My Jenkins nginx proxy script

         Linux · Software

Here is a very simple configuration for nginx to proxy Jenkins (the new name for the un-Oracle’d Hudson) [cc lang=“bash”] server { listen 80 default; server_name bld-master localhost; root /var/lib/jenkins; access_log /var/log/nginx/jenkins.access.log; location / { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8080/; proxy_redirect off; proxy_set_header Host $http_host; proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr; proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; } } [/cc]

NetGrowl

         Software      growl · Python

I needed to test sending growl messages to machines running Growl, using just Python. There was a problem trying to find scripts, old websites were not responding, and there was a distinct lack of being able to get anything off the group easily but I chanced upon a script that worked. Fearing that the site it is hosted on might also end up biting dust, I made my changes to the script and have uploaded it to GitHub:

Python plugin systems

         django · Software

There is a lot of interesting information about creating plugin architectures using Python all over the web, but its in fairly disparate places. This is an overview of the documentation that I found as of April 2010. Firstly Dr André Roberge has some very interesting posts, as well as a talk at PyCon 2009 on Blip.tv entitled Plugins and monkeypatching: increasing flexibility, dealing with inflexibility. He is also the author of Crunchy which uses a plugin system.

Using Hudson to build Sphinx documentation

         Computing · Software      Hudson · Python · Sphinx

I have become quite the fan of both Hudson and Sphinx. At Cantemo we are using Hudson for Continuous Integration testing, and its a large improvement over buildbot which I was trying before. For documentation at the moment I am using Sphinx, a python based documentation generator. We require the documentation to be updated at the same time as the development and tests are built so it is becoming second nature to build documents soon after development is done.

Postfix and Gmail

         Computing · Linux · Software

I have been using Hudson as a continuous integration server for a short while now and I am super impressed. I have it running on Debian and is really quite feature-full. One thing that I did have a problem with was with the standard Debian 5 Java environment there was a problem using TLS for mail it seemed, and I didn’t just want to send stuff to gmail’s SMTP server all the time so I configured a local Postfix SMTP relay on another server.

NewNewsWire

         OSX · Software

I have posted about NetNewsWire many times on here before. Its been my favourite news reading application for a couple of years now (if not more) but recent development has severally hampered the usability of the software. It seemed to be when they changed it to support sync to Google Reader – not a bad idea by any means, but releasing the software before it was full tested and working was a huge mistake.

Google chrome OS

         Internet · Other · Software

Wow, Google have announced the release of the Google OS. Although it wasn’t entirely a shock its nice to see that they are promoting something from the ground up. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html Looking forward to trying it out even if I don’t have a netbook.

Hilarious look at Adobe’s UI

         Design · Software      UI

So what’s wrong with Adobe’s UI: Well this is a very funny tumbl log of plenty of comments of things that could be done better: [http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/ ]1 Things that particularly standout are issues with there cross-platform UI. Although praised by many as a good example, it just shows that some of the finer details are missed. Via UIEye.

UI design in the open

         Design · Software      Open · UAD · UI · User Interface

This is just great: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/01/redesigning-a-u.html A summary of the post that basically Bug Labs has hired IDEO to redesign their hardware user interface for BUGbase and to do it in the open. Updates on the design process can be sees at: Bug Blog, Bug Community, and the IDEO blog.

Working with SVN on OS X

         OSX · Software

I use SVN (subversion) quite a bit, even at home to manage my own files, but recently I have been running the beta version for Versions by Sofa and Pico. It turned into an excellent way of using SVN, being very visual and supporting everything that I needed, but alas the Beta period ran out and they released Versions 1. Now I was all for buying this application, but the purchase price of 39 Euros totally puts my of.