The Story of Stuff

Simplicity Sells

Despite the title, this talk is anything but simple.

An Open Letter to the Governor General of Canada, Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean

Your Excellency:

I was extremely displeased to learn of your decision to allow Mr. Harper to prorogue Parliament, given the opposition parties' stated lack of confidence in his Government.

As a fellow Canadian, I am sure you can understand my position: this is a matter to be settled by the people of Canada, rather than Her Majesty or any of Her Majesty's representatives. The prorogation of Parliament is a direct threat to our democracy and, in my opinion, completely inappropriate given the urgency and severity of the current worldwide economic situation.

For the next several weeks, as a direct result of your decision, the people of Canada will be left with a government in which we do not have confidence and a parliament which is unable to act. Your Excellency, I respectfully ask you to explain your decision to Canada and the world.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Shymkiw

Getting a Production Server Up and Running in Six Commands

Last night I got to move CEO to its new home, a brand new machine with a fresh copy of Ubuntu Server Edition. There were a couple of gotchas (The rubygems package is outdated and gem update --system freaked out a bit. I ended up needing to manually link /usr/bin/gem to /usr/bin/gem1.8), but, for the most part, it was ridiculously easy. Here's the recipe:

1. Start with a fresh install of Ubuntu
2. Upload your application
3. Follow these 6 commands
4. Configure Apache
5. Cross your fingers (Maybe that should be 1?)

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install build-essential ruby-full ruby1.8-dev rubygems \
apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-prefork-dev

sudo gem update --system

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem

sudo gem install sqlite3-ruby rails passenger

sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

One disclaimer: I cleaned things up a bit (combining apt-gets and gem installs), so you'll need to use your head to resolve any dumb mistakes that may have resulted.

Don't forget to follow the instructions displayed by the last command. For details on setting up Passenger (to easily serve Rails apps through Apache), check this out.

Good luck!

Update: I had to update the gems on another machine a few days ago and everything went fine. So, you probably won't need to run the fourth command.

Update: If you'd rather watch a screencast, this one's well worth your time.

t.apio.ca 2.0

I've been really excited about the new features in Rails 2.1. So excited, in fact, I ended up rewriting this site from the ground up, just to play around.

Have a look around. The changes may seem mostly cosmetic, (Notice how you never get the same banner image or greeting twice in a row?) but behind the scenes the code is sleeker than ever. I'll show you sometime, if you like.

There are a few details to take care of, but I just couldn't wait to deploy it. I'm using the Exception Notification plugin, so no bug goes undetected anyway.

Let me know what you think!

I'm Back - Favourite Photos from Europe

Check out the map view on Picasa.

I'm also working on a custom Flash presentation using the Picasa API and Picasa's 'geotagging' feature. Should be pretty sweet!

Microsoft Fined Again by E.U.

Read the New York Times Article

"Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of E.U. competition policy that the commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," the European competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said in a statement.

Getting Things Organized

I've been working on an event calendar/cms recently, so I figured I'd share a screenshot. Let me know what you think.

And for something a little more fun, check this out...

Ruby on Rogers

I posted this from my cell phone!

That first part, anyway. Typing on those things is no fun. So now I've switched to a real keyboard.

With images and JavaScript turned off, the pages are only about 6k each. Which matters if, like me, you have a provider that puts ridiculous limits on your transfer. I get 10MB/month for $10 from Rogers, the biggest plan they offer. (Don't even talk to me about the overage charges.) It's certainly enough if the pages you're visiting are small, but one poorly designed page can take a big chunk out of your allowance.

Lately I've been leaving my laptop at home, and just bringing my new Palm e2, which connects to my phone (and the Internet) via Bluetooth. My back loves me for it, but I'm still a little nervous about what it might do to my wallet...

Simple Administration

For me, the first step in getting a successful, agile project off the ground is to make sure the administrators will have everything they need at their fingertips. With that in mind, I've gone a different route with the administration for this site. Rather than having a separate "backend", I use links on the public pages that can only be seen after logging in.

Click here to take a peak. You'll also notice that I've built in links to useful sites outside my application, such as Google Analytics and my hosting provider.

If you hunt around this page, you'll find a hidden link to the login page. Of course, even if you find it, you won't be able to do anything. I'm using some wicked password encryption and custom authentication filters.

Welcome to t.apio.ca!

This redesign was sorely needed, and is clearly not quite finished still. Not that it's ever exactly "finished." Even in this state, though, it's a major improvement. There's a lot going on behind the scenes that I'm pretty proud of, and I'm still trying to find a way to show that off.