Joseph Tinsley

Top 5 Reasons I’ve turn into a Mac Fanboy.

Oh buddy, so before I get started I need to mention that this list includes built in applications and utilities that I found awesome. And that there are plenty of apps that I have downloaded along the way and use on a day to day basis that I will list at a later date.

1. Spotlight
   • I’m beginning to use Spotlight quite often. It’s actually blazing fast, maybe it will slow down as my computer ages but for right now it’s my goto applications for finding files. Definitely beats Window’s search utilizing by a mile.
2. SSH
   • I’ve been using a windows based pc for most of my career and when I needed to access my server securely I’ve alway done it via Putty. Putty’s a cool little utility and it’s one of the first tools I download when I’m on a Win PC. But now I just fire up the terminal.
3. Network
   • In the past my Linksys router would always need power cycling, it was such a pain in the butt. I don’t know why maybe because it was just an old router. When I got my Mac But I did go out and get a new  Linksys router but the set up process was horrible, basically too many hoops to get thing running. I bought a Airport Extreme and had the WiFi up in running in less than 5 minutes. I know this sounds cliche but everything just worked.
4. Launchpad
   • This and mission control along with gestures I use a lot when i’m actually using the laptop’s monitor. For most of the time I’m tethered to a external monitor is it very seldom I use these two. But they do make navigating between applications and desktops incredibly swift.
5. Keychain Access
   • I recently installed Windows 7 on a old laptop of mine and could not remember the WI-Fi password. Having Keychain access made life so much easier. In the past I would have to access my Linksys router’s control panel which wouldn’t be that bad but it would always take me a few tries before I could never remember that password.

Applications I have not used yet but looking forward to using.

• Time Machine
• ICloud
• Airdrop, not really sure what this is yet?

Cleaning out old domain names

I’ve been tied up lately with my fully time contract and my side projects. But between times I’ve been going through the list of domain names I own, trying to pick out the few that I think I can breathe some life back into. Plus the renewal fees are getting pretty expensive each year.
Hopefully by the beginning of next week I should have something worth talking about.

Codapus, simple code share site

Currently working on Codapus.com. Simple site that allows programmers to share their code easily.
This is probably my real first MongoDB backed site. I’m so looking forward to building more sites using this database when I get time.
You can check out my beginning here http://www.codapus.com/josephtinsley/

IPhone App Development Plans

Only a few of you know about the contract gig I’ve been working the last couple of months.
Well it looks like it’ll be coming to an end shortly. I’ve had some good times and worked with some really great people but it’s time to turn the page and look towards the next chapter.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from my past experiences is that it’s hard to focus on a new job and be involved in side projects at the same time, at least it is for me. So I’ve decided to take a few months to myself to re-vamp some old projects I’ve been neglecting and to learn some new technologies.

One of the goals that I’ve been putting off for some time now is IPhone development. This is something that I’ve been really interested in but didn’t have the proper equipment or the time.  So this time around I plan to focus most of my efforts on developing a IPhone application. That doesn’t mean that I’m not open to listening to new opportunities, that would be crazy. What it means is that I plan to buckle down and dedicate myself to learning and understanding the process needed to get an application developed and submitted to Apple’s Application store.
I’m giving myself 6 months to do this, maybe it’s possible and maybe it’s not, we’ll see.

P.S. I’m sure I could use some help along the way so, I’m open to any advice regarding the topic.

HP 2511x and I’m loving it

This weekend my new monitor was delivered, the HP 2511X and it totally awesome. This is one of the best purchases I’ve made in a longtime. I’m like the kid in the candy shop. Today sitting at work I couldn’t stop thinking about my monitor and the code that I was going to write when I got home, yeah it’s like that.

For the longest I’ve rocked a DELL 2001FP 20in and it’s a great monitor don’t get me wrong. I mean me and the 2001FP has been through a lot of good times together and we’ve made a gang of money. But it was time to upgrade.

I originally bought the HP 2511x with the intentions of setting up dual monitors, but after hooking it up I realized there was no need for dual monitors. The HP 2511x provides all of the real estate I need.

It took me a while to make my mind up. I had a hard time deciding between the HP 2509b and the HP2511x but went with the HP2511x because it was slightly cheaper at the time.

I’ve read plenty of reviews and comments and majority of the bad comments I’ve come across was regarding the monitor not having built in speakers, or not being able to adjust vertically. To me having speakers attached is kind of silly. The way I play music attached speakers wouldn’t last past  the first couple of weeks, and then what, ship the whole monitor back. No that’s not for me, I prefer to have my speakers detached. Right now I have some incredible Logitech speakers that are able to handle anything I throw at them.

As for the vertical adjustment, I was a bit concerned about that. I had this option on the 2001FP, but what I found out was the vertical adjustment was no longer needed because the HP 2511x is so freaking huge.
Basically to sum it all up HP2511x is awesome and I’m loving it.

Wait one thing that did suck. I bought some 3ft Monster HDMI cables but they were a bit too short.. Going to Monoprice.com for some longer one.

But besides that get this monitor you’ll love it.

Gmail Contact Importer

Import your Gmail Contacts the fast and easy way (insert Billy Mays voice here)

My overall objective was to build very simple API that would allow a user to download his/her Gmail contacts and display them in a specific format.

In my opinion a API like this should be very popular amongst the social networking sites.

The API has the capability to be configured to show results in several different formats XML, JSON, and PHP format. The PHP format returns the results in an array format.

The operating format is as follows.

• Source:contacts
• Gmail:Username
• Gmail:Password
• Format:PHP, or XML, or JSON

http://apime.josephtinsley.com/contacts/{user_name}:{user_password}/{format}

http://apime.josephtinsley.com/contacts/bob:I_luv_Tacos/json

A simple way of including the result set into your PHP web page is to use PHP’s file_get_contents function.

*results are limited to 25 contacts right now*
Thanks,
Joe

Google’s Analytics API with PHP

I was recently asked about my experience with Google’s Analytics API, my reply was bla, bla, bla, I do not have any experience with their API’s.  But to be honest I couldn’t remember why at that moment I didn’t. I think the only reason was because of their documentation, for some of their API’s it’s a pretty long, difficult read. But overall that wasn’t a very good reason, so I decided to take some time and dive in and whoop that trick (line from the hustle and flow movie).
The goal for this post to help anyone who may be having a hard time understanding how to build a connection to Google’s Analytics API.
So first there are a couple of things you need to know.

• In this post I’m only talking about their Data Export API – http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/
• PHP and cURL is a major component in this Class

There are only two files needed in this script but the connection part is the only part we will be going over, it’s in the gaClass.php file.
So basically I’m still new to  Google’s Analytics API but what I’ve learned so far is that once you’ve established a connection the rest is pretty simple.  So basically that’s why we will be focusing on the establishing a connection part only.

Your first major goal while trying to establish a connection is to collect the authentication string. Within that string is your authentication token, and without that token you can’t get anywhere so remember that. The overall objective is to get the authentication token.

So open up the gaClass.php file and take a look at the construct method, this is where the connection happens. Please contact me if I confuse your somewhere, I try to code so that it’s easy to follow.

• Within the construct method we start off by collection your email and password that was set on the form page. They of course are needed to connect to your account.
• We set the url that we will be trying to making a connection to. In this case it’s the ClientLogin URL (https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin) . Take note that the protocol starts with HTTPS.
• Within our POST request we have a few additional parameters that will need to be pass along including your email and password. A short description of these parameters can be found at (http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gdata/gdataAuthentication.html) scroll down until you see the HTTP Protocol Details heading
• Now once we have all the parameters set we will try to actually make the connection. We do this within the next method. The curlConnection method, and it does exactly what it says, tries to makes the connection via cURL
• The curlConnection method will take the parameters we talked about earlier and send them to the ClientLogin URL via cURL using a POST method. The answer we receive from this post will or will not include our authentication token.
• Now let’s suppose it does and the header status code equal 200, which means it’s A-OK. Within that connection response output you will see a encrypted string. But look closers you’ll see three variables with three values assigned to it. The variables are labeled , “SID”, “LSID” and  “AUTH”. Well you want the AUTH and it value.  Our next task is to parse out the AUTH variable and its value, and we do this with the setAccessToken method.
• The setAccessToken is fairly simple we take that string and convert it to an array using PHP’s built in explode function.  The access token should be in the second element. I then assign this value to a token variable to be used later for accessing other parts of the API. If you recall when we started this post the authentication token is essential to other parts of the API. Without it you basically can’t do anything.

So that you can get a idea of what the output data look like.  I’ve included a screen shot of the header response output, the authentication output, when the authentication output is converted into a array, and the authentication token.

I’m new to Mercurial so please don’t give me a hard time about my commits or the lack of.
https://bitbucket.org/josephtinsley/google-analytics-api/overview

Google Analytics API with PHP

My First Mongo PHP APP

Today I created my first MongoDB application. Please no applause, this app is incredibly boring.  At the time I was fresh out of cool ideas, especially ideas that required a nice amount of data.
So I went with a simple US Population search script. I actually had a copy of the 2009 census data in a mysql table from some time ago. I have no idea why, I guess I’m a hoarder like that.
But basically I built this just for the experience. I’ve been hearing a lot of hub bub about MongoDB and thought I should give it a try.  I have to say from what I’ve fiddled with so far it is pretty interesting. If you’re coming from a RDBMS like I was, it’s going to take some time to change your thought process.

MongoDB store its data in what they call documents which are somewhat like table rows. I’m not going to go down that road because I’m still a newbie myself and I don’t want to put anyone on the wrong path. But what helped me get along was that I envisioned accessing data from a XML feed. Of course MongoDB documents are not XML feeds but they are structured a bit like a feed.

For example goto Buy.com and view the source of one of their product feeds (Example Product Feed) look specifically at each product node. When accessing data from MongoDB document I put myself in the mindset as if I’m grabbing data from a XML product feed.  Crazy, but it works for me.

Bottom line I think MongoDB is pretty interesting, I’m still new to it so I’m not quite ready to ditch MySql.
During my quest for knowledge I found myself looking for examples to help me get started. In my opinion there wasn’t that much out there but that’s probably because it’s fairly still new. But here are few sites that help me get started.

• http://learnmongo.com/ – He/She had some good PHP examples.
• http://www.php2all.de/manual/mongo.tutorial.html – Also has some good PHP & MongoDB example
• http://www.mongodb.org/ – The MongoDB Official site
  • http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/SQL+to+Mongo+Mapping+Chart – The Sql to MongoDB mapping chart is pretty cool.
• http://blog.mongovue.com/ – I think it’s a great tool for view your collections and documents.
• http://www.slideshare.net/kriswallsmith/mongod-pdxphp
  • Also check around for other presentations on slideshare.com there a bunch of good one out there.

Reverse IP Look up .V2

I’ve updated my Reverse IP Look up script. This script/tool will attempt to display a list of domain names that are hosted on the same IP address.

My original script was a bit slow, this one should display results a lot  faster. I’ve also add a simple API that can be configure to show results in different formats XML, JSON, and PHP format. The PHP format returns the results in an array format.

The GUI interface is located in the SEO tools section of this site Reverse IP Look up

To access the API, use the URL below.

Just include your domain name where the curly brackets are, then pick a format to display the results in.

Example

http://apime.josephtinsley.com/{domain_name}/php/

http://apime.josephtinsley.com/bk.com/php/

Thanks,

Joseph

== UPDATED APRIL 06, 2011 ==
In the near future I plan to add more API’s
To handle this change you are now required to add the API’s source that you want to use.
The Reverse IP Look Up source is “reverse”

So or example
Instead of

http://apime.josephtinsley.com/{domain_name}/php/

It will need to be

http://apime.josephtinsley.com{source}/{domain_name}/php/

so

http://apime.josephtinsley.com/reverse/bk.com/php/

would be the finished URL.

Thanks again,
Joe

Brand New Year

It’s a Brand New Year and I have a few things that I would like to focus on and learn more about in 2011.

• Geo Location – I think this year we are going to see a lot of Geo based application. I have a few goto API’s that I use to pull this data. But this technology has a lot of room to grow. I would love to get in front of this and ride the wave of projects that are about to come in.
• Git – I bought a book a few months ago, but I’ve been pretty business and have not found the time to crack it open. This Version Control seems to be a must have nowadays.
• IPhone App – I’m sure I’m catching the tail end of the IPhone application gold rush, but I would love to learn how to build a app, regarding how simple it may be.
• Domaining – I want to sale a domain for over $500.00 this year.
• Funding – I follow Techcruch pretty closely and there appears to be a lot of  funding going on. I would love to find out how this process works.
• California -  This is a long shot but I would not mind moving to the west coast. It seems like a lot of what I’m into is happening over there.

Well that’s the list. It will be interesting to see if I’m able to cross any of these off next year.