Tim’s
Bandwagon

Here’s a little hack to enable you to use Ricoh GX100 RAW files in Apple’s Aperture.

Make a backup of the following file:

/System/Library/CoreServices/RawCamera.bundle/Contents/Resources/Raw.plist

Find the key for the Leica D-LUX 3 (line 3316 in MacOS 10.5.1):

3316: <key>Leica D-LUX 3</key> <string>Panasonic DMC-LX2</string> <!-- 10.4.10 -->

Then insert the following line before the line showing the Leica D-LUX 3:

3316: <key>RICOH Caplio GX100</key> <string>Panasonic DMC-LX2</string>
3317: <key>Leica D-LUX 3</key> <string>Panasonic DMC-LX2</string> <!-- 10.4.10 -->

You should now be able to use the Ricoh’s RAW files in Aperture.

This is based on a previous hack (detailed here), which doesn’t apply to Leopard.

From Britol City Council’s PublicAccess for Planning page:

Please note that the documents within PublicAccess can only be accessed by using Internet Explorer. This is due to a limitation within the system which has been raised with the suppliers.

Not good enough. Here’s form I knocked-up in about 2 minutes that gives users of other browsers access to associated planning documents. The associated documents are things like supporting letters, photographs, a copy of the application form etc.

Enter a planning application number to view any supporting documents.

ActionScript 2.0 doesn’t have a trim function to strip whitespace from the start and end of a string. Here’s a simple function I wrote because I couldn’t find a satisfactory example on Google!

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function trim(str:String):String
{
    var stripCharCodes = {
        code_9  : true, // tab
        code_10 : true, // linefeed
        code_13 : true, // return
        code_32 : true  // space
    };
    while(stripCharCodes["code_" + str.charCodeAt(0)] == true) {
        str = str.substring(1, str.length);
    }
    while(stripCharCodes["code_" + str.charCodeAt(str.length - 1)] == true) {
        str = str.substring(0, str.length - 1);
    }
    return str;
}

The horrible "code_" prefix hack is there because I don’t think there’s a native way to search an array or object for a key or value in ActionScript.

Update: just found this function at: frogstyle.ch. This one does a similar thing, but strips more characters.

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function trim(str:String):String
{
    for(var i = 0; str.charCodeAt(i) < 33; i++);
    for(var j = str.length-1; str.charCodeAt(j) < 33; j--);
    return str.substring(i, j+1);
}

If you’ve ever needed to get calculate a mode value in php, you’ll notice that there isn’t a native function to do so.

I couldn’t get the function in Pear’s Math_Statistics to work with non-numeric values, so here’s a function that does.

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<?php
 
/**
 * Calculates the frequently occuring value(s) in an array.
 *
 * @param  array $data
 * @return array
 */
function array_mode($data)
{
    if(!is_array($data)) {
        throw new Exception('First argument $data must be an array.');
    }
    $frequencys = array_count_values($data);
    // Double-check that frequencys are sorted in reverse order,
    // I think array_count_values actually returns in this format
    // already, but the manual doesn't mention it.
    arsort($frequencys);
    $isFirst = true; // Yuk
    $mode = array();
    foreach ($frequencys as $thisValue=>$thisFrequency) {
        if ($isFirst == true) {
            $isFirst = false; // Wince
            $mode[] = $thisValue;
            $modeFrequency = $thisFrequency;
            continue;
        }
        if ($modeFrequency == $thisFrequency) {
            $mode[] = $thisValue;
        }
        if ($modeFrequency > $thisFrequency) {
            break;
        }
    }
    return $mode;
}
 
var_dump(array_mode(array('a', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd')));
/*
array(1) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "a"
}
*/
 
var_dump(array_mode(array('a', 'a', 'b', 'b', 'c')));
/*
array(2) {
  [0]=>
  string(1) "a"
  [1]=>
  string(1) "b"
}
*/

mankners…, originally uploaded by i y e r s.

My thoughts precisely. It’s depressing how this stuff has become so popular when there’s such a variety of decent local cider producers within a 25 mile radius of Bristol.

Given the food-miles accumulated importing apples from the UK, France and the Netherlands to Ireland and shipping them back as cider, its a tad ironic that they have to import CO₂ from Poland to make it fizzy.