Jason Lancaster

Simple is better

Jason Lancaster — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 23:14:31 +0000

If there’s anything I’ve learned from breathing web applications over the years, it’s that the simplest method often wins. Twitter, Basecamp, Delicious, Bit.ly, Instapaper… they all identify a problem and solve it with elegance and simplicity.

Double Dog Dare Merlot

Jason Lancaster — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 05:42:17 +0000

Double Dog Dare Merlot. Tasty! I always like it when you come across a great new cheap wine. This was a $4 bottle we picked up just recently at our favorite liquor depot, Beltway Fine Wine. Now if we could just get motivated to finish building the wine rack for all of these fancy wines we have.

Apple’s discouraging new rules

Jason Lancaster — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 05:59:11 +0000

In case you’ve missed the news on Apple and their new subscription service, you should read the following: http://www.blog.montgomerie.net/thoughts-on-ios-content-purchase. What Apple is doing is pretty lame, considering until now everyone has had to deal with the fact that Apple hasn’t had subscription functionality in place. And now that they do, they’re saying “screw any solution you may have previously used” if you want to continue offering your services on the app store.

Not that it would in any way be enforceable, which is why they didn’t do this, but they should at least have some sort of grandfathered in system for apps like Netflix, Pandora, etc. that have up until now been on their own.

No shave November

Jason Lancaster — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 23:28:07 +0000

On October 31st at the 11th hour,
I bet my father
I could grow a better beard than he.
Without hesitation my friends banded
And made bets on me.

We’ll see who wins!

My must-have jailbroken apps

Jason Lancaster — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 17:56:55 +0000

Cydia apps are ever evolving and updating as Apple releases new iOS version. I now have an iPhone 4 and some of the stuff I’ve said is a must-have previously are no longer important. The following are critical apps to enjoy the newest version of iOS. Here’s my list:

LockInfo
Backgrounder
Auto Silent
FolderEnhancer
MultiIconMover
FullScreen for Safari
iFile
Installous
QuickReply for SMS
SBSettings
ScreenDimmer
SpringFlash
SwitcherMod
YourTube 2
Serious HD SBSettings Theme

Our first dance

Jason Lancaster — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:29:55 +0000

Besides saying our vows, this was my favorite moment of our wedding. To top it off, it’s a pretty awesome song!

My wife does tricks…

Jason Lancaster — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 21:02:59 +0000

We take a “private intensive group class” with the great Nina Gilkenson and Michael Seguin every Thursday night. This move was inspired from a series of moves that we were told to build on.

Sometimes great and inspired things happen when you’re with such an awesome group. And sometimes you throw your partner up in the air and she lands flat on her ass (which is what happened with a different move about 20 minutes later).

That’s just the beauty of the dance.

Disk Utility: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)

Jason Lancaster — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 17:03:37 +0000

Hello, Disk Utility. You’re usually a great tool. Not today. All I wanted to do was Verify Disk Permissions and you would immediately spit back at me:

Error detected while verifying/repairing permissions on disk4s2 Server HD: The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)

There were no physical disk errors reported and I just had a gut feeling that there was something else going on.

Turns out, there was. /Library/Receipts. This directory is incredibly hard to find documentation on, which is why I’m writing about it here.

The problem:
Permissions for the entire Disk Utility receipts directory structure was wrong causing it to error immediately upon check.

ls -l /Library/Receipts
drwxr-xr-x 31 axl admin 1054 Nov 23 13:41 boms
drwxr-xr-x 3 axl admin 102 Jan 12 16:50 db

The fix:
Recursively give the boms & db folders the right permissions.

chown -R _installer:wheel /Library/Receipts/boms
chown -R _installer:admin /Library/Receipts/db

ls -l /Library/Receipts
drwxr-xr-x 31 _installer wheel 1054 Nov 23 13:41 boms
drwxr-xr-x 3 _installer admin 102 Jan 13 10:46 db

My top ten jailbroken iPhone applications

Jason Lancaster — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:35:29 +0000

I jumped on the iPhone jailbreaking bandwagon very early when it was actually hard to do. Nowadays, it’s so easy you’d be silly not to. But for those of you that still haven’t (or have but aren’t sure what to install), these ten applications extend the iPhone beyond what Apple allows and upgrade the experience of owning an iPhone ten-fold.

Music Controls – Play Pandora and many other music applications in the background. Popup controls work when you double tap the home button. I use this every single day and it’s the only jailbroken application I’ve ever purchased.
Categories – Eliminates clutter on your screen by creating a new application and moving apps you choose (like games) into it.
Five Icon Dock – Believe it or not, 5 icons fit perfectly into your dock. If you’re like me and text message all the time this is indispensable.
Flashlight – The brightest possible flashlight you can get. Apps from the app store don’t even begin to compare to this sucker!
Lock Calendar – Put a calendar on your lock screen. If you’re like me and forget things, like birthdays, this will help!
PrivaCy – Eliminate anonymous usage stats from being sent.
SBSettings – Quick settings screen that allows you to swap services on/off, kill processes, free up memory, etc.
SpotBright – Show recently launched applications under the spotlight search menu.
xGPS – A free GPS tool that, while not as accurate as TomTom, is light years ahead when it comes to usability.
iHulu – Watch certain Hulu episodes right on your iphone. Streams over 3g. Totally cool when you’re stuck somewhere you don’t want to be and need something to occupy your time.

Lions, tigers, and injuries. Oh my!

Jason Lancaster — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:15:16 +0000

On Sunday, Emily and I decided to do a quick impromptu bouldering session at the local climbing gym. Unfortunately, I did something bad that I’m afraid is going to haunt me for quite a while. While holding on to a really funky and hard to use hold, I heard a “pop” as my hand forced me to let go and fell to the floor. I stood up to try and get back on that hold and felt a really sharp pain in my wrist.

I gave up on that hold and moved on to a couple more climbs but we had to go very soon. I went home, took a few ibuprofen, and hoped it would feel better in the morning. Today, it’s still swollen and aches all the time. I’m icing my wrist as I speak.

My second climbing related injury! I’m not even sure if I wrote about the first, but I tried to campus on a few holds and miscalculated a reach and punched a plastic hold very hard, fracturing a knuckle. That hurt for a long time but I was able to deal with the pain and keep climbing since there wasn’t anything to immobilize in order to heal. I’m not so sure this injury is going to be as simple.

It’s likely one of my pulleys. I have a doc appointment next Friday. Until then, it hurts to type, hurts to climb, hurts to do just about anything so I’ll probably be moping around wishing I had warmed up and stretched better for my short climbing session on Sunday.