Welcome to LukeMcReynolds.com!
This is my place to put stuff online so I won't forget it, show the world that I can make a decent website, and share my thoughts with family and friends. It's also a place for me to share Linux/web development tips and tricks with the world at large, and a place for me to post pictures of my cat. If you don't know me and would like to, please get in touch with me - I'll try to respond right away.
Search function for the User Groups module for ExpressionEngine
I wrote a quick search function for the User Groups module for ExpressionEngine. It searches groups (names and descriptions) as well as topics and topic replies. It respects group types as well - results from private groups will not show up in the topic or topic replies search results. You can download it here or see it here.
Ideally it’d be rewritten to use MySQL’s full-text search, but the way it is now works fine for my purposes.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments. I’ll probably end up updating it as new versions of the User Groups module come out.
Posted on Nov 19, 2009 - 06:15 PM Categories: ExpressionEngine, Geek, Open Sourcedread more | 0 comments
How to create categories from the frontend in ExpressionEngine
I figured out a nifty way to let users on the frontend create categories in the backend. (This isn’t currently possible with the SAEF.) It’s a little bit of a hack, but it works - if you have improvements upon it, please let me know.
You’ll need two templates: one with the form that the user submits with the category name and description (I’ll call this the index template), and one with PHP enabled (parsed on input, NOT output), which I’ll call the create template. In this instance, I’m creating a groups equivalent for users based on categories.
Posted on Nov 14, 2009 - 06:24 PM Categories: ExpressionEngine, Geek, Open Sourcedread more | 0 comments
New Cell Phone SMS Phishing Attempt
I got this text message today:
From: 3710
Subject: 003@tmomailnet / / Message:C
Message: Co-Op-Service: 462562xxxxxxxxxxx-Frozen.Cal 866.360.8725
I googled around, couldn’t find anything similar to this message that anyone had received, nor any message of the 866 phone number.
So, I called it. Turns out that it tells you that your credit card account has been frozen, and that you need to enter your credit card number and a bunch of other stuff in order to reactive your credit card.
This is of course not true.
I’ll try to record the automated 866 number message later tonight.
Posted on Nov 12, 2009 - 08:20 PM Categories: Geekread more | 0 comments
Freelance Invoice Templates
A friend of mine just asked me to send him the invoice template I use for my freelance web development work. I did that, and decided that I might as well share my invoice templates with everyone else, too!
I’ve cleaned them up a bit, and they’re available in .odt and .doc format. This template is in portrait format - I have the same template in landscape format that I can put up later if you’d like.
These templates are free for you to use in any way you see fit, with or without attribution, and for private, non-profit and personal use.
Download here
.ODT invoice template
.doc invoice template
.PDF invoice template (not editable)
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Sacramento Dubstep
After a long time, I found a Sacramento dubstep artist - 303 Sumatra. He plays down at the Image VIP Lounge once a month - I’m going to check him out in November.
The best source for dubstep in Sacramento I’ve found are the “Boom” events. I usually find out about them from 303sumatra’s MySpace page.
Also, shameless plug time: I made dubstepp.com a little while ago. It’s a great dubstep music aggregator/listening channel - it scrapes http://reddit.com/r/dubstep/ for tracks and puts them all in one place. dubstepp.com makes it really easy to find new artists and songs. Check it out - I think you’ll like it!
Posted on Oct 19, 2009 - 06:05 PM Categories: Local, Personal, Sacramentoread more | 4 comments
Backing Up Hidden Directories with SpiderOak on Linux
I use SpiderOak as a third-party personal backup service. I use Kubuntu Linux on my desktop, and I started using SpiderOak specifically because it has great Linux support.
Anyway, SpiderOak gives all their users 2GB of lifetime storage, for free. Besides backing up all your regular documents and everything, you can also back up some important hidden directories, including your Firefox bookmarks and profile, and your KDE settings. Here’s how I did it.
First, you need to display the hidden directories in the SpiderOak client, so you can tell SpiderOak what to back up. To display the hidden directories, click the icon which looks like this, circled in red:
Once you do that, you should see something like this, assuming you’re looking at your home directory:
Your Firefox profile, with all your bookmarks and settings in it, is in .mozilla/firefox. If you select the firefox directory and find that it takes up way more of your backup space than you want, and you use Google’s Gears plugin, try unchecking the “Google Gears for Firefox” folder - that trimmed nearly 700 megabytes off the total space I needed to have backed up.
If you use Pidgin, you’ll want to select the .purple folder. This will back up all of your chat logs.
And, if you use KDE, you’ll probably want to back up your .kde folder. (Your .gnome and/or .gnome2 folders if you use Gnome). The .kde folder is where all of KDE’s settings are kept: font sizes, Kwin settings, panel options, saved Kwallet passwords, Dolphin/Konqueror bookmarks, etc. If your hard drive dies and you need to reinstall, replacing your new .kde folder with your backed-up one will make your KDE look and feel just like it did before your crash. One thing to be aware of: if you use Kmail, Kmail stores all of its mail in the .kde/share/apps/kmail folder. Depending on how much mail you have in there, you may want to uncheck .kde/share/apps/kmail so you don’t go over your SpiderOak limit.
Have any other SpiderOak tips, or important Linux config folders that you always back up that I haven’t mentioned? Let me know in the comments!
Posted on Sep 30, 2009 - 05:15 PM Categories: Geekread more | 0 comments
Creative Commons Quercus Lobata/Valley Oak Leaf Scans
I’m doing a website project for my grandfather, Robert Edminster - once I finish it, I’ll be sure to mention it here. To make a long story short, the design involved an oak leaf motif. So, I went outside, picked a small branch from the Valley Oak outside, and scanned them three of the oak leaves that were in the best shape. I’m releasing the original source image as well as a couple of edited/cleaned-up versions of the original image.
I believe these are leaves from a Valley Oak, Quercus lobata, but I could be wrong.
You can download all of the derivations I made of the original scanned image, including the original image and a transparent PNG GIMP .xcf file, here, in a .zip file: oak leaves zip. As well, here are the individual files:
Posted on Sep 24, 2009 - 11:07 PM Categories: Art, Geek, Open Sourced, Photoblogread more | 2 comments
Converting .flv to .avi files with mencoder
My dad asked me to do something tech-oriented today, and I thought I’d share how I did it.
My dad saw this botfly-extraction video the other day, and wanted to save it to his computer. (Everyone in our family has a certain amount of personal experience with botflies, my dad slightly more than the rest. That’s what living in Belize for four years will do for ya. For what it’s worth, the video very accurately describes the “botfly experience”.)
Anyway, looking through the source of the blip.tv page that the video was hosted on, I was able to find the main .flv file: http://blip.tv/file/get/Vserrao-TheBotflyInMyHead550.flv. I saved that to my computer, and then converted it to an .avi file, so that my dad can view it easier.
I used mencoder to convert the .flv file to .avi. On my Linux desktop, this is what I used for the conversion:
mencoder -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -o botfly.avi botfly.flv
mencoder gave a much higher quality resultant video than ffmpeg did.
Screenshots of the original .flv, the mencoder .avi, and the ffmpeg .avi are below. The screenshots aren’t of the botfly, don’t worry - that’s just gross.
Posted on Sep 16, 2009 - 06:11 PM Categories: Family, Geekread more | 0 comments
Reddit Addict on Ubuntu Linux?
Anyone had success installing and running RedditAddict Lite on Ubuntu Linux? I’ve installed Adobe Air, and installed the appropriate .air package, but I can’t for the life of me figure out how to actually run it. (And there’s no documentation on the RedditAddict Lite page itself.)
Anyway, leave a comment if you’ve gotten it worked out. If I get it worked out, I’ll post my solution. Thanks!
Posted on Sep 13, 2009 - 11:22 PM Categories: Geek
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I’ve Been Loving This Song Recently
Gorgeous - possibly a better song than the original, even. The song is called “Archangel”, and it’s on Burial‘s Untrue album. This is Phaseone‘s remix.
Posted on Jul 23, 2009 - 04:28 PM Categories: Personalread more | 0 comments
