Ryan Chapin's Website

If you have ever wanted to recursively search through all of the files in a directory for a specific string, here is the bash command to do it:

find . | xargs grep ‘string’ -sl

Here is a link to a great article that explains how to set your SVN repository to ignore a file, or collection of files.

Below is the mirrored content should the page no longer be available.

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------
#      Ignore all the .txt files in the /trunk/Blah/ directory
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------

# Go to the directory
cd trunk/Blah/              # The directory with the files

# Start editing the properties for the current directory
svn propedit svn:ignore .   # Opens an editor (SVN_EDITOR, EDITOR)

# Add the following value with a new line, save, and exit:
*.txt

# See that things worked
svn propget svn:ignore .    # So you can see the properties
svn status --no-ignore      # You should see an 'I' next to the ignored files

# Commit
svn commit -m "New Ignores" # You must commit the new property change


# ---------------------------------------------------------------------
#     Ignore a single file secret.txt in the /trunk/ directory
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------

# Go to the directory
cd trunk/

# Add just the single file to the current directories ignore list (like above)
# Note the dot at the end of the command is important
svn propset svn:ignore secret.txt .

# See that things worked
svn propget svn:ignore .    # Notice the single file was added to the list
svn status --no-ignore      # You should see an 'I' next to the ignored files

# Commit
svn commit -m "Its secret"  # You must commit the new property change

If you have ever used a workstation whereby you login through remote access, you’ll notice that you cannot shut down the machine (even if you are able to boot it remotely).

If you want to shut it down simply run the following command at a command prompt:

%systemroot%system32shutdown.exe -s -t 0

Attached is a .zip file that contains the source code and a set of example web pages that will allow you to dynamically render links (or any html tag for that matter) with one of two classes depending on which page you are viewing

It gives you the ability to render nav bars that display items as selected and unselected.

If you have ever seen Firefox 2 and 3, IE 6 and/or IE 7 render the scroll bars on a div that has the overflow: auto property set what follows is a full description of the problem and a solution.

Click here for said solution.

I run a number of VMWare virtual machine instances on my Linux host and in one of them I do a lot of Photoshop work.  This involves a lot of holding down the Shift key, which with the default installation of Kubuntu 8.04 enables the sticky keys and slow keys accessibility options.

To turn this off, go to System Settings/Accessibility and click on the "Activation Gestures" tab.  Then uncheck the "Use gestures for activating sticky keys and slow keys".

Click the Apply button and how you can hold down the Shift key as long as you’d like.

Adding a "Skip Nav" link to your design can sometimes compromise the look and feel of the page.  Moreover it can confuse those visitors who have no idea what it means.

A good solution is to create a Skip Nav link that is only visible when it receives keyboard focus.  This happens as a user is tabbing through the page.

To do so, use the following styles and markup:

Styles:

#skip a,
#skip a:hover,
#skip a:visited
    {
    position:absolute;
    left:0px;
    top:0px;
    width:0px;
    height:0px;
    overflow:hidden;
    }

#skip a:active,
#skip a:focus
    {
    width:auto;
    height:auto;
    }

Markup:

<div id="skip">
    <a href="#skip">Skip Nav</a>
</div>

<p><a name="skip"></a>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
</p>

Here are links to some accessibility validators sent to me by my friend Karen:

• http://checker.atrc.utoronto.ca/servlet/Submit
• http://wave.webaim.org/  This site features a Firefox toolbar.

Here’s a cool site with a ton of free Photoshop patterns.
and
Another.

Here are a couple of cool websites for picking and generating color palettes:

• http://www.lightsphere.com/colors/
• http://colorschemedesigner.com/
• http://www.degraeve.com/reference/color.php
• http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette/ This one is really cool.  Give it the URL of an image and it’ll generate a palette for you.