06.19.09
5 Reasons Why the PC vs. Mac Debate Is So Heated
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I find there are a lot of parallels between the Mac/PC feuds and political or religious debates. Both Mac and PC users tend to be fully dedicated to their platform of choice. More often than not the person has not really given the other side an honest look. Both platforms are great in their own right, and because there isn't a scientifically provable standard for the perfect operating system (yet), neither side is really right or wrong.
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04.07.09
What I Wish I Knew When I First Started Learning Ruby on Rails
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When I first started out on rails one of the first things I experimented with was connections with other services such as flickr and twitter. I also played around with a lot of javascript tools like the rich text editor plugin tinyMCE. The nice thing about Rails is that you can usually find a wrapper, gem, or plugin that encapsulates these tools and services nicely and makes it easy to implement them use ruby and rails-like syntax. If they are written well, they can save you a lot of time and keep your code looking clean and consistent. However, when you're first starting out with Rails and web development in general, overuse of these tools may prevent you from learning about how they work.
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03.13.09
How to Setup a Killer Shoulda BDD Rails Testing Environment
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Testing in Rails is one of those things that's easy to overlook but hard to live without once you've experienced the benefits of doing so. I like many Rails started out learning with the book "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails." It was a great book and eventually started me on my path to becoming a full-time freelance web developer, but I have one minor complaint: the testing section is wayyy at the end of the main tutorial - almost an afterthought.
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12.11.08
Developing a Taste
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There are plenty of tastes I have developed over the years that I didn't have growing up and I'd like to believe I'm better for the wear, but there are still some things that I absolutely cannot tolerate, even though I try to. Here are a few tastes I have and haven't developed and even lost over the years.
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11.29.08
9 Great Web Development Tools That Are Already on Your Mac
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If you're like me, when you get a new computer you can't load it up with all your favorite programs and tools fast enough. There are tons of great web development tools out there for download, but one must be careful not to overlook some of the great tools that come pre-installed on every mac. Many of these tools are a result of Apple's historical focus on the graphic design and print folk. Here are the ones that I use most regularly.
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09.16.08
Launching My First Public App - Twitterless
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It has been two years (almost to the date) since I first picked up "Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails" and I have finally released an app intended for the public that wasn't just a website for a client. It's called "Twitterless", and the idea for it came from the realization that Twitter doesn't provide an option for you to be informed when someone stops following you. When I realized this, I quickly coded up a prototype, ran the numbers, and realized it would be possible to create such an app despite the limitations of the Twitter API.
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08.17.08
Beijing Olympics Motivational Posters
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The Beijing Olympics so far have been one for the books. We've seen some of the most amazing moments in Olympic history and as of this writing the games aren't even over yet. And as usual, there are many lessons to take away from these games, and what better art form to express them in than that of "motivational posters." The following are some of the moments I found most compelling and the lessons I feel we can all take away from them (with the backstories included).
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08.16.08
Facebook Phishing Attacks Spreading Like Wildfire
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Today I received a link to a "crazy and funny vid" on my facebook account from a friend whom I would never expect to contact me. With this red flag I followed the link and was taken to an exact replica of the facebook login screen which might have fooled me had I not realized that I was already logged into facebook. Glancing up at the url the game was given away: fanebook.com (with an "n") instead of facebook.com. How clever.
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07.30.08
Use Flickr_Fu to Bring Your Flickr Photos to Your Ruby on Rails Website
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It all started when I decided it was time to make nuttersmark.com xhtml and css valid. I had played around with various flickr wrappers and gems in the past to serve up my photos but this time around I decided to use the canned badge that flickr provides users to embed their latest photos on their blog or website. This seemed to be a good temporary solution while I got the more important components of design iteration #5 ironed out until I decided to see just how far away from valid this site really was. Turns out it was 'very'.
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06.22.08
Super Fantastic Resizable Pattern-Friendly CSS Rounded Corners
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With all the guides on how to create those wonderfully popular web 2.0-ish rounded corner boxes out there it is easy to say it's a crowded space. Although there are tons of guides out there utilizing all manner of technology, from pure-css to javascript solutions, I had a very specific requirement that wasn't satistfied by any of them (that I know): a method of creating resizable boxes with custom designed rounded-corners that could be overlayed on a patterned background.
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