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Jun 19 2010

Using Google Forms to create a simple iPhone app

Posted by Ben Hughes in Programming, tags: , ,

To help manage and plan the cycling clothes I need to wear through the Canberra winter, I decided to create an iPhone app. For a lot of reasons I decided to use HTML5 and some trickery rather than create a native app. The idea of the app is to record basic weather into, what I wore, and how hot or cold I was. I planned to look into HTML5 offline data storage etc, but realised that Google Forms would do most of the work for me, if I was happy to live without offline capability.

Forms is so simple it’s not worth explaining. Once you’ve set a form up, it gives you a URL to access it from, and even the iframe code to embed it into an HTML page. And that’s just what I did.

Below is the code. You can seen I’m using a viewport and some Apple-specific meta tags. These allow you to ‘install’ the app by pressing the “+” button in Safari and choosing ” Add to Home screen”. You then get the icon you specified in the meta tag, which the iPhone kindly rounds and beautifies for you. When you launch the app, it opens in it’s own window, rather than in Safari. There’s no address bar or browser navigation: it just looks like an app.

<html> 
<head> 
	<title>Cycling clothes</title> 
	<meta name="viewport" 
		content="user-scalable=no, 
		width=device-width, 
		initial-scale=1.0, 
		maximum-scale=1.0"/> 
	<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-capable" 
		content="yes" /> 
	<meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style" 
		content="black" /> 
	<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="icon.png"/> 
	<style type="text/css"> 
		body{ margin: 0px;}
	</style> 
</head> 
<body> 
<iframe 
	src="yourform" 
	width="100%" height="100%" 
	frameborder="0" marginheight="0" 
	marginwidth="0">
Loading...</iframe> 
</body> 
</html>
 photo-2

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Jun 13 2010

Why I’m not preferencing Labor in the Federal election

Posted by Ben Hughes in Politics

In all but my first election I’ve voted for or preferenced Labor, but that will change at the next Federal election.

Suppossedly the “political profile of Gen Y” is fiscally conservative and socially progressive, and I fit that bill pretty well. I have some conflict between my belief in individual sovereignty, my mistrust of unchecked corporations and the desire to help people: my inner socialist and libertarian jostling with each other. But there is one thing I hate with clarity: goverment interference in personal autonomy.

Unfortunately both major parties are socially conservative. Both are paternalistic and believe, in one form or another, that people are too stupid to think for themselves. The Liberals trust corporations to self-regulate, but insist on moralizing about what adults do in their bedrooms. Labor has to me been the best of two bad choices, with their paternalism at least coming from a vague sense of helping people.

There’s a lot of reasons to be disillusioned with the Labor government. Other than (potentially) having guided us through the GFC there has been a trail of incompetence and inaction. With Abbott as the alternative PM, those failings wouldn’t be enough to sway me away from Labor. But the incessant obsession of this government with controlling personal freedom has tipped me over the edge.

Despite massive public outcry, the government still plans to implement it’s expensive, ineffectual and potentially harmful Internet filter. Now they are proposing to monitor the email and web browising habits of all Australians. This is a dangerous, infuriating and unacceptable breach of the role of government.

Imagine the public outcry if every letter sent through AusPost was opened and the contents recorded. This is even worse: not only are they reading your mail, but they know which books and newspapers you read, who your friends are and, increasingly, what you purchase. If, like I do, you use a VoIP phone service, that can be recorded too.

Potentially every electronic interaction you have could be monitored and stored. There is no possible justification for this level of citizen surveillance.

So, despite my severe reservations about the Liberals, I have decided that I cannot vote Labor. Somewhere burried in their core the Liberal party believes in personal autonomy, and even though they have been overtaken by religious nutjobs, I have to believe they have the potential to come down on the side of individual freedom. I have no such faith in the current Labor government, who have shown time and again that they do not.

God help me, I’m going to preference an Abbott-led coalition. I just hope the Greens get enough power to keep the craziness in check

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May 30 2010

HTML5 iPhone app: Password Generator

Posted by Ben Hughes in Programming, tags: ,
This hardly counts and creating something, as I've just taken Nic's password generator and made it offline-able. But if you'd like an iPhone app for generating passwords, you can get it here.

Posted via email from Ben Hughes’ Stream

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May 16 2010

A Dad and Jeremy weekend

Posted by Ben Hughes in Uncategorized
Jeremy and I have taken advantage of a lack of family-sized
accommodation in Wagga to have a weekend away together. We decided to
do it the boy way and pack light: just a backpack for clothes,
toothbrushes and my toys; and a small bag for Jeremy’s toys.

After a nice coffee and cake outing with Ange and Will, we jumped in
the car pretty unprepared. After getting fuel and dropping back home
to get Jeremy some headphones that worked, we hit the road.

We had a quick lunch stop at Gundagai and were in Wagga in no time.
The whole trip was a breeze: Jeremy played, we both listened to some
music and even fitted in some conversation.

The fun started when we tried to find our hotel. Google maps had put
it in the middle of Wagga, which is why I picked it. After half an
hour of driving around and asking random people, we found out that it
was actually about 5kms out of town We’d driven past it on our way
in. Ugh.

With that sorted, we headed to Nan and Sue’s house to pick up the last
of the boxes Mum had left for us. Sue was at work, but after packing
up we had a nice cup of tea with Nan, then went on a impromptu dinner
hunt.

With food secured (vegie burger and chips: healthy adventure food), we
headed back to the hotel and scoffed it down. Jeremy decided it was
time for showers, stories a bed. But first he had to arrange the
covers on both of our beds to make sure we’d both be comfortable.

Despite being excited and sugared up from NanNan’s buscits, and being
in a bed rather than his travel tent, he went straight to sleep.

Tomorrow we’ve got a visit to the “boat park” planned, after we
forrage for breakfast. Then back on the road, hopefully getting home
in time to spend some time with Ange and Will.

All on all a great little weekend away.

Posted via email from The Hughes Zoo

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May 11 2010

Growing up

Posted by Ben Hughes in Personal

A very scary thing happened to me earlier this year: I started to grow up. After I turned 30 in January things seemed to naturally progress in that direction. I was already doing a job that made career sense, rather than something I was passionate about. I started shaving regularly - like every couple of days; and getting my hair cut every 6 weeks. I started wearing dress shirts every day instead of just when I felt like it. My wife and I started looking at buying a bigger house.

Finally, I was becoming a grown-up. But it all started to unravel when I realised that what I meant by “growing up” was “giving in”.

In the beginning I had a really positive feeling about the changes. I like looking decent, so making that happen regularly was nice. I was starting to get used to (and occasionally enjoying) my more management-oriented role at work. It felt like I was taking the next step. But I wasn’t. I was jumping onto a different track. It was incredibly draining.

That’a a lot clearer with hindsight. After some soul-searching I decided to go with passion rather than career progression and landed a new job.  It’s a 100% technical role and I’m loving it. I may well still be in the honeymoon phase, but all of the things that used to worry me have gone. There’s essentially no hierarchy, so comparative career progression is not even possible, let alone a concern. The environment is as casual as you can imagine and because I cycle to work now, pretty much every day is jeans and a t-shirt day. I shave… well… when I remember. I’m not worried about the problems of the organisation: there don’t seem to be many, and CEO’s more than capable of handing whatever there is.

After looking at some IT industry salary figures, I’ve realised that I’m in a very sweet spot. Firstly, I’m paid competitively to do something I love. Secondly, the higher paying management-oriented jobs don’t really pay that much more, until you get into the CIO level.

I came so close to embracing a me that doesn’t exist, to becoming what I thought I should be rather than what I want to be. And while I have plenty of room for personal improvement, it’s amazingly freeing to leave the expectations (mostly my own) behind and go with what I love.

God, I hope I’m never tempted to grow up again.

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