Worldwide Reach

I've been writing this blog off and on for a while but really getting going around February 2013. I am astounded but (by July 2013) it has been viewed in 131 countries which according to the map below is most of them.  It's easy to forget that the internet is international and social media can go anywhere.

Country Views of WorkingMatt's Blog

Leap Motion Special Applications Restricted in SDK T&Cs

In the post about my #FirstLeap with the Leap Motion 3D Motion Controller I thought there would be particularly interesting applications in point of sale kiosks, controls for video DJs/lighting at live events and corporate presentations/collaboration.  The Terms and Conditions of using Leap Motion's SDK require a special agreement for these types of use; I hope that this doesn't stop the use of Leap Motion through overcharging or excessive red tape.

Useful Unix Commands

This is a list of basic linux commands which I find useful.  If you have any suggestions please let me know in the comments.

Leap Motion 3D Motion Controller

The new Leap Motion controller arrived on 24th July 2013 a couple of days after launch after months of waiting.  I was pretty excited by what this 3D Motion Control device could do.  This is a record of my first couple of hours of life with Leap Motion.

Twitter OAuth Cocoa

Twitter require OAuth1.0a authorisation for any access to their API as of June 2013.  Mark in Oregon's blog post is a really easy introduction to the horror of OAuth.  This post describes how I added this facility to an OSX application written in Objective-C using XCode.

Add another HDD to Ubuntu Server

Setting up a home server running Ubuntu Server operating system provided a foundation for lots of cool stuff like setting up a web server.  I wrote about this experience in a previous post Playing Around With Linux A Server.  This post is about adding another harddisk to the server under Ubuntu Server using the command line.  No easy GUI here!

Useful Resources for New Mac Users

A member of my family asked me for some advice on buying a Mac.  Here's some information and resources they found particularly useful:

Twitter API Changes

Twitter are gently rolling out a number of changes as they move from API v1.0 to v1.1.  I use the Twitter API in my social media display application 'Chrysanthemum'.  This blog gives an overview of Twitter's changes in moving to Twitter API v1.1 and considers how it will affect my Chrysanthemum application (Moderated Twitter Feed for Live Events).

Using Drush to sync live and dev Drupal websites

This post describes how to use Drush to synchronise a live drupal website with a local development copy and vice versa, to synchronise an updated dev site back to the server version.  Following on from previous posts about Drupal this blog assumes that both a live server-based and a local drupal website are in place.

Part 1: Local Drupal7 on Mac OSX Lion
Part 2: Set-up Multisite Drupal 7
Part 3: Using Drush to sync live and dev Drupal websites

Set-up Multisite Drupal 7

In order to develop my website using Drupal I wanted a local version to work on off-line and a live version to periodically update with releases.  This post continues to tell how I achieved that by describing how to create a multi-site drupal installation having completed setting up Drupal 7 and AMP on my Mac OSX Lion.
Part 1: Local Drupal7 on Mac OSX Lion
Part 2: Set-up Multisite Drupal 7
Part 3: Using Drush to sync live and dev Drupal websites

Local Drupal7 on Mac OSX Lion

Having set up a website on a live server using Drupal I wanted to set up a local copy for development without risking stuffing up the live version.  This post describes how I set up Drupal 7 on my Mac OSX Lion/10.7.

Part 1: Local Drupal7 on Mac OSX Lion
Part 2: Set-up Multisite Drupal 7
Part 3: Using Drush to sync live and dev Drupal websites

Install Drupal Zen Theme

Now that I've installed Drupal, I decided to install the most popular and 'award winning' theme. That is Zen.  This is how you get Zen and get Zen working for you.