docs

Updating the GigRig G3

IMG 2469

This page from Apple covers what you need to know… but the idea is this: Daniel Steinhardt posted a video with steps to update the firmware in a G3, and suggested turning on Airplane mode, and restoring bluetooth connectivity in order to prevent calls or such from interrupting the updating process.

Of course, that means that you have to remember to turn that off when you’re done, and I suspect in practice that could be easily forgotten.

The page above tells you how to create a focus (or modify one of the presets). If you don’t allow anyone to call, and not allow apps to post notifications etc. I believe you’ll get the same effect, but it will turn on when you run the G3 app, and turn off when you close the G3 app. Nice! The screen shot below shows you the focus I created for this which called (duh) “G3”. You can see that no people are allowed and that the G3 app is selected so that it will automatically turn on when you run the app. Other details are available on Apple’s page above, but it’s all pretty straight forward. Enjoy!

IMG 2470

Fixing the date

“Fixing the date forces you to commit to shipping, no matter how much polishing you think it still needs.”

“We don’t go on because we’re ready, we go on because it’s eleven o’clock.”
—Lorne Michaels, creator of Saturday Night Live

Busy Developers Guide: CoffeeScript

Please note that these instructions are for busy developers, and assume that you are one. If so, this should help, if you’re not, these may not. Sorry about that. Below are the steps I used…

  1. First get npm (the node package manager).
  2. You’ll find a one line install such as this or similar: curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sh
  3. Next CoffeeScript: npm install -g coffee-script (Leave off the -g if you don’t wish to install globally.)
  4. Assuming that went well you should be able to type “coffee” on the command line and see a "coffee>" prompt.
  5. Pat yourself on the back and start developing! But wait, a little more structure might help… You can skip the steps below and check out the repository.
  6. Create a new folder and get it set up as a repository. For me that looks something like this: mkdir ~/code/learning_coffeescript; cd ~/code/learning_coffeescript; git init;
  7. Create some files a bit of structure. A top level public directory and src directory. Inside public I created a lib dir and an index.html file.
  8. The index.html file contains a base html 5 template, and in my learning case it included a line pointing to the hosted jquery.js lib, and our newly compiled javascript file (yeah, I know, patience… I’ll get to it in a minute.)
  9. Back in the terminal, at your project root, type coffee -o public/lib -cw src which will compile all the CoffeScript files written in src into javascript in lib. It is “watching” the src files timestamps so if you update and save a file it will recompile.
  10. Assuming you’ve got everything wired up correctly, you can fire up a browser, open the index.html file and go to town.
  11. If you want to get snazzy you can rackup file_server.ru -p 1111 and the project will run under a basic Rack file server.
  12. If you wish to be all hip and edgy you can download and install Pow, symlink your local clone of the repository and develop to your hearts content.

Feel free to make pull requests, or send me issues, updates, or notes. I’m sure I have a lot to learn about CoffeeScript how best to integrate it with jQuery, etc. In the end though, I’m enjoying the syntax. It was just not clear how to get a project going. Next I’ll be looking at testing…

feeds, realtime, and stuff. a link dump.

Some of the stuff we’ve been exploring lately…