I thought I would start sharing some snippets of code for some of the drupal projects im working on.  I like many spend more time trying to google around for a solution to a problem and sometimes find a module thats created for the problem or 30 other people posting solutions and some work and some dont.  Then of course I find my self just writing my own stuff based upon some of the data I collected.

Now of course I ran into an issue where I needed to create a form that has a select drop down list of taxonomy terms that when the form was submitted would save the taxonomy tid with this form as a cck field.

So quickly googling around I found Content Taxonomy which created a new cck type to use, but when testing it out I only found that it allows to see the list of terms in one vocabulary.  Well this didn’t fit the bill for me since I needed to display all terms from all the vocabularies in my site.

I went to the api.drupal.com to look at the taxonomy api to see what functions I could use.  It seems that taxonomy_get_tree would get the results I needed.

So I created a new cck field, choose “text” as the field type and select list as the form element.

All the way at the bottom under the allowed values list I have a box that allows me to enter PHP code in.  This allow you to use any php type of code to create a key => value array to return that would then populate your select down down list.

So I know that I only had 5 vocabulary terms I needed to use and the id’s for these where 1-5, you can find these values by going to admin/content/taxonomy and hovering over the edit vocabulary link and it will show in the url the #

So with that in mind I started to quickly code up in my mind how I wanted to do this.

First I wanted to create an array of my vocabulary..

$vids = array(1,2,3,4,5);

Then using the taxonomy get tree api I simply created a foreach loop and pushed the results into a variable named $term.

foreach ($vids as $vid) {

	$output = taxonomy_get_tree($vid,0,-1,1);

	foreach ($output as $out) {

		$term[$out->tid] = $out->name;

	}

}

return $term;

The key thing here is if you want to make sure you get all the terms from the list of vocabulary you run it though another for each loop and assign the output object to the key and value of $term.

$term[$out->tid] = $out->name;\

This is the important part because the $out->tid (term id) is the key of the array and the $out->name is the text that gets displayed in the select drop down list.

With a simple return $term this will then generate a select list populated by term names and the values are the term id’s if you want to store them in your cck field.

Anyhow im sure their are many ways to do this but maybe this helps someone or pushes them in the right direction.

Visual.ly is a neat site that allows you to create much more interesting visual diagrams than just the plain on pie charts, bar graphs and such, they released the ability to create an infographic from your twitter feed, as you can see mine below… check it out here and scroll to the bottom to get to the twitter link, if you create one leave it in the comments for me to check out.. cheers

Seems like these kittens can DJ better than some friends of mine.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A few weeks ago I gave a stab at brewing my own Kölsch style ale.  Apprently you cant really call it Kölsch because their is a world wide trade mark so I think companies in the US get away with adding style to the end.

Now Kölsch originated from Koln or Cologne, Germany.  The term Kölsch was officially used for the first time in 1918 to describe the type of beer that had been brewed by the Sünner brewery since 1906.

Anyhow lets get away from the history lesson.  So Im still an amature homebrewer and thought I would give it a shot since well my best friends grew up drinking Kölsch.  I know mine wont compare but well it gives me a chance to try brewing other styles of beer outside of the IPA’s I love.

It took me a few hours to get the initial batch done from boiling the wort (young beer), adding the malt, yeast, hops and finally putting it into my primary fermenter where it should sit at a constant temp for about 7-10 days (this always depends).

After primary fementation is done you transfer it to a secondary and let it sit for a few weeks or so, this really depends on your conditions.   The thing with traditional Kölsch is that its brewed like a ale but fermented lager style where you need to keep it at a very cool consitstant temp for many weeks and some times months.

Now im no expert but on bottling day I decided to rock it out in my PJ’s on a Sunday and bottle my beer.  You can see my timelapse below, it took a picture every 2 seconds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyhow I hope you enjoy the video, I hope to post more often when I have time.

Cheers and happy drinking.

I’m in the process of building a new site that focuses around beer and the social culture that this great fine mix of hops and barely create.  If your a drupal developer (modules, themer) etc, drop me a note.

Also any beer fanatics who are really into beer drop me a note I might need some people for beta testing this new site which I hope goes live by the end of the year.

A small tease of the logo, which btw looks great on t-shirts!

In the past I tried to use the first wordpress iPhone app without much success so I’m going to give his a shot and see if t works better .. So this js a simple test post.. Now I need to figure put how to add images

Two images from u2. One of them taken by my best friend..

Well it’s 4am a d I’m just getting up to catch the bus for my travels to Cancun, Mexico…

This will be my second trip and I’m looking forward to some R&R after 7 months of working on a kick ass game project, which I can’t talk about yet and will post here as soon as I can.

My buddy Jason is meeting me in Mexico since he’s flying in from Canada and this should be an interesting trip.

More as the trip progresses… Stay tuned ….

Last friday NIN opened up in Web Palm Beach, Florida with their NIN|JA 2009 tour or (Wave Good Bye tour) depending on how you look at it that includes Street Sweeper Social Club, Nine Inch Nails and Janes Addiction.  Well I’m an avid fan of NIN and how they push technology.  Some of you may know that a while ago he gave away one of his Albums for free on the net, with the hopes that it brings in more people to his show, web site, sells merchandise and basically gives anyone an opportunity for “free” to hear what NIN is.

About a month or so ago, they released their own iPhone Application called NIN Access, which gives you a peek inside of the world of Trent Reznor..

This application connects NIN fans together and allows them to listen to music, download images, video videos, talk with other NIN people using the iPhones built in GPS , so you can talk with local NIN people in your area if you want.

The cool thing is that you can like twitter send a message to the masses including an image and your location.  This can then be viewed on the app or on the NIN Access website with Google Earth Plugin.  So in real time you can watch the community talk about the show, post photos and such.

I decided since I wasn’t able to go to the show in Florida to record about 2 hrs of the web event that went on.  I took this footage and time lapsed it down to about 8 minutes but this gives you an idea of the communication going on before the show, during Street Sweeper Social Club and all when NIN was on stage.

I added the track  Nine Inch Nails – The Big Come Down(Long) to the video and uploaded it to both YouTube and Vimeo.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyhow, just figured I would do a small post about this, its been a long weekend and its time to veg.

Follow me on Twitter if you like and if your a member of the NIN website say hi to me , my user name is Gateway69.

Btw, I highly checking out the video interview that Kevin Rose did with Trent Reznor a while back  — Link

Can’t wait till NIN hits Mountain View, CA on 5/22 this month!  Ill be sure to take tons of pictures and video when ever possible!!

I went up for a quick trip to Lake Tahoe for some spring snowboarding and also hit the Gizmodo party at NorthStar. Gizmodo is a gadget site and if your a geek or just love gadgets its definatly worth a daily read.

Gizmodo has a cool party with lots of food drinks, and a pretty kick ass DJ. Rumor has it that their will be a download of what he was playing soon.

The snow was great the weather was about 40-45F and well the lines where non existent. Anyhow here are some pics of the last of the snow season in lake tahoe… Enjoy…

Little GPS tracker on the iP

hone called MotionX

GPS this allowed me to track my average speed, max speed and time.  This was on the way back from Tahoe usually a 3+ hr trip.

Ok, Car is a bit packed with my snowboard and had to make sure it wouldn’t hit me in the head while driving up to Tahoe.

Shall I stop for some wine, Sonoma and Napa are so close.

After a drive its always good to refresh with a IPA or two

BridgeTender Bar in Tahoe City.  I have been going to this place for years and from the cabin its about 1 mile hike down, of course never made it hiking back up after drinks

My board, about time to upgrade, my bindings are screwed up and almost came off at the end of the day.

Look Ma, no lines!

Trail map of NorthStar

Can you hear me now? Yes I have 3G on the top of the mountain.

In the background you can see a tiny bit of Lake Tahoe

You are here.

Snow on the mountain but dry down below.

Picture of the half pipe

Good day of snowboarding in the spring… Off to the Gizmodo party for some food, drinks and prizes.

Bye bye Northstar.  This is a picture of the backside.

Till next season, now time to dust off the mountain bike.

One of my close friends has finally release his wine iPhone application that will save you lots of time and effort scanning the shelves at stores and wine shops.  I myself am still new to wine and try out various types of wine, but using this application I can look it up in the db, and read any reviews before buying it.

Cor.kz Iphone Wine Application

Here is a quote from the site:

They say that life’s too short to drink bad wine. We couldn’t agree more. That’s why we’ve created Cor.kz for the iPhone. In seconds, you can access CellarTracker’s information on over 530,000 bottles of wine… right from your phone!
Virtually any bottle of wine can be found using Cor.kz – really! So stop taking chances on the bottles you buy at the market and in restaurants. Simply type in the name of the wine and you’ll get reviews and ratings from experts and from the huge CellarTracker community of wine drinkers.

If you would like to have a huge database of wine in your pocket head on over to the iTunes store here.

If you want more information head on over to their website Cor.kz !!!