Greg Aker

Wanna be Cocoa Programmer

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading a book on Cocoa Programming.  I really feel how I did a year and a half ago when I was starting with PHP.  Google, find code and tweak suit to my needs.  However, I was able to sit down last weekend and write a really simple app.

I really don’t like “Hello World” applications in any language, and I want to do something useful that I get results from.  I know that we can use all of these with Terminal, as we should, and that they are buried somewhere in OS X Utilities, but I decided to write this app anyway.

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ExpressionEngine and Nginx

Getting your ExpressionEngine site up and running on Nginx is really pretty simple.  I have been interested in Nginx for some time given its low memory footprint and ability to serve static files very quickly.  In the past year, I have become kind obsessed in properly optimizing websites like Y-Slow or Google Page Speed says I should, so I see this as a natural extension.

The big caveat for me is I do not like FastCGI at all.  Not looking for a debate, it’s just my opinion.  Being the ruler of this domain, I’m entitled to it.    So I’m focusing on running Nginx to serve static files & proxy PHP requests over to Apache.  Nice thing about this is that we can tear out some apache modules that aren’t needed, and make it pretty lean.  I suppose the other caveat is that, I like to play.  If gregaker.net got more than 3 hits a day or was mission critical, it would be on load-balanced hosted at EngineHosting, as you don’t get better than EngineHosting.  Period.  (disclaimer, I work for EngineHosting as well, but hey, only the best, right?)

So onto it!

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New look

In updating my site to the ExpressionEngine Public Beta, I decided it was high time I update the site.  I haven’t had any Monsters invade this site yet, so the theme I found built for WordPress will do just fine.

I’m playing with some HTML5 and CSS3 things like TypeKit.  So if you are not using a decent modern browser, this site isn’t going to look good to you.  That’s fine.  Please use Webkit or Firefox.

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Hosting your own Git Repositories

While some of the Git-based services out there are very cool, especially the social aspects of them.  However, if you are working on your own projects by yourself or with a very small team and need “private” repositories, why spend the money on one of these services?  With hosting being what it is today, it’s extremely affordable to have root-access to your own Server and not be with a host that completely sucks.  Or, you can turn that old windows machine that is collecting dust in the corner into your own Git Server running CentOS or Ubuntu.

Assuming you know some command line, and a bit about Linux (focusing on CentOS here), you can be up and running with a Git Server & Redmine in no time!

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TI Album Cover

So I do like T.I., however, according to MTV he says:

“We didn’t want to just do a typical cover, especially for my sixth album,” T.I. told us via e-mail. “I wanted to try something a little more different. The illustration for Paper Trail pays an obvious homage to my rekindled affinity for writing my lyrics down as well as displays my commitment to keep my art slanted towards the abstract.”

Have we seen this before?  Check it out below the fold.

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Making Vim Suck Less on Mac OSX

I have been a 1/2 time Ubuntu, 1/2 time OS X user for about a year.  While I generally liked Ubuntu, it was a drag not to be able to use my favorite programs such as TextMate and Adobe CS3.  So, I’ve made the jump to being a full-time Mac fan-boy. 

I’m still irritated that I can’t scroll my mouse up and down in the document, however I find that dumping the Mac Terminal for iTerm is a good start.

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