Starting a new chunk of work today that looks like it will involve the rails-multisite plugin. Always good to be learning new skills.

• Hosting git Repositories, the Easy (and Secure) Way - Good guide to setting up gitosis. I also needed to recompile git, because Debian's version is too old for gitosis to be happy.


• Yuma - Do we really need another web scripting language? Maybe not, but there it is.


• Prototip - Nice-looking tooltip library for Prototype.

In the "better late than never" department, I've started contributing some code to the google_analytics plugin. Gotta start somewhere.

• Announcing a New Prototype Support Mailing List - For all your Prototype and script.aculo.us needs.


• Engine Yard takes $15mill Series B Round from NEA, Amazon and Benchmark - Hey, leave some for the rest of us! Seriously, though, that's a great endorsement for Rails.

When I look at my resume, I'm amazed at the number of careers I've survived.

• BackgrounDrb 1.04 - A fairly large release with some API changes. More info here.


• ActionSequence - Code & DSL for handling multi-page Rails forms.

Taking the kiddos to the waterpark today. Heaven help us.

• progressbarhelper - Rails plugin to display anmated (or static) javascript progress bars.


• Lockdown - Authorization/authentication system for Rails. I should probably take a look at this, as the usual run seem a bit fiddly to me.

Time to donate platelets again, in between pushing more bits around.

• Scaling on EC2 - Real world experience from the WebMynd team.


• List of Firebug Extensions - There are a bunch here I didn't know about. It's becoming a platform-within-a-platform.


• acts_as_overflowable - Lets a column overflow into a second column. This helps when you want to index text quickly.


• Introducing DataFabric - Application-level sharding for ActiveRecord.


• Spree - Rails-based online commerce engine.

I'm thinking it's about time for me to get involved with some open source Rails project. The question is, which one?

• 6 Optimization tips for Ruby MRI - Useful if you end up right down in the weeds with a perf issue.


• Command Line Basecamp - Just in case your team is on Basecamp and you don't want to spend all day with the UI.


• Lab Test: Climb Aboard Ruby on Rails - InfoWorld does a big test of 9 different IDEs and editors.

Things are churning right along here.

• Ruby Row - Boutique advertising network for Rubyists. $600 will get your ad on 5 of the most-known Ruby blogs.


• Introducing CampTweet - Pipe Twitter, Summize, or RSS feeds into Campfire.

• Phusion Passenger - The latest PeepCode screencast covers this new alternative for Rails deployment.


• singleton_validations - Rails plugin to do validations on individual ActiveRecord instances.


• Getting Started with Merb and DataMapper - Ben Smith navigates through the currently-tricky morass of gems, source, and dependencies.


• Living on the Edge (or What's New in Edge Rails) #3 - Not much visible right now, but still worth tracking.


• Installing Git man Pages - How to get the docs locally.


• jGrowl - jQuery plugin similar to Growl in its effects.

Happy July 4th - a day I can catch up a bit while email is quiet, I hope.

• Programmer Competency Matrix - This one has been going around. I think the basic idea that you can measure a developer's competency by this sort of checkoff list is nonsense, though; it tells us more about the particular prejudices of the author than some Platonic ideal of a programmer.


• Unit Testing iPhone apps with Ruby: rbiphonetest - Does Dr. Nic ever sleep?

There are times that I wish our kids would learn to sleep in.

• Get Started with Django - Webmonkey has the goods.


• Pretty Blocks in Rails Views - Some ways to make your code more elegant.


• ActionWebService is Back - And updated for Rails 2.1.0.


• Cornerstone - New Subversion UI for OS X. (via TUAW)

Sick kids have been taking more time than net cruising lately.

• New Controller Examples - David Chelminsky is experimenting with the scaffolded tests that RSpec generates for RESTful controllers.


• REST Anti-Patterns - Ways in which to drift away from RESTfulness when building a web service.

As the second quarter draws to an end, I'm starting to nose around for new projects to get involved with - preferably paying, perhaps otherwise.

• CRUD Scaffold Generator - Rails' original non-RESTful scaffolding lives on in a plugin.


• Working with History in Bash - Some tips from Allan Odgaard.


• How to get a Rails job - No big secret: contribute!

A tip for installing a SSL certificate for nginx: make sure you've got a password-free key file.

• Introducing RSpactor - Lighter-impact alternative to autotest (OS X only). (via Pat Maddox)


• This Week in Rails - The official lowdown on recent changes.


• RESTful searching in Rails - Ben Curtis argues for simplicity rather than an extra resource. I've done it both ways, and tend to agree.

It's starting to look like I may have the bandwidth to take on another project shortly. If you've got Rails work overflow, give me a holler.

• Mootools and Rails CSRF Protection - How to make one javascript library play nice without disabling security.


• Patch Your Rubies - Someone has backported the recent Ruby security fixes to a version of Ruby that Rails is happy with. I've been running one Rails 2.0 app on the latest patched 1.8.7, but it's not been a happy match.


• Squirrel Update for Rails 2.1, Now with Named Scopes - Useful news if you're wrestling with a Rails app with lots of complex queries.

Managed to spot a few things even though I spent the day in bed being sick...

• Subversion 1.5 - It's heresy, I know, but I prefer Subversion to git.


• Subdomain Fu - A New Way to Tame the Subdomain - Within Rails applications, of course.

Nobody's interested in doing a bit of sysadmin work on the side, eh? I'm not surprised, I don't like it much myself.

• RubyGems 1.2.0 - Unfortunately this new update won't install on my system, which probably means that I've terminally hosed something and should start thinking about a rebuild again.


• The Big Ruby Vulnerabilities - Wondering about the mysterious patches to Ruby recently? Zed Shaw comes to your aid with some revealing diffs.


• Rails-doc - Yet another Rails API site. This one claims to be better than all the rest. We'll see.

It's off on an outing with the kids today, so not much code will happen till tomorrow. Looks like the weekend will be catchup time again.

• FiveRuns TuneUp Panel v0.8.8 Released - With a few important bug fixes.


• Gotchas When Upgrading to Rails 2.1 - From ThoughtBot.


• ActsAsSeoFriendly - Plugin to build URLs from a column other than ID.


• BitNami RubyStack 1.2 Beta for Windows is Ready - A rev of this nice installer for those trying to do ruby work on Windows.


• Updating MySQL DATETIMEs for Rails 2.1 Time Zones - More upgrade fun.


• Upgrade to Rails 2.1_RC1 - Another small bucket of gotchas.


• Rails 2.1RC1 and the Enhanced Migrations Plugin - Some of this is fixed in the RTM version, but you'll still need to change migration tables.

I may not be a UX designer, but sometimes I get to play one on TV.

• What is *jour and why they are killer apps for RailsCamp8 - I'll never go to a RailsCamp,but hooking up git and gem and stuff to Bonjour is an interesting idea anyhow.


• ZenTest version 3.10.00 has been released! - Looks like the biggest change is an improvement in multiruby setup.


• About Metaprogramming Speed - More discussion on whether metaprogramming techniques slow down ruby code.


• Growl 1.1.4 - Mostly Leopard compatibility improvements.


• DOM Popup Kit - Looks like about the simplest way to get simple styled popups on Rails with Scriptaculous.

Losing internet for a day was good for a day off. Not the day off I wanted to take, I fear.

• New YSlow With Firefox 3 Support - A welcome addition to the debugging tools available for FF3.


• Announcing the Django Software Foundation - A nice boost for the framework I didn't quite go with.

I'm at the point where I could seriously use some help with Rails server admin. If there's anyone out there who could use a few hours a week wrestling with nginx, monit, php, capistrano, evented mongrel, etc., etc., who actually knows what they're doing, drop me a line to discuss hours and rates.

• Bashfully Yours, Gem Shortcuts - Quick command-line access to your rdocs. (via Giles Bowkett)


• Capistrano 2.4.0 - I really gotta catch up on Capistrano releases soon.


• Trouble With Ruby 1.8.7 and Rails - Turns out Ruby 1.8.7 and Rails 2.0.2 is a bad match - fortunately upgrading Ruby to p17 takes care of this. (or upgrade to Rails 2.1, but this particular app isn't in a place where I can do that).