Joe Moore's blog
At Pivotal, we love our large, shared workspace and homogeneous workstations. As we move from project to project, our workstations are pretty much the same: iMacs with TextMate, RubyMine, Quicksilver (bound to ⌘+space, of course!) a full Ruby/Rails stack, and a few other applications. Given this minimal setup, I can figure out which developers have used a particular workstation given the extra applications installed upon it. I've come to see certain applications as a developer's "tag," like a graffiti signature.
- Silverflow for Quicksilver: Pivot David G. was here!
- iStat menues: David S. been here!
- Microsoft IntelliType for Mac: Jonathan B. tagged this machine.
As for me, if you see 
and 
, then I've tagged your machine.
What are your tags?
As a developer of web apps, I'm inevitably running 3 or 4 browsers, each with 10 tabs open containing my application under development, Google searches, gotapi (pronounced "got a pie?" of course!), design wireframes, and all kinds of other very important stuff. And in one of those tabs, somewhere, is Pivotal Tracker. Browsers and tabs are great, but sometimes you just want an Application -- notice the capital "A."
Fluid to the rescue! Fluid lets you create Site Specific Browsers, which "provide a great solution for your WebApp woes." In a nutshell, Fluid makes a custom WebKit browser that, when launched, opens just the site you configured it to open, such as Gmail, Pandora, or even Pivotal Tracker. I love that I can maximize the Pivotal Tracker app and boost the font 3 or 4 levels, filling a screen with Tracker goodness without the clutter or navigation buttons, bookmark bars, or tabs. And where is Tracker? Just command-tab!
Here's how to create a Fluid application for Pivotal Tracker.
- Download and install Fluid
- Download the Fluid Icon for Pivotal Tracker
- Launch Fluid
- Enter the following:
- URL: http://www.pivotaltracker.com
- Name: Pivotal Tracker
- Location: pick one!
- Icon: pick 'Other...' then find the tracker icon you downloaded earlier
- Click Create, then launch it!
Once launched, open the Pivotal Tracker preferences and change the Window Style to "HUD (Black)" under Appearance Preferences Why? Because it looks cool.
Update
Here is the Fluid icon, upon request.
I'm really starting to enjoy the selection of green teas in the office. I especially enjoy the ones with... well.. $#!+ in them. Popped rice, puffed rice, browned rice, black soy beans, and various other clippings and debris. It's kind of like drinking tea with Rice Krispies in it, but in a good way. And the ingenuiTEA containers are very handy.
The only exception to my new-found enjoyment is a green "tea" named Angel, which must mean the Angel of Death, or perhaps the Angel of Turpentine; it's easily the most foul and bitter substance I have consumed in a very long time.