Disqus - Latest Comments for michaelbuckbee

Re: How To Use Heroku's GitHub Preview Button - by Lauren Orsini

Michael Buckbee — Mon, 11 Aug 2014 20:33:06 -0000

We made a quick little one page tool that lets you easily create a working app.json manifest and corresponding Heroku button - https://www.expeditedssl.co...

Re: 8 Heroku Add-ons for Production Ready PHP Apps

Michael Buckbee — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 16:09:36 -0000

One more to consider for your list is SSL. Per Heroku's "Production Systems Check" - you should also be using SSL in production. Whether you set it up manually or use ExpeditedSSL https://addons.heroku.com/e... - you'll need the Heroku SSL Endpoint Add-on https://addons.heroku.com/ssl

Re: What I Wish I Knew Writing My First Billing System

Michael Buckbee — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 14:36:23 -0000

One of the great things about building web apps in today's ecosystem is that you don't have to do everything from scratch. You mention Stripe and while that solves part of the issue, what's really awesome is that there are other services you can just drop in whose sole focus is to make those problems go away. I'm thinking of things like ChurnBuster (automated Dunning - even does phone calls for you) and reporting/analytics services like Baremetrics - they just save so much time and effort.

Re: Scripting News: Dating app based on movies

Michael Buckbee — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:45:49 -0000

Never doubt the ability of two people to watch the same thing and come away with wholly different ideas of what they had just viewed.

A case in point, The Colbert Report is viewed differently by liberals and conservatives - http://www.huffingtonpost.c...

Re: Scripting News: The DMV vs Verizon

Michael Buckbee — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:44:20 -0000

Hey Dave, a couple things about the Virginia DMV that you might find interesting:

1. They've got a series of podcasts explaining how to get the most out of their services: http://www.dmv.state.va.us/...

2. They have a dynamic system where you can lookup online which DMV location has the shortest wait time at any given moment (while they are open) and the setup is open enough that some clever guy (not me) actually was able to write a greasemonkey script for it: http://userscripts.org/scri...

Re: Scripting News: The DMV vs Verizon

Michael Buckbee — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:43:41 -0000

Hey Dave, a couple things about the Virginia DMV that you might find interesting:
1. They've got a series of podcasts explaining how to the most out of their services: http://userscripts.org/scri.... They have a dynamic system where you can lookup online which DMV location has the shortest wait time at any given moment (while they are open) and the setup is open enough that some clever guy (not me) actually was able to write a greasemonkey script for it: http://userscripts.org/scri...

Re: Geek Deal: Archer Season 1 on DVD for $9.99 | /Film

Michael Buckbee — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:55:26 -0000

Archer is incredibly awesome, it has more gut busting laughs per show than any other series on TV.

Re: Shape Of: Who is Acorn for?

Michael Buckbee — Wed, 18 May 2011 16:53:52 -0000

Acorn has been a time saver for me, but in a slightly different way than others have mentioned in here. A year or so ago I stopped doing image editing tasks for family and friends (cards, flyers, announcements) and instead started teaching them how to do their own image editing with Acorn.

Acorn really hits a sweet spot of having sufficient functionality that it can accomplish real world things people need to get done, but is simple enough that new users can pick it up with minimal training or help.

Re: Automating Heroku PG Backups

Michael Buckbee — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 22:58:47 -0000

Ken, doesn't Heroku have a cron jobs addon that you can use? http://docs.heroku.com/cron - I may be missing something here.

Also, I do something very similar for my servers except that I connect to S3 through S3FS (MacFuse) which I found to be substantially faster for some reason.

Re: Episode #137: For a good strftime, call Mike

Michael Buckbee — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 01:23:37 -0000

Small point, but it's "Buckbee" not "Buckabee". You'd be amazed at the rise in occurrence of that particular typo since Mike Huckabee started running for office.

Re: Scripting News: I want a server rack in a (small) box

Michael Buckbee — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 14:15:07 -0000

You aren't dreaming! Check out this awesome repurposing of a Helmer Ikea cabinet as a rack for a Swedish guys render farm: http://helmer.sfe.se/

Re: Scripting News: Got me some DOCSIS 3

Michael Buckbee — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:32:29 -0000

I'm always curious how much utility you get out of having a higher download speed as the vast majority of the time the speed seems to be limited by how fast the server can send data, not by my actual connection.

Re: 5 Free Ways To Find Local Concerts on Your Smartphone

Michael Buckbee — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:55:21 -0000

One more to add to this is BandsInTown - They have a really great iPhone app that scans your iTunes for songs and then lets you know about local concerts based on that.

http://www.bandsintown.com/...

Re: Scripting News: I got my iPhone 4

Michael Buckbee — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:13:36 -0000

A happy medium between the 3.5 hour Apple Store line and getting your pre-order shipped to your house is to get your phone from Best Buy.

I pre-ordered in my local Best Buy a couple weeks ago, they called yesterday to setup an appointment for me to come in, activate and pick up the phone. I was in and out today in less than half an hour.

Re: The Plumbing Revolution: Developers' Improving Toolbox - graysky

Michael Buckbee — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:33:39 -0000

We've had good luck with JanRain as a "proxy" of sorts to simplify logging in with different authentication methods (Twitter, Facebook, etc).

Re: http://www.nasuni.com/news/nasuni-blog/what-amazons-rrs-really-means/

Michael Buckbee — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:42:00 -0000

Given that S3 / RRS is key value I think that your criticism of it from a "file" standpoint is likely off. Example:

I have two files:

Key: "/mike_root/file_one.jpg"

Key: "/mike_root/file_two.jpg"

If one gets corrupted, it won't 'take out' the other one. There is not actual object called "mike_root" that is stored.

TL;DR S3 isn't FTP or a hierarchical file structure.

Re: Afternoon sellout notes. (Scripting News)

Michael Buckbee — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:26:27 -0000

If you want to know more about the DropBox guys, checkout the presentation they gave at the Lean Startup Conference - http://www.slideshare.net/g...

Re: Continuous Deployment (Startup Lessons Learned Conference, 4/23/2010)

Michael Buckbee — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:11:31 -0000

Hey Ash, thanks for presenting at the conference, it was great hearing you speak.

Re: /the/path/of/most/resistance

Michael Buckbee — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:56:43 -0000

I predict that the iPhone OS will be a failure unless it implements an 8.3 file length name limitation.

Re: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs : HP computers are racist

Michael Buckbee — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:22:47 -0000

That's interesting, the first automatic faucets and paper towel dispensers that were created also were unable to detect darker skin tones.

In any case, seems like HP has some work to do.

Re: Maybe it's time for personal servers? (Scripting News)

Michael Buckbee — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:48:54 -0000

Do you draw a distinction between personal servers and something like a hosted Virtual Private Server? I ask in part because "fractional horsepower server" seems like such an excellent way of describing a Virtual Private Server - it's my personal projects running in a Xen instance, with other instances on the same hardware running their own OS and services.

Re: Peek was worth a peek (Scripting News)

Michael Buckbee — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 16:05:51 -0000

Stumbled across this today and thought it might be a better fit for what you are looking for, the "ZipIt" - http://www.zipitwireless.com/ - (beware of the autoplay music).

From their FAQ:

The Zipit Wireless Messenger 2 is a Wi-Fi device and will connect to any wireless Wi-Fi router that supports the 802.11b and 802.11g standard. Any typical home wireless router that is connected to a high speed Cable or DSL connection should work. It will also work in thousands of public hotspots around the country. Wireless routers can be purchased at any retail location.

The Zipit Wireless Messenger 2 uses it's existing wi-fi technology to allow you to send text messages to cell phones. To start texting you first create an account on your Z2, this account is created the first time you turned your Z2 on (see Getting Started). Once you create an account a unique identifier is associated with your account and your Z2. In order to send a text to someone you have to enter them into your MyFriendz list as a cell phone buddy. Once you add a cell phone buddy you can then text them and it works just like a IM chat. The Z2 supports texting for the following service providers;

Hope this helps.

Re: Peek was worth a peek (Scripting News)

Michael Buckbee — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:19:04 -0000

I'd considered getting a Peek for an elderly relative, it sounds like you may have had similar thoughts. Do you think the overall size of the screen, text and buttons is large and legible enough for older eyes?

Thanks

Re: Nintendo Wii to Get Netflix Streaming… in HD?

Michael Buckbee — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:57:29 -0000

I think it's extremely unlikely that Netflix Watch Instantly will come out for the current generation Wii console. VOD is processor intensive (to save bandwidth the video stream data is compressed, which results in the processor usage).

If you want to see what NetFlix WI on the Wii might look like today, checkout YouTube with the Wii Internet Channel (which runs a version of Opera), the quality is atrocious and barely acceptable for watching short clips, nevermind feature length movies.

Further complicating things is that NetFlix Watch Instantly technology is built upon Microsoft's Silverlight technology which would need to be ported to the Wii, adding another layer of complexity to the situation.

Minor self promotion: if you're interested in this kind of thing, we're starting a blog called Kill The Cable at http://www.killthecable.com

Thanks,

Mike

Re: Unusually Poor NYT Infographic: Music Industry

Michael Buckbee — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:11:54 -0000

I agree with your point that the graphic could use some more labeling, but I still found it useful to compare the rise and fall of the different music formats.

I can see however, that if the differences between say the fall in CD sales and the rise of online music weren't so stark that it would be less useful.

- Mike