After a few trie on my MacBook Air and my iMac, I finally got Octopress setup without a hitch. After running into a few hurdles along the way, I found myself hitting the Google several times, trying to resolve individual issues. For my own personal, future reference, and to help others that may have similar issues, I decided to go ahead and write-up a step by step guide.

If you are pretty savvy with the command line, have a deep understanding of the Mac platform, know the basics of Git and are a someone who tinkers with Ruby, then the Octopress Setup guide is probably all you’d need. For those that don’t fit this criteria, read on.

This Week in Patterns (TWiP) Tips is an initiative to keep me blogging regularly. From time to time I will post patterns that I currently use or new patterns that I come across.

While simple in nature, JavaScript for loops are a staple of the language. Rarely do I write any decent length script where I don’t need to iterate over a collection or an array. But when the time comes, its how you iterate that is important.

I have finished inverter, a jQuery plugin that inverts the colors of images. If using a non-IE browser, the HTML5 canvas element will be used to invert the image, but fear not…if using Internet Explorer, the ‘inverse’ CSS filter is used, making inverter cross-browser compatible.

• Check out the inverter project page.
• View the inverter demo.
• Grab the inverter source code.

I have finished multiselect, a jQuery UI plugin which adds some eye candy to HTML <select> boxes. I still have some options in mind of things I’d like to do with it, but wanted to go ahead and get it out there to the masses. Enjoy!

• Check out the multiselect project page.
• View the multiselect demo.
• Grab the multiselect source code.

Having signed up for new phone service with Sprint back in July of 2010, crossing over from an AT&T iPhone 4 plan, I was happy to know I was eligible for yearly upgrades. So, you might imagine the horror when I found out that Sprint changed it’s Premier Membership plan and I’d only be eligible for a partial upgrade. With the HTC EVO 3D only days away, it was time to test Sprint’s customer service.

After initially being told by a Sprint representative that she couldn’t do anything about it, I was displeased. But she left me a glimmer of hope. She said she would transfer me to account services and they might be able to help. After about 30 seconds, without saying anything, the account services rep told me he may have the solution and put me on hold for about a minute. When he came back on the line he told me everything was squared away and my eligibility was pushed through.