The post Comic Book Decals appeared first on Richard Howell.

All old links to Richardhowell.net should still work (through the power of .htaccess) however if you spot anything that dosen’t work please email me.

The post Same place, different name appeared first on Richard Howell.

I have created a Database of Weather Applications for iOS, this is hosted on Google Apps and is available for anyone to edit, ultimatley i would like this to become the ultimate resource for Weather Apps.

View The Database

The post iOS Weather App Database appeared first on Richard Howell.

While i was waiting the Dark Sky team developed something magical Forecast.io was born, this is not your normal App, it dosen’t require updates it is essentially a website that you can save to your home screen (iOS) but it dosen’t stop there this App is available on almost EVERY platform, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android.

The Web Version

The web version is the fully featured version of Forecast.io it has all the features you would expect, when you visit the page you are presented with a screen which looks like this;

At the top is a search box, this is where you enter your current location, of course you can let your browser automatically select your location if you like, if not type it on in there and Forecast will update with weather about your area.

As you can see here we have a globe which contains the magic sauce that makes forecast so special, this data is gathered from sources all over the world and the Dark Sky team use software to manipulate it to what you see on your screen.

To the right of the globe you will see the Right Now section, this is what the weather is doing right this very moment, it will give you an icon with the temperature to the side of it under that is a brief description of the current conditions, you should also see a small + next the words Right Now clicking this will give you detailed information on the current conditions including, Air Pressure, Wind, Temp Direction, Visibility etc.

Below that you have information for the next 24 hours and the next 7 days this isn’t as detailed as the 24 hour data and will give you a brief description of the weather in text form.

Further down the page you will find the 7 day weather forecast, this includes conditions, description high/low temp clicking the + icon on this location will give you a detailed breakdown of the prediction for the weather during that day, this is presented in a timeline format with details of that weather above the timeline.

In the top right of your screen you will see a selection this allows you to change from Fahrenheit & Celsius

Depending on your location Forecast will also give you weather warnings, in this case there is a weather warning in place for Rain in the East Midlands, East Of England, Humber, London, North West London, North West England and more this weather warning is also linked to the Met Office as that is where the warning was obtained from.

Another feature that sets Forecast apart is Time Machine, Dark Sky have collected data from lots of different sources and compiled this into a web app they like to call Time Machine, here you are able to put in a date of your choice and Forecast will give you back the weather conditions from that date, this is still experimental but it works really well from what i have seen.

Another little treat that is packed into Forecast is Raw, Raw allows you to see the Raw data collected from the weather stations around the world and how the various elements compare, this is good for seeing if there is anomaly on the front end of Forecast or if the carious models match up to the forecasted weather. The Dark Sky team explain this in more detail here

The App Version

Available for your phone is the exact same application, this isn’t an app that you download from the App store however, in your browser of choice for your mobile device navigate to Forecast.io and you will be presented with instructions on how to install Forecast to your device, this will (in iOS) add an icon to the homescreen which gives you quick access to Forecast.

When you first visit Forecast you will be presented with this overview screen, it looks very simillar to the desktop version but has no map on the screen although this is available by clicking the Map button in the top right corner of the screen.

Here you have the Current Conditions which displays the temp, and a brief description of what the weather is like right now, next to that you have the + where you can expand the weather information to get more information on things like Air Pressure, Temperature direction.

The next hour and next 24 hours are also shown here, these are displayed using the brief description output, no further information is displayed.

At the bottom is a small timeline, this is the rainfall time line, here will display how much rainfall is going to fall and for how long, you can see here that Forecast is predicting rainfall for the next 10 minutes but it is only going to be light rain.

Finally at the very bottom of the screen you can see the words “Next 7 Days” if you swipe up on this you will display the forecast for the next 7 days

This is what the screen looks like for the Next 7 Days, you are given the weather conditions in icon format, there is no brief description here, the high/low temp is displayed here along with a + to get more information on the selected day.

Pressing the + will open a pane under the selected day which will reveal a timeline much like the desktop version, you will be able to see what the weather is going to be doing at a certain time of the day, you are also given sun rise and sun set information here along with the brief description that is displayed on the desktop version.

The weather radar is also available in Forecast, at the top are three tabs, Local, Regional & Global if you would like to see the radar for your local area you would obviously just click local, if you would like to see if radar for your regional area you would just click regional and so on. In the above regional is selected along the bottom you can see another time line with a red line this red line moves along the time line to different time frames when this moves the radar image changes.

You can move your finger along this time line to change the image manually if you wish or let Forecast automate the process for you.

Overview

To me Forecast is the best weather app available, there are so many alternatives out there the App Store must be full of them but nothing really comes close the beauty and accury that Forecast provides, if you are looking for a App to give you up-to-date weather information i would suggest looking no further than Forecast.

The post Forecast.io Weather App Review appeared first on Richard Howell.

My Current Tools

At the moment i am using a disposable razor, one of them ones you get from the chemist and has around 10 razors in for £2 they have two blades and for the most part are “ok” however one problem i tend to find with these particular razors is that they clog up with hair, you can get around 1 or 2 strokes out of it before you are using the protective cover to try and scrape the hair from in between the blades.
I also use a cheap shaving cream which seems to work but after reading the above article kinda makes me think if that is half the reason my face cuts and shaving kinda hurts.

The New Tools

Starting out along this path isn’t cheap but it isn’t expensive either, there is an initial outlay that you will need to pluck up for but investing in a good quality safety razor handle in the beginning will provide better shave in the long term.

Here is what i have decided to go for in terms of my “tool kit”

• Edwin Jager DE Razor Black

• Soap
• men-u Pure Bristle Shaving Brush

• After Care Cream

Patience

Once you have your tools getting started and into a routine is key as your face, skin and hairs will need to adjust to this new way of shaving. There are many articles on the Internet that explain the best methods for shaving your facial hair using The Wet Shave.

• Only make a maximum of 3 passes over the same area
• Make sure you get plenty of soap onto your face before shaving, this will help soften the hair and make cutting it easier
• Make sure you use nice warm water
• Treat your face well, after shaving your face will be exposed, moisturising the skin will make shaving in the future much easier and pleasurable.

All of this can take a few weeks so make sure you stick at it, you might cut yourself a few times to begin with and getting the hang of the stroke required might be tricky but perseverance is the key.

This is going to be one of them live posts, i will update it with links to articles i find useful, pictures and my own personal experiance over the next few weeks.

The post The Wet Shave appeared first on Richard Howell.

Last night i went to use my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard that i bought back when i had my iMac, since then it has been in my stroage box there were no batteries in the keyboard.

I put a new set of batteries into the keyboard that i knew were working but the device wouldn’t turn on, so i tried a few more batteries to see if the ones i was using were faulty still nothing.

So i searched the web and found the perfect soloution thanks to @MacFindHer you can see the post here

What you need to do is this:

1. Take the old batteries out of the keyboard
2. Get some standard kitchen tin foil

3. Tear off a small bit of foil and roll it into a ball
4. Drop the ball into the battery compartment on the keyboard

You may need to push the batteries down to get them to fit back in

5. Put the batteries into the compartment, this would now be ontop of the foil
6. Close the battery compartment

Now try and turn your keyboard on and it should work….it did for me.

The post Fix an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard that won’t power on appeared first on Richard Howell.

There are so many reviews out there already of Alfred so instead i am just going to share the Workflows (requires alfred 2) that i use on my setup.

Add To Fantastical

Fantastical is a top layer to iCal, it allows you to manage your calendar from your menu bar and it also has the ability to sync all your changes across multiple devices, oh and did i mention it is beautiful?

This work flow allows you to add a reminder to Fantastical using Alfred.

Caffeinate

I have been using Caffeinate for a long time, it is a great little application that prevents you screen from going to sleep, particularly useful for when you are reading long blog posts, watching a youtube video.

Clear Downloads

Pretty self explanatory, this work flow allows you to clear the downloads folder to the trash.

Disk Usage

Check the disk usage of the disks that are in your machine

Flush DNS Cache

Allows you to flush the DNS cache of your laptop/desktop

Network Info

Get the network information for your Wireless or Ethernet adapter.

Pinboard

As a user of pinboard this was really handy, it allows you to search your pinboard bookmarks, amongst other things and then launch that bookmark without ever leaving the desktop.

Things

If you use things as your task management application of choice this is a great work flow, it allows you to do lots of different things from within Alfred

Transmit

Transmit is my FTP application of choice and has been since the day i started using Apple Mac this workflow allows you to load all of your Transmit bookmarks into alfred then connect to that bookmark.

Uninstall With CleanMyMac 2

If you use Clean My Mac, this workflow allows you to remove an application from your system with Alfred.

These are just a handful of the workflows available you can get loads more over on the Alfred Forums or create some of your own.

The post The Alfred Workflows I Use appeared first on Richard Howell.

Lets get started…

Update The Server

Update Ubuntu

sudo apt-get upgrade

Update apt-get

sudo apt-get update

 Install The IRC Server

sudo apt-get install ircd-hybrid

sudo nano /etc/ircd-hybrid/ircd.motd

You should now see the following, this means that you have successfully installed the IRC Server

Now we need to create the password, this is required to be the Oper

/usr/bin/mkpasswd super-secret

Make a note of the password, we may need this later.

Now we need to edit the config file to suit our needs, this is well documented but we will make a few edits to get us up and running.

sudo nano /etc/ircd-hybrid/ircd.conf

Find this line

host = "127.0.0.1";     # change this!

and change it to

#host = "127.0.0.1";     # change this!

Next find this line

max_clients = 5;

and change it to

max_clients = 512;

This will allow other people to connect to the server which is what we want to do Note: make sure you configure your server to have these ports open  443, 6664, and 6667

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 6667 -j ACCEPT

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 6664 -j ACCEPT

This will then save the rules

iptables-save > /etc/network/iptables.rules

Now we need to restart the server

sudo /etc/init.d/ircd-hybrid restart

Now, open up your IRC client of choice and see if you can connect

Yay It works

Install IRC Bouncer

adduser YOURUSERNAME

When asked enter a password and complete the options

addgroup admin

This will create a group called admin

adduser YOURUSERNAME admin

This will add the user you just created to the admin group, make sure you change YOURUSERNAME to a username of your choice

su YOURUSERNAME

This will put you into sudo mode (elevated permissions)

sudo apt-get install znc

enter your root password when asked

znc --makeconf

[ ?? ] What port would you like ZNC to listen on? (1025 to 65535): 6664
[ ?? ] Would you like ZNC to listen using SSL? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ** ] Unable to locate pem file: [/home/richard/.znc/znc.pem]
[ ?? ] Would you like to create a new pem file now? (yes/no) [yes]: yes
[ ok ] Writing Pem file [/home/richard/.znc/znc.pem]... 
[ ?? ] Would you like ZNC to listen using ipv6? (yes/no) [yes]: yes
[ ?? ] Listen Host (Blank for all ips):
[ ?? ] Load global module <partyline>? (yes/no) [no]: 
[ ?? ] Load global module <webadmin>? (yes/no) [no]: 
[ ?? ] Username (AlphaNumeric): richard
[ ?? ] Enter Password: 
[ ?? ] Confirm Password: 
[ ?? ] Would you like this user to be an admin? (yes/no) [yes]: yes
[ ?? ] Nick [richard]: richard
[ ?? ] Alt Nick [richard_]: richard_
[ ?? ] Ident [richard]: 
[ ?? ] Real Name [Got ZNC?]: 
[ ?? ] Bind Host (optional): 
[ ?? ] Number of lines to buffer per channel [50]: 1000            
[ ?? ] Would you like to keep buffers after replay? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ?? ] Default channel modes [+stn]:

[ ** ] And 36 other (uncommon) modules. You can enable those later.
[ ** ] 
[ ?? ] Load module <admin>? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ?? ] Load module <chansaver>? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ?? ] Load module <keepnick>? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ?? ] Load module <kickrejoin>? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ?? ] Load module <nickserv>? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ?? ] Load module <perform>? (yes/no) [no]: yes
[ ?? ] Load module <simple_away>? (yes/no) [no]: yes

[ ?? ] IRC server (host only): 127.0.0.1
[ ?? ] [127.0.0.1] Port (1 to 65535) [6667]: 6667
[ ?? ] [127.0.0.1] Password (probably empty): 
[ ?? ] Does this server use SSL? (yes/no) [no]:  
[ ?? ] Would you like to add another server for this IRC network? (yes/no) [no]: no

[ ?? ] Would you like to add a channel for ZNC to automatically join? (yes/no) [yes]: yes
[ ?? ] Channel name: #richardhowell
[ ?? ] Would you like to add another channel? (yes/no) [no]: no
[ ?? ] Would you like to set up another user (e.g. for connecting to another network)? (yes/no) [no]: no

[ ?? ] Launch ZNC now? (yes/no) [yes]: yes

The post Perfect Ubuntu IRC Server appeared first on Richard Howell.

Setting SSH Bookmarks in Terminal

Firstly open up a new terminal window

From this new terminal window type the following command

nano ~/.bash_profile

This will open the bash_profile file in the nano text editor, we now need to add an alias to this file so that we can quickly connect to our server, at the bottom of the bash_profile file, type the following command

alias SERVERNAME='ssh -p 888 USERNAME@SERVERIPADDRESS'

SERVERNAME = Make sure you choose something memorable, this will be what you type into terminal when you want to connect to your server

-p 888 = If your SSH config is running on a custom port put that here, otherwise remove this.

USERNAME = Put the SSH username you wish to connect with here

SERVER IP ADDRESS = The server you are connecting to’s IP Address.

Your file should now look something like this;

Save the changes, to do this press CTRL & O to write out the changes then CTRL&X to exit then restart the terminal

Open terminal again and type in the server name you selected into the terminal and hit enter, if everything went well you should now be connecting to your server over SSH.

The post OSX Terminal SSH Alias appeared first on Richard Howell.

The bike project took a turn for the worst so for my birthday i was given money to get myself a new bike and after the positive reviews i read about the Mango i went ahead and ordered one.

Why a mango?

I first saw mango bikes on Richard Reeds Be Your Own Boss this must of been around a year ago, around the time Mango was taking the idea global the bikes looks funky but at the time were out of my price range (just had a baby etc.)

Mango bikes have no gear system, once you dump this from the bike you are left with a light weight bike that is easy to maintain and for someone like me that is a good thing.

Ordering the bike

The entire process from start to finish of the ordering process was easy and fun, Mango supply you with a “bike builder” that allows you to select the colours of almost every part of the bike except the brakes, this allows you to create a truly cutomised bike.

Once you have selected the colours you want the “bike builder” gives you the price of how much it will cost, depending on how much customisation you have done will depend on the overall price but you are looking at around £275 – £310

Note: I dropped mango a email about my order becuase i wasn’t sure if there was a problem, the website said that my order was processing and it had been like this for a few days, the reply i had was that my bike was built and dispatched that very day, so from ordering to delivery my bike took 4 days – Impressive

Packaging & Delivery

Delivery of the bike was taken care of by DHL while not the best in the world the service you get from them is ‘ok’ they notify you when the parcel will arrive but the delivery window is still rather large so scheduling your whole day will be required in order to be home when it arrives.

The packaging was standard for that of a bike, brown box and i have to say the bike was in very good condition when it arrived.

Assembly

This is the part i was most nervous about, never putting my own bike together before i was under the impression i would be taking my new Mango to a bike shop in town to get them to do all the wizardry required but i was supprised to find how assembled the bike already was when it arrived.

What did i have to do?

• The front wheel was off the bike so this needed attaching
• The bullbars were not attached so i had to do this
• The brake levers were obviously not attached because the bull bars were not attached
• The sadle needed putting on the bike
• The pedals needed putting on (remember anti-clockwise)

What was already done?

• The bike was fully cabled so i didn’t have to worry about running cables to the v brakses.
• The rear wheel was installed on the bike
• The chain was attached to the bike and taught to the required tension

The bike came with a small set of instructions which were very clear and written in a way that even i could understand what needed to be done, also included was two tools 3mm alan key and a spanner some of the instructions mention a 5mm alan key which wasn’t included with the bike but that was no problem as i had one here i could use.

The bike took me around 30-40 minutes to put together as i took my time making sure to follow the instructions to the letter, if you know what you are doing you could proprably do this in half the time.

The Ride

Now that the bike was 100% assembled i decided to take it for a quick ‘test drive’ around the block, remember i have been used to a geared bike for all of my life so this was going to be completely different experiance.

I hoped on the bike and pushed away after a few pedals you really start to get some speed getting your weight positioned in a frontal postion on the bull bars really helps i didn’t realise how much speed you could actually achive on a bike with no gears, cornering was nerve racking and my hands were positioned over them brakes for this but once you get used to it i am sure this becomes easier to handle.

The weight was something else i was supprised about, the bike is VERY light, i could pick it up with one hand easily this is more than likely one of the reasons the bike gets the speed it does.

Final Thoughts

If you are looking for a affordable, cool looking, easy maintenance bike that is sutible for getting you from A to B then look no further than the Mango obviouly this isn’t to be taken on your favorite dirt tracks becuase it isn’t designed for that.

If dirt tracks are your thing maybe looking at an alternative would be an option but speed and looks are definatley something the Mango handles very well.

The Gallery

Here are some shots of the bike, you can view the full set over here

The post Mango Bikes Review appeared first on Richard Howell.