Lynda.com – Ruby on Rails Beyond the Basics
Kevin Skoglund delivered on his promise to release more advanced video tutorials on Ruby on Rails. You can find his course at Lynda.com.
The videos are laid out nicely and the content is first-class as you’d expect from Kevin and Lynda. I also love the fact that it’s “Beyond the Basics” and not the “Advanced” since the topics are not that advanced. I just don’t think you can cover advanced topics in a $99 course. Besides, it’s always hard to chase a moving target, especially one that moves as fast as the Rails.
This course resumes where the “Essential Training” left off. It covers more Ruby topics such as code blocks, code flow, modules, and exception. I highly recommend this for anyone getting into Rails and Ruby.
Just one quick reminder, I have not gone through the entire thing (I’m hoping for some cooperations from Ellen and Sydney).
MySQL Gem in Leopard
Solved MySQL gem installation with this line:
sudo env ARCHFLAGS=”-arch i386″ gem install mysql — –with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
Now everything’s good again.
Someone Please Save Me!
As you can see, I just can’t get away from Microsoft Visual Studio!
Leopard – Findings Part II, MySQL
Ok, forget about using Mac OS X installation from MySQL. It doesn’t work. Instead, just compile and configure/make/make install from the source code. Make sure you follow the instruction from mysql.com. It should be straight forward.
Leopard – Findings Part I
As you have guessed, I wiped out my hard drive and installed a fresh copy of Leopard on my Macbook Pro. Here’s the first set of findings.
1. It has Ruby version 1.8.6 and it doesn’t appear to be broken at this time.
2. MySQL isn’t installed but comes with Sqlite3.
3. Rails version 1.2.3 is installed, but easily upgraded to 1.2.5.
4. Root is not enabled and there’s no NetInfo Manager. However, root can be enabled with Directory Utility.
Because of MySQL issue, I have yet to test my apps. I’ll post my findings after I finish installing MySQL. I’m just too damn tired now.
Leopard Coming Tomorrow
Now that Mac OS X Leopard is coming tomorrow, I wanted to know what would happen if I upgraded. As far as the Ruby is concerned, here’s the link to nice description of what is changing.
When it comes to an upgrade, I’m always a skeptic. Unless I thoroughly test, I don’t trust it. We all know that Ruby exists with Tiger, but it’s broken. I just have to see for myself to make sure Leopard delivers as promised. If not, I’ll just compile it myself as always.
Rails & iPhone
I laughed when Steve Jobs told us that we should develop apps for iPhones using Web. However, after giving some thought, why not? It appears that the Rails is a perfect fit for this task. I decided to write a simple to-do app since iPhone’s calendar does not come with a to-do list.
In order to preview what my app looks like on the iPhone, I needed iPhoney, a gorgeous app that lets me preview my user interface. It can be downloaded here. Apple also provided an excellent video tutorial for developing an app. It requires free ADC membership.
I’ll probably have to dust off my Objective-C skills once the SDK is out, that is, if I decide to write for iPhone.
Why We All Need To Read PickAxe Book
Here’s one more interesting reason to read “Programming Ruby” or the “PickAxe” book. With its popularity, people often make a reference to a section in the book. The only time this has happened was with the Bible.
Another RubyHead Jr.
My wife gave birth to my daughter #2, Sydney last Friday. It’s been a wild ride as my wife suffered major complication, but she’s fine now, thank God.
Now, only if there’s another 12 hours in a day…
Catch The Best Launched
Catch the Best is finally released. I highly recommend everyone to check it out, and I’m not saying this because Ben is my friend.
According to his description,
Catch the Best is a collaborative applicant tracking system (ATS) built just for small businesses. Basically, that means it gives you a place to track your job postings and the applicants for your open positions, but without all the extra junk (and extra cost!) that you get from the guys trying to sell you an “enterprise-class” product.
Catch the Best really makes hiring process (always a painful process) tolerable. It brings the “social” aspect to the hiring/screening process where each team or department personnel can put their input on a candidate. As a final decision maker in hiring, I find it extremely useful since I don’t have to sit through a long meeting to discuss the candidates. The information is available for me right there.
Another aspect of this application is that we can set up an email address to filter and organize the job submission. We (the company I work for) currently do this via our email server, but the resumes ultimately hit an inbox. This subsequently leads to problems I rather not mention here. You also have to remember that you have to retain job applications and resume for a period of time. This is a great tool for all that.
I found the user interface to be straight forward without any useless clutters. It uses AJAX when appropriate and the layout is simple.
There are three levels of pricing starting from $9.50 to $49.50 per month, depending on the number of open positions and features.
The reason why I’m writing about this is because it’s written with Ruby on Rails. Nice job Ben!
