JudoGeek Blog

DojoList... Internationalisation and testing added.

Lance Wicks — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:34:08 GMT

Although time has been short recently, I have started making some changes to my Dojo listing code, which I wanted to add to the blog.

Firstly, I have added some simple internationalisation support.
As of version 0.3.0 simple Internationalisation using Gettext is added. The language support is in the /locale/xx/LC_MESSAGES/ directories, using the standard two letter abbreviations for languages, i.e. en for English, es for Spanish etc. Native speakers can assist the project by editing the messages.po file in the directory. The .po file is then used to create the .mo file.

Basically, I have since gone through most of my views and replaced echo statements with the gettext abbreviation _('........'); statement as below.

The next step was/is to create tranlation files using:

xgettext ../../../views/*.php

Then run :

msgfmt messages.po -o messages.mo

I then needed to add some simple code to the app to manage which language is displayed. Including the translation is a case of including


// Specify location of translation tables 
bindtextdomain (�messages�, �./locale�);

// Choose domain 
textdomain (�messages�);

in the main index.php file and also selecting the language using:

// Set language to Spanish 
putenv (�LC_ALL=es�); 
?>

This all works pretty smoothly, if the .po file is blanked, then it defaults to the original. So for English, I have not had to add anything. So all I need now is people to translate the text. :-)

Automated testing.
I have added a /tests/ folder to the project and included the simpletest framework to make testing my code simple and easy. So far I have done very little except get it in place and working.

I have started by adding some basic tests to the Dojo model.

My intention is as I progress to write my tests first and then write the code to implement the features I want. It's good practice, but I am lazy and have nt been doing it.

I've just this evening merged the branch I was using to develop the localisation into the master branch on http://github.com/lancew/DojoList

Go take a look at the code there, or see it in action at http://dojolist.org

Lance.
:-)

Maintaining momentum...

Lance Wicks — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:40:26 GMT

Hi everyone,
long time no bloggage I know. The bloggage Blockage has been the result of a whole heap of things. Work, Judo, Life all conspiring to keep me away from this blog.

My pal Chris posted recently that he is clesaning up his digital life, I think I could do with doing that... heck doing it with my analog/real life would be good too.

As some of you know, I have been working for a client since October last year, based an hour or so from home, 5 days a week; with increasingly regular overnight trips around the UK. This is due to come to an end in March and it has had me thinking about momentum.

The new client work has been great, good for my business and challenging work. But it has been all consuming, very little time has been left free to me to keep other aspects of my business rolling and also to pursue other things like open source projects.

So with the end of this client work looming, I have the opportunity to look forward and try and set some direction in my commercial and personal life. For example, I have been working on another language version of my PlanetJudo.com website (French this time). Once that goes live, I want to finish the PlanetJudo iPhone app I have had a varying levels of completeness for months and push it to the Appstore.

I also want to bring the DojoList project to a releasable level. I have started on rudimentary multi-lingual support. Which has been helpful as the next step in PlanetJudo's future is a big refactoring to incorporate languages better and be a single application with language support. Rather than 3 copies of the same app customised to each language as it is now.

Also on the list is a new car (or two), more podcasting, more coaching, more clients. Too much to handle I suspect, so some good planning is required. I am also wanting to do a Judo research project for the next IAJR symposium (and potentially preparing and poster fo the EJU research symposium that may take place in April). I also need to put some time and energy into JudoSpace, the training company I am a director in.

Phew...

And all through this the big issue that ove rthe last few months I have totally lost momentum on pretty much everything except this main client I have.

So the big question/goal/challenge for the next period is this, how do I maintain/develop momentum when faced by the real life day-to-day issues of things to do.

My hope is that once I get free of this project I'll be able to set things up to allow me to do what needs doing whilst also maintaining momentum on my projects.

Any suggestions or experiences in this area would really help me understand the problem better and help guide how I tackle it all. So please do email or comment.

Lance.

p.s. Now that this project is coming to an end, I'm looking for projects to work on. Preferably in Hampshire, but as the past few months have proven, I can cope with commuting (to a degree). Web stuff, Server stuff, Coaching stuff, please let me know.

What is on my iPhone redux.

Lance Wicks — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:17:52 GMT

Some time ago I wrote a post about what is on my iPhone. I thought I'd re-visit the topic, in part because I shall (eventually) be upgrading to the 3GS, or possibly a Palm Pre or Android? But realistically, it'll be the iPhone 3GS as it is still the best phone I've ever owned.

So here is my little bit of FanBoi-ism, hope it's interesting to you.

First and foremost, JAILBREAK YOUR IPHONE!!!!!!
Let me repeat, Jailbreak your iPhone, It's absolutely the best thing you can do, it opens a whole new world to you... as will become apparent in the rest of this blog post.

Winterboard.
This is a silly, but great thing to have on your phone. Winterboard allows you to "Theme" your iPhone. So being a geek, I have the LCARS theme on mine. So it's all Star Trek all the time. (Uhuru tells me when I have voicemail LOL.

EchoFon.
This is from the Apple store and it is my Twitter client of choice. It's was TwitterFon but had a name change. It also has push notifications now, which is great.

Growl for iPhone.
GrIp is fantastic, it's is subtly awesome. If you use Growl on your Mac you'll know what it does. GrIp pops up little pop-up boxes when you get emails, etc. Depending on what modules are installed.

xGPS
I've been driving up and down the country alot lately and I use xGPS exclusively now. There are other navigation apps out there, but xGPS (on Cydia) is free and it works great. So, so far I have not been tempted to the paid options... though it may come.

Ringtone Shuffler
Again on Cydia, this paid for app is great fun. It basically does what it says on the tin. You get a random ringtone everytime someone calls you. Now I have too many ringtones from Cydia and Audiko, so it's always a laugh in the office when the phone rings.

Runkeeper Pro
I don't use this anywhere enough, but it's awesome. Basically it's a GPS tracker. You run, it counts the miles. But it is so much more than that, the website rocks, the Pro version has great audio cues when you hit time and distance markers. Give the free version ago, or go straight to the paid version... you will eventually anyway. :-)

PDAnet
Tethering is a rip off, an absolute rip off. How charging you extra to use your phone as a modem has been allowed by OFCom I do not know! I could do it about a decade ago with my old mobiles, and it didn't cost extra, so why is it costing me extra now???
Well... here is the solution! PDAnet (via Cydia) allows you to use your iPhone to get on the web. The unlicensed only allows HTTP, but spend the $15USD (one off payment) and everything works. Compare that to the what �15/month O2 think they can charge and it's an easy choice!

iComing
I have left my favourite till last. iComing (on Cydia) is, amazing and powerful. And I am only just scratching the surface in what it does so far. iComing is a real innovation, try it!
iComing in simple terms "does stuff" based on your location.
So for example, I send a SMS text message to my wife automatically with it when I take my turn-off on the motorway, so she knows I am almost home. Because iComing sits running in the background, you set it up and it keeps checking where you are and fires of the actions you configure when you are in the right place.
iComing can send Twitter updates, update your Twitter location too. It can also just alarm, send an SMS, ring a phone number, turn your wifi on/off, turn Mail on/off, chaneg your ring tone volume, turn 3G on/off, turn Airplane mode on/off, turn Bluetooth on/off.
I can't wait to see the app develop, it'd be awesome to be able to for example run scripts or open (via curl even) websites. Imagine the possibilities of being able to access any API out there via iComing and "do stuff" when you are in certain places??

I wrote ages ago about how I thought location/context was the future. That dropped down on my priority list, but iComing reminds me how cool location/context on your phone will/could be.

So there you have it, a short list of the stuff on my iPhone that I love. There are about 7 pages of apps on my iPhone, but these are the key ones for me at the moment... okay and the Facebook app I admit it! ;-)

Lance

From Hack to Software Project (the early days of DojoList).

Lance Wicks — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 22:15:52 GMT

Those of you who follow this blog or my Twitter stream will be aware of my DojoList project. DojoList is quickly morphing from a quick hack I started writing to create a Google Map for the Hampshire Judo Association website to a real "Software Project".

After initially starting with all my own PHP, I quickly moved to a MVC Framework (LimonadePHP). This meant that I did not have to "Re-invent the wheel" structuring the code. And it has been helping keep my code more modular and tidy.

I started from the beginning using version control, which is something I do on virtually anything I type now. So I have been using GitHub to host my source code. Git is great as I can commit changes even when offline. I don't use 99% of Git and the more I use it the more I love it.

Due to my original target server being an icky WIndows IIS server, I made the decision to keep the application simple with the bare minimum of dependencies. So rather than using MySQL or similar to store the data, I decided to use files. Specifically, I am storing the data in XML. XML is parsed from bog standard PHP and also gives you structured data that is nice and portable.

As the project has reached a certain level of usability and completeness, I have had the opportunity to do some refactoring. Specifically, I have moved some code from within my controllers to the model for the Dojo. It's a small refactoring, but there is a great feeling when you look at your code and can go "yep that's much cleaner". It also meant that when I wanted to add a view for an individual Dojo, it was less than an hours work as the code was all seperately and tidy.

I have started using the PHP_CodeSniffer tool. I have always liked the Perl::Critic and Perl::Tidy tool in Perl, so using PHP_CodeSniffer to push myself to the PEAR Coding Standards is great and I hope it will mean that it'll make the code more friendly to others who want to use the code or better yet contributing to it.

Last, but not least, I am using the AGPL license for the project. WHich like it's brother/sister the GPL is an Open Source license that protects the code and also gives others permission to use the software, to change the software, to improve it, etc etc. JUST AS LONG AS YOU SHARE! I'm no expert on licensing, but I like the fact that the AGPL protects my effort and still give you permission to hack. Better yet it means if you improve it, you need to share your improvements, so everyone benefits!

I recently rolled DOjoList out into "production" and have a couple of organisations that have already expressed interest in using it on their websites! (WOW!) I just setup http://www.DojoList.org (ORG not COM, don't go to the .COM version, go to the .ORG domain ok). I want to use it as a home for the project, but may also use it as a service for those people who don't want to install it on their website (for some reason).

As you can see from the length of this post, the transition from a quick hack to a proper project is interesting and exciting and I am learning a lot. I hope that the interest in the project continues to grow and that will drive me to improve not only the code by my own ability to create it.

Lance

The Guild Series Three, W007!

Lance Wicks — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:09:40 GMT

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&fg=Xbox_Channel_guild_player_final&vid=bdab0fe5-ecc7-4f5e-a946-feefa45d531b" target="_new" title="Season 3 - Episode 2: Anarchy!">Video: Season 3 - Episode 2: Anarchy!</a>

Woohoo!

The Guild series/season three is online!
I love this show, check it out asap fellow geeks.

http://www.watchtheguild.com/

Lance

p.s. Yes, I am WAY nehind the curve on this series.
p.p.s. Having MSN video on my site does make me feel dirty!

Creating a new open source project, meet DojoList!

Lance Wicks — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:26:17 GMT

HI All,
so you may have noticed that the blog has been quiet lately. There are several reasons for this, including lots of $client work at the moment. I am also in the midst of arranging a Judo training camp, starting a new business venture and (getting to the point) starting a new open source project.

DojoList
DojoList is my new project, which aims to provide an open source web application that allows someone to maintain a list of (Judo) dojo. The project started as aprt of my taking over maintenance of the Hampshire Judo Association website, and wanting to put a Google Map of where all the clubs are on there.

Then someone else wanted something similar and I had the experience of trying to use the British Judo Association's web based list of clubs. So I decided to polish up my little hack and try and make it worth sharing.

The project is being shared and hosted at http://github.com/lancew/DojoList where you can download the source code and use it. It is licensed under a AGPL license, which basically means it is free and open but you have to share any change you might make to the code that improve it.

I have a demo installation installed and working at http://www.lancewicks.com/dojolist/

The system as it stands needs no database (I wanted to host this on the lowest possible spec host server possible). It uses PHP and the Limonade PHP framework for it's core MVC structure. jQuery and Mapstraction javascript libraries are used too.

The system has an admin interface where you can add a dojo, including importantly, the longitude and latitude of the dojo. All the information you add gets stored in an XML file and a KML file is created as well as a plain text (well plain HTML) version also.

The KML is overlayed over a Map to provide the markers for the map. Click on a map and you get the details about the club.

All pretty simple really.

It is very much at the starting stages, it is only today that I added a simple (and rather by-passable) authemtication system. Today also with the help of Fabrice the developer of Limonade I was able to get it all to work on the target IIS server for the first time.

Microsoft's IIS server is, I might add, a pain in the butt to work with compared to my local LAMP stack and all the other Linux based servers I test on. Thanks Microsoft for being totally non standard, it really makes us need to learn how to cope with quirks that get in the way of getting the job done!

Anyway... please do take a look at the project over on GitHub and if you have any bright ideas, or want to contribute please do let me know!

Lance

Judo-Notator

Lance Wicks — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:02:25 GMT

In August I shall be attending the 6th annual International Science of Judo symposium, where I shall be presenting my research into Attack Rates in Judo as a predictor of victory. As part of the research I wrote a small hack to make the notation faster/easier/better.

It was quick and dirty, but it helped me get through the hours of video footage.

In preparation for the symposium I have been revising the code and making it a bit better, so that I can put a link to it on the poster I have to produce. I also intend on sharing the SPSS data file and possibly my actual assignment so that others can access the data and make their own study of it and compare it to mine. Maybe people can use the code I have written to replicate the research or do it elsewhere and push forward the field open source community stylee. ;-)

The original code, was just a console app, with little/no feedback to the user. Ick. So with this version I decided to created a user interface yet I wanted to stay console based; mainly to simplify making the code portable across operating systems. I am on a Mac, but the code "should" run on Windoze or Linux. It is in Perl as that is the language i wanted to use, no other reason.

...actually that is not entirely true. I am more experienced in Perl code than other languages. Also, the community and resources are amazing. CPAN is incredible and makes life so easy if you have code that is unpredictable. What I mean by that is that if like this code you are making decisions "on the fly" Perl and CPAN make it so easy to magically have the modules you need at hand.

For example, I decided to try using curses to do the user interface. So it's dead simple with Curses::UI I didn't have to learn/do too much to have a menu system, windows and dialog boxes etc.

Also, I love using Perl::Critic and Perl::Tidy to ensure that my code is of a definable quality level. At some stage I might try using Kwalitee as well. :-)

I am using Coda (which rocks) to develop the code and a mix of local SVN server and mainly Git to do the sources control. I am really hoping that Coda gets proper support for GIT soon. Maybe replace SVN with GIT, especially seeing as Git can (with limitations) work nice with SVN servers.

I have been using GitHub.com as a host for the code, so you can pop over and clone the code and take a look for yourself. In fact, I would really appreciate it if you did ( http://github.com/lancew/judo-notator ). Both branches are up there, I am working on the "GuiVer" branch at the moment.

It has been enjoyable and rewarding to be writing some code. I have been adding services and trying to contribute to NoseRub.com too, but this is a bit different as i am starting from scratch and the codebase is simpler.

After I have the code for the GUI aspect done, I have to give thought to output of each match, I am thinking if it is possible to write direct to SPSS format so it can be processed there right away... we shall see.

Anyway, I just wanted to get some of this out of my head and onto the blog to reassure the universe I am still there.

Lance

A new project... MartialConversations.com

Lance Wicks — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:19:34 GMT

This week has been rather busy and exciting for me.
Mike (from http://www.thejudopodcast.com ) and I have launched a new website http://martialconversations.com a social networking site for Martial Artists.

The catalyst for this was the launch of the European Judo Unions "community" social network. I had been aware the EJU site was coming since Bath when I had seen some info on it. I also know the British Judo is looking at social networking too, though via FaceBook.

We were really impressed with the vision of the EJU to create a social networking site, though the site itself annoyed me a bit. It was rather... well rough around the edges. And closed to people outside Europe (though I gather this has changed). It was also (obviously) Judo only and also limited to the EJU and it's member organisations, be that implicit or explicit.

So Mike and I said "well hell, lets create our own site and see what happens", so, here we are on Friday and the site has been live a couple of days and all is good. We have a few members on the site and the buzz is starting to grow.

For me personally it's the sort of project I love, working with someone else, working fast and hard. Making it work. It was enjoyable also as it forces me to learn something new. Prior to this week, I had never installed WordPressMU before or BuddyPress. We have pushed out our first Judo specific modification to the software, so I have had to learn how the BuddyPress code works and how to modify it. I love that!

Lance

Developing for the iPhone.

Lance Wicks — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:02:53 GMT

This week I am doing some interesting things for www.PlanetJudo.com starting with the server move and launching the Spanish language site to the public.

The second part has been making a iPhone friendly version of the site available. Which I have now done... at least a first stab at it.

I have basically done a very lazy hack to make it work, which is this. I created in Dashcode a Web Application that uses the RSS feed to create a iPhone web app. It is pretty easy, there are a few little gotchas, but overall it's nice and easy.

Then I created a little PHP redirect that detects the iPhone browser and when it does it redirects Safari on the iPhone to the iPhone specific site, it is a one liner so that was pretty cool.

Whilst I was getting used to Dashcode I realised I could create a Dashboard widget for PlanetJudo also... so I have done that too. I want to make it a bit shinier, but soon it will be put up on the site.

Overall, I have to say I really like the Apple developer tools, I have played in XCode in the past and liked it, this is the first time I have played with Dashcode and it was really nice to work in, so I shall be doing more with it in the future I am sure! :-)

It is nice to work with these development tools, it is only Wednesday and I get to say I have worked in Perl, PHP, Dashcode this week... what will that list look like by the end of the week, a bit of Scratch no doubt, what else, Ruby, Smalltalk? Who Knows! :-)

What I must do is look at NoseRub again this week and try and add some more services if nothing else.

I have also finally managed to get the TV next to my desk hooked up as a second display for the laptop, the resolution is rubbish, but fine for video, or the iTunes visualizer! ;-)

Productive week so far... nice!

Time for the real world again.

Lance Wicks — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:13:00 GMT

Well after two weeks in Bath and a week on Holiday in Devon, it's time to return to the real world. I need to get some client work done and more client work in the door.

I have quite a bit of work on, partly stuff I have already been paid for and some that is being done "pro bono" and some that is business development stuff.

Anyway, lots of blogging to catch up on over the next few weeks, not to mention 17,000 words of University of Bath assignments to write.

So, if you don't hear much from me, now you know why.

Lance