From the official blog post, Ionic just announced a new shiny tool called Ionic Lab; which is a GUI tool that tends to be a replacement for the well know Ionic CLI for those who don't quite like the CLIs.

Hmm, anyone like that reading this blog? I personally like using CLIs better, in general, but that's just me I guess. <3 Terminal. However, I just might do an exception with this tool.

Currently, they only have a version for Mac (with a Windows version supposedly coming soon. Edit: windows version has been announced today (16.09.2015), and you can learn more about it on their blog) and you can download it from the official download page. Once you download the IonicLab.dmg file, just run it and drag the icon in the Applications folder, as instructed by the installer:

If you try to run the app via Spotlight, you may get an error "Ionic Lab can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer" like shown on the image below:

If you're quite new to the Mac world (as I am), you can resolve this issue by opening up your Applications folder, locating Ionic Lab icon and right clicking the icon and selecting Open.

Now a similar popup will appear, but this time  with the Open option:

Select the Open option and you should get the initial Ionic Lab screen:

I tested this by dropping my IonicAdMob (link to Github project) application to it, and this is what happened:

At this point, even though I like CLIs more (as I noted in the introduction) I must say this is pretty awesome. Additionally, if you click on the PLUGINS tab you will see:

Here you can literally install the plugins by simply clicking on the checkboxes.

What's even more exciting is that they announced that in the future they're looking to improve it in terms of:

• including a one-click system setup
• adding Cordova plugin search
• adding Ionic resources generation for icons and splash screens
• adding Ionic Platform integration for push notifications
• adding Ionic Creator integration
• and quite some more things, which you can learn more from their blog post

All this, I must say, is pretty damn awesome and I'm really rooting for them so that they make all their plans into reality.

Bye bye, I'm going to play with my new shiny tool now for a while...

I'm a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts, I will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

As you may know, I'm really into Ionic framework lately and am helping out on StackOverflow with the knowledge I gained so far with the framework. In the last 30 days, I'm the top answerer in the ionic tag, and am currently #6 All time answerer:

I answered this question by userFlorin Simion:

I want to redirect users to a different page when they're not connected to the Internet.

My only question is why this is working:

if (window.Connection) {
    if(navigator.connection.type == Connection.NONE) {
        alert("Please connect to internet");
    }
}

and this is not

if (window.Connection) {
    if(navigator.connection.type == Connection.NONE) {
        $scope.state.go('offline');  
    }
}

My answer was:

Because you're using $state the wrong way. Instead of this:

$scope.state.go('offline');

You should do it like this:

$state.go('offline');

Remember to inject $state in your controller. More information about $state from official docs.

By "Remember to inject $state in your controller" I'm referring, for example, to this:

app.controller('ctrl', function ($scope, $state) {
    $scope.changeState = function () {
        $state.go('someplaceNice');
    };
});

If you would want a more in-depth tutorial about network information gathering in Ionic make sure you check the Check network information change with Ionic framework tutorial.

My notes from an awesome book Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick, which I rated 5/5 on my Shelfari account:

If you ask for a piece of sensitive information people naturally grow immediatelly suspicious. If you pretend you already have the information and give them something that's wrong they'll frequently correct you. Rewarding you with the piece of information you were looking for.

Freedom downtime documentary

Free Kevin movement

Movie Takedown - Kevin says it's full of crap

Kevin Mitnick Voice Mail and Fax Exploit

Guest on the TV show Alias with Jennifer Garner

The Art of Deception book

I'm a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts, I will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

As you may be aware of, lately I'm really into Ionic framework and am helping out on StackOverflow with the knowledge I gained so far with the framework. In the last 30 days, I'm the top answerer in the ionic tag, and am currently #6 All time answerer:

I answered this question by user user1365697:

We want to build a simple application that use a lot of videos and images. The application should run on different mobile devices running Andriod and iPhone operating systems. Does Ionic also convert each application to all mobiles options? What do you suggest to use Cordova or Ionic?

My answer was:

 

Disclamer: This will sound like advertisement, so I have to say I'm in no way affiliated with Ionic, I just happen to like it so much that I'm sharing the love for it.

Ionic is so much more than "just" an UI framework. Ionic allows you to:

• generate icons and splash screens for all devices and device sizes with a single command: ionic resources. This alone saves you at least a day of image preparing for various sizes.
• instantly update your apps with code changes, even when running directly on your device with ionic run --livereload
• build and test iOS and Android versions side-by-side and see changes instantly with ionic serve --lab
• share your Ionic apps with clients, customers, and testers all around the world without ever going through the App Store with ionic share
• easily accessing the full native functionality of the device using ngCordova (here you get to use any Cordova plugin - so Ionic is indeed much more than Cordova per se)

Also, they're building a full-stack backend services and tools for your Ionic app like Deploy (for deploying a new version without going through Apple review process!), Analytics, Push notifications.

Ionic CLI (command line interface) uses Cordova in the backend and allows you to build (directly using Ionic CLI) apps for iOS and Android (you by doing ionic build ios or ionic build androidand woila).

Ionic uses Angular as a frontend framework so if you're familiar with it it will come as a bonus. They'reworking closely with the Angular 2.0 team too.

All in all, I personally think Ionic has a bright future, so if nothing else - give it a try I bet you'll like the ease of making an app with it.

Recently I was reinstalling ionic and cordova with:

npm install -g cordova ionic

but I got the following error:

    E:\IonicTesting>npm install -g cordova ionic
    npm WARN engine [email protected]: wanted: {"node":"~0.10.x"} (current: {"node":"0.12.7","npm":"2.11.3"})
    npm WARN engine [email protected]: wanted: {"node":">=0.6","npm":"1"} (current: {"node":"0.12.7","npm":"2.11.3"})
    npm WARN engine [email protected]: wanted: {"node":"0.8.x || 0.10.x"} (current: {"node":"0.12.7","npm":"2.11.3"})
    npm WARN engine [email protected]: wanted: {"node":"~0.10.x"} (current: {"node":"0.12.7","npm":"2.11.3"})
    npm WARN engine [email protected]: wanted: {"node":">=0.6","npm":"1"} (current: {"node":"0.12.7","npm":"2.11.3"})
    npm WARN installMany normalize-package-data was bundled with [email protected], but bundled package wasn't found in unpacked tre
    e
    C:\Users\Nikola\AppData\Roaming\npm\cordova -> C:\Users\Nikola\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\cordova\bin\cordova
    npm WARN engine [email protected]: wanted: {"node":"0.8.x || 0.10.x"} (current: {"node":"0.12.7","npm":"2.11.3"})
    npm WARN installMany normalize-package-data was bundled with [email protected], but bundled package wasn't found in unpacked tre
    e
    C:\Users\Nikola\AppData\Roaming\npm\ionic -> C:\Users\Nikola\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\ionic\bin\ionic
    npm WARN unmet dependency C:\Users\Nikola\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\generator-ionic requires cordova@'^4.2.0' but
     will load
    npm WARN unmet dependency C:\Users\Nikola\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\cordova,
    npm WARN unmet dependency which is version 5.1.1
    npm ERR! Windows_NT 6.1.7601
    npm ERR! argv "C:\\NodeJS\\\\node.exe" "C:\\NodeJS\\node_modules\\npm\\bin\\npm-cli.js" "install" "-g" "cordova" "ionic"
    
    npm ERR! node v0.12.7
    npm ERR! npm  v2.11.3
    npm ERR! code EPEERINVALID
    
    npm ERR! peerinvalid The package node-inspector does not satisfy its siblings' peerDependencies requirements!
    npm ERR! peerinvalid Peer [email protected] wants node-inspector@~0.7.0
    
    npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
    npm ERR!     E:\IonicTesting\npm-debug.log

At first I thought the reason is that I may have had an older version of node or npm but wasn't the case because my versions were up to date (date of this post: 03.08.2015):

E:\IonicTesting>node -v
v0.12.7

E:\IonicTesting>npm -v
2.11.3

Also, I did try:

npm update -g

and

npm cache clean

as noted in the few StackOverflow answers, but it didn't help. After a bit of googling and messing around I realized (an idea came from this StackOverflow answer) that I could try uninstalling the dependencies which were messing with me:

npm uninstall -g node-inspector
npm uninstall -g strong-cli
npm install -g generator-karma

After this I ran

npm update -g

and then, to finally install Ionic and Cordova, I ran:

npm install -g cordova ionic

And, what do you know - it worked. Hope this helps someone!

As you may know, CodeProject has a thing called Technical blogs which lets you publish your post on their site too, and thus widening the range of potential readers.

Thanks to a great plugin by hjgode you can automatically import your posts.

However, recently I wanted just to show excerpts of the posts on my blog homepage and in the archives. The problem was that that stopped the importer from collecting the posts that are marked with the codeproject category because the posts were too short according to their rules (1000 words minimum).

I solved this in my  TwentyThirteen theme by doing slight changes in content.php (around line 33), which by default looks like this:

<?php if ( is_search() ) : // Only display Excerpts for Search ?>

This line displays excerpts only on a search page, and to show excerpts on homepage I did:

<?php if ( is_search() || is_home() ) :  ?>

You just have to make sure that you don't include the

is_category()

and you're all set.

True, you could further optimize this in a way that you would show excerpts for all other categories except "codeproject".

I'm a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts I will will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

I actually answered this question by userArlind a:

I'm using AdMob plugin in Ionic and with this code I show an Interstital ad:

function initAd(){

 // it will display smart banner at top center, using the default options
 if(AdMob) AdMob.createBanner( {
                          adId: admobid.banner,
                          bannerId: admobid.banner,
                          position:AdMob.AD_POSITION.BOTTOM_CENTER,
                          autoShow: true,
                          isTesting: false,
                          success: function(){
                          console.log('banner created');
                          },
                          error: function(){
                         console.log('failed to create banner');
                          }
                          } );

                                       window.AdMob.prepareInterstitial( 
                           {adId:admobid.interstitial, autoShow:false} );
    window.AdMob.showInterstitial();

 }

Is there a way to show intersitial ad every 2 minutes? Someone told me to add this:

setInterval(showInterstitial,1*60*1000)

but I don't know where to add?

My answer was:

 

If you would like to show it every 2 minutes you should use:

setInterval(window.AdMob.showInterstitial, 2*60*1000);

and you should add it just before the closing bracket of your initAdd function:

function initAd(){


 // it will display smart banner at top center, using the default options
 if(AdMob) AdMob.createBanner( {
                          adId: admobid.banner,
                          bannerId: admobid.banner,
                          position:AdMob.AD_POSITION.BOTTOM_CENTER,
                          autoShow: true,
                          isTesting: false,
                          success: function(){
                          console.log('banner created');
                          },
                          error: function(){
                         console.log('failed to create banner');
                          }
                          } );

                                       window.AdMob.prepareInterstitial( 
                           {adId:admobid.interstitial, autoShow:false} );
    window.AdMob.showInterstitial();
  
  
  
  //!!!add the code here!!! - so, just paste what I wrote above:
  setInterval(window.AdMob.showInterstitial, 2*60*1000);

 }

You can see a simple setInterval usage on this jsFiddle example:

function a(){
    alert("hi every 2 seconds");
};

setInterval(a, 2*1000);

The reason why you shouldn't call it like this (note the brackets after a): setInterval(a(), 2*1000); is that then your function would be called only once (you would see only one alert popping up). Example on jsFiddle:

function a(){
    alert("hi every 2 seconds");
};

setInterval(a(), 2*1000);

My notes from the book Choose Yourself! by James Altucher:

Learned man aims for more, but the wise man decreases, and then decreases again.

The thing that really matters in this world are relationships you have with people you love and meaningful things that you do. Haters don't fit anywhere into that.

• Sleep eight hours
• Eat two meals instead of three (I don't agree with this one personally )
• No TV
• No junk food
• No complaining for one whole day
• No gossip
• Return an email from five years ago
• Express thanks to a friend
• Watch a funny movie
• List down a bunch of ideas
• Read spiritual text
• Say to yourself in the morning "I'm going to save a life today"
• Pick up a hobby
• Surprise someone
• Think about five people you're grateful for
• Forgive someone – write it on a paper and burn it
• Take the stairs
• Don't see yes when you think no
• Tell someone you love them
• Deep breathing

After a certain salary point, your marginal happiness doesn't go up.

Writing a book never really makes a lot of money, but there are all these additional benefits of writing a book: consulting, speaking, TV shows, ghost writing, email list to market further. 

In order to get good ideas read two hours a day and write ten ideas a day.

Wake up and think of five people you're grateful for.

Meditation – don't time travel, be in the present.

Negotiation is worthless, sales is everything.

Better to sell early than to go broke.

Simple effort will give you a customer for life – always give a little extra. 

If you love something you get knowledge, the contacts, you'll build something nobody else has, you'll wow the customers.

... and that's Stephen King – all it took was a few weeks of not writing to fall completely off his game even though he's one of the best in the world at what he does.

The idea muscle has to be exercised daily.

Activate another part of your brain. Best ideas come from collision between  newer  and older ideas. Take two older, unrelated ideas and make them have sex.

Perfectionism may harm you. Embrace failure and get ASAP on your feet again.

Delegate jobs to someone else.

If you can't help yourself you won't be able to help others.

Be physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally healthy.

I'm a big fan of Stack Overflow and I tend to contribute regularly (am currently in the top 0.X%). In this category (stackoverflow) of posts I will will be posting my top rated questions and answers. This, btw, is allowed as explained in the meta thread here.

My question was:

The problem I'm facing, as outlined in the code, is that I can't seem to find out how to bind the second checkboxes (created with ng-repeat) to some model which I would then be able to use further down the code (showing/hiding yet another set of options). Also, I managed to show the additional number of inputs based on the count parameter in the $scope.availableOptions by using the $scope.getItterator function, but now I don't see how would I access the values of these checkboxes? I know I have to somehow use the option "ng-model" but am failing to do so, so any help appreciated.

My code is here, but am showing it here too:

HTML:

<div ng-controller='MyCtrl'>
    Show additional options <input type="checkbox" ng-model="additionalOptions">
    <div ng-show="additionalOptions">
        <ul>
            <li ng-repeat="option in availableOptions">
                <label class="checkbox" for="opt_{{option.id}}">
                    <input type="checkbox" name="opt_{{option.id}}" id="opt_{{option.}}" />
                    {{option.name}}

                    <ul ng-show="if the upper checkbox is clicked">
                        <li>
                            <input type="text" ng-repeat="i in getItterator(option.count)" ng-model="SOME_VALUE_TO_BE_USED_BELOW"/>
                            Output the value based on what's entered above in the textboxes (SOME_VALUE_TO_BE_USED_BELOW)
                        </li>   
                    </ul>
                </label>
            </li>
        </ul>
    </div>
</div>

and my js:

function MyCtrl($scope) {
    $scope.availableOptions = [{"id":"1","name":"easy","count":"2"},{"id":"2","name":"medium","count":"3"},{"id":"3","name":"hard","count":"2"}];

    $scope.getItterator=function(n){
        var a = new Array();

        for(var i=1; i <= n; i++)
            a.push(i);

        return a;       
    };
}

The answer, by user Khanh TO, was:

Try ng-model="option.checked":

<input type="checkbox" name="opt_{{option.id}}" id="opt_{{option.}}" ng-model="option.checked"/>

And then you can access this property further below like this:

<ul ng-show="option.checked">

DEMO

If you need to also reference the text box inputs. You create a new property (values) on the option. Like this:

{"id":"1","name":"easy","count":"2",values:[]}

Html:

<div ng-repeat="i in getItterator(option.count)">
     <input type="text"  ng-model="option.values[$index]"/>
      {{option.values[$index]}}
</div>

DEMO

When I was preparing this post I bought a domain just for testing purposes called nikola-dev.com and I wanted to have Node.js apps running on this VPS (behind a NGINX running as proxy) but that they would be accessible from different domains (for example mean.nikola-dev.com). Below are the steps I needed to take in order to make this happen:

1. Clearly, have a droplet on DigitalOcean
2. Buy a domain (where ever you buy it, make sure you use Honey, to get the best price)
3. Edit the Nameserver information in the admin dashboard of your domain provider (where you bought the domain) to the following three records:
   ns1.digitalocean.com, ns2.digitalocean.com, ns3.digitalocean.com
4. Add the domain on DigitalOcean DNS settings page:
   
5. Delete /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
6. Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/nikola-dev.com file with the following content (this will be a simple single HTML file which will list the available test apps on this server):

   server {
       listen 80;
       server_name nikola-dev.com;
       root /var/www/nikola-dev.com/public_html;
   }

7. Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/mean.nikola-dev.com file with the following content (this will serve the actual Node.js app that we're building in this tutorial):

   server {
       listen 80;
   
       server_name mean.nikola-dev.com;
   
       location / {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
           proxy_http_version 1.1;
           proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
           proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
           proxy_set_header Host $host;
           proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
       }
   }

8. Restart NGINX:

   sudo service nginx restart

Clearly, if you would need to add more subdomains, just repeat the steps from step 6 onward. Of course, you would need to put your other Node.js apps on different ports, since only one app can work on one port.