Blog

A blog about web development, design, interaction and anything else I find interesting

Big, obvious, purple button − 1 day ago

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Hi-Tech, IT, Software, Technology, Telecomunication, Mobile, Computer, what do these words mean to you? What do they mean to the largest corporations that invest, build and ultimately profile in these categories and platforms? What role do developers in relation to these corporations?

My foray into learning python − 2 months ago

I've been working with a new startup in Toronto on a Python & Django based project and I've had to learn both on the go. While having my Ruby and Rails knowledge helped me get a boost when learning Python and Django, I decided to start a series of unrelated practice exercises.

High performance ruby application using threading, wrapped up in an evented environment − 3 months ago

High performance ruby application using threading, wrapped up in an evented environment presentation. I didn't have anything to do with this but I thought I'd put it here so that I can help spread the message out to anyone that is looking for information on how to create high performance Rails applications.

Rails Paperclip Minimum Image Dimensions Validation − 3 months ago

Ever needed to validate image dimensions after upload? Check out this snipet you can add to your own Paperclip model.

Internationalize your site with an easy to use PHP translator − 4 months ago

Publishing on the WWW in only one language? Don't be intimidated by internationalization! I will show you how easy it is to convert your custom PHP site or application into a worldly site.

Generate Slugs in Rails − 5 months ago

I found this [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1302022/best-way-to-generate-slugs-human-readable-ids-in-rails] script to create slugs in Rails with Ruby, and I modified it a bit for my liking, figured I'd share it here.

My .vimrc configuration file − 5 months ago

Vimrc
Inspired by the very comprehensive (surely an understatement) .vimrc file by "amix the lucky stiff".

jQuery form value validation example − 6 months ago

A simple example of using jQuery to naively validate the existence of any value in form fields that have the .required class set.

Introduction to Padrino − 6 months ago

These are the slides from the talk, "Introduction to Padrino", a presentation I gave on this great new web-development framework at the Toronto Ruby Brigade in August 2011.

Installing Git on BlueHost − 6 months ago

Installing Git on BlueHost is really easy! Let me show you how.

Moving mount Fuji: a how to − 8 months ago

Many developers [in an interview situation] get asked the question "How would you move mount Fuji?" or one similar in concept. Here I will show you how, the idea is not mine, but it comes from, perhaps, just as much of an unlikely place :)

How to count days of a certain type between two dates − 8 months ago

A friend asked me if I knew how to count how many of a certain day exist between two dates, and I had no idea. But I thought it would make for an interesting problem to look into...

Launchpage.me UI feature show off − 8 months ago

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It's been busy over here. I've been working hard at this new web application which will launch under the domain: launchpage.me and will be part of a network of launchpage.me, launchpage.us, and launchpage.vc. I'm featuring here a few screenshots of the application up to this point and a little video of a UI feature I finished just now. Keep it steady.

Prudence JVM Framework - Article on Scaling for Web Developers − 8 months ago

"Actually, doing a poor job with client-side caching can help you scale: users will hate your site and stop using it—voila, less hits you have to deal with. OK, that was a joke!" -- http://threecrickets.com/prudence/scaling/ Sometimes an article is so well written and thorough I just can't help but suggest it to my readers!

Fancy UI notification system style for web apps − 9 months ago

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I've been inspired by the "growl" like notification system and decided to build my own for my web applications. I've been using this code and style for notification systems in a couple of my projects and it has been well received. I will show you here how to add it to your own applications.

Sass HTML5 minimal reset style − 9 months ago

I found this minimal reset style, which I have saved in a git-hub gist. I am providing it here for personal and public reference. You can view the original at: http://snipt.net/catcubed/minimal-html5-css-reset-for-sass/

Rails 3.1 presented by DHH − 9 months ago

Sometimes I just like to post a video I find, and this time that video is DHH's introduction of Rails 3.1.

Problems in the land of 'live' data − 10 months ago

Yuri (yuri.yup.la) is a satellite image saving web application I buit which is a great little tool if you just want to have a place that you can go back to and reference those cool images you found somewhere on google maps. But as with any service that relies on outside data, data that it can't control, this problem will inevitably crop up....

Social data-mining through cell phones, an emerging market. − 10 months ago

Wall Street Journal has a great video on the emerging social data-mining market.

SASS rounded corners mixings gist. − 11 months ago

SASS rounded corners 'mixins' gist. Creates compatible code for standard CSS3 definitions and web-kit and moz tags. Use in your SASS scripts by calling each of the available functions with @include