Self updatable Python application package – codename: PUPPA
P.UP.P.A
is a friendly boilerplate for a python package (made by zipping the project files) able to update itself via command line.
Author Archive
Configure Mandrill as mail server and GMAIL as mailbox
Hi everybody,
What do you do when a client of yours ask for a mailbox? Some developers prefer to buy mailboxes on their domain providers (1-5$ year/mailbox), others are so experienced in postfix and unix administration that can configure a mail server in 5 minutes. I sincerely hate handling mailboxes. They are long to configure, i don’t like self-hosted web interfaces like roundCube and i hate to spend time to fine-tune the server in order to avoid black lists and spam.
So i come up with this revelation:
let’s use something like Mandrill which has a huge free tier to handle personal emails.
I expected to find tons of material to support my idea or some critical issue that destroys it completely… but actually i found a little and i was able to make it working perfectly!
New blog design!
After 3 years i finally found the time to update my blog design.
This time rather than using a pre-made template i decided to let my inner designer be free to do what he pleased… Well, the final result could have been worse.
I sticked on the previous theme for the logic and i decided to try out this “material design” way. I actual had fun. I heard “google material design is soul-less and not suited for companies” but i still think that it’s great for small website, applications and apps of course.
You can see the result yourself, the blog is now much more readable, more “interactive” and a little more sexier:
Previous version:
Actual version:
I didn’t dislike the previous design, but i always found it lacking of mobile goodies and i found that pre and code tags were kind-a-cheap and ugly.
Now we have some great and readable pre/code tags! Yeah!
Just for reference: i used a Materialize.css framework, not the your usual mainstream css framework.
Hope you enjoy the new design but i expecially hope that you will find the blog much easier and simpler to read!
Jonathan
Cordova livereload with grunt watch inside an emulator
Hello all,
Today we are trying to achieve effortless livereload while emulating a mobile device.
Requirements
- NodeJS
- Cordova
- Cordova-cli with platform added and working (android with android-sdk and/or ios with xCode)
- Grunt
cordova platform add – TypeError: Request path contains unescaped characters
Hello everybody.
This error occurs when this conditions are met:
- You have node -v greater than 0.11.x (probably 0.12.x)
- You are behind a proxy (probably your company’s)
- You are using cordova-cli (that’s my guess, but it’s the same with ionic-cli)
The solution was not that easy to find on google, most of the people just treated it as a bug waiting to be fixed, but actually you can get your ‘cordova platform add’ in few seconds with these commands:
Proftpd – user is not a UserAlias
If you get this error you are probably trying to configure a new ftp user on proftpd.
This error found on proftpd.log refers to UserAlias configuration
UserAlias [ login-user real-user]add early in your /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf a line similar to this:
UserAlias ftp-login-name real-unix-userand that’s it.
Remember to check that the user exists and it’s inside the proper ftp group, based on your proftpd configuration
React JS – Render an array of items in JSX
Hello everybody.
Quick code snippet for JSX for rendering an array of items, instead of a single one, in a ReactJS component:
var React = require('react');
var MyComponent = React.createClass({
render: function() {
var myString = ["L","o","r","e","m"," ","i","p","s","u","m"];
return (
<div> {
myString.map(function(letter) {
return <span>{letter}</span>
})
} </div>
);
}
});
module.exports = MyComponent;
voilà!
Avoid sync folders and files in dropbox or google drive as git with .gitignore
Hello everybody,
I bet everybody has his own cloud solution for syncing it’s folders from home to work, viceversa and between devices.
Before today i always relied on a Dropbox / Google Drive combo depending on the project:
- Dropbox is great with Heroku which has a sync plugin (super-sweet!!) and its client is fast and not memory wasting
- Google Drive client is super slow and takes ages to init but i tend to use a lot the whole google suite on the web and it’s really integrated well (history, revisions, etc)
BUT as any other web developer i have this big, nasty problem of not wanting to sync:
- Git repositories (.git folders)
- NPM modules (node_modules folders) or Bower components (bower_components folders)
- Other trash folders left by the various IDE (nbproject folder) or OS (Thumbs.db files)
Everybody have tried a npm install with devastating consequences for poor cloud clients and it’s a known fact that in the long run both dropbox/drive will corrupt a git repo.
WordPress unexpected ‘$theme’ (T_VARIABLE) in constants.php
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '$theme' (T_VARIABLE) in /......./wp-content/themes/optima/lib/constants.php on line 1
or perhaps
PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '$theme' (T_VARIABLE) in /..../wp-content/themes/Lightbox/lib/constants.php on line 1
what to do:
Simply re-upload the constants.php file.
why?
When you upload the theme with FTP some of your file such as constans.php are compressed and spaces removed from file. That issue comes from some host. Trey to re-upload files that have errors.
seriously.
Headless Jenkins Chrome testing on Ubuntu
VNC setup and configuration
- Install a VNC server:
sudo apt-get install vnc4server - Be sure to use
jenkinsunix user from now on:sudo su jenkins - Next, start and configure the server:
vncserver - Specify a password for VNC in the prompt (uninfluent for Jenkins).
To test if everything worked, start a VNC screen on screen 99:
vncserver :99If that goes through alright, then kill the screens created (When I ran vncserver for the first time, it created a screen at :1, so we’ll kill both of the screens created)
vncserver -kill :99
vncserver -kill :1Jenkins configuration
- Install XVNC plugin
- Activate it (/configure)
- Enable it for every job routine you like
Voilà!
