Visitor Stats 2009

Published on 2010-02-01 in General. Closed Tags: .

Although I don’t think anyone really goes to this site, the stats sure look interesting.

Browsers

  1. Firefox (40.86%)
  2. Safari (20.84%)
  3. Internet Explorer (18.00%)
Operating Systems
  1. Windows (51.31%)
  2. Macintosh (26.61%)
  3. iPhone (13.17%)
Continue reading ‘Visitor Stats 2009′

The iPad

Published on 2010-01-28 in Apple and Gadgets. Closed Tags: .

Apple just announced its tablet device, the iPad.

I want one.

Moving things around

Published on 2010-01-25 in General. Closed Tags: , , , .

I’ve finally moved my main blog from scruf.us to blog.scrufus.com. Previous entries from scrufus.net have also been imported into this one. After a month or two, I’ll probably drop the redirects from scruf.us to blog.scrufus.com so I can start using scruf.us for my little web ideas and experiments.

I’ve also gotten myself a Linode box to play around with since I’ve decided to wean away from using just PHP. Right now, I’ve set up nginx as the main web server since it seems to be the best one to use for my purposes. The setup should let me easily play interchangeably with PHP, Python (Django) and Ruby (Rails).

I’m hoping to document here the things I learn from all the playing around since I intend to have this blog focus more on my thoughts about software, development and technology. Personal and non-techie posts for the most part would go to my tumblog if you’re into that sort of thing. Finally, follow me on Twitter if you like.

Hello scrufus.com

Published on 2010-01-17 in General. Closed

Finally, got to register scrufus.com after waiting year after year (since 2004) for the previous owner not to renew it since it was never really used. However, I’m still undecided on what to do with it. I might move this blog to blog.scrufus.com and just use this domain (scruf.us) for a personal url shortening service or to host other web apps. We’ll see.

Quicksilver to LaunchBar

Published on 2009-11-24 in Software. Closed Tags: , .

After upgrading to Snow Leopard, I’ve decided to look for an alternative for Quicksilver since it really started being flaky and unstable (even with the latest builds). Upon reading articles on The Setup, I’ve found that people either use Quicksilver or LaunchBar as application launchers. And so I decided to try LaunchBar for at least a week to see if it would fit my workflow.

First thing I liked is how responsive LaunchBar is and that it doesn’t consume too much screen real estate. Another plus is the drag and drop functionality which saves me time when I want to open files in a specific application or move them to another folder. It’s also a joy how accessible and discoverable all the other actions are (which were probably present in Quicksilver but I never got to use). Customizing searching and indexing seems to be a bit more straightforward. Also, I’m starting to warm up having access to recent clipboard history which really helps a lot when moving code around. LaunchBar has pretty much been helping me make certain things I do very often a lot faster (like send files to BetterZip for zipping with a password, move files to the Dropbox Public folder, find files in a specific folder). So after about three weeks, I decided to fork the € 24.00 (well € 19.20 since I got a 20% discount code) and I’m really happy about the purchase.

JungleDisk goes 3.0

Published on 2009-11-19 in Software. Closed Tags: .

JungleDisk comes out with a new pricing structure and updates their software to 3.0. Everything now looks very Rackspace, which recently became their parent company.

Following are some notable parts of the release:

  • JungleDisk drives can now act as a native disk as opposed to WebDAV
  • Backup Vaults (stores filesystem metadata, specially beneficial for Mac users)
  • Folder sync (this I have to try and see if it works as well as Dropbox)
  • A new web interface
I’ve tried it on a Windows machine and it seems to be a lot more fluid compared to before. Haven’t really been using it for backup as I’ve been relying more on Backblaze, Time Machine plus occasional Super Duper cloning.

One thing that hasn’t changed though is it seems they still process payments only via Amazon Payments.

Flash Player 10.1 Pre-release

Published on 2009-11-18 in Software. Closed Tags: , , .

A pre-release version of Flash Player 10.1 is now available. Hopefully it does lower CPU usage on Macs as mentioned. I guess I’ll just install it then see how things go.

(via TUAW)

Email won’t just die

Published on 2009-11-07 in Random Thoughts. Closed

Right now there are lots of ways to share stuff with people on the computer. There’s IM, social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, plus online services like Dropbox, MobileMe, TinyGrab, etc. However, I still think email is the easiest and simplest way to send someone something to be viewed using a computer.

ClickToFlash

Published on 2009-10-30 in Software. Closed Tags: , , , .

ClickToFlash is a Safari/WebKit plugin that enables you to well Click to enable Flash. Really makes using Safari a more enjoyable experience. It’s a bonus that you can view and download QuickTime format videos from YouTube.

Tweetie 2 for iPhone

Published on 2009-10-11 in Mobile and Software. Closed Tags: , .

Tweetie 2 for iPhone just came out of the App Store [iTunes link]. Within a day of using it, it has taken the spot of Twitterrific [iTunes link] as my primary Twitter client on the iPhone. It has again raised the bar for mobile Twitter clients. Following are the things I like so far:

  • Swipe to “Go Home” — Swiping L-R on the top navigation brings you back to the main screen (I hope this gesture is adopted to the Mail app so it would work a little better with multiple email accounts).
  • OS X Dock-style Alerts —A very elegant way to show that there are new @mentions and dms — just a tiny glow under the navbar.
  • Full Persistence — It now caches previous tweets and reopening the app takes you back to exactly where you were before, in case you get a call or have to go to another app.
  • User Profile UI — It now follows the same UI used for user profiles on Tweetie for Mac which I think works very well when exploring Twitter. You can easily see a user’s previous tweets, @mentions, following and followers list, etc.
  • Edit Profile — It’s now possible to edit your profile from within the app itself.
  • Landscape Support — And it’s configurable.
  • Live-Filter — Now you can search within your stream so it’s easier to find a tweet you’ve already read and want to go back to.
  • j.mp (bit.ly) Integration — You now get to own the short urls you create via the app by entering your bit.ly details.
  • Threaded Conversations — Reply chains are now displayed on one screen like in the Mac version.
  • Drafts — Which you can also send to Birdhouse.
Now, I can’t wait for 2.0 of Tweetie for Mac.