I created a quick fork on github of the acts_as_fulltext_indexed plugin made by Chris Heald of antiarc.net.

Acts_as_fulltext_indexed addresses a limitation of MySQL’s INNODB table format (which supports transactions but not fulltext indices) by using MySQL’s MYISAM table format (which supports fulltext indices, but not transactions). 

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I created a more official home for TabsRenderer over at github tonight, and I plan to work on additional helpers this summer in my off-time.

http://github.com/CodeOfficer/jquery-ui-rails-helpers/tree/master

Github is sweet, and I enjoy working with Git so much more lately than Subversion. I usually end up taking my laptop to coffee shops that happen to be without internet (or are charging a fortune ~blasphemy!~) ... when this is the case, its HUGELY beneficial to be able to still commit my work locally even though I do not have a connection to my main repo at home.

So, here’s to hoping I get more time to code soon!!

[codeofficer@Asimov ~/code/git/jquery-ui-rails-helpers]$ git push github master
Counting objects: 7, done.
Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
Writing objects: 100% (7/7), 1.55 KiB, done.
Total 7 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)
To git@github.com:CodeOfficer/jquery-ui-rails-helpers.git
* [new branch] master -> master
[codeofficer@ Asimov ~/code/git/jquery-ui-rails-helpers]$

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I’m a big fan of JQuery UI and have been using the Tab plugin a lot recently.

However, I found the code to create each Tab a bit repetitious. It became especially ugly in situations where you might want to display a tab conditionally ... first displaying the tab header, then the tab body, and having to re-use the same condition in both places. yuck!

Sooo, since I had recently given a presentation at our local Ruby Users Group on Design Patterns in Ruby, I thought maybe a little template pattern would be a nice fit here. The result: TabsRenderer!!

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I found these old renders on my drive recently and thought I might share them. They date back to about 2000 when I was doing contract work for a digital graphics shop in Camden Maine. I spent most of my time modeling the interior and exterior of various buildings, but these particular renders came from just goofing off at the local coffee shop. Nothing extraordinary!

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I had the honor of presenting this week at our local Ruby Users Group. This was my first time speaking publicly and it was thrilling experience. I spoke for about an hour and despite my preconceptions, survived well beyond the first 10 minutes of my talk!

The topic I chose was Design Patterns in Ruby, largely because I had just finished reading (twice) an excellent book by the same name. Design Patterns in Ruby, by Russ Olsen, was just fantastic to read. Russ’s approach was so casual, and un-reference like ... that I rarely felt lost in the patterns being described. I’ve tried a few times to read other books on the general topic of design patterns, but usually these were written for an audience of Java or C++ programmers. As well, those other books rarely did anything other than flash a few UML diagrams at you and drop you in the middle of code that was more complex than the pattern at hand, hardly an elegant way to learn a new subject. After reading Design Patterns in Ruby I actually felt a bit like Neo from the Matrix when he said ... “I know kung fu!”

Its a couple days later but I wanted to post my factory pattern examples for those who attended. My apologies for the delay, its been a busy week. The other examples I presented on were largely unchanged from examples found in the book, so I wont publish Russ’s creation. (wait, thats me!)

Thanks again to those who were able to bare with me and withstand the awkwardness of a first presentation. Kudos to Casey Rosenthal of Port Forty Nine for convincing me to get up there. I really enjoyed myself and might be convinced to do it again. Continue reading to view the example factory patterns! 

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Like most web developers (that I like) I use Firefox for building my web applications. Its stable, it renders beautifully and it has more 3rd party plugins than you can shake a stick at. But without a doubt the biggest reason I use FF is a plugin called Firebug. I use it primarily for debugging Javascript but Firebug can do sooooo much more. Internet Exploder has nothing like it! Safari didn’t used to .... but for some reason ... it now does?! huh?!

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I’ve been working with Rails about 4 months now. Though I am just a newbie, I’m quite a fan of the restful design approach Rails 2.0 seems to favor. I recently needed to add basic search functionality to my app, but had to think a bit on how that would work with a ‘mostly’ restful app.

What follows is a basic description of the implementation I settled on.

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I had to check it out, scored a nice shot that included Saturn and Regulus as well. Have a look! (click read more)

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I don’t know how I missed this, but apparently earlier this month google added some new themes for people who use their personal pages. I use this service as my homepage and really enjoy having the themes to create atmosphere with, check out the post that tipped me off:
googlesystem.blogspot.com. I should mention, most of these themes actually change appearance based on your local weather after you enter your zip code.

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Courtesy of the #textmate channel on freenode, I found this link: quicklook-and-textmate

I’ve installed both of these and they work great. I’m still amazed that even since the OS 9 days, apple hasn’t modified their clipping system in such a way that I am able to highlight or even edit the text in them. Technically, you can actually select/highlight a portion of text straight from a clipping, but the highlight color is the same as the background, which is useless to me. C’mon apple.

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