Riding the Clutch

Finished the dresser

Sat, 16 Oct 2010 11:15:39 -0700

Finished the dresser for the baby’s room!

More photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cannikin/5087094052/in/set-72157624653668266/

And video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNvZ1fq8Dtk&hd=1

Upload filesize limit and nginx

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:29:00 -0700

If you’re trying to upload a file to a server running nginx and you’re getting some weird errors, check this. By default nginx only lets you have file uploads that are a max of two megs before it gives up. It will return something like “413: Entity too large.” When that happens head over to your nginx.conf file (or whichever config file contains your server directive) and add the following:

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name mycomain.com;
  root /var/www/myapp/public;

  client_max_body_size 10M;
  ...

That directive would now tell nginx to allow a ten megabyte upload. Modify to your liking!

Using Rails 3 route helpers outside of a controller/view

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:49:28 -0700

I’m working on a job for delayed_job which sends an email including a link back to the site. I wanted to use Rails’s built-in URL helpers like new_post_path and edit_blog_url. After a little poking around I found this method call which gives you access to all the helpers from anywhere:

  Rails.application.routes.url_helpers

Append your helper call to that method chain to get the final string:

  Rails.application.routes.url_helpers.new_post_path 
  => '/posts/new'

  Rails.application.routes.url_helpers.edit_person_url(@person, :host => 'server.com') 
  => 'http://server.com/people/3/edit'

If you use the _url version of the helper you’ll need to provide the host at the same time you include any other parameters that helper might need.

Three drawers down, three to go.

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:07:25 -0700

Three drawers down, three to go.

Whole bunch of dovetails.

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 15:05:17 -0700

Whole bunch of dovetails.

Cranked out a drawer today.

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:02:02 -0700

Cranked out a drawer today.

My new pride and joy! Lie-Nielsen 8pt panel saw. Getting broken...

Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:05:38 -0700

My new pride and joy! Lie-Nielsen 8pt panel saw. Getting broken in this weekend building the dresser.

"It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact."

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 22:42:19 -0700

“It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.”

- Edmund Burke

The Camera+ secret cypher and hidden feature

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:22:55 -0700

(If all you care about is what the link is and does, skip to the end. The rest of the this post is how I went about figuring out the cypher.)

Earlier today, @taptaptap (the company that created the Camera+ iPhone app) tweeted the following:

For those of you who like puzzles (and doors besides the front)… pnzcyhf://ranoyribyhzrfanc {this tweet will self-destruct in 30 minutes}

Of course that URL makes no sense. Or does it? I figured they would have to make this cypher somewhat easy if the expected any lay person to be able to figure it out. It probably wouldn’t translate into a standard “http” link because there were 7 characters before the :// Also, there were no decimals after the //, so I figured it wasn’t a standard website.

The iPhone (and Safari in general) support special URLs besides the standard ones like HTTP and FTP. On the iPhone you can have your app register for certain URLs — when you open that link in Safari it will go ahead launch your app. There are seven letters before the :. “Camplus” also contains seven letters. We’re off to a good start!

The simplest cyphers there are involve simply moving the alphabet a few letters (officially called “monoalphabetic substitution ciphers”). For example, to encrypt “rob” using a single letter alphabet “move”, you look ahead one letter: ”r” becomes “s,” “o” becomes “p” and “b” becomes “c”: spc.

“c” and “a” are two letters apart and so are “p” and “n.” After a quick calculation I found that both of these are thirteen letters away from “c” and “a.” I found a website lets you quickly encrypt and decrypt these kinds of cyphers Once I plugged in the full alphabet rotated by 13 characters, voilà:

camplus://enablevolumesnap

Clicking that in your iPhone (assuming you have Camera+ installed) will open Camera+ and let you use the volume buttons to take photos! An official version of the app containing this feature was just rejected by Apple. Ironically, the taptaptap guys make a point of saying that several developers who have tried to sneak in features like this have been outright banned from developing apps ever again! I guess they’re going to take their chances. :)

Dresser halves are together along with a top!

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 19:23:02 -0700

Dresser halves are together along with a top!

The greatest tool chest ever made.

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:07:12 -0700

The greatest tool chest ever made.

Build an app in under 10k

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:21:16 -0700

Build an app in under 10k:

My entry for the 10k Apart competition is up! Build a web app in 10,240 bytes of code or less. It’s harder than it sounds!

Thoughts on woodworking

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:40:32 -0700

Thoughts on woodworking:

This guy wrote a postcard to Lindsay Lohan every day she was in prison. Here was an interesting one with his thoughts on woodworking…

Rails for the dresser mortised into the legs.

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 19:14:13 -0700

Rails for the dresser mortised into the legs.

After a marathon of jointing and planing, parts for 8 dust...

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 07:23:00 -0700

After a marathon of jointing and planing, parts for 8 dust panels are ready to go.

12” board sawn by hand and eye - not bad!

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:01:00 -0700

12” board sawn by hand and eye - not bad!

What happens when I work at home.

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 19:43:50 -0700

What happens when I work at home.

Bandsaw has arrived!

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:20:31 -0700

Bandsaw has arrived!

"The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an..."

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:49:27 -0700

“The known is finite, the unknown is infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land.”

- T.H. Huxley

Random photo of me at work

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:26:25 -0700

Random photo of me at work