Technology

Jun 4, 2011

The Cake Isn’t A Lie

Jon Lim blog, CakePHP, coding, PostageApp Coding 0 Comment

Yesterday, I tweeted out that I was going to give CakePHP a try over the weekend, with the end goal of creating a plugin for CakePHP to be able to send emails via PostageApp.

CakePHP!

Welp, I’ve done the bare minimum to give it a try – I went through the ‘create a blog’ example they had in their documentation.

What you end up with is a pretty simple web page that lists all of the posts (title and body) that are in your database, and you can add, edit, or delete posts as you see fit. It was pretty darn easy to set up, and it gave me a much better understanding of the MVC coding process.

I’m going to fiddle with it some more until I can actually add functionality to it (thinking of adding comments) and some sort of layout. If you want to check out what I’ve built so far, here’s the link: hellocake.upatom.com

Feel free to add/edit/delete posts on the site, and even feel more free to leave me weird messages!

Let’s see how far I can get with this!

Jun 1, 2011

Tracking Ye Olde Expenses Using Google Chart Tools

Jon Lim expenses, Google Chart Tools, Javascript Blog, Coding, Life 2 Comments

Since I’ve started my hunt for a proper place to live downtown, another activity I’ve proactively started is to be a lot more careful about where and how I spend my money, in an effort to be able to afford rent and have enough money to continue to save.

Bob Newhart, why am I so broke?!

As a way of making myself accountable, I have created an expenses page that tracks my month to month expenses, which I track through Quicken Essentials.

I create the chart using Google Chart Tools, which is a pretty nifty way to display all your data using JavaScript. Though it’s a bit difficult to integrate it into WordPress posts, I took the simplest solution (NOT having to pull and parse data from custom fields) and just passed the data into the header manually.

Here’s the code I used:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
	google.load("visualization", "1", {packages:["corechart"]});
	google.setOnLoadCallback(drawChart);
	function drawChart() {
		var data = new google.visualization.DataTable();
		data.addColumn('string', 'Month');
		data.addColumn('number', '2011');
		data.addRows(12);
		data.setValue(0, 0, 'Jan');
		data.setValue(0, 1, 2610.62);
		data.setValue(1, 0, 'Feb');
		data.setValue(1, 1, 1973.72);
		data.setValue(2, 0, 'Mar');
		data.setValue(2, 1, 3303.36);
		data.setValue(3, 0, 'Apr');
		data.setValue(3, 1, 2836.86);
		data.setValue(4, 0, 'May');
		//data.setValue(4, 1, 882.64);
		data.setValue(5, 0, 'Jun');
		//data.setValue(5, 1, 882.64);
		data.setValue(6, 0, 'Jul');
		//data.setValue(6, 1, 882.64);
		data.setValue(7, 0, 'Aug');
		//data.setValue(7, 1, 882.64);
		data.setValue(8, 0, 'Sep');
		//data.setValue(8, 1, 882.64);
		data.setValue(9, 0, 'Oct');
		//data.setValue(9, 1, 882.64);
		data.setValue(10, 0, 'Nov');
		//data.setValue(10, 1, 882.64);
		data.setValue(11, 0, 'Dec');
		//data.setValue(11, 1, 882.64);
 
		var chart = new google.visualization.ColumnChart(document.getElementById('chart_div'));
		chart.draw(data, {width: 920, height: 240, title: 'Monthly Expenses',
		                  vAxis: {format:'$#,###', minValue: 0, maxValue: 5000}
		                 });
	}
</script>

Just drop that into your header file (copy and paste the header from header.php and drop it into your template file to isolate it to particular pages) and create a div with the id that matches whatever you put into this line:

35	var chart = new google.visualization.ColumnChart(document.getElementById('chart_div'));

And if we used that, you would use this to place your chart anywhere on the page like so:

1	<div id="chart_div"></div>

Ta daaa!

My eventual goal is to be spending less than $1500 a month, before rent, which ensures that I am saving at least SOME money. Well, here goes nothing.

Enjoy watching me waste my money, thanks for reading!

May 29, 2011

Lessons From Shooting With the SLR

Jon Lim Canon T2i, SLR, Video Technology, Video 2 Comments

Shooting with a Canon T2i It has been just about 3 months since I have bought my Canon T2i, and I have done my best to really get to know it better. I have done quite a bit of video in the past, and I have done some video with SLRs as well, but there are just tiny little tips and tricks you figure out along the way.

Here are a few for the beginner videographers to help you along your journey to shooting better video!

Tip #1: Autofocus in video sucks with the T2i.

Seems rather silly, but autofocus on the T2i in video mode is… well, it’s shoddy. It is slow, it is loud, and it opens up your aperture as wide as it can while it does it, and will whitewash your entire video. Instead, get comfortable using manual focus and zooming in to check on the focus. At least that’s how I do it.

Tip #2: Invest in a good microphone.

This is especially important if you have people speaking on camera. I recently filmed an interview with Wes and Darcy of Dealpage, and we were on the roof of my office building on a rather windy day. If I didn’t have a mic, I am pretty sure my audio would consist of bits and pieces of their answers, but mostly the wind blowing right into the mic. And nobody wants to interview the wind.

The mic I use is a Rhodes VideoMic. I’d love to buy a wireless lavalier mic in the future, but for now it isn’t viable for me.

Tip #3: Don’t cheap out on the SD card.

When I took the camera to Austin for SXSW, I had JUST purchased the camera along with this cheapo 32GB SD card from Canada Computers. Worked great for photography, but when you used video mode and you moved in the slightest, you would memory buffer right out. Why? The SD card just wasn’t fast enough. Instead, invest in a card that gets at least 30mb/s and memory buffer issues should be a thing of the past.

I bought the SanDisk Extreme 16GB card, best purchase ever.

Tip #4: Auto settings are versatile enough for most situations, but get comfortable with manual settings.

This is something I have only recently started fiddling with, because for the most part, auto exposure settings were just good enough for anything I was doing. However, setting it to manual is the best way to control image quality and the look and feel of your video. Get some practice down by shooting a still scene and changing the settings until it looks right to you. Soon enough, you’ll get comfortable enough to change the settings on the fly and while on the move.

This has been the largest effect on my work, simply because being able to change the settings at will has given me the control I need to make it look just the way I want it to look.

So there you have it, a few nifty tips I have picked up along the way, and I hope they help you out too!

Apr 16, 2011

Kickass Weekend Ahead

Jon Lim ruby on rails Coding, Life, Ruby on Rails 6 Comments

You know how I know my weekend is going to rock?

Let’s do this.

SIDE NOTE: Hopefully I can blog the progress I am having with learning this – I spent a portion of my lab day yesterday setting up Comfortable Mexican Sofa, and it was so easy. Can’t wait to actually build things.

Feb 19, 2011

Case Study: When You Should Have Kept Your Mouth Shut

Jon Lim Fail, RedBoard, Rogers, UBB Business, Telecom 1 Comment

As a company, you should give your two cents on hotly debated issues that matter to your customers. You should do this to establish your potion on the matter and give your customers peace of mind or a better idea of what they are dealing with.

What you should NOT do, however, is pretend that everything is just fine and your service is all fine and dandy.

Enter: Rogers RedBoard.

This entire post, is essentially how the Rogers social media team felt it was appropriate to respond to the entire UBB hubbub that went on (and is still going on) a couple of weeks ago.

In summary:
Heavy Rogers customers should pay for their usage, so the light users don’t subsidize them. Rogers makes substantial investments, and here’s all of our plans. Also, UBB doesn’t affect you.

Hah, what a hoot.

In the comments, users were quick to point out that Rogers customers have long been affected by UBB, having had bandwidth caps for years. Not to mention, there were many terrific arguments against bandwidth caps in general.

Like a good social media team, Rogers would of course respond to the posts. Of course, like Rogers, they don’t give a damn about what you just said and they’re going to parrot the same company rhetoric that they’ve been fed, and you aren’t going to get any sort of useful discussion out of this at all.

Good luck with that. Also, fix your commenting system, it’s garbage.

Next time Rogers, shut your mouth. When you open it and insult all of your customers like this, you are doing yourself no service and are making sure that your social media team fails in every aspect. They are paid to raise the company banner, so what did you expect was going to happen to this post?

We certainly weren’t going to welcome you with open arms.

Here are some of the highlights of the sad state of affairs in their comments:

View some of the other comments I screencapped in this album.

Jan 30, 2011

Save The Internet

Jon Lim Bell, Canada, internet, Rogers, Telus, Toronto, UBB Business, Technology, Telecom 1 Comment

It’s time to act.

We need to make sure that those who have the power to change this situation can all hear our thoughts and opinions on the matter. We need to make sure that they act in our best interests and hopefully eliminate

Here is a great article on how to contact everyone really important.

Other than that, I will also be contacting the following people:

Rob Ford
Mayor of Toronto
City Hall – Suite C40
100 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M5H 2N2
[email protected]

My Local Councillor
List of Councillors + Contact Info

Let them all know your exact thoughts on the entire Usage Based Billing nonsense. Please remain civil and professional, we want to get our points across.

Here are some important points to cover:

How important internet service is to you
How important affordable internet service is to the future of Canada
How important competition is in every industry
How much you pay every month for internet service and how much you will pay after UBB is implemented

(Taken from Digital Home’s article.)

ACT! For the sake of the internet.

Jan 29, 2011

Customers as Adversaries

Jon Lim Bell, Canada, CRTC, Rogers, telecom, Telus Business, Technology, Telecom 3 Comments

This week, I tweeted about Rogers taking away the credit I had in my wireless account for the System Access Fee. A credit (For $6.95) that I was told I could have until the end of my contract.

The Rogers social media team responded to me, and I received a subsequent call from Delwin, of the Office of the President. I explained my situation to him, and he said that there was nothing in their notes, and that there was no code for the System Access Fee credit in the system anymore. Of course not.

I told him not to bother with anything else, I was going to let my contract expire and be done with this terrible company for good for my mobile phone. I explained to Delwin that it’s rather outrageous that they were willing to sacrifice $50 a month from a long time customer for the sake of $6.95 a month. He didn’t bother fighting, he knew it was a lost cause.

For full disclosure’s sake, my account is worth at least $80 a month, and I have received quite a few credits on my account already. Why? I fought tooth and nail for them because it’s not like Rogers would ever say a damn thing to me should prices for better plans be created.

I am sure many people share the number of credits I have, along with the stories of how they have had to fight for every single dollar in the account.

Thank you Rogers, and the other telecoms, for making sure you treat all of your customers as adversaries. You are profiting extraordinarily well from all the frustrations of consumers in this inexplicably monopolistic telecom industry in Canada, and the CRTC ensures that your profits for years to come will be safe.

Up yours, and then some.

Jan 26, 2011

Canada: Where Innovation Comes To Die

Jon Lim Business, Technology 21 Comments

I hope you heard the news yesterday: the CRTC approved metered internet billing.

Aside from how outraged I am about that news, I’m going to say something rather bold: Rogers, Bell, and Telus are killing innovation in Canada.

Every single year, we are gouged to the bone by these three gigantic corporations by receiving less service for more money. They treat us poorly, and they know they can get away with it because we have no choice. They don’t need to improve a damn thing because we are stuck.

So let’s take a look at exactly why they are killing us:

Rogers

Rogers is made up of three business units: Rogers Wireless, Rogers Cable, and Rogers Media. As of the end of Q3 in 2010, the entire unit generated $2,545 million in profits. (Source – Adjusted Operating Profit minus PPE Expenditures) Here’s the breakdown:

Rogers Wireless: $1,879 million
Rogers Cable: $583 million
Rogers Media: $83 million

TOTAL: $2,545 million

Bell

Bell is, like Rogers, made up of three business units: Bell Wireline, Bell Wireless, and Bell Aliant. As of Q3 2010, they had earned $1,084 million in profits. (Source – EBITDA minus Capital Expenditures) Here’s the breakdown:

Bell Wireline: $513 million
Bell Wireless: $346 million
Bell Aliant: $225 million

TOTAL: $1,084 million

Telus

Telus has two business units: Telus Wireless and Telus Wireline. As of Q3 2010, they had earned $1,609 million in profits. (Source – EBITDA minus Capital Expenditures) Here is the breakdown:

Telus Wireless: $1,284 million
Telus Wireline: $325 million

TOTAL: $1,609 million

—

So what does this tell us? Within 9 months of the year, each company had already earned at least $1,000,000,000 in profits alone. When you go on the record to say that “the explosive growth in Internet traffic and the load it puts on networks mean flat-rate pricing was no longer viable” (Source) then I know you are just being a profiteering douche.

You have the resources and the capital, why would you not upgrade your networks instead of raising our prices? If you were increasing my speed and bandwidth while raising my prices, I wouldn’t really think too much of it. However, when all three of you lobby to raise prices because you can’t compete?

That’s monopolistic, and exactly the type of behaviour that kills innovation.

Welcome to Canada.

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