http://www.jezra.net One persons journey into code,rambling, and rolling Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400 copyright 2009 Jezra Lickter http://www.jezra.net/blog/seriously_that_thing_is_garbage
My good buddy [Constance](http://atrainwreckwithwords.wordpress.com) has a rather old computer. Actually, it is an original [ibook](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBook) with a *speedy* 300Mhz processor and a whopping 192M of RAM.

OK, the RAM has obviously been updated, but other than that, the computer is still original.

One day, Constance told me a tale of tripping over her computer cord and then the adapter started sparking. Crap! The machine may be crap, but it is all she has and it has **all** of her writings on it.

Ah, the slow as dirt machine. See that "yo-yo" power adapter? Aside from always burning out, those things are $80 from Apple. I'll be damned if I let Apple get any of my poor writer friend's money. Let's fix that shit!


First thing first: find out where the cord is fried. Well, I'll be damned, it just happens to be fried where every other "yo-yo" adapter gets...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/seriously_that_thing_is_garbage ]]> Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/keeping_a_GTK_TextView_cursor_in_view
* scripsi is a special purpose dual paned text editor written in [Vala](http://live.gnome.org/Vala)
* markdowner is a special purpose text editor written in [Python](http://www.python.org)

Both applications use the [GTK+](http://www.gtk.org/) toolkit to create the user interface.

###The Problem
***

When a GTK TextView widget is used to create a large text input area, if ...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/keeping_a_GTK_TextView_cursor_in_view ]]> Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/A_tale_of_three_sticker Not very long ago, I made [three stickers](http://www.jezra.net/blog/photograph_sticker) from a photograph of yours truly. Because the original intent of making the stickers was never met, I decided to give away the stickers with a simple contest.

Sticker #1 has gone across the Atlantic Ocean an now resides in Germany.

Sticker #2 has traveled across the United States and now resides in Upstate New York.

Sticker #3: well this sticker is probably going to travel more than #1 and #2 combined (and then possibly doubled).

Wait, didn't the third postcard come from Switzerland? How can the sticker have such an unknown travel distance? I'm glad you asked.

###allow me to spin a yarn....
A few weeks after sticker #2 was shipped off, I received a message from my buddy asking if I could *fix* his computer. I heartily agreed and five days later I was picking up the computer at the post office. Ye...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/A_tale_of_three_sticker ]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/minimizeclose_to_system_tray_in_Python_GTK
* display a tray icon
* *hide* the window when "close window" is selected
* show the window when the tray icon is clicked

Although getting this done was easy enough to do, finding out *how* to do it was a bit of a pain, so I thought it would be best if I shared my Python/GTK test code and save future developers from some pain.

**Enter the Python**
#!/usr/bin/env python
import gtk
class Win (gtk.Window):
    def __init__(self):
        gtk.Window.__init__(self)
        self.set_title("Close to tray")
        self.connect("delete-event", self.delete_event)
       &nbs...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/minimizeclose_to_system_tray_in_Python_GTK ]]> Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/A_markdown_editorviewer_in_Python ***
Having recently implemented parsing of [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) code in my blog, and deciding to write most, if not all, of my future documentation in Markdown, what I really needed, was a way to do the following:

1. write markdown code in a *spellchecking* text editor
2. convert the markdown code to HTML
3. preview the HTML as it would appear in a browser

Simple enough, but unfortunately, all of the solutions that I found were online forms. *I* wanted something that I could run on my own machine.

###The Solution
***
As is often the case, the solution was to write a quick little application. For this application, I chose to use [Python](http://www.python.org) due to the readily available [Python Markdown module](http://www.freewisdom.org/projects/python-markdown/) as well as my "quick/dirty" need and recent Python usage on various projects.

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/A_markdown_editorviewer_in_Python ]]> Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/Red_Phone_Mumble_Test
To the hardware store for supplies!

After purchasing a phone plug crimping tool, some phone plugs, and a modular jack. It was time to get cracking. The wires were stripped and phone plug was crimped on.



Woops! I should have paid attention to which wires connected to what. Oh well; a few seconds of testing later, I was wiring the speaker and microphone jacks to modular phone jack.



Hiyah! It's all put together and ready fo...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/Red_Phone_Mumble_Test ]]> Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/Saturday_Sassafrass
Welcome to the Saturday Sassafras! ( Sorry, I couldn't come up with a better name )

###Jezra.net
***
Damn those spammers! On Friday morning, I started to receive quite a bit of email spam, in [BBCode](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBCode) format, from my [contact](http://www.jezra.net/contact) form. With a bit of the old "copy and paste" I shortly implemented the jezra.net blog captcha for the contact form and **booyah!**, no more spam.

However, keeping the bots from spamming me is one thing, what I would really like to do is just se...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/Saturday_Sassafrass ]]> Sat, 19 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/A_Friday_Frolic Why, have a fun filled frolicking Friday feature fest, of course. The idea is simple: aggregate the little things into one post. Booyah!

###Jezra.net
*************
Recently, I've make two changes to my blog, only one of which you the viewer will actually experience.

1. the blog code has been updated to allow me to write using the [Markdown](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/) format. I'm actually using [PHP Markdown](http://michelf.com/projects/php-markdown/) written by Michel Fortin. From a visitor's standpoint, this doesn't really do much, but it certainly makes it easier for me to compose a new posting.

2. images in blog postings will now be utilizin...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/A_Friday_Frolic ]]> Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/Toshiba_laptop_review
Earlier this year, I was in need of a new computer for work. Since I would be using the computer both in the office and at home, I decided to get a laptop. All I needed was something with a decent processor, a bunch of RAM, cheap, and was Linux friendly. Well, three out of four isn't that bad.

Unfortunately, I missed the one day of the week that the local computer recycler was open so I had to buy a new machine. After driving far too many miles to a home electronics store, I purchased a [Toshiba Satellite ...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/Toshiba_laptop_review ]]> Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0400 http://www.jezra.net/blog/Google_no_longer_uses_Microsoft
But aside from the security aspect, what does this *really* mean?
(go read the article if you want to know about the decision, I have different concerns and don't feel like paraphrasing in the hopes of creating my own *unique* content)

There surely are plenty of times that city governments, school districts, and probably small countries have moved away from Microsoft products, but to me, this is a bit different. As ephemeral as Google may be by having mostly digital products, I find Google to be a very tangible company with products I use on a daily bas...

Read the full post at http://www.jezra.net/blog/Google_no_longer_uses_Microsoft ]]> Mon, 31 May 2010 00:00:00 -0400