Dev With Imagination

For development purposes I use Virtual Machines in VirtualBox, usually using the Ubuntu Server OS and are manually configured. Vagrant provides a mechanism to easily script the creation of these virtual machines so they can be torn down and rebuilt easily.

From the Vagrant site:

Vagrant provides easy to configure, reproducible, and portable work environments built on top of industry-standard technology and controlled by a single consistent workflow to help maximize the productivity and flexibility of you and your team

This is largely a quick start guide for my purposes, as I started experimenting with Vagrant. All this information is based on this getting started guide.

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I have a strong dislike for applications that are still not able to provide any sort of internal update functionality and require the user to go to a web page to download an update.

I have written an update script for Calibre in the past to automate this update process. Today I made a modified version of this for VirtualBox. I use this application a lot for running various servers for my local development environment.

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I have [written in the past][prev_post] about my dislike of the amount of whitespace in the HTML that is created by Jekyll’s use of Liquid, but now I have been shown an even cleaner solution.

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Continuing on from my last post, I have been delving into Python using Pythonista. Syncing scripts between platforms is not as simple as it could be, but now I have a solution. It is not perfect, but it does the job for me and it is developed in Python!

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I have been trying to broaden the programming languages that I am familiar with and I am giving Python a shot. I have been trying out Pythonista as my IDE. Pythonista is a universal app for iPad & iPhone (iTunes link). This is working out quite well for me, as it means I can read a book on my iPad, then just change apps to try out the things I have learned without needing to sit in front of my computer. It also allows me to do some more powerful things with my iOS devices.

The first script I want to share solves a little problem I have. While browsing the internet during the day on my iPhone, when I am away from my main computer, there will be files that I want to download later. Up to now the process has been to add a reminder with the link to come back to it later.

Now I can use Pythonista to download the file and upload it to my Dropbox folder. Later on, when I am at home, this will sync to my desktop and Hazel can process it appropriately.

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