Using Amazon S3 with Rails Screencast
I was and still am not a big fan of the whole cloud movement. I just don’t see what the big deal is. However, it’s been demanded by the clients. I was just about to engage in common S3 storage feature and Codeulate’s Amazon S3 screencast just in time for me.
If you saw my screen cast series on MongoDB, I try to explain the underlying features before all the magic. Ben does the same thing with this screencast. He even writes tests to show you the real world example, even dropping down to console. I really appreciated the fact that he even covered the basics in details.
The illustration is simply awesome and the production quality is better than previous Vim episode. Unlike his previous one, he actually covers details and explains/spoon-feeds the bucket and the object concepts as well as the REST. I truly get a sense of complete tutorial, and I’ll even say that it’s almost good as the PeepCode.
As for the price, I initially saw $99 price tag and thought that Ben might have made a mistake. Well, he corrected the price and it’s now $9.
If you’re looking to use Amazon’s S3 in your application, you HAVE to buy this one. I can’t recommend it high enough.
Vim for Rails Developers
When PeepCode released the screencast on Emacs, I thought he’d release one on Vim, MY editor. I was delighted when Ben Orenstein released Vim for Rails Developers. By the way, I’d like to thank Ben for providing me with a review copy.
Production Quality
As a screencaster, I know what it takes to put together high quality screencast, and I was impressed with the quality here. The video is clean without any clutter nor annoying effects. The QuickTime video contains indexes so that you can skip to top level subject. Ben is very articulate and it was pleasure listening to his explanation. I also sense that he’s very passionate about Vim and it shows.
The only thing that annoyed me was that I was not able to see the keystrokes. I’m not sure which screencast software he’s using, but it is my understanding that both ScreenFlow and iShowU comes with the feature.
You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks
I consider myself as a proficient Vim user. After all, I actually edit without thinking about the keys. I tweeted recently that I will try to learn something new on Vim each day, but I find it hard to learn anything new at this point.
Although I have both rails and snipMate plugins installed, I really didn’t use them effectively. This video was a real wake-up call and I immediately started using the features Ben mentioned, and started to go through the documentations. Nice!
The Content
If you’re new to Vim, I don’t think this one is for you although you can come back later. This screencast assumes that you know Vim, but not for Rails just as the name suggests. If you need to learn Vim, I highly recommend Derek Wyatt’s videos on Vimeo or his site.
You should also be aware that this screencast is not about spoon feeding. It’s a great tutorial and points you to right direction. If you want to learn the details, then you’ll have to do that on your own. As an experience Vim user, I actually find this approach refreshing.
The first section, “The Fundamentals” is somewhat useless as Ben talks about improving typing skills, but the rest of the video is packed with valuable information. I love the fact that the content comes from Ben’s own real-world usage. In other words, it’s not “Hello World”.
Final Words
Vim for Rails Developers is priced at $9 and runs for 37 minutes. Considering the amount of productivity gain, I think this one is a no-brainer.
Although my post on Komodo Edit as the TextMate replacement has gotten great deal amount of traffic, I went back to Vim and never looked back. I no longer use even TextMate even on a Mac although I miss some features. With this screencast, I can finally put TextMate and Komodo Edit to rest.
RubyMine Review
In my endless pursuit of more productivity, I decided to give the latest RubyMine IDE one more chance. I’ll make this review nice and concise by listing the pro’s and con’s.
Pro’s
- Helps stimulate the economy by giving $99 to JetBrains.
- Its sluggishness gives you more time to think.
- You get a great exercise from using your mouse since you have to constantly scroll to the right to see the rest of the code. That’s right, no wordwrap.
- You get to install gems that does not appear anywhere in the code, even the Windows gems although these does not get installed on my Mac or Linux.
Con’s
- When evaluating my existing projects, “refactor” does not work.
- I get full of red dotted lines underneath constants and variables, even after “indexing”.
Conclusion
Nice try, but I’ll stick to VIM and TextMate.
Burst.net Day 1
I’m somewhat shocked that even though it’s a weekend, Burst.net got my server up and running within 24 hours. Very nice!
I logged onto the machine and it’s a minimal Ubuntu 8.04 64-bit server, just as I ordered. I really liked the fact that they didn’t install anything and it’s a clean machine for me to configure, the way I like it. I quickly installed Apache, Postgres, Ruby, Passenger, and REE (Ruby Enterprise Edition). The network is really fast and the machine is just incredible. With 1TB, I now use this server to serve up my Git repositories.
I verified the processor and the memory. I just can’t believe that I now have enough processing power along with the memory to make my apps really shine, all at a price of a VPS!
It’s a good start, and we’ll see what happens next few weeks.
Meet MacRuby by Peepcode
I just downloaded and and viewed “Meet MacRuby” from Peepcode, and I must say, I’m extremely impressed with the content as well as the production value. Geoffrey has gotten considerably better with each screencast over the years and I assure you that you’ll be amazed with this one. It’s worth well over its $9 price tag.
As a former Obj-C programmer, I have certain bias towards using anything other than Obj-C for Cocoa programming, but MacRuby appears to be the future. I’m somewhat sick of Ruby being used strictly for web programming and it’s about time Ruby gets used for other areas. MacRuby and Cocoa does not appear to be a small step, but a giant leap towards that goal.
I only have two words for this screencast, GET IT!
Envycasts – Just Amazing!
If you’re really serious about learning and want to improve your skills, please check out Envycasts.
The latest episode has really great set of information on improving performance and scaling. Two other episodes are Advanced ActiveRecord and Rails 2.2 and they’re really really good. I don’t want to sound like a salesperson for them, but I guarantee that you’ll feel the same way after viewing them.
I was extremely impressed with the production value of the whole thing. It’s not just staring at the screen or a slide presentation. You actually see Gregg and Jason along with awesome animations. They also don’t sound like they’re suffering from constipation unlike, well…
The price is $9 per episode but I actually feel bad that they’re not charging more. Yes, it’s that good folks!
The Best Keyboard Ever!
I just bit the bullet and got the das keyboard. I know it costs $129, but I just love the tactile feel of the mechanical keys. I’ve been trying to get something close to what I get with the mechanical keys, but it’s just not the same.
First of all, I type much faster and more accurately on this keyboard. Some people complain about the loud sound, but I really enjoy the sound as it reminds of the good old days when the keyboards were made correctly.
This keyboard only takes one USB port, unlike Matias which takes two. That’s really added convenience.
It’s obviously made for Windows, but works without a hitch with my Mac. The “Windows” key is equivalent to the command key, which gets little getting used to.
After going through so many keyboards, I can finally say that I found my keyboard for life and yes, it is the best keyboard ever!
Ruby Metaprogramming Screencast
I’ve always said that watching is much better than reading when it comes to learning. With the use of technologies around us these days, it’s a crime to learn using old outdated medium like the paper. We should be utilizing both hearing and seeing.
When I found out that Pragmatic Bookshelf produced screencasts, I immediately jumped. I got both Erlang and Dave Thomas’ Ruby Metaprogramming screencasts. I’m extremely impressed with the quality of the video as well as the contents. All I can say is that you should try them out for yourself, especially at $5 per episode, there’s really nothing to think about.
I just can’t wait until they produce more of these. In fact, I hope they ditch the book publishing and go all video. Yes, it’s that good.
TextMate Equivalent for Linux?
*** Major Update ***
I created a screencast here: http://www.rubyhead.com/2009/04/24/komodo-edit-textmate-alternative/
Please see my post here: http://www.rubyhead.com/2009/02/20/search-is-over-textmate-equivalent-and-more-for-linux-windows/
*******
I’ve been struggling to find a text editor for Ruby/Rails development on Ubuntu. I even went as far as make gedit look like TextMate. However, it’s just not the same.
The thing that I should’ve done was to look for the best tool, not the best text editor.
It didn’t take much convincing for me to install NetBeans. I’m just glad that all the bitching I did about NetBeans are gone with my lost archive of blog posting from several years back. NetBeans has improved so much since the early days. And no, it’s not just about Java. It supports Ruby and Rails beautifully. It even gave me a glimpse of Intellisense from my days in Microsoft world.
*** Update ***
I now use geany with file browser plugin. Granted it’s not TextMate, but I’m loving it at this time!!! Take a look at it at http://geany.uvena.de and judge for yourself.
Advanced Rails
The one thing I really love about being a subscriber of Oreilly’s Safari is that I get to read the latest books without going broke. Naturally, I was delighted when Advance Rails by Brad Ediger.
As the title suggests, it covers the “advanced” topics. I never really understood what made a topic advanced, but as far as I’m concerned, it just means that topics haven’t been covered in other books. By my definition, this book isn’t so advanced. If you’re a regular subscriber to the forums and the mailing lists, then you’d be aware of all the topics covered by this book.
Rather than being a tutorial that spoon feeds, this book is more like a guide that gives high-level overview and directs to where you need to look. I almost forgot that I was reading a book, not a blog. It’s also not shy about assuming the fact that the readers already know Rails.
I’m not sure if I’d recommend this book if you had to pay money for it. I got this feeling that the book was rushed, but then again, that’s usually the case for computer books these days.
