Thomas On Rails: Category Hacks

Glorious Day

Codejoy — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 13:06:00 -0500

Finally Apple has done it, they announced a SDK for the Apple iPhone (and also for apples iTouch). What is an sdk to my non-techie readers, it stands for "Software Development Kit". Basically its a bunch of programs that allow a developer (me) to write programs and software for a device (iPhone/iTouch). Why is this a big deal? Cause it allows most ANY developer (not a big famous/rich/powerful) one to write software for these devices. The software(s) I plan to write, why they will be photographically related of course! Or I might go back to my roots and build some video games for your iPhone or iTouch (mobile gaming is where I got my game programming start professionally speaking) so who knows, the kit doesn't come out till feb but the knowledge that it is coming is a glorious thing.

RoR = Depression On Rails

Codejoy — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:09:00 -0500

For no reason that I can discern, my ruby on rails warholit application stopped working with flickr based links. That would be fine had I mucked with the code that parses the URL or anything, but nope I haven't touched any of that since it was first determined to be working. This is annoying for that reason, I guess I have to now unload my app from online down to my local box somehow and start playing with it (as my logging events aren't working anymore either *Shrug*). High irritating to have code stop working for no reason. I thought perhaps the flickr API changed to render my flickr.rb gem obsolete, but that would be insane to change an API and break your clients around the world. grrrrr....

Noobies first impression of his first RoR project.

Codejoy — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 13:18:00 -0500

First of all, I have never done web programming before, and really never had the inclination. That all has changed with Ruby on Rails. For many reasons, first and foremost is the price of entry. It is relatively easy to get started in RoR and deployment to a webhost isn't to bad. My host is HostingRails.com. They have some sweet deals for free or near free web hosting and very helpful staff. I recomend them a great deal.

Warholit! was my first forray into Ruby on Rails. For the other newbie rails users, I would like to distribute some tips and lessons learned. (this is a lessons learned from warholit, mostly a stupid list of all the gotchas that I ran into while stepping into the Ruby on Rails waters with this project):

Keep your development machine and webhosc always running at the same version
Remember on your web host, if your application just doesnt seem to start from the web browser, try from the command prompt of your web host % >script/console
Something in particular this project: RMagick has two modes Q8 and Q16, if you are doing an operation on your dev machine that looks funky on the web host, double check what version you have of RMagick and find a work around for converting.
Multiple Applications can run on a single host usually, though you have to do funky stuff. I put this here cause i was never sure if this was true or not, it indeed ist rue and the host should help you to set that up. Typically it invovles haveing one RoR app that contains another ina subdirectory, the routes and perhaps some other stuff make setting this up difficult at times, but well worth it. I am currently running typo, and within that my RoR flickr toy "Warholit"

I would also like to take a moment to state that Typo (what powers this blog) is awesome. It's adminstrative functions are lovely and very web 2.0 :). So I guess my number one tip for those new to Ruby on Rails is first, spend some time developing simple and fun Ruby scripts. Then after that, find a great book that shows you Ruby on Rails, I hear "Ruby for Rails" is a great book (though I learned all my stuff using the "Agile web development with Rails" book (not so bad)). The biggest trouble I had when starting out was learning how to pass arguments from web page to Ruby script and back again. I will release some sourcecode to my warholit app after it has matured a bit more to demonstrate this. (I also found it quite difficult at first to figure out how to use check boxes and option boxes).

All in all I am happy with Ruby on Rails. It is a fun new way to code, and as someone who has always wanted to write web apps makes the barrier to entry very low. My biggest concern was how I was going to coax my webhost into allowing me to host multiple rails applictions (like this typo blog AND my warholit app) but with some help and some knowhow, it was a very doable thing at no extra cost. For those who have always wanted to try Web Development, I think ruby on rails is the way to go, but now I guess I am officially a biased opinion :)

Warhol it! V1.1

Codejoy — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:23:41 -0500

I would like to announce Warhol It! V1.1 . It is finished! Finally, big thanks to HostingRails.com for all their help in supporting me to get it up and running on their new speedy servers. So now I can finally continue sprucing up this blog some. Have Fun!

No joy

Codejoy — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 14:21:00 -0500

Well it seems that freezing (or unpacking) the gems to 1.1.2 didn't matter nor fix it. So this is a bummer as my flickr toy is still not working. ;(

This theme.

Codejoy — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 15:45:00 -0500

Well I think it is official, I like this "Lush" Theme the best for my blog. I might be editing it in the future, adding my own bit of flare (mostly a thomasonrails log?) but as far as teh functionality of it all, its one of the best Typo Themes I have seen IMHO.

On the ruby front, Warholit is not quite ready yet. It is up here at: http://www.thomasonrails.com/warholit/, but it is for some reason still erroring out when you try to "Warhol It!" an image. Working on this now. I have to say thouhg that Hostingrails.com has been a top notch web host and most helfpul in their support area for getting me set up and going.

On the ruby front, my next flickr toy might of been deflated before it started. Apparently I think "easy" projects I pick are easy till I investigate them further and it seems that it is hard to do any kind of automatically (i.e. algorithmic based) image manipulation of any fun kind (That is an art style). I wanted to build a flickr toy that automatically does some cross-colorization for you, but this is proving difficult at best, if flat out "impossible".