Here is a quickie shell script (bash) tip. If you ever want to insert a random sleep/pause into a running script:
sleep $[ ( $RANDOM % 10 ) + 1 ]s
This will introduce a 1-10 second random sleep/pause in the script. Can be handy at times.
Web/Tech
July 23, 2010
July 11, 2010
HOWTO: Test JQuery AJAX autocomplete menus with Selenium
I recently decided to give the functional web testing framework Selenium (and the related premium test execution service, Sauce Labs) a trial run, using the Altos Research purchase workflow as a testbed. After a few hours of experimenting, I had run into a stone wall: Automating the test of an jquery autocomplete menu.
In the workflow I wanted to test, users are asked to type the first few letters of the name of a US County into a text field. An AJAX request is then triggered to find matching counties, and a list of matches is presented to users. It looks something like this:
Users are then expected to use the mouse or keyboard to select an item from the menu, which is then added to their shopping cart. Because this technique relies heavily on dynamically created DOM elements and jquery javascript, the normal Selenium Firefox macro recorder/IDE won't record any of the important events required to make the menu behave like it should.
After much experimentation and fiddling around with levers and knobs, I came up with the following successful sequence that would trigger Selenium to correctly invoke the autocomplete menu (the first four entries in this test case). The name of the text field on which the autocomplete is based is 'county_search'. The user will enter the letters 'lake', causing the server to search for all matching counties. One of those matches will be 'Lake County, IL':
The trick is in the XPath expression that tells Selenium how to select the item from the dynamically generated menu. As it turns out, the default behavior of the JQuery autocomplete widget is to render each item inside an anchor (<a>) within a list item (<li>). Or in other words:
<html><body><ul><li><a>Lake County, IL</a></li></ul></body></html>
When the script is converted to Java/Junit source code, it will look like this:
selenium.typeKeys("county_search", "lake");
for (int second = 0;; second++) {
if (second >= 60) fail("timeout");
try { if (selenium.isTextPresent("Lake County, IL")) break; } catch (Exception e) {}
Thread.sleep(1000);
}
selenium.mouseOver("//html/body/ul/li/a[. = \"Lake County, IL\"]");
selenium.click("//html/body/ul/li/a[. = \"Lake County, IL\"]");
January 20, 2010
HOWTO: Watch Blu-Ray Video on the Moto Droid
Update #1 [Sunday, Jan 24th, 9:08am]: I have been experimenting with various encodings and bitrates to try and determine what 'works best'. So far, there is what I've settled upon:
- Video size: 848x480
- Video bit rate: 1000
- Video frame rate: In Handbrake config use 'Same as original'
- Audio: 2 channel stereo
- Audio sample rate: 44.1kHz
- Audio bit rate: 96
Update #3 [Saturday, Feb 13, 9:09am]: In the most recent batch of encodings, I have migrated away from using AVCWare Total Video Converter to convert the video. Instead, I have opted for a two step video conversion process that starts with MakeMKV to extract the video and audio tracks from the files decrypted by AnyDVD HD, followed by the ever trusty HandBrake to convert that video+audio MKV file into the final form.
Here are screenshots of my Handbrake configuration:
Original Post:
Not too long ago I made the upgrade to the Android 2.0 enabled Moto Droid on Verizon. I'd been using the HTC Titan (a.k.a. VX6800) for a while, but accidentally dropped it in the toilet a while back and decided it was time to move on.
In general, I've been thrilled with the Moto Droid and with the Android platform in general. One thing that I wanted to be able to do was watch episodes of the Band of Brothers series that I had previously purchased on Blu-Ray Disc. I just hadn't made the time to watch these at home, and decided that watching them on the Droid while at the gym would be perfect.
After a bit of snooping, tweaking and futzing I put together the following recipe that will allow you to rip and convert Blu-Ray vdieo into a format suitable for perfect playback on the Moto Droid. This will probably work on other Android devices, although video dimensions and bitrates may differ. Also note that this is not free (as in beer) or free (as in speech) - it will require that you purchase two pieces of commercial software.
My list of ingredients:
- Windows 7 64-bit on a Dell XPS M1730 laptop
- Plextor External USB Blu-Ray Drive (from Amazon.com, $160)
- AnyDVD HD by Slysoft (purchased direct for 53 EUR)
- AVCWare Total Video Converter (purchased direct for $50)
The AnyDVD HD application is used to remove the encryption (a.k.a. DRM) from the video files stored on the Blu-Ray disc, allowing the files to be accessed. The AVCWare Total Video Converter is then used to convert the original Blu-Ray video files (stored in a format called AVCHD) into format that can be played on the Moto Droid (MP4 file format with MPEG4 video encoding and AAC audio encoding).
One the following tools have been installed, the process is actually quite simple:
- With AnyDVD HD running, insert the Blu-Ray disc. AnyDVD will take a few seconds to analyze the disc and apply the appropriate unlocking to disable the DRM/encryption on the video files.
- Launch AVCWare Total Video Commander
- Select the 'iPod Touch Widescreen' base profile - this is what you'll use to create a 'Moto Droid' conversion profile.
- Edit the conversion profile
- In the video settings section, set the video dimensions to 848x480, set the maximum bitrate to 1000.
- In the audio settings section, set the bitrate to 96.
- Leave all other settings as-is. Then save this conversion profile as 'Moto Droid'
- Next, add each of the video files to the conversion queue. These files are normally stored on the Blu-Ray disc under DRIVE_LETTER\BDMV\STREAM\ and will have a file suffix of .mt2 or m2ts.
- When seleting files to convert, it is best to view the list in 'Details' view so that you can see the file size. The main episode video files will be very large. The smaller files are usually trailers, promos and advertisements and can be skipped.
- One the files have been selected, configure the output directory and press the 'Convert' button.
December 19, 2009
December 05, 2009
October 26, 2009
September 19, 2009
July 06, 2009
June 12, 2009
HOWTO: Remove auto-complete entries from Firefox form fields
After submitted this feature enhancement request to the Mozilla bug database, I received a comment on the bug informing me that the feature already (more or less) exists.
Here is my complaint: After using Firefox for several months, form fields with common names - email, address - tend to accumulate a very long list of auto-complete values. Most of them are not very useful and just slow me down. For example, see this street address field (from Senator Barbara Boxer's message submission form):
What I learned after submitting my enhancement request that it is possible to remove entries from this auto-complete list using a (in my opinion) completely undocumented feature:
Use the arrow keys or mouse to highlight an entry in the auto-complete menu, then press the 'Delete' key. That value will then be removed from the list of retained/suggested values! I would prefer to have an entry at the bottom of the list 'Remove all suggestions for this field' to completely clear the auto-complete list, but one at a time will work in a pinch.
This is particularly useful for those times when your credit card number seems to have been remembered by Firefox when it probably shouldn't!
June 11, 2009
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