Process monitoring with Bluepill
On our current project my colleague chose Bluepill for process monitoring. Bluepill has been working well so I wanted to recommend it and share some notes.
View ArticleSurge Conference
Surge Conference was held in Baltimore, MD in September 2010, put on by OmniTI. Some attendees compared it to the Velocity conference which also covers web performance, scalability, and operations.
View ArticlejQuery Conference 2010 Boston
jQuery Conference took place in Boston over two days in October. John Resig kicked it off with a keynote and the sessions generally covered testing and large-scale JavaScript applications, JQuery UI,...
View ArticleNotify Me
We recently started work on a new iPhone app and wanted to promote the app and find out who is interested in trying it out. Now that we've made progress on the app privately, it seemed like a good time...
View ArticleGetting started with A/Bingo and Rails 3
A/Bingo is a "A/B" or "split" testing framework to try out different text or images (or other things) and see how they perform relative to each other. Vanity is the another a/b testing option for Rails...
View ArticleA/B Testing with Vanity
Vanity is an A/B Testing framework for Ruby on Rails applications. I covered A/Bingo previously which is a similar framework. We have moved to Vanity at work as our A/B testing tool for a number of...
View ArticleBundler in practice
We recently deployed a Rails 3 application that uses Bundler to manage dependencies. We freeze the gems in the application so it can be deployed on the same boxes as other applications that have...
View Article10 iOS open source projects
Working independently on personal iOS projects, I'd used a couple of Objective-C open source libraries and wanted to share what they are.
View ArticleFacebook Timeline JS API development tips
Facebook has a JS SDK and "open graph" which allow applications to post to users' newsfeeds (and more) with permission from the user. Timeline was announced at the Facebook developer conference in the...
View ArticleShip it quicker
Shipped software can provide A/B test results and behavior data, which can help clarify whether a feature is worth enhancing or abandoning. It is important for the team to embrace shipping software...
View ArticleWorking with large amounts of data using MySQL
MySQL LOAD DATA INFILE can be used to load thousands or millions of records very quickly. Each row in a CSV text file will be created as a record in the database.
View ArticleCropping an image programmatically
Imagemagick is an image manipulation library that supports the ability to crop an image programmatically. There is a creative aspect to making a crop from an original image. A photo producer may be...
View ArticleEdit the filename of the current buffer in vim
This blog is generated from text files that are comprised of a section of YAML code then markdown-formatted text. To convert the text files for use with new blog software I had to edit each filename...
View ArticleGetting started with tmux
I started learning tmux and highly recommend the book tmux: Productive Mouse-Free Development [^book] as a guide. My tmux.conf [^conf] configuration file is available as well.
View ArticleHow to code review a repository with github
Recently I was asked to do a code review on an entire repository. Normally I review a pull request where I can leave a comment on a specific line.
View ArticleUsing a Set in Ruby
A Set 1 is a useful collection and something I under-utilize in Ruby. A Set does not allow duplicates. Converting between a Set and an Array is easy. In the article A Guide to Ruby Collections, II:...
View ArticleRubyconf Argentina 2012
Rubyconf Argentina 2012 was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at a theater in the Paseo La Plaza area. This area is in the center of Buenos Aires near the obelisk landmark. Attendees came from Buenos...
View ArticleNew England Ruby conferences 2013
I had the chance to attend two conferences this Fall in New England.
View ArticlePair programming with wemux
Wemux is a way to do remote pairing (collaborative code development) with less bandwidth, compared with a full graphical interface.
View ArticleGetting started with Raspberry Pi
I ordered a Raspberry Pi to understand what it does, try a hobby project, and learn about GPIO pins. I thought the easiest way to set it up at home would be to order the pre-installed NOOBS SD card, so...
View ArticlePostgres for the busy MySQL developer
For a new project I will be using PostgreSQL. I have more experience with MySQL at this point so I wanted to quickly learn about PostgreSQL and port over some of the skills I have.
View ArticleNotes from the Startup Owner's Manual
The book The Startup Owner's Manual [^book] has a lot of practical tips to increase the chances of success at your startup. Here are some notes from Chapters 4 and 5 from the book.
View ArticleSetting up OS X for software development
I do software development on my Mac, mostly web application development with Ruby on Rails. Code is stored on either github or bitbucket.
View ArticleAutomated daily backup solution for Postgres
A Ruby gem called safe provides a DSL for generating the commands to perform the backup. We used this fork which fixed some AWS issues.
View ArticleDelayed Job Exception Notification integration
We are using delayed_job for background jobs and didn't see a built-in option to send email notifications when a job failed. Since we were already using exception_notification to email application...
View ArticleGetting started with Go
I spent some time learning the Go programming language by working through some tutorials and building a small app. The book An Introduction To Programming in Go has 14 chapters and covers data...
View ArticleUsing Ruby blocks
A nice usage of Ruby blocks in application code is to externalize some repeated code.
View ArticleSharing rake tasks defined in a gem
This tip describes how to write a rake task in a gem, then use it in another Ruby gem or Rails app.
View ArticleStack Dive with RunKeeper
Doug Williams and Joe Bondi from RunKeeper gave a technical talk at the WeWork Boston South Station location in December 2014, as part of the Stack Dive series. The talk explored the technical stack...
View ArticleBuilding SMS and voice features for web applications
At OrderUp we rely on voice calls and SMS messages to get information to our customers and our team of delivery drivers. SMS messaging has some downsides but has a big upside over native push...
View ArticleCleaning up old git branches
With git commands and bash scripting we can clean up old branches quickly.
View ArticleFilling out PDF forms with PDFtk
At work we collect IRS W9 forms from our independent contractor partners each year. This year we wanted to automate the process of collecting the information, by allowing the contractors to supply...
View Article5 Great Apps for OS X
These are 5 great OS X apps I use almost every day. Give them a shot. If you find they are useful for you, send the app developers a "thank you" and consider giving them a donation!
View ArticleIntro to PostgreSQL generate_series
For a recent project, we wanted to efficiently present a week's worth of data, grouped by day, where each row represented the summary of an hour of activity.
View ArticleUse a Password Manager
Password managers have been around for a while, but I've been skeptical about using them and was turned off to the recurring billing model (more on that later).
View ArticleHelp needed: Maintainer for Delayed Job Web
In a past job we used delayed_job to process background jobs. Delayed Job Web is a UI for Delayed Job. We need help finding a new maintainer for Delayed Job Web!
View ArticleThis Week in Rails
"This Week in Rails" is a weekly newsletter, started by Godfrey Chan, that covers a week's worth of interesting changes to the Ruby on Rails framework.
View ArticleCalendar generation with sparse data
At work, our drivers interact with a calendar interface via the mobile app, that represents days of the week in 30 minute blocks. We generate 2 weeks of calendar days at once and personalize the data...
View ArticleRailsconf 2017
I had the privilege of attending Railsconf this April in sunny Phoenix, AZ. This was my third time attending the conference, my first since 2010 and 2011 when it was held back-to-back in Baltimore, MD.
View ArticleA quick look at GraphQL
GraphQL is a technology from Facebook, in use since 2012, that is an alternative to REST APIs, providing the ability to both query data and transport it from a server to a client.
View ArticleHow I Work
These are some of the software development patterns that have emerged from how I work, where taking certain actions tend to lead to the best outcomes, in the shortest amount of time. Please share any...
View ArticleEncrypting and decrypting with Ruby
For a recent project I had the opportunity to research how we might encrypt a few pieces of data, with a shared key and initial value, and I put together the following notes. This is mostly re-hashing...
View ArticleOpen Zoom meetings from the command line
This is a hacked together bash function, taking advantage of icalBuddy and Zoom URLs in calendar invitations, making it a bit easier to join meetings.
View ArticleA look at PostgreSQL Foreign Key Constraints
Foreign key constraints enforce that a referenced "thing" exists.
View ArticleBuilding a web app with boring technologies (2017 Edition)
This post was written in Feburary 2017 and I'm just getting around to posting it now in September of 2018. These technologies are not new or flashy but they are proven and have a lot of documentation...
View ArticleAdd some personality to remote work
Remote work can make it more difficult to remember that we're all working with other humans that are unique and have their own personality, quirks, interests and aspirations.
View ArticleViews, Stored Procedures, and Check Constraints
This post will take a quick look at views, stored procedures, and check constraints. What are they and what are their use cases? This post is specific to PostgreSQL.
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