Category: Uncategorized

‘Clear Formatting’ Shortcut Fix

Recently my ‘clear formatting’ shortcut for most google apps (Command (or Cmd) ⌘ + \) stopped working on my Macbook.

This was very frustrating as I use it all the time.

Apparently the 1password took over this shortcut since it uses cmd+\ to fill logins, silently. I was able to change the shortcut in 1password preferences, at which point clear formatting started working again.

In the future, if you have a similar issue, there’s also an app called ShortcutDetective that can help you find out if a keyboard shortcut is being used for an app on your Mac.

View Pods in a Nodegroup

Confirm the nodegroup you’re checking actually exists (e.g. you’re looking for pods running under product-team/fubar) by listing all the nodegroups in a certain namespace:

get nodegroup -n product-team

Get the nodes under that nodegroup:

get nodes -o wide | grep fubar

Get the pods under those nodes (replace NODE_NAME_GOES_HERE with the name you got from the command above, e.g. ip-10-111-22-333.ec2.internal):

k get pod --field-selector=spec.nodeName=NODE_NAME_GOES_HERE -owide --all-namespaces

Parking Near Airports in NYC

Little trick I learned from living in NYC.

There’s free street parking in neighborhoods like Ozone Park near JFK on streets that don’t have street cleaning, for example on 120th St between 133rd Ave and Sutter Ave. You can park there, and then take public transit or uber to JFK. I’ve done this at least twice now.

This is fairly low risk if you’re not going away for more than a week. The only issue is if you leave the car for too long I imagine it might be reported as abandoned and get towed.

You can do a similar sort of thing near LGA, which I’ve done MANY times now, but there are no streets without street cleaning, so you either need to make sure your trip is 6 days or less, or cough up the $65 ticket for street cleaning.

The nice thing about LGA, is that street parking is close enough to the airport that you can just walk to the terminal, or take a kick scooter and then lock it up at one of the bike racks outside the terminals.

I love not needing to spend $60-80 for airport transportation and being able to drive myself 95% of the way there. I usually walk to LGA too instead of taking an Uber after finding a spot.

Bulk Delete Projects in Jira

Had to do this recently for a lot of test projects that were created in our Jira sandbox instance.

It’s a small python script using Jira API and the requests python library.

import requests
from requests.auth import HTTPBasicAuth

domain = "https://MY_JIRA_INSTANCE.atlassian.net"
admin_user = "JIRA_ADMIN@MY_COMPANY.com"
admin_token = "JIRA_ADMIN_TOKEN"
project_query = "PROJECTS_I_WANT_TO_DELETE"

def getJson(url, auth):
    r = requests.request(
        "GET",
        url,
        headers={"Accept": "application/json"},
        auth=auth
    )
    return r.json()

def deleteProject(id, auth):
    r = requests.request(
        "DELETE",
        domain + "/rest/api/3/project/" + id,
        auth=auth
    )
    return r.text

search_url = domain + "/rest/api/3/project/search?query=" + project_query
auth = HTTPBasicAuth(admin_user, admin_token)
json = getJson(search_url, auth)

projectIds = []

# append results across all pages, while there's still a nextPage, to projectIds array
while "nextPage" in json:
    nextUrl = json["nextPage"]
    for searchResult in json['values']:
        # optional safety check to make sure the right project is being added to the deletion array
        # if "PROJECT_NAME_I_INTEND_TO_DELETE" in searchResult["name"]:
        projectIds.append(searchResult['id'])
    print("Number of project IDs found matching the search query: " + str(len(projectIds)))
    json = getJson(nextUrl, auth)

# append a single page, or the last page of results, to projectIds array
for searchResult in json['values']:
    # optional safety check to make sure the right project is being added to the deletion array
    # if "PROJECT_NAME_I_INTEND_TO_DELETE" in searchResult["name"]:
    projectIds.append(searchResult['id'])
print("Number of project IDs found matching the search query: " + str(len(projectIds)))

# delete projects in projectIds array
for index, id in enumerate(projectIds):
    print("Deleting project " + id + ". Projects remaining: " + str(len(projectIds)-index))
    print(deleteProject(id, auth))

Sample SMTP interaction

this is what happens every time you send an email, between the receiving server and the transmitting client – it’s kinda cute

the contents of the email are after server says “354 Enter mail…”

Server: 220 hamburger.edu
Client: HELO crepes.fr
S: 250 Hello crepes.fr, pleased to meet you
C: MAIL FROM:
S: 250 alice@crepes.fr… Sender ok
C: RCPT TO:
S: 250 bob@hamburger.edu … Recipient ok
C: DATA
S: 354 Enter mail, end with “.” on a line by itself
C: Do you like ketchup?
C: How about pickles?
C: .
S: 250 Message accepted for delivery
C: QUIT
S: 221 hamburger.edu closing connection

IE9’s toolbar size versus other browsers

It seems with every new version of a web browser, the toolbar gets smaller and smaller. This makes a lot of sense since, as a user, you want as much space as possible for the websites you’re visiting.

In the latest version of Internet Explorer 9, the toolbar panel takes the most minimalist approach ever taken with IE. It actually beats Google Chrome in terms of least amount of space used:

This is partially achieved by combining the search and the address bar as Chrome has done when it was first released, and by leaving only the most essential navigation buttons.

The size difference becomes even more drastic when compared to Firefox 3, which, even when you remove the default bookmarks toolbar, is at least twice the size of IE9’s toolbar.

You can definitely tell that Microsoft is making every effort in making sure users don’t have any need for alternative browsers, and has learned a few lessons from its competitors while implementing its own innovations.

AT&T’s Tethering Costs Infinity Per Megabyte

I was recently sent this article:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/07/01/atts-text-messages-cost-1310-per-megabyte/

It basically talks about how text messaging fees have you paying $1,310 per megabyte of data. Which is true – texting fees were always ridiculous and somehow wireless carriers were able to capitalize on that.

Tethering is a little different. When you use tethering (a feature that was built into the iphone in 3.0 over a year ago: http://gizmodo.com/5171796/iphone-30-os-guide-everything-you-need-to-know) your phone acts as an internet connection relay/access point for your laptop. You’re using your data plan on your laptop instead of your phone.

Naturally a person would use more data on their laptop than on their phone as it’s more convenient to watch online videos, write emails, etc. on a laptop. In the past a carrier would charge extra for tethering since data plans were unlimited but more data usage is a higher load on a network that a carrier has to maintain and pay for. However, with data caps on all of AT&T’s plans, using more data than your plan covers already results in heavy fees ($10 for every 1GB overage in the 2GB plan).

So charging an extra $20 a month just to be able to tether is just AT&T saying “we own your asses.”

An excerpt from an interview with Mark Collins, senior VP of data and voice products at AT&T:

GigaOM: What about the $20 tethering fee? It looks like a convenience charge.

Collins: That capability is enabling something you can’t do today. You can use one device and get multiple connections so it’s more useful to you. You’re going to use more data so the price is based on the value that will be delivered.

Enabling something AT&T disabled last year. Using data which already increases in cost depending on how much you use.

Simple analogy: Imagine Apple introduced a feature in their older iPhones (original, 3g) that allowed them to record videos using the camera and email them to your friends. AT&T disabled that feature on the account that you will probably end up using more data with it since you will be emailing videos. However, they finally decided they are going to charge $20 per month for “enabling” it and because “you’re going to use more data.”

Transfer iPhone Voice Memos via Email

If you’re like me, you may have run into some issues running iTunes (my favorite one was in which Apple’s recommended solution was to reinstall Windows to use iTunes again). Or maybe you dislike the way iTunes messes up your music library.

Unfortunately, if you use the voice recorder for interviews and personal reminders, but use a program like mediamonkey to manage the music on it, iTunes wont let you download the voice memos onto your computer without erasing the entire device first.

However, there is a way to get the memos without having to resort to  illegal (legal as of july 2010!) jailbreaking your iphone:

1) Open up the Voice Recorder app.

2) In your list of memos, click on the round blue arrow button next to the voice memo you’re interested in transferring to a computer.

3) Then, if you click the Share button, you can email yourself the memo!

The emailed memos are limited to a length of 2 minutes, but you can at least send them in segments.

This may not seem all that complex, but I wasn’t aware that the option existed, so perhaps someone else who has a similar dilemma will find this solution.

Day 1

 

I’m going to write a journal about my adventures in Oblivion.

———–

I woke up in a prison cell today. I’m not sure why I’m here or what my crime is, but hopefully I wont be here for long. Especially because my neighbor seems to be a real dick. Keeps telling me that I’m going to go mad and that the guards are going to cut my throat just to stop my ranting. If he continues however, he’s the one who’s going to have to worry about throats being cut.

There are still bones from the last prisoner in this cell. What a shitty prison.