Remove a page they said...

Hey everyone!

I've took it upon me to try and fix a bug in Webmaker with the login screen where a page was redundant and they thought it should be removed. I eventually found the hidden page, but when I asked if they would like the page to be removed, I found out that the issue lie in the webmaker_login_ux. 

From there it I tried to find the source of the bug, there's an area in Webmaker that has a boolean value which when set to false, it should not show the page, it was set to false, but alas the page still reared it's ugly head. 

After checking and trying different 'fixes' I wasn't able to solve the problem, but I wont stop believing that I can do it. Hopefully after I'm done exams I can finish this bug and keep contributing to the Open Source community, it's been fun! 

Cheers, 

James Laverty

Android in Webmaker!

Hey everyone,

I just added source maps to Browserify. It was a very challenging process, because I talked to several different sources in the industry and the majority that I talked to had no idea what I was talking about. It was interesting because I ended up going out to lunch with people that were professionals in Java/Android, web development and PaaS. It was a fantastic experience, but it ended up in me being made fun of for asking question about Source maps and maybe I'm confused about my College lingo.

I find Open Source development very exciting, but to contrast it, I find doing it within a timeline terrifying, unless you have contacts within whatever you are trying develop.

This course, and my professor David Humphrey, have taught me a lot. Lets keep it going,

Cheers,

James Laverty

Attempting to install Chromium

Imagine waking up to a knocking at your door <knock knock> <knock knock> . You get up, dress yourself and approach half sleeping, pull the door open and look with your eyes half open, see a soldier marked UPS. After a shake of your head you realize it's just a deliveryman and get excited with the remembrance of the laptop you ordered two weeks ago!

Start it up, share a moment of unbridled joy as it starts instantaneously, then weep as the hard drive dies like a car accident gone terribly wrong. <knock knock> The laptops been replaced!

Now to where I was two weeks ago, I was with my new computer and a newbie guide to Open Source, I had eyes bright and spirits high. Like a land slide my hopes started to fade, I had error after error, but kept on going.

I attempted to install it for approximately 5-7 hours. After that I left it running overnight, it probably did not take to long, but it failed. When I woke up I tried it again, it failed again.Eventually I ended up in the land of rebase and I felt defeated. I was worried about starting over again as well as to rebase.

I decided on attempting to install Lynx, and things went far smoother,          

Cheers ,

James Laverty

A change in environment

Hey everyone,

Just a quick update as to my progress/happenings. I just bought a new computer, a nice sleek Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro, pretty exciting! I'm setting it up as a dual boot running Windows 8.1 and Linux, I've decided to do this because hacking is easier in NOT-Windows.

I'm also fixing a little bug in App-Maker, it's a bit of a challenge, but hopefully working with Linux will make it all a bit easier.

As an aside, I've switched from Eclipse to Android Studio an so far, I couldn't be happier. I'm working on an android app and we put it up on GitHub, the integration was so easy I think I'm in love.

I'll give another update later this week!

Cheers,

James Laverty

A video bawse at FSOSS

Hey Everyone,

I volunteered as a videographer at FSOSS recently and it was a wonderful experience. I feel pretty happy that I was able to be a part of it and that I got to meet some 'big wigs' in the industry.

Apart from that I also video taped three presentations and watched five. The first one I watched was given by the founder of Red Hat Linux named Bob Young. His talk was really interesting to listen, I really enjoyed the way he spoke and his use of body language. He repeatedly labelled himself as just a typewriter salesman, but in essence is much, much more.

The next talk I watched was of a classmate name Kieran Sedgewick who talked about Webmaker's Tech: The Future of Web Development. He did an excellent job and his presentation was nice to watch, he also handled the questions well.

After that, lunch happened and I had a man named Dan Hodge a senior solutions architect middleware at Redhat. It was a fun and inspiring chat that went well.

After lunch the next speaker was Chris Aniszczyk presented Friday Keynote Presentation. His talk was quite insightful and gave me a better understanding of the people inside the machine. I also found his description of the fail whale during the 2010 world cup quite humorous. 

After that I watched two more presentations then I got a free t-shirt! How Exciting!

Cheers,

James Laverty

A 'bug' story: Part II

Hey everyone,

The Webmaker bug was a success! The biggest problem I encountered was definitely setting up the dev environment. I ran into several errors on different computers, most of the time it was with the npm install to get gulp up and running. After I overcame those obstacles, I ran into a weird one (another bug perhaps?) where after logging into the localized version of my project it would not log me in aka the gulp dev. I tried it on Chrome, then moved onto Nightly, both to no avail. I eventually created a new log in and BAM, success.

After that I talked to a few people and got some help on where to begin, xmatthewx on github suggested that I use the how to template to help put it together and a few other sources put me on the right track. I learned a little bit about JSON and eventually got a template put together.If you want, you can take a look at my pull request! This is my initial request, I plan on getting a little feedback and updating my patch after.

This is a fun process and I get to have communication with professionals, how exciting!

IRC was also an interesting experience, for the most part it's petty quiet, but it seems useful if you ask the right questions.

That's all for today,

Cheers,

James Laverty

A 'Bug' Story

Hey everyone,

Bug Tackling!

I've decided to try and tackle a bug in the Webmaker app! It seems cool and fantastic.
The bug I'll be doing is to make a template for a blog(Blogger, he's lookin at you kid). Me and my friend Rafid are gonna be helping each other out with our separate bugs trying to en capture the essence of Open Source development.

Aside from that, life's getting fun! Learning about +Twitter ,and +FireFox, developing an Android app and many other things!

It seems upon initial inspection that fixing bugs is a daunting task, it's like climbing Mount Everest after only doing indoor climbing. The basic techniques are there, but looking up, the challenge seems way bigger than you (I'm an avid indoor rock climber).

This will be challenging, frightening,  and I'm sure, super rewarding!

You can follow me on twitter @0neSanctum (I'll get better I promise)

Cheers.

James Laverty