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PuppyPics

ezraezra — Mon, 06 Jan 2014 01:19:05 +0000

Name: PuppyPics
Platform: Chrome Browser, Web
Author: Ezra Velazquez
Technology: JavaScript, HTML, CSS
Source Code: Available on GitHub
Version: 0.9

About PuppyPics: Chrome extension that replaces page images with pictures of puppies!
Intent: Brighten up people’s day with pictures of puppies.
Personal Intent: Wanted to build a Chrome extension and something fun.
Backstory: Wanted to stretch my JavaScript muscles and follow a new set of guidelines for development.

Gallery:

NxJ Revenue Indicator

ezraezra — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 12:22:18 +0000

Visual Monitoring (Part II)

Foreword:
On Friday the 13th (9/13/13) J.O. and I participated in the company-wide Next Jump Hackathon 2013. We decided that instead of focusing on a software-based project, we should do a hardware-based project. This is a technical follow-up on our original project post, which can be found here

How It Works:
A cron job runs two Shell scripts (revenue and site status) every 20 minutes and minute, respectively.

The site status Shell script first cURLs an internal dashboard that contains the status of the Next Jump sites. The site is then piped into a stream editor (sed) to pick out the graphic name used for site status. This value is grep’ed to check it it contains a certain graphic. We finally run an snmpset call passing either an on/off integer value, depending on the boolean result of the grep call.

GET_CURL=$(curl -ks | sed -n '/nettable/,/Production/p') echo $GET_CURL | grep -q 'light_green' if [[ $? == 0 ]] ;then $SIREN_ON else $SIREN_OFF fi
As for the revenue status Shell script, the script cURLs another internal dashboard that contains both goal and current revenue. The result is then run through a series of stream editor (sed) and pattern-directed scanning and processing language (awk) calls in order to pull both the goal and current values.

GET_GOAL=$(curl -ks | sed -n '/totalRow/,/avgRevenue/p' | sed -n '/goalRevenue/,/avgRevenue/p' | awk 'BEGIN{ RS="K<\/td>"}{gsub(/.*>$ /,"")}1{print $RS;exit}' | sed -e 's/^.*">$ *//')

In order to visually tell when the revenue status script ran, and to give the project flair, we added a small Shell script inside the revenue status Shell script to blink the revenue lights (red, yellow, green) in a continuous daisy-chain pattern for two cycles.

until [ $COUNTER -lt 0 ]; do $RED_OFF $YELLOW_OFF $GREEN_OFF $RED_ON $YELLOW_ON $GREEN_ON let COUNTER-=1 done

Once we return back to the revenue status script, an snmpset calls are made to turn off the revenue lights, followed by another snmpset call to turn on the socket that corresponds to the revenue standings.

Construction:
The visual monitoring body is composed of 3/4″ x 10″ solid oak board and is fastened with 1.5″ corrosion proof deck fasteners. It houses a smart PVD devise and is wired to the lighting system via 110 volt grounded pig tails. Leviton Ceramic lighting fixtures with NxJ beer pint glasses contain the heat created by the CFL lights and add to the decor. V2 will consist of color, labeling, and branding the devise, as well as installing an audible alert for coronitas.

Bill of Materials:
(1) APC Switched Rack PVD
(1) 110v Red light siren
(3) Beer Pint Glasses
(3) Feit Electric 13-Watt (60W) Twist CFL LightBulb (Red, Green, Yellow Bug)
(1) Lava Lamp
(3) Leviton Ceramic Keyless Lamp Holder
(36) Drill Screws
(1) Ethernet Cable
(3) Lamp Cord Set

Resources:
MAN Pages
Steve B. (Fellow NxJ enlightened in the art of Shell scripting)

Snapshots:

Visual Alerting

ezraezra — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 16:48:33 +0000

NxJ – NxJ Hackathon 2013
Name: Visual Alerting
Platform: Web, Server, Electronics
Author: J.O. & Ezra Velazquez
Release: September 14th, 2013
Technology: Unix, Bash Shell, SNMP, Ethernet-Enabled power-strip, lightbulbs
Source Code: Currently Unavailable
Version: 1.0

About: A physical alert & monitoring system that reports on site outrage, revenue progress for the week, and outbound mailing progress.
Intent: To give key company metrics a physical attribute. While seeing a red light go off in a dashboard on a site means something is wrong, seeing a physical siren go off brings a real sense of urgency to the physical world since as humans we instinctually react to the physical and what is right in front of us.
Personal Intent: To work on shell scripting, something I’ve been meaning to learn more about but never had a chance to fully pursue.
Backstory: A week or so ago J.O. approached me about this crazy idea he had: instead of relying on different dashboards all throughout the internal system, how about having a device that could be displayed in a public space and display key monitoring statuses. I was intrigued and joined his team, mostly because it sounded like an awesome project and because I would doing “physical computing”.
Process: We first figured out what exactly to display on the device. After scratching our heads, it made sense to display site outage with a red light siren. The revenue status for the week would be best displayed with a stop-light approach, with red being behind goal, yellow being near goal, and green exceeding goal. Finally, given that we have outbound emails going out for great periods of time, it made sense to use a lava lamp. As for the code to run it all, we decided to use an ethernet-neabled power-strip that was lying around that accepts SNMP calls, which can be easily triggered with a bash script running every minute or so on a cron job.
Success: The actual physical device got built, and we where able to detect site outage & revenue progress via scrapping the site. Even though we could have easily used credentials to run an SQL script to check revenue status, we believed that wouldn’t make it a real hack.
Failures: While the mercury light got installed and be responsive, we ran out of time to write a shell script that would detect outgoing mail status.
Tips:

Rely on the MAN pages. They will explain what all those crazy characters after the command mean.
Always wear protection when doing woodwork
Piping will save you a great deal of time when you need to write a script quickly and don’t have time to clean it up
Try to work with people with different work backgrounds than you. You’ll learn a great deal, and have some bonding time in the process

GALLERY:

Photo of me wiring a lightbulb stand by @praetoriansentry

TokBooth

ezraezra — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 19:23:04 +0000

CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP – Select “TokBooth Embed BETA”

Name: TokBooth Embed BETA
Platform: Web
Author: TokBox
Released: September 2011
Technology: CSS, CSS3, HTML, JavaScript, jQuery, OpenTok QnA API
Version: BETA
Source Code: NOT AVAILABLE

About TokBooth: Let visitors record and submit video messages to your from your own website or blog!

My Contribution: Front-end development (JavaScript, CSS, HTML) & initial prototype.

TokShow

ezraezra — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:20:22 +0000

CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP – Artist Portal
CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP – Viewer Portal
CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP – Admin Portal

Name: TokShow
Platform: Web
Author: Ezra Velazquez
Released: July 2011
Technology: AJAX, CSS, CSS3, HTML, JavaScript, jQuery, JSON, MySQL, OpenTok API, PHP
Version: 1.0
Source Code: Available on GitHub

About TokTube: Showcase App developed for tech startup TokBox under the position of technical product development intern.

Talk show format web application with host view, user view, and moderator view. Up to five people are queued by the moderator, who can decide whether to allow user to broadcast his/her signal.

LoopTube

ezraezra — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 19:11:23 +0000

CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP – Artist Portal***PRIVATE VIEWING/ACCESS ON 7/26***
CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP – Viewer Portal

Name: LoopTube
Platform: Web
Author: Ezra Velazquez
Released: July 2011
Technology: AJAX, CSS, CSS3, HTML, JavaScript, jQuery, JSON, MySQL, Node.js, OpenTok API, PHP, YouTube API
Version: 0.5
Source Code: Available on GitHub

About LoopTube: Showcase App developed for tech startup TokBox under the position of technical product development intern.

Social e-gather where selected YouTube videos are played in sync for all viewers until artist turns camera on.

ConsulTok

ezraezra — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:58:40 +0000

CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP

Name: ConsulTok
Platform: Web
Author: Ezra Velazquez
Released: August 2011
Technology: AJAX, CSS, CSS3, HTML, JavaScript, JSON, jQuery, jQueryUI, Node.js, OpenTok API, ShopSense API, Socket.io
Version: 1.0
Source Code: Available on GitHub

About ConsulTok: Showcase App developed for tech startup TokBox under the position of technical product development intern.

E-commerce social shopping web application featuring the OpenTok & ShopSense APIs

Lollapaloobox

ezraezra — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 01:14:46 +0000

CLICK HERE TO VIEW APP

Name: Lollapaloobox
Platform: Web
Author: Ezra Velazquez
Released: June 2011
Technology: AJAX, CSS, CSS3, HackLolla API, HTML, JavaScript, jQuery, JSON, OpenTok API
Version: 1.0
Video: On YouTube!

About Lollapaloobox: Showcase App developed for tech startup TokBox under the position of technical product development intern.

Submission to www.hacklolla.com using the Lollapalooza and OpenTok APIs.

Blog Posts: Blog post written specifically for Lollapaloobox.

BangBang

ezraezra — Wed, 25 May 2011 04:06:35 +0000

BangBang: Telepresence shoot-em-up game
Name: BangBang
Platform: Web
Author: Ezra Velazquez
Release: May 3rd, 2011
Technology: AJAX, CSS, CSS3, HTML, HTML5, JavaScript, JSON, jQuery, PHP, OpenTok
Version: 1.0

About BangBang: Click to read about my Personal Statement

Dynamic Web Apps

ezraezra — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 21:41:58 +0000

9bit: play with you friends

Name: 9bit: play with your friends
Platform: Web
Author: Ezra Velazquez
Release: March 25th, 2011
Technology: AJAX, CSS, CSS3, HTML, JavaScript, JSON, jQuery, PHP
Version: 1.0

Web App: “CLICK HERE” to launch 9bit.

For more details, read the article I wrote for the TokBox Developer’s Blog.