Keith Yanachik

Starbucks QuickOrder Mockup

Originally uploaded by Keith Yanachik

“Get your coffee fix, fast!” iPhone/iPod Touch application that allows the users to purchase their favorite Starbucks drink without waiting in line. This application also includes QuickPay, a swipe transaction system using semacode technology.

http://www.genoco.com/link/interactive_quickOrder.html

Here’s an article posted on the 24 ways advent calendar regarding how to handle Javascript dependencies.  It’s an issue that I’m currently wrestling with as my application requires more and more javascript libraries and files.

24 ways: Keeping JavaScript Dependencies At Bay

Here is a nice piece of code how to Scroll a  Div using the Prototype and Scriptaculous libraries.

Gary Haran.com » How To Unobtrusively Scroll A Div With Prototype & Scriptaculous

Well, my latest and greatest attempt at migrating from Windows to Linux has failed again.  There are just certain applications and settings that I cannot replicate that are essential to my computing experience.

1. Quicken – I tried the various Linux flavors of financ ial management suites, and I tried the online applications.  But none of them could compete with the total package from Quicken.  I ended up creating a virtual machine and installing Windows on that and then Quicken on that in order to do my banking.  But it became too much of a pain to boot up the virtual machine, log in, and then run Quicken.  The lack of Quicken is by far my biggest complaint about Linux.
2. Screen Resolution – Even though Ubuntu correctly ran my display at 1440 x 900, it just seems as if the fonts were bigger (even after I set them smaller), and the window decorations seemed to be larger.  Vista seems to be able to fit more on the screen, easier.
3. Remote Desktop connection – When running in full screen Windows has a bar at the top letting me minimize the full desktop and get back to my local desktop. Linux’s version couldn’t do this and I had to log off the remote desktop to make any changes locally – such as read email, send an instant message, or change the music I was listening to.  Ubuntu’s version of remote desktop is supposed to allow alt+enter to switch out of full screen mode, but it appears to be buggy.  It never worked for me, and there were launchpad bugs created for it.
4. iTunes – I know there are a plethora of media suites available for Linux, Amorak being the leading one, but none of the could compare to the full features of iTunes (let alone to store).  Amorak seemed to be the best at syncing with my iPod, but even it had problems.  I did not fully appreciate iTunes until I didn’t have it anymore.
5. Visual Studio 2008 runs on Vista nicely.  I can now develop remotely on my laptop and not have to remote desktop into my work pc.  SQL Server Management Studio 2005 runs nicely as well.  I enjoyed Eclipse in Ubuntu, but my work requires me to run Visual Studio.

flickr – Blog This!

Originally uploaded by Keith Yanachik

I’ve been using flickr to store the images in my blog in order to decrease the data traffic from my site. It’s been rather time consuming to put one of these images into a post because I have to open the image in flickr, then view the size I want, then copy the code necessary from flickr to embed the image, then view the HTML for my blog post, and paste the code.

Flickr has alleviated this inconvenience with the Blog This button.

When viewing an image on flickr there is a button now called Blog This. When clicking this button you select your preconfigured blog (or configure it the first time) and then enter the blog post’s Title and Post and click the Post Entry button. Flickr configures the blog post to include the image. This post was created through Flickr’s Blog This application.

VS-2008-Check-In-Filter-By-SolutionOriginally uploaded by Keith Yanachik

One of the little things that annoyed me when checking items into Team System’s source control was the fact that every item I had checked out (whether in the current solution or not) was displayed. The items were not selected to be checked in, but they were still listed there.

By clicking on the toolbar button that looks like the solution icon in the Check-In Window you can filter the check-in window to only display items from the current solution.