During the last months I have been working in my thesis project. The idea was to create a medical social bookmarking system using a web MVC system or something simmilar. Since I use a lot Python for development in my current job I decided to go for Django and since the Google App Engine was released around the time when I was doing the proposal, I decided to go for a Django application over the Google App Engine. Finally last Monday I was able to publish the first version of this medical bookmarking system in the App Engine. It took my a while an it is still very “beta”, but I’m glad that it is already live . If you want to visit it and give it a try it is locate at: http://medical-bookmarks.appspot.com

I couple of month ago I wrote a Greasemonkey script (honestly I don’t remember exactly what was the purpose of it) and I remember using one function for getting the elements by class. The normal getElementById or getElementsByTagName were not useful for my particular needs at that moment. Today I’m working in a small project for the university and was looking again for the same code.  I’m glad I was able to find it. Despite having a delicious account I realised I didn’t have it inside, so I decided to use this blog and put the the nice code and a reference to the author’s site:

function getElementsByClass(searchClass,node,tag) {
	var classElements = new Array();
	if ( node == null )
		node = document;
	if ( tag == null )
		tag = '*';
	var els = node.getElementsByTagName(tag);
	var elsLen = els.length;
	var pattern = new RegExp("(^|\\s)"+searchClass+"(\\s|$)");
	for (i = 0, j = 0; i < elsLen; i++) {
		if ( pattern.test(els[i].className) ) {
			classElements[j] = els[i];
			j++;
		}
	}
	return classElements;
}

As you can see here you just send to the function the class you are looking for, the node where the class will be searched and the tag if you to specify one. If you want to read a more comprehensive explanation visit the authors website: http://www.dustindiaz.com/getelementsbyclass/

I’m just going to try it again … last time it worked great

Tomorrow I’m going to make a small presentation and I need it the PHP code for getting the visitor IP address and the user agent (basically the browser). I know it’s not very difficult, but this is the kind of stuff you need thousands of times at hand and you look over and over on the web. So I’ll paste it here. Maybe tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I’ll need it again:

$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];

I have been working with a Ubuntu machine for a while and even if the graphical interface is not as flashy as the Mac one, it is pretty decent. One of the great advantages of having a Linux Operating System is that you have on your hand all the power of the unix command line interface. I have been mounting filers with the mount command, changing file access restrictions using the chmod command and killing processes with ps -A and kill, but I was thinking it would be nice to learn more about the unix file system, task automation, etc and today I found this nice “Speak Unix” technical tutorial series. I was beginning to read the article about the file system and it was very interesting. I think I’ll spend some time this weekend reading some of the articles. You can find the whole series at:

 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/views/aix/libraryview.jsp?search_by=speaking+UNIX+Part

Sometimes I wonder if there are seasons at all in Ireland. I mean of course I have to wear a good jacket in winter but it is not as cold as it was in France and now the summer the weather is really bad, very wet and rainy and gray most of the days. It is amazing how the city looks different when the weather is nicer. For example yesterday we went to take dinner with some guys from the company and we went coming out it wasn’t very cold the sky was clear and the city had a much nicer view. I was looking at the Sky and thinking “I hope it will last!” but it was too good to be true, because this morning it was gray, rainy and cold again. It is not surprising … just another day in this Dublin Summer.

One of the most powerful features of the Firefox browser is the ability to extend its functionality using extensions (mmm sorry I mean add-ons now) and one the most powerful ones is called Greasemonkey. It allows the users to write or install some special javascript scripts (user scripts) that basically modify the appareance and behaviour of a web page. It is really cool because you can alter any page you want to in the way you want to. Do you want to block the pop ups? Do you want to rewrite the hyperlinks avoiding the redirections? Do you want to combine multiple services in one? Then GM is the solution. There are plenty of userscripts available on the web that you can use directly or tweak to adapt them to your needs. Ok, it sounds really nice, but you might be thinking, what do I need to use Greasemonkey; Well here is the checklist:

1. Firefox Browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/)
2. Greasemonkey Add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748)
3. User Scripts: (http://userscripts.org/)

That is the basic stuff you need to began using userscripts and alter the webpages. But now if you really want to have fun (an you are a geek of course) then you migh want to read a very nice tutorial about writing user scripts:

4. Dive into Greasemonkey (http://diveintogreasemonkey.org/)

I have used GM to test improvements in user interfaces, to add customization to the tools I use at work and in general by modify any webpage I want to. I recommend you o give it a try.

One of the things I love the most about the internet and the search engines is the fact you are able to search and find whatever you need to to, even your own work!. Today I was looking for a Javascript Math roundup function I had used a couple of years ago and Googling the title of small page I had created for my students so they could calculate their marks I found the code I was looking for:

function round(number,X) {

// rounds number to X decimal places, defaults to 2

X = (!X ? 2 : X);
return Math.round(number*Math.pow(10,X))/Math.pow(10,X);

}
As you might remember Javascript allows you to roundup a number to the integer value, but this handy function also gives you the chance to use decimal value. In the university I worked we used to roundup the marks using two decimal numbers so it was useful to embed this formula into my calculator page.

As you can see in the previous picture I was in holydays in Italy. I had the chance to go to Rome, Florence, Siena, Pisa and a small bit of Milan.  I spend most of the vacations in Rome and it was worth it, since this is the first city where I have truly felt the history all around. I went to the main touristic spots such as: Colisseum, St. Peter’s Square, Roman Forum, Pallatino, Pantheon, Piazza Venezia, etc. I also went to the vatican museums and even if the line was reaaaaally long (we have to be in the line for more than 2 hours!) it was totally worth it. The visit to the Sixtine Chappel was unique, the Raphael frescos were just amazing and in general all the pieces exposed in the Vatican museums are well exposed and explained. I stayed in a small b&b called St. Caterina, near the vatican city and it was pretty ok. I mean the breakfast was not amazing because it was in a bar around the corner (croissant and coffe) but the room was good. 

I’m grateful because during the last year I have being able to study a lot of Java Script and I have updated most of the concepts I had from the previous versions. It all started last year when I discovered the Greasemonkey Extension for Firefox, very useful for writing user scripts. When I read about how to create user scripts I realised that I hadn’t studied js for a while a there were several concepts I didn’t have a clue. One of the most interesting concepts I learned was the GetElementById method. It’s really cool since it allow you to a document object, in an HTML file. Let me give you an example: Let’s say you have an input in a form named ‘notes’:

<input type="text" size="20" name="notes" id="notes" />

Well, using the GetElementById method you can refer to this object and change its properties or values. For example if I want to asign the value “sample notes” to that field I can use this method in javascript:


document.getElementById('notes').value = "sample notes";


Last friday I was chatting with a Team mate who is working with me in a development project and I showed him how he could change the properties of his fields in a form using this handy method. There is a simple but illustrative sample in: http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~takoyaki/css-test/getAtt_getById_inner.html where you can see this method in action.

Today I became one year older. I’m 32 now. I decided to write a small post today to share that overall I feel mostly happy in this 32th birthday. I’m happy today because:

Now, the hapiness isn’t complete because I missed the call from my mom. She’s not able to communicate directly with us because she passed away in April. I hope you are fine Marthi, I know you were with me today even if couldn’t speak with you….