A Portable Hack for Parallella

Beaglebone Black, Raspberry Pi, and Parallella are three small, powerful Linux-based computers. But in order to make these devices truly portable, we need a way to carry a monitor and keyboard along. This article describes one hack that works.

Inspiration in a Suitcase

The HP 5036 Microprocessor Lab gave me my first exposure to assembler language. I was eighteen, working my first software internship, and loving every minute of it. When I devised ways to complete my regular work faster than management expected, I had some time on my hands. So I spent time learning assembler with the HP 5036.

Building an OS X App With RubyMotion

RubyMotion’s OS X support enabled me to solve a small problem yesterday. Here’s the story.

Background on Backup

No matter how much money we spend on computers, the data we create is worth more. The best data protection employs several levels of redundancy.

My backup system starts with Apple’s Time Machine, which handles first level backups painlessly in the background. Time machine is even more effective when multiple disks are used. I like to combine that with online solutions. Redundancy is a good thing.

USB-attached drives work great with Time Machine. I found that Time Machine was inconsistent over WiFi, and when it failed, troubleshooting took too much time. That was a few years ago and things have probably improved since then. I’ve never had to troubleshoot a USB-attached Time Machine drive. USB just works. Except when it doesn’t. And that’s where RubyMotion proved helpful.

:TOhtml - Using Vim Code Snippets in Keynote Presentations

When giving a presentation to a group of developers, you might want to add blocks of code to your slides. It’s helpful to maintain the syntax highlighting while you copy the code. :TOhtml offers a quick way to copy code snippets from Vim to Keynote, while syntax highlighting remains intact.

Youth Program Recap

Planet Earth is facing a shortage of people who make things. People like scientists, software developers, architects, and engineers. People who use their brains and hands to make greatness happen.

To increase the world’s supply of problem solvers, the organizers of WindyCityRails partnered with a group of energetic college students, the founders of Monkey Bars. The result: Together, we launched the first WindyCityRails Youth Program featuring the Arduino microcontroller.

You Can Build Things

From a video interview with Steve Jobs:

When you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life. Have fun. Save a little money.

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact.