Things just never seem to slow down, do they?

• Sparrow + Google - Sparrow dear-johns its customers. This sort of thing is inevitable in a world of VC madness. Makes me sort of look forward to the coming Dot-Bomb 2.0, when we won't see so many promising apps sucked into corporate oblivion.
• How to prepare for Google's acquisition of Sparrow - Yep, pretty much. I've had friends argue that the existing code is good enough to keep running, but that just leaves you vulnerable to sudden breakage at some unspecified future point. Better to switch in a controlled fashion.
• Mailplane - There aren't a heck of a lot of alternatives to Sparrow out there (though I expect a lot of wannabe apps to launch shortly). Mailplane isn't bad, if you want a better GMail experience than the web UI offers by itself.
• LibEtPan - Apparently the mail library underneath Sparrow is still alive as open source.
• Textastic - Text editor for the iPad with some interesting features to make coding less painful.
• Adobe PhoneGap 2.0 Released - Big announcement for the mobile developer space, but I don't know that I'll ever be able to bring myself to trust Adobe.
• the_role - New authorization gem for Rails.
• The Profound Programmer - Best Tumblr I've seen in a while.
• RailsLookup - Interesting approach to maintaining normalized lookup tables in Rails.
• ActiveAccess - Mixin to make automatically generated Active Record methods like name_changed? private.
• Firebug Tip: Debugging XML - Many of us have moved on from XML, but that doesn't mean it's gone away.
• Gaia/Hacking - How to try out the Firefox "Boot to Gecko" mobile phone UI on your desktop.
• Living with HTTPS - It's hard and you're doing it wrong.
• ore - RubyGems project generator supporting Bundler, rvm, and other goodies.
• node.js Version 0.9.0 (Unstable) - For you cool kids who live on the cutting edge.
• Firefox JavaScript Terminal - Experimental JavaScript REPL addon.
• stickyMojo - jQuery plugin for floating sidebars.
• SublimeRubyMotionBuilder - RubyMotion syntax highlighting, code completion, and a build system for ST2.
• Rails i18n tips - With particular attention to using external translators.
• Holly - "Task tracking for nerds" with a drag and drop web UI and text-editorish keyboard controls.
• delayed_job_redis - Redis backend for DJ.
• cucumber-js - Cucumber features for your Node.js projects.
• Click hijacking in jQuery, part 2 - The click() event in jQuery grabs every click, even if it's ctrl+click or command+click. Here's the fix.
• rest-client - I used this to spin up a quick API tester over the weekend, and was pretty happy with the results.

If there is anything more absurd than software patents, I'm not sure what it is.

• Latency: The New Web Performance Bottleneck - Yes, that pesky speed of light thing is getting in the way of a faster internet.
• Backbone.js: Hacker's Guide - A look through some of the key parts of the Backbone source.
• OpenExchangeRates - Ruby gem for currency conversion hitting the free Open Exchange Rates API.

Apple's app approval process is a real hurdle for anyone who wants to do rapid development of a project. I'm used to being able to deploy fixes many times in a day if need be.

• Fluid - Online editor to quickly mock up ioS or Android UIs. Safari/Chrome only.
• Firebug Tip: Break on HTML Mutation - Set JavaScript breakpoints on actions that affect the UI.
• Gist.io: Writing for Hackers - Write a gist in Markdown, get a URL to see it nicely formatted. Just append the gist ID to the URL, e.g. http://gist.io/1397561.
• LiveCSS - Display actual colors in your stylesheets in ST2.
• Clear Eyes - Automatic retina image handling for Rails 3.1+.
• Active Record loves blocks - A reminder about some nice syntax you might have forgotten.
• What's New in RubyMine 4.5? - Quite a lot, including Sass and Slim, Sinatra, and MongoDB support.

Five days of single-parenting loom. Eek.

• FollowUpThen - Send an email, get an email back after a specific period of time. Premium accounts can get SMS reminders as well.
• Buildpacks: Heroku for Everything - How Heroku manages to be a polyglot platform.
• Functional View and Controller Testing with RubyMotion - A video demo.
• What you can expect from Firefox 14 to 17 - A rundown on the various major chunks of work in the pipeline now.
• The Web Developer Toolbox: Modernizr - A basic introduction from Mozilla.
• Rack from the Beginning - How it works in general and how it works in Rails.

There are days when I'm amazed that this whole Internet thing works at all.

• MongoHub-Mac - OS/X GUI for MongoDB. This looks like the best-maintained fork.
• Latency Comparison Numbers - Some things are fast in your computer. Some things are not.
• Acceptance Testing: Asserting Search Order - How to test that stuff appears in a particular order on the rendered page.
• Retinafy your web sites & apps - Thomas Fuchs is planning a new ebook; enter your email here to stay informed.
• Rails Behaviors - Coffeescript alternative to jquery-ujs.
• DNode: Make PHP and Node.js talk to each other - Eek.
• Your Editor is Not the Bottleneck - Amen. This is why I refuse to waste time in the editor wars, or learn a zillion keyboard shortcuts.

Week of July 9 - July 15, 2012

It was a very quiet week for Rails. There's some work going on in refactoring the internals of associations, and some code cleanup, but I didn't find a single feature in the week's commits worth calling out here. Enjoy your summer vacation.

Time for another fun week of yelling at bits.

• Shortcut Foo - Drills to learn keyboard shortcuts for Vim, Emacs, ST2, TextMate, Visual Studio and more.
• json_expressions - Test harness for JSON responses that works by providing a pattern to match. Looks useful.
• Don't waste your time in crappy startup jobs - Amen.
• Vault Add-on - Hook up the Vault password generator to Firefox.
Riak 1.2 RC1 released - Release notes are here.
• Collections - Native Mac client for Google Documents.
• Join the Movement - App.net is trying to raise $500K to build a developer-oriented alternative to Twitter. A noble cause.
• Datepicker for Bootstrap - For pretty integration.
• Tests on demand using Vimux and Turbux with Spork and Guard - I'm just amused that I work in an industry where that headline makes sense.
• Firebug 1.10 - A good introduction to all the recently-released features.
• Some things beginners might not know about Sublime Text - A medley of small tips.
• Gittip - A way to make small recurring grants to people whose work you admire.
• NoFlo - "Flow-based programming for node.js"

Back from a day off inventorying tents. Ah, the joy of Scouting.

• Butter Performance - An account of hammering on a big HTML/JS table to make it work better.
• MiniProfiler Ruby Edition - This looks pretty darned useful - in-page server/client profiling that's configurable.
• Printopia - Print from iOS devices to any printer on your network.
• AffirmIt! - "The supportive testing framework for Ruby."
• Ruby Under a Microscope - Coming ebook with the subtitle "Learning Ruby Internals Through Experiment". Some sample content available.
• Nestable - jQuery plugin to support drag-and-drop hierarchical lists.
• Advanced Caching in Rails: Revised - A very useful blog post, updated and revised. If you want to know about Rails caching this is the guide.

Rise and shine, coders.

• Kickstrap - Bootstrap plus extras, including themes, analytics, responsive design, minification, and more.
• Flowchart: how to retinafy your website - A process layout from Thomas Fuchs.
• Caching with Twemcache - Twitter has released their fork of memcached. Just remember, you're not Twitter.
• jquery-rails-cdn - Serve jQuery from a CDN without giving up the asset pipeline.
• Code Climate is free for Open Source - Get metrics and analysis added for nothing.
• better_logging - Enhancements for Rails logging.

Considering whether to pitch a business plan involving support of 'curmudgeonly coding.'

• hovercraft - Server to automatically overlay a RESTful API on a directory of ActiveRecord models.
• collide - Collaborative IDE written in Java, so far just experimental.
• On Configuration - Sam Stephenson joins the list of those who've found that customizing your dev environment can be a counterproductive timesink.
• A Better Way to Store Password Hashes? - "Security through obesity," what a great concept.
• Locale - Localization marketplace for Rails projects.
• Machine Learning on Rails with Ruby! - Code to interface your project with the BigML service.
• Cupertino - Command line interface to the Apple Developer Center, so you don't have to spend as much time clicking around the web site.
• Debugger, Responsive Design View and more in Firefox Aurora 15 - Firefox has really been stepping up its developer tools lately (though I, perhaps sentimentally, still prefer Firebug).
• pry-theme - Easy theming for your Pry user interface.
• Using Find and Replace - A rundown on the improvements in this area in TextMate 2.
• Datadog - Unified dashboard for all sorts of devops monitoring services.

Week of July 2 - July 8, 2012

This week also featured a bunch of noodling around with test harness internals, but that's sort of endemic to any ruby project.

• More statements for migrations: add_reference and remove_reference (aliased to add_belongs_to and remove_belongs_to as well). These are reversible, and take care of the columns and indexes, even in polymorphic cases. The changelog is at 17d2115e.
• edaa2c48 introduces an easier syntax to set ActionMailer defaults in your config files.
• 238a4253 finally adds support for defining your own flash types, in case :notice and :alert aren't what you prefer.
• When you hit a RoutingError in development, you will automatically see your defined routes as of fa714ec7.

Gearing up for another week of playing summer camp chauffeur.

• new_rails_app - Create a new Rails application by just cloning a template application instead of messing with Rails template syntax.
• AppCloudy - "Dead simple hosting for the Mozilla Marketplace." You might also want to check out the preview version of the Marketplace itself, and read about how to use it.
• Deployment Pipeline - A gem to help manage a continuous deployment process.
• ActiveDecorator - Automatically insert view-related code into a model only when it's needed.
• RubyMotion Tutorials - All the RM related stories collected in one place.
• Asset Pipeline for Dummies - What it does and how to use it.
• webmachine-ruby - A port of Erlang's webmachine that includes a nifty visual trace of what's going on in the guts of the web serving process.
• Zombie Font - When Comic Sans isn't annoying enough.
• OKFocus Labs - More annoying JavaScript experiments.
• errorception - Hosted JavaScript error tracking.
• Bootstrap Tour - Build product tours using Twitter Bootstrap popovers.
• The RubyMotion Way - An appreciation of RubyMotion for iOS or Mac applications.
• Vico is dead. Long live vico. - A text editor goes open source.
• Introducing BitTorrent Torque - Not only is BT still around, but it's just announced an alpha JavaScript version.

I seem to have wandered into a blast furnace by mistake.

• How can I contribute to Ruby on Rails? - Some pointers about ways to get involved.
• Functional View and Controller Testing with RubyMotion - More innovations to make Ruby folks comfortable on iOS development.
• sqlmap - "Automatic SQL injection and database takeover tool."
• Mousetrap - Keyboard shortcut handling in JavaScript.
• The 'bot cave - Subscription page for a new email newsletter from Thoughtbot.
• My Favorite Bundler Feature - In this case, it's bundle open.
• Mashant - A social network for developers. Because yeah, you don't get enough of those people at work.
• Pageguide - Overlay help in your web site with jQuery and CSS3.

Happy post-explosion day.

• AltSQL - Improved command-line mysql shell.
• The History of Ruby - All the release dates, ever. I suppose one of these days I should update the list I did for Rails.
• The Difference between the Firefox of 2011 and 2012 - If you haven't looked lately, Firefox is much improved. The nightly version (FF16) is generally even better than the release one.
• Try Git in your Browser - An initiative from GitHub and Code School.
• Kinesis - "Build gesture driven web apps with HTML, JS & Kinect".
• tl;drLegal - Software license summaries in plain English.
• Bugsnag - Online exception tracker with connections to web, mobile, and desktop apps.

Happy 4th of July. Warts and all, I'm still glad to live in the USA.

• ribbon/catchup: reading new commits - How to stay caught up with a git repo in the shell.
• The Handpicked jQuery Plugins Repository - Lots of goodies here, with demos right in the repo.
• Semaphore - Hosted continuous integration for Ruby. Works for public or private projects on GitHub.
• Summary of the AWS Service Event in the US East Region - Lots of vagueness here, but it seems to boil down to "hardware is hard and we can't really test an actual disaster."

If global warning is going to mean fewer camping trips, we're going to have words.

• CagePlots for Sublime Text 2 - Another alternative to lorem ipsum.
• jQuery.bulletGraph - With suitable hacking, this was just the right amount of sizzle for a current project.
• Easel - In-browser web application design tool that generates the exact CSS for you.
• I build High Availability Platforms so Cloud is not for me - A view from the more professional side of things of why AWS and its kin aren't really HA.
• AWS Cloud Best Practice: Introduction to High Availability Deployment: On the other hand, if you throw enough Amazon services at the problem, you can get pretty decent availability.
• MadeiraCloud - Visual Integrated Management Environment for AWS - A graphical design, deployment, and monitoring tool.
• Conditionator – helping you clean up your logic in Ruby - An implementation of pre- and post-conditions.
• A new twist on testing Ruby - A patch for Ruby to make mutation testing possible, with forthcoming RSpec support.
• The HTML5 Invoice - Create invoices on the fly in your web browser.

Week of June 25 -July 1, 2012

Another 4.0 article for more in-depth reading than my notes here: Rails 4.0 Sneak Peek: Asynchronous Action Mailer.

• dc7fd821 is the commit that brings asynchronous Action Mailer via the Rails queue to the code. It's followed by some code cleanup and then documentation in 6a859152.
• The doc change in 24a4cc74 serves as a reminder that Rails 4.0 will require Ruby 1.9.3 or higher.
• 94b230e1 adds a polymorphic option to the model generator: rails g model Product supplier:references{polymorphic}.
• 5e7d6bba reverts an earlier commit, removing support for loading multiple external route files as part of config.rb. That's why it's called edge, folks.

Let's start the week with a heap of links.

• Moqups - Browser-based UI mockup tool.
• gimme - Test double tool that aspires to be "Mockito for Ruby."
• Code Climate - Hosted software metrics and code reviews for Ruby applications.
• Barkeep - Self-hosted code review tool.
• iPad Peek - Online simulator for Safari on the iPad. Also useful if you need to swipe the basic HTML for your own iPad online.
• Periscope - Syntactical sugar for calling multiple scopes within controller actions.
• Health Inspector - Tool to make sure your chef repo is in sync with your chef server.
• Repo.js - jQuery plugin to embed a git repository on your web page.
• jQuery Core: Version 1.9 and Beyond - Ambitious plans to drop support for IE7 and IE8. This will mostly interest developers with no corporate app usage at all.
• Google Compute Engine - Run your app on VMs hosted by Google. The question is whether anyone will risk this given the App Engine pricing debacle.

Heading out with the Scouts again today. But first, a few links.

• RedisGreen - Redis as a service, coming soon.
• rbfu 0.3.0 - This simple ruby version switcher is moving along.
• Grizzled Rails Logger - An alternative for Rails 3 with additional options for easier post-processing of logs.
• Vagrants and Chefs and Librarians…oh my! - Putting the pieces together for reproducible development environments.
• UT on Rails - Course materials for a University of Texas course.
• Walrus - A templating library inspired by mustache, handlebars, and ejs.

Midweek. A few more days to the next campout.

• attachinary - Attachment handler for Rails that uses the Cloudinary service for storage. This looks like it could simplify code a lot.
• Dumper - Database backup in the cloud. Which means one less thing to fuss with configuring yourself.
• MySQL is bazillion times faster than MemSQL - Pick a benchmark, any benchmark.
• Foodcritic - A lint tool for Chef cookbooks.
• Mozilla Launches a Speedy and Powerful Upgrade to Mobile Browsing with Firefox for Android - For my three or four readers who prefer Android devices.
• Sublime Text 2.0 Released - I've been using it for so long I forget that it's been in beta. But now it's not any more.
• Simple Bookmarklet to Debug Your Rails Assets and Sprockets Apps - By flipping them into delivering unpacked JavaScript files.
• Butane - A new iOS client for Campfire.
• Handsontable - Excel-like grid editor in HTML and jQuery.