Tri Nguyen http://coopblue.com/blog On family, tools, and art Sun, 18 May 2008 18:02:17 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.3 en Subscribe with Google Happy Birthday, Walter Gropius http://coopblue.com/blog/2008/05/happy-birthday-walter-gropius/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2008/05/happy-birthday-walter-gropius/#comments Sun, 18 May 2008 17:52:37 +0000 Tri bauhausbirthdaygooglegropius http://coopblue.com/blog/2008/05/happy-birthday-walter-gropius/ GoogleGropius125

Tell me that Google’s latest, custom logo doesn’t baffle you. It’s a tumbled jumble of Lego blocks. But hover your mouse over it and the tooltip says "125th Birthday of Walter Gropius." This pleased me immensely. Google, you didn’t forget.

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2008/05/happy-birthday-walter-gropius/feed/ Two tears http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/two-tears/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/two-tears/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2007 20:59:14 +0000 Tri photographsophie http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/two-tears/ two tears

Here’s a photograph of Sophie from end of January. Why she’s crying, I forget. What’s left are her two tears.

buy levitra online

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/two-tears/feed/ A wider Modern theme for WordPress http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/a-wider-modern-theme-for-wordpress/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/a-wider-modern-theme-for-wordpress/#comments Mon, 05 Mar 2007 17:41:41 +0000 Tri cssflickrmodernthemewordpress http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/a-wider-modern-theme-for-wordpress/ I’m well satisfied with Ulf Petterson’s excellent WordPress theme, Modern, but for one thing: at 419px, the main content column is just too narrow. Things just won’t fit: 500px-wide, medium-size photos from Flickr; quoted code snippets (unless you prune their line-lengths).

Well, Kevin McGuire worked out how to widen the main column by 100px. It turns out there are seven places in Modern’s stylesheet that need changing. Who’d have known? I widened my theme according to Kevin’s instructions and couldn’t be happier.

To widen Modern by 100px, open the style.css and set the seven widths to the values below:

PLAIN TEXT
CSS:
  1. #pagestripe {
  2. background: rgb(221,217,215); width: 880px;
  3. }
  4. #page {
  5. width: 880px;
  6. }
  7. #content {
  8. width: 519px;
  9. }
  10. #content.single {
  11. width: 618px;
  12. }
  13. #footer {
  14. width: 610px;
  15. }
  16. #footer.single {
  17. width: 880px;
  18. }
  19. #description, #sidebar {
  20. margin-left: 611px;
  21. }


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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/03/a-wider-modern-theme-for-wordpress/feed/ Brainpeel 2007-02-09 http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/02/brainpeel-2007-02-09/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/02/brainpeel-2007-02-09/#comments Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:59:36 +0000 Tri brainpeeldebuggingeditormarkdownpythontestingweb framework http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/02/brainpeel-2007-02-09/ Was I ever startled this morning when my browser asked if it should load the 93 tabs I’d had open last time. Now that’s officially way too many, perhaps even reason to worry! Time for a nice brainpeel so I can close this sucker.

Python web frameworks

Python testing frameworks

Comparisons

py.test

doctest

PyMock, Nose and Coverage

Test-Driven Development

Debugging

Markdown format converters

Useful Miscellaneous Tools, Libraries and Hacks

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2007/02/brainpeel-2007-02-09/feed/ Dark Room: distraction free writing http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/dark-room-distraction-free-writing/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/dark-room-distraction-free-writing/#comments Thu, 07 Sep 2006 07:49:36 +0000 Tri editorsimplicitywriting http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/dark-room-distraction-free-writing/ I stumbled onto a new text editor today, WriteRoom, that promises the simplicity of a typewriter:

WriteRoom is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, WriteRoom is just about you and your text.

Dark Room

Does that ever speak to me! My Dad had an electric typewriter once. It weighed a ton. It hummed violently, jerked on every shift and carriage return, and stained my fingers black. But I forgave it everything those late, late nights because it let me concentrate on putting words to paper: the letters crisp, the paper pure.

Years later I’m still after that simplicity.

Happily, WriteRoom (which is for Macs) has a Windows clone called Dark Room that I’ve been using. I love it. It’s like a sheet of paper, just an empty screen. All the clutter is gone (I mean menus, task panes, task bars, buttons, tool bars, status bars, scroll bars, even your desktop). The simplicity is thrilling.

I’m more productive in Dark Room than I ever was in WordPress’s native editor. Dark Room even beats the pants off terrific blogging clients like BlogDesk or Windows Live Writer.

Software find of the year? 2006 still has 4 months to go.

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/dark-room-distraction-free-writing/feed/ Coffee http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/coffee/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/coffee/#comments Sat, 02 Sep 2006 14:39:41 +0000 Tri coffeeespresso http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/coffee/ So much depends on a cup of coffee, enjoyed in a moment of quiet intent, a moment as good as a comma or semicolon. My espresso machine, which had always grumbled and hissed, developed a leak in her old age. To handle the drip, drip, drip I employed towels, hand pumps and trays just as I deployed buckets everywhere in our last apartment during a downpour. A hassle, but I’d never replace her with a model more stylish. I like to baby her; she still makes a great cup.

My kitchen is almost never this quiet. It’s normally a whirling choreography of scrubbing, opening and shutting, loading and unloading. The microwave chimes and keeps chiming. Little Sophie runs too quickly and suddenly meets the floor; she turns to catch her daddy’s eye a moment before bursting into crocodile tears.

The spell is broken the moment someone else wakes.

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/09/coffee/feed/ Roy’s BBQ’s pulled pork http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/roys-bbqs-pulled-pork/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/roys-bbqs-pulled-pork/#comments Thu, 15 Jun 2006 01:15:30 +0000 Tri columbia citypulled porkrestaurant http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/roys-bbq-made-me-full-and-happy/ I just took a walk in the neighborhood. First stop was the Columbia City Library for something to feed my DVD player. Next door, the Columbia City Farmer’s Market (here’s a photoset) was in full swing. I swung by and bagged a tomato. Yeah, just one, but it’s a real beauty.

The whole time my stomach was gnawing at me for a pulled pork sandwich, so I walked down the block to Roy’s BBQ, a colorful little hole-in-the-wall. Had a Georgia Gold sandwich, potato salad, and a bowl of red beans and rice. Now that Georgia Gold’s a great sandwich: smoky, tangy, tender pork spilling from a fresh bun from the Columbia City Bakery up the street. Very happy now. Then I noticed their nice selection of beers neatly lined up. Next time I’ll try their Fish Tacos and wash them down with Stella Artois.

Recommended.

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/roys-bbqs-pulled-pork/feed/ A little young for lipstick? http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/a-little-young-for-lipstick-2/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/a-little-young-for-lipstick-2/#comments Wed, 14 Jun 2006 19:07:15 +0000 Tri disasterlipstickphotographsophie http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/a-little-young-for-lipstick-2/ We’d been cruising south toward Tacoma. Sophie was awake in her car seat but was strangely quiet. I turned around and—-whoa! “Pull over! Pull over!” We stopped. Luna got to Sophie first. I grabbed the camera. Cars hurtled behind my back at highway speed.

Sophie’s lips and hands were a red, smeary mess! We’d given her a tube of lipstick to play with. Smart, huh? Well, the “active ingredient” was so far down that tube, I figured that she’d never get to it. How wrong I was. Get to it she did, maybe by twisting the tube.

“Do you think she swallowed any?” asked Luna. She cleaned baby’s hands with a towel.

I didn’t even want to think about that.

We buckled ourselves back in. Wow. A disaster averted. Checking the mirror, I merged into traffic and came up to speed.

I laughed. Luna started laughing, too. We couldn’t stop.

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/a-little-young-for-lipstick-2/feed/ Sophie’s one http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/sophies-one/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/sophies-one/#comments Sun, 11 Jun 2006 19:25:43 +0000 Tri birthdayphotographsophiewoodland park zoozoo http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/sophies-one/ Sophie’s one today. We regaled her this morning with “Happy Birthday!” as she sat up in bed and smiled like a scamp. She was amiable at breakfast, too, a big surprise to me because she gets fussy at the sight of solids these days (to get her to eat, Luna and I have resorted to singing and cavorting; believe me, neither of us can hold a tune).

She’s in love with a cracker, a big, flat, rectangular thing studded with sesame seeds, fennel seeds and parmesan cheese. Sophie nibbled one with me, in bed, as we watched Mexico trounce the Iranian team 3—1 at the World Cup. Afterwards I carefully gathered cracker crumbs from the comforter. Sophie snuggled up to me and drifted off to sleep. (She’s still sleeping, flat on her back in a powder blue two-piece, lavender socks, and a noup-noup in her mouth.)

After lunch we’re taking Sophie to the Zoo. Mom’ll join us. I can’t recall the last time I visited the Zoo, but having a kid means getting to re-live it. But it’ll be much better. Everything’s better shared with your daughter!

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]]> http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/sophies-one/feed/ Posting to Wordpress from Vim with tags and Markdown http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/posting-to-wordpress-from-vim-with-tags-and-markdown/ http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/posting-to-wordpress-from-vim-with-tags-and-markdown/#comments Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:21:49 +0000 Tri blogmarkdownpythontaggingvimwordpress http://coopblue.com/blog/2006/06/post-to-wordpress-with-tags-and-markdown-from-vim/ Only a certain kind of geek will delight in the following post.

I favor Vim for most of my text editing. I wanted to compose my WordPress entries with Vim, especially after finding a Vim syntax file for Markdown. Great! But how to post those entries into WordPress?

I found a way last night. A Berkeley student with the same itch, Kesava Yerra, wrote a Python Vim script that posts to WordPress. Supposing you’ve installed the Ultimate Tag Warrior plug-in for WordPress, his script even lets you tag your post. (An earlier version didn’t have tagging.)

So to make this work, you first enable Ultimate Tag Warrior’s “embedded tag support” (it’s in WordPress’s Options screen). Then open your Vim configuration file (.vimrc) and add the following code:

PLAIN TEXT
PYTHON:
  1. python <<EOF
  2.     import urllib
  3.     import urllib2
  4.     import vim
  5.     import xml.dom.minidom
  6.     import xmlrpclib
  7.  
  8.     blog_username = 'your_username'
  9.     blog_password = 'your_password'
  10.     blog_url = 'http://path.to.your.weblog/xmlrpc.php'
  11.  
  12.  
  13.     def make_tags(text, numtags=5):
  14.         params = urllib.urlencode({
  15.            'appid': 'upbylunch',
  16.            'context': text})
  17.            
  18.         u = urllib2.urlopen("http://api.search.yahoo.com/"
  19.             + "ContentAnalysisService/V1/termExtraction",
  20.             params)
  21.         response = u.read()
  22.        
  23.         doc = xml.dom.minidom.parseString(response)
  24.         tags = [str(i.childNodes[0].nodeValue)
  25.             for i in doc.getElementsByTagName('Result')]
  26.  
  27.         return tags[:numtags]
  28.  
  29.     def post_blog(numtags=5):
  30.         strid = ''
  31.         offsetline = 0
  32.  
  33.         if vim.current.buffer[0].find('StrID:') != -1:
  34.             strid = vim.current.buffer[0].split(':')[1]
  35.             offsetline = 1
  36.            
  37.         title = vim.current.buffer[offsetline + 0]
  38.         tags = vim.current.buffer[offsetline + 1]
  39.         text = '\n'.join(vim.current.buffer[offsetline + 2:])
  40.  
  41.         # Tag condition
  42.         if tags == '':
  43.             tags = '[ tags\]' + ','.join(make_tags(text,
  44.                 numtags)) + '[ /tags]\n'
  45.         else:
  46.             tags = '[ tags]' + tags + '[ /tags]\n'
  47.  
  48.         content = tags + text
  49.  
  50.         wp = xmlrpclib.ServerProxy(blog_url)
  51.         post = {
  52.             'title': title,
  53.             'description': content
  54.         }
  55.  
  56.         if strid == '':
  57.             strid = wp.metaWeblog.newPost('', blog_username,
  58.                 blog_password, post, 1)
  59.  
  60.             vim.current.buffer.append('\n')
  61.             vim.current.buffer[:] = ['StrID:' + strid] + [i
  62.                 for i in vim.current.buffer[:]]
  63.         else:
  64.             wp.metaWeblog.editPost(strid, blog_username,
  65.                 blog_password, post, 1)
  66.  
  67.         vim.command('set nomodified')
  68.     EOF


(Note: remove the whitespace from '[ tags]' and '[ \tags']) All set? Now you can compose in Vim, using the following format:

Title
your,tags,separated,by,commas (to auto-tag, leave line blank)
The content of your post...

When you’re ready, issue this Vim command:

:py post_blog()

After a heartbeat, your entry is posted to WordPress (or to any blog that supports the Metaweblog API).

Oh, before I forget, you are going to have to assign Categories to your post manually in WordPress’s Manage Posts panel.

I write using Markdown and, for syntax highlighting in Vim, I find Markdown Vim Mode to be indispensible. (I’ll cover installation in a later post, as I had some trouble with it.) So to activate that, I save my entries with an *.mkd extension. The Markdown looks pretty. I write my post. Then I type :py post_blog() to publish.

I’m delighted.

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