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Author: doug

Bikepacking New Brighton SB

Published September 3, 2023 by doug

There wasn’t a whole lot of information online about Bike Camping at New Brighton State Beach, so here are some of my notes after a recent stay there.

There’s not much info on bicycle campsites on the State Parks website. When you check in you get a flyer with some good information:

Bicycle Campsite – New Brighton State Beach

Bike campsites for en route campers only

  • Must have a bicycle* to register for campsite
  • Limit is one night only
  • Check in time is 4:00pm – Check out time is 9:00am
  • Fees must be paid before occupying campsite
  • No guests permitted
  • Use limited to 10 days in a calendar year with a minimum of 48 hours between stays

Failure to comply will result in citation and/or ejection from campground
*Bicycle defined as per CVC 231
Title XIV CCR 4300, 4302, 4323(a)

CVC 231 states:


A bicycle is a device upon which a person may ride, propelled exclusively by human power, except as provided in Section 312.5, through a belt, chain, or gears, and having one or more wheels. A person riding a bicycle is subject to the provisions of this code specified in Sections 21200 and 21200.5. An electric bicycle is a bicycle.

Some more details about the campsite:

  • $5 fee for campsite
  • Flush Toilets
  • Showers
  • Fire pit, wood from camp host
  • Cell Service
  • Bear Lockers
  • Water

Around New Brighton

Capitola Village
A STROLL THROUGH CAPITOLA VILLAGE – Visit Santa Cruz County
A short walk from the campsite. You can walk along the beach on a low tide. Lots of restaurants and coffee shops.

Sante Adairius Rustic Ales // Brewery
https://rusticales.com
103 Kennedy Dr, Capitola, CA 95010
Less than a mile from the campsite. Some of the best sour beers in California.

Pizza My Heart
https://www.pizzamyheart.com/location/pizza-my-heart-capitola-41st-ave/
2180 41st Ave, Capitola, CA 95010
(831) 475-6000
Will deliver to your campsite.

Gayle’s Bakery
http://www.gaylesbakery.com/
504 Bay Ave, Capitola, CA 95010
Best breakfast spot in Capitola

Nob Hill Foods
809 Bay Ave, Capitola, CA 95010
Closest grocery store

Looking for other bike campsites in California?

  1. Go to: Find a Park
  2. Select “By Feature”
  3. Select “OVERNIGHT FACILITIES”
  4. Check: “Hike or Bike Campsites”
  5. Click on “Show Results on Map”
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Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park Environmental Camping

Published January 10, 2023 by doug

Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park is one of the most scenic campsites in California with only 2 campsites. It is 37 miles south of Carmel. The site is a short hike from McWay waterfall. There is no beach access, but the view are spectacular.

Features

  • Level campsite. Enough for 1 or 2 big tents
  • Campfire Ring
  • Picnic Table
  • Bear Box
  • 2 Portable toilet
  • No water at campsite, but you can get it from the park across the street at the McWay Beach Parking Lot.
  • No Pets
  • No Showers
  • Pack out our own trash

Check In

You can check in at the campsite Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park or Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park (12 Miles North of the Campsite). If you want to buy wood for the campfire, you’ll need to buy it from Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.

Parking

Near mile marker 35.8 on Highway 1, the park is 37 miles south of Carmel. You cannot park at the campsite. You park on Highway 1 and there is a short hike down to the campsite. See map below.

Look for a green gate. You can park next to the gate, but do not block the gate. There is room enough for 3 to 4 cars. If it is full, you can park in the next turn out just down the road. You can also park at the McWay Beach Parking Lot (but be sure to leave your pass in your windows).

Campsites

The are only 2 campsites here. Both of them are great. If I had my choice of either, it would be campsite #2. It has better views of Saddle Rock and McWay Canyon. You also have to walk through campsite #1 to get to campsite #2.

Links

Map showing hike to Campsite from road

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Charles Proxy Xcode 12.5 Simulator

Published May 15, 2021 by doug

Prior to Xcode 12.5 you could install the Charles Root Certificate by the menu item in Charles:

Help > SSL Proxying > Install Charles Root Certificate in iOS Simulators

This no longer works as of 12.5. But you can still do it manually. Follow these steps.

  1. From the Charles Application Menu, choose: Help > SSL Proxying > Save Charles Root Certificate…
  2. Save the file: “charles-ssl-proxying-certificate.pem” to your Desktop.
  3. Launch the iOS Simulator. Drag “charles-ssl-proxying-certificate.pem” from your Desktop on to the simulator.
  4. Then enable the certificate in the iOS Simulator by going to: Settings > General > About > Certificate Trust Settings and flipping the switch On for Charles Proxy CA

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Bucket Strainer System

Published May 14, 2020 by doug

Here is the method we have used to harvest honey from our Warre Hive. With the right equipment, it is really easy. You can pay $80 for a pre-made bucket system. Or you can make your own for under $30. Here’s how we made our bucket strainer system:

Shopping list

2 – Food Grade Buckets with Lid. $5 each from Home Depot

1 – Bucket Strainer 400 or 600 Microns – $15 on Amazon. Or ~$5 at Biofuel Oasis

1 – Honey Gate – $12 on Amazon Also available at Biofuel Oasis

Tools

1/8 hole drill – to drill holes in bottom of bucket

1-5/8″ to 1-3/4” hole saw – to cut a hole for the gate (This depends on which size gate you buy. Measure it)

Jig Saw – to cut a hole in the lid

Start by drilling holes in the bottom of your bucket. You’ll place the comb in this bucket and the honey will filter through. The hardest part here is when you drill from the bottom of the bucket the plastic goes into the bucket and you need to scrape it out or sand it down. If you can drill from inside the bucket, that makes it much easier.

The next step is to make a hole in the bucket lid. The honey needs to fall through this hole, but you need the lid to stack another bucket on top. You want the make the hole as big as you can, but ensure you can still stack another bucket on top. Drill a hole in the bucket lid, big enough to insert your jig saw blade. Then use the jig saw to cut a hole in the bucket lid. You want to cut as much out as possible, but leave enough room to set your bucket with holes on top of it. My hole ended up being about 9-1/2″ diameter.

Finally cut a hole for the gate in the other bucket (without holes in the bottom) as close to the bottom as you can. Then insert you gate.

You stack the system up like:

I also recently learned about bucket heaters. I haven’t tried one of these, but they sure would speed up the process.

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Dark Mode Switching

Published August 12, 2019 by doug

Here is a DarkModeDemo I created to play around with Dark Mode on iOS 13. I wanted to allow a user to override the system setting with dark or light. Maybe the users wants the system to be light but this particular app to be dark.

Screenshots:

 

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Kill process running on port

Published October 2, 2018 by doug

Frequently I’ll run into the case where my IDE (Intellij, Xcode/Vapor) will fail and leave a web server running on a port. I can’t start it again because it is already running. The only way to proceed is to restart your computer or find and kill the process.

To find the a process running on a port you can use the lsof command. You can filter with “-i”, which lists IP sockets.

$ lsof -i tcp:8080

The command will produce output like:

COMMAND  PID   USER   FD   TYPE             DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
Run     8299 ddiego   15u  IPv6 0xb2782dc730d0c751      0t0  TCP localhost:http-alt (LISTEN)

The PID is the process identification number. You can pass this to the kill command to kill the process:

$ kill -9 8299
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U.S. Zip Code Validation in Swift

Published October 2, 2018 by doug

Here is a small function that will validate a US Zip Code using a Regexp with a: NSPredicate in Swift.

func validate(input: String?) -> Bool {
    guard let input = input else { return false }

    return NSPredicate(format: "SELF MATCHES %@", "^\\d{5}(?:[-\\s]?\\d{4})?$")
        .evaluate(with: input.uppercased())
}

Playground: zip-code-validation-playground

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Charles Proxy on iOS Simulator

Published June 29, 2018 by doug

Charles “is an HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP and SSL / HTTPS traffic between their machine and the Internet. This includes requests, responses and the HTTP headers (which contain the cookies and caching information).”

It is one of my favorite tools for debugging network applications. It supports Mac, Windows, Linux and even iOS.

The instructions on their website for SSL connections from within iPhone applications are not quite complete. Especially the last step which is tricky and I often forget. Here are complete instructions for SSL proxy connections on the iOS Simulator.

1. Add SSL Location. After launching Charles, open the menu:
Proxy > SSL Proxying Settings

The click the “Add Button”

Charles - Add Domain

Type in the location you want to add. You can use wildcards if you like. When you’re done, you should see you location in the list:

Charles - SSL Proxying Settings

2. Install Charles Root Certificate in iOS Simulators. Open the menu:

Help > Install Charles Root Certificate in iOS Simulators

Charles - Install Root Cert iOS

This will install the Charles Root Certificate on the Simulator.

3. Enable the Root Certificate. This is the step, they forget to document. And the last part of it is tricky.

On the Simulator, go to:

Settings > General > About > Certificate Trust Settings

Charles - iOS Trust Settings

Swipe the switch to enable the certificate. It will give a warning which you must choose “Continue”

Charles - iOS Trust Settings Enable

You’ll be placed back on the Certificate Trust Settings page with the switch on:

Charles - iOS Trust Settings Enabled

Now is the critical part. Quit the Simulator. Now run your application again and Charles will be able to decrypt your network communications.

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Covert GPX to Strava Route

Published May 25, 2018 by doug

Strava has a labs feature to convert a GPX file to a route: Strava GPX to Route.

But it doesn’t work for me:
Strava GPX to Route Error

And I’m not the only one:
Error computing Route when loading a GPX file

Here is a workaround for converting a GPX file to Strava Route:

1. Export the GPX file.

2. Go to GPSies and import your GPX file:

GPSies Import

Verify it:

GPSies Verify

It adds a timing of 10 mph. You can change this, but it doesn’t matter.

3. Export the GPX Track file.

GPSies Export

4. Go Strava and Upload Activity.

Strava Upload

Click Choose File and select the GPX file exported from GPSies. This will create a new ride.

5. Save the activity as a route.

Strava Create Route

Strava Route Verify

Strava Name Route

6. Delete the activity.

Strava Delete

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iOS Swipe Keyboard to dismiss

Published May 21, 2018 by doug

In iOS 7, Apple added an option to UIScrollView which could allow you to dismiss the keyboard when dragged.

UIScrollViewKeyboardDismissMode

public enum UIScrollViewKeyboardDismissMode : Int {


case none

case onDrag // dismisses the keyboard when a drag begins

case interactive // the keyboard follows the dragging touch off screen, and may be pulled upward again to cancel the dismiss
}

This is very easy to do. Just set the keyboardDismissMode property to .onDrag or interactive:

let tableView = UITableView(frame: .zero, style: .plain)
tableView.keyboardDismissMode = .interactive

You should set this on all tableviews that contain text fields.

For example code, see: https://github.com/dougdiego/iOSDemos

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