My name is Carl, I push bits.

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Tue, 29 May 2012 17:01:59 -0400

Compete Against Our Developers! « coding@scribd

Sun, 27 May 2012 14:01:00 -0400

Compete Against Our Developers! « coding@scribd:

Our developers have created some bots and we challenge you to create a bot to beat them. Bots are written in Javascript.

You had me at “Javascript”

Walk 'n Work

Mon, 21 May 2012 22:25:31 -0400

Being able to work remote is a huge plus in a number of ways, but the most recent perk I’ve found is turning my treadmill into a desk, and walk while I work. It has made burning calories a brainless affair.

In an average day, I have a goal of walking at least 7 miles, which I split up into a few hour-long walks while I work. I tend to stick below 3mph while doing focused work, or else I begin to bob too much, and it gets distracting. 2.5-2.7 mph is my sweet-spot.

Up until a few days ago, I was walking for 5 miles during the workday, then running the last 2 miles after 5 o’clock, but I’m suffering a bit from shin splints so I’m backing off the running for now, and upping my walking. I’m trying to do a few shin splint exercises while I’m in recovery, but I really don’t feel like it’s targeting the problem very well.

Today, I’ve done three sets of one-hour walks, and have tallied up 9.03 miles total for the day, and about 20,000 steps according to Fitbit.

Just thought I’d share my journey through this, and let Tumblr be my statement of record on the matter.

Down 7lbs since I got #FitBit 2wks ago. Down 15lbs since I got a treadmill 8wks ago. Down 18lbs...

Thu, 17 May 2012 12:05:36 -0400

Down 7lbs since I got #FitBit 2wks ago. Down 15lbs since I got a treadmill 8wks ago. Down 18lbs since January 1st; 19wks ago.

it8bit: Wallpaper Wednesday Minecraft Created by Michael Flarup

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:38:22 -0400

it8bit:

Wallpaper Wednesday

Minecraft

Created by Michael Flarup

How to make a treadmill desk for $12 (or $800)

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:34:06 -0400

TL;DR; Buy a 48”x12” board from a home improvement store for $12, lay it across your treadmill’s arms. Use an Xbox360 box to prop up your laptop to the proper height. If you don’t have a treadmill, buy one. Simple.

Materials

48”x12” board ~$12
Xbox360 box (or any box-type thing with dimensions around 13.5” x 12.5” x 8.5”)
Treadmill with arms ~$600-$800
Holmes Clip-fan: $15

Instructions

Lay board across treadmill arms
Put laptop-propping box on board
Put laptop on box
Clip fan somewhere to treadmill
Start walking
Stop being chubby

Pics

The importance of connecting with your customers

Wed, 09 May 2012 16:38:00 -0400

Setup

While doing a complete rewrite of our flagship app’s backend system, I decided to add a few useful features for our users when they encounter an error. Of course we do not like to see these unhandled errors happen, but they can and do happen from time to time, and it is extremely frustrating to have your work interrupted and stopped because of a bug.

So I began to do a few things about it to make sure our users can be heard and this bug-log doesn’t go unnoticed: I give users the option of emailing the support staff directly from the error page, and pre-fill information for them about the nature of the bug/error. They can fill in additional details if they want, but otherwise, I link the email to our backend logging system (log4net based) so we can try and pinpoint the actions took to get the error.

Technical mumbo-jumbo

Let’s backtrack a bit—for each request made to our page, a unique RequestID is created, and “follows” each user through each request. Sometimes the request is as simple as viewing an edit page, so we may do something like the following:

User makes HTTP GET request for /User/Edit/1234
We create a RequestID, and store it in the ApplicationController to be used and passed around
We make a DB call to fetch that user 1234, and pass the RequestID to the DB call and log it
If any error happens long the way, we can play-back the actions took by this user by looking up actions by the RequestID, which is included in the Error Email sent to the support staff.

So, a user hits an error page (ugh!) and sends an email along to us. It hits my inbox with the details needed to see who saw the bug, what account they used to log in, what page they were on, what page they came from (HTTP referrer if possible), and any exception details and stack traces.

The hunt begins

Now I’ve got all I need to go and check out what went wrong. Hopefully things were written clearly enough to follow the code to its logical conclusion, write a test, fix the bug, push the bug-fix to our CI server, and poof, the bug is fixed in production.

Time to follow up with the user

Now it’s time to let the user know that they are free to try and perform those same actions again, but this time, it should work. I write these emails myself; no form-emails. Sometimes I make spelling mistakes (and I hate that) but I like to give the user a personal apology, not a “sorry if this caused any inconvenience” but a “so sorry we screwed up”. I give them some details behind what caused the bug, and thank them for helping us make the product better.

So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. Each customer tells us how much they love the error reporting page, and love that we reply to them directly about the fix.

This all came out of a need to log and track bugs, and I turned it into a way to connect with our clients and give better customer support. It has gone over well. I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

TL;DR;

Always log errors somewhere
Create a UI to view your error log
Don’t NOT check your error log
Be sure to let the customer know that this error has been seen by someone
Be sure to fix the bug promptly
Be sure to respond to the user directly, give a sincere apology, and thank them for their help

Incredibox keeping me company for a bit while I code.

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:58:26 -0400

Incredibox keeping me company for a bit while I code.

Photo

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 11:04:07 -0400

TIL for 2012.4.11

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 18:09:00 -0400

SQL Server can, and will stop writing to a transaction log for various reasons, and will take your entire site down with it if it decides to do so.
SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) has a handy “Generate Scripts” wizard to output entire db schema. Don’t know why I never saw it before.
A good handful of tests I wrote a few months ago are barf-worthy. Seriously, lolwtf?
Meteor seems like a great idea, and right up my alley. Could be in my future.
Delver is a game I’m going to be watching for. (Thank’s @notch for directing me there)

"When you believe in a religion that preaches love, compassion, helping your neighbor, not passing..."

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:21:17 -0400

“When you believe in a religion that preaches love, compassion, helping your neighbor, not passing judgement on others, etc, why the hell do you think you have the right to spit in the face of those tenets? What gives you the right to call yourself anything but a hypocrite that actually hates others, has no empathy for the down-trodden, has no plans to give to others, and judges everyone who is not like you? You are scum. Spend time in your “enemies” shoes and you will realize what a monster you yourself have become. And for the love of everything, stop claiming you are something you are not.”

- Me

Made with Paper

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 18:20:35 -0400

Made with Paper

Setting up log4net in ASP.NET MVC3 with additional parameters

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:03:23 -0500

I’ve recently gotten into using log4net to do some logging—I’m a little unconventional.

I got my web.config all XML-ified, and got the table created in SQL Server, and I was ready to start logging. Things were going well. At each log of an info, warn or error message, I’d see a nice new row in the table that had some nice info about the log:

Things were going pretty well and I thought I needed some more information logged, so I started being hacky and threw together some String.Format() calls to dump some strings into the Message column with additional data:

Things went well once more, but I started to realize that the data I was collecting in those String.Format() calls was actually really useful, and I started to get angry after I copy/pasted the above code a few times just to modify it for another action down the line:

I’d about had enough, and began to dig through the docs and DuckDuckGo to figure out how difficult it is to add some more columns to each log row. Turns out, not that bad after a little elbow-grease, and debug sessions.

Web.Config Changes

First, I figured I had to add some additional XML elements to my AdoNetAppender element, right alongside the default parameters:

I added four new parameters that I wanted to be four new columns on each table row insert; RequestID, Email, CustomerName, and URL. The idea is that the RequestID will be generated in ApplicationController.Initialize(), and then be passed along through the app so that each subsequent call to the Logger class will use that RequestID until a new controller action was made. Super-cool! I can track the initial HTTP GET request, the DB query, any DB manipulations plus any errors or warnings, and they will all have a shared RequestID for that request. Easy to reproduce the users’ steps in case a nasty bug shows its head.

You should also note how weirdly log4net handle’s GUIDs. I had to use a different layout type.

C# Changes

In order to get the data to log4net, I need to make sure it’s aware of it. Like I mentioned above, I needed to set those four new fields on ApplicationController.Initiazlize(), like so:

Now, on each request, I’m telling log4net what those property values should be, so what when it inserts into the db, it can take these values along with it. Brilliant!

SQL Server Table Changes

Obviously I had to add a few more rows to my Log table:

RequestId uniqueidentifier not null
Email varchar(255) null
CustomerName varchar(500) null
Url varchar(2048) null

Conclusion

That about does it. Now my logs have a proper amount of info that I can dice up and view when something goes awry, or I need some simple analytics. I’m out!

Kickstarter - FTL: Faster Than Light

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:39:45 -0500

Kickstarter - FTL: Faster Than Light:

I’m now a backer.

Starting up Insanity again

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:01:08 -0500

So about a week ago I decided to “get serious” again about Insanity. I’d been starting and stopping on and off since last July. I just couldn’t keep hooked for longer than two weeks. I just lost motivation and interest in the workouts. I know they’re not supposed to be fun, per say, but I seemed to enjoy P90x a bit more when I did that back in 2010.

I did (P90x)[http://www.beachbody.com/product/fitness_programs/advanced/p90x.do] all the way through 90 days. I did the “classic” workouts for 60 days, then switched to “doubles” for the last 30 days, which means I was committing to about 2hrs of exercise a day—one in the morning before work, and then one immediately following work. I had pretty great results and was going to do another 90 days with it, but put it off, and got lazy.

So why not pick up P90x again? A few lame reasons: * Moved to another house where all the doorways in the basement are not eligible for the pullup bar I’d purchased (greater than 36” wide, and no room on one side) * The ceiling height in the basement is lower than 7ft, so buying an upright pullup bar is not an option (as far as I can tell from browsing Amazon, and a local Dick’s Sporting Goods) * I tried the resistance bands, but they did not cut it. When I moved from them to the pullup bar in 2010, my results were much greater. So those are just out. * After about 60 days with P90x, I was needing heavier free weights to get more resistance, and wanted to grab some bigger ones, but the cost was getting silly. So I just did more reps.

So with these equipment issues, I decided to look for another exercise program along the lines of P90x, but with fewer equipment requirements. What I really needed was engaging cardio with a mix of strength-training, and Insanity seemed to fit the bill.

And then it collected dust for a while. That brings me to this post. I want to try and “keep honest” about this process, and really stick with it. The diet laid out in the manual, while important/crucial, is not really of interest to me right now. I followed P90x’s recommendations pretty closely, but was rarely “to the letter”, and the results were exciting, so I’m hoping a similar approach will help me meet my goals with Insanity. But maybe that’s just an exercise in futility. I’m willing to fail on that and learn.

Anyway, on a really good start now that I’m back into it, and hope this bit of momentum will carry me through the first 30 days. And while my weight is going down, it’s still fluctuating a bit during this first week, as expected. I didn’t see truly measurable/sustained results with P90x until after my first 30 days, and then extreme changes in my 60-90 days. Here’s hoping for similar results.

Moment.js - Super sexy, all-things date/time, js lib

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:10:07 -0500

Moment.js - Super sexy, all-things date/time, js lib:

Yeah, I looked at the examples and thought, “Self, you should use all the things!” Yes, yes I should. Looks very handy if you have to do lots of date/time manip on your client side.

Stop Paying your jQuery Tax

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:50:42 -0500

Stop Paying your jQuery Tax:

Basically: defer loading jQuery to your footer, and create a small handler for $() calls to queue up those jQuery “ready” calls until jQuery is loaded.

Yay, more to do lists!

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:41:57 -0500

Yay, more to do lists!:

Clear was released yesterday/today, and I’ve been waiting for this app for about two weeks, back when I first heard it was coming.

I’m already in love with TeuxDeux, so I’m not really searching for something better. My workflow is pretty awesome with TD, so trying out another list manager is kind of a moot point, but Clear’s interface is so damn pretty. I think I’ll try it for the remainder of the week to see how it goes, but I’m skeptical that I’ll leave TD.

Update: Tumblr jQuery JSONP issues

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:04:00 -0500

(Previous post: Tumblr jQuery JSONP issues)

Turns out I forgot one, crucial piece to the puzzle.

- jQuery, by default, appends “callback={some random callback method name}” to jsonp call urls

- Tumblr expects it to be “jsonp={some random callback method name}”

Changing my $.ajax() method to do that was a breeze and now my simple code is working. Ugh.

Tumblr jQuery JSONP issues

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:30:00 -0500

Trying to pull down my blog info via jQuery’s $.ajax() method. I have a tumblr API key, and verified it’s working via curl. Trying to use jQuery to pull down the JSON data via JSONP calls is not working out so well.

The response is returned in JSON, but fails in Firefox and Chrome.

Firefox: https://skitch.com/cfurrow/8bspq/tumblr-templator

Chrome: https://skitch.com/cfurrow/8bspn/tumblr-templator

Here’s the JSON for the /info call: https://skitch.com/cfurrow/8bspg/tumblr-templator-2

Oh, and P.S.: JSLint sees the output JSON as “good”. No errors.