I’m probably somewhat behind the times, but it’s worth a mention regardless.  The Humble Bundle.

The first one I saw was the Introversion bundle.  If you’re not familiar with Introversion, they are the guys behind Darwinia, Uplink, Defcon and not forgetting Multiwinia.  Four games worthy of note in their own right.  But the humble bundle is awesome.  Pay more than the average (yes, you get to pick what you want to pay) and you’ll also get a couple of tech demos from Introversion, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Dungeons of Dredmor and Aquaria as a bonus… oh and did I mention you can also get the source code for Darwinia, Multiwinia, Defcon and Uplink too?

To say that this bundle is a bargain is an understatement, great games, great price and source code too… amazing.

So, if you’ve not encountered the Humble Bundle yet, head over to The Humble Bundle and check it out.

This is just a little nugget that may prove useful to other users of Kindle for Mac (and maybe PC).  I noticed the other day that I had somehow acquired a book that I hadn’t purchased.  It appeared to be an Italian book… I’m not sure of the title as that kind of information wasn’t available.  It just kind of sat there.  When I tried to download it, I was told I had reached my limit and I was given the option of deauthorising a device or purchasing another copy.

Of course, I didn’t want to do either but no matter what I tried I couldn’t get rid of it.  And no amount of searching on-line provided any assistance.

Today, I took a punt and managed to rid myself of this un-purchased baggage with no complaints from the Kindle software.  So, if you too are afflicted with un-purchased items popping up in your book list, this is how you can fix it.

• First, find you Kindle content folder.  On the Mac you can do this using Finders ‘Go to folder’ option.  The Kindle content folder should be located in ‘/Users/<YOURUSERNAME>/library/Application Support/Kindle’.  If this doesn’t work, you can find where it is from the Kindle software preferences.
• Once you’ve found the folder, delete the ‘Cache’ directory (making a copy of course just in case).
• Start Kindle

And hey presto, if all has gone according to plan, the spurious book will no longer be visible in your list of books.  I suspect the same thing will work for Kindle PC, but I’ve not had the opportunity to try it so your mileage may vary.

I was going to write a review, but for things like Redmine, I find reviews aren’t necessarily the right outlet for useful information. The same could be said of any review, but for software development tools there are a lot more variables than say… if you like platformers, give this game a go. So instead of a review, this is just a collection of my initial thoughts about Redmine, my first real brush with Ruby and Rails.

For the uninitiated, Redmine is “a flexible project management web application. Written using Ruby on Rails framework, it is cross-platform and cross-database”. Nice summary I think. So what does it provide…

Access to a number of version control repositories (Mercurial, Git and Subversion to name three) as well as scanning of commit messages to extract time spent and issues addressed by the commit
Issue tracking (each project can utilise a number of different trackers for things like bugs and features, each with it’s own configuration)
File and Document stores
Activity reporting
Gantt charts
Multiple project support

The list of features is quite extensive so I would recommend reading the Redmine website for full details.

Installation was fairly easy. I installed my instance on a Linux server running Fedora 8, MySQL 4.1 (for development, MySQL 5 is required but more on that later), Apache 2 and Subversion 1.5.something. All of which were already setup. Setting up Ruby was a snap, as were the base requirements for Redmine, largely due to the ease of using Ruby’s Gems. The one thing I had a problem with was setting up Passenger (which was one of the recommended routes in one of the how-to’s on the Redmine site). However, once that was sorted, it was up and running in a very short space of time.

The user interface on Redmine is pretty neat. Not bogged down in flashy garbage that serves no purpose. The standard templates are clean and crisp and the layouts of the pages are all pretty good. There one or two quirks, like the fact that files ask for a description when you add them to the store but it’s only displayed as a hint when you mouse over the filename (actually easily fixed with a minor tweak). Overall though, it’s one of the nicest interfaces on an application of this nature that I’ve seen.

One of the nice features about Redmine is the plugin system. There are numerous plugins out there, so far I’ve stuck to the ones that are listed officially on the Redmine site. Once I got my system up and running I went hunting for a whiteboard style plugin. I elected to use the Backlogs plugin, I don’t really recall why, but so far I’ve not been disappointed (my only complaints at this point are the fact that when you enter a new story from the backlog you only provide it’s title and not an accompanying description, it only works 100% on Chrome). This was where I had problems setting up… it requires the rmagick gem which in turn has a dependency on ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick (IIRC). Getting this side of things setup was a nightmare. My recommendation would be install ImageMagick from source and use that as that actually worked first time (I spent an age hunting RPMs and trying to resolve dependencies). Once that hurdle was out of the way however, it took no time at all to enable it and hook it up to a project.

I’ve been using Mantis for ages and I would, until I got Redmine running, have picked it over anything else for issue tracking. But thats all it really does… yes it has roadmaps and change logs and you can integrate it with Dokuwiki (nightmare – the integration, not Dokuwiki) and Subversion (IIRC this requires the use of Subversion hooks). Redmine does all of that out of the box, ok, so the wiki isn’t expandable like Dokuwiki which is IMHO one of, if not the, best wiki packages around, but everything else is just there, integrated into a single neat solution.

So far it’s all positive, so lets add a little bit of negative to the mix for some balance. My gripes… firstly once an issue is created you can’t edit the title or description… actually, I’ve just looked again to make sure I didn’t embarrass myself by missing something and sure enough… I found it, although it’s not obvious… update the issue and there is a ‘(more)’ link on the ‘Change Properties’ section of the page… click it and the description etc. are displayed for editing… a bit more positivity then… negatives… off the top, apart from the issue I mentioned above with the file store list, I can’t really find anything to criticise. Clearly if I was writing a review then we’re in the running for a good score, but it’s largely meaningless as I’m raving about Redmine because right now, it fits my needs remarkably well, your mileage may vary so my advice would be to setup your own test instances of the products you’re thinking of using and actually use them in anger. Possibly in parallel so you can compare how each one fares against the others. I decided I would setup Redmine and use it in anger to get a real feel for how it works and what it can do and it was a good decision as I’ve found it so much easier to get along with than say Mantis.

Now lets get down to the nitty gritty… if you’re a software engineer, there’s a good chance you’ll want to tweak Redmine to make it fit. There are a lot of configuration options built in but if they don’t cut it, then you’ll have to dive into the code and sort it yourself or use one of the many plugins that are already out there. I was a bit apprehensive when I dived into the code. Ruby and Rails scared me a little when I looked at them a while back, but having seen what’s possible with a relatively small amount of code it’s easy to understand why it’s a nice tool to use. If you want to tinker with the Redmine codebase just make sure you’re proficient with Ruby and Rails before you start. That said, I was able to add a new field to one of the core tables, collect data for it and have it used within another area of he application without too many hitches but it did take me a long time (mostly due to on-the-fly research about Ruby and Rails). For anyone thats interested, the patch I submitted add’s a flag to the project repository settings that allow you to include a repository in a scheduled fetch (I have a local repos which is scanned every 5 minutes and I use a remote repos which is too big to scan every 5 minutes). The patch can be found here.

So what about all the other project management toys I’ve tinkered with over the years? Well, they are all pretty good in their own way and for the people who originally created them, but for me they’ve just never seemed… well… right. I’m not saying Redmine is perfect, because it’s not and I’m not saying everyone should use it, because they shouldn’t, but it is pretty dammed good at what it does and if you’re looking for a software project management solution, I’d definitely recommend you have a look at it and give it a real live try out.

pmG are offering you the chance to get your hands on messiahStudio for an amazing $10 for the standard edition and $40 (normally $1195) for the professional edition. But there is a catch… it’s an experiment in viral marketing so we have to get a whole bunch of people to buy it to get it for this price… that said the target has nearly been reached.

So, if you want to experiment with 3D animation on what appears to be an excellent bit of software, visit the store page here. Payment is through PayPal and there is a limit of 4 copies (mix and match standard and pro) per customer.

Even if you don’t buy a copy, spread the word

Just a quick post to announce the release of Advanced Custom Field Widget version 0.95. This release addresses an issue when loading all custom fields (but not all items), which was resulting in ‘Array’ being displayed in place of the field in the content generator.

Get the latest version from the WordPress Plugin Directory. NOTE – The directory is still not recognising new versions correctly so if you are a current user, you’ll have to resort to a manual upgrade of the plug-in I’m afraid.

Well well, what a bloody farce! Upgrade to AVG Internet Security (the business version) and ICQ stops working… if you’re having problems with ICQ being unable to connect (the incredibly informative ‘Oops, something went wrong’ message), read on.

I don’t use ICQ very often, so imagine my frustation when I tried to use it and it wouldn’t connect.

Wracking my poor PHP addled brain the only change that I’d made to my laptop that I thought would have an impact was the introduction of AVG Internet Security suite. I upgraded the laptop from AVG Free largely because I’d been starting to use it for commercial purposes and because I wanted the extra security provided by the paid up product.

Anyhow, I digress… the problem with ICQ… when I tried to connect, I would constantly receive the ‘Oops, something went wrong’ message. ICQ devs, listen up… MAKE YOUR BLOODY ERROR MESSAGES MEAN SOMETHING FFS. That is just such an unhelpful message it’s untrue… what went wrong? did the world stop spinning? did the little ethernet elf get lost on his way to my router? did a gremlin of the global net munch my packets as they winged their way to your servers? Who knows… something went wrong.

So, not wanting to contemplate the possibility that technology could kick my ass, I’ve just spent the best part of 3 hours tinkering with firewall rules, turning it off (and watching ICQ connect), tweaking more and turning it back on only to have ICQ fail again. Desperate times called for desperate measures so out came the install for WireShark. And what did I see… well, when it connected, there it was, clear as day, the TCP/IP connection establishment phase. With the firewall on however, nothing. A quick email to AVG tech support brought only the suggestion that I completely clean my configuration and then run a series of diagnostic tests (after I spent several hours configuring the dam thing to handle profile switching for 2 LANs, 2 WAPs and my mobile phones internet sharing, I think not. So thanks guys, helpful as ever).

And now I’m ranting, so I’ll move swiftly onto the solution…

The problem I believe was timing. My laptop isn’t exactly brimming with clock cycles, so the time AVG spent traversing it’s firewall rules resulted in a socket timeout (at least I think thats what was happening… ‘Oops, something went wrong’ is oh so informative). To get around this, I trawled through AVGs configuration options and discovered the priority rules. I added a rule to them to handle the ICQ connections to port 5190, apply the configuration and hey presto… one connecting ICQ client.

Version 0.1 of BOMScan has just been released. BOMScan is a little tool I wrote to scan files for Unicode Byte Order Markers (or BOMs).

To use BOMScan, simply copy BOMScan.EXE into your Windows folder, then open a command prompt, goto the directory you want to scan and then simply type BOMScan and press enter. It will then proceed to scan every file and subdirectory for Unicode BOMs.

The output will look something like this:-

Scanning :- \ReqMan\Project Groups
Scanning :- \ReqMan\Projects
  => Require.bdsgroup (UTF-8)
  => Require.bdsgroup.local (UTF-8)
Scanning :- \ReqMan\Scratch Pad
Scanning :- \ReqMan\Source

The following Unicode BOMs are supported.

Thats it, plain and simple.

Download version 0.1 of BOMScan.exe here (approx. 95KB).

Following the report of an issue with the Advanced Custom Field Widget, I’ve released version 0.5.

The problem was that under certain circumstances, the widget failed to display the information linked to a particular page. It was caused by other widgets using the $post variables. Thanks to James Collins for highlighting this after he put the widget below the recent posts widget and found it didn’t display anything.

Get the latest version here or upgrade it automatically using the plugin manager.

Well, what a fiasco that was… my first plugin and I release it unfinished!

Apologies to anyone who has downloaded it and is now using it, but version 0.3 had a couple of issues that I desperately wanted to fix.

First up, when the plugin is deactivated, it deletes it’s configuration… not great when you use the automatic updates… so, for upgrading to version 0.4 I highly recommend a manual upgrade. I’ve tried deactivating the plugin on my development blog and the changes appear to work as the configuration is still there once it’s reactivated. Feedback would be appreciated if you have problems with this as I want to get any issues like that nailed early on.

The other thing I wanted to fix was the lack of a .POT file. I believe the one that’s now provide is up to scratch. If not, again… feedback is appreciated.

I should also give a shout out to Jacob Santos for his information about the uninstall hooks in WordPress 2.7 (available on his blog at http://www.santosj.name/2008/general/wordpress-27-plugin-uninstall-methods/). Unfortunately I found his example of the uninstall file didn’t work and I had a nightmare getting it to work, so here’s the one from ACFW.

<?php

if (defined("WP_UNINSTALL_PLUGIN")==TRUE)
{
	if (current_user_can(activate_plugins))
	{
		delete_option("widget_adv_custom_field");
	}
}

?>

I have finally gotten around to getting my beefed up version of Scott Wallick’s Custom Field Widget published on WordPress.org.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advanced-custom-field-widget/.

But I just noticed that I haven’t sorted the translation code out! DOH!!! So, if you download it and expect it to be capable of being localised, I’m afraid it’s not at the moment. I’ll see if I can get it sorted this week.