DigitalOcean Indicator | Hacker News Reader

DigitalOcean Indicator

blog.andrewsomething.com

130 pointsspindritf45 comments

Since you are already using an API wrapper, i would highly recommend using a lib that is provider-agnostic, such as libcloud[0], which provides a pythonic abstraction layer over all the crap that various IaaS providers put into their API designs.

[0] https://libcloud.apache.org/

> pythonic

Not to state the obvious, but that's not terribly practical for anyone except those writing in Python.

but:

a) the indicator is written in python b) there are equivalent cloud-abstraction libraries in other languages, like fog[0] in ruby, jclouds[1] in java, pkgcloud[2] for node and maybe others.

The point I believe was that if you use an abstraction layer over many providers, you can instantly make this useful for other/any cloud providers, not just digital ocean, and without any extra code. At least in theory.

[0]http://fog.io/ [1]http://jclouds.apache.org/ [2]https://www.npmjs.org/package/pkgcloud

> the indicator is written in python

Ah. Good point, my bad.

This is great! Would you mind sharing how you got started? Is there a great tutorial out there for building indicators and widgets for unity?

I tried to do this twice, once for unity and another time for the gnome shell and I couldn't find anything useful out there (or even figure out what programming language I needed to know) and became pretty discouraged. I think that was about a year or two ago and it seemed like outsiders to those respective dev communities faced an exceedingly uphill battle.

I mentioned this to a gnome dev I know and he agreed that the docs were lacking but is there a secret or something new we don't know about?

The source is on Github and in Python so looking through it may give you some clues: https://github.com/koalalorenzo/python-digitalocean

Oh heck yes. Call me weird, but little hacks like this are why I'm struggling to decide what laptop to get. I want to get a MacBook Pro, but I enjoy using Linux so much (Ubuntu in particular) I'm struggling to decide whether or not I should!

I was in the same boat. Get the MBP. The build quality is so great, the thing is a pleasure to use. And the OS is something I got used to very quickly.

With regards to programming, what are the benefits of the high-resolution of the Retina line? I'm looking at laptops and considering a System76 but the resolution is only 1920x1080.

Room for multiple text editors open, etc.

I can say that, having moved to the rMBP, I'd have a hell of a hard time going back.

Same here. Sold off my massive PC tower with multiple monitors for a single MBPr. I goddamn love workspaces.

You can see an awful amount of text on a @2x screen. 1080p just can't compare.

2 point doesn't count.

1080 is great

I've seen Retina and 1080p side-by-side. For my eyes, there isn't much utility difference as long as the 1080p panel is good, but the Retina sure looks nicer :)

I find that my eyes get tired rather more quickly when using LoDPI displays. (I have a non-retina MBP lying around that I use as a distraction-free writing desk, and using it is kind of a pain.) I'm not sure as to the exact mechanics of why, but I do notice it.

For the moment, high DPI support is pretty poor outside OSX. It will make a lot of things difficult to use in their default configuration. That being said, if you're willing to spend enough time tweaking things it can be pretty.

I like my MBP, but the super high resolution display is as much an negative as it is a positive. For now, at least.

I should've have said that I love OS X, and use it on all my other machines already! The only reason I'm considering something like a Dell XPS 13 dev edition is solely because having a Linux laptop to hack around on makes me happy. I'm thinking the Pro 13 + either a dual boot or Ubuntu in a VM will be the way to go, as you're right, they are amazing machines :)

I've had two MBP since 2007 and I'm done with Apple for my next system. The hardware is fine but I always feel like I'm going to break something irreversably when I tweak something in OSX. The hardware doesn't justify the price either so just booting Linux on it does not appeal to me. The one other thing I can't standcabout MBPs is the keyboard. Too much space between keys.

Problem is finding a good non-Apple laptop I can put Fedora on... It's probably going to be a Dell or Lenovo.

I have a MBP, and recently bought a Lenovo X1 for Linux, but have found the trackpad is pretty awful compared to my MBP. Even with Windows, so it's not Linux specific. Despite numerous attempts at tuning one of it's 200 settings, I can't seem to get it to not move the cursor a few pixels before I tap it to click, and thus clicking the wrong thing. Good luck.

Yes, I've had the same issue on every Lenovo I've used, irrespective of OS and tweaking.

T430, T530, X220, X1 Carbon...

Fortunately, I love the TrackPoints, but the touchpad can be a dealbreaker for lots of ex-Mac users.

If you use synaptics try this. Should fix your issue. nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf (find Section "InputClass" and add this option) Option "FingerHigh" "8"

I love Linux and is in the same dilemma re MBPs - but this just makes my blood boil. How can this work well in Windows and OSX but require Linux users to hunt down magical incantations and fiddle hundreds of settings? Isn't it possible extract the settings from the running driver in Windows/OSX and apply those?

I have had good luck with Toshiba satellites. Running Debian on a P750 currently. This is my second Toshiba with linux, don't have any issues.

> I always feel like I'm going to break something irreversably when I tweak something in OSX

What do you mean? What exactly are you tweaking that you think will break things? And why do you think the OS is so fragile?

I don't think you should. There are plenty of options other than MacBooks if you are an Ubuntu user. My top two would be: http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/xps-13-linux/pd http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/x-series/x1-ca...

> little hacks like this

What, small utility applications? This app could be written for OS X just as easily as it was written for Ubuntu.

That said, use whatever OS you like. Personally, I'm a big fan of OS X. But if you like using Ubuntu, that's fine.

Yes, they could (and are). The difference being, Linux often has more of them than OS X, and they are 99% of the time open source, whereas I have paid for all my utility apps on OS X (which I don't mind doing). I prefer open source, so I can edit them to what I need, which I do all the time. It's a "culture" thing overall, I feel :)

OS X has plenty of open source too.

And on that note, someone has now made an (open source) version of this tool for OS X: http://davidhsiehlo.com/blog/2014/04/27/digitalocean-droplet...

Personally, I like the MacBook Air. I don't see why you couldn't get one of those and run Ubuntu on it.

Great work! I see myself using this for my droplets. Developing Unity indicators can be fun since it's so simple to create small notification apps for various services. (shameless self promo https://github.com/nilgradisnik/coinprice-indicator)

Nice! Any plans for a Linode version as well?

would love a linode version!

I'm getting "W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/andrewsomething/digitalocean/ubuntu... 404 Not Found "

Does anybody else have this problem?

I'm not using his PPA, but the reason you're getting those errors is because his PPA only has builds for saucy and trusty, and you're using raring.

Easiest thing to do would be to ask him to add a build target for raring.

> Easiest thing to do would be to ask him to add a build target for raring.

Many PPA developers have a policy of only supporting Ubuntu releases that Canonical also supports.

Official support for raring expired 3 months ago. AFAIK it didn't even get the Heartbleed patch. The correct thing to do would be to update to trusty. It might even turn out to be the easiest thing as well, because you'll run more and more into these kinds of issues as everyone else leaves raring behind.

This is really super cool. Hope someone makes out something similar for windows.

Very nice!

The top comment as of the time of my writing is as follows:

OS x version, please!!

Screw this. I'm on a Mac, but this is crap. This guy put in a bunch of time and made something awful, and the top voted comment is asking him to port it to another system, without even thanking him for his work or acknowledging how often what he made is? Ugh. Talk about entitled.

Want an OS X version? https://github.com/andrewsomething/digitalocean-indicator/fo...

I think you mean "made something awesome", no?

Well, "terrific" can be used as "awesome" too so...

Yes, you're quite right :)

Ha, I started working on one (https://github.com/ericduran/digitalocean-indicator-mac) but it still needs tons of work before anybody can use it.

Have a look at https://github.com/tito/rumps

Oops, that should be "made something awesome"

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