We want invitations so much that it hurts.

Overloading SSH: swizzling between accounts while pushing to Heroku using Git

Since it goes this way:

$ git push heroku master

and git push authenticates over SSH, who you are is determined by the key that your SSH agent sends abroad. To have git work with your desired credential, first create separate remote endpoints for each Heroku account that you plan to use, then edit ./ssh/config so that they are recognized by the SSH agent.

Creating separate git remote endpoints

Go to your repository, and edit .git/config. Create many remote endpoints. I’ll use one reposiroty of ours that recently got updated for example.

[remote "origin"]
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/origin/*
    url = git@github.com:iridia/redmine-heroku.git

…

[remote "heroku"]
    url = git@heroku.com:keeper.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/heroku/*

[remote "heroku_base_iridia"]
    url = git@base.iridia.tw.heroku.com:keeper.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/heroku/*

[remote "heroku_ev_iridia"]
    url = git@ev.iridia.tw.heroku.com:keeper.git
    fetch = +refs/heads/*:refs/remotes/heroku/*

Notice that the last 2 remotes have peculiar url configuration. In this case, we embed the respective Heroku account that we would like the push to be effective under into the host name. In that sense pushing to heroku_base_iridia would result in the credentials associated with base@iridia.tw to be used, and pushing to heroku_ev_iridia would show up as if ev@iridia.tw pushed it. The heroku endpoint which is associated with heroku.com was created by Heroku itself.

Creating separate host entries within .ssh/config

Now edit ~/.ssh/config and again we’ll have a working example.

Host ev.iridia.tw.heroku.com

    HostName heroku.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/ev@iridia.tw.identity
    IdentitiesOnly yes

Host base.iridia.tw.heroku.com

    HostName heroku.com
    User git
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/iridia_id_rsa
    IdentitiesOnly yes

Notice that for each pseudo-host, a real HostName is provided, and an IdentityFile is also provided. This tells the SSH agent that once we attempt to SSH to a listed Host, substitute that host with its real HostName, and authenticate using the IdentityFile associated with the host. Since Git usually pushes over SSH, combining this part with the former part allows an user to push to Heroku using any of her many Heroku accounts.

However, you’ll have to add the correct keys to their respective Heroku accounts, either from its administration interface, or from the command line after following the part that follows.

Overloading ~/.heroku/credentials: managing Heroku apps under many accounts

Since pushing is not where all the development happens, we’ll have to make Heroku’s gem ($ sudo gem install heroku) work with multiple accounts. (Un)fortunately, Heroku stores credentials in plain text under ~/.heroku/credentials, so swizzling it makes the gem work with multiple accounts. Check out hero.rb on GitHub.

For example, to add many keys to their respective Heroku accounts (assuming that you have got hero.rb and all the keys):

$ hero ev@iridia.tw
$ heroku keys:add ~/.ssh/ev_iridia_tw.identity.pub

$ hero base@iridia.tw
$ heroku keys:add ~/.ssh/base_iridia_tw.identity.pub

That’s it.

Announcing lib.tidyCJK.js which pseudo-kerns Chinese, Japanese and Korean passages by properly inserting a space between CJK glyphs and Latinate / numeric glyphs in them. Clone it or fork it on GitHub.

It’s an early alpha, so might be full of bugs. With imminent field application, its quality and accuracy will likely improve. tidyCJK uses Unicode¹, so it needs to run in an environment that supports JS 1.3+.

Why use lib.tidyCJK.js

For the exactly same reason why Cappuccino is strong: standard bodies move slowly, and despite that CSS3, a work in progress, already has much in store, we need similar capabilities now. And we often have to interact with existing material, which comes from all places in all sorts. Better post-process everything and make them look good than wait for everyone to conform.

Finding a character’s code easily

Add this little cute recursive JavaScript method if you’re targeting JavaScript 1.5+ ², so you say String.hex instead of String.hex() ³:

String.prototype.__defineGetter__("hex", function() {

    var response = [];

    for (i in this) {

        var charCodeString = this.charCodeAt(i).toString(16);

        response.push("\\u" + (function(stringToWrap, finalDigits, padding){

            if (stringToWrap.length >= finalDigits) return stringToWrap;
            return arguments.callee(padding + stringToWrap, finalDigits, padding)

        })(charCodeString, 4, "0"));

    }

    return response;

});

And call String.hex — for example:

>   "f(*^%)g".hex
["\u0066", "\u0028", "\u002a", "\u005e", "\u0025", "\u0029", "\u0067", "\u0066"]

Happy Kerning!

Codex

lib.jQuery.uniform/nebula

monoceroi/uniform/nebula is my fork of the famous jQuery.uniform plugin, which does a bit more than the original. For instance, selectors are no longer fixed-width; there is now no overlaid parts so transparent sprites do not interfere with each other.

monoSnippets

monoceroi/monoSnippets/master is my convenience library that leverages LESS (so to make cross-browser box-shadows, you say .shadowed(black, 0px, 0px, 2px) and LESS converts it into a huge multi-liner for you, etc.) Because of LESS’s immersive expression power, it is now painles to implement NSNinePartImage with code in decent browsers with help from the newly added .borderImage class.

Alia

Things are not going very steadily. Ripples here and there, and time is running out…

—

Ciel

On 10gui.com there is a new concept that argues traditional UI be replaced by a more intuitive multi-touch UI, claiming that the old is less intuitive, therefore inefficient. Judging from the trend, multi-touch has gone from the iPhone (mobile) to the MacBook Air, to the MacBooks and finally the desktop Macs. A glimpse into the Apple-supported, open-source WebKit project echoes this trend: CSS transitions and transformations are also coming to the desktop. I do sense that the thematic concept here is direct manipulation:

a. Personal empowerment is at its all-time high; trivial emotion is getting its place, and the ability to scribe and record is now widespread.

b. With personal empowerment comes a wider dialogue, which in reverse empowers more individual to come and contribute.

c. The world is therefore transforming from bivalent to omnipotent, from narrowness to broadmindedness.

d. With great change strikes a greater sense of weird, joyous uncertainty; the arts is getting its place, figures leniently ceding their thrones.

e. The Web is a very young medium, but this time there are way more people defining their own pieces of, and contributing to it.

f. People will get dumbed-down and be conquered by their rabidly growing collective consciousness.

The world is getting more and more interesting a place. Let’s see what comes along in the next year.

ps Weeks ago, finished Loos’ essay on Ornament and Crime; would not take back my early words. He really sounds like a Protestant, yet is also sharp-witted.

—

Nota

Technologies invented to help mobile users do better are going all the way to invade desktop computing. Personal empowerment is the oath to mobility; this trend denotes the imminent demolishment of institutional atrocity. Reading and writing is the only convenient way to conquer the vagueness and impreciseness of human memory; everybody acquiring these skills mean that physical and institutional limitations are no longer hinderances; souls can finally be set free.

I just bid yesterday farewell; spent approximately one month lingering over this dying project. It might be resurrected someday, but I am not so sure.

Pros: learnt JSON and JSON-based programming; learnt XML-RPC and how to give WordPress a plugin; got a fresh hands-on glimpse of object-oriented programming; learnt how to properly CSS cross-platform; got a lifetime hatred of Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Fate bestows.

Next: the data project, which is a fairly small one. And a photo visualizer. Computer Arts and New Media is a fairly interesting subject, but I am still shopping around for one right for me.

Visit http://monoceroi.com.

—

Redesigned Custom Plurk CSS

“Spot-on”, I said shamelessly. Google for “Plurk Interface” to see how it might look like before this customization…

—

Quotes From the Great Storybook on Silence

It costs to be extraordinary; the major lesson is in learning to cope with it.

Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; — Isaiah 54:2 For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. — Isaiah 54:3 Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame: for thou shalt forget the shame of thy youth, and shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more. — Isaiah 54:4

—

Nota

You’re in deep trouble not being — or, aspiring to be — great. The richest and the poorest people (or, the ones on the very top and the poor ones down under) get to re-create history; others get to reproduce.