Archived Posts from 2006

December

1. Frohe Weihnachten!
   December 24, 2006
2. Building SSHKeychain as an Intel Binary
   December 20, 2006

   I've seen a few Universal Binary builds of SSHKeychain floating around, but I'm paranoid, so I built my own. It’s easier than I expected.

3. Building Subversion 1.4.3 for OS X
   December 19, 2006

   Metissian’s pre-build Subversion binaries are out of date, and Dan Benjamin’s excellent guide to building Subversion yourself runs into a wall for 1.4+. You, however, are an impatient pioneer. You want to build the latest stable (impatient, not _imprude

October

1. Starting out with the SVK Version Control System
   October 22, 2006

   SVK is a version control system that sits on top of a Subsverion, CVS, Perforce, etc. repository, and provides the promise of a common interface. Here’s how to install it on OS X.

2. Comments With Specificity
   October 09, 2006

   Jack Slocum’s new comment system is really inspirational.

3. Apartments in Munich
   October 04, 2006

   Help me find an apartment, please?

4. Backing Up E-Mail
   October 01, 2006

   Rui Carmo wrote a great python script to backup e-mail from an IMAP server.

September

1. Anatomy of a Technical Interview: Part I
   September 29, 2006
2. Serverless SVN Repositories
   September 28, 2006

   You don’t need a powerful SVN server in order to reap the benifits of version control. This article explains how to set up repositories on any machine you have SSH access into.

3. Traffic Analysis with Mint
   September 26, 2006

   I use Mint to analyze the traffic on this website. It’s a powerful tool, made more powerful with some excellent plugins.

4. You heard me: `leave`!
   September 23, 2006

   leave is a brilliant little utility that annoys you at a pre-specified time until you log out.

5. Scope in JavaScript
   September 12, 2006

   My latest article for Digital Web, ‘Scope In JavaScript’, is up and waiting for you to read it.

6. Answers to Common Technical Interview Questions
   September 04, 2006

   The interview articles I found yesterday had more than a few common “phone screen” questions that I decided to make sure I could answer: here’s what I came up with.

7. Articles about Interviewing
   September 04, 2006

   A short list of articles worth reading for interviewers or interviewees.

August

1. Quick Optimization
   August 31, 2006

   DOM calls are expensive; this article walks through one quick way to optimize them out of your code.

2. French Translation of 'I Wonder What This Button Does'
   August 01, 2006

   John Garner has translated the revision control article I wrote for A List Apart into French! Exciting!

July

1. I wish I was at OSCON: 'Subversion Best Practices'
   July 28, 2006

   Brad Choate has a great summary of what looks like a wonderful presentation on Subversion best practices, given at OSCON 2006 by Ben Collins-Sussman & Brian W. Fitzpatrick

2. I Wonder What This Button Does
   July 25, 2006

   I've got an article up on A List Apart, introducing my favourite behind-the-scenes development tool: Subversion.

3. I wonder how to say 'ugh' in German?
   July 19, 2006

   I hate being sick.

4. Building Accessible Widgets for the Web
   July 11, 2006

   I've got an article up on Digital Web, outlining the processes I use to build accessible UI controls for web applications.

5. “Forbidden” Errors and Subversion Commits
   July 06, 2006

   A wayward mod_rewrite rule broke my Subversion commits with 403 (“Forbidden”) errors. Here’s how I fixed it.

6. Digital Web and Me
   July 02, 2006

   I've joined Digital Web Magazine’s editorial team. Yay!

June

1. Pimp My JavaScript — Duff’s Edition
   June 21, 2006

   Your code can be faster! Here are a few tips to help you speed up the toughest pieces of your JavaScript.

2. Install SQLite Locally on OS X
   June 18, 2006

   SQLite is a nice little database engine that can be incredibly fast as a website backend. Installing it on OS X is equally quick.

3. `mcw_ma_gnolia` version 0.4 is out
   June 17, 2006

   A new version of mcw_ma_gnolia fixes an issue with parsing Ma.gnolia’s new linkroll format.

4. TextMate bundle for TextPattern
   June 16, 2006

   A quick note about a TextMate language bundle for Textpattern that integrates with mcw_templates.

5. Virtual Hosting on OS X
   June 16, 2006

   Setting up virtual domains on your local OS X Apache installation is pretty easy. Here’s a quick description of the process.

6. Subversion Post-Commit Hooks 101
   June 12, 2006

   The “Hello World!” of Subversion post-commit hooks is the use of SVNnotify to send e-mails out to a project team every time a new revision is committed to the repository. This is easier than it sounds.

7. Working with Subversion File Properties
   June 05, 2006

   Subversion has a very powerful system for associating metadata with the files you have under version control. This article describes how to automate the process of adding properties to the files you put under version control using auto-props.

May

1. Leveraging `mod_rewrite`
   May 14, 2006

   I have three kinds of mod_rewrite rules in my .htaccess file, this article explains each, and lays out best practices for managing your site’s URL scheme.

April

1. mcw_ma_gnolia
   April 26, 2006

   mcw_ma_gnolia is a TextPattern plugin that generates a customizable Ma.gnolia link roll for use on your website.

2. Preparing a Mac for Resale
   April 23, 2006

   Describes the easy process of setting up a mac for resale (patches, etc) while keeping the Setup Assistant experience for the new owner.

3. mcw_templates - v.0.2
   April 10, 2006

   mcw_templates is a TextPattern admin plugin, enabling the trivial export of pages, forms, and CSS rules to a specified folder for convenient editing, and the subsequent import of new and updated files.

4. mcw_templates - Import/Export Textpattern Templates
   April 09, 2006

   mcw_templates is a TextPattern plugin allowing the export/import of pages, forms, and css rules to files for external editing.

5. New Server, New Design
   April 05, 2006

   I've redesigned, and moved the site to a new server. Exciting, eh?

March

1. DataRequestor 1.6.1 - Ajax without the confusing API
   March 31, 2006

   DataRequestor is a JavaScript wrapper for the XMLHttpRequest object that enables the trivial implementation of dynamic interfaces without the painful necessity for a complete page-refresh to talk to the server. It’s Ajax without the confusing API.

February

1. Son of PerfectTime: The Validationator!
   February 14, 2006

   The PerfectTime JavaScript class gets updated to support the hCalendar format.

2. Showing Perfect Time (Unobtrusively)
   February 12, 2006

   We can use JavaScript to deal with the nasty annoyance of displaying times in a user’s local time-zone.