JRR

Review: Kinesis Freestyle Edge Keyboard

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 11:00:00 -0500

I’ve been a happy user of wasd mechanical keyboards at home and work for years, but lately I’ve grown interested in improved ergonomics. Some of my colleagues use various generations of Microsoft ergo boards, but I wanted the flexibility of a split board and didn’t want to give up mechanical switches.

When I learned of Kinesis' new split mechanical keyboard (shortly after its successful Kickstarter), I knew I had to try it.

Table Relationship Diagrams with Graphviz

Wed, 15 Nov 2017 11:00:00 -0500

I recently found myself looking for a modern tool to diagram relationships between tables of data. When I came up short, I used a very old tool instead.

DIY Dynamic DNS with OpenWRT and Google Domains

Fri, 21 Jul 2017 11:00:00 -0500

Dynamic DNS (DDNS) can give your home’s changing IP a reliable hostname. I recently redid mine with some new tools. Here’s how it went!

That’s Not Your Email Address

Wed, 05 Apr 2017 11:00:00 -0500

I don’t think I have a particularly common name, but I’ve received email intended for at least four other John Rubles. This creates awkward and amusing situations. Here are some of my stories and some lessons we can take from them for implementing email-based account systems.

about

Tue, 31 Jan 2017 22:53:32 -0500

My name is John Ruble. I’m a software developer based in Grand Rapids, MI, currently working at Atomic Object. “JRR” is just my initials, and that little green guy is from a video game. This site was built with Hugo and Fuegowolf’s cocoa-eh theme.

Open Source Basics: NPM Edition

Thu, 22 Sep 2016 11:00:00 -0500

As software developers, we’ve long used third-party code in our day-to-day work, but these days, it’s much easier to find and integrate it with package managers and searchable repositories.

Inevitably, there comes a time when our unique use of a library exposes a new bug, or we find that we could almost use that sweet tool if only it did this one tiny thing differently. When that happens, we find ourselves popping open the hood and making changes to a third-party dependency.

Programming Exercises to Stretch your Noodle

Sun, 24 May 2015 11:00:00 -0500

Now and then I work on small programming puzzles. I do this mostly because I enjoy it, but it’s also a great way to try out new languages, tools, and techniques, or to to maintain familiarity with those you haven’t used in a while.

Below are three of my favorite sources of programming exercises.

Android 4.4 Browser Picker

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 13:36:34 -0500

The “Browser Picker” dialog I discussed last year has been reworked in Android 4.4, and I like the new design. The implementation in versions 4.1 - 4.3 was a speed bump for users who didn’t wish to select a default app - they had to tap twice: Here’s the new dialog: The appearance and behavior are similar the first time you use it. As in prior versions, either tap the browser followed by ‘Just Once’ or double-tap the browser:

Ghost (and Node.js) on Dreamhost VPS

Sun, 20 Oct 2013 13:06:40 -0500

After occasionally playing with Wordpress for a personal blog over the last few years, I decided to try something new: Ghost, which aims to be “just a blogging platform”. Following are my experiences configuring it on a Dreamhost virtual private server. I mostly followed Ryan Powell’s guide, with one key difference: I’m not running node as root, because that gives me the willies. Establish two shell accounts: an administrator and a user.

One of my Favorite "Workarounds"

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:13:32 -0500

The back story Today’s AMD Catalyst Linux beta driver removes the long-standing “Testing use only” watermark: Congratulations to the voice of reason! Last year I needed to use the beta driver for a while until a bug was fixed in the next release. It’s obnoxious to have translucent watermarks on top of everything you’re doing, so I asked AMD support how to disable it. They recommended a small script from a third-party site as a workaround.

Android NDK, GDB, and Bus Errors

Thu, 26 Sep 2013 13:00:39 -0500

So there I was, trying out some existing C/++ code on Android for the first time, when: The first step, as always, is logcat. If you’re filtering the output to messages originating from your application, you’ll see something like this: SIGBUS – this is a bus error. I caused a few of these as I learned C/++ on SPARC machines at Purdue. Disable the log filter and you get a good deal more information, including processor state and a stack trace:

Google Alerts Publication dies with Reader

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 13:38:03 -0500

Today Google Reader is no more, but I’m happy for now with Feedly (which syncs with my favorite android reader); I’m also watching Hive Reader and The Old Reader. Also ending today, unannounced, is RSS publication of Google Alerts. I discovered it this morning like this: The alerts dashboard informs me that “Google Reader is no longer available. To continue receiving Google Alerts, change to email delivery.”: They’re implying that Alert publication depends on Google Reader.

Android 4.1 Browser Picker

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 13:34:23 -0500

Here’s what I’m calling the “browser picker” dialog from Android 4.0 and 4.1: This new interface is better and worse. There are two requirements I have of this dialog: Requirement 1 – All user action paths shall flow downward. This felt really weird before, and now it feels better. Great! Requirement 2 – Selecting a browser “just once” shall require only one tap. This worked well in 4.0 (and prior versions) but became inconvenient in 4.