Blogging from dropbox with scriptogr.am

Posted on March 9, 2015 by erictummers

My (dutch) running blog is hosted by postach.io. Which is a tool that uses Evernote for blogging. A note in Evernote is published to my blog when the right tags are assigned. They won the Evernote Devcup 2013 Gold Award.

Today I received an email that postach.io will continue only as a paid / premium service. My free account will be shut down archived on March 17. The cost is $45 a year and totally worth it, if only I would actively post this way.

scriptogram_400x400Scriptogr.am uses dropbox for publishing my markdown formatted posts. The look-and-feel is customizable through the dashboard. It is free for now.

Markdown is the new standaard for formatting blogposts. More platforms adopt it. The key is the separation of text and format from the implementation which is mostly HTML and CSS.

Customization of the CSS and the template HTML is in the online dashboard. I would have like to see this in dropbox files, but it works. Just make a backup myself.

Since only some relatives visit my running blog the price must be right. Whenever the price changes I’m free to move my blog somewhere else since I own all the posts in my dropbox.

If you can read dutch 🙂 here is my blog: http://hardlopen.erictummers.nl/

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Week roundup

Posted on March 6, 2015 by erictummers

Last week recap and links:
Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What are your best reads this week? Leave them in the comments below.

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Other use of the presenter

Posted on March 4, 2015 by erictummers

Below is an animation where I press the buttons on the presenter and Carnac displays the keystroke registered.

presenter on webcam with carnac showing keystroke

Now I know the hotkeys to register with Autohotkey. See a sample script below that starts my presentation when it is not started, activates powerpoint when it is not active or just acts as the presenter when I’m in Powerpoint.

;Start presentation when no active powerpoint found
#IfWinNotExist ahk_class PPTFrameClass
F5::
+F5::
run c:\users\eric\desktop\presentation.lnk
return
;Act normal
#IfWinActive ahk_class PPTFrameClass
F5:: sendinput {f5}
+F5:: SendInput {shift}{f5}
return
;Activate powerpoint if started
#IfWinExist ahk_class PPTFrameClass
F5::
+F5::
WinActivate
return
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Merge changeset to branch

Posted on March 2, 2015 by erictummers

We use Team Foundation Server with Team Foundation Version Control (not GIT). To support a release we created two branches called CurrentVersion and 5.0.2. Where CurrentVersion is our “development” branch for new features and 5.0.2 is our “master” branch used for building and supporting a release.

When a bug is reported on the released version we fix it and merge the changes to the other branch. This merging is easier then we expected.

Merge changeset wizard

In these steps I merge a change from the CurrentVersion to the 5.0.2 branch. This happens when a bug is found and fixed in development and needs to go to production.

  1. Open source control explorer
  2. Select the source branch and in the context menu > branching and merging > merge…
  3. Check the option selected changesets and click Next
    merge1
  4. Select the changeset(s)* and click Next
    merge2
    * multi select is allowed when changes don’t conflict
  5. Click Finish
    merge3

The result is that the changes from the changeset are staged. (pending changes) Build the code to confirm it’s working and commit the changes with Check In. Now start the release build process.

Track changeset visualization

Nice feature in TFS is the Track Changeset that shows the different branches the changeset has been applied to. Below are the Hierarchy Tracking view and the Timeline Tracking view of the merged changeset.

Hierarchical view Timeline view

The green color means applied, the blue means not applied.

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Week 9 roundup

Posted on February 27, 2015 by erictummers

Last week recap and links:

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of kanate / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What are your best reads this week? Leave them in the comments below.

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