Archives for Apr 2005
screenshots in Tiger
I’m a new mac user, but even the thought of easier screenshots in Tiger are appealing. I find there’s a wonderful shortcut that dumps a screenshot to the desktop, but in PDF format. Huh? Luckily in Tiger, screenshots are exported as PNGs.
Still, who can remember command + shift + 3? Print Screen is so much more natural (though, I’m sure there’s a valid reason, for example if the key doesn’t exist on Mac keyboards).
browser innovation is back
Looks like Mozilla is turning on the canvas element, an upcoming WhatWG standard.
“Do you have any idea how big this is? It is totally huge. Not the element itself, but the fact that developers are finally getting over playing follow-the-leader to Microsoft and the W3C and getting on with the job of innovating. I’m looking forward to a new age of incremental innovation.”—Joe Gregorio (sorry, his permalink is conflicting with Textile…)
Yes, that’s great. Safari and Firefox are also starting to implement some CSS3 features, such as multi-column support. But, how useful is this really unless you happen to run a safari/firefox-centric website?
I guess it’s my duty as a web developer to use next-generation web functionality and only worry about not crashing IE6.
When is HTML not HTML?
Answer: When it’s Word HTML
sexy new mac osx apps
One thing about having a Mac, I get to try all the cool applications I keep hearing about. Today’s is Comic Life, “allowing you to make beautiful, ‘comical!?’ creations with all those Digital Snaps you have laying about on your hard drive.”
the one where I gush about my new mac
Last weekend I went out and bought a Mac Mini. I know. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’ve been wanting one for awhile just for the unix system with a pretty and usuable UI. Here are a couple things I’ve noticed. Keep in mind I am a biased windows user…
- Mac OSX loves memory. Writing rails apps on 256MB was fine, but I had to be careful not to have too many apps open. I bought a 1GB stick of PC3200 RAM from NewEgg and now the Mini can get comfortable. 800MB comfortable. Yikes.
- Keyboard shortcuts throw me way off. Some are similar enough, substituting ctrl for the Windows key, but others are way off.
- The system sees my 5 mouse buttons, but neither Safari nor Firefox bind buttons 4 and 5 to back/forward. Luckily, Firefox’s mouse gestures keep me from manually having to hit the “back” button.
- Expose is very nice (and much more refined than TopDesk). However, I very much prefer Alt+Tab to F9. I bound it to one of my unused mouse buttons, so it’s ok.
Okay, this post turned into a Mac bitching session. Let me just throw in that I love TextMate. It’s probably one of the best general purpose text editors out there (unless you’re very proficient in emacs or vi. more power to you).
I also love the way the applications are packaged. You download an app, and it comes in one file. Not a zip, mind you, but just one executable. No dll’s, external modules, anything (with the exception of documentation of course). To install, you drag it over to your Applications directory. To uninstall, you delete it. It just brings me back to the old DOS days when you could uninstall doom by removing the directory. I really dig the overall design methodology of the Mac. Everything is designed to be simple enough to get out of your way and let you work. Exhibit A: Compare iTunes to Windows Media Player.
Speaking of which, I recently subscribed to Dave Hyatt’s (the main Safari developer) weblog. It’s very apparent the amount of time he’s spent getting Safari to pass the Acid2 test. This contrasts wildly to the IE Team. Yes, people are excited about IE7’s new features. PNG support and crucial CSS bug fixes will upgrade the lowest common denominator among user’s browsers and allow web developers to use their next generation techniques to upgrade everyone’s user experience. While MS is concentrated on their vision for 2007 2006 (it’s all just fire and motion, baby), web developers are working hard on the user experiences today. Who do you think is our ally on this front? Apple or Microsoft? Why do we have to wait years on bug fixes that have been painstakingly documented for free? This is why I’m thrilled they’re finally paying attention to our pleas and fixing these bugs. Please, IE developers, take this opportunity and run with it.
Finally, QuickSilver is a wonderful little utility. At first it seems like a little application launcher. Type ‘fir’ and it launches Firefox. It’s really a little search engine and has more then just applications in its index. I can type ‘com’ and it finds my Textmate project file for my rails app Comiclog, for instance. Apparently it has a lot of extensions and nifty advanced features I haven’t even begun to uncover.
I apologize for the outburst. I don’t really know what got into me.
darcs - decentralized source control
I got a chance to try out darcs, a radically different source control tool from subversion. It’s heavily geared towards distributed software projects. It relies on no central server. In fact, everyone acts as a repository. Somehow, they email patches around to keep the source code up to date. I’m thinking there’s a missing piece that I need before I have that big BING! moment, but I really like it so far.
I wanted to contribute some javascript functions to Prototype, the javascript library included with Rails. So, I got the latest from Prototype’s darcs repository, made my changes, and emailed them to Sam (darcs has a command to send patches via email).
Later, Thomas Fuchs sent me a patch he was working on. After we sorted out some line-endings problem (gmail or something was mangling the patch, so he sent it gzipped), I applied the patch and resolved the conflicts. This distributed patch idea is very interesting indeed. I wouldn’t mind the chance to use darcs more in the future.
I may be spoiled with TortoiseSVN, but I think darcs could really use a basic GUI.
Ruby on Rails v0.12 drops
Ruby on Rails v0.12 is out now. Lots of good stuff all around, but of course my favorite is the eager association loading. Basically, this solves the common n+1 query problem in rails applications without resorting to ugly hacks. Nice.
RailsDay
RailsDay has an updated website, with a new push towards getting a real competition going. Should be fun.
If you’re still on the fence with Ruby on Rails, check back after June 4th and see what great apps have been created in just 24 hours.
Prototype AJAX library
Looks like the Prototype AJAX library has been released in a standalone form. It should be fairly easy to integrate into other non-rails apps.
Railsday
The official Railsday competition has a blog. Railsday spun out of the Write a rails app in 24 hours goal, which is one of my 43 things (okay, I only have 15).
Expose on Windows
One feature I absolutely loved about OS X is Expose. TopDesk is a Windows clone for just $9.95.
railsday
The unofficial RailsDay was saturday, and a some interesting apps were made.
All Consuming was remade in Rails by Erik Benson. It’s an awful lot like 43Things, but for media you’ve read/watched/heard.
Next is the search generator by Jeremy Hinegardner. It’s not an application in itself, but a rails generator that adds generic indexing to your models. He released v0.3 today.
By the way, there needs to be a central rails authentication system set up. I’ve registered for so many little services, it’s ridiculous. My latest is Old News.
greasemonkey
Allright, I’m sold. Some fantastic greasemonkey scrips have been popping up. Simon shows us Flickr without the Flash. Lickr implements Flickr’s interface in javascript, which turns out to be better than the current flash interface. He also points to a script that adds persistent searches to Gmail (‘Search Folders’ for you Outlook users). Finally, Jon Udell is tracking memes. Right now, he’s adding a simple bloglines and delicious count to links, showing how hot they are currently. How about an Old News tracker?
gmail invite spam
A few months ago, Google deemed it necessary to flood me with invites. It just seemed wrong for them to sit there, so I donated them to some site that collects them and issues them out to folks. Now I’m starting to get notices of all these people joining up. I guess I can expect about 45 more of these…
And just for the record, Google gave me 50 more invites!
new ajax features in ruby on rails
Thomas Fuchs shows off some cool AJAX features. Instead of providing demos, he provides a small quicktime clip demonstrating them. First is an autocompleting textbox on steroids. Then, there’s the file upload with a progress bar. I hope these patches make it into Rails, or at least are available as simple addons.
Update: There’s a demo page showing off the new javascript effects that will be included in the next version of Rails. Effect.Puff is especially nice…
new introduction
I’ve been blogging in some form since 1998, but I’ve always refrained from putting out a public image. That’s just my nature, I suppose, but today I’m trying something new. I recently started working at a local firm doing ASP.Net development. Naturally, I wanted to blog about what I was doing, but I felt it would be better if I could blog somewhere that adds some value and credibility to my firm. techno weenie will stay around of course, but will stay focused on my personal projects.
So, let’s start over.
Hi, I’m Rick Olson, an ASP.Net developer for Digett. Welcome to my personal blog.
automating deployment with subversion
Ars hooks us up with some nice linux tips. First, Adam Israel goes into Subversion hooks, a way to run shell scripts during various events. For instance, you can deploy your website as soon as a new revision is commited. I’ll definitely look into this…
Next, he mentioned Synergy.
Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).
I’ve heard of this before I think, but I wasn’t in the situation that I needed it. I need this now, though.
'replace' in windows and mac
“Unsurprisingly, I dislike Windows’ “merge when replacing folders” behavior. The main reason is that when you replace a file with a same-named file, Windows does the same thing the Mac does: it deletes the old copy and replaces it with the new one. It’s a terrible idea for “replacing” to mean two entirely different things, depending solely on what it is you’re replacing.”—John Gruber
I never thought of it that way. Yet, I still like the Windows way better. Maybe because I haven’t used a Mac since high school (I hated those things), and I’ve been a Windows guy since. It’s one of those things… I can’t imagine living without a two-button + scroll wheel mouse either.
Does the Mac have a ‘merge’ option?
multiple blogs for your split personalities
Even Jeffrey Zeldman has a separate blog.
It is liberating to be just another blogger. To use someone else’s template design, someone else’s publishing system, and someone else’s plain old industry-standard blog site architecture. To grab photos from flickr, post hurried remarks, and watch smart or snarky comments roll in.
Categories were supposed to allow us to blog anything we wanted, while the visitors could read just the items they cared about. Maybe it’s more then having different themed posts over the same template. Maybe it helps to have a whole separate blog with its own theme music and mood lighting.
I will soon be joining the ranks of the schizophrenic bloggers when my corporate blog goes live. It’ll be a lot like this blog, but geared towards my job, and will not contain the word motherfucker (or as Jason Fried likes to say, the F-bomb).
Actually, we’re not very corporate. But, I’m just trying to create an air of mystery around our launch. There will be a change to this blog too (I keep saying that, but this time I mean it!). Stay tuned…
bits on wheels
Someone just showed me Bits on Wheels, a native Mac Bit Torrent client. Sure, the 3D visualizations are an unnecessary resource hog, but they sure look pretty.
As if my mac envy wasn’t bad enough…
Ruby on Rails find API
One big downside to Rails and ActiveRecord is the amount of redundant queries when dealing with associations. Nextangle announced in IRC today that the new Base.find API was checked into svn, so I checked it out.
Using a common weblog schema as an example, you can now do:
Entry.find(:all, :include => :comments)This will grab all the blog entries along with all comments for them in a single query. I’ve noticed this will return multiple rows of the same blog entry with different comments, but it is better than n+1 queries.
It’d be nice for this to support loading belongs_to associations instead of having to piggyback the data. ActiveRecord handles the common cases extremely well, and over time it’s handling more complex cases better and better.
sin city comparisons
Here’s a good Sin City movie-to-comic comparison, if you don’t happen to have the comics and stills from the movie. I hope the movie does well. I’d love to see them release the rest of the stories.
