Subversion HOWTO

Subversion is a really nice version control system that many people have migrated to from CVS. I’ve recently needed to set up my rails applications into subversion repositories so I can make use of the quite proper application deployment tool, Capistrano. I wanted to take a moment and post about generally how using Subversion works—for the reference of people stumbling upon my blog, and also my own.

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Blogging in TextMate

I’ve been getting more and more into using Textmate as my choice editor, despite continuing to need Zend for Quicken Loans as I need to work on remote files (over VPN) and the drawer update issue makes it simply unworkable. (One must wait minutes to bring TM to focus.)

Well, I wanted a nice way to blog without going into the Typo control panel. MarsEdit is cool, and so is ecto, but both are commercial software, and I already have a license for my beloved Textmate.

Actually, I would have tried blogging with Textmate much sooner, but there was some weird issue with it when connecting to my blog, despite the other two aforementioned editors working just fine. Someone in the #Textmate IRC channel suggested reloading my bundles (Bundles -> Bundle Editor -> Reload Bundles). And that seems to have solved whatever problem I was experiencing, because now Textmate blogging works just fine.

Wh00t.

Why TextMate is So Awesome

It seems TextMate has become quite a popular editor as of late. Some even say it is the best editor on any platform which is quite a bold statement, indeed. Cheat sheets such as this one might give you some idea of the breadth of features available at the tap of a key, but allow me to attempt a bulleted list of my favorites:

• Yes! There are hotkeys for everything! I almost don’t even miss vim at all! Hotkeys to navigate around and manipulate your text are essential, and TextMate doesn’t let you down.
• Moving around couldn’t be easier. Cmd+T brings up a dialog that intelligently figures out what file you’re looking for in your project from what you type. This lets you open up a file with the quickness. Cmd+Shift+T is similar, but you’re jumping to a symbol (class, function, etc) in the current file instead. Bookmarks let you cycle through important lines of code.
• Snippits are amazing. Type a snippit keyword and hit tab. It will be expanded to the full snippit with the first modifiable area selected. Type to replace it with something new, and hit tab to move to the next “hot” spot. With “smart typing” automatically closing my quotes and brackets, the code practically writes itself!
• You can execute a line of code as ruby and insert its result. You can commit code to versioning systems. You can …
• Extensibility. You can add third party bundles such as the that include new commands, macros, snippits, etc.
• It is a native cocoa application with predictable keybindings (Cmd+w closes, etc) and snazzy-clean mac-friendly interface.

People use this editor to maintain their todo lists and weblogs.

My biggest and nearly lonesome gripe with TextMate is how it freezes for a couple seconds when it comes to focus when you’re working on remote files (nfs, samba, etc). The upcoming version 2.0 will fix this issue as well as bring numerous exciting improvements.

Serious respect goes out to the mighty Allan Odgaard of Denmark for this incredible editor.

Flock is teh Cool!

Flock — The web browser for you and your friends

So I heard Flock came out—I had to try it again. Last time I tried it, it was a technology preview or something and it was buggy and would crash fairly often. I haven’t had much time using it just yet, but it seems pretty snazzy. Among its nifty “web 2.0” features is a nifty blog tool. It asked me my blog url. I simply inputted “http://threadbox.net/”. Next, it asked me my username and password. That was it! Now I can not only blog right to my website with a nifty interface, but I can right click on things select “Blog This” from the pop-up menu to start off my post with an image/link. Maybe I’ll actually start posting again :)

Planet Openbox Launches!

I’ve been invited by some friends involved with the Openbox community to participate in a new “planet” project (a la Planets Ubuntu, Gentoo, or Gnome) called Planet Openbox in the name of our favorite window manager.

Why do I still use and love openbox? Because its XML-based configuration file affords me pretty amazing flexibility in my keyboard & mouse bindings. My favorites include the ability to roll the mouse wheel on the desktop to cycle virtual desktops or on a title bar to shade/unshade. I also use openbox to bind the forward/back thumby buttons on my Logitech MX518 to move me around my history in Firefox quickly.

Ubuntu Dapper Drake Flight 5

It was a few days after I saw Ubuntu Dapper Drake Flight 5 featured on Digg that I realized I needed to try it out on my laptop, upgrading it from Breezy. Wow was that ever a good idea.

Now, not only does my laptop properly go into and out of suspend AND hibernate (where this would fail in Breezy), but I get to use the excellent Gnome 2.14 before it even comes out. (The final release is due out today, however.) Linux just keeps getting better.

Here’s How to do Podcasts

I like to listen to some podcasts… but I find myself getting behind simply because I have to constantly revisit the separate websites, click around, find the torrent link… No it’s not that hard, but it certainly could be a lot easier.

Somewhere in my digg reading today, I read that Azureus supports RSS feeds. “Wow,” I thought, “That would really be the easiest way to get my podcasts!” I consulted google, and found that this functionality is offered via an extension. I gave it the rss feeds for thisweekintech and a couple other podcasts I like to listen to, and it lists the episodes and lets me download them with the click of a button. It will also poll the feeds on an interval and download them automatically.

This is perfect. I just had to share it.

Caching with Ruby on Rails

It just needed to happen. The Hardcore Racing eStore seemed slower every day. It started off as just an attempt to cache the make/model dropdown since we now wanted to put it in the search box in the left sidebar, which is visible on every page. It was simply an unrealistic number of queries to build that dropdown—with all the other queries I expected to make for a page’s request.

Read on to learn how I made my site FAST!

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Rails 1.0!

Ruby on Rails 1.0 was just announced, accompanied by a new website. I was active in #rubyonrails when it was announced:

14:51 ( onpo) can anyone access rubyonrails.org?
14:51 ( onpo) YES YOU CAN!
14:51 ( onpo) ITS OUT!
14:51 ( onpo) 1.0 is OUT!
14:51 ( onpo) WOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
14:51 ( Qerub) the website has been 37signalized.
14:51 ( zraii) whoa
14:51 ( Ave) well hot diggity, toss the confetti
14:51 ( zraii) that just went up
14:51 ( danfg) OMG IMMA HAVE A HEART ATTACK
14:52 ( thread) ho damn
14:52 -+- bitsweat changed the topic of #rubyonrails to: 1.0 Release | Beta
          gems: gem update --source http://gems.rubyonrails.com  |  Paste:
          rafb.net/paste  |  Logs: loglibrary.com/channels/preview/62
14:52 ( thread) BAD FRICKIN ASS
14:52 ( thread) TY RAILS PPL
14:52 (@noradio)  ____       _ _       _   ___  _
14:52 (@noradio) |  _ \ __ _(_) |___  / | / _ \| |
14:52 (@noradio) | |_) / _` | | / __| | || | | | |
14:52 (@noradio) |  _ < (_| | | \__ \ | || |_| |_|
14:52 (@noradio) |_| \_\__,_|_|_|___/ |_(_)___/(_)
14:52 (@noradio)
14:53 ( argv[0]) haha
14:53 ( danfg) WOOHOO!

etc… :)

My Favorite Firefox Extensions

I decided I’d better list some of the extensions that I really enjoy having around the most in firefox. Right now, I have 13 extensions installed, but the really good ones are as follows:

• All-in-One Gestures lets me use mouse gestures for a few things (still using hotkeys for a lot of stuff). UL/UR for switching tabs left/right and RLR to close a tab are really the only ones I really use.
• Sage reads RSS feeds in a handy sidebar. Who knew it could be so easy to check a bunch of sites for updates?
• FlashGot lets you use an external download manager and also queue up a bunch of links on a single page for download at once.
• Adblock preserves my www sanity.
• Forecastfox puts 3 days of weather in my status bar. Oh boy do I like this one.
• Web Developer is an a must-have tool for any web developer. It gives you a giant toolbar for doing all sorts of stuff.
• SessionSaver should have been (and may be in the future from what I’ve heard) bundled with Firefox. It makes firefox start with the same tabs and windows open as there were before. (even in the unlikely event of a crash!) Opera has done this for some time, and ff kinda annoyed me by not doing it.
• ColorZilla is a nice extension that will let you pick colors out of a web page among other things… although somewhere along the way, it decided something about my system wasn’t compatible with it’s ColorPicker feature… so it doesn’t exactly work for me right now.
• All-in-One Sidebar (original author’s site this time) puts a whole lot of really useful goodies in your sidebar! I actually only just discovered this one while link-hunting for this article, and I am very impressed!

Comment with your favorites please!