App Week: 1

We did a bit of brainstorming last night, and aside from Flappy Tinder and GrindBus, there were some pretty good ideas.  I've settled on a simple hack using OpenMBTA data:  I want to read in GPS coordinates and compass heading, then recommend bus lines.

In other words, open the app, face the direction you want to go, and it will tell you which number to take.

App Week

I'm going to try to write an app for iOS and get it on the App Store this week.

I don't know anything about the ecosystem.   I've never used XCode.  I'll probably fail.  But, I promise to spend at least an hour a day pursuing (and documenting) my process.

LibrePlanet 2014

So concludes my first LibrePlanet!  Despite living in Boston for three years, I haven't actually been in town during LP weekend until now.

I won't deny that it's an echo chamber sometimes.  Nevertheless, it's a nice feeling to be surrounded by dissimilar people who've all arrived at a similar thesis.  You get the feeling that no matter what happens, everyone is on the right track.

Congratulations to all of the organizers and volunteers who helped make the weekend such a success!

OCTPW: Heartbeat

Heartbeat is a simple way to check a process's vital signs.  Use it instead of Monit, Pingdom, Uptime Robot, or any combination thereof.

There's no setup.  Just open up a terminal and type:

    curl http://heartbeat.alexose.com/your-email@example.com/60
 
This will create a new heartbeat that will alert "your-email@example.com" in 60 seconds.  You can postpone this alert by running the same command again, or you can stop it altogether by sending a cancellation:

    curl http://heartbeat.alexose.com/your-email@example.com/cancel

The most straightforward use case is for keeping tabs on sensor data, but I can imagine using it wherever downtime requires your attention.  I use it to monitor several Raspberry Pis (which I use for all sorts of things around the house).

Check out the README for the full documentation and more usage examples.

OCTPW: SimpleBeeps

The problem is that cell phones come preloaded with awful ringtones.  The solution is SimpleBeeps.