Today I received some not-so-good news: my Grandma is very sick and weak. To write that doesn’t have all the true weight of the situation. Suffice it to say, it’s serious.

So, here I am, in Virginia, trying to head off a tail-spin while my Grandmother is in Michigan, sick. And my only thoughts are: I should’ve shared more of my life with her and now it might be too late.

Grandma: these are for you. I’m sorry I didn’t share sooner…

Kaela

Kaela is about to graduate college (finally). She’ll have a Bachelor’s Degree in Forensic Science. She’s worked very hard to achieve this. Heather and I are very proud of her. My Mom and Dad are also proud of her. I know you can be proud of her too.

I don’t know if you’d recognize her right away. I don’t mean she’s different looking. She’s no longer the quiet shy girl you might remember. She’s finally found her voice and her backbone. She’s very strong willed and opinionated. I wonder where she got that from? I’ll tell you what: she came by it honestly that’s for sure.

And she’s a good Big Sister too. I know she doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with her sister, but I know she really loves Alex and tries to help her when she can. She helps with Noah too. She even helps him with his Math homework. Kaela’s quite protective of her family too.

She’s quite an amazing woman now. Sheesh, I can’t believe she’s 23 years old now. To put it in perspective Heather was 21 and I was 24 when Kaela was born.

Alexandria

Alex. What can I say about Alex?

We had some tough times with Alex. It wasn’t anything she did (other than be a typical teenage girl); it was more of what was going on at the time. I’m not going to lie: it was tough and it continues to be tough. However I’m quite proud of the young woman she’s become.

Heather and I struggled to get Alex through high-school but she did graduate. She hasn’t started college yet. We all decided it would probably be a good thing if she took a break from school. So, she went to work. She has a lot of drive and ambition. She’s also headstrong and opinionated. But swears like a Sailor. She’s not afraid to tell it like it is. But when it comes to working she takes after her mother quite a bit. She works for a gas station/convenience/deli chain named Wawa. She started out at the bottom, like everyone else. However, 2 years later, she’s now a Shift Manager. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty and do what needs to be done. You can be proud of her, too.

We’re hoping to get Alex in college come this January. I think she’s ready. She doesn’t want to stay at Wawa any longer than necessary. I’m not sure what she’ll study, but she can decide on that later.

She’s out on her own and has been for a while. She’s getting a taste of ‘real life’. But I have to tell you: it’s always good to see her when she visits. And I always feel better when she can go home with some extra food and stuff. I’m sure when Kaela moves out we’ll do the same for her.

Noah

Noah is now 13 and sporting that brand-new moustache. He’s now nearly as tall as Heather and weighs in around 100 pounds. For the longest time he was our small guy. Welp, over the summer he had his growth spurt: 6 1/2 in and 27 pounds. The Doctor said he’ll continue to grow after high-school and has a good chance of reaching 6’. He’s happy about that. Of course he needs all new clothes. And eat! I guess I now know what my Mom & Dad went through.

And Noah’s in the 8th grade and goes to the regular classes. He’s definitely Autistic but he’s definitely smart, too smart; like his sisters. And now that he’s 13… oh boy… teenage hormones and autistic traits! Soemtimes it’s not very much fun, other times he’s hilariously clumsy.

Talking about school, Noah is taking German 3 now. In fact, when he started taking German in 6th grade, he was the only 6th grader; he’s the only 8th grader now too. I’m not sure what to think. He takes the class at the high school. And, of course, the high school has the better lunches; the girls did confirm that the Otis Spunkmeyer Cookies were delicious. But, he’s 13, he’s a little more concious of his appearence…

Heather

Grandma, she adores you. We all do, but for Heather you’re like a role model. She keeps reminding me that you’re the strongest woman she knows. I know you are (we all know that) but it’s good to hear it too. I’m so happy you got to meet her. She’s a keeper! I’m still madly in love with her. And signs point to her still being able to tolerate me. That’s a plus. It’s kind of neat to think that nearly half of my life has been spent with Heather by my side. We’ve had our ups and downs, good times and bad times. But I can’t imagine life without her.

We’re going through some tough times, health-wise, though. But she’s not letting anything slow her down. Her current challenge is her parents. They’re both experiencing health challenges. They live in West Virgnia but come to Richmond for the serious medical care. So, for a while now, every 3 months or so, for about 2 weeks, we have Heather’s parents here. Let me be frank: it’s difficult. But enough about them.

Heather’s calmed down a little bit over the years. I must be wearing her down. It’s nice to see her take time for herself. It’s not as often as I would like to see it but at least she does. She basically taught herself to crochet and now that’s all she wants to do. She’s already made the girls scarves. I asked for socks. We’ll see.

Me

Words really can’t express what I’m feeling and thinking right now. But I’m filled with emotions ready to burst.

I’ve tried really hard to be a good husband, a good dad, a good son. It’s not easy, hasn’t been easy. But I keep trying because I want everyone to be proud of me. Not ‘everyone’ everyone, of course, but my family. I feel bad for my kids not having the opportunity to spend time with you like I did. And then Life got in the way. I got so busy with what’s going on down here I barely noticed we’ve been in Virginia for 17 years. I guess we all grow up eventually.

What I wouldn’t give to be in your kitchen, right now, eating green beans (fresh from the garden, of course) and boiled potatoes and corn bread (you can keep the garbage - I never really liked it). Heather’s a fantastic cook (and I’ve got the gut to prove it) but I can still taste your green beans.

I’m so sorry I didn’t write or call. I have so much to learn. I have so many questions. But I do know one thing: I love you very much Grandma and I want to thank you for all you’ve shown and taught me.

Richmond’s Premiere Ruby Users Group

http://cvreg.org

I have “officially” stepped down as the principal organizer. I, kind of, stepped in around October 2008 and, after 5 years, it’s been a blast. But it’s time for me to hand over the reins. Thankfully my group is filled with a lot of great folks; I’m confident the group will continue to grow, continue to get better, continue to be a great tech-community citizen.

I’d like to share some memories…

Andy Hunt

If you’re a developer and you haven’t read The Pragmatic Programmer then stop reading this post and buy a copy… Right Now!

Ok, so you’ve read the book, yes? Then you know about Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas.

I finally had an opportunity to meet Andy at a developer’s event/conference in Durham, NC a few years ago. And, after finally getting up the nerve, I introduce myself and asked what it would take to get him to come to Richmond to talk to my Ruby Users Group. Unbeknownst to me, Chris Allport, now a CVREG Organizer, but then an RJUG Organizer, asked about Andy coming to speak to the RJUG. After learning that we both asked him, we worked together to get the logistics figured out.

Personally, it was one of the best meetings I’ve planned or attended.

And what was Andy’s reply to my question? Oh, I don’t remember.

RubyNation

Hands down, one of the best regional Ruby conferences out there. I highly recommend attending if you get the chance. In fact, a number of CVREG’s former speakers were approached at a RubyNation.

And, if all the planets align, they offer a discounted rate for Ruby Group Organizers. ;-) Not too shabby, eh?

It probably goes without saying, but c’mon, who am I; conferences are a great source for speakers. Here’s a quick list of former speakers I approached at a conference:

• Avdi Grim
• Bob McWirther
• Joe O’Brien
• Jeff Casimir
• David Bock

804RVA

For all the past, present, and future User Group organizers nothing helps like consistency; nothing hurts like inconsistency. I want to thank 804RVA, the coolest co-working location in Richmond, for supporting CVREG by providing a super awesome meeting location.

And I want to thank everyone else that provided meeting locations for those ties where we didn’t have consistency; you helped keep CVREG afloat.

Stategy Cafe

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Greg Provo and Strategy Cafe. He helped get CVREG off the ground. Now, admittedly I wasn’t there because I joined the group after it had been formed; this could all be hearsay and/or some great fiction I’m writing. But, as the story goes, Greg, Jim Van Fleet, and Matt Overstreet were throwing back some beers one fine evening mid-summer 2008. Being technology folks the topic eventually landed on Ruby on Rails. Mr. Van Fleet had recently participated in an organized Ruby Code Jam in Charlottesville and wanted to bring the excitement to Richmond. Greg was able to supply a meeting location, a domain, and website hosting. The group was born!

My hat’s off to Mr. Provo for recognizing Ruby as a viable alternative to the entrenched .Net and Java shops inhabiting Richmond.

The Future

We’re a long way off from Ruby being the predominate language used in Richmond (if ever). But I think we’ve done a great job of letting folks know we exist. There is a group of passionate Ruby developers; hell, we’re passionate about technology and its use to solve simple and complex problems alike. I believe we’re a welcoming group. And we’re waiting for you to show up and help make CVREG better.

Remember, spread the word and bring a friend! And Thanks for all the great memories!!

Cheers!

I’m not ashamed to say I’ve been struggling with BF3 Squad, my Battlefield 3-focused web application. I had selected the technology stack: Padrino and Postgres, briefly considering RailsAPI and Ember.js. I had a Look and Feel loosely defined; I even started writing up an HTML mock-up. But I wasn’t happy with my progress, or lack thereof.

But…it’s all about to change again…

Realizing I wasn’t making any progress and, indirectly, pressured by the upcoming Battlefield 4 release, I decided I would take a different tack. At it’s core this application consumes JSON data. I decided I would implment the core functionality and just display the raw JSON, delaying the Look and Feel exercise until I need it. Vióla! I had a plan of attack.

However, more imporantly, I was inspired by Stephen R. Baker (he came and spoke at my Ruby Users Group) I’m going back to Smalltalk, Seaside in particular. Oh, my beloved Smalltalk.

I feel confident I have the general work flow defined; I have some spike code written even. And, in my mind’s eye, nothing, application-wise, changes. I have a different set of deployment issues, but that’s OK. I believe, with Seaside and Smalltalk, I’ll be able to write the core application in short order.

What I believe is the absolute lowest level of functionality consists of the following requirements:

• Make an HTTP request to an API end-point that returns JSON data
• Store JSON data, as-is
• Display JSON data

Now, there are some rules regarding the sending of the API request. And there may be some rules regarding the storing of the JSON data. But other than those two variables, the above list is all this application will do.

At a later point I want to add Accounts and authentication and authorization. I want people to be able to sign up for my application. I want people to be able to add All of their Battlefield soldiers. But I can delay that functionality until I need it.

I’m excited. And I can’t wait to show you some code (once it’s written) and the application (once it’s deployed).

Cheers

But I think I want to share some of my notes on the UI…

BF3 Squad UI

I’m essentially splitting up the data into three distinct groups: Solider, Vehicle, and Assignments. Each section will be further divided into sub-sections.

I’m definitely going to highlight the Soldier Kits: Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon. I’m also going to group Dog Tags, Medals, and Ribbons together. I’m also going to group Pistols, Shotguns, and PDWs together. What ever is left will comprise the main Solider sub-section.

I haven’t looked into how I’m going to divide the Vehicle information, yet. There seems to be a grouping of Air Vehicles vs. Land Vehicles. Once I get it figured out though, I’ll document it.

And Assignments: those are already divided based on the DLC with which they’re associated. The main Assignments sub-section, will present a summary of the progress made across all assignments. This section, though, seems to be limited to those that have access to the DLCs. This brings up the possibility folks may not have access to Assignments; progress will always be 0%.

Authoriztion & Authentication

I’m also going to be looking at Warden and CanCan. I need to simplify the technology stack and that duo appears to take care of my requirements.

• Allow a user to signup at the site
• Allow a user to set up their profile (in this case it’s their BF3 Solider information)
• Allow the user to view their soldier
• Don’t allow the user to view other profiles
• Don’t allow the user to view other users’ soldiers

Data Model

I think I want an Account Model. This will contain the login information as well as other pieces of data. That model will have a has_many relationship to the Player Model. And, of course, the Player Model is my dumb JSON data container.

I’ll have to define helper methods to pull out the necessary data and relationships. That actually got me to thinking about Ember.js. But I’m not going to be using Ember.js on this project. I’m actively trying to keep the technology stack simple.

Revenue Generation

I had thought about trying to make a little money on the side with this project, but, with the soonish release of Battlefield 4, I may wait until then. I could use this project as a learning experience and when BF4 releases, start on the next version. I would also like to have a Mobile version. However, if I use HTML5 do I need one? We’ll see.

Cheers

InK - Interface Kit

I don’t remember where/when I found it, but I’m going to be using InK for my presentation layer. It includes a lot of nice things out-of-the-box, but the main one is the “responsive” design.

And while it does Grids differently, possibly easier and more straight forward, I think my presentation is at most two columns. The initial iterations will only use a single column.

I probably need a UX/Data design person to help me layout all of the information I plan on presenting; it’s going to be dense. While there’s a lot of data to present I don”t want the UI to feel cluttered.

Soldier Images

Naturally, since this website/application is going to be focused on Battlefield3, I’m in need of some military-type images.

I have found some I plan on using; I also want to select one for the site’s background. However, from a suggestion, I was able to find quite a few interesting pictures on DeviantArt.

Padrino

Ok, the interesting bits; sadly I haven’t dug too deep yet into padrino and the functionality is brings to the project. I’ve generated my skeleton application. I’ve read the docs. I even implemented a PagesController:

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Bf3Squad.controllers :pages do

  get :index, :map => '/' do
    render 'pages/home'
  end

  get :show, :map => '/pages/:id' do
    render "pages/#{params[:id].to_s.downcase}"
  end

end

I’m using Sequel as my ORM. The connection configuration was new:

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Sequel::Model.plugin(:schema)
Sequel::Model.raise_on_save_failure = false # Do not throw exceptions on failure
Sequel::Model.db = case Padrino.env
  when :development then Sequel.connect("postgres://bf3squad:bf3quad@localhost:5432/bf3_squad_development", :loggers => [logger])
  when :production  then Sequel.connect("postgres://bf3squad:bf3quad@localhost:5432/bf3_squad_development", :loggers => [logger])
  when :test        then Sequel.connect("postgres://bf3squad:bf3quad@localhost:5432/bf3_squad_test",        :loggers => [logger])
end

I had to create a PostgreSQL Login Role, password protected, of course. I had to manually add that to the connection information. And, while I didn’t try without, I did add the port information to the connection string.

Sequel also implements migrations:

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Sequel.migration do
  up do
    create_table :players do
      primary_key :id
      String :platform
      String :name
      Text :data
      index [:platform, :name], :name => 'index_players_on_bf3stats_key'
    end
  end

  down do
    drop_table :players
  end
end

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class Player < Sequel::Model

end

If you’ve used ActiveRecord then nothing should jump out at you, just the syntactical differences. And I’m not sure how I feel about the (apparent) sequential numbering of migrations.

And the Model doesn’t implement any behavior over and above what Sequel provides. Padrino also allows you to put your models in several different locations, depending on your needs. It seems this models directory allows models to be shared across implemented, mounted applications.

There are several different files that got generated but I’m not listing them here because I haven’t changed them.

Here are the Specs that got generated when I generated my controller and model:

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require 'spec_helper'

describe "PagesController" do
  before do
    get "/"
  end

  it "returns hello world" do
    last_response.body.should =~ /Hello World/
  end
end

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require 'spec_helper'

describe "Player Model" do
  let(:player) { Player.new }
  it 'can be created' do
    player.should_not be_nil
  end
end

Again, very vanilla because I haven’t added any extra behavior. One note, though, I did change the controller spec from == "Hello World" to =~ /Hello World/ because I started to implement my InK-inspired layout.

Up Next

I have quite a few things to do before I can create Version 0.0.0. I still need to implement the mechanism to call the BF3 Stats API. I need to learn more about Sequel in order to know what can and can’t be done via the ORM. I need to implement authentication; I’m leaning towards OmniAuth Identity and support for Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ OAuth.

I guess I should develop some kind of Product Road Map; would probably help me stay on task.

Cheers

First, it’s going to be written in Ruby (of course).

Second, it’s going to be built using Padrino. The initial website is going to be small and I don’t need everything that comes with Rails. I first thought of Sinatra, but then I remembered hearing about Padrino. I started reading the Guides and became excited at the prospect of building a website with it.

Third, largely because of Padrio, I’m going to use Sequel as my ORM. For my initial implementation (or so I’m planning) my Postgres database will just be a place to hold JSON data. While I do have relationships within the structure of the JSON, I’m not going to persist them.

Fourth, I hope to regularly blog about my adventures. Although I didn’t document my research phrase, I do/did plan on documenting the construction phase. I’ll get into more details as the implementation progresses.

Project Vision

Ok, I think it’s time I shared a little bit about the project. My goal is to construct an application to help Battlefield 3 players “level up” through the ranks, the classes, and the myriad unlocks for weapons and vehicles.

There’s a fabulous stats site, as well as Battlefield’s Battlelog and even their in-game progress tracking. My site, in presenting the stats data in a slightly different manner, aims to compliment those resources.

Also, if all goes well, there’s even a mobile version planned. In fact, the mobile version was to be implemented first until I thought, “let’s make this a website first to test the theory.”

Look for Post 2 in the coming weeks.

Cheers

If you love numbers and stats, you’ll love this website.

“But wait! There’s more!”

BF3Stats’ Public API

Not only can you track your progress on their website; not only can you track a set of players’ progress, as well; BF3Stats has an API that anyone can use. In fact, I learned about BF3Stats from the Android App: Battlefield BF3 Stats. (As part of the ‘agreement’ for using the API, they request you sport a ‘powered by’ label on your app and/or website)

So I started to explore their API and found it short on examples. le sigh But my little bit of exploration got my wheels turning.

Quick Tangent

The images on my ’Battlefield’ page, here, is actually supplied/generated by BF3Stats. There’s a way to create these signature images that integrate your stats into the image using the API (I’m sure). Actually, I don’t know how it’s done and I’m not really all that interested in learning how (at least not yet).

Trillion Dollar Idea

Well, don’t expect to learn about my idea just yet. For those that know me, I have too many interests and not enough time. However, for this one, I feel confident I’ll be able to produce something sustainable and, dare I say, popular; hopefully popular with the Battlefield 3 audience.

My overarching goal is to build an Android App that uses BF3Stats but not like the current set of apps. I have a strong need/desire to be different.

Right now I’m completely in the vision/prototyping stage. I have a ton of research to perform to make sure I can achieve my goals. I’ll post more as I get going. I’m hoping to be able to also post my API usages, to serve as examples/tutorials for other folks getting started with BF3Stats. Of course, Ruby will be my language of choice!

Stay Tuned.

Cheers

I’m getting better! But I still consider myself a Noob. However, I’m getting some excellent support from Battlefield G+ Community. They’re posting excellent content.

Ok - that’s enough for now.

Cheers

Cherry Pick Time?

My first thought was to cherry-pick the commits into the ‘master’ branch. After I found the commits I needed to cherry-pick, I thought to myself, “How can I automate this?” That’s because I had 45 commits to process.

I did start down the cherry-pick lane. Using Tower, a Git GUI application, it quickly got old moving a commit into the branch, fixing any conflicts and commiting the change.

I really wanted to move the entire feature into ‘master’ as one unit. Yes I know there are ways to squash commits into one. But I was looking at dealing with 45 commits… and it was late in the evening… I just knew there had to be a better way.

Cherry Picking Multiple Files

Google’s my friend and I found an excellent article by Jason Rudolph describing exactly what I was trying to do: bring over a mess of files into a branch.

Heading back to Tower, I then cycled through the 45 commits to build me a list of 31 files that had either been added or changed in the implementation of this ‘feature’.

Then on the command-line:

$ git checkout master
$ git checkout -b local-merge-branch
$ git checkout development <file-1> <file-2> <file-3> ... <file-31>

Actually I did the checkout process over a couple of iterations. And I did it on a local branch to make sure I didn’t screw anything up. It also allowed me to package all the changes into a single unit.

Running my tests produced a failed test. “Crap!”, I thought. What did I miss? Turns out I didn’t miss anything because the failure was in an unrelated test. I just backed out the changes that was causing the failure.

Once I had the Green light (i.e. all tests passing), I stashed my changes:

$ git stash save changes-destined-for-master

And then applied them to ‘master’:

$ git checkout master
$ git stash pop

I run the tests one final time; just being thorough. After the tests finished, I committed and tagged.

Want to learn how…

I would love it if someone could offer suggestions on automating this process.

Is there a way of getting a list of affected files by searching commit messages for a token (in this case it was a Issue Ticket number)?

Is there a better way of accomplishing the same thing?

Is there a way to automate cherry picking?

Until I learn a better way, I’ll use this as an example of moving changed/added files from one branch to another.

Cheers

I can’t believe my last post was back in March. A lot has happened since then. A lot is happening now.

For one thing: you can now access this blog at: http://melriffe.com

The other thing: I’ve been playing a lot of Battlefield3 lately. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll blog about my adventures.

See you soon…

Cheers

However, I still wanted to let folks know about this awesome conference.

Why RubyNation?

First, it’s a well run conference: there’s always time between sessions, the food is always good and the snacks are always delicious. Couple that with near endless coffee and you can probably tell why I think it’s a great conference.

Second, there is always a plethora of fantastic talks and stellar presenters. Without fail, RubyNation is able to attract big name folks for the keynotes. It’s quite impressive.

Third, location. I mean, Reston VA is quite close for me and Dulles is right down the street. DC as the backdrop is also attractive for those able to spend a couple extra days sight-seeing.

RubyNation 2012

What’s the theme this year? Well, it seems like a huge focus on front-end, client-side development and evented, asynchronous computing. Though I’m interested in the evented stuff, I’m really interested in the front-end stuff. I’m really digging the talks covering Backbone.js, Spine.js, HTML5, CSS/SASS/Compass, Mobile Development, JQuery Mobile. All of that on the First day!

Tomorrow promises to be equally awesome.

Cheers

Right now I’m struggling with what information I want to talk (blog) about here. Is this strictly a personal blog? Will I also blog about work-related topics here? More than likely it will be a combination of the two.

I do have plans of building out http://juicyparts.com as my business site and it will also have a blog that will be strictly work- and technology-related. On this site, I’ll have both.

So what have I been up to since I last blogged? Oh yeah, I did get some feedback on my Octopress requests; more on that later.

As is par for the course I’ve been busy. Busy with Family, Clients, and CVREG. I’ve also started helping out more with Noah’s Scout Pack. Then Heather recently had knee surgery and, because she can’t drive yet, I’ve been driving the kids to work, school, events, etc.

Client work has been steady and piling up. I received some news about a product I built; it’s both exciting and nerve racking.

But at the end of the day I feel like I’m going in a hundred different directions all at once. It’s hard to blog under those conditions.

Ok. Enough whining. Chat ya later…

Cheers

First off, and most importantly, I’m really digging Octopress. I think Brandon Mathis has done an excellent job of packaging all kinds of cool things on top of Jekyll. But I want to do more. I want to learn more of the internals. I have a couple of things in mind that I would like some assistance with:

• Drafts
• Processing Trackback URLs

Drafts

Right now all posts go into my source/_posts directory. Which is fine when I have a blog post mostly thought out. However, many times I have an idea of a blog post that I would like to stash in a document that isn’t publishable, a rough draft, if you will.

What’s the simplest thing that could work in order to implement this feature?

Right now I just created a source/_drafts folder and if I have something I want to stash away, I do the following:

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rake new_post['post-title']
cp source/_posts/YYY-MMM-DDD-post-title.markdown source/_drafts

Not elegant; but gets the job done.

When I’m ready to publish the blog post I just move it to the source/_posts directory.

Is there a better solution?

Trackback URLs

Do the kool kids still post to Trackback URLs? I mean, if a blog author is going to go to the trouble of providing a Trackback URL and you’re writing a blog post that compliments their post, why not hit their Trackback URL?

There is where I’m completely lost within Octopress/Jekyll. The site gets generated and uploaded. How would I post back to a blog author’s Trackback URL?

Summary

As I’m using Octopress more I really want to learn how to take advantage of it and Jekyll. I really want to learn about plugins and extensions. But I have two immediate needs: Drafts and Trackback URLs.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated (and blogged about).

Cheers

My friend Joey Beninghove started this weekly Developer Chat called Coder Talk. I tried getting on the very first session but my laptop decided to be mean; it was an excellent session on Cucumber and TDD. You’re going to have to trust me on this one because, unfortunately, the session wasn’t recorded.

But every session since then has been recorded, edited, and made available for listening; including tonight’s session on which I was able to join. Visit the site to get information on downloading previous sessions and joining the conversation.

Rails 3.1 Assest Pipeline

Disclaimer: I knew next to nothing about the pipeline before tonight’s session.

Because I still have Rails 2.x projects and my Rails 3.0 projects are not in production, I was not able to contribute during this part of the talk. However, from the conversation, I learned a lot; I feel I’ll be better prepared when I start using it.

To me, and I’m probably wrong and over simplifying and wrongly over simplifying, but to me it sounds like a mini-CDN embedded into my Rails app that should be behind a caching solution. But I could be wrong.

Upgrading Applications

This is a classic problem. ‘nuff said.

Splitting up your application

We had a quick chat on splitting up your application into more managable pieces, with a slant towards easier upgrading.

There was mention of needing Rails to make this easier but that position was contested, stating it’s more an architectural issue than a web framework issue.

There was a general consensus that Security makes the implementation of this application segmenting difficult, if not impossible. However, Engines was presented as a possible solution.

And as far as architecture goes: implementations can be realized either with a server-per-application-function or a port-per-application-function; and there may be something in-between or quite different all together. Regardless which architecture is selected, care must be taken when splitting up an applicaiton.

Hope to return

I hope I was able to contribute to the conversation. I had fun and would like to join in next week’s chat. And, while I had planned on doing some billable work, I’m very happy Joey called me.

Cheers

Again, Octopress made it simple by offering two configuration items I only had to set with the correct URLs.

I may (or may not) style the subscription buttons differenly when I retheme the site. I’m also considering creating a feedburner plugin that will pull in their styled buttons and/or chicklets.

What’s left on my list? you may wonder. Right now it’s creating a new theme for the blog and configuring ‘melriffe.com’ to resolve to this blog.

Cheers

This one was easy since I already have a Google Analytics account for my Business Website (http://juicyparts.com). Unfortunately the site’s currently: Under Construction

So, adding Analytics to my personal blog was fairly straightforward:

• Add a Web Property under my Analytics Profile
• Set google_analytics_tracking_id to the newly created property id
• Generate and Deploy site
• Wait for Google Analytics to detect the tracking id

Cheers

Octopress makes it very easy to integrate Disqus! into your blog: you just need the short_name. From start to finish it took me, roughly, 15m to enable comments.

First, I signed up for a Disqus! account; they’re free. Unfortunately, my initial short_name was already taken. I changed it to what this site will eventually become. I then enabled all the options I could.

Second, I signed up for an Akisment account because Disqus! offers Akisment integration. For personal blogs you can use Akisment for Free. With API Key in hand, I completed my Disqus! configuration.

Now, it is at this point I preview my site locally and beam, ear-to-ear upon seeing the Comments section. I deploy my site and verify that, indeed, folks can add comments; I add the first comment.

Then I start filling out my Disqus! profile, enabling services, changing my profile picture, following some folks. And I thought: Blog about enabling comments on your blog!

Cheers

While Noah, my son, has been in Cub Scouts for a few years, this is the first time we’ve tried online popcorn ordering. If you can help out, Noah would greatly appreciate your order. One of the benefits of ordering online is getting your order directly shipped to you.

Every sale will help Noah earn money for his Pack so they will be able to fund many of their planned activities. Did you know that 70% of your purchase goes to Noah’s Pack and Council?

I really want to emphasize the direct shipping. Because a large portion of our family lives out-of-state, it’s really difficult asking them to purchase popcorn and ship it to them. With online ordering, Trails End will ship the order directly to them.

Again, if you can help, it will be greatly appreciated!

Pack 503, Mechanisville, VA

Noah has been in this pack a couple of years. He’s a Webelow2 this year; next year he’ll be a Boy Scout. Last year was a really good year for him and he’s excited for this year. In fact, this weekend (17-18 Sep), he and his pack are going camping at Luary Caverns.

And Noah is really flourishing in Scouts. He’s quite the Outdoorsman and Craftsman.

Heather is now a Pack Leader, the Assistant Cub Master. If you know Heather then you know she’s a “hands-on” Mom. It was just a matter of time, in my opinion, before she would be helping to run Noah’s Pack.

If you’re in the Mechanicsville, VA area and would like to know more, feel free to contact me and I’ll put you in touch with the right people (i.e. Heather).

Cheers

• Comments
• New Theme
• Plugins
• Custom Domain

I think the new theme will be the toughest because I want to create it in the Style of existing Octopress Themes. Right now there are no dates associated to my tasks because it’s definitely ‘spare time’ activity. However, each new feature will have an associated blog post. Hopefully I can share something new for the folks.

Cheers

Yesterday

The Palm Pre was a good phone and I really liked WebOS; I liked the “swipe to dismiss an app” metaphor. But, alas, the good times had to end sometime. I was just hoping it would have been a little longer.

Last night, while getting out of my car I fumbled my phone. While it was falling, I over-reacted and actually hit it, propelling it to the floorboard. Due to damages already received from previous drops the screen cracked and there was no life visible when I powered it up. I was sad. I was very sad.

I was already considering upgrading my phone when my discount became available. Although my Pre was a good phone it started acting up; randomly calling people and bringing up apps. But now that it was broken I just decided to bite the bullet and upgrade. Oh sure, I could have had Sprint send it for repair but it was time to move on. It was time to retire the Pre; I don’t hold much hope in HP.

Today

So I jumped in my car and headed over the Sprint Corp. Store in downtown Short Pump. Though I don’t need the 3D camera I like the fact this version of the EVO has a better processor than its predessor.

As some may know I’ve been a Sprint Customer for years; since 1997 I believe. And now the entire family (sans 10 year old son) has cell phones and yadda, yadda, yadda.

They (Sprint) get you with the discounted prices and because I didn’t have any upgrades available (every 2y a phone is availble for an upgrade) I had to pay full price. Ouch! But doable!

I have a lot to learn about the phone and its capabilities. But, at least, I know how to take/receive a call.

Tomorrow

Will this be the phone that entices me to do some Android development? Inquiring minds want to know…

Cheers