Archive for the 'development' Category

Ruby on Rails in Leopard in 5 minutes

So I just discovered that Leopard comes with a version of Ruby on Rails (RoR) pre-installed. The only problem is its a bit dated but there is a command-line one-liner to update it all no sweat with RubyGem (the Ruby package manager):

sudo gem install rails

of course you can also get RubyGem to update itself too:

sudo gem update --system

I love systems that keep themselves up-to-date.

Then to get going, get back to the command-line and create the project somewhere with mysql support:

rails -d mysql ~/Sites/myNewApp

And it should generate the basic RoR site layout. To test it, run the build in web server:

cd ~/Sites/myNewApp
ruby scripts/server

And then point your favourite web browser at http://127.0.0.1:3000/ and your away!

I’ve just started to learn Pythons answer to the MVC framework race: Django, but I’m lazy and when I came across this info this morning and how easy it was to get RoR up and running on Leopard I was suckered in. I guess I’ll learn both and compare the two at some point.

Seek for Thunderbird is HOT!


I just stumbled across the SIMILE project form the famous MIT and, as the screen cast above proves, they have some hot stuff to play with both online for your website and software extensions for FireFox and Thunderbird. This is almost enough to switch back to Thunderbird from the tired old, doggy Mail (Mac)!

dojo.beer() - Berlin

Dojo.beer(), Berlin
Pictured (from left): Tobias aka klipstein (München), Norman aka matsuri (Berlin), Victoria & Nikolai aka nonken (Amsterdam) and Wolfram aka mccain (München) [note: aka’s are IRC names
Yesterday I meet some Dojo developers in Berlin for the dojo.beer() which was announced on the Dojo website last week. It was a sunny day and we hit one of Berlins many beaches next to the Spree.

Dojo is a Javascript API that I have a love-hate relationship with and have been following for 3-4 years now. It was nice to finally meet other Dojo developers and have someone to discuss the joys and woes of the prolific Javascript API, the best out there in my opinion.

It was perhaps too hot and the beer() was too easy to drink as we didn’t manage to get much decided but the idea for a community maintained Wiki documenting Dojo was thought to be a good idea. These guys setup the Dojo Campus site and so this Wiki will probably end up there.

I hope this see the drive for more European activity form the Dojo community in the future!

Drupal, the swiss army knife of CMS’es

I just completed another site called ‘Picture Your Rights‘ for the Dutch NGO Loesje whose international HQ is now in Berlin. Its a Photo & Slogan completion about Human Rights and anyone can upload a picture or post a slogan. There will be 4 rounds each with a different theme.
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The first Rap song I can truly relate to!


I have got to get the lyrics!

Managing scattered online Social Life on multiple Social Networking sites

I’ve been kicking the idea of a central way to manage accounts on many social networking apps for a while now. I think it starts to go beyond just managing social-network accounts because what your really doing is managing identity.

Some are saying that 2008 is the time for this sort of “killer app”. Google have also started to chip away at the problem offering a way to update your status in many places at once.
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handy Javascript debugging function

Actually taken from the JS v1.4 Guide and modified to be a little more useful:

function showme(obj, obj_name) {
   var result = ""
   var null_list = "";
   obj_name = (obj_name != '')? obj_name: 'obj';
   for (var i in obj) {
		if(obj[i] != null && obj[i] != '')
			result += obj_name + "." + i + " = " + obj[i] + "\n";
		else
			null_list += i + ", ";
   }
   return result + "\n NULL propertys: \n" + null_list;
}

Pass it an object you want to see the properties of and it will show them to you. Like so:

alert(showme(item[i]));

The significance of AJaX

The name AJaX comes from one article written in January of 2005which was the first to use the acronym AJaX. In it is mentioned the technology (i..e the one function ‘XMLHttpRequest’) had been around for some time and is probably the only significant contribution that Microsoft has made to the internet’s development to date.
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Webby Awards judging criteria

The Webbys were just on and Erika was a jduge and attended the ceremony. If you want win a webby award you have to try and scrore high the following:
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Defining the Semantic of Markup

Semantics in regard to HTML markup is a murky water. This is because web pages are usually not an essay style document, which HTML was designed to markup, and contain information that is not actually relevant to what the page is about. Examples would be: menus, shopping cart information, summaries of forum activity, and the other half of HTML design: user/human interfaces. To say or even think that HTML can encapsulate all the “meanings” that human language structures can come up with (which are actually infinite), not to mention the non-language structures found on web systems representing a computer system interface, is naive. It is also an assumption that has never been backed up by any standards body in argument and thats because its simply wrong. The Microformat standard and now POSH process seem to be unwittingly dealing with the problem without understanding it. This is actually an applied philosophy problem!

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