mkaz.com

How I Work Part 3

Marcus Kazmiercak — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 00:00:00 UTC

I’m notorious for switching my work setup around, from what OS I’m using to development tools. So I’ll document from time to time what my current tool set looks like both for myself on why I switched to/from something else and in case some one finds it helpful interesting.

How I work - July 2012
How I work part 2 - Jan 2013

Summary

It’s like a 1950’s serial:

When we last left our hero, he had a new job and using Ubuntu on a Lenovo X1 Carbon laptop. He has a made two switches since then, trying a Macbook Air for a short period but switched to the new high resolution Chromebook Pixel running Debian.

Besides the brief Macbook usage, I thought the rest was going to be relatively the same, but looks like I’ve changed quite a bit.

Programming

Since I’m doing a fair amount of PHP coding at work, I enjoy using different languages in my side projects. For my start-page project I switched back to Python/Flask but I’m tired up doing all the sys admin work, running it on Google App Engine.

I’m working on a small todo + note app to learn backbone.js which we use at work quite a bit. This gave me the opportunity to play with Go, which I’m using as the web services backend. I’m also running this app on Google App Engine. I’ll write up a post once it gets a little more polished.

Laptop

At Google I/O I received a new Chromebook Pixel and it is a pretty amazing machine. The screen is absolutely amazing unfortunately the Chrome OS is not really workable as a development machine. The laptop is plenty powerful so I initially tried using Crouton and running Ubuntu side-by-side the Chrome OS, however at some point something went wrong and the machine rebooted and wiped out everything.

Google built-in some safety checks which caused the sytem to wipe itself, their goal is to not require any local installs and the machine can be completely restored at any time, not sure why the included such a nice SSD drive then. This safety check makes it not trustworthy to use Chrome OS, so I wiped it out entirely and installed Debian and have been very happy with it. See Brock Tice’s instructions

I’m definitely happy running a Linux desktop full-time, I switched to Debian since Ubuntu was doing some of the same annoying things Apple is such as tying in to cloud services or displaying commercial search results. Debian is more inline with my philosophy. Here are my for converting from Mac to Ubuntu much of the same apply.

Tools

I’ve simplfied my text editor and tools down to pretty much just vim. At work, we use remote development sandboxes so using vim there is easiest without bothering with SFTP. I’m also using R and R-Studio quite a bit when doing data work.

For personal documentation, I’ve switched to using simple markdown format which is more portable between systems and applications, since I can use a text editor anywhere. I use Dropbox as a sync tool between systems.

Mobile

Funny thing, I did switch phones after just saying the Galaxy Nexus was one of my longest, I finally gave up on the poor reception and switched to Verizon and the iPhone 5. I’m surprised by the speed and battery life, definitely faster and longer life than the Android.

HTML Food Coloring

Marcus Kazmiercak — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 00:00:00 UTC

A set of colors I’m playing with and using in my new recipe visualizations. Most people are using tablets, phones and computers to view recipes now, are there any new better ways to display recipes using the richer medium?.

Impressive CSS Foo - Giant Sequoia Tree Demo

Marcus Kazmiercak — Sun, 19 May 2013 00:00:00 UTC

Check out this cool demo site put together by Adobe, Google and the National Geographic. The created a custom site about The President, a giant sequoia tree 3,200 years old. The site demos some pretty interesting things you can do with just CSS.

A few tricks they used: create a polygon region and have text flow to fill it, fading images in/out as you scroll, css filters for black and white and even a pretty cool drop cap.

But probably the most impressive, check out the Pan and Zoom demo they created to illustrate just how big the tree is.

Some setup is required, requires Google Canary and flip some bits on the browser. All info and code is available at: github.com/adobe-webplatform/Demo-for-National-Geographic-Forest-Giant

Pretty interesting to read about a 3,000 year old tree and see the future of interactive publishing.

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

Marcus Kazmiercak — Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 UTC

7 oz. dark chocolate

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ cup butter

1 tsp baking powder

¾ cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

melted chocolate

sugar butter (white fluffy)

dry ingredients

wet ingredients

dough

Refrigerator for an hour

Roll into balls on baking paper

Bake at 350° for ~13 min

Notes

Roll balls in powdered sugar for decorative sweetness
Use different chocolates for different flavors
Chocolate + Chile or Chocolate + Coffee == Yum!

Attributions

Refrigerator designed by Dara Ullrich from The Noun Project
Oven designed by Hakan Yalcin from The Noun Project

Don't be a git, use subversion

Marcus Kazmiercak — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 UTC

There seems to be an attitude that if you aren’t using git you’re behind on the times. That some how by using git your team will be more powerful, merging magicians and it will rain bubbles.

In actuality, git is a fairly complex version control system which is far more difficult to understand then a master repository system. Git is a great solution if you are running an open source project which receives commits from all over, but is this how your company runs its code?

My hunch is for most companies, the master repository system is a better model for version control. As you can see by the latest discussions on Hacker News ( here and here ) about git rebasing, there is confusion about how branching and merging works and how history is maintained. This is not something you want to be dealing with when you are trying to work and ship code.

The subversion model is relatively simple to understand, remember simple is good. There is a master repository with a version number. You commit your code, it updates the master and increments the version number. Yes, there are branches and merges but the way most people run subversion, trunk is trunk is trunk. A branch is used for a release and then back to trunk you go.

I think the most appealing aspect of git has nothing to do with git at all but the ease of openness that Github introduced. Github is awesome, a clean interface which makes it simple to one-click fork and contribute code back to an open source project. The ease to share, clone and discuss code is great. Sourceforge and Google Code existed before but were clunky and the code was always 3-4 clicks away from seeing, and getting a copy meant checking out on your own.

However, this is probably not how you run your company code, you don’t have developers forking and making suggestions to each other, each having their own copy and different version of the code. You want a master code base that is consistent across developer and deployements.

So don’t feel bad about using subversion. Keep it simple and get back to work.

Discuss on Hacker News

For more detailed article on git’s complexities, see Steve Bennet’s article here

Python Script to Watch and Sync Directory

Marcus Kazmiercak — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 UTC

At work we have a rather complex setup which is prohibitive to running a full working environment locally, so we have sandboxes on remote servers that run our development code. However, as much as I love vim, it can be challenging at times to do development on a remote server full-time.

You are limited to just command-line tools or an extra step to upload when saving locally. There are a few solutions, some are use Sublime Text and the SFTP plug-in which auto-uploads on save, a few are using PhpStorm IDE which also has the ability to upload on save.

Both are fine tools, but I want a way to use tool and automatically upload any changes to the remote server. I always like to try out the latest and greatest, though the funny thing is the main editor I’m using is MacVim.

I discovered the FSEvents and Python bindings which is a Mac OS X system library that can monitor a directory for file change events. Here’s a brief example of how to use.

from fsevents import Observer, Stream

def event_callback(event):
    filename = event.name
    print "Filename: ", event.name

def clean_exit(signal, frame):
    global observer, stream
    observer.unschedule(stream)
    observer.stop()

observer = Observer()
observer.start()
stream = Stream(event_callback, "~/tmp/", file_events=True)
observer.schedule(stream)

# run until ctrl-c
signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, clean_exit)
signal.pause()

I created a full script that triggers an rsync command to copy my local file to the remote host on file change. This makes it a pretty nice way to use a file system event to trigger whatever you want.

Download from here: https://github.com/mkaz/fswatch

Also, anyone know why I can’t always get a clean exit with ctrl-c using signal.pause()?

Ubuntu Guide for Mac Converts

Marcus Kazmiercak — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:00:00 UTC

Here are some tips and tricks I’ve collected to help Mac users adjust to Ubuntu and Linux. I switched my work system to Ubuntu; ever since OS X was released I’ve used a Mac but my new job has little use of Office docs, so a great time to try out a full linux setup. I still use a Mac desktop at home, so not trying to replace everything, mainly apps I need for work.

Equivalent Command-line Utilities

The Mac has two great built in functions pbcopy and pbpaste which allows you to pipe content to and from the clipboard. So you can pipe the output of a command to pbcopy and it will place it in the clipboard, which you can paste elsewhere. Here’s the linux equivalent, once the aliases are setup they are used the same as the Mac.

alias pbcopy='xclip -selection clipboard'
alias pbpaste='xclip -selection clipboard -o'

The Mac command open will open a file using its default application, the linux equivalent is simply xdg-open, used the same way. The following will open the image filename.png in the default image viewer.

$ xdg-open filename.png

Screen Capture

There are numerous screen capture tools available on Ubuntu, but this is a cool trick I saw using ImageMagick’s import. Calling import with a filename will be the equivalent of Mac’s Command-Shift-4, which you can select the area you want to capture.

$ import my-screenshot.png

Since its just a simple command, it can be scripted, this example will sleep for 10 seconds and then take a screenshot of the entire desktop.

$ sleep 10; import -window root ScreenShot.png

And even a slightly more powerful script, this will take a screnshot and upload to CloudApp in one command, cloudshot.py

Shortcuts and Application Launch

The Mac has a few great apps for quick search and launching applications, Spotlight, Quicksilver and Alfred are three that I used on the Mac. The Ubuntu equivalent has the built-in Unity interface, which does a good job for most apps. I also have Gnome Do installed for those get calculations, still not quite as good as the Mac alternates.

TextExpander is another great Mac time saver, the Linux equivalent is AutoKey. AutoKey does a good job expanding text and also easy to extend, you can use the shortcuts to trigger python scripts to do even more. Install: apt-get install autokey-gtk

Applications

I had to switch from 1Password to LastPass for password management, since there is no full client for 1Password available on Linux. LastPass supports importing of a 1Password export so transitioning was easy. Note: You can access 1Password on Linux by using Dropbox and 1PasswordAnywhere but it is only read access, you can’t create passwords or auto-fill.

Here is a much larger list of Linux equivalents for OS X Apps

Cross-Platform Applications

The following are cross-platform applications that I use on both Mac and Linux.

Firefox
Sublime Text
vim
Skype
Pidgin (IM)
RescueTime

Have you switched? Leave a comment to help me and others out with any other tips or tricks you use.

Take Control of Your Content

Marcus Kazmiercak — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 00:00:00 UTC

The last few weeks I’ve been taking back control of my content from the larger sites. A have a few reasons for doing so: (1) the Instagram hubbub got me thinking about content and control; (2) I started a new job at Automattic, purveyors of fine blogging software and want to eat some dog food; and (3) I have stuff scattered about with no real rhyme or reason on where I’m publishing something and a new year brings a resolution to make sense of it all.

If I took a photo, I might publish it to one of six sites being Facebook, Instagram. Flickr, Twitter, Google+ or my personal site. Not to mention texting a photo to a friend or sending via e-mail, but those are more communication mediums than publishing.

Ownership and Control

Domain ownership is fundamental to really owning and controlling your content. If I own the domain, I can move it to wherever I want, I can configure DNS to go to a cloud hosted solution such as WordPress.com or I can point it to my own self-hosted servers. The beautiful part about this is I don’t have to tell my audience (assuming I had one) to update bookmarks or navigate to a new place when I make a change.

Imagine the scenario that I use Flickr for all my photos and then wanted to move them to Google+, getting your photos from one site to the other is one issue, but fairly technical and solutions exist. However, the bigger issue is all the people familiar with seeing my photos on Flickr will no longer see them there. There is no way to seamlessly redirect users from Flickr to Google, so you have to work much harder to publicize and link your content in a migration. This is not a technical issue easy to solve but one of people and habits.

Exporting Content

If you can’t export and use your data elsewhere, you don’t really own it. In migrating my content, the only site that made it easy was Google+, so kudos to Google for allowing me to download a zip of my photo albums, this made it easy to download and import them to use elsewhere. Instagram gets the worst grade for making content accessible, but since all of it already existed on my phone nothing was lost. Just took time to find the quality photos I uploaded with all the bad shots I didn’t. However, if I had lost my phone it would have been a pain.

Notifications and Driving Traffic

The best thing external sites and social networks provide is the built-in audiences, Facebook is fantastic for this. Almost all of my friends are connected to me on Facebook and uploading something there is almost guaranteed to get me at least one like and a few comments. This is the allure, but don’t fall for it. Use the social networks for what they are best at: networking. Instead of putting your content there, provide a link to your site, this is the web, links to other sites not walled gardens.

True, you may receive less comments and likes by doing this but giving up some control for ease of use is enticing but ends up locking you in. Users might take an extra step or two to click, view and like something but those that do are from people really interested in a comment and not a drive-by liking by old high school acquaintances.

Twitter does this best, linking and notifications, it has ended up being a great RSS alternate which for some reason RSS got stuck with just the tech-savvy. With Twitter, I can publish all my links at @mkaz and the people who want to subscribe will receive the updates. Most of my geeky non-family links get published on Twitter, and cute babies for the family links on Facebook, but I might cross post an extra cute photo or two.

Taking Back Control

Now after taking back control, the majority of my content is being published on domains that I own. I did end up with a few sites but still half as many. My personal site mkaz.com, where I publish random posts and articles that tends to be lots of development and geeky stuff. I have a family site at kazmierczaks.com which is where I post family photos that I previously might have posted on Facebook, this is good too for Grandparents who aren’t on Facebook they can still see the kiddos.

I have a photo blog at mkaz.wordpress.com which replaces what I published on Instagram and Flickr and I have my higher quality photo galleries at photos.mkaz.com which replaces Google+ and Flickr.

All these sites are running some version of WordPress be it the self-hosted as is the case for mkaz.com and photos.mkaz.com or cloud hosted by WordPress.com which is the case for kazmierczaks.com and mkaz.wordpress.com.

This isn’t just because I work for Automattic, I’ve been using WordPress for awhile; its because WordPress meets the criteria I’m looking for: it is open source, I can extend, customize and use anyway I want. I can manage my own domain and even the hosted solution gives you the complete ability to export your content and move to a self-hosted site if you wanted to.

So with the new year and resolutions upon us, I ask you to consider, do you control the content you are publishing? Is it yours or does a large corporation own, control and will do with as they please?

How I Work Part 2

Marcus Kazmiercak — Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:00:00 UTC

Background

Since my last post on how I work, I have switched jobs and getting back to my engineering roots. I am now working at Automattic as a data wrangler, which I’ll be working on data problems and monetization. Automattic is the company behind WordPress.com, home to 40+ million blogs.

Programming

Just about everything at Automattic is PHP code, from the main WordPress code base to command-line scripts, which makes it rather consistent and easy to use the same tools across the board. A simple example, I can call the same functions in a command-line script that are used on the site.

To get back more fully into PHP, I rewrote my start page side project I mentioned last time from Python/Flask to PHP/Zend. Plus now hosting it on my personal site which I also switched from hosted at Linode to RamNode, which is cheaper but I’m not sure is better.

Also, still a big fan of Go (golang) but don’t really have a project or need to use it. I think it’s a great tool for solving large system problems such as web servers, caching, services and the sort.

Laptop

The biggest choice I had to make when switching companies was which laptop to get. I’ve been using a Mac full-time ever since OS X came out in 2001, plus the new place everyone is on a Mac. However I was getting a little annoyed with the iOS-ifcation of the OS plus all of the iCloud and AppStore tie-ins. So I decided on getting a Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 and loaded Ubuntu on it.

It’s a beautiful laptop, design-wise on par with a Macbook Air, and I like the rubberized feel better than the Mac’s cold metal. Using it so far so good, all the tools I need are available, setup was relatively straight forward, no problems with any drivers or anything. Here are some notes I’ve took on converting from Mac to Ubuntu.

Tools

I’ve switched my text editor form MacVim to Sublime Text 2 . At work, our development environment is a remote sandbox which runs the site, the setup is not possible to run locally. So I use Sublime with this SFTP plugin which allows automatic uploading of files when saved. I tried Sublime in their vintage mode, which emulates vim keys, but a little too wonky.

Automattic is a distributed country with 130+ people in 26 countries around the world, so everything is done online. Most documentation and communication is done using internal blogs with a custom P2 theme, definitely eating our own dog food. Additionally we use Skype and IRC for real-time communication and surprisingly very very little e-mail, primarily just for notifications.

For managing my workflow and to-do list, I’m trying out various tools now. I’m not sure if I’ll stick with Trello since it is more workflow oriented and my current work doesn’t really jive with a set flow. Right now its just jotting down notes in text files but evaluating a few web based systems.

I switched my primary browser from Chrome to Firefox because it supports FoxyProxy which I need to use to switch proxy on/off to access our systems at work. I did discover there is a FoxyProxy extension for Chrome, but I’m using the ESR-branch of Firefox which is far more stable than Chrome or Firefox trunk builds, too many updates.

Mobile

I’m still using the Galaxy Nexus, a solid 6 months now, might be the longest lasting phone I’ve had which as you can see I switch frequently. I wish the reception was better in my house, I initially went to T-Mobile but switched to AT&T hoping it would improve but still weak reception.

Running Stats 2012

Marcus Kazmiercak — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:00:00 UTC

A year in review for my running in 2012, see last years review

This last year was not as productive running as the year before, though equally productive in the new children department, for I welcomed my second daughter which added to the challenge of getting out and running. I ended up running about a third as much, plus a 10 second slower pace.

Summary 2012

Total Miles:	144.5 miles
Total Time:	22 hrs 14min 4 secs
Avg Pace:	9:13/mi
Total Days Run:	29 days

Races 2012

Date	Race	Distance	Time	Pace
Jul 29	SF Half Marathon	13.1mi	2:07:40	09:44/mi

Year Totals

2006: ▇▇▇▇  62.55
2007: ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ 229.50
2008: ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ 245.76
2009: ▇  16.43
2010: ▇▇▇  56.22
2011: ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ 532.22
2012: ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ 144.52

Here’s a graph of the cumulative distance throughout the year, you can probably guess when my daughter was born, hint: when does it flatline?

mkaz.com

How I Work Part 3

Previous

Summary

Programming

Laptop

Tools

Mobile

HTML Food Coloring

Impressive CSS Foo - Giant Sequoia Tree Demo

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

Notes

Attributions

Don't be a git, use subversion

Python Script to Watch and Sync Directory

Ubuntu Guide for Mac Converts

Equivalent Command-line Utilities

Screen Capture

Shortcuts and Application Launch

Applications

Cross-Platform Applications

Related Links

Take Control of Your Content

Ownership and Control

Exporting Content

Notifications and Driving Traffic

Taking Back Control

Further Reading

How I Work Part 2

Background

Programming

Laptop

Tools

Mobile

Running Stats 2012

Summary 2012

Races 2012

Year Totals