Godbyte: Recent Content

Drupal Contact Form and Google Apps Email

cody — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:03:03 -0600

Here's the situation. I have a domain established that is set up with Google Apps. A particular email account created in GApps is working great, it can send and receive email fine. I'm using Drupal, one of the best content management systems, and its integrated contact form. For some reason when I associate this email address with the contact form, messages sent by the form are not received. So what's the problem?

I have searched all over the place for an answer to this problem and none have been sufficient. My MX Records are properly configured (how else would I be able to send and receive mail?), the message is not going into my junk mail folder, SMTP module didn't help (I shouldn't have to use a module to fix this problem anyway), and having my host update the SPF records did squat.

In desperation I contacted my web host (hostmonster.com) and the first tech I communicated with was not able to help at all. I submitted a ticket over the web explaining the problem and after some light dialogue my webhost quickly remedied the issue.

Here was how the conversation went:

Hostmonster: Since [domain name] mail is handled by Google, I recommend setting mail to be handled remotely to resolve the problem.

My question is, why was this setting not enabled in the first place? Obviously if my mx records are pointing somewhere else I don't want mail handled locally...whatever

After this change the contact form was successfully sending messages to my Google Apps email account. Unfortunately they were coming out in some really weird format. For hostmonster, email was being sent by the primary account username and the @domain.com portion was the mail server associated with the account. To fix this problem I had to add an email account under my web host that matched the email account name I was trying to send messages from.

After these changes mail was being sent successfully, but man did that take unnecessarily long to figure out.

2 Essential Safari Plugins

cody — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:59:01 -0600

Since plugins aren't exactly programs, but rather extensions of programs I figured I'd post these together in the blog section.

Glims

A really awesome and versatile extension for Safari. Where most plugins for Safari are limited in scope, Glims is more of a combination of minor efficiency tweaks. Here are some of the tweaks I use the most.

Being able to open Safari with all of the tabs from your last session
Reopening the last closed tab (Command + Z)
Faster switching between tabs ("," - previous tab | "." - next tab)
Telling new tabs where to open (like the Tabs Open Relative Firefox Extension, but with a few more options)
Download Glims

Safari Adblock

Very similar to the Adblock Plus Firefox Extension but for Safari.

Download Safari Adblock

VLC Media Player

cody — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:49:13 -0600

VLC is an amazing light-weight media player. It's pretty versatile and can handle most file types that you throw its way. I like it for its speed, though I would say that its decoders aren't the greatest. I've found much better quality with paid-for apps. But hey, for being free it's pretty powerful.

Soshiku

cody — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:48:09 -0600

Soshiku is the best homework assignment tracking web service that I have discovered to date. The interface is straight-forward and elegant. It has options for creating different classes and assignments. Each assignment has a title and due date, and can contain notes, file attachments, and a task list. It also has some collaboration features, which I have personally not taken advantage of, but would be useful for group projects.

Just Color Picker

cody — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:41:59 -0600

I encounter so often a neat color on a website or desktop application and want to grab that color for use in my own graphics and applications.

As a color-deficient individual I find this program to have a peculiar usefulness. When I come across a neat color and want to figure out exactly what color it is (ie. via HTML Hexidecimal or some other like manner) I use this free little application. Just Color Picker will allow you to zero in on a pixel and copy the color code equivalent to your clipboard. It's a very handy little tool.

Just Color Picker is distributed as a stand-alone executable.

Grooveshark

cody — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:51:51 -0600

Grooveshark is a pretty useful web application that allows you to search for an immediately play most songs. Seriously, though, to believe it you have to go to their site and try it out. Not only that but you can bookmark certain songs and revisit the page any time to listen to it, they provide links and a whole slew of other neat features for sharing, etc.

GIMP

cody — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:41:06 -0600

Gimp is an AWESOME image editing program. Though I'm sure I'm antagonizing a heated debate, Gimp is a sufficient alternative to Photoshop. So far I haven't come across a single feature that Photoshop has, that Gimp can't do, for free.

Here are some of the tasks that I've accomplished by using Gimp:

Creating Web 2.0 Text Logos
Overlaying an Image with Text
Creating a Silhouette from an Image
Whitening Teeth in a Portrait
Removing Red-eye from a picture.
Creating Shapes.
Creating Flames from Text
And a whole bunch of other stuff I can't remember.

http://gimp-tutorials.net/ has a lot of really powerful tutorials, as well as the tutorials section on Gimp's own website at: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Plugged In Online

cody — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 02:00:00 -0600

This is a great resource for Christians. Have you ever seen a preview for a movie and got really excited about it, but then were concerned about the nature of its immoral content? Well if you want to read a critique of the different moral areas that all movies touch on. Go to this site.

Talented movie reviewers from the staff of the familiar ministry Focus On The Family, lead by Dr. James Dobson, sit down and watch all newly released movies and analyze their immoral content.

The categories that are addressed in all of reviews include: Positive Elements, Spiritual Content, Sexual Content, Violent Content, Crude or Profane Language, and Other Negative Elements.

While our culture would lead us to believe that media is non-influential, we know this is just simply not true. For Christians, this fact is particularly important, because we have a responsibility for deciding what we place before our eyes and allow to influence us. There is certainly value in this website for non-Christians as well, especially if you have children. Its helpful to know how much cleavage, nudity, skimpy dresses, torture, foul language, and other offensive content will be in a film you expose them to.

Garbly Sounds in Podcast Using LAME MP3 Encoder

cody — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:52:49 -0600

I tweeted the other day about having a problem with Audacity's LAME MP3 Encoder when used for Godbyte's devotional podcast, and said I'd blog about it so here we are.

I have been having a tough time deciding on the level of compression that I want to have for the Godbyte Devocast. Of late I have been recording each devo in Audacity on my Desktop PC with a cheap headset that I purchased off of Amazon. The reason I'm not using Garageband on my Macbook is because I have been having trouble with the sound quality using this particular headset. It's a USB Stereo headset with microphone, and for some reason Garageband picks up this high pitched noise that I haven't been able to remove; but strangely this is not an issue on my Desktop PC.

So...I've been using Audacity to record the devos, but during the encoding process have been discouraged by really strange artifacts (really weird garbly noises) in the final file. I've been exporting the project as a 64-bit CBR mono (joint stereo) mp3 file (which, from what I've read and come to understand, is the standard for podcasts). Someone suggested that I try running my audio through Garageband's encoder to see if it did a better job, and it did!

So until I figure out how to get the LAME MP3 encoder to work with those settings, my "temporary" work around workflow involves: Recording the initial podcast in Audacity on my PC, exporting to a very high quality file (320-bit), moving the file to my Macbook, opening it in garageband, exporting in garageband, then back to my PC for editing the tags and uploading to the site (what a waste of time). If this problem is ever resolved, or I find a better way then I'll post a comment to this post.

ClearCheckbook

cody — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 20:46:25 -0600

ClearCheckbook is a really amazing online checkbook register. Big deal you say? It is a big deal! Especially in economic times like these it's so vitally important to take control of where your money is going. It is a good practice to keep your bank in check by keeping a personal record of all digital transactions. If ever there is a processing mistake (ie. a charge is run through twice) then you'll know when it happened.

The really neat thing about ClearCheckbook is it's categorization system. When you record a transaction, you enter in the amount (deposit/withdrawl), the description, the date, and the category. By categorizing your spending you can go through your transactions for the previous days/months/years and see how much you're spending on groceries, or how much you're wasting at the movies.

Furthermore, CCB allows you to set up monthly spending limits and when you start to approach or exceed a limit in a specific category you're alerted via email.

Categorical Spending can be viewed in a number of different ways, from Pie Chart, to Bar Graphs, even tag Clouds.

Some of the other neat tools CCB has to offer include:

Notes - for jotting down financially related information.
Transaction Import/Export - the ability to import or export all of your transactions in a number of formats (QFX, OFX, QIF or CSV)
Reminders/Reoccurring Transactions - if you have a particular transaction that takes place on a schedule you can set CCB to record it automatically.
Checkbot - CCB has been integrated into email, popular IM clients, and SMS so that you can record transactions on the go in a variety of ways.
Extras - They also have an iGoogle gadget and an OSX Dashboard Widget