Let’s say you have 3 different computers that you use (this is usually the case for people in IT or development). I will use me as an example, mostly because I can’t speak for anyone else and because I know the subject REALLY well. I have a work desktop (OS X Leopard), a personal laptop(OS X Leopard) and a home desktop(Windows Vista), not to mention, a couple virtual machines running windows on the 2 Macs. I’m also starting to teach myself PHP and continually developing my javascript and jQuery skills. The reason I mention PHP is because there is no way to serve up ASP.net pages yet on the Mac (yes, I know about mono. It isn’t quite there yet). Now, let’s say you want to seamlessly work on the same code on all 3 computers and virtual machines.  Enter Dropbox.

Brief: Dropbox is an application that runs in the background on your computer (mac, linux, windows) and automatically syncs files when connected to the internet.  If you’re doing web dev stuff, chances are you are connected online.  Dropbox also creates a local folder on each computer to store the files that you are working on, etc.

Enter brain power:

1. Set up Apache on all computers since it’s a very powerful web server that runs on the previously mentioned operating systems. Here’s a guide on installing Apache on Windows.
2. Set up the root directory in Apache to be the ~/user/Sites folder and create a sym-link (Windows Vista) to your dropbox directory. This way you can run multiple websites (some that sync and some that don’t).
   To take this a step further, you could put all of this config info in a separate .config file (I called mine, “dropbox.config”) and drop it in the Dropbox directory for automatic synchronization throughout your systems.  This works best if the operating systems are the same or the root structure is the same.
3. So now, when you browse http://localhost, you should see this:
   
4. Verify that you see the same directory structure on all computers.  If this is the case, then you’re done.  Just start by creating PHP site within the Dropbox folder (I created a subfolder called WWW and in Apache I create a call to the virtual directory /dropbox which takes me to the WWW folder) <= This is important if you want to use Dropbox for other things!  This way, when you click on the Dropbox link listed under (~/Sites) it will redirect you to the dropbox/WWW folder.

Now, when you are writing code, editing images, or anything else, the code will automatically synchronize to each workstastion, allowing you to continue right where you left off, anywhere.

An example of how this helps:  I was recently working on writing some Ubiquity commands so I set up a Ubiquity folder within Dropbox, subscribed to the [ubiquitycommand].js file in that folder on every computer I work on, and that was it!  Now, whenever I make a change to those commands, the changes get synched to each computer and because Ubiquity is subscribed to the command on localhost, that change affects all computers.

This method also works extremely well when you have different operating system specific browsers that you would like to test with.  It may seem a little daunting at first, but let me tell you, once it is set up, you’re done.  No need to reconfigure anything.  Best of all, Dropbox is FREE!

Soooo, I’ve pretty much gotten MyNotes to a usable point in it’s development phase and am ready to start talking about it (and Ubiquity).  It’s pretty difficult to figure out where to start.  Well, let’s go with a brief description of ubiquity.

The best way I can think of to describe Ubiquity is, for all you Mac users, like Quicksilver for Firefox.  A command line interface to control several different aspects of the web.  A good video can be seen here.

Now, on to MyNotes.

I started working on MyNotes because the core of the MyNotes application has the basics for Ubiquity command line programming.  My goals included:

1. User account management
2. Ajax data requests
3. Data storage within Ubiquity
4. Command hinting
5. pseudo sub-cmmands

I was able to use AJAX post-get methods in php to accomplish #’s 1 and 2.
Code Snippet below:

register: function(key,val) {
    //register
    	var url="http://colddish.gmtaz.com/ubiquity/"+
"mynotes/notes.php";
    jQuery.post(url, {op:"register",u: key, p:val},
       function(data){
          if(data.registerResponse == key){
	     if (!Application.prefs.has(key)){
		Application.prefs.setValue(key, val);
		Application.prefs.setValue("mynotes_user", key);
		displayMessage("New account created for ""+key+"".");
		}
	 else{
		var new_key = Application.prefs.get(key);
		Application.prefs.setValue("mynotes_user", key);
		new_key.value = val;
		displayMessage("Password set for ""+key+"".");
	      }
	}
	else
	   displayMessage("Username is already in use."
           +"  Please try again.");
 }, "json");

Basically, I’m perfoming an AJAX post with jquery, passing in JSON data (username and password), and then storing that data in the application.prefs.  I overcame the issue of knowing which password/username combo to use by creating a generic “mynotes” perfs key storing the active  username and password.

Application.prefs.setValue("mynotes_user", key);

Then I can just get the value of the mynotes pref key to get the password associated with that account.  I could try to just store JSON data as the value for the key and run a function to pull the appropriate data…but for some reason, I’m having trouble converting the value string to a JSON object.

To get this to fully function, I needed to create a php file (notes.php), which serves out the JSON data to ubiquity based on parameters posted by the AJAX call.

I would love to hear your thoughts on how to optimize this script as I’m just starting to teach myself javascript and jquery, coming from an asp .net environment.

Here is a link to the script page for MyNotes

Well, it’s been a while… I’ve been busy with work and working on some other development things…plus my personal life has gotten rather busy too!  Anywho, I found this firefox plugin (Ubiquity) which is basically the Firefox equivalent of Quicksilver for the mac.  It’s highly programmable and I am currently working on a few commands.  You’ll find a lot of them here.  I’m going to try to incorporate it somehow into our office intranet once the development gets a little more finalized (they have a long way to go but it’s coming out great!).

So far I’ve written some custom commands to search my brother-in-law’s photogallery site, some wordpress blogs, and I’m currently working on a quicknotes plugin.  When these are done, you’ll probably be able to find them under Projects.  Speaking of, I really need to update that page… I haven’t worked on either this site or the Rome in a Day site in the longest time.

Anywho, enjoy Ubiquity.  Hopefully it will really take off.