One Thing Well

A weblog about simple, useful software.

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gitdown

gitdown is a script which moderates your git committing activity based on your blood alcohol content (BAC). It uses the DrinkShield for Arduino as a breathalyzer, and a Ruby script as the git hook.

Mini Display

Mini Display turns your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into an external display through Wi-Fi.

App Store

dzenstat

dzenstat is a simple monitor that prints system information out to the console. It is meant to be used in combination with dzen2.

MacUtil

MacUtil is a customization application for the Mac. It allow you to make your mac your own, with lots of customization options ranging from two dimensional docks to modifications of CoreOS files.

Blockchain

The Blockchain android app provides a convenient way to access your bitcoin wallet on the move. Any keys you generate or transactions you make will be automatically synced with your My Wallet account.

With two levels of encryption, automated wallet backups and paper wallet support.

Google Play

Thanks, Donny!

App.net Invitations

After I set up an Alpha account for One Thing Well last week, the folk over at App.net suggested I give away a bunch of invitations to their service.

Fancy joining? Click on this link:

https://join.app.net/from/gpvcbnkfjf

If you sign up to App.net via the URL above, you’ll get an account on the free tier1 and automatically follow @onethingwell.

There are 150 accounts available, and the invitation link will expire on Wednesday, 15th of May (in other words, be quick!).

If you’re not sure what Alpha and App.net are, and wonder whether you should bother with an account:

Alpha is a Twitter-ish thing built on App.net that feels a wee bit like Twitter did before it hit the mainstream, but after the influx of new users who signed up in 2007, post-SXSW — generally quite geeky, relatively quiet, and with an emphasis on conversation over quickfire one-to-many quippery. It’s roomier, too, with posts limited to 256 characters.

App.net proper is a platform for, well, all sorts of social-type things2—messaging and chat, file storage, sharing & synchronisation, location check-ins, &c..

This generalist approach allows developers to build, say, an App.net-backed photo-sharing app, or a quick ‘n’ easy file-sharing application. So, if you’re not interested in Alpha, an App.net account might still come in handy.

Whatever you end up using App.net for, the following line from their ‘core values’ applies:

> App.net members always have full control of their data and the fundamental right to easily back-up, export, and delete ALL of their data, whenever they want.

In short, Alpha is a nice place to hang out and talk to folk; App.net is a platform with a lot of potential, and a laudable emphasis on treating its users well.

The only thing missing is people — particularly people who aren’t developers, technology journalists or semi-professional webloggers! — a problem you can help fix with a quick click:

https://join.app.net/from/gpvcbnkfjf

  1. This means you can follow up to 40 accounts, and have 500 MB of file storage to play with. If you upgrade to a paid account (which costs $36 a year) you get 10 GB of storage and can follow as many accounts as you like. ↩

  2. See the App.net API’s Annotations documentation for an idea of how flexible the service can be, and check the App.net directory to see what developers are dreaming up. ↩

kissdb

KISSDB is about the simplest key/value store you’ll ever see, anywhere. It’s written in plain vanilla C using only the standard string and FILE I/O functions, and should port to just about anything with a disk or something that acts like one.

Horcrux

Horcrux lets you automatically backup your mails from any IMAP supported accounts (Gmail, Microsoft Exchange etc) with great ease.

The backups take place silently and unobtrusively in the background.

 See also

Oak Outliner

A web-based, keyboard-friendly outliner based on FoldingText.

 See also

Ashes

Ashes is an iOS client for Fever, the self-hosted RSS reader, with support for a bevy of read later services and social media sites.

App Store

Archiver

Extract, compress and preview archive files in a wide variety of formats.

Via Mac App Storm.

 See also

Sip

A keyboard-driven colour picker for OS X—whack a command key combo and the colour under your cursor is added to your clipboard, in the format of your choice (Hex, RGB, HSL, &c.).

Mac App Store

pro

pro is a command to wrangle your git repositories. It includes features like instantly cd’ing to your git repos and getting a status overview, and running an arbitrary command in every git repo.

xctool

xctool is a replacement for Apple’s xcodebuild that makes it easier to build and test iOS and Mac products. It’s especially helpful for continuous integration.