The Thinking Lemur

Handy Linux Commands

Donnie Bachan — Mon, 24 Feb 2014 10:44:40 +0000

This post is simply a personal reference of useful Linux commands. Feel free to comment and suggest new ones to add to the list.

VSFTP

Add a user - useradd
Set a password - passwd
Prevent user from login - usermod -s /sbin/nologin
Change user's home directory - usermod -d

Git basics: Part 1

Donnie Bachan — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 21:37:01 +0000

This post is intended to serve as a reference for me as I begin my journey into Git.

First set up some basic settings on your Git install:

$ git config --global user.name "Donnie"
$ git config --global user.email "myemail@mydomain.com"

Creating a new repository:

From within the working directory of the project run:

$ git init

Stage a file (let Git know you will be committing this file at some point):

$ git add

Check the status of the current repo:

$ git status

Un-stage (revert a file):

$ git reset HEAD

Commit changes (with a message):

$ git commit -m "my commit message"

Add the entire directory to staging:

$ git add .

Display a log:

$ git log --pretty=format:"%h %ad | %s%d [%an]" --graph --date=short

I'm really liking Git already!

If you’re not using Git, you’re missing a trick

Donnie Bachan — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 00:03:00 +0000

I fell in love with Subversion some years ago and now I use it daily. It's not perfect and I don't really use it to it's potential but it's pretty nifty for my requirements. Recently, the number of projects I've been managing has grown and with it the number of developers working on projects. The rate at which features are being added, bugs fixed, releases deployed has also increased tremendously and it isn't going to slow down any time soon. A side effect of all of this has been that I've started looking at the tools we use to develop, manage and deploy our code.

Subversion has worked well for us for a while but now, somehow, it seems clunky and slow. Maybe I'm not using it correctly but I've started looking at alternatives and well Git is the hot stuff strutting around town at the moment, so I've decide to give it a spin. Getting my head around how Git differs from traditional VCSes took a minute but while reading this post on branching and Git all the pieces fell into place.

The second place to go is to Git Immersion. The best way to learn is by doing and GI has that covered! After that, keep the SCM Book handy at all times. It will keep the hair on you head!

Hope these are helpful, I know it was to me.

Don’t do this – Mobile Usability

Donnie Bachan — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 12:04:29 +0000

I received a text message today offering a 2 for 1 voucher from my local pub. I was quite impressed because the text message was very targeted and considering it is a pretty sunny day I thought it was very relevant. This was where my admiration ended. What follows is the steps I took to get the voucher. Ready?

I have a iPhone 3GS. My text message said to click on a link to get my voucher. I did so and was sent to my Safari app and the following screen was loaded:

There was no mention of the offer on this page. I thought, maybe I need to go to the mobile site. So I clicked the "Or Continue To The Mobile Proper Pubs Website" at which point I was presented with this screen:

Still no mention of the voucher. There was an advert for another thing I could win but not the reason I came to the site. So, being in the business of web applications, I think to myself, something must have gone wrong, let's try this again. I go to the text message and click the link again:

Hmmm....still no mention of the offer. Being curious I decided to scroll down:

Aha! Here is the voucher advert. Now how to do I sign up? Erm, do I click the Terms & Conditions link? The advert itself isn't clickable, so what do I do now? At this point I had given up but decided to play around with the app. I put my post code in and clicked search:

I then clicked on the Butchers Hook because that is the pub closest to me and the one named in the original text message.

Nice, my local pub. What else is there on this screen? After scrolling down:

Wait, finally! The link to get the voucher! At this point I was no longer interested in this but was pleased to note that the voucher does actually exist somewhere in the app.

There are several issues with usability with this but the main problem is that the landing page for the link does not follow on from the original marketing message. Mobile developers need to realise that "above the fold" also applies to mobile screens, if I can't see something on my first screen, mobile devices usually don't give an clear indication that the screen is scrollable. Don't take anything for granted. Ever.

A redesigned version of this would include the following:

Automatically redirect to the mobile site on detection of a mobile device
Clear instructions for receiving the voucher on the very first screen shown to the user.
Reduce the header, not really needed and just wasting precious space
Move the Get Voucher link to higher up on the page, even before the details of the pub. I came for the voucher, not to find details of the pub!

I believe these simple changes would help to increase conversion rates and reduce customer friction by a significant percentage!

Managing CSS and JS

Donnie Bachan — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 14:14:24 +0000

At iSUBSCRiBE (we sell magazine subscriptions) we developed a content management system that powers our primary website. When we originally designed the application framework the system would be stand alone. We didn't need additional websites. Inevitably business change required us to white label the site. Surprisingly the design lent itself to white labeling quite well. We were able to incorporate and manage the sites via the CMS quite easily. Management of assets on the other hand has proven to be more difficult.

Each white label requires a unique design and slightly different functionality, which we facilitate by keeping assets unique per site. This is a pretty logical way to handle these files, since the application itself has core files that are shared across sites with site specific design held locally. Consistency across core attributes however is a problem. For instance if jQuery is updated on the core system you want to keep this consistent across all the white labels, at present, this requires manual updating of each site. This can be annoying. A nifty little solution has been posted by Peter from GatherContent to help with these sort of issues. Check out the blog post http://blog.gathercontent.com/combine-and-compress-css-and-js-on-the-fly. Incorporating this into our build process will help with management of assets that need to be update to the latest version across every one of our sites without having to manually update each site individually.

Cropping PDF Pages in Adobe Acrobat X

Donnie Bachan — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:58:26 +0000

One of the wonderful things that has happened in Adobe Acrobat X is that the navigation has been completely redone, it's awesome! (If you didn't get the sarcasm in that statement then I assure you, I don't think it's awesome!). So without further delay, here is how you would find the crop box and trim box settings in Acrobat X.

1. Click Tools

2. Click Show/Hide Panels

3. Select Print Production

4. Click Set Page Boxes

5. Do your cropping!

Hope this helps some of you out there!

Railo 3 Beginner’s Guide: A Review

Donnie Bachan — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 23:55:33 +0000

I've been a big fan of the Railo initiative for some time simply because I'm a big fan of ColdFusion and the fact that you can deploy your apps for free on an open platform. The Railo 3 Beginner's Guide was written by some of the key members of the Railo team including Mark Drew and Gert Franz which makes it an attractive offering. You get it straight from the horse's mouth so to speak.

So, what's in the book? You will get more than just a beginner's guide to Railo and you'll delve into the world of ColdFusion development starting with some basic topics such as variable scopes while being ushered along to some, in my opinion, quite advanced topics like ORM and Caching. The book importantly gives very detailed step by step instructions (with screenshots) on installing Railo and configuring the administrator. I also like the fact that the examples cover the three main development platforms Windows, OS X and Linux allowing just about anyone to get up and running quickly. I like to follow along while learning new topics and this book provided a very good platform for learning and interacting with ColdFusion. One concept that I was happy to see explained was Server and Web contexts, this topic can be very handy as you start deploying larger applications.

I do have a couple small issues with the book. Firstly, I think the language at the start of the book seems aimed at someone who is just starting out with web development but it quickly jumps into concepts that aren't so elementary. While this may appeal to some I think the tone was a bit mixed. Secondly, I don't think there was a clear enough distinction between what is Railo specific and the Adobe ColdFusion Server product. Although I don't think that's a big issue. All in all I think the book did a very good job of introducing Railo, allowing you to get up and running and gives a very good introduction of ColdFusion. Great work Mark, Gert, Paul and Jordan!

Facebook logout ads or why Facebook has revenue generation wrong

Donnie Bachan — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 12:32:22 +0000

Facebook recently announced Premium On Facebook, which is their latest strategy for delivering an advertising platform on the world's largest social network. One of the big new features is the "Logout Page ads" which displays a massive ad when a user logs out of their session. This isn't the first time this sort of advertising has been seen and has been on many of the smaller sites all over the internet for years. I do believe though that FB is going after revenue generation incorrectly. Paid advertising obviously makes money, just ask Google, and with 800 million users floating around advertisers are more than willing to take a punt on the platform. However, my opinion on the matter is that as more and more people spend more and more time on Facebook they will be more and more willing to perform all their activities on the single platform. It's the one thing that Google has been pushing for but Facebook is uniquely poised to achieve, and that's making the WWW "disappear" and replacing it with a single point of browsing. There are millions of people whose only interaction with the internet is via Facebook. They don't know how to send email, shop or even search but they can go on Facebook and comment on photos! With this sort of platform already in place, a smart FB would make it easy for customers to shop. Everyone seems to think that this is an insane idea, you go to Facebook to be social not to shop. True, I'm not advocating that you put the shopping experience directly in the user's face, but if you provide a platform for users to be able to purchase items based on the social interactions of the people they trust and respect, aka, their friends, they will be more than likely to buy quickly.

Here is the way I think the platform should go:

Create an ecommerce platform that aggregates products from business all over the net, similar to Amazon
Provide a single click pay platform similar to the Apple App Store, get rid of FB credits!
Utilise social graph data to deliver shopping recommendations in current ad spots
Capitalise on gifting and deliver social and group gifting
There will only be one store front and businesses paid on a CPA basis as well as a percentage of clicks to ads for their products

Most people seem to disagree with me on this option but I do believe that if Facebook puts this platform in place now they will continue to build on their existing revenue base and take significant market share away from the likes of Amazon and Groupon while giving the big G a massive kick in the gut as well by reducing the dependence on external search.

What do you think?

Winners never quit…

Donnie Bachan — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 23:11:15 +0000

My last post on here was way back in July and I should be ashamed of myself. I start every year with the hope that I'll be an amazing blogger and the internet will adore me, I will score fans and forever be admired. As I get older, I realise that this is not likely to happen, however, I'll continue to post here and be determined to make a little comment about something everyday.

So, for my first post of 2012 I will comment on my wonderful trip to Paris. I really love that city. I stayed at the amazing Hotel Jules, one of the GLA Hotels and had the privilege of being looked after by Mr. Jean-Louis Descoins and his exceptional staff. Don't forget to stay there on your next trip to the city of love. The weather was dull and grey most days but the sites never cease to amaze. I made my way to the Musee D'Orsay and Sacre Coeur, two sites that you must visit at least once. I did have the chance to catch up on my reading, and I'll tell you something, I really love my Kindle Keyboard! I was able to power through the last bits of The Once and Future King by T.H. White and knock off the classic The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Thanks to some generous gift giving I've also got World War Z by Max Brooks and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson on my list. I know, I'm such an amateur when it comes to reading for fun but I'm hoping to turn pro pretty soon!

What's on your reading list?

Google’s recent UI changes get a +1

Donnie Bachan — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 00:30:45 +0000

I finally had a chance to look at Google+ tonight and in all honesty it is everything I expected it to be. It isn't much at the moment since being on a social network without many friends is like being at a rock concert by yourself. However, the user interface really appeals to me. In fact, all of the UI changes implemented by Google in recent days are exceptional. Yes, people will still find faults but I like the consistency across the services. The design itself makes really good use of soft lines and subtle highlights. I've also loaded the new design for Gmail, which is particularly stunning. The additional white space and sparing use of color as prominent call to actions is really exceptional. I suppose it will only be a matter of time before this is rolled out across the other properties. I know this would be a welcome change to the Google Docs section.

All in all I like the direction that Google is taking. Consistency in branding is always a big plus.