All things MakerBlock: RepRap, MakerBot, Cupcake CNC, open source, and plastic building toys!
I just can’t help it. I’m such a sucker for DIY Doctor Who stuff.1
Until now I had only known about Project Dalek for people who wanted to build replica Daleks. I suppose I should have known, but never thought to have looked it up, that there’s a whole website devoted to building TARDIS’s. This lady’s build log on that site is nearly as entertaining as her Youtube video.
Looking back at one’s code from years prior is like looking back at a junior high school picture of one’s self. I’m looking back at the code for my quick-and-dirty pie chart plugin and think, man, why did I write things THAT way?
In the 1,000 years since I wrote that plugin in 2009, I’ve been trying to learn and comply with best programming practices for WordPress plugins. As a result my current plugins tend to be stripped down, simple, don’t create unnecessary options, don’t create unnecessary tables, taxonomies, special post types, or those kinds of things. 1 Learning some Object Oriented programming along the way has been super helpful. By encapsulating your WordPress plugin code into a chunk of objected oriented programming, you reduce the likelihood that your plugins’ function and variable names will collide with those from WordPress or other potential plugins.
If you’re getting started or need to brush up on your WordPress plugin development skillz, you should definitely check out these awesome articles:2
I’d also recommend tinkering with jQuery and JSON, if you haven’t already. 3 I don’t know of any really good JSON tutorials, so if you do, please let me know so I can add it to this list.
After having fried my Adafruit motor shield with excessive levels of stupidity by accidentally soldering two chips in each other’s spots, I thought of a little bit of silver lining. I now have an H-bridge and an IC that may both still be good!
Default Series TitleNine people have downloaded my super awesome WordPress plugin for automatically generated a list of posts in a series!
NINE, internets – NINE whole people! 1
Default Series TitleHow awesome is that?!
Default Series TitleThis may seem silly, but I’m really happy with having published my very first plugin on WordPress.org.
My Simple Series plugin lets you easily create and helps you automatically maintain a list of posts. I started writing this plugin because all of the existing ones seemed really clunky and over-engineered. There’s no need for extra tables in WordPress, brand new taxonomies, or special system requirements. If you can fire up any recent version of WordPress, you should be able to use this plugin without a problem. 1
As much of a WordPress fanboy as I am, I’ve never actually shared a plugin on the WordPress.org repository. It was simultaneously easier and more difficult than I thought it would be. The page that discusses how you can contribute your plugin and talks about “checking out” files makes absolutely no mention of how you’re supposed to do this!
Apparently you require a program to connect to the WordPress SVN to check out the file and commit changes. On the advice of Schmarty I’m using TortoiseSVN. Once that was installed and a sub-directory selected, it was relatively easy to commit changes. If you haven’t tried it before, this whole SVN thing feels like a clunky slow version of FTP.
Default Series TitleWouldn’t that be something? A bunch of posts… all associated with one another by nothing more than some kind of random brain process fueled by stubbornness, a fever, and too much caffeine?
Default Series TitleI’m still sick. I should not be at work right now. I should be at home, in my jammies, asleep.
Delirium and the giggles have set in. I wonder what I’ve been e-mailing my clients all morning? Gah, it’s only 2pm. In three more hours rainbow armadillos shooting stars out of their butts will seem the status quo.
After frying some unknown number of unknown parts, I’m re-ordering an Adafruit Motor/Stepper/Servo Shield for Arduino Kit v1.0 from MakerBot. 1
Upon its arrival, I’ll need to solder the new board and try, again, to build a DrawBot!
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