gtdshell release 0.2

A quick release containing bugfix and some new features. The ones I really needed are, contexts and gnu readline support. Here goes the full changelog:

Release 0.2

Fixed:
    - There is an invalid EOL character in the done items.
    - A command line with space only causes segfault.
    - Removed the duplicate [done: ...] from the end of done items.
    - Made contexts visible on the next item output.

Features:
    - Appended anonymous project results to the 'list' command output.
    - Added total item count to the 'list' command output.
    - Added the 'stat' command, displaying the done item count in the past week.
    - Wrapped the done item timestamps in square brackets.
    - Implemented contexts.
    - Added gnu readline support.

Internals:
    - Done item management refactoring.

Have fun.

Sample OpenID scenario

In a Unix computer when I log in and open an application it loads my settings, my documents, my music, etc. Windows provides similar functionality, I believe. When I install an application, it doesn't ask me who I am, it just fetches it from somewhere, be it environment variables, or registry, or some other OS API. However, when you sign up for an online service or an application it asks who you are and you cannot say to fetch your data from another web site you have already registered with.

There are some services to provide this. As far as I remember MS tried to implement something like it. Facebook, provided a common framework for applications, open social is another alternative for Facebook's framework. Each comes with their own pros and cons. However the real problem is there is no unified way for it.

Now, there is a somewhat similar standard created to provide a similar functionality, OpenID. It does not handle all the issues, but surely a starting point. There is a lot of technical definition on the OpenID web site. Here I will show a sample scenario, in which I use my blogger account as my OpenID identity and connect my sourceforge account to it.

Log in to the sourceforge.net site.
Go Account Options -> Manage My OpenIDs -> Add an OpenID -> Enter your blogger url -> Click Log In -> Enter Your Password to Blogger if it asks -> Say "Yes, Always"

To test it: Click log out. -> Click Log In at sf.net page -> Enter your openid url -> There will be a blogger account login screen if you are not signed in to your blogger account. Enter your mail and password -> Well, that's it. You have an online identity.

Have fun.

Console based GTD tool: gtdshell

There is a loud buzz about GTD, a productivity method by David Allen, so I guess everyone interested in productivity improvement is already heard about it. What he says is the best tool for gtd is paper and pen, however there are many software out there both free and for sale. You can use one of them instead. But probably the worst thing you would prefer to do is to design your own gtd software and, yes, that's what I did. Here I present gtdshell.

Why I need it? Simply, I didn't like the other tools. Most of them are online and I am not 100% connected to the internet and I don't want every detail of my personal life to be somewhere on the web. Well, maybe except gmail. Most of these tools are not flexible enough, I can't use vi to edit them, someday I want to be able to access it with my openmoko, etc. So I decided to store my next actions in text files and started to develop an application which I can somewhat easily process it.

Finally, I think it is at a usable point, though you still need a text editor sometimes, here goes the first published revision. You can download the tarball from the gtdshell web page or check out from the subversion for the bleeding edge. Feedbacks are appreciated.

Have fun.

Slow laptop, funny reason

It is normal Windows to slow down as you install new applications but if your linux installed laptop is getting slower and slower, there may be a pile of dust blocking the fan or there may be around five hundred thousand files in your home folder, or both as in my case. Probably I should clean inside of my laptop periodically.

SMS reminders with Google Calendar

Day by day I am adapting to a new Google service. My new favorite is the Google Calendar. Recently I've discovered that Google sends SMS messages to my phone as reminders for the events I defined in Google Calendar. Since than I am started to use it day by day. I don't have a life with full of appointments and hours long meetings but I need to remember stuff. What I do is, I add every task I should remember to the Google Calendar as 5 minute events and then I get reminders as SMS messages. Which works great so far. Try it, have fun.

C++ Linux to Windows port

It took about 10 minutes to port the gtdshell into Visual Studio 2003 (I used linux+gcc at the development.) The only problem was apparently boost::date_time has some issues with VS, so it is replaced with ctime functions.

Turkçe Alt-Q Klavye

Linux'daki Alt-Q Türkçe klavyeyi özleyenler için. traltq.zip

Change is good

I moved to İstanbul.
Started a new job.
Got a twitter account (nick: emreturkay).
Turker tricked me to use nedurum (nick: emre).

Most simple XMLHttpRequest example.

For the ones need to get a quick start here goes a very simple XMLHttpRequest example with pure javascript. Note that this example works with the Firefox. For the Internet Explorer "xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();" line should be changed with "xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP");" although this usage varies with the Internet Explorer version.

At the server side you need a text.txt file which contains a partial html document such as:

<p> hello </p>

The code:

<html>

<head>

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

function back_ajax()
{
  if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4)
  {
      var o = document.getElementById('o');
      o.innerHTML = xmlhttp.responseText;
  }
}

function call_ajax()
{
  xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
  xmlhttp.open("GET", "test.txt", true);
  xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = back_ajax;
  xmlhttp.send(null);
}

</script>

</head>

<body>

  <form name="f">
      <input name="in"/>
      <input type="button" onClick="call_ajax()"/>
  </form>

  <div id="o">
      <ul>
          <li> test 1 </li>
          <li> test 2 </li>
      </ul>
  </div>

</body>

</html>

subversion behind proxy

For the people who needs subversion access behind a corporate proxy, all you need to do is to append the lines below at the end of ~/.subversion/servers file. Unfortunately, this only works for subversion http access.

http-proxy-host = your.proxy.host.ip
http-proxy-port = port-number
http-proxy-username = your-user-name
http-proxy-password = your-password
http-proxy-exceptions = comma-seperated-list-of-internal-subversion-hosts

Have fun.

e-mail @ console

There are times I want to send a file, write a couple of lines to someone or simply send a reminder to my own mailbox by e-mail directly from terminal. This is where the plain old mail tool comes to the scene. It's manual page and all kinds of tutorials on how to use it is available on the web. However it took a little time to configure it to send mail via the corporate SMPT server. Finally, I could find something on the web and after modifying it a little bit it works. Install the gnu mailutils package, put the lines below to the ~/.mailrc and voilà.

set sendmail="/usr/lib/mailutils/mail.remote \
           --mailer smtp://mail.server.address \
           -f you@your.mail.address"