My Monkey Do

A Log of Coding Solutions

Tools

Font2Web

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Problem

Using your own fonts with HTML 5 can be great, but different browsers require different font formats.  I only had the TTF  (True Type Font) file, but I also needed the otf, .eot, .woff and .svg files to be compatible with all browsers.

 

Solution

http://www.font2web.com.  Font 2 Web is a great website that does what it says.  It takes your TTF and gives you back a zip file with the other 4 files that you need.  It also gives you the CSS file needed for your custom @font-face.  You may notice that in the CSS file the local src has a smiley face character.   You can read more here on what that’s all about:  http://paulirish.com/2010/font-face-gotchas/#smiley.

Update:  Another solution is http://www.fontsquirrel.com.  However, even if you have all font format files, it still may not work in all browsers and all OS’s.  I believe one issue is the EOT licensing issue for IE.  Microsoft use EOT format so that font licenses can be verified so maybe I’m using un-licensed fonts.  The only fonts that have worked consistently for me are Google’s Web Fonts.

Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750

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Opened the box, saw the instructions written on the inside cover of the box (nice simple pictures), plugged it in and it worked. No software needed to install, no charging, just worked. The keyboard can work with minimal inside light (i opened it at night).
The feel and sound of the keyboard is similar to a macbook keyboard. It has a little curve in the keys though so it’s easier to feel for the center of the key. I like the keypad and the Insert/Home/Page Up key section. I’m a programmer and I’m used to using the Home/End buttons to get to the end or start of a line or page while typing.

My desktop is on the ground below my wooden desk and the receiver plugs into the back of my desktop.  It’s a good 3 feet away from the keyboard with the desk in the way. The keyboard works fine with this setup. It’s a lot better than the old mini receiver Logitech used to have where it needed to be on the desk for it to work good.

K750 Solar Keyboard is green in more ways than one. It doesn’t have batteries of course. It also doesn’t have loose paper instructions. They write all instructions and info on the inside of the box. If you need more instructions, they give a website to go to to get a pdf.

My only gripe is that it doesn’t work with a mac. It has to be Windows as stated on the box.

I think the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 is the best keyboard I ever bought.  It seems to let me type faster once I got used to it.

Weblog Expert

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Problem

A client had wanted Google Analytics on their site a few months back so they asked me to put it in their website.  I thought I had, and I did, locally, but for one reason or another, it was not on the server.  The client depends on this report to get funding so I needed a way to get some type of statistics for the past few months.

 

Solution

GoDaddy, where the website is hosted, offers Statistics on traffic for free.  However, you need to enable this for it to start tracking.  Searching high and low I wanted to get access to the Apache Logs so I could use a tool like AWStats.  Through google I found GoDaddy’s help and saw that you can see Apache Logs in your FTP File Manager.  So I downloaded it.

A friend ran across Weblog Expert as I was retrieving the files.  I decided to try it since my last memory of AWStats was spending hours trying to find the right paths to enter into the config file.  Weblog Expert Lite is free and contains enough features for me to use.

I downloaded Weblog Expert Lite, installed it (it is a client installed on your local PC), created a new profile, selected the folder with all the downloaded logs.  Presto!  the reports were created and I was out of hot water.  So much simpler than AWStats.

 

PuTTY

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PuTTY and its related tools are a free version of Telnet and SSH for windows.  It has been available since 1999 and I have heard about it since way back then, but I haven’t had a real need for it until just recently.  I used to use the SSH Secure Shell commercial client, but since that is technically not free to use for non-commercial use I decided to switch.

Uses for me

  • Login through SSH using Public Key authentication
  • Converts a Linux private key to a PC-usable key
  • SCP and SFTP clients

Download

PuTTY can be found here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

Open Source Licenses

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Originally published by Zack Rusin, found by using the WayBack Machine. I am not a lawyer and do not know legal stuff.  I posted this here for my reference and in case the wayback machine loses the page.  If this posting itself violates some kind of license let me know and I’ll take it down since I have no clue about licenses. The information here may or may not be out of date. Take it as a starting point to find out the differences between the licenses.

 

http://mymonkeydo.com/example/open_source_licenses.html

Diff Merge

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DiffMerge is an application to visually compare and merge files within Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.  Best of all it is free! as in it’s free for you to use, you don’t need to pay anything, ever.  This is a very useful tool when you are trying to find a differences between two files.  You can use it as an external tool for CVS or SVN when diff-ing multiple versions.  Other features include:

  • Graphically shows differences between two files
  • Side by side comparison between two folders
  • Right click and compare two files in Windows Explorer
  • Configurable
  • Compatible with 42 different encodings
  • Cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux)

The best feature that makes DiffMerge stand out against the rest of the diff tools is their Folder Diff.  I work on a project I work on multiple files at a time and I loose track of what file I touched.  If I ever need to see the changes I’ve made in an entire folder, DiffMerge can easily show me that.

DiffMerge can be downloaded here: http://www.sourcegear.com/diffmerge/index.html