitHub. Enthusiastic feedback welcome. Best way to start is to look at the index.php and follow the execution pipeline.

73

Living Room / Xbox Windows Microsoft Minesweeper for Games for Windows Live

« Last post by justice on August 07, 2012, 08:52 AM »

"Xbox Windows" branded games coming to Windows 8 desktops, Surface
http://www.eurogamer...s-8-desktops-surface

Classic Windows freebies Minesweeper and Solitaire are among the first games to fall under Microsoft's new Xbox Windows banner.
The new game range, outed on X360A.org, appears separate to the current Games for Windows Live service.

Oh, Microsoft.   You haven't learned a thing since Microsoft Office Sharepoint Designer 2007 for Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server.

74

Living Room / Office Chair Curling - a new olympic sport?

« Last post by justice on July 27, 2012, 06:58 AM »

Get into the spirit of the Olympics whilst at work, with Office Chair Curling. Here's how it works:

REQUIREMENTS
1 Office chair per player "CHAIR"
1 narrow, long hallway "RINK"
1 floortile "HOUSE" with hole offcenter "BULL"

http://officechaircurling.pen.io

75

General Software Discussion / Re: SilverStripe - Easy to use open source CMS + Framework

« Last post by justice on July 21, 2012, 03:19 PM »

Yeah so SilverStripe is not for everyone. If you like your features already available in your CMS, you will want to use another product, and loathe it for it. However this thing is great when you want a 90% there CMS with extensibility and make it so easy to add the rest. This is great when:

- You are setting up a CMS for a client and will need to deal with specific requirements anyway.
- You have a specific requirement for yourself and have php programming knowledge.
- You find that all the functionality you require is already available in SilverStripe modules. Many things are, but not as much as drupal modules haha (I remember having to download up to 22 modules to setup HTML email templates for system mails - with drupal).

However when you create your own page types, silverstripe rebuilds the data base schema for you. You can create a new administration section for your products in several dozen lines of php, without having to write UI code (take that wordpress plugin authors). When you can leverage functionality already built in to create a static version of your site, and boost the performance of your site, or ssh it automatically to remote servers.

However if that paragraph doesn't make much sense then you are probably better off with a blogger account or Website Baker

BTW insteaod of using a WAMP stack I am now using a virutal machine with ubuntu which works very well (tutorials elsewhere on this site).

Things I would now use it for:
- replace my dcmembers site with something that looks 21st century and unifies news, software, blog and other features.

- build the getbard.com website and make it trivial to maintain
- a personal portfolio so that you can enter a gallery of screenshots, description, urls of projects. I tried to make a WordPress plugin to make it easier to make custom content types by making it a single line of code to add an image field etc. Well Silverstripe already allows this way more flexible.
-a cv builder website (keep my cv versioned in a database, and integrate some kind of PDF export option. Quick to build when adding fields is so easy.