Technolgy Tutorials - Beginner to Advanced

email from ruby and php when your ISP blocks you.

2010-01-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

My ISP is verizon.com and I could not get a program solution to email from ruby or php on my macBook.

I found a simple solution:

Since mac os x uses postfix as the unix software to actually send the email. I found the following link to be able to set up to output by going to gmail.com.

You just need to create a gmail.com email account and then follow the excellent instructions by Trent Mick:

http://trentmick.blogspot.com/2009/11/using-gmail-for-outbound-email-on-mac.html#comment-form

I can now use the ruby mail module to send emails from my ruby scripts.

java code to list quicktime movie information

2009-11-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

I am always running into the need for a quick little tool.

I have a library of over 50 quicktime tutorial movies and need a list of the filenames, the duration of each movie, and the size of each movie.

So I have written a nice short java program that recursivly looks a all .mov files in a base directory and prints to the console window a table in tab delimited form of all the information that you can easily select and paste into a spreadsheet.

Here is the code for this:


import java.io.File;
import java.util.*;

import quicktime.*;
import quicktime.std.movies.Movie;
import quicktime.app.view.QTFactory;
import quicktime.io.*;


public class FindInfoOnQuickTime{

public static void main (String[] args) {
   try {
      QTSession.open();
      Vector<file> list = new Vector<file>();
      File dir = new File("/Users/username/Movies/"); // put the base path
      findMovFiles( list, dir ); // builds list of .mov files
      for( File f: list)
          PrintQuicktimeInfo( f ); // print it all out
      QTSession.close();
   } catch (Exception e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
   }

}

public static void PrintQuicktimeInfo(File f) throws QTException {
   System.out.print(f.getParent() + "\t"); // path
   System.out.print(f.getName() + "\t"); // file name

   OpenMovieFile omf = OpenMovieFile.asRead (new QTFile (f));
   Movie m = Movie.fromFile (omf);

   double t = (double)m.getDuration()/m.getTimeScale();
   double min = Math.floor(t/60);
   double sec = t - min*60.0;

   System.out.printf("%02.0f:%04.1f\t",min,sec); // duration
   int w = m.getBox().getWidth();
   int h = m.getBox().getHeight();
   System.out.printf("%d\t%d\n",w,h); // width height
}

 // recursively build list of File objects
 public static void findMovFiles( Vector<file> list, File dir ) {
   File[] files = dir.listFiles();
   for( File entry: files ) {
      if( entry.isDirectory() )
         findMovFiles( list, entry);
      else
         if(entry.getName().endsWith(".mov"))
            list.add(entry);
   }
}
}

2009-08-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

Great I have just set up my teaching videos site at:

http://web.me.com/gerryjenkins

I will be adding all my videos to this site that I develop for my java, php, and intro to IT classes.

I hope that others on the net will gain from these videos.

I am trying to make them short 2 to 7 minutes each.

adding java compile/run scripts to TextWrangler

2009-07-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

My favorite editor for most things on my Mac is Textmate. But for students in my java class that have a Mac, I recommended TextWrangler this semester.

TextWrangler is a great free lite version of the long established BBEdit editor. I can't really see whats so light about it.

Anyway, you can download TextWrangler at Bare Bones Software.

But to make it easier to compile and run java from a menu within TextWrangler, I recommend adding two new commands by downloading two files that are applescript and moving them into the scripts folder for TextWrangler. I thank nonoTux.com for these original scripts.

To install the scripts, open TextWrangler, in the script menu(the 2nd one to the left of the help menu), open the script editor and use it to create a new file, and paste the following:


tell application "TextWrangler"
save text document 1
set the_file to file of text document 1
end tell

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
set source_file to the last text item of (the_file as string)

tell application "Finder"
set the_folder to container of the_file as alias
end tell

tell application "Terminal"
activate
set shell_script to "cd " & (quoted form of POSIX path of the_folder) & ¬
   "; javac " & source_file
if (count windows) is 0 then
do script shell_script
else
   do script shell_script in the front window
end if
end tell

and then save the file with the name Compile java.scpt into the
Library/Application Support/TextWrangler/Scripts directory, look for Library in you home users folder.

Then create another new script file and paste this code:


tell application "TextWrangler"
set the_file to file of text document 1
end tell

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ":"
set source_file to the last text item of (the_file as string)
set compiled_file to text 1 thru -6 of source_file

tell application "Finder"
set the_folder to container of the_file as alias
end tell

tell application "Terminal"
activate
set shell_script to "cd " & (quoted form of POSIX path of the_folder) & ¬
   "; java " & compiled_file
if (count windows) is 0 then
do script shell_script
else
   do script shell_script in the front window
end if
end tell

and then save the file with the name Run java.scpt into the
Library/Application Support/TextWrangler/Scripts directory, look for Library in you home users folder.

You will now have two new menu items in the scripts menu (the 2nd one to the left of the help menu). They will open a terminal window and compile or run your front window as a java program.

Excel 2007: Absolute vs. Relative addresses

2009-03-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

Absolute vs. Relative addressing is a key skill to be able to build more complex spreadsheets. In Excel on PCs, it is the F4 function key that will cycle through the combination of fixing the row or column or both.

Go to this link to see the video:
Absolute vs. Relative

(You may need to install the latest Quicktime Player for your browser: see
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

First Blog. Progamming & Teaching, Public Tutorials

2009-03-27T14:51:00.001-07:00

First Blog:
This is my first blog entry. I am a professor a Long Beach Community College and teach everything from introductions to computers, programming in java, Visual Basic, php, ruby on rails, C++, web constructions from scratch or using Dreamweaver. Database design, and a lot more topics.
Short Tutorials:I will be using this blog to make public teaching aids that I develop for my classes and other tid bits.

Linux Expert:
I manage several Ubuntu linux servers running in VMWare images. I have worked with both apache and lighttpd. I will also try to share things I have learned in the administration of these servers.

Moodle:
I also teach online classes using Moodle.

Everything I do is subject to blog entries. I will start by introducing short vidieos on specific Microsoft Word 2007 and Excel 2007 skills. tech video I have tried to design to be less than 5 minutes (many are only two minutes).

ASK:
Please post ideas for more videos or ideas you would like to see for short articles.

Thank you.