Glaring Importance

Just saw this post on Xcode Keyboard shortcuts and found it incredibly helpful!

Robert Saunders: XCode Shortcuts: Some people hate it, but I am a big fan of XCode. Its important to make the most of the space you have, especially when you have limited space.

If you use Google's Chrome browser, you may or may not know about the Chrome Web Store.  You can access it from the new tab page, and in it you will find a wide variety of apps and extensions for Google Chrome.

Probably the most useful extension I have found so far is the Dictionary Extension by Google.  The extension puts a button in your toolbar where you can quickly type words to define.  This button however, is not what's exciting about the Dictionary extension.  After installing the app, when double clicking any word on any webpage, you'll get a nifty little pop up definition, as seen here:

Many times you will also see a microphone icon that will pronounce the word for you when clicked.  Extremely handy.

The Dictionary Extension by Google is the first extension I install when using Chrome on a new computer and I highly recommend trying it out.

As you may have noticed, you're now viewing this blog at drewhannay.com rather than drewhannay.blogspot.com.  This is thanks to me finally being willing to put down $10 for my own domain name.  I figured considering how often I tell people of the importance of owning their online identity, I should probably follow my own advice.

The whole domain buying process was actually incredibly simple.  After a quick Google search, I ended up at the Google Apps Sign Up page.  You get the option to either set up an existing domain you own with Google Apps or buy a new domain name.

After finding out that my domain name was available (Not many other Drew Hannay's out there, thankfully), I just typed in my Google Checkout password and I was off and running. About five minutes of clicking through wizards and I had my own custom Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Sites, and Google Docs set up with a @drewhannay.com address.

I did run into a bit of trouble setting Blogger to point to my new custom domain (which was the original goal after all...), but a quick search for the error message got things sorted out.  Turns out the problem was that by default, Google Sites redirects all your traffic to itself, rather than letting it go to Blogger. One setting change later, everything was working.

I highly recommend snatching up the domain name for your name if it's still available.  Even if you're never planning on using it, owning the name will prevent anyone else from buying it and using it for stuff you don't necessarily want to show up when a potential employer googles you.

It's a shame people are so opposed to change.  Most of trigonometry would be a whole lot easier to understand if we didn't use Pi.

So for all of you members of the Wheaton College community, and for anyone who might be visiting campus, I have a gift.  The (Unofficial) Wheaton College Android App.

One of my countless projects this summer has been a collaborative programming project with a fellow computer science student from school. This programming project involves (at the time of this posting) 280 different files, all of which are deeply intertwined so that one mistake in a file could break the entire application.  We needed to be guaranteed that these files would always be up to date, because if they weren't, we could end up overwriting a lot of work that could have taken the other person hours to accomplish.  With such a critical importance placed on the synchronization of these files, you might be surprised to find out that I rarely think or worry about it.  That's all thanks to Dropbox.

Dropbox is a service that puts a folder on your computer called "My Dropbox".  Anything you place in that folder is instantly backed up online and also synced to any other computer where you have Dropbox installed. You can access your files from any computer via the online interface at Dropbox.com, including every version of that file since you added it to your Dropbox folder. This means that if you ever accidentally overwrite your final term paper with a letter to your friend back home, you can just jump over to the Dropbox website and find a list of every revision you've made on that file. Simply choose the one you need and download it.

....then you know it's true.