Avi Tzurel

Copy files from remote server to your local box

2012-01-17T17:42:00+02:00

I work a lot with remote servers (as any developer working with production).

Sometimes, I want to download a file from the remote server to my local box, this includes log files, maybe some mysql backup or generally any other file.

I can’t copy the file to an HTTP accessible location and download since all of the servers are behind a load balancer and it will probably get to a 404.

To copy a file from a remote server to my local box I use this

scp {username}@{server_address}:{file_location} .

Sometimes your server requires a key file

scp -i {key_file_location} {username}@{server_address}:{file_location} .

For the times when you need something quick, just to download a log file and continue with it, this works out great.

Rails polymorphic association without the type column, possible?

2011-12-16T19:01:00+02:00

These last two weeks has been very hard on me, this post will describe why and how you can help me

Around two weeks ago, I started doing heavy database optimizations on the Gogobot website, after a discussion with a DBA from Percona.

Changing the database schema of such a big app is not easy let me tell you, you need to make sure you break nothing, write more tests, unit and integration.

I found out many things about Rails, ActiveRecord and mysql during those 2 weeks, I found creative ways to save many GB on the tables size and on the index size. (posts coming up, I promise).

Now, one of the things (very first things) the DBA mentioned was that the use of polymorphic associations is not recommended in mysql.

Since when you use it, you need two columns item_id, item_type (in most cases).

item_type is a string “Hotel”, “User” etc… and since this is UTF-8 it’s actually taking up lots of space on the row size and on the index size.

Because of mysql limitations, when your row is too big, mysql will fall back to disk, and this is a very bad thing (VERY!)

What he suggested was to move to an enum column in mysql and just have all of our type in the enum, this way you can save lots of time on the query (like 50%) and the index will be much smaller, which will also result in querying straight from the index (if you use the right queries).

To make a long story short.

Rails doesn’t support mysql enum column (and boy did it take energy to find out) and for some reason even using the enum_column_3 gem had errors when dumping the schema to the schema.rb file.

Some air, thinking time…

At Gogobot, we have unique id’s for each object, no model has the same range of id’s as another model, from the id I can have the model type, I don’t need the class name.

We made it so we can simplify API calls and not use a composite id.

Now, we have that, so I was wondering if I could leverage that into using it in the polymorphic associations.

I started going through the AR code, but this is an open call for all you Rails experts out there, can you suggest a solution for this situation?

Comments?

I would love a discussion on that as well…

Thanks

Replace the Hash syntax to the 1.9 syntax for all files, with a regular expression

2011-12-13T09:46:00+02:00

This morning I got this email from my buddy @elado.

At Gogobot we try to keep everyone on the same coding style as much as we can, follow conventions and readability.

This works best for us since you can be reading code someone else wrote and you won’t feel alienated.

Any way, back to the email, here’s a quote…

Hi guys,
Whoever isn't yet, can you please start using colon notation for hashes instead of arrows?
RIGHT:
render partial: "name", locals: { item: item }

:DEPRECATED =>
render :partial => "name", :locals => { :item => item }

Now, like I said in my reply, I am one of the culprits doing that still, but definitely not alone :-)

So, I replied with a challenge, here’s what I wrote…

Good idea, although I admit I am one of the culprits, it's just embedded into my brain.
I'll do my best...
Challenge for @elado, regular expression to replace those with bash script...

Now, Elad is known as “The Regex king” amongst other nicknames.

After about 10 minutes, I get a Skype ping, Elado is telling me to check my email, this is what I see…

Dir['**/*.rb'].each { |f|
  s = open(f).read
  awesome_rx = /(?<!return)(?<!:)(?<!\w)(\s+):(\w+)\s*=>/
  count = s.scan(awesome_rx).length
  next if count.zero?
  s.gsub!(awesome_rx, '\1\2:')
  puts "#{count} replacements @ #{f}"
  open(f, 'w') { |b| b << s }
}

we did not end up running it on the project, but we definitely plan on running it on files we are working on, so when we commit it will be with the new Syntax.

Thanks to @elado for the awesomeness.

UPDATE: Elad thought it was worth a post as well, so here’s a link to his blog here.

Get information about all your mysql database tables with a single query

2011-12-12T23:07:00+02:00

I am working on tweaking our database these days, doing tons of work on making the queries faster, making sure the users are not being delayed by infrastructure stuff.

One piece of info I wanted was to get a quick birds eye view of all the tables I have in the database, how many rows, what is the avg row length (for index purpose), size in MB and the size of the index in MB.

All you need to do is exeucute this query (set the DB name to your database name and you are done).

set @database='db_name';
select table_name, 
                engine, 
                row_format, 
                table_rows, 
                avg_row_length, 
                (data_length+index_length)/1024/1024 as total_size, 
                (index_length)/1024/1024 as index_size 
        from 
                information_schema.tables 
        where 
                table_schema=@database 
        order by 
                6 desc;

As always, I would love your feedback

A Whole new page

2011-12-10T00:00:00+02:00

This blog is brand new, on Saturday, December 09 2011, for some reason which is still not clear to me, my wordpress website was wiped clean.

I have been meaning to move to jekyll for a while now, so I took it as an opportunity to start fresh, new theme, simpler, cleaner and I am ready to go.

Hope to see you here.

Setup your laptop for Ruby and Rails development

2011-11-15T00:00:00+02:00

Setting up a new machine has never been an easy task, I remember back in the days where I was a windows user, setting up a new machine was a real pain in the ass.

I used to write everything I had installed on a piece of paper and then go one by one and install everything, if I needed to download it could take even days to get a new machine up to speed.

Today I am a Mac user (Thank god), so installing a new machine for myself is the easiest, I simply restore it from a time machine, and I am ready to go in a matter of minutes (well, maybe more, because the data can take quite some GB’s)

At Gogobot, we have new developers coming in (Yeah, we are growing), they all get a brand new Mac machine and they need to get it up and running, this is a common thing, since many developer buy new machines and they want the environment for Ruby, Rails, RVM and the rest of the stack be ready for them, no hassle.

When I came in to Gogobot, we were still running on rails 2 with no bundler, so this was a bigger pain, but today, we are on rails 3 and we have bundler which certainly makes the process easier, but still, not as easy as I wanted it to be.

Our development environment uses almost across the stack technologies, we use mysql of course, we use Redis, memcached, Resque, SOLR and many more, so installing everything can take a long time.

We wanted to take this pain away, enabling new developers (and of course all of the community) to get their machines up and running in a matter of minutes with no interruption for the developer. So, while the developer is doing his tour around the system, his machine will be ready for him when he gets back.

(B.T.W, I keep saying him, but I am referring to female developers as well, don’t get me wrong here ha…)

Last week, I got me a brand new machine, and I could not access my time machine (I was out of my house).

So, I said this is a good opportunity to do what I wanted to do in ages now and get this script up and running.

I cheated I started with a script Thoughbot had released, I tweaked it and twisted it to fit our needs.

I got my new machine up and running with our project in about 20 minutes, that was amazing and it certainly breaks a Gogobot record.

So, as I always do when I have something half decent, I released it as open source.

You can find it here

Please feel free to use it, if you are having any issues, open an issue in the repo and I will try to address it.

Keep in mind the script is provided AS IS.

Kill all resque workers with a single command

2011-09-17T00:00:00+03:00

At Gogobot we are running background processes with Resque.

We are using God to start workers on all servers, both front end and back end (with different queues).

God sometimes has an issue with leaving some stale workers laying around which cache old code, so if you change your code, this is your enemy since you start seeing failed jobs that should not fail what so ever.

Even when you stop the rakes (Workers run by rake) with god, it will still leave those lying around.

In one word, Frustrating…

So, I was IM’ng with Chiu-Ki and we were talking about killing workers, and I was telling her how to kill those.

She told me she has a shell script for it.

There you go…

sudo kill -9  `ps aux | grep [r]esque | grep -v grep | cut -c 10-16`

and if you just want to test before doing some killing, you can run this:

echo `ps aux | grep [r]esque | grep -v grep | cut -c 10-16`

Of course after this GOD will restart the workers with the new code and that’s it, you have fresh workers, with new code, ready to be up and running.

Re-Queue failed jobs with Resque

2011-09-08T00:00:00+03:00

I have been working with resque for about 1-2 months now, while migrating an application from rails 2 to rails 3, I have switched from Delayed Jobs almost completely.

Sometimes, your workers / jobs fail and you need to re-queue them.

The trick is to requeue the job and remove it from the failed stats, this way, if it will fail again, the next time you re-queue the job will not be executed twice.

Here’s the code (from a rake task I have)

(Resque::Failure.count-1).downto(0).each {|i|
  begin
    Resque::Failure.requeue(i)
    Resque::Failure.remove(i)
  rescue Exception => e
    puts e
  end
}
sleep(5.minutes)

I have this rake running every X minutes and requeing failed tasks. If a task keeps failing, then I can check the code in depth and check what the problem is, but sometimes it’s just failing due to HTTP error or something else not related to the code.

Hope this helps.

Drop me a line if it does or you have questions and comments.

Rails uninitialized constant Resque::Server

2011-08-31T00:00:00+03:00

One of the most significant changes in my migration of a rails app from Rails 2.3.10 to rails 3.0.9 was the move from delayed_jobs to Resque.

Resque is a Queue system that’s based on Redis, which is much faster and reduces the load on your database. Also we were experiencing some nasty deadlocks with delayed jobs that really broke our transactions and our backs.

I installed the gem and installed Redis on my development machine, mounted the Sinatra app on my rails app and navigated to the web view of resque.

Then, I saw this error:

	RuntimeError at /resque/overview
	ERR unknown command 'server'
	file: client.rb location: call line: 47

Which looked like that:

After doing some digging into the code (as I always do when I encountered a problem with a gem), I found that the version of the gem (resque) I was using called the “server” method on the redis instance which was not there any more.

Looking at the code for the new gem showed that the app is now using the property “redis_id” which looks like this:

	def redis_id
	  # support 1.x versions of redis-rb
	  if redis.respond_to?(:server)
	    redis.server
	    elsif redis.respond_to?(:nodes) # distributed
	      redis.nodes.map { |n| n.id }.join(', ')
	    else
	      redis.client.id
	  end
	end

Upgrading the gem to the newest version solved my problem and everything got back to normal. So, if you encounter this issue, just upgrade the resque gem and you are all good.

The gem version I was using was “resque (1.8.2)”, now I am using “resque (1.18.2)”

As always, if this post was helpful, drop me a comment, I would love to hear.

Use specific version of RubyGems per project with RVM

2011-08-24T00:00:00+03:00

If you’re following this blog (and of course you should), you know by now that I have been upgrading a bug project to rails 3. One of the things that I needed to do was to upgrade RubyGems.

Since I did not make the switch completely (production still on rails 2.3.10), I’m fixing p0 bugs on the old project and merging the changes.

One problem I encountered is that rails 2.3.10 does not run with the latest RubyGems.

Since I am using RVM, it made since that this project will run on a specific version of RubyGems and the main project (the rails 3 one) will run on the latest.

It turned out to be very simple:

rvm rubygems 1.4.2

Once you execute this bit of code, it will download RubyGems and this RVM folder will use it.

As always, if this helped you, drop me a note, let me know.

Mount a Sinatra app on your Ruby on rails (3) application

2011-08-22T00:00:00+03:00

I have been migrating a Rails 2.3.10 application to Rails 3.0.9, while doing so I also migrated our queue system from delayed_jobs that ripped our system apart to Resque.

Resque comes with a Sintra app to monitor the Queue, see what’s going on and what jobs failed etc.

It’s very convenient and you can really grasp what’s going on with your system. I really missed that in delayed_job (amongst other things).

So, I wanted to mount this Sinatra app onto our rails application.

It turns out to be VERY easy and straight forward.

Just add this to your routes.rb file:

mount Resque::Server, :at => "/resque"

In an initializer, just require the “resque/server” and you are done!

Uninitialized constant Syck::Syck (NameError)

2011-08-16T00:00:00+03:00

It’s old news for you devoted reader, but as you know I love coding with Ruby on Rails and that’s what my story for today is all about.

I just spent about an hour scratching my head and throwing my keyboard (don’t tell Jobs) around my home office on this issue.

I am upgrading an existing project (guess which…) from rails2 and ruby1.8.7 to rails3 and ruby 1.9.2.

First thing is of course installing bundler and working with the Gemfile (thank god).

So, when I did “bundle install” it crashed on me with this error message:

Fetching source index for http://rubygems.org/
/Users/avitzurel/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/specification.rb:289:in `load': uninitialized constant Syck::Syck (NameError)
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/specification.rb:289:in `_load'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/spec_fetcher.rb:133:in `load'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/lib/ruby/site_ruby/1.9.1/rubygems/spec_fetcher.rb:133:in `fetch_spec'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/remote_specification.rb:47:in `_remote_specification'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/remote_specification.rb:53:in `method_missing'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:101:in `block in __dependencies'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:98:in `each'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:98:in `__dependencies'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:68:in `activate_platform'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:317:in `resolve_requirement'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:287:in `block in resolve'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:286:in `reverse_each'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:286:in `resolve'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:160:in `start'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:128:in `block in resolve'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:127:in `catch'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/resolver.rb:127:in `resolve'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/definition.rb:151:in `resolve'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/definition.rb:90:in `specs'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/definition.rb:85:in `resolve_remotely!'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/installer.rb:43:in `run'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/installer.rb:8:in `install'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/cli.rb:220:in `install'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/task.rb:22:in `run'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/invocation.rb:118:in `invoke_task'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/vendor/thor.rb:263:in `dispatch'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/lib/bundler/vendor/thor/base.rb:386:in `start'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/gems/bundler-1.0.17/bin/bundle:13:in `<top (required)>'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/bin/bundle:19:in `load'
	from /Users/avitzurel/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@rails_3_gogobot/bin/bundle:19:in `<main>'

After digging around the web, reading some useless information that it’s relevance to my issue was close to zero, I updated rubygems on my system to the latest version and this solved the problem.

I executed this command:

gem update --system

Hope this saves you some time, if it does, drop me a comment let me know.

Thanks!

Capistrano - Deploy to servers from different load balancers

2011-08-09T00:00:00+03:00

As I posted back on March 14th, I work at Gogobot, an app that connects you with your friends all over the world and helps you plan your next new travel.

At Gogobot we are working with Capistrano to deploy our production and to our staging servers.

Recently, we changed out architecture and we now have user facing production servers (where you see the pages coming from) and backend servers that run delayed_jobs, resque, photos uploading and many more things that have no business in affecting the load of the user experience.

So, of course we did not want to deploy twice, once for the http servers and once for the backed servers, so I changed the deploy script.

The important thing to understand is that due to loads, we don’t just write the server DNS’s in the deploy script, we change the number of servers constantly so we want to do it very dynamically and just grab the servers from the load balancer that it’s attached to.

For example, if we have 100 servers on the front end and 50 servers on the backend, we will deploy to 150 servers and tomorrow that number can change, and we will need no change in the deploy script.

This is the deploy script part that handles the servers:

def fetch_from_ec2
    require 'right_aws'
    instances_for_deploy = []

    [backend_load_balancer, aws_load_balancer].each do |load_balancer|
      payload = elb.describe_load_balancers(load_balancer)
      instances = aws.describe_instances payload.first[:instances]
      instances_for_deploy += instances.collect{|instance| instance[:dns_name] if (instance[:aws_state] == 'running')}
    end
    instances_for_deploy
end

This is the target of capistrano:

role :app do
  ENV['TARGET'] || fetch_from_ec2
end

So, if there’s an ENV variable defined called ‘TARGET’ the script will only deploy to this server, if not, it will deploy to all of the servers from the load balancers.

Now, in the production.rb in your deploy folder, all you need is to define the load balancer names:

set :aws_load_balancer, "prod-load-balancer-name"
set :backend_load_balancer, "backend-load-balancer-name"

Fuck you, pay me!

2011-07-12T00:00:00+03:00

As every developer, I am a member of numerous groups, email groups, chats, forums, facebook groups, Quora etc…

Usually, I really try and help people in those groups, even if they ask the most simple question, one that a developer with just a few years behind him take for absolute granted. Once in a while, there’s a question that hits me in the stomach, that touches a nerve.

I am far from taking any of this too personally, this is also becuase I will never follow up on these offers, but the reason it makes me angry is becuase other people might, some developer with less experience might fall into the bullshit some slick salesman sells to them.

One of these questions was posted today to a user group I am a member of in Israel, it’s a forum for web developers.

The message was posted by an SEO company representetive, most of the time just this title is enough to get what the content is about.

What was the message about and why did it make me angry?

Well, the message went on and on as in how they are one of the leading companies in Israel (but provided no link to a website, nor the company email, or even the name). He said that over time, they gained an astonishing experience in developing content management systems (but have none of their own).

Now, they are looking for a guy (it’s ok if he will be a beginner), that will work for no money, just for the amazing experience they have.

They will give him tips as to what the system should look like, and then he will develop it. They will then sell it to customers and “most” of the profit will go to that developer.

No data was supplied as to what the demands are and what is the quantity of the work.

Just in case you know how to read Hebrew, here’s a link to the message: here

Fuck you pay me!

A while ago, I watched a presentation over on Vimeo that was really well put together. It was nothing new to me, and I have experience these sort of behaviors when I was the CTO of a web design/development firm. What’s amazing about this talk, is that when you take out the language, it’s structured really well, and the attourney speaking there is quite a sharp guy.

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from San Francisco Creative Mornings on Vimeo.

So, what is my point?

Well, I talked about the message that through me into this post, I talked about the presentation, so what the hell is my point?

My point is that you should not work while not getting payed! Never, Ever.

The only exception is that if you are in a partnership with a party on the same professional level as you.

The relatioship between you should be equal, what this guy is offering is far from it.

No serious professional developer I know will ever follow up on these suggestion, nor should any beginner developer.

The business of free

There are many things you can do for free that will promote you as a professional and as a person. You can build a website for a charity organization, you can contribute to open source project etc…

As a conclusion, you can watch this funny as hell youtube video.

Is this post the entrepreneur killer?

No, it is not, I am not going against people in pursuit of their dream, I am not going against people who build a startup from the ground up, I am going against messages targetting youg developers, dismissing the professional capabilities our business demands and holding back the web.

That is what I am against, nothing else.

Personal note

I really don’t get the people offering these things, how do they run a business and how are they able to request such a thing.

Did any of them ever offer anything to a client for free, will they give me a car with a sticker advertising their business?

What do you think? Comment below and let’s discuss this issue…

Get shit done. I mean it!

2011-07-11T00:00:00+03:00

Like any other web developer that respects what he does, I am constantly trying to better myself as to how productive I am, how much I am really getting done and what is the quality of what I do.

Along the way, I tried many systems and methods for getting myself in focus, for not getting distracted by all the noise, both digital (mostly) and human around me.

I think that finally after a long time, I did find what I was looking for, and there’s nothing fancy about it, no fancy system, no calm music no nothing.

So, what is it?

First, let’s focus on the problem, as I am sure most of you will relate to it.

The problem, and this comes as a personal confession of mine as well, is all of the so called “social” websites, and all of the news around us. Think about it really, in an average day, you are exposed to so much digital noise that can blow your head. There’s Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, DM, Email, Messages etc… How will you be able to get shit done with all of these in your way?

Well, You can’t, at least I can’t.

Let’s talk about a slice of 10 minutes from a regular, not that focused day of programming.

But first, a short introduction…

You come to work, maybe you are a bit tired, you are not the “sharpest” that you can be, your mind drifts to the car you want to buy, to those shiny Dr. Dre headphones in the Apple store on University Ave. Palo Alto.

Well, you get the drift, you are not as concentrated in the work as you should be, Add an iPhone notifications through Facebook to that mix and you get a mishmush of thoughts that can go through your mind in a single minute.

My focus is very fragile, if I don’t really focus at what I do, I can’t be the coding machine that people think of me, I really can’t. So, back to the slice of 10 minutes of work.

00:00 – Sit down, open up textmate on the project 01:00 – Open up the test and save it, just to see nothing breaks 02:00 – Watch the console as it goes green on 100+ tests 03:00 – Forget you are doing something, go to Facebook 10:00 – hehe, this is a funny youtube kitten @elado posted.

Maybe, I got the times wrong, but the second your mind gets a chance (probably before minute 3) it will drift away to the less painfull, not thinking part of it (a.k.a twitter and facebook).

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE twitter and I LOVE facebook, it’s just there’s a time and a place for these websites and coding time aint one of them.** What have I tried and failed (and probably you did too)I tried being tough on myself, I tried closing up my facebook account and removing the Twitter icon from the dock.

Nothing helped, the behaviour pattern is so embedded in me, that it just failed.

What the hell does Cezar Millan got to do with that?

Cezar Millan is the dog whisperrer, I am addicted to his show on National Geographic. What he always does, to snap a dog (sorry about the comparison here, stay with me) out of his bad behavior is touch him firmly on the body.

Well, I thought about it, but the conclusion was not that I hit myself every time I go to Facebook, it’s just a virtual slap in the face.

OK, I am getting to the point.

So, what’s a slap in the face virtaully, when you want to go to Facebook.

This is:

How did I do it?

At first, I did it manually, I changed the hosts file on my Mac, and made all of the websites I don’t want just go to localhost. That is brutal force right.

BUT

That was all I needed to get back to focus, the distraction part was so automatic, I did not intentionally go to Facebook (I swear), I just did it in a moment where my mind drifted, in the nanosecond where focus is fragile. So now, when I do it, I just see the Forbidden message and go right back to work.

And then, it got even better.

But I will let you see for yourself.

You can go to my fork of the repository here

Now, all I do when I want to really work and focus is go to the terminal and hit

sudo get-shit-done work

and when I have time, like after lunch for 10 min’s or so, or at night from home is just

sudo get-shit-done play

Beautiful, elegant and simple solution for the problem, it helped me a great deal to be much more productive and my focus now lasts for hours (that sounded like a cheap Viagra spam message )

Foursquare live updates with the Push API using rails.

2011-06-02T00:00:00+03:00

Recently, I have been working extensively with the Foursquare API, also contributing to the open source foursquare2 gem.

While working on these features, I got a sneak peak preview to the new push API through Foursquare. Until I got that, I needed to pull checkins for each user, which was a slow and unefficient process.

Facebook had this feature for a while that for every checkin a user has, the application (he authorized) get a push notification to a callback URL – this is highly effective and more streamlined process.

So, Foursquare added it and like I said, I was happy to get a sneak peak to it.

Since it has no documentation yet, adding it to the application was not as smooth as I am used to, so I thought I would post the code for it on my blog, so you will have it easier then me :-)

Foursquare posts the json for the checkin to your controller with no parameter, so you need to use the post body in order to read it.

Here’s the controller code:

class FsRealtimeController < ApplicationController
  protect_from_forgery :except => 'post'

  def post
    posted_json = request.body.read

    if posted_json.blank?
      render :nothing => true
      return
    end

    parsed_json = JSON.parse(posted_json.to_s)

   # Do whatever you want with the parsed json

    render :nothing => true
  end
end

The typical json will look something like this:

{
"checkin": {
"createdAt": 1298129668,
"id": "4d5fe304d7206ea8e90aeef1",
"shout": "#4sqhackathon",
"timeZone": "America/New_York",
"type": "checkin",
"venue": {
"categories": [
{
"icon": "http://foursquare.com/img/categories/building/default.png",
"id": "4bf58dd8d48988d125941735",
"name": "Tech Startup",
"parents": [
"Home / Work / Other",
"Corporate / Office"
],
"primary": true
}
],
"contact": {
"twitter": "gnrlassembly"
},
"id": "4c5c076c7735c9b6af0e8b72",
"location": {
"address": "902 Broadway, 4th Floor",
"city": "New York",
"crossStreet": "btw 20th and 21st",
"lat": 40.739197437761383,
"lng": -73.989760279655457,
"postalCode": "10010",
"state": "NY"
},
"name": "General Assembly",
"stats": {
"checkinsCount": 1357,
"usersCount": 557
},
"todos": {
"count": 0
},
"verified": false
}
},
"user": {
"firstName": "Neil",
"gender": "male",
"homeCity": "New York, NY",
"id": "2097",
"lastName": "Sanchala",
"photo": "http://playfoursquare.s3.amazonaws.com/userpix_thumbs/0QYGOJMDGLTJOOQG.jpg",
"relationship": "self"
}
}

You can find some more details here (json from the link).

Install Membase 1.6.5.3 on Amazon EC2 and configure it on EBS.

2011-05-15T00:00:00+03:00

As your application grows (like ours did) you will need more space to store your cache.

In our case, we needed to move from memcached to membase and make use of both memory and disk space. The decision was made and we decided to go with a 2 server solution, each server has 16G of memory and 100G of EBS volume attached to it. Also, both will have membase latest stable version installed and perform as a cluster in case one falls or anything happens, a fail safe if you will.

In this post, I will walk you though what was done to perform this and how exactly it was done on the amazon cloud.

First things first, select an AMI from your list and click on “Launch instance”.

You will see a dialog popup where you need to select the instance type.

I selected the 16G memory server, I launched 2 instances from this type. Like I said before, I wanted those to perform in a cluster so I will have a fail safe option.

Now, you have 2 servers up and running. Because those servers are serving as a membase solution to production servers, I also configured an elastic IP to them.

Now, let’s create our volumes.

Creating EBS volumes and attaching to your instance

Go to the EBS section and click on create volume (top right in this image).

You will see this dialog:

Just select how many Gigs you want, availability zone (make sure it’s the same as the server availability zone or you will have performance issues).

Once the EBS volumes (I needed 2) are ready, all you need is to attach those to your servers.

You right click on the volume and select “attach”, you will see very detailed information about what you need to do there (very simple)

OK, so now we have our servers and volumes attached to them (instances don’t “know” the EBS’s yet).

SSH into your instance.

Mounting your EBS volume to the instance

After you ssh into your instance run these commands to have your volume installed on the instance (You can mount in another folder and not the one I selected here).

yes | mkfs -t ext3 /dev/sdf
mkdir /mnt/data-store
mount /dev/sdf /mnt/data-store

This will mount the EBS to the /mnt/data-store folder, which we will use in a few minutes to have membase work on this folder and not steal space from the server main disk (which will result in a crash).

Downloading and installing membase on your new instance

First, a cleanup…

I had the instances created from an AMI that already had a previous version of membase (1.6.4) installed on it. So first, you will need to clean those up like so:

rpm -e membase-server-1.6.5.3

Now, go to membase.com, register for the download and you will be able to download the package you need, you can select from a variety of versions.

Copy the download link and go back to your server.

Put this in your shell and click ‘Enter’.

wget your_download_link

I have a server with RPM but it’s all the same with another package manager.

After you have the file downloaded to the server, run this command:

rpm --install your_rpm_file.rpm

Now you have membase installed on the server. Congrats! All should be running now.

Configuring the membase server after installation

From here, you can read the getting started in the membase wiki, it’s very good from here on:

Getting started guide, Couchbase website.

Ssl Verification Issue With The Foursquare2 Gem

2011-04-27T00:00:00+03:00

Liquid error: undefined method `gsub' for nil:NilClass

Solving the SSL issue with the Rapleaf API

2011-04-25T00:00:00+03:00

While working with the Rapleaf API, I encountered some major issues with SSL on production and staging servers.

Discarding what I did, the application just couldn’t get through to the external service using SSL and kept giving me errors regarding SSL communication.

After reading the Rapleaf gem documentation I found that you should reference your certificate file, this “telling” the service where your certificate file is.

I am working with Amazon EC2 for deployment of my application, both for production and for staging, I had some trouble finding the file, so I executed a unix command and found the files in no time.

Here’s how you find the file:

find / -name '*.pem'

Once you find the file, you just create the API instance and refer to it’s path like so:

@api = RapleafApi::Api.new("YOUR_API_KEY", :timeout => 10, :ca_file => "path_to_pem_file")

Have fun!

Set the correct content type when using paperclip

2011-04-24T00:00:00+03:00

I have been using paperclip for image uploads for quite some time now. On a project I am doing right now, I encountered a problem that all of the file uploaded were not in the correct content type. The content type was set as stream and not as the image type that was uploaded. After some research I found that this problem was occurring because in the file upload process I was using fancy upload (Ajax upload using flash). The fix was very simple, I just added another post process callback on the model like so:

before_post_process :set_content_type

def set_content_type
  self.sketch.instance_write(:content_type, MIME::Types.type_for(self.sketch_file_name).to_s)
end

Keep in mind you should put this method after the has_attached_file method that paperclip adds or you will get an exception. Like so:

  has_attached_file :avatar,
    :styles =>
    {
      :thumb => "55x55>",
      :preview => "175x175>",
      :huge => "500x500>"
    },
    :storage => :s3,
    :s3_credentials => "#{Rails.root}/config/s3.yml",
    :path => ":class/:attachment/:token/:style.:extension",
    :bucket => 'your_bucket_name',
    :default_url => "/images/photo01.jpg"

  before_post_process :set_content_type

If you are using Ajax/flash upload, this is the fix for you. The best thing about it is that it’s on the model, using the slim controller fat model best practice and thus it will also happen regardless of the controller you are using to upload the image.

Set the correct content type when using paperclip

2011-04-24T00:00:00+03:00

How can you set the correct content type of the file when working with the paperclip gem.

Meet the client

2011-03-14T00:00:00+02:00

Kenso specilizes in Web Development and works with local and international clients. Recently Kenso started to work with Gogobot, which is an app that connects you with friends all over the world and makes your travel planning easier and exciting.

To better understand what’s and who’s Gogobot, here is a short video about the company’s product.

Another great explanation by Travis Katz, the CEO and co-founder of Gogobot.

Kenso's Job

Kenso will be aiding the company with:

Ruby on Rails development
Matching Algorithm Development
Client side development

Use before_destroy on a model with paperclip

2011-01-04T10:19:57+02:00

I have an application that I’m working on, this application has a demand that I will show the total files and the file total size inside a project. Here is my model:

Of course I have the option of using joins and so on and then calculating the file size, but because every project has many folders and every folder has many attachments this seems a bit off and not straight forward.

This is absolutely not the Rails way of doing things, so what I added a couple of fields inside the project model and here is what my model looked like after the change:

Now, I have straight forward fields inside my model, and the database work is very light, fast and straight forward. I added an observer for the attachment model, just to update the count and the total file size in the project model.

Here’s my observer’s code:

class AttachmentObserver &lt; ActiveRecord::Observer
  observe :attachment

  def after_create(record)
    project = record.project
    if project
      project.increment!(:file_count, 1)
      project.increment!(:file_size, record.sketch_file_size) unless record.sketch_file_size.nil?
    end
    return true
  end

  def before_destroy(record)
    project = record.project
    if project
      project.decrement!(:file_count, 1)
      project.decrement!(:file_size, record.sketch_file_size) unless record.sketch_file_size.nil?
    end
    return true
  end
end

I added the observer to the application configuration.

Now, everything seemed to be working fine on create, when I deleted a model (deleted an attachment) I got a nil exception on the skecth_file_size property. The problem is that the paperclip plugin deleted the sketch file before my callback and so prevented me from using it.

This required a patch to the paperclip plugin.

Inside the paperclip plugin there’s a file called paperclip.rb Ffor me, it was line 242, I changed it from before_destroy to after_destory like so:

after_destroy :destroy_attached_files

Now, also in attachment.rb (also in paperclip plugin)

For me it was line 335:

unless instance.frozen?
  instance_write(:file_name, nil)
  instance_write(:content_type, nil)
  instance_write(:file_size, nil)
  instance_write(:updated_at, nil)
end

This worked like a charm and now my callback works, updating the model of the project as the files are adding and deleting, I don’t have to do complicated joins to get simple data.

Here’s how it looks in my application now:

This is the code I use to make it happen:

  &lt;h2&gt;
    &lt;%= @project.name %&gt;
  &lt;/h2&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;%= &quot;#{@project.file_count} files, #{number_to_human_size(@project.file_size)}&quot;%&gt;&lt;/em&gt;

Use token instead of id in paperclip's path

2010-12-17T12:52:27+02:00

I have been using paperclip in more then a couple of applications that I’m developing now, I really like it and it gives me the flexibility that I require.

caption id=”” align=”alignnone” width=”500” caption=”Url with Token example”/caption

A couple of days ago, I wanted the path of the file to include a token instead of the id of a user class.

This was my code before the change:

  has_attached_file :avatar,
    :styles =&gt;
    {
      :tiny =&gt; &quot;48x48&gt;&quot;,
      :preview =&gt; &quot;175x175&gt;&quot;,
      :large =&gt; &quot;300x300&gt;&quot;,
      :huge =&gt; &quot;500x500&gt;&quot;
    },
    :storage =&gt; :s3,
    :s3_credentials =&gt; &quot;#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/s3.yml&quot;,
    :path =&gt; &quot;:class/:attachment/:id/:style.:extension&quot;,
    :bucket =&gt; 'lopsum',
    :default_url =&gt; &quot;/images/photo01.jpg&quot;

Notice that the path parameter includes the id of the user, this was not the requirement, because if this in an id parameter then the URL’s will be very easy to resolve and I of course don’t want that for user privacy.

I don’t want anyone to change the URL and get to the other profile images easily.

So, I needed a token which will be a random string for each user and I wanted that to be included in the path. This way, no one can tell the other paths in the system (it’s harder, a lot harder).

So, first thing first, I added this code to the user model:

  validates_presence_of :token

  protected
    def before_validation_on_create
      self.token = rand(36**10).to_s(36).upcase if self.new_record? and self.token.nil?
    end

I used a random code, you can of course use MD5 of the date or whatever you may want, just replace this code:

rand(36**10).to_s(36).upcase

Now that I have a token saved in the database I changed the image saving code to this:

  has_attached_file :avatar,
    :styles =&gt;
    {
      :tiny =&gt; &quot;48x48&gt;&quot;,
      :preview =&gt; &quot;175x175&gt;&quot;,
      :large =&gt; &quot;300x300&gt;&quot;,
      :huge =&gt; &quot;500x500&gt;&quot;
    },
    :storage =&gt; :s3,
    :s3_credentials =&gt; &quot;#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/s3.yml&quot;,
    :path =&gt; &quot;:class/:attachment/:token/:style.:extension&quot;,
    :bucket =&gt; 'lopsum',
    :default_url =&gt; &quot;/images/photo01.jpg&quot;

This code did not work, the path only included the word :token but without the actual token from the database.

So, how can you fix this?

You need to add an initializer for paperclip.

You add a file called paperclip.rb into the config/initializers folder

You paste in this code:

Paperclip.interpolates :token do |attachment, style|
  attachment.instance.token
end

This will “tokenize” your user avatar path.

Removing a model from your rails project

2010-11-24T19:59:11+02:00

During the work on a project I created a model. Right after clicking the Enter key I realized that I didn’t need it and wanted to roll back. Because I am using GIT, I could of course have done this using it, but I wanted to do it using a Rails command. Turns out, there’s a command to do this (if you haven’t migrated the db yet). The command is as follows:

script/destroy model contact

This will remove all of the files that were added by this command.

script/generate model contact user_id:integer type:integer

Nice to know you can either do this with GIT or with Rails. Obviously the best solution is to think before you click Enter :-) but it’s nice to know nevertheless.

A solution for the “I Follow” bug with cucumber and Capybara

2010-11-23T17:21:29+02:00

While working on a new application and writing tests I encountered a problem: This is the test I have been using:

  Scenario: Deleting a project from the main page
    Given I am on the account home page
	When I follow &quot;Delete Project&quot;
	Then I should see &quot;Your project has been deleted&quot;

The error that was shown is this:

undefined local variable or method `node' for #&lt;Capybara::Driver::Node tag=&quot;a&quot; ...

Here’s a screen shot of the test run:

After browsing around for quite some time, I found that the error is originated with this line in env.rb file:

require 'cucumber/rails/capybara_javascript_emulation' # Lets you click links with onclick javascript handlers without using @culerity or @javascript

Commenting out this line solved the problem for me and now I can continue with my testing. I hope it will solve your problem as well.

Pluralization in flex application(s)

2010-10-28T18:42:32+02:00

As you may know (or not) I am a Flex developer, I am also a Ruby On Rails developer.

As a Ruby On Rails developer I often find myself hoping just a fraction of the stuff Ruby On Rails has would come to Flex or someone will port parts of it to Action Script 3.

This week I had a bug reported by a client that the alerts he received from the systems are inconsistent to the amount of items he is selecting.

For instance, he has a grid showing modules, and he can delete the selected item/s, when he clicks delete he gets the standard confirm message “are you sure you want to delete the selected module”, this message is the same when more then a single module is selected.

This is across the entire system and not only in this single module.

So, I sat down, scratched my head for a little while and then remembered that Ruby On Rails has something like that - out of the box and it’s called Pluralization (Inflector).

It goes something like this:

&lt;%= pluralize(messages.length, &quot;module&quot;) %&gt;

I googled for a bit and found that http://flexonrails.net/ had an as3 version of that, I rewrote it a bit, exposed only one function outside and this is the outcome (complete code):

package com.kensodev
{
	public class PluralizationHelper
	{
		public function PluralizationHelper()
		{
		}

		static:{
			PluralizationHelper.initPluralization();
		}

		private static var pluralWords : Array =
			[
				[/$/, 's'],
				[/s$/i, 's'],
				[/(ax|test)is$/i, '$1es'],
				[/(octop|vir)us$/i, '$1i'],
				[/(alias|status)$/i, '$1es'],
				[/(bu)s$/i, '$1ses'],
				[/(buffal|tomat)o$/i, '$1oes'],
				[/([ti])um$/i, '$1a'],
				[/sis$/i, 'ses'],
				[/(?:([^f])fe|([lr])f)$/i, '$1$2ves'],
				[/(hive)$/i, '$1s'],
				[/([^aeiouy]|qu)y$/i, '$1ies'],
				[/(x|ch|ss|sh)$/i, '$1es'],
				[/(matr|vert|ind)ix|ex$/i, '$1ices'],
				[/([m|l])ouse$/i, '$1ice'],
				[/^(ox)$/i, '$1en'],
				[/(quiz)$/i, '$1zes']
			];

		private static var singularWords : Array =
			[
				[/s$/i, ''],
				[/(n)ews$/i, '$1ews'],
				[/([ti])a$/i, '$1um'],
				[/((a)naly|(b)a|(d)iagno|(p)arenthe|(p)rogno|(s)ynop|(t)he)ses$/i, '$1$2sis'],
				[/(^analy)ses$/i, '$1sis'],
				[/([^f])ves$/i, '$1fe'],
				[/(hive)s$/i, '$1'],
				[/(tive)s$/i, '$1'],
				[/([lr])ves$/i, '$1f'],
				[/([^aeiouy]|qu)ies$/i, '$1y'],
				[/(s)eries$/i, '$1eries'],
				[/(m)ovies$/i, '$1ovie'],
				[/(x|ch|ss|sh)es$/i, '$1'],
				[/([m|l])ice$/i, '$1ouse'],
				[/(bus)es$/i, '$1'],
				[/(o)es$/i, '$1'],
				[/(shoe)s$/i, '$1'],
				[/(cris|ax|test)es$/i, '$1is'],
				[/(octop|vir)i$/i, '$1us'],
				[/(alias|status)es$/i, '$1'],
				[/^(ox)en/i, '$1'],
				[/(vert|ind)ices$/i, '$1ex'],
				[/(matr)ices$/i, '$1ix'],
				[/(quiz)zes$/i, '$1']
			];

		private static var irregularWords : Array =
			[
				['person', 'people'],
				['man', 'men'],
				['child', 'children'],
				['sex', 'sexes'],
				['move', 'moves']
			];

		private static var uncountableWords : Array =
			[
				'equipment', 'information', 'rice', 'money', 'species', 'series', 'fish', 'sheep'
			];

		private static function makePlural (singular : String) : String
		{
			if (uncountableWords.indexOf(singular) != -1)
				return singular;

			var plural : String = new String();
			for each (var item : Array in pluralWords)
			{
				var p : String = singular.replace(item[0], item[1]);
				if (p != singular)
					plural = p;
			}
			return plural;
		}

		private static function makeSingular (plural : String) : String
		{

			if (uncountableWords.indexOf(plural) != -1)
				return plural;

			var singular : String = new String();
			for each (var item : Array in singularWords)
			{
				var s : String = plural.replace(item[0], item[1]);
				if (s != plural)
					singular = s;
			}
			if(singular == &quot;&quot;)
				return plural
			else
				return singular;
		}

		[Bindable(event=&quot;pluralizationChangedEvent&quot;)]
		public static function pluiralize(count:int, word:String):String
		{
			if(count == 1)
				return makeSingular( word );

			return makePlural( word );
		}

		static private function initPluralization() : void
		{
			for each (var arr : Array in irregularWords)
			{
				pluralWords[pluralWords.length] = [arr[0], arr[1]];
				singularWords[singularWords.length] = [arr[1], arr[0]];
			}
		}
	}
}

You activate the pluralization like this:

PluralizationHelper.pluralize(count, &quot;module&quot;);

This will return the correct string.

You can also find the source on github http://github.com/KensoDev/Flex-Generic-Helpers

Scroll to selected index in Tree control (Flex)

2010-10-03T21:14:05+02:00

Sometimes, in your application you have a tree that has many nodes, folders, sub-folders and many items.

Often, this tree needs to have a scroll bar, and usually you want the scroll to be on the spot with the selected item.

I recently encountered some weird solutions for this in a company I work for these days, I have actually seen a custom control with saving the scroll position in memory, height calculations for items and many more “solutions”.

There’s actually a simple way to do this, it is so simple that when the developers saw it they laughed so hard (the team leader didn’t) on the time they have spent on this solution.

By the way, the solution can also be for Grid and List controls so you can use it there as well.

Here’s the code:

if(tree.selectedIndex &gt; 0)
{
	tree.scrollToIndex( tree.selectedIndex );
}

Simple isn’t it?

Make your life easier with this Flash Builder 4 plugin (sourcemate)

2010-10-03T08:45:18+02:00

I have been working with flex for about 4 years now and moved to Flash Builder 4 about six months ago. The one thing I have really missed in programming flex is the proper IDE that makes your life easier, making simple tasks simple for the programmer.

For instance, I always wanted to write private vars (with shortcuts) and then make getters and setter with a click of a button, with no real need for typing them all.

Typing is a waste of time for programmers. Don’t get me wrong, we all have to type code, after all this is how we make a living, but writing the complete method template other than just a shortcut and then a click on a button is something that at the end of the day takes the toll from your project.

So, let’s take some scenarios that I encountered in my life as a Flex programmer and team leader.

Code generation

This is one of the things that I have been looking at deeply upon when I was about to buy sourcemate plugin, the plugin promised and kept it’s promise to make your life simpler by being able to define what they call snippets.

Those snippets have a set that comes predefined, you can also define as many snippets as you want.

One killer feature is being able to share snippets with others, this is just a terrific feature. It allows the team to write the same code, or at least code with the same signature, all methods look the same, all vars look the same and more.

A sample template:

for (var ${index}:int = 0; ${index} &lt; ${array}.length; ${index}++)
{
${indent}var ${element:varName}:${type} = ${array}[${index}] as ${type};
${indent}${cursor}
}

this template’s shortcut is ‘for’ and then a CMD+SPACE

As you can probably see, this is a peace of code you have probably written dozens of time, it usually takes you much more than just couple of seconds.

You can navigate your way inside the template with the TAB key on you keyboard, clicking the TAB on the keyboard will take you on this path (in this template):

define the array param (rename)
define the element type (rename)

So, you can customize the template, generally speaking, making this code fit your array and your element type takes about 5 seconds, this is a huge improvement in times, you can shave quite some time from your work day.

Customized snippet

Now, let’s see how we can customize a snippet to fit our own code.

In a project I am currently working on there’s a class (ViewHelper) that has a base class (BaseViewHelper).

This base class has a model property, in the class you are writing, you want to make a getter that will be called myModel, and this will return a casted instance of the model property

Generally, it looks like this:

		public function get myModel():CurrentConfiguration
		{
			return CurrentConfiguration(this.model);
		}

Just take a look at this code, as you can see there’s a template here. Llet’s check what the template is:

decide if the method is public/private/protected
set the type of the getter

This is what the template looks like now:

${visibility:link(public,protected,private)} function get myModel():${modelName}
{
${indent}return ${modelName}(this.model);
}

Now, when I want to put this in my class all I have to type is myModel and then CTRL+SPACE, set the type, select the visibility and I’ll have a myModel getter inside my class.

Refactoring

The next best thing this plugin gives you is refactoring.

After reading uncle Bob’s book (Clean Code) I am crazy about refactoring, it makes my code so much simpler, also when getting into other programmers code, I refactor it, break a method into several smaller, more single responsibility methods and then, just then I start working on what I have to do.

The great thing about refactoring with sourcemate is that the function created is created with all of the params (variables) that it needs in order to work, the refactoring also detects if the function should return a value or just be void.

These are the options for refactoring, I don’t think it needs much more explanations then thus:

This plugin gives you so much more than what I have written about, it has many more great features like generating ASDoc comments, generating documentation for the project and many more.

This plugin is by far the best thing that have happened to my Flex development experience since Flex builder 3 came out :-)

gitignore template for a Ruby on Rail project

2010-09-26T20:42:35+02:00

Been working with Ruby On Rails for about 10 months now, about the same amount of time with GIT, I enjoy them both very much.

When I start a rails project and connect it to GIT, I always create the same gitignore file. Therefore, I thought I should share it with you.

Here it is:

log/*
tmp/*
.DS_Store
db/*

Enjoy!

Link Bag September 05 2010

2010-09-05T07:40:09+03:00

Yet another post that will gather links and useful information of intersting stuff, that will probably be useful to my readers.

General

Launching beta, or “How to decide when and where to cut corners - A great post from CodeBetter.com with a reference to Nate Kohari's post on the same subject. A very good read if you are planning in launching a product anytime soon.

Freelancing

10 Requirements for Working with Clients in Other Countries - I work with clients in other countries all of the time, mostly in the US and Japan. Therefore, I think this post will be very useful if you are in the same situation. I got something out of it, and so will you.

Craftsmanship in Designing Websites

CSS

CSS: Stretch a Box to its Parent’s Bounds

GIT

I am (as you already know) a huge fan of Git. I know Git is a big source of misuse and misunderstanding. I have read a couple of great posts about it recently on how to use GitK tool.

use-gitk-to-understand-git.aspx Use gitk to understand git – merge and rebase

That’s all for now. Hope you’ll find my post useful.

Maintain sort on a DataGrid when the dataProvider is changed

2010-09-05T07:02:42+03:00

Usually, in our Flex application we do have a data-grid. This component is very useful for displaying data and have a sorting, ordering of columns and more, out of the box.

I can speak for my applications and say that every enterprise application I have ever build had at least one or more data-Grid’s inside it.

So, what can we say about a grid that has not been said before in the past…?

I recently had a grid that I enabled sorting on it. It had a data-Provider (ArrayCollection) and I needed to preserver the sorting when the collection had changed.

The default behavior when you hookup a collection to the dataProvider property of the grid, is that when the collection changes, it will change the sorting back to default.

This is the code before the fix:

			&lt;mx:DataGrid  width=&quot;100%&quot;
							height=&quot;100%&quot;
							id=&quot;dataGrid&quot;
							dataProvider=&quot;{myHelper.widgetModel.data}&quot;
							itemClick=&quot;myHelper.updateCustomFieldsButtonBar()&quot;
							allowMultipleSelection=&quot;true&quot;
							updateComplete=&quot;myHelper.gridUpdateComplete(event)&quot;&gt;
				&lt;mx:columns&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;id&quot; headerText=&quot;id&quot; visible=&quot;false&quot;/&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;name&quot; headerText=&quot;Field Name&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;description&quot; headerText=&quot;Description&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;typeDisplayName&quot; headerText=&quot;Type&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;entityTypes&quot; headerText=&quot;Entity Type&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;listId&quot; headerText=&quot;Entity Type&quot; visible=&quot;false&quot;/&gt;
				&lt;/mx:columns&gt;

			&lt;/mx:DataGrid&gt;

This peace of code it the most important peace in the puzzle, wiring up (binding) between a model (collection) and the dataProvider:

dataProvider=&quot;{myHelper.widgetModel.data}&quot;

So, we know that this way does not work. What do we need to do in order to save the sorting when the provider changes? What we actually need to do is to create a view of our collection, provide it with data and wire it up to the grid

This is how we do it.

&lt;mx:ListCollectionView list=&quot;{helper.widgetModel.data}&quot; id=&quot;listCollectionView&quot; /&gt;

			&lt;mx:DataGrid  width=&quot;100%&quot;
							height=&quot;100%&quot;
							id=&quot;dataGrid&quot;
							dataProvider=&quot;{listCollectionView}&quot;
							itemClick=&quot;myHelper.updateCustomFieldsButtonBar()&quot;
							allowMultipleSelection=&quot;true&quot;
							updateComplete=&quot;myHelper.gridUpdateComplete(event)&quot;&gt;
				&lt;mx:columns&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;id&quot; headerText=&quot;id&quot; visible=&quot;false&quot;/&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;name&quot; headerText=&quot;Field Name&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;description&quot; headerText=&quot;Description&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;typeDisplayName&quot; headerText=&quot;Type&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;entityTypes&quot; headerText=&quot;Entity Type&quot; /&gt;
					&lt;mx:DataGridColumn dataField=&quot;listId&quot; headerText=&quot;Entity Type&quot; visible=&quot;false&quot;/&gt;
				&lt;/mx:columns&gt;

			&lt;/mx:DataGrid&gt;

Notice that the grid’s data provider is not the collection view.

Now, when the data will change, the sorting will not change.

Good luck!

Memory management in flex applications

2010-08-22T07:24:33+03:00

Lately there is alot of buzz about Flex application performance, keeping your memory low and just in general, keeping everything managed under your fingers and not just counting on the flex framework to manage your memory.FlexFirst thing we need to understand is that any application we will build in our careers will be using some amount of memory, and because memory is not infinite, we should keep our applications memory as low as possible.

I always say the best way to describe memory management is to “be smart” meaning - always have memory in mind, never let it go and by doing this your application will keep lean and thin all the time.

By taking up too much memory you can get into alot of trouble - you can make your users hate the application because it is running slowly and making their computer run slowly. Also, the application can simply crash.I hear from programmers in my consulting that computers are getting more and more memory and you can see laptops coming with 4G of memory out of the box and so on, but actually we are also seeing a movement towards mobile devices such as mobile phones etc. these mobile devices do no allow us to use too much memory because it's limited resource.

Memory leaks

Memory leaks is a big issue in flex programming and it's generally speaking divided into 2 parts, first when our application is using memory in parts we didn't want it to use and the other part is when we didn't handle the cleaning part efficiently enough.Flash

Event Listeners

Event listeners are by-far the most mis-used, mis-understood part of flex applications. I have seen people/developers using those without even understanding what is actually happening behind the scenes and when (and if) those are cleaned up in memory.

I will try to explain. Let’s take this peace of code:

//objectX
objectY.addEventListener(some_event, some_function)

We have two objects (ObjectX, ObjectY) - Object Y has a reference to a function in objectX just by passing the function. Now, if your application has a reference to objectY, object X will not get cleaned because it has a reference to a function.

There is actually something called weak event listeners, by default the event listeners are “strong” meaning every event listener is a function, if you specify the event listener is “weak” then the event listener does not count as a reference.

Static Variables

Static variables are never cleaned in the entire session of a flex application, meaning if you set the variable’s value with an object, this object will never get cleaned.

If you want to make sure the object is cleaned you should null out the variable.

// static variable
public static var _foo:Foo;
//setting the value
_foo = new Foo();
//clean
_foo = null;

Dictionaries

Dictionaries are another big problem and source of misunderstanding in flex applications.

Dictionaries are key-value collections, meaning you have a collection that is built in the form of a key and a value attached to it.

You can use objects as your key and your value, for example let’s say we have two objects (ObjectX, ObjectY), you add an entry to the dictionary where ObjectX is the key and ObjectY is the value.

By default the values in dictionaries are “strong” and you can specify a “weak” key, by doing this, you can actually make sure that if nothing else has a reference to ObjectX, it will get cleaned by the garbage collection. BUT, ObjectY will not get cleaned even though the key for it got cleaned from the dictionary.

There are many questions on this issue from flex experts to adobe, those questions generally start with a WHYYYYYY????

I would also like to understand why, but this is the situation and we have to deal with it. In the Flex-Show podcast Aaron says that if you iterate through the values of the dictionary, then all values that don’t have a key (it was cleaned remember?) gets cleaned immediately.

I never encountered this behavior, but Aaron knows what he is talking about, so I trust him :) (Thanks Aaron).

Conclusion

I think those are the main three issues in flex applications. There are a few more, but if you handle those three you should be fine and your application will actually be pretty lean (at least in memory management).

** this post was inspired by Aaron’s talk on the podcast, I enjoyed it so much I decided to make a post on the issue.

Keep your mxml files neat with View Helpers

2010-08-19T18:00:53+03:00

I have been working with flex and consulting about flex development for quite some time now. I guess about 3 years of consulting and 4 years of hands-on development.

I have seen flex applications written in many ways: mxml files, as files, namespaces and more. I guess there is no “right” way to do so, or at least not just one “right” way.

These past few months, I have started working with mxml files in a way I think is very convenient. It keeps my mxml file very lean and clean, all of the view code is in a separate action-script file which inherits from a base class.

I want to show you this, first. This is the sample project, this is what it looks like in flash builder:

As you can see, there is the main application, an mxml component, the BaseViewHelper class and that is just about it.

Now, let’s have a look at the BaseViewHelper class. note: this is a stripped down version of the class, it has many additions in my project, like a way to add validations, clean and dirty modes for the model and more, this is just to see the way I work, you can add your own additions to it.

package com.kensodev.core
{
	import mx.core.UIComponent;

	public class BaseViewHelper
	{
		private var _view:UIComponent;

		public function BaseViewHelper()
		{

		}

		public function init():void
		{

		}

		public function set view(v:UIComponent):void
		{
			_view = v;
		}

		public function get view():UIComponent
		{
			return _view;
		}
	}
}

As you can see, I kept it very simple. It has a view getter and setter to set the view it handles, and an init function (for creation complete events).

Now, let’s see an mxml component and how does the helper fits, but first let’s see a view helper which inherits from the BaseViewHelper class.

package com.kensodev.views.helpers
{
	import com.kensodev.core.BaseViewHelper;
	import com.kensodev.views.MyViewComponent;

	public class MyViewComponentHelper extends BaseViewHelper
	{
		public function MyViewComponentHelper()
		{
			super();
		}

		public function get myView():MyViewComponent
		{
			return MyViewComponent(this.view);
		}

		public override function init():void
		{
			//TODO Auto-generated method stub
			super.init();
		}

		public function myButton_clickHandler(event:MouseEvent):void
		{
			// TODO Auto-generated method stub
		}
	}
}

This is a helper file for the MyViewComponent. Now, here’s the source code for implementing the helper inside each View component

&lt;?xml version=&quot;1.0&quot; encoding=&quot;utf-8&quot;?&gt;
&lt;mx:Canvas xmlns:mx=&quot;http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml&quot;
		   width=&quot;400&quot;
		   height=&quot;300&quot;
		   creationComplete=&quot;helper.init()&quot;
		   xmlns:helper=&quot;com.kensodev.views.helpers.*&quot;&gt;

	&lt;mx:Script&gt;
		&lt;![CDATA[

		]]&gt;
	&lt;/mx:Script&gt;

	&lt;helper:MyViewComponentHelper view=&quot;{this}&quot; id=&quot;helper&quot; /&gt;

	&lt;mx:Button id=&quot;myButton&quot; click=&quot;helper.myButton_clickHandler(event)&quot;

&lt;/mx:Canvas&gt;

As you can see, the file is very clean, it has only data relevant to understand the structure of the component (which is all you need in mxml), all of the logic files “seats” behind the scenes.

There is a naming conventions for views and view helpers its view_name view_nameHelper This way, when you navigate your way through the code, you can always see what you are looking for with ease like so:

I hope you take inspiration with this way, I assure you I did, it’s a very useful way to manage large projects with many views and view helpers.

The source code of the example project is on git.

update:

After a discussion with @douglasknudsen I want to make things clear, this is not the ViewHelper implementation of cairngorm Mvc framework, it’s something you should (or can) write on your own just to make things organized and clean.

I am using it regardless to the MVC framework I am using which is RobotLegs B.T.W

Find truncated string (paths) in SQL server

2010-08-19T10:24:22+03:00

I recently encountered a strange bug on a database of a client, which I designed. The “bug” was that the paths he entered into the database got truncated, because it was too long of a string. I made the field length at 250 chars and he needed more.

The problem was he already submitted quite some data into the database and could not remember where the paths were extra long. So, I needed to find it for him so he could re-submit those.

I scratched my head for a couple of minutes on how can I find those truncated strings, it could be quite difficult, because it’s a path to an MP3 file, I found a way to do it with a simple T-SQL script.

What I did was to simply find all of the song-paths that did not have an “.mp3” at the end.

This is the script:

sql SELECT layerID, layerName, mp3FileUrl FROM appLayers WHERE ( mp3FileUrl NOT LIKE ‘%.mp3’ ) /sql

An example result /Maximum_Basof_Nipol/Od_Paam/Acc Gtr Chorus St 2.m

Edit the hosts file on the mac

2010-08-18T10:00:36+03:00

Sometimes, you may need to edit the hosts file on the mac.

The hosts file is a file that controls the routing to websites, both localhost and other websites. For example, I can say that whenever I enter http://www.kensodev.com in the browser, the address is then traced back to 127.0.0.1 instead of going to the DNS server and lookup the address there.

This is a very efficient way to do testing to websites, so you don’t have to use localhost or everything. For example, I always use a local prefix to a website to identify it’s on my machine. http://local.kensodev.com will be the local version of this website and so on and so forth.

There are many cases where you might want to edit the hosts file. In mac it’s not that intuitive to find it like in windows so here’s a quick tip (I am using textmate bug you can use whatever you want).

To edit the file simply enter this command into the terminal:

sudo mate /private/etc/hosts

You will then be prompted to enter a password and after you edit the file and press save, you will have to enter the password again.

This is it, that is how you edit the hosts file on the mac.

Link bag 15 August 2010

2010-08-15T17:48:06+03:00

After declaring the opening of the category - Link Bag, the first post is fresh and hot out of the oven.

CSS

CSS sprites workflow - Chris Coyier posted a very useful tip about the workflow of creating a website when you plan to use sprite css, he suggests a two-step process.

Freelancing

Are You Giving Back to Your Community? - FreelanceSwitch with another great post. I actually posted on a very similar subject here ”should all developer be (active) members in the virtual community.”

The real secret to freelance success 9 productivity techniques for freelancers

Ruby on rails

Mongomatic

That’s it (short) for the first link bag, another one is coming in about a week, be sure to keep yourself up to date though the RSS feed (link on the right).

Declaring a new category "link bag"

2010-08-15T17:31:15+03:00

Well, I have decided. After a while of reading very interesting blogs and stumbling upon quite a few useful links for fellow developers, I decided to put together a new category in the blog.

The category will be called ”link bag” and I will post new things to it on a weekly basis hopefully.

The links will vary from technology links to freelancing tips, everything that is an interest to me and hopefully for the readers of this blog as well.

You can keep yourself up to date though the RSS Feed or come back later this week.

Thanks!

Should all developers be (active) members of the virtual community?

2010-08-03T18:12:25+03:00

Usually when I blog, I make comments, raise decisions, write code or something like that, it’s never a question. This post, above anything else is a question and a try to spark a debate from my fellow developers and software craftsman out there.

Earlier this week I started working on a very interesting project for an international company creating test suites for devices and applications. The suite is cross platform and can run on any machine both windows and Linux and test any device, from mobile phones to DVD’s to diving sensors.

The client side is written in flex and pure AS3, the server and services are written in Java and Perl scripts.

What is my point?

My point is that this company has some pretty strong developers, all know a thing or 2 on software developement, both in Java and Flex.

Another thing, usually when I get invited to consult and develop for a company saying “we have a flex application” I do see an application but it’s horrible, un-scalable, mxml+code in the same file, services calls in mxml and more.

In this company, that wasn’t the case. The application is actually pretty solid, stable and gone over more then a couple of QA steps inside the company and clients. You can imagine that the developers over there can contribute a thing or two to the community.

OK, so far so good, what am I saying here?

From conversations I had with the developers I found out something amazing, none of them has a twitter account, none of them has a blog and none, absolutely none contributed to an open source project, not even a line of code, not even opened a case in the WIKI.

so, what do you think? Should all developers be active members of the community? Should every developer have a profile and answer questions on the amazing StackOverflow .com? Should every developer write a blog?

Love to hear your thoughts on this…

Another thing, when you interview programmers, do you care about these issues?

java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException problem & solution

2010-08-02T16:02:57+03:00

As a web developer, I’m working on lots of things. Today, while working on a windows machine and trying to run an ANT task and then run JBoss to test my build, I encountered this error:

java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException: cp1255

After quite some time of Googling and finding nothing, I remembered I changed my regional settings on the machine to use Hebrew as the locale. This appeared to be a mistake. Once I changed the locale back to English (USA) everything got back to normal and worked absolutely fine (as always).

So, the conclusion is: When you get this error, verify that the machine you are using is set to English Locale and not other locales.

Hope this saves you some time, I know I pulled more then a couple of hairs to find out what is causing this issue.

RobotLegs makes me smile every time

2010-07-31T12:58:49+03:00

Hi All,

I have been using the RobotLegs MVC framework for flex for about a month and a half now, I have been using MATE before that and PureMVC before that, I have never got so much out of an MVC framework, it is so flexible, so customizable (the code is on git) and helps me with my tasks all of the time.

So, why have I posted it on the blog and not just tweeted about it? Well, I have tweeted about it for quite a bit, but the real reason for posting it on the blog is that I have made a new category on the blog called RobotLegs.

I plan on posting some example code for it and being involved in the community.

You can keep yourself updated through my RSS FEED.

Thanks!

gitignore template for flex projects

2010-07-28T22:03:38+03:00

Hi All,

Well, me being an enthusiastic flex developer is no secret, nor me being a GIT fan-boy.

I thought it will be helpful to post my template for the gitignore files in all repositories containing flex projects.

This is how it looks like:

.DS_Store
.actionScriptProperties
.flexProperties
.project
.settings/*
bin-debug/*

/shell

The reason I’m ignoring all the settings files and the properties files is because all of these are environment specific, often not all developers on the team use the same settings and properties and that can break the entire working process.

jQuery colorbox plugin no opacity (overlay) - IE7

2010-07-26T23:59:58+03:00

Today, while checking a website I did heavy client side work - converting PSD’s to html, CSS and JavaScript, I checked everything on IE7. One of the most annoying things I encountered was that the colorbox overlay color was pitch black.

On other browsers, such as Firefox or Chrome everything seemed fine and the overlay was in the correct opacity. However, I like fixing everything and found a very easy way to do so.

This was my code before:

js $(‘.guestboox_more’).colorbox({ inline:true, href:’.guestbook_more_details’, innerWidth:’610px’, opacity: ‘.2’, transition: ‘elastic’ }); /js

And this is the code after (this fixed the problem):

js $(‘.guestboox_more’).colorbox({ inline:true, href:’.guestbook_more_details’, innerWidth:’610px’, opacity: ‘0.2’, transition: ‘elastic’ }); /js

The problem was only that IE7 didn’t recognizance .2 as 0.2 and needed to be more specific (as often IE needs). I hope this will save you some time.

Flash media server security hardening

2010-07-25T14:51:43+03:00

Today, while browsing my feed in google reader, I found something very interesting. This link is a hardening guide for flash media server.

For quite some time now I have been developing and consulting on flash media server advanced topics. I have been teaching students and consulting companies on issues regarding this great peace of software.

Adobe

I highly recommend you to open the link and read it.

Set button width to text width in flex

2010-07-14T10:07:18+03:00

Well, I have been working on a very interesting project recently, really stretching flex to the limits :-) I needed to set buttons, linkButtons, Labels and more components width to the width of the text inside them. Usually, flex does it for you, but the width was hardcoded in compile time and I needed to change the text and the width in runtime and resize the component according to that.

I have written a nifty helper function for that.

Here it is:

/**
* This function will accept the text and the UI component and set the width to the width of the text
* @param text the text or label of the component
* @param container the container casted to a UIComponent
*
*/
public static function measureTextWidthAndResizeComponent(text:String, container:UIComponent):void
{
	var _measuredWidth:Number = 0;
	var  _paddingLeft:uint = 0;
	var _paddingRight:uint = 0;
	var _horizontalGap:uint = 0;
	var _addedToWidth:int;

	if(text == null)
		return;

	if(text.length &lt;= 1)
		return;

	_paddingLeft = container.getStyle(&quot;paddingLeft&quot;);
	_paddingRight = container.getStyle(&quot;paddingRight&quot;);
	_horizontalGap = container.getStyle(&quot;horizontalGap&quot;);

	_addedToWidth = int(_horizontalGap + _paddingLeft + _paddingRight);

	var lineMetrics:TextLineMetrics = container.measureText(text);

	_measuredWidth = (lineMetrics.width + _addedToWidth);
	container.width = _measuredWidth;
}

That’s it, enjoy!

jQuery - wait for animation to end then do something

2010-07-12T19:09:51+03:00

I have been using jQuery for quite some time now. Following a question on one of the many forums and discussions group I visit daily, I found that not many know that jQuery has a built in way to “listen” for an animation to end and then continue work. For instance, if I am using the slideDown effect, I can create a function that will only execute when the slide is finished.

Wish to know how?

Just like that…

js $(‘div.menuOurHotel’).slideDown("slow", function() { $("div.order_form").hide(); }); /js

This is a very useful way to create a responsive intuitive user interface.

Good luck!

Copy object properties to another object - Flex

2010-06-22T11:23:42+03:00

In a project I am working on with Flex and AS3 I needed to copy all of the object’s properties and accessors to another object. Because I didn’t want to hard code the properties for various reasons, I needed to write a function that will “crawl” the object properties and accessors and copy then to the new object.

I created a static function that does exactly that:

		/**
		 * copies a source object to a destination object
		 * @param sourceObject the source object
		 * @param destinationObject the destination object
		 *
		 */
		public static function copyObject(sourceObject:Object, destinationObject:Object):void
		{
			// check if the objects are not null
			if((sourceObject) &amp;&amp; (destinationObject)) {
				try
				{
					//retrive information about the source object via XML
					var sourceInfo:XML = describeType(sourceObject);
					var objectProperty:XML;
					var propertyName:String;

					// loop through the properties
					for each(objectProperty in sourceInfo.variable)
					{
						propertyName = objectProperty.@name;
						if(sourceObject[objectProperty.@name] != null)
						{
							if(destinationObject.hasOwnProperty(objectProperty.@name)) {
								destinationObject[objectProperty.@name] = sourceObject[objectProperty.@name];
							}
						}
					}
					//loop through the accessors
					for each(objectProperty in sourceInfo.accessor) {
						if(objectProperty.@access == &quot;readwrite&quot;) {
							propertyName = objectProperty.@name;
							if(sourceObject[objectProperty.@name] != null)
							{
								if(destinationObject.hasOwnProperty(objectProperty.@name)) {
									destinationObject[objectProperty.@name] = sourceObject[objectProperty.@name];
								}
							}
						}
					}
				}
				catch (err:*) {
					;
				}
			}

This function will copy everything. You can simply add an “allowedProperties” definition and make the function only copy definitions and properites which exist in your allowed definition.

Like so:

private static var allowedProperties:String = &quot;height,width,visible,styleName,x,y,alpha,visible,source,dataProvider,styleDecleration,text,label,horizontalScrollPolicy,labelField,&quot;;

		public static function copyDisplayObjectData(sourceObject:Object, destinationObject:Object):void
		{
			if((sourceObject) &amp;&amp; (destinationObject)) {
				try
				{
					var sourceInfo:XML = describeType(sourceObject);
					var objectProperty:XML;
					var propertyName:String;
					�
					for each(objectProperty in sourceInfo.variable)
					{
						propertyName = objectProperty.@name;
						if(allowedProperties.indexOf(propertyName) &gt; -1)
						{
							if(sourceObject[objectProperty.@name] != null)
							{
								if(destinationObject.hasOwnProperty(objectProperty.@name)) {
									destinationObject[objectProperty.@name] = sourceObject[objectProperty.@name];
								}
							}

						}
					}
					�
					for each(objectProperty in sourceInfo.accessor) {
						if(objectProperty.@access == &quot;readwrite&quot;) {
							propertyName = objectProperty.@name;
							if(allowedProperties.indexOf(propertyName) &gt; -1)
							{
								if(sourceObject[objectProperty.@name] != null)
								{
									if(destinationObject.hasOwnProperty(objectProperty.@name)) {
										destinationObject[objectProperty.@name] = sourceObject[objectProperty.@name];
									}
								}
							}
						}
					}
				}
				catch (err:*) {
					;
				}
			}
		}

That’s it, tricky but absolutely can be done :-)

YUI Calendar page to the selected date (multi calendar)

2010-06-22T10:54:01+03:00

I have been working with YUI calendar for a couple of weeks now on a project. I found that it is highly customizable although the documentation are not always clear and you have to dig around the internet to find your answers.

So, I am here to help.

In this new website I have a multi-calendar where you can page forwards and backwards through the dates. The calendar is also showing and hiding according to a user click (see photo).

The problem was (for me anyway) that when the user clicked the calendar’s button and the calendar showed the last paging position.

Let’s say I selected a date, or even better a date interval (from Feb 2nd to Feb 10th) and then paged to see other months available dates, closed the calendar and re-opened it, it seemed as if the selection cleared and the paging position kept.

My client’s request was “if the client selected a date and paged, always take him back to his selection when the calendar is shown”

Well, this is the way to do it.

js var dates = cal1.getSelectedDates();

if(dates.length > 0) { var l = dates0;

cal1.cfg.setProperty("pagedate", l); cal1.render(); } /js

What did we do here?

First, we checked if there are selected dates in the calendar. If there were, we got the lowest date (the first date of the interval). Then we set a property on the calendar called “pagedate” with this lowest date and WHALLLA, it works! Now, every time you open the calendar it pages to the selected dates section, no matter if you paged forward before hiding the calendar.

Empty dialogs in flex builder 3 + Flash builder 4

2010-06-10T15:58:17+03:00

This week I needed to work with My PC on a flex project. I usually stay away of the PC with flex projects, I’m used to working on the mac with these project, but I needed to work on the PC.

While trying to configure the project in flex builder 3 (and with 4 as well), I stumbled upon a weird bug that made me scratch my head for a while. The bug was that all of the dialogs appeared empty, no configuration, almost no buttons.

Here’s a screenshot of the problem:

Now, I remembered a teammate I had a while back that had the same problem and it appeared to be a WACOM with a windows 7 driver that caused the problem, so I started disabling devices one after the other.

The problem was a logitech mouse software I have installed on the pc. Once I quited this application everything went back to normal.

Here’s the icon on the taskbar (not hard to trace).

Hope this post helps you and you won’t scratch your had for hours like I did.

Git export (like SVN export)

2010-06-09T18:16:15+03:00

I have been working with git for a while now on my Ruby on Rails projects and client side (css, Html and JavaScript) projects. I haven’t moved completely in flex projects and other projects, but I do plan to in the near future, mainly because of the reason that you can integrate GIT into flash builder 4. But, that is not the point.

This week I was working with a company on a client side project. I had to email them the files every time and the .git folders inside the project were heavy and unnecessary.

If you worked with SVN, you probably know the export command, after searching for a bit in git help I found how you can do it in git with ease.

How to do?

This is the command you should use:

git checkout-index -a -f --prefix=/path/to/your/folder/

The ending forward slash is very important! Do not forget to use it please.

A screenshot of my shell:

Good luck!

Access flex application through the SWFLoader component

2010-05-30T18:18:32+03:00

As you know, I’m a web developer and I love learning new stuff and blogging about it here. My blog post for today is about access flex application through the SWFLoader component.

Often you load flex applications through another flex application using the SWFLoader component. It’s not that common knowledge that you can actually access all of that application exactly the same way you are accessing your own application.

What does that mean?

It means you can access that application components, get the children and get a good knowledge on how this application is build. You can also access it’s component and dispatch events.

OK, how?

Let’s start doing it. We will create a simple application, put a SWFLoader on stage and create a listener for the complete event. Lets’s also add 2 global variables - one for SystemManager, another for IUIComponent (I will explain later).

This is what the application code should look like:

actionscript3 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" minWidth="955" minHeight="600"> <mx:Script> <CDATAimport mx.core.IUIComponent; import mx.managers.SystemManager;

		private var _systemManager:SystemManager;
		private var _innerApplication:IUIComponent;

		protected function loader_completeHandler(event:Event):void
		{
			_systemManager = SystemManager(loader.content);
		}
	]]&gt;
&lt;/mx:Script&gt;

&lt;mx:SWFLoader id=&quot;loader&quot; source=&quot;VistaRemix.swf&quot; width=&quot;800&quot; height=&quot;600&quot; autoLoad=&quot;true&quot; complete=&quot;loader_completeHandler(event)&quot;/&gt;

</mx:Application> /actionscript3

As you can probably see, we are assigning a value to systemManager when the loader (SWFLoader) finished loading. This enables us to work with that application system Manager and access properties.

Continuing…

We will add 2 Event listeners inside that function:

actionscript3 systemManager.addEventListener(FlexEvent.APPLICATIONCOMPLETE, sysManage_ApplicationComplete_Handler); systemManager.addEventListener(FlexEvent.UPDATECOMPLETE, sysManage_UpdateComplete_Handler); /actionscript3

Now that we have those in place, let’s add the closure functions:

actionscript3 private function sysManage_UpdateComplete_Handler(event:FlexEvent):void { innerApplication =systemManager.application; }

		private function sysManage_ApplicationComplete_Handler(event:FlexEvent):void
		{
			_innerApplication = _systemManager.application;
		}

/actionscript3

Great! Now innerApplication is actually an application. You can get it’s children, get properties, get components, dispatch events and more.

This comes in very handy when you want control over an application and you don’t have the source. You can create a clone of that application and create your own GUI for it. It’s an amazing feature!

This here is a screenshot of debugging mode. Check out the debugger watch section, these are all methods you can use on that variable, you can of course use much more.

Good luck!

Flash builder 4 - sharing a project with your team using SVN Screencast

2010-05-24T06:38:26+03:00

But before watching my screencast, I wish to tell you something a bit personal. This is my first screencast in English, after quite a few in my native tongue language. so please excuse me if I stutter or swallow some of my words. I promise to keep getting better with time.

Flash builder 4 - share project with your team using SVN

Change WebOrb default port from 2037 to what you want

2010-05-09T17:36:06+03:00

I have been running production machines for a client. This client request to test the WebOrb service on another port other then 2037 (default). It’s actually quite simple to create, but not intuitive.

If you are using WebOrb from the command line, you have a setting called “port”. All you have to do is run the command with the port param and everything will work great.

Like so:

c:\inetpub\wwwroot\weborb30\weborbee.exe -port 1935

Dynamic streaming (Adaptive bitrate) using Flash media Server

2010-04-15T20:56:09+03:00

Video can be downloaded (progressive download) to the client like YouTube or can be streamed to him.

I won’t discuss the pro’s & con’s of streaming and progressive. We’ll only be discussing streaming in this post.

So, What is the post worthy problem we have when streaming video to the client?

Continue reading and find out. When streaming video, you usually encode your video in a certain bitrate. This bitrate will work well in certain computers and won’t work well in others. Why is that?

That’s because each of your users has a different connection thus being capable to receive a limited amount of bytes streamed to him. So, you always have to find the “sweet spot” where you deliver a video that looks good and also light enough to fit a wider range of network connection speeds.

That is of course a problem, becuase sometimes you want to stream hiQuality video and audio (HD) and you can’t, because some of your users won’t be able to watch it smoothly. Well, this is a problem we will solve here in this post.

Flash media server

That way, you can create several encodes to the same source movie and supply a movie best fit to the user cosuming it.

Another obvious advantage of this approach is the way it skips on top of the movie, when you skip to a further point in the movie, you are actually being supplied a different movie from the lowest quality to the highest.

So, how is it done, first, let’s create a flash file (I’m using flash CS4).

Now, we will create (by dragging and dropping from the components panel) an FLVPlayback control.

We will give it the same dimensions as the movie itself so it will fill the entire surface.

Now, we will give the player an instance name of “flvPlayer”

So, we have a movie, we have an FLVPlayback control, we called it “flvPlayer”.

We will create another layer, called “action script” and we will create this code inside.

import fl.video.*;
VideoPlayer.iNCManagerClass = NCManagerDynamicStream;
flvPlayer.source = &quot;dynamicStream.smil&quot;;

OK, so as we can see, we created a pointer to a file called “dynamicStream.smil”, this is a special file (XML format).

This file details the following:

FMS Url
Files you have encoded and a network speed in correlation

The file looks like this:

xml <smil> <head> <meta base="rtmp://your_fms_location/vod/" /> </head> <body> <switch> <video src="mp4:erets7_03_vod1_300.mp4" system-bitrate="300000"/> <video src="mp4:erets7_03_vod1_500.mp4" system-bitrate="500000"/> <video src="mp4:erets7_03_vod1_800.mp4" system-bitrate="800000"/> </switch> </body> </smil> /xml

Now, when we put this file on our web-server, the user will get the file it can receive and play, not slower, not faster, just the perfect file for him.

NO buffering, NO waiting, NO frustration, smooth, cool and fast user experience.

Good luck!

You can download the complete solution from here: download id=”3”

Enumeration on a property - Flex 3

2010-04-07T10:28:47+03:00

lack of documentation often lead to situation when the developer consuming your component doesn’t know what are the values you expect of him to set.

Well, there’s a solution for this, Flex introduced the “Inspectable” metadata tag, you can simply set this tag above your setter and the developer will get full intellisense and be able to know what you meant.

In this simple application, I create a custom mxml component based on Canvas, I create a property called myString and created an “Inspectable” metatag.

like so:

actionscript3 Bindable private var myString:String;

Inspectable (enumeration="stringValue1,stringValue2,stringValue3") public function set myString(val:String):void { myString = val; } /actionscript3

So far, it’s as simple as it can get, now, check out a screenshot of my flex builder when setting this property from outside

And that’s it, that’s how simple it is to create enumeration and ease the life on your fellow developers.

Backup all databases (SQL Express) with a single T-Sql

2010-04-05T16:00:20+03:00

One of the things I often see when people talk about the express disadvantages is the lack of support for JOBS so you cannot create a custom backup for your database.

Well, in this post I will show you how you can create a single database on your development machine that will be responsible for all of the backups, create a table that will log the backups and a stored procedure that will do the work.

In a later post, I will also show how you can integrate this into a command line and then into your nightly backup strategy.

The most beautiful part of this solution is that it is totally free of charge and uses custom T-Sql, and the command line is using a custom tool supplied by the EXPRESS package.

So, without talking too much, let’s dive into the solution.

First, we will create the database.

sql SET ANSI_NULLS ON GO SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON GO SET ANSI_PADDING ON GO CREATE TABLE dbo.DatabaseBackupName] varchar NOT NULL, BackupFlagFull(1) NOT NULL, BackupFlagLog(1) NOT NULL, RetentionPeriodFull NOT NULL, RetentionPeriodLog NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED ( Name ASC )WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON PRIMARY ) ON PRIMARY GO SET ANSI_PADDING OFF GO /sql

Now, we have the database all set-up, let’s create the stored procedure

sql SET ANSI_NULLS ON GO SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON GO CREATE Procedure dbo.s_BackupAllDatabases @Path varchar(128) , @Type varchar(4) – Full / Log as set nocount on declare @sql varchar(1000)

-- Get all database names
create table #DBName
	(
	ID int identity (1,1) ,
	Name varchar(128) not null ,
	RetentionPeriod datetime null
	)

insert #DBName
	(Name)
select name
from master..sysdatabases

-- Include any new databases in the backup
insert DatabaseBackup
	(
	Name ,
	BackupFlagFull ,
	BackupFlagLog ,
	RetentionPeriodFull ,
	RetentionPeriodLog
	)
select #DBName.Name ,
	'Y' ,
	'N' ,
	'2 jan 1900' , -- default 2 days
	'1 jan 1900'
from #DBName
	left outer join DatabaseBackup
		on DatabaseBackup.Name = #DBName.Name
where DatabaseBackup.Name is null
and lower(#DBName.Name) &lt;&gt; 'tempdb'

-- Remove any non-existant databases
delete DatabaseBackup
where not exists
	(
	select *
	from #DBName
	where #DBName.Name = DatabaseBackup.Name
	)

delete #DBName

create table #ExistingBackups
	(
	Name varchar(128) ,
	ID int identity (1,1)
	)

-- loop through databases

declare @Name varchar(128) , @RetentionPeriod datetime , @LastBackupToKeep varchar(8) , @ID int , @MaxID int

insert #DBName
	(Name, RetentionPeriod)
select Name, case when @Type = 'Full' then RetentionPeriodFull else RetentionPeriodLog end
from DatabaseBackup
where (@Type = 'Full' and BackupFlagFull = 'Y')
or (@Type = 'Log' and BackupFlagLog = 'Y')

select @MaxID = max(ID) ,
	@ID = 0
from #DBName

while @ID &lt; @MaxID
begin
	-- get next database to backup
	select @ID = min(ID) from #DBName where ID &gt; @ID

	select @Name = Name ,
		@RetentionPeriod = RetentionPeriod
	from #DBName
	where ID = @ID

	-- Delete old backups
	delete #ExistingBackups
	select @sql = 'dir /B ' + @Path
	select @sql = @sql + '&quot;' + @Name + '_' + @Type + '*.*&quot;'

	insert #ExistingBackups exec master..xp_cmdshell @sql

	if exists (select * from #ExistingBackups where Name like '%File Not Found%')
		delete #ExistingBackups

	select @LastBackupToKeep = convert(varchar(8),getdate() - @RetentionPeriod,112)
	delete #ExistingBackups where Name &gt; @Name + '_' + @Type + '_' + @LastBackupToKeep

declare @eID int , @eMaxID int , @eName varchar(128)

	-- loop round all the out of date backups
	select 	@eID = 0 ,
		@eMaxID = coalesce(max(ID), 0)
	from 	#ExistingBackups

	while @eID &lt; @eMaxID
	begin
		select @eID = min(ID) from #ExistingBackups where ID &gt; @eID
		select @eName = Name from #ExistingBackups where ID = @eID

		select @sql = 'del ' + @Path + '&quot;' + @eName + '&quot;'
		exec master..xp_cmdshell @sql, no_output
	end
	delete #ExistingBackups

	-- now do the backup
	select @sql = @Path + @Name + '_' + @Type + '_'
			+ convert(varchar(8),getdate(),112) + '_'
			+ replace(convert(varchar(8),getdate(),108),':','') + '.bak'
	if @Type = 'Full'
		backup database @Name
			to disk = @sql
	else
		backup log @Name
			to disk = @sql
end

GO /****** Object: Check CK__DatabaseB__Backu__023D5A04 Script Date: 04/05/2010 16:49:17 ***/ ALTER TABLE dbo.DatabaseBackup WITH CHECK ADD CHECK ((BackupFlagFull=’N’ OR BackupFlagFull=’Y’)) GO /*** Object: Check CK__DatabaseB__Backu__03317E3D Script Date: 04/05/2010 16:49:17 ***/ ALTER TABLE dbo.DatabaseBackup WITH CHECK ADD CHECK ((BackupFlagLog=’N’ OR BackupFlagLog=’Y’)) GO /sql

Now, we have our database, we have our stored procedure.

Let’s execute the stored procedure.

Right click on the stored procedure and click on “Execute…”

Now, set the parameters

The first parameter is the library and the second is the backup type, you can use full, log

That’s it, you have a backup up and running.

in the next post I will show how you can do it from command line and integrate it into your backup program post-backup action.

Install Wamp on a Windows machine

2010-03-23T10:20:53+02:00

Quite a while ago I shot a screen cast about how to configure and install WAMP on a windows machine without it clashing with IIS 7 or anything else for that matter.

The video is very popular on Vimeo so I thought I’d put it here as well so my readers can enjoy it.

install WAMP on windows 7 / Vista / XP

Flash media server statistics using sawMill

2010-03-14T08:40:50+02:00

Flash media server has some disadvantages, one of those is definitely the lack of normal statistics. The terminal will give you the real time data but if you want to drill down into last month and 3 month ago or more, you won’t be able to get any data in a comfortable and nice view. I found a product called SawMill, this product is unobtrusive on your flash media server, you don’t even have to install it on your server.

So, how can you get Stats you ask?

Well, you simply install the product, you give it a path to your log files and it will do the rest, it has a built in support for the Flash Media Server log format so you don’t have to “teach” it how to read the logs or do any kind of configuration.

You have stats like:

Client Ip's
Media files played
amount of data streamed
time of use
pressure hours

And many more of course, the real treat is that you can drill down from year to month to day to hourly stats.

Those can come in handy if you want to learn more about your website and the usage.

Example of what a stat sheet looks like:

RTMP being blocked by firewalls - Flash media server

2010-02-19T19:34:27+02:00

Now, if you have users working behind a firewall, they probably can’t get passed it’s restrictions and they will (in most cases) be blocked and unable to see your application / video.

If you are working on a server like WebOrb (I’m working with it) then the data will also be blocked, and that is a bug issue.

Today we’re going to solve the problem together. Here’s a way to solve it.

Well, let’s first talk a bit more about RTMP, before ditching it and moving on.

With flash media server you can use RTMP over a few ports (1935, 80). 1935 will probably always be blocked, because it is not a known port and even simple routers often block it.

Port 80 makes things a bit more complicated, you have to make FMS listen to a specific IP or your web-server (if on the same server) will not work.

So, first rule is always to use port 80, this is one way to make more users be able to connect to your application, watch your videos and interact with your service.

The connection is being made like so:

rtmp://your_ip_address:80/app_name

DO NOT use any type of arrays of ports, simply use port 80. If the client can’t connect to RTMP on port 80, he will not be able to connect on RTMP no matter the port you are using.

So, What am I actually saying over here...?

I’m saying you should only make 1 connection attempt, this attempt is on port 80 using RTMP - this should be your first choice. If the connection is unsuccessful, you should move the connection to use RTMPT, which is RTMP encapsulated over HTTP. Firewalls will not block this connection, because it makes RTMP “hide” behind HTTP traffic on port 80.

The connection is made practically the same way:

rtmpt://your_ip_address:80/app_name

Why not use RTMPT at all times?

You should not use RTMPT at all times. because there’s a performance issue, there is an overhead on top of each packet sent.

Why not go through all the possible ports with RTMP first, Why only 80?

In most cases, firewalls will block every port (but 80), the timeouts the user will have to go through will be very long before he will finally be redirected to RTMPT.

I will post some code on how to fallback more efficiently later on this week, this post was actually inspired from a client’s solution I did this week during a consulting session.

Good luck!

How can you give quality service to your clients

2010-02-19T15:11:55+02:00

As a freelancer, all of the client’s communication and service is up to you, you need to provide them with the best platform to work on, with you, along side with the existing team inside the company (in-case you are working with them).

So, because I believe I have that kind of platform I thought I’d share (as I always do) with you, how I work with my clients, although there are tools and services in this post, it’s not about them, it’s about how you can use them, seeing the customer’s needs in the center of your concerns.

I as a freelancer very often work as a team leader inside a company, sometimes as the architect and sometimes as the development director, sometimes both and I even love working as a lead developer.

So, my service must be customizable around who I am at the moment and what does the client expect of me to be.

Let us begin…

SVN - Source control system

First, whether the company is working with a source control or not, I always bring my source control system with me, I work with SVN (or GIT). I use beanstalk, you can read about it in a previous post I wrote here.

You probably ask yourself the same question everyone is asking me, why not use a regular SVN server hosted in a farm or something, well, my answer is always the same, beanstalk are giving me an all around solution for my needs for example:

TimeLine

All of the team commits can be seen inside a time line very similar to facebook, to me as the leader or the architect it’s very easy to know in the morning what has been accomplished yesterday and by who.

caption id=”attachment_351” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”Beanstalk svn timeline”/caption

As you can see, I can see very clearly who are the team members on this specific project, what are the change-sets they are responsible for and the file that have been changed during the work Yesterday or last month for that matter.

Also, I can use webhooks to do whatever I want, I can use email notifications for every commit (very useful) and many other more very useful features.

Project management system

I work with basecamp to manage all of the project aspects.

What do I manage:

deadlines
to-do's
messages
chat
files
source

I’ll explain the source line :-)

Every commit from beanstalk posts a message on the board at basecamp dashboard, meaning I can comment (beanstalk added a feature similar to that recently) on a team member commit and give him feedback on it.

Everything is kept inside the “project” context, I’ll five you an example, because at beanstalk you can see the source changes, very easily I can review the code in the web browser, that means when a team member writes bad code or code I expect to be cleaner or even if he didn’t comment his code enough ( I have clear rules on that) i simple message him the second I see it and he gets an email about it.

Another use I have for this feature is commenting out new features in the system, If I (or another team member) added a new code to the system, I usually post a comment to the commit and say what I added and what are the usage for it, this clarifies the usage for the team and there are no questions.

If the team is not clear how they can use a feature I added they go to the message and there they will see example source code and comments about that feature.

caption id=”attachment_353” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”Basecamp project dashboard”/caption

In the screen shot above you can see a project dashboard. This is for a specific project, you as the owner of the account have a dashboard for all the project you are running in the system.

With the morning coffee, you can review what you have to do urgently and what can wait another day, making choices based on data is always better then choices based on your memory or anything else for that matter.

Backup

If I could create a shouting voice in this title I would, your client’s code, data, files and everything you have at your possession is very important you your client, so you should provide a descent backup service for him.

The client must know, no data is being lost, no matter if your laptop caught fire, stolen, broken or any other natural or synthetic disaster that can be caused in our daily crazy life on this world :-)

I my self have a double backup.

I use a free software called syncback to backup all of the data to an external HD.

Also, I use a remote backup using Mozy.com.

So, every night, my computer backs up twice, once to a close location (HD) and one to a remote location (Cloud service).

Of course, using SVN is having sort of a backup for the code, but I so another backup just in case, of course for all the other stuff that are not code like images, documents or anything else.

Sync

Keeping in sync with your client is very important, I’m talking from the files point of view right now. I use dropbox on my computer and have dropbox installed for every team member, this way if we have a design document or a mockup or anything else, the file is being updated for everyone at the same time.

So, every time you talk to your team or a member of your team, you are talking about the same thing, you actually look at the same file exactly, so if a team member has a comment he can write it down and everyone will see it the next time they open the file.

This is a very helpful feature dropbox has and I love using it.

caption id=”attachment_354” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”Dropbox shared folder”/caption

Time tracking

I almost entirely work on an hourly basis with my clients, so I have to use a reliable system to track my time.

When working on an hourly basis you must be very careful not to work on a client X project on client’s Y dime.

For that, I use toggl.com, this service is another cloud service to track your time, the clear advantage of that service is that it has a desktop based widget, you begin to track time, if for some reason you left your computer during that time, the widget will inform you on that error when you get back.

That way, a client only pays for time you actually worked, he is more comfortable with working this way.

You can also set custom rates for each client, you can export reports in PDF format and more, the client has a public report, meaning he can see at real time what you are working on and how much time you spent on this mission.

caption id=”attachment_355” align=”aligncenter” width=”300” caption=”Toggl client report”/caption

If you use the paid account those reports are available to the client, also you can brand it with your logo so when the client’s print it out it will look nice as well.

iPhone

I recently bought an iPhone, so here are some thoughts on how I use it to give a quality service.

Mail –> always available, whether I’m traveling or I’m out of my home office.

ToDo–> always synced

Calendatr -> synced

Dropbox -> synced

Many many more features such as to do lists (app store) and many more, I used blackberry and Nokia E71 before, I must say I really feel I am more productive when using the iPhone and more in touch with everything when I travel around.

caption id=”attachment_356” align=”aligncenter” width=”220” caption=”iPhone”/caption

That’s it for now :-)

part-2 coming soon…

I’d love to see your comments

Beanstalk blog mentioned my post

2010-02-03T17:48:21+02:00

It hit waves around Twitter and Facebook and got very popular over the weekend I wrote it.

I was also mentioned in their blog so here’s a link

Thank you guys for the mention and thank you for this really amazing product I use daily.

jQuery and UpdatePanels (Asp.Net)

2010-02-01T17:51:00+02:00

I think this open-source js library is simply the best when you want to create a richer user experience in your websites and applications.

Some will argue Mootools is better but hey, this is a long and exhausting battle, almost like the one between PHP and ASP.net

This post comes to explain the difficulties when using jQuery dom event like “click” and “change” with an update panel.

Just one thing before I start, this post assumes you know jQuery, it also assumes you know your way around .net and you also know what an UpdatePanel is.

So, let’s begin

This is what our application looks like:

What do we have here?

We have an UpdatePanel containing a grid with data from the server and a client-side button.

This client-side button has an event attached to it with jQuery like so:

Avi Tzurel

Copy files from remote server to your local box

Rails polymorphic association without the type column, possible?

To make a long story short.

Some air, thinking time…

Replace the Hash syntax to the 1.9 syntax for all files, with a regular expression

Get information about all your mysql database tables with a single query

A Whole new page

Setup your laptop for Ruby and Rails development

Kill all resque workers with a single command

Re-Queue failed jobs with Resque

Rails uninitialized constant Resque::Server

Use specific version of RubyGems per project with RVM

Mount a Sinatra app on your Ruby on rails (3) application

Uninitialized constant Syck::Syck (NameError)

Capistrano - Deploy to servers from different load balancers

Fuck you, pay me!

What was the message about and why did it make me angry?

Fuck you pay me!

So, what is my point?

The business of free

Is this post the entrepreneur killer?

Personal note

Get shit done. I mean it!

So, what is it?

What the hell does Cezar Millan got to do with that?

Foursquare live updates with the Push API using rails.

Install Membase 1.6.5.3 on Amazon EC2 and configure it on EBS.

Creating EBS volumes and attaching to your instance

Mounting your EBS volume to the instance

Downloading and installing membase on your new instance

Configuring the membase server after installation

Ssl Verification Issue With The Foursquare2 Gem

Solving the SSL issue with the Rapleaf API

Set the correct content type when using paperclip

Set the correct content type when using paperclip

Meet the client

Kenso's Job

Use before_destroy on a model with paperclip

Use token instead of id in paperclip's path

So, how can you fix this?

Removing a model from your rails project

A solution for the “I Follow” bug with cucumber and Capybara

Pluralization in flex application(s)

Scroll to selected index in Tree control (Flex)

Make your life easier with this Flash Builder 4 plugin (sourcemate)

Code generation

Customized snippet

Refactoring

More

gitignore template for a Ruby on Rail project

Link Bag September 05 2010

General

Freelancing

CSS

GIT

Maintain sort on a DataGrid when the dataProvider is changed

Memory management in flex applications

Memory leaks

Event Listeners

Static Variables

Dictionaries

Conclusion

Keep your mxml files neat with View Helpers

Find truncated string (paths) in SQL server

Edit the hosts file on the mac

Link bag 15 August 2010

CSS

Freelancing

Ruby on rails

Declaring a new category "link bag"

Should all developers be (active) members of the virtual community?

What is my point?

OK, so far so good, what am I saying here?

java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException problem & solution

RobotLegs makes me smile every time

gitignore template for flex projects

jQuery colorbox plugin no opacity (overlay) - IE7

Flash media server security hardening

Set button width to text width in flex