Resources For Rails Development in Vim
While most programming languages seem to take steps toward big, full-featured graphical IDEs, Rails development seems to have gone the reverse: back to the command line, command line editors, and minimalist interfaces. Today, I’d like to share with you several resources that I’ve used to streamline my development process. TextMate (€39) MacroMates.com — Considered the…
First Tinkerings with Arduino
A couple months ago, I finally got around to picking up an Arduino and an ethernet shield. These little development boards are a nice way of tinkering around with ATMega chips and to try your hand at writing lightweight C++ code for embedded systems. I’ve always wanted to try programming on an embedded system; being…
Rails 3 Generators: Adding Migration Templates
I’ve been working on some really cool projects using Ruby on Rails recently, but I found myself duplicating code across them. Obviously, that doesn’t make sense to me, even when the code bases are different, so I decided to start extracting some of the logic into Ruby’s awesome gem format. Rails 3 has awesome gem…
My Commitment To The Web Design World :: A One-Month Challenge
After reading an article on Smashing Magazine (link to the article is here) that talked about the state of the web design world right now and where it’s progressed, it really got me thinking. The article mentions that the number of experts in the field has not grown proportionately to the number of developers, but…
Dynamic Named Routes for Semi-Static Pages in Rails
When I was designing the new UMSwing website, I had a few issues that, at the time, I didn’t have a clean method of implementing. One of those was the creation of semi-static pages. After watching this episode of Railscasts, I had a pretty good idea of how to implement them. The only issue with the solution offered was the lack of dynamically generated routes.
5 Goals For The Next 6 Months
Well, in an attempt to get back on my ‘writing horse’, I figured I’d start with some of the things that are rattling around my brain right now in terms of what I want to get accomplished in the short term. Some are computer-related, others are not. Nevertheless, I have some goals for things that…
Random Post: A Programmer’s Desktop
Just for the heck of it, I decided that I would post a screenshot of my desktop right before I start programming (ie. before too many windows get opened and clutter my workspace). Those of you that are sharp might notice that it looks a little…wide. That’s because I have three monitors on my desktop…
IPAM Presentation: November 2009
Last Wednesday, myself and the other co-op student working with me did a presentation to the Information Protection Association of Manitoba (IPAM) about attacks on web-based applications. It was certainly an interesting experience. Although it wasn’t a stellar performance, I think we did okay considering our presentation skills. Unfortunately we were expecting a slightly larger…
GNU Screen and Byobu Made Easy
For the *nix elitist, no graphical tool comes close to the power that the command line provides. While this may strike some people as odd, particularly those who only have experience with Windows, it’s a pretty well known fact that the Linux command line provides a method of controlling every aspect of your computer activity;…
From Paperwork to Web 2.0: UMSwing’s New Membership System
Nowadays, my life has a good amount of its time consumed with either work or swing dancing. I work every weekday, and four nights every week I’m dancing. Being the nerd that I am, I always look for opportunities to intertwine my hobbies, despite them being complete opposites. Being on the executive committee helps a…
