Stephen Davis

Install and configure Homebrew on OS X

Stephen — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 10:20:01 +0000

Hello friends. Here is an overview of how to set up Homebrew on Mac OS X. Homebrew is one of the best things ever. It allows you to easily install many software packages with simple terminal commands.

Homebrew already has a useful installation guide. It will get you up and running, but it’s lacking some important details.

By default, Homebrew uses the directory /usr/local/Cellar to install your packages, and it creates symlinks to the executable files in /usr/local/bin. However, in order to run Homebrew-installed packages with ease, you’ll need to add the latter directory to your $PATH variable. On OS X, this variable is located in the file at /Users/yourname/.bash_profile. (If the file does not exist, create it.) Add the following line to the beginning of the file:

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH

Now the terminal will look in your Homebrew directory when searching for executables to run, and your life will change for the better. Happy brewing!

Font-Face, Text-Shadow, and Google Chrome

Stephen — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 20:22:45 +0000

Anybody else come across a nasty bug in Chrome when using @font-face with a text shadow? Your text gets all thin and scrawny as soon as you drop the shadow on.

It seems that this only occurs when viewing Google Web Fonts in Google Chrome. And unfortunately, this hasn’t been fixed even in the canary release of Chrome (v16).

However, there is a solution. Some guy has figured out a clean hack to get around the problem. Obviously you’ll want to declare a hex color first for older browsers, then your rgba color. Only new browsers pick up on the second declaration, and the color difference is negligible.

text-shadow: 2px 2px 2px #000; color: #FFF; color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.99);

I hope this helps mitigate some of the frustration the good CSS developers of the world are experiencing!

UPDATE:
This bug was fixed in Chrome version 18.

Trip Time

Stephen — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:40:17 +0000

Hello all. I’m going to be taking a trip to Boston very soon. I wouldn’t even mention it, except that I really feel like I ought to make this information somewhat public. For instance, what if somebody were to look for me in my usual hangout spots? I wouldn’t be there! I think you see what I mean. I’m leaving Tuesday and returning Sunday. I’ll be working remotely a little, but mostly just visiting someone, which should be great. I hope all of your weeks are equally great.

At the MED

Stephen — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:15:40 +0000

I’m working at Mediasation again. After a college semester and a half, an awesome summer involving an internship with Squared Eye, a vacation in Indiana working at an excavating company, and a trip to visit an amazing girl, they decided to have me back for a bit. No one knows how long this stint will last, but everyone knows that I’ll sure enjoy it while it does. It’s a blessing in the skies.

Thanks for reading,
Stephen “Chuck” Davis

Old Music Is Better

Stephen — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:35:43 +0000

That’s what they tell me on YouTube. “They sure as !@#$ don’t write &#*$ like this anymore!” Or some such statement. Is it true? They also say that fairly new stuff like Oasis’s Don’t look back in Anger is genius. I know that’s not true – Noel Gallagher said so himself. So what gives? My conclusion here would be that YouTube users in general have no idea what makes music great. I’m a YouTube user too, so that sucks! Of course, since the advent of the internets, more and more artists are getting publicity (sweet!), which means the truly good artists stand out less (lame!). However, the whole concept of “popular” music is still relatively new, which gives me hope. Perhaps over time, people will feel the same about this decade as they do about the 60′s and 70′s. (The 80′s are not helping my theory.)
So to my modern musician friends: Write with soul. Sometimes exploring new territory can mean the loss of a solid melody. Not good! Be transparent, but look outside of yourself for inspiration, not inside.

I’m Back At School

Stephen — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:11:36 +0000

And stuff. So far it’s been ok, but it looks like I may not be learning a lot in my computer classes! What a shame. At least I get to chill with wannabe nerds. That in itself is worth the time, methinks. Getting started with Java took me like ten minutes… bleh. I was hoping to get a better OOP foundation, but I guess I’ll just have to learn the same stuff over again, or something like that.

New Album Out!

Stephen — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 12:52:39 +0000

It’s finally here! After lots of work, etc., I have finished my first album, If Music be the Food of Love. It will be on iTunes September 15, but you can download it right now at www.imbtfol.com, or right here at Seventeen Pencils. I’d like to thank Michael Golus, Joshua Mayfield, Caleb Sherer, and Joshua Davis for their help with everything from playing the piano to doing cartwheels, etc. Enjoy!

Stephen

A Release Date Has Been Thought Of

Stephen — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:42:21 +0000

I’m coming down to the home stretch with my new album, If Music be the Food of Love. Something tells me that this could be exciting! I’m shooting for August 15, which is less than two weeks away. There’s a certain satisfaction to doing everything by yourself, but I definitely want to try a different approach next time. It just isn’t time-effective to write every single note of every instrument by hand. I hereby vow to reach out in a non-hermit-like manner, and join with other fabulous musicians to make a more beautiful sound! I have one more food song left to finish, so I should be good with my deadline. Oh wait, I’m releasing my album in India a week sooner… YIKES.

This is a Professional Music Analysis

Stephen — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:27:02 +0000

One of the hardest things about music is actually feeling it. It’s too easy to just write what sounds decent, and not really put my heart into it. So when a song can really make me feel deep down, I’m intrigued. In my experience, the emotional quality of a song has to do with escaping the mundane, both lyrically and musically, and presenting to the listener a vast spectrum of sensations. Two of the main ways to do this are through long distances and long periods of time. That’s why I love Enya – she does an excellent job of spanning an incredible range of feelings. Her ethereal sound includes stark elements from the past and the present – fleshing out orchestral arrangements with electronic sounds. And her lyrics bring together years of circumstances, shrouding modern life in the expansive mystery of the past. Trains and Winter Rains I think shows her strengths the best of any of her songs.

Navigation Methods, Etcetera

Stephen — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:56:58 +0000

I’ve recently begun to favor slightly different ways of layout out a main navigation div in CSS. I had been using padding on my a tags, and padding on a span tag inside them. However, line-height seems to be a viable method of achieving the same effect with less code. It generally seems IE-safe too, although you have to be a bit verbose for the poor thing.

If you do use a span inside your a (for additional background images and such), you’ll need to either re-declare the same line-height on it, or display it as a block-level element, either one of which is easier than trying to divide up your padding correctly around your text. But in some cases, using the block-level option may cause IE’s box model to freak out, rendering your a/li elements block-level as well. If so, float the span. This, however, may hide the background of the span, in which case either height or zoom must be added to the parent a/li tags.

After writing this out, it sure doesn’t look easier, but at least my code is pretty… thanks to Nate Hanna for (non-monetary) tips!