@bytesnz
Jack Farley, Computer Engineer

  • home
  • about
  • 12/11/2022

    Please! Stop with the mobile web sites! If you are using browser agent strings to change your CSS/layout don't! Use responsive CSS instead. There are other situations when you need a small window and devices that have a small screen where your web site does not work.

    • software
    • web
  • Minimal Accessible Tooltip

    12/1/2022

    Doing a lot of accessibility (a11y) fixes, I wondered what would be the minimum amount of code to create a WCAG 2.1 compliant custom tooltip. Unfortunately, it had to include Javascript. Here is what I can up with.

    • software
    • web
    • a11y
  • Day-to-day with Librem 5

    11/28/2022

    After quite a few years of waiting, I finally got my Librem 5 phone. I am now using it as my primary phone… using my work phone as a back-up. Here are the issues and whether I think using it as a primary phone is a good idea so far.

    • librem5
  • 11/28/2022

    If you are wanting to apply accessibility labels onto an image, here are the label (alt, title, aria-description, aria-label) priorities (highest first): aria-description (with aria-label, alt or title); aria-label; alt. Note aria description does not get read out if there is no other label attributes. (Tested on Windows, NVDA, and Firefox and Edge).

    • software
    • web
    • a11y
  • Email dates in Javascript

    11/24/2022

    Javscript is missing functions to format dates in some common formats, such datetime-local inputs and RFC 5322 (email dates) in a non-obsolete way. While Date.toUTCString() is close, the timezone is now obsolete (though it is handy for HTTP Date and other such headers). Here's the basic functions to get the right formats

    • software
    • javascript
  • Visibility and CSS Accordians

    11/24/2022

    When changing a reworked menu to have accordian animations, I came to the realisation that I have been missing a big issue when using max-height transition animations — accessibility. I detail a simple fix in this article.

    • software
    • web
    • a11y
    • css
    • javacsript
  • Can't touch list

    11/24/2022

    Turns out screen readers really don't like you playing with the display CSS property on lists, for example to change it to an inline list — it will cause lists items to be read like a paragraph. Here's how to do without upsetting the screen readers.

    • a11y
    • software
    • css
  • New Zealand Low Power Networks (LTE-M & NB-IoT)

    10/14/2022

    I have started experimenting with low power wide area networks (LP-WAN) in New Zealand using a u-blox SARA-R410-02B. Here is what I have experimented with so far.

    • electronics
    • software
  • JS Binary Decoder

    10/11/2022

    I have recently been dealing with parsing binary data packets from various sources, and have published two NPM libraries from it: binary-decoder and sbd-direct-ip. Here's how they came to be.

    • software
    • javascript
  • Starting with ESP32

    2/7/2022

    I started developing my trap-watch project on an ESP32-CAM using the ESP IDF. Here is the newbie difficulties I ran into.

    • esp32
    • electronics
    • software
    • trap-watch
  • VIM Window Rabbit Hole

    2/4/2022

    Developing ESP-IDF components I thought it would be great if I could make a command to open all the files for a component at once. What a rabbit hole it was. Here is how I did it.

    • linux
  • Parsing Arguments in Bash

    1/28/2022

    Making a script parse arugments in Bash took me way too long last time I did it, so here is a nice full example of how to do it using getopt

    • linux
  • Where's my bait gone?

    1/8/2022

    I have recently started trapping some introduced predators around my local area and have had baits and pre-feed disappear with nothing to show for it, so I decided to get sparky and see if I could catch the culprit in the act.

    • electronics
    • conservation
    • trap-watch
  • Bathymetric Contours

    3/26/2021

    Finally got around to creating a SLD style for GeoServer to display bathymetric contour lines using the GEBCO gridded bathymetric data. Here's how.

    • gis
    • geoserver
    • oceans
  • shm That Cache

    2/25/2021

    I am often trying to find more space on my hard drives and found today my own docker containers wasting space thanks to ! Here's how I fixed it.

    • yarn
    • docker
    • development
  • Blob blob blob blob Stayin' Alive Stayin' Alive

    2/2/2021

    Upon recently trying Deezer again, I found their web app ate all my memory when running in Firefox, so I decided to see if I could find out why. I got as far as memory-file-data/string and Blobs. Here's how.

    • software
    • javascript
    • debugging
    • memory
  • A new Litter Survey

    12/25/2020

    In a culmination of litter surveys and litter picks, linked data and data exploration, and remoteStorage and ActivityPub, I have created a web-based litter pick/survey app that I hope will allow federated citizen science.

    • software
    • litter
    • litter-survey
  • Hoe Stream Trash

    12/14/2020

    My latest litter pick target was Hoe Stream and the White Rose Lane Local Nature Reserve. Here's how it went.

    • litter
    • pi-trash-cam
    • litter-pick
    • environment
  • Release the Beast

    11/24/2020

    I just created a Gitlab CI job to create a release with information from a CHANGELOG.md file for some of my projects. Here's how I did it.

    Keeping track of what commit relates to which release of your Git projects requires making sure that you tag the commits with the related version. This can be manually done when you release a new version (if you remember), or automatically with the help of continuous integration (CI) pipelines.

    I had previously hacked together a job to do this using git commands and a masked URL containing an API key (like in the example below), but recently found the release-cli project and docker container for doing the same in a much cleaner fashion.

    tag:
      stage: tag
      script:
        - export VERSION=$(node -e "console.log(require('./package.json').version)")
        - git status
        - git remote -v
        - git remote set-url origin ${SECRET_URL}
        - git tag v$VERSION
        - git push origin v$VERSION
      only:
        - master

    release-cli

    The release-cli docker container is able to both create a git tag and a Gitlab release, for which you can give information on the release, such as what has changed.

    Creating a job to create the release using release-cli is fairly straight forward.

    tag:
      stage: tag
      image: registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/release-cli
      script:
        - |
          release-cli --server-url $CI_SERVER_URL --job-token $CI_JOB_TOKEN \
          --project-id $CI_PROJECT_ID create --name "Release v${VERSION}" \
          --description "$DESCRIPTION" --tag-name "v${VERSION}" \
          --ref $CI_COMMIT_SHA
      variables:
        # Ensures submodules are not pulled
        GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY: none
      only:
        - master

    And if you are using Gitlab >=13.2 it is even easier with the release keyword

    tag:
      release:
        tag_name: v${VERSION}
        description: ${DESCRIPTION}
      only:
        - master

    The only more difficult thing you need to do is specify the version and the description for the release.

    Details Sniffer

    As I keep a CHANGELOG of all the changes I make in most of my projects, I decided to pull the release description from that and get the version number from either the package.json file (for NPM projects) or from the setup.py file (for Python projects).

    To do this, I used the powerful sed utility to:

    1. extract the version from the package.json/setup.py file
    2. extract the lines from the CHANGELOG.md between the current version header and the previous version header.
    tag:
      stage: tag
      image: registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/release-cli
      script:
        - |
          # Get the version from either the package.json or the setup.py file
          if [ -e package.json ]; then
            VERSION=$(cat package.json | sed -n "s/^.*\"version\": \"\\(.*\\)\".*$/\1/p")
          elif [ -e setup.py ]; then
            VERSION=$(cat setup.py | sed -n "s/^.*version='\\(.*\\)'.*$/\1/p")
          fi
    
          if [ "$VERSION" != "" ]; then
            # Get the version details from the CHANGELOG if we have one
            if [ -e CHANGELOG.md ]; then
              DESCRIPTION=$(cat CHANGELOG.md | sed -re "1,/## +\[?v?$(echo $VERSION | sed 's/\\./\\\\./')/d" | sed -e '/^## /,$d')
            else
              DESCRIPTION="Release v$VERSION"
            fi
            # Get the current tag of the commit (to ensure it hasn't already been tagged)
            CURRENT_TAG=$(git describe --tags 2>/dev/null || true)
            if [ "$CURRENT_TAG" != "v$VERSION" ]; then
              release-cli --server-url $CI_SERVER_URL --job-token $CI_JOB_TOKEN \
              --project-id $CI_PROJECT_ID create --name "Release v${VERSION}" \
              --description "$DESCRIPTION" --tag-name "v${VERSION}" \
              --ref $CI_COMMIT_SHA
            fi
          fi
      variables:
        # Ensures submodules are not pulled
        GIT_SUBMODULE_STRATEGY: none
      only:
        - master
    

    With the job updated, it was time to test. Luckily, I needed to publish a new version of keeps-on-ticking.

    I prepared the merge request and when it was ready hit merge. It worked like a charm and produced Release v1.1.0.

    A successful Gitlab Release

    • software
    • gitlab
    • ci
    • release
  • Gitlab CI Caching

    9/30/2020

    I noticed something strange happening during build process during a multi-tasking bug fix. Turns out I was using Gitlab CI's caching incorrectly. I should have been using artifacts. Here's what I saw.

    • gitlab
    • continuous integration
  • Birthday Trash

    9/22/2020

    As a birthday treat, I took the day off work to try out my electronerised litter picker. Here's how it went.

    • litter
    • pi-trash-cam
    • environment
  • Pi Trash Cam

    9/13/2020

    In preparation for a day of litter picking, I finally got round to a project idea - attaching a camera to a litter picker to record it all. Here's what I did.

    • raspberry pi
    • electronics
    • litter
    • pi-trash-cam
    • environment
  • yarn add --dev webdriverio

    8/25/2020

    I finally started implementing UI testing on first-draft using WebdriverIO. While writing tests was easy, getting the tests running was a little more difficult. Here is how I did it.

    • first-draft
    • software
    • testing
    • gitlab
  • 8/16/2020

    Hooray! My new blog is live! Based on Sapper, using MongoDB and eventually ActivityPub and ActivityStreams, it will be my federated posting hub to the world.

    • software
    • blog
  • Removing EXIF Data from Photos

    8/9/2020

    Creating this new blog, I wanted to make sure there was no metadata data leaking personal information. Here's how I removed all the metadata tags except the ones I wanted from my photos.

    • exif
    • photos
  • tmux List and Reattach

    8/9/2020

    Using tmux for your terminal multiplexer but want an easy to reattach to a session? Here's a small bash script to do it.

    • tmux
    • bash
    • software
  • Selectable Shell Examples

    8/8/2020

    Here's how to help your readers save time by making your post's shell commands easy to select and copy - with a simple CSS property.

    • markdown
    • syntax
    • css
  • Be Dates You

    8/5/2020

    Making my new blog, I didn't initially set the published dates to be native dates in the database. Here what I did to change them …and do all the upgrades I needed.

    • mongodb
    • docker
  • Testing vue components

    7/8/2020

    I recently needed to test that some Vue components were creating the correct HTML. To do this, I decided to create snapshots of Object representations of the rendered HTML.

    • software
    • vue
    • testing
    • javascript
  • No More Numbers

    2/20/2019

    HTML5 number inputs aren't useful, but tel inputs, have all the power

    • javascript
    • html5
    • software
  • A Hacker "Hacked" Me

    12/21/2018

    I decided to look into the extortion emails I have been getting and wrote a small script to extract the bitcoin addresses that have been used.

    • security
    • email
    • grep
  • Mouse Surgery

    12/7/2018

    As part of my pledge not to upgrade, I decided to repair two of my failing mice instead of replacing them with a brand new model (as tempting as it was). Here's what I did.

    • pledge to not upgrade
    • electronics
  • Danger Danger, Highly Reactive

    10/29/2018
    • vue
    • reactive
    • graphing
    • data
  • Switching to SSR

    9/11/2018
    • react
    • ssr
    • react-loader
  • Clean Docker Registry

    8/10/2018
    • node
    • docker
    • console
    • javascript
  • Testing on the Filesystem

    2/1/2018
    • testing
    • javascript
  • Tag You Are

    1/26/2018
    • javascript
    • tags
  • NaN Got Me

    1/25/2018
    • rubber duck save
    • javascript
    • nodejs
    • json
  • All our app's tabs are belong to us

    4/28/2017
    • angular
    • javascript
    • localstorage
    • rxjs
    • sessionstorage
  • Developing NPM modules

    2/20/2016
    • nodejs
    • npm
  • Nfa + Nfb or N(f+fa+fb)

    2/20/2016
    • array
    • function
    • javascript
    • jsperf
  • Photo Layout

    10/31/2015
    • arranger
    • css
    • gallery hierarchy
    • html
    • javascript
    • photos
    • tinymce
    • wordpress
    • software
  • Browning Pass HideAway Web Site

    10/31/2015
    • css
    • gallery hierarchy
    • html
    • wordpress
  • Think Mobile

    10/17/2015
    • mobile
    • web
  • Pledge to Refuse and Not Buy Bottled Water

    10/13/2015
    • environment
    • pledges
  • Run PHP run!

    2/25/2015
    • maximum execution time
    • php
    • trial and error
  • Gallery Hierarchy

    11/26/2014
    • gallery
    • hierarchy
    • photos
  • Vim and functions

    10/3/2014
    • function
    • navigation
    • tags
    • vim
  • I'm making hierarchies

    9/26/2014
    • hierarchical data
    • hierarchy
    • php
  • Google Sheets fun

    9/4/2014
    • google
    • google script
    • google sheets
    • javascript
    • sheets
  • Travel Photos

    8/13/2014
    • photo management
    • photos
    • travel photos
  • Image managment scripts

    8/13/2014
    • photo management
    • photos
  • MeldCE logo

    7/31/2014
    • css
    • html5
    • javascript
    • svg
  • MoltenDB

    4/26/2014
    • database
    • moltendb
    • mongodb
    • nodejs
  • The Expensive Side

    10/29/2013
    • house
  • abcde

    9/22/2013
    • music
  • Energizer Power Plus Rechargeable Batteries

    7/16/2013
    • gadgets
  • USAR FOGTeX

    3/4/2013
    • fogtex
  • Personal Gear Bag

    2/21/2013
    • rescue
    • gear
  • Geocaching Stamp

    2/18/2013
    • stamp
    • geocaching
  • Call Record Presenter

    4/2/2007
    • parser
    • python
    • sqlite
    • web
  • Kimi Ora School

    9/25/2004
    • css
    • html
  • All About Catering Web Site

    6/25/2004
    • css
    • html
  • Quantum Accounting Web Site

    7/26/2003
    • css
    • html
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