http://manalang.com enhancing your experience since 2003. Wed, 19 Nov 2008 17:59:44 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en [cross posted from http://theappslab.com/2008/11/19/looks-good-works-well/] Last night, I was lucky enough to see Bill Scott (of Yahoo Design Pattern Library, YUI, OpenRico, Netflix fame) present at my local Ruby user group. He shared his thoughts about the successful design patterns that have defined today's web. As someone who enjoys brilliantly ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/11/19/looks-good-works-well/ A few of the JRuby on Rails apps I run use acts_as_solr.  Turns out that the prefered search solutions in Rails today are Thinking Sphinx and Xapian, neither of which I've ever tried before... maybe on my next project.  Anyway, acts_as_solr is pretty useable, however, I've always been stumped with ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/11/14/multi-model-solr-search-in-rails/ I'm doing some refactoring of one of our Rails apps and saw something like this: [code lang="ruby"] if RAILS_ENV == 'test' config.load_paths http://manalang.com/archives/2008/11/04/rails-excluding-plugins-from-loading/ Job scheduling with JRuby and Rails. For the past year, I've looked at several background schedulers for JRuby on Rails apps (Bj, BackgroundRB, Rufus Scheduler, etc.) and have come up with solutions that have been sub-optimal.  Looks like I missed this post from Jens Krämer running down some other options ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/24/job-scheduling-with-jruby-and-rails/ Twine: “We Organize That Shit.” "You use Twine to collect, find some shit, and share that shit with people you know. Twine ties it all together by topic, so you can have that shit in one place and it is easy for you to find it. You know what I’m ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/22/twine-%e2%80%9cwe-organize-that-shit%e2%80%9d/ Jason Fried's talk at the Business of Software conference (September 2008) - (37signals). Excellent talk about how to build apps, a strong brand, and a good company from Jason Fried at 37Signals. http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/21/my-talk-at-the-business-of-software-conference-september-2008-37signals/ Washington Wire - WSJ.com : Joe the Plumber’s 15 Minutes of Fame. But things weren’t all sunny for Joe as the national press began digging into the details of his life. It turns out he owes taxes to the state of Ohio amounting to $1,182.98. He’s not licensed as a plumber ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/16/washington-wire-wsjcom-joe-the-plumber%e2%80%99s-15-minutes-of-fame/ Integrating Applications With OpenSSO. Good overview of how OpenSSO works (hint: pretty much the same way other web based SSO systems work).  Includes an example of a Rails app using OpenSSO. http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/15/integrating-applications-with-opensso/ Must see... classic... Les Misbarack http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/15/les-misbarack/ Drooling all over my MBP looking at the new MacBook line up. Sadly, can't justify the expense right now. http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/14/drooling-all-over-my-mbp-looking-at-the/ Have a need to compile your Rails app (on JRuby)? If you're shipping a Rails app as a product and need to protect your IP, JRuby can compile your *.rb files to first class Java class files... but you'll need this patch. After applying that, you can simply do this: [code language=ruby] jrubyc ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/13/have-a-need-to-compile-your-rails-app-o/ Textmate user (but used to use Vim)? You're free to come back home to Vim now... http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2008/10/10/coming-home-to-vim http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/10/textmate-user-but-used-to-use-vim-yo/ Kevin Marks on the Future of Enterprise Web Apps... guess what, it's about Open Social http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2008/london/highlights/kevin-marks/ http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/10/kevin-marks-on-the-future-of-enterprise/ I think I'm finally going to get around to blogging again. http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/09/i-think-im-finally-going-to-get-around/ Waiting for GitHub to come back online... how can you build a business off of source hosting if you're gonna be down this long? http://manalang.com/archives/2008/10/08/waiting-for-github-to-come-back-online/ DHH wrote an insightful post recently that highlights the importance of a work/life balance. I feel exactly the same way as David. I spent many years burning the midnight oil constantly and tirelessly working on "being 90% done for 90% of the time." For me, it's work ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/04/30/work-o-life/ We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own, live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.  Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way.  We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/04/18/truman-november-2-2001-april-18-2008/ Blogging is work.  And I already have a lot of it.  That's why this blog is stale, stale, stale.  Is there a chance I can freshen it up?  I suppose.  I am looking for an independent place (i.e., not my work blog) to write about stuff... and FriendFeed isn't enough.  ... http://manalang.com/archives/2008/03/26/man-this-blog-sucks/ The cat is out of the hat.  On Monday (June 11th), I start at my new job... here.  I'll be blogging a lot here.  Here's the feed. http://manalang.com/archives/2007/06/04/oracle-appslab/ [via Lifehacker] http://manalang.com/archives/2007/05/22/whats-on-al-gores-desktop/