Dave Smith's Blog

Earlier this year, a shiny new iMac graced my home (increasing my resale value by about 10%, according to Zillow). Since then, I’ve had to replace my keyboard three times due to drool damage.

It happened again tonight, this time compliments of the Time Machine menu bar icon (I know, it’s a curse).

I noticed months ago that the icon spins while Time Machine is backing up my iMac. But that’s not the drool feature. The little hands on the clock spin, but they go backwards! It’s a gentle reminder that Time Machine lets you go back in time to restore your files.

Awesome, but now it’s time for another new keyboard.

I finally took my newly built Stryker to the slope for some unpowered slope gliding at Ensign peak in Salt Lake City, Utah. I built the Stryker with these parts:

• Stryker Fuselage from ParkZone
• A tiny 2-cell LiPo battery
• Two cheap servos
• A cheap voltage converter

I did not put a motor on the Stryker and used a tiny battery. It slopes beautifully in 15-20mph wind. In fact, I had to add some weight to get better penetration.

I highly recommend the Stryker for slope flying.

Qt’s powerful stylesheet system can make your boring progress bars look really cool.

Screenshot:

Here’s the code:

QProgressBar {
border: 1px solid black;
text-align: top;
padding: 1px;
border-bottom-right-radius: 7px;
border-bottom-left-radius: 7px;
background: QLinearGradient( x1: 0, y1: 0, x2: 1, y2: 0,
stop: 0 #fff,
stop: 0.4999 #eee,
stop: 0.5 #ddd,
stop: 1 #eee );
width: 15px;
}

QProgressBar::chunk {
background: QLinearGradient( x1: 0, y1: 0, x2: 1, y2: 0,
stop: 0 #78d,
stop: 0.4999 #46a,
stop: 0.5 #45a,
stop: 1 #238 );
border-bottom-right-radius: 7px;
border-bottom-left-radius: 7px;
border: 1px solid black;
}

And here’s the .ui file you can open in Designer (right-click that link and choose “Save as…”).

Happy hacking!

I added the October 2009 sessions to the podcast. If you’re already subscribed, you don’t have to do anything. iTunes (or other podcasting software) will download the latest sessions automatically.

To subscribe to the podcast, visit the LDS General Conference Podcast page.