Nick's Site

Man, talk about a frustrating problem! I kept getting this errors while calling pdftk (from the mac installer, which the version as of this writing is 1.12):

Unhandled Java Exception:
java.io.CharConversionException
   <<No stacktrace available>>

Anyway, after much hair pulling, the answer was found! Before calling shell_exec (or whatever function you use to call pdftk) you need to unset the DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.

# unset this so pdftk will work!
putenv(‘DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH’);
 
# put the output in a variable
$pdf_data = shell_exec(‘/usr/local/bin/pdftk ‘. $file_name .‘ fill_form ‘. 
$fdf_fn. ‘ output – flatten’);

I listen to AFR Talk in the morning on the way to work… specifically the Matt Friedeman Show, and every Friday morning they do “Attaway awards, outrages of the week, and a prediction for the days to come.”

Since my commute is only roughly about 7-10 minutes, I figured that I’d start documenting it here instead of trying to call in… so here we go!

Attaway Award

Gotta go to Brit Hume when on the Fox News Network, told everyone watching that

The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith, he’s said to be a Buddhist, I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith, so.. my message to Tiger would be, “Tiger, turn your faith–turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a GREAT example to the world.”

There have been a whole slew of people beating him up over it. A Haredi community was asked to speak out against his comments. People are calling him intolerant and are asking him to apologize and “take a class in religions.”

Brit Hume explains himself more in a Q&A Article in Christianity Today. The fact that he is getting lashed at by other proves that God is at work here. If we all were so lucky!

Outrage

During his presidential campaign, Obama promised to put the Healthcare negotiations on C-SPAN. Now he wants them to be secret. Downright shameful.

Prediction

It’s going to be a cold weekend. Also, the cold weather will cause big media to forget about Global Warming for a little while, until it’s time to push their agenda again.

I would encourage you to post your attaway, outrage, and prediction each week and share them with us.

Very proud to announce my first contributed drupal module! Permission Report:

Permission Report calculates and displays permissions a user has and shows which roles grant those permissions. It also provides ability to list users in a role, look at role membership information, view which users have a particular permission, and dig down into complicated role and permission problems.

Hope that this is the first of many contributions to come!

Looking at the internet though the eyes of a web designer while browsing the web is a lot sitting at a high school lunch table with a bunch of the preppy girls. You judge everything. It’s instinctual. You know all the latest tools, lingo, and trends. Everything gets evaluated by how it appears. Sure, finding that a site runs on a certain language/platform/cms/framework or uses a certain library/flash component/technology can be interesting when it doesn’t meet your expectations, but let’s face it: Everything gets judged by how it looks and performs to our standards.

And those are pretty high.

Every time I visit any website, whether it’s big or small, low- or big-budget, corporate or homegrown, it goes through a rigorous set of evaluations that happen in the background while I’m purchasing, researching, or just plain looking around. I do this because as a web guy myself, I tend to be mindful or “aware” of all of these things going on behind the scenes.

Awareness of what is going on around you is always a good thing. It’s required by people on a daily basis. We are all called to be mindful on a daily basis. We get paid to be mindful when we notice a mistake that needs to be corrected before getting published online or in print. We get rewarded for being mindful when we send our wives flowers on anniversaries (or for no occasion at all!). We feel a little bit safer when we see a police officer walking around being mindful of the environment and looking out for danger.

With all of this reward and need for being so mindful all of the time, why is it that we have become such a mindless society?

It seems like hardly a few hours go by where someone, somewhere has to make reference some sort of jingle, slogan or some other such bite-sized talking point used to sell or influence someone or something into changing their behavior. Sure, the change might be to get someone to go to Jack in the Box instead of Wendy’s. It still achieves it’s purpose. We mindlessly receive, consume, and slowly change our behavior.

This isn’t a bad thing, though, right? I mean, chances are you were going to go out to eat somewhere why not make one place instead of the other. Chances are unless you’ve built up some unnatural amount of distrust or distaste for someone or something, you’ll probably be swayed to try it at some point.

Take me and McDonalds for instance. I despise McDonalds. I dislike them so much I won’t even take my wife or step-daughter there. The closest I get to one is the Red box outside when the one down the street doesn’t work. Their advertising is horrible and cheesy. I’m not the only one that feels this way, either. Their “McLatte” radio ads turned the fire against them so bad, I smell ashes every time I drive by.

But I’ve been down this road before and I’ll be down it again. Probably within the next year or so, I’ll have one of those days where I suddenly become stupid and say to myself, “Maybe I’m wrong about McDonalds. Maybe their ‘McLattes’ are actually worth checking out and perhaps having a McRib and fries wouldn’t cause me to get sick.” And so I’ll go to McDonalds, have my 10 minutes of omnomnomnom and then i’ll take another 3 to 5 year trip to regretsville via the experience express. All because of those stupid, incessant, carefully placed, disturbingly bad yet catchy jingles that bombard me whenever I happen to leave the radio, TV, or stray browser window on.

Why can’t I be mindful about those things as I am with other websites? Why can’t I approach conversations with the same well-thought out and emotionally balanced arguments I generally have with people I trust? Why can’t I filter out crappy advertisements for food I know I’ll regret eating later on? Why is it that I find myself singing songs in my head that are inappropriate/stupid/or otherwise meaningless? Why do I see others doing the same thing? Why does it feel like I don’t have any control over this?

Why am I not mindful on a weekly/daily/hourly basis of the fact that Christ died for my sins, the sins of my brothers/sisters, and for all humanity? Why can’t I see that everyone is just like me: lost without Him? Why can’t I look at problems and ask the right questions? Why do I look to myself for answers instead of to the Truth? Why do I not always seek Light when I see darkness approaching? Why do I not yearn for the Word as if it were my only sustaining source?

Why do I always seem to treat Jesus like the friend I call when I’ve tried everyone else and nobody has answered?

These questions keep me up at night. I take some comfort in that seeking him is better than not seeking him at all. I know that Prayer should be my first line of defense, not my last bastion of hope.

So here it is: I want to be a mindful person. Not just when I’m browsing websites. Mindful all the time. Mindful of my thoughts, words, actions, emotions, and what is going on around me. Mindful of what the God who saved me might have me do for Him or on His behalf while I’m here to put Him first and myself second that He might be glorified.

I want my mindless life to be transformed into a mindful life. Aware. Awake. Not asleep.

What do you want your life to be?

At a recent get-together, a bunch of IT people were asked about their preference in processor technology. Not surprisingly, Intel was the most preferred and AMD was all but left in the low-end bargain bin.

This observation is not new by any means, and I personally subscribe to this way of thinking. What strikes me as interesting though, was this recently ZDNet article about the Cray XT5 Jaguar:

Irrelevant factoid that may only interest me: Four of the top five systems are based on AMD tech, while 402 of the top 500 are powered by Intel.

I’m not sure of the author’s numbers, but here is what the November top500.org list has. In the US AMD has 4 of the top 10. PowerPC has 3. Intel has 2. PowerXCell (IBM) has 1.

Why is it that the IT masses think that AMD processors are low-end value processors but yet they power 4 out of the top 10 supercomputers in the US?

I’ve been doing a lot of cleanup of certain modules at the office. Two in particular are heavily used apps that incorporate pre-made default views with screens to add nodes or do information lookups.

Part of the problem with this is that although I had a decent URL structure (many paths were aliased), my breadcrumbs were never right. I usually had to override them to make them work the way I wanted to (Drupal 5 on my end):

drupal_set_breadcrumb(array(...))

This is a hack! path.module is great for aliasing content paths. But stay away from it for stuff in your module.

Drupal’s drupal_get_breadcrumb actually calls menu_get_active_breadcrumb to figure out what to put in the breadcrumb list. Essentially, this function goes through the url, and looks at each element, gets the title of them if they have the MENU_VISIBLE_IN_BREADCRUMB flag on them. Both MENU_NORMAL_ITEM and MENU_ITEM_GROUPING have that flag by default.

Basically, if you write your menu hook properly, your breadcrumbs will automatically populate for you without any extra work.

The key here is putting this in your menu hook. If you use path.module’s path_set_alias or you add it manually via the interface, it won’t work! The reason is due to the fact that this is an alias. If you do this, menu_get_active_breadcrumb will see the “true” path and not the “aliased” path.

For example: Let’s say you have a node form that you want to put inside your path somewhere. If you do:

path_set_alias(‘node/add/claim’,‘agents/claims/create’)

Your breadcrumb for “agents/claims/create” will show the breadcrumb you will see on “node/add/claim.” (probably just “Home”)

However, if you do this:

$items[] = array(
	‘path’ => ‘agents/claims/create’,
	‘type’ => ‘callback’,
	‘callback’ => ‘node_add’,
	‘callback arguments’ => array(‘claim’)
);

Your breadcrumb will display something along of:

Home » Agents » Claims

Which is exactly what you want!

There is always a way to make the menu do what you want it to do. This includes using node_add to put node creation forms where you want them or using views_view_page for displaying views. It will make your breadcrumbs work right and make your code cleaner since you won’t be putting urls and menu information in your default views hook!

• I can never get someone to call me back. They only respond if I happen to get them on the phone or I start sending e-mails.
• With our account rep, there is always an excuse: “I was out of the office, family emergency” or “I was away from my desk” or “our unicorn was have babies.”
• The tone of our account reps voice doesn’t seem to be “I’m glad you got me on the phone because you’re going to spend more money with me” but rather “I don’t want to talk to you right now so let me get this done so I can get off the phone”
• The answers to my questions aren’t correct. Maybe it’s just my rep, but she likes to answer questions she thinks I’m asking, and not what I really asked.
• Have you ever had them do something right the first time? Me neither.
• Working to the rule.
• It’s all fun and games until it’s 7:30 pm on a friday, and you’ve got 7 people on a conference call trying to figure out a single problem.
• It’s no wonder they are unionized. If they didn’t have them, most of them would be out of a job because they are useless!
• They want you to pay for mistakes because you “signed off” on a change order that had the mistake on it.
• Have you ever seen their change orders? I’d rather try to order chinese food from a hieroglyphic menu written in egyptebonics!
• Voicemails go nowhere. I end up calling back every 30 minutes in order to talk to someone.
• Know why AT&T gives you an account team? Because 2 out of those 3 people will never answer!

• After looking at how we were serviced, I’m starting to wonder if the NSA warrantless wiretapping stuff even worked!

Just thought I’d throw these out here. They are a couple of AppleScripts that have helped me manage what I have going on in Things.

Followup Tomorrow

This script closes the task for today, creates a new one for tomorrow and adds the label “follow-up.” This gives me a warm fuzzy that I got something accomplished for the day but that there is something else tomorrow that needs to be followed-up on. It doesn’t copy notes, just the title.

Followup Next Business Day

This script functions the same was as the one above, but if you execute it on a friday, it will schedule it for Monday.

Just throw these guys in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Things and you’re set! To use them, click on a task and then select them from the Scripts menu in the top-right corner of the screen (or assign them a hot-key).

Anyway, hope this helps someone!

I usually switch my system to “Better Energy Savings” while on battery. It kept switching back to “Custom.” I ended up tracking the problem down to a program called SmartSleep. It appears that it was changing my settings to Custom about every 30 seconds or so:

de.jinx.SmartSleepDaemon[54] SmartSleepDaemon: setting hibernation state to: 0

If you are wanting to get the best out of your battery life while not connected to a power source, you might want to disable SmartSleep. It consistently shaved 30 minutes off of my runtime when it was set to “smart sleep.”

After moving out of Waco, I truly feel that a veil has been lifted from my eyes. As if, suddenly I am able to reason and think clearly. There are many benefits to this, however it has pretty much made me an outsider politically and socially as far as my views and beliefs are concerned. Some are open to this idea, and I am appreciative to this. Some however, are pretty much convinced that my views and beliefs make me both “ignorant” and “intolerant.”

And to those that think that I am both ignorant and intolerant, I will present the evidence that you are the ignorant, intolerant one.

Firstly, I have the right to speak my mind about whatever I want. Yes, I think Obama was the worst possibly choice for president. Yes, I think abortion is wrong. Indeed, the bible tells us that homosexuality is a sin and is wrong. Now, these are my views, and it just so happens that these views are not only shared with me by my wife, the members of our church and many of our friends. You might consider it intolerant, that I oppose “women’s rights” or homosexuality. Friend, the moment you disrespect my right to express myself, you yourself are showing intolerance.

I was listening to a radio show a few days ago and they were talking about how the word “discriminate” used to have a positive connotation. A person with “discriminating tastes” only like the best. It was a good thing to be labeled discriminating in certain respects.

But now, the world is crazy, and a group of people who are already have equal protection under the law want something that I don’t think they deserve: the right to call their union a “marriage.” If I am ignorant and intolerant, then so were the millions and millions of people who came before me who thought the same way. You see it as intolerance, but I say it’s calling it what it really is. Homosexual relationships can never be fully equal to a real marriage. It’s physiologically and spiritually impossible. And if you think can read all of the material that has brought us this far and conclude that something in there says otherwise… then you probably need to really re-evaluate your reading and/or comprehension abilities.

Another thing: I know several gay couples, not many on a very personal basis, but I’ve worked with a few over the years. I don’t think they are bad people. I’ve never hated gays, or talked down to them or even treated them any differently than I did and I attempt to be respectful and polite. Do I approve of their relationship? No. I still think it’s wrong, but there is a difference between these people and the people I read about in the newspaper.

None of these people make a big deal about it. It is not the defining factor of their lives. I do have a problem with people who make it their goal to impress on others a lifestyle which for the past, you know, 5000 years, has been looked at as physically unhealthy, spiritually sinful, and socially disgraceful. They want it to be actively accepted like “regular” people and you know what? I won’t stand for it.

If you want to live your life quietly and don’t want to involve me or flaunt your “pride” up and down the street, that is fine, and I can respect that. So what is it? Am I intolerant? Tolerant? Confused, mistaken, or maybe just fed up? How about ignorant? Am I missing something here? I’m all ears. You can e-mail me, call me, or reply here.

P.S. Obama, you’ve officially ruined June.

I had a conversation with a friend last night and during this conversation, they said that they didn’t want to argue about abortion because “no one knows! is it murder? is it not?”

There are some people that don’t know the answer to that question. But some people, especially Christians should know the answer to that question.

“I do. I understand that nowhere in the bible does it dictate that it is a baby at conception”

I have to admit when I heard this, I was absolutely shocked. I wonder if this person has read their bible lately. The bible indicates that we are created by God, for God. Each and every one of us.

What matters here is the understanding that God creates life. All life is precious. If you call yourself a Christian and think that a “fetus” is not life, then you need to seriously revisit your beliefs.

Maybe this will jog your memory:

Jeremiah 1:5 says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;...” (he is, of course, speaking to Jeremiah, but these apply to us also.)

David writes in Psalm 139:13 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”

“Did not He who made me in the womb make him, And the same one fashion us in the womb? (Job 31:15) It’s very apparent. Job understands this. Why don’t you?

I have a big problem reading God’s Word every day. My boss gave me daily-read bible that you through everything chronologically. It’s great and I really look forward to reading it. But i’m behind a couple of days now, but I’ll catch up this afternoon. Sunday afternoons are always my catch-up days. (Right now it’s going through Leviticus and Numbers, which, imo(In My Opinion) are semi-boring because they are very repetitious.)

I had a conversation with myself a couple days ago. It went something like this:

“Why didn’t I read the Bible today?”
“Because I was busy.”
“Yes, but watched 5 youtube videos and looked at lolcats for almost 10 minutes during lunch.”
“Well, yeah, that was taking a break.”
“God’s Word = best break evar.”
“I didn’t have my bible handy.”
“Perhaps you’ve used BibleGateway or Youversion?”
“Yeah, but what am I supposed to read?”
“This.”
“Yeah, but I’m not always at my computer…”
“Ownt.”

Unless you are phone-less, computer-less, and bible-less, there really isn’t a reason to not dive in, even for a little bit, every day. We need it to survive. Our spiritual food. I’ll skip the cheesy analogies that our Pastor gave us a few weeks ago and skip straight to the meat. Living a Christian life in this world takes so much. I can’t tell you how many times I can feel anger in my heart or how many times I almost (or do) speak harsh words to someone. No matter how much I try to cover up that those words were rooted in truth, you would never tell because they were shaped and brought forth by anger and not love.

The Word of God is a seed. A little bit of it gets put in us when we our saved, but it is our duty to make sure it is cared for so that it grows and produces fruit. We are expected to be grow and do something with what God gives us. The Parable of the talents Matthew 25:15-30 gives us a really clear picture of the expectations that God puts on us. It’s a lot of work, really. But it’s all worth it.

After all, we get God’s protection with his Word in us. Ephesians 6:17 says Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.. His Word is also our protection. Like I said in my last post, being able to lean back on the sturdiest foundation of all has been my best defense against the one who would rather not see me thrive in Christ.

There are so many ways to get into the Word. BibleGateway was my favorite for quite some time, but YouVersion seems to have a much more interesting interface and is really made for people like me (web-enabled, bloggers, etc). I go back and forth between the two. If you know of any other good ones, please e-mail me or add a comment.

There is a lot going on in my life right now. You might be able to tell that from my previous post. I’m going to try my hat at some different writing for the time being. There is quite a bit of adjusting going on from myself, my family and Sarah’s family. It’s all going really well (I think). During this adjustment I feel like I’ve really been able to open up and be really honest with myself and with others. It’s tough for me to be open about what I’m thinking about because of how I think and the processes that go through my head.

I’ve had a chronic problem since the 7th grade with two specific problems: autophobia (fear of being alone and something that some people on the internet have dubbed “rapturephobia” (fear of the apocalypse).

Anyone who knew me in high school and early in my college years might have easily guessed that I really didn’t like being alone. I got really antsy and acted very immature whenever I was alone. I spent a lot of time in front of the computer and it seemed to help assuage the pangs of anxiety. I constantly had to have something in front of me to distract me from the reality of being alone whenever I was. Luckily I had some good friends and roommates and that was never a problem and, for the most part, never really adversely affected me in deep painful ways. It was usually what followed in those times when my thoughts would creep down a path that I dare not tread.

Fear is a powerful force. It can spread the fastest of any sickness and cripple armies, spreading from one person to another. It can cause you to act rashly and trip over yourself, even when there is nothing to truly be afraid of. Lord knows that I’ve done my fair share of tripping, running and being overly fearful for things that, as a Christian, should not even have a place in my life. I guess that is why they call them phobias, though. There is that irrational characteristic that gives that edge any other common fear.

I can’t tell you why I fear the end of the world. I just know that when the fear grips me, it holds me tight and fiercely. The fear itself might not be the biggest issue. For me, it’s always been my reaction to the fear: running away, hiding, or just plain panic. It cuts me off from the world. It destroys the peace in my heart. As a man in battle, if my training was completed, my weapon issued, and my life and my freedom were at stake my reaction would be to fight. The fear of engaging in combat and possibly losing my life would be swallowed up by what I’ve been trained to do to protect myself and defeat the enemy. And in my heart, I believe that I have a fight inside me that would not be easily conquered.

What is at stake here is not my physical life and freedom, but my mental and spiritual well being. I have no reason to fear. I never had one. There is no reason to fear anything that is coming because in Christ we have a promise:

John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (NIV)

This script is quoted so often, I think, because it sums it all up (John had a way with words and putting things in such a way that made it that way.) The message is plain, overt, and unmistakably clear: we have nothing to fear if we trust in Jesus Christ. This is my foundation, my training, and my song. Now, when I feel the sword of fear coming down upon me, my weapon will be ready and I will fear no more. I will stand fast in the promise that has been made by the only one who is capable of making it.

Been really quiet since Do It With Drupal. Life has taken a few exciting turns the past few months. I got engaged to my Fiancé, Sarah! I’ve completely moved out of my old place and into the new house. There is still quite a bit of work to be done on the Condo, but it is moving along (albeit at a snail’s pace). My weekends are pretty much spent between that, Church, and just hanging out with Sarah and friends.

I’ve started going to GymX down the road to shed some unwanted poundage as a new year’s resolution. So far, so good. I’ve lost about 8 pounds or so. Sarah got me a grill for Christmas and man, have I been using it! Chicken, fish, steaks, potatoes, corn, scallops, squash, you name it! It’s taken some getting used to… but it’s been tasty and healthy.

I haven’t really spent much time working on my side-gig. Partially because it’s really calmed down and partially because my role at RVOS has taken over. There is a lot of exciting stuff going on and some new opportunities that will be making themselves available really soon.

Originally, the idea of moving here to Temple seemed really dull and death by boredom seemed like a possible outcome. I haven’t really felt any of that. The fact that I can go home and watch some TV, fire up the grill and have dinner is very soothing. The ability to wake up at 7, make breakfast (a real one) and get read and leave 10 minutes before work (and be early!) is great. One of the best decisions I have ever made.

As things settle down more over the next few weeks/months… I will hopefully get some time to start working on my Drupal contrib plans again. Until then!

Alert reader Chris S. emailed me to point out this post by a developer at flickr about how to make IE scale images more smoothly. All you have to do is add...

img { -<span>ms</span>-interpolation-mode:bicubic; }

to the stylesheet. It worked!