michael's web wide world

NetBeans, Ruby and Snow Leopard - automatic Mongrel startup

michael whittaker — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:50:33 +0000

Recently, NetBeans was not able to start up Mongrel automatically from a Rails project. I had to open up a console and manually start “script/server” - not what I expect when using an IDE.
I thought it was because of Rails 2.3.x - unsupported by Netbeans as I suspected.The actual reason behind it was the update to Ruby 1.8.7 in Snow Leopard!
Make sure to give that info to Netbeans via the “TOOLS” -> “RUBY PLATFORMS” window. Just delete your old Ruby record from the list left (don’t delete JRuby, though) and click the “AUTODETECT” button (red circled below):

After that, you’ll see the new Ruby 1.8.7 (see screenshot below). Click “Close” and voilá!

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Web can be a richer place! - Opera’s CTO in Paderborn

michael whittaker — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:42:24 +0000

”Web can be a richer place - Everyone has a chance to participate!”

Just a few moments ago I shook hands with Håkon Wium Lie, CTO of Opera.

(more…)

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Wechsel zur Uni Paderborn

michael whittaker — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:26:59 +0000

From these days on, I am a student of the University Paderborn after I quit at the FHDW in the same city. Several facts were reasons to change the university and I hope I’ll be fine at my new alma mater

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UML 2.0 Class diagram presentation online

michael whittaker — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:46:13 +0000

I’ve just uploaded my recently made presentation about UML 2.0 class diagrams. The German presentation introduces the audience (university) to the UML, object oriented programming and then gives a detailed overview about the notation and graphical representation of UML classes and their relation ships, all with examples.

Get it at the TUTORIALS section!

Tags: uml software engineering class diagrams klassendiagramm fhdw paderborn

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Internet Explorer on Mac

michael whittaker — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:20:15 +0000

Another quick note… In order to test my web apps with Internet Explorer 6 (yeah, a lot of Wintel users still browse with it!), I always had to use my Windows 2000 virtual machine. I knew it was available via CrossOver, but didn’t want to buy it… It was available via Wine, but I didn’t have the time to figure out how it works.

Now I found ies4osx — which makes is so easy to install multiple Internet Explorer (Windows) versions in OS X via Darwine:

Must have for every web designer developing on OS X out there!
(… and man, I know, this is not brand new stuff — but I just found it and thought I should share with you!)

Tags: internetexplorer mac osx ies4osx webdesign crossbrowser

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All your notes in sync - Evernote

michael whittaker — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:14:53 +0000

Just a quick note… A colleague showed me Evernote, a software/web application to easily capture, organize and sync notes, snapshots and website extracts to all my devices: my MacBook, Windows PC, my mobile and even my office computer via there ajax-web-interface. They have a demo video online.

Capturing is just a click in a browser button or menu bar icon. When you capture a website the URL is saved as well and you can even select parts of the website to save, including images.

Their search-function is amazing: They not only search through all the plain text via web or desktop software (even spotlight on mac!), but also do some kind of text recognition with the captured images, which you can find then (they even understand handwriting).

I hope that this will keep my desktop cleaner from all those links to websites and notes all over my hard disk and dashboard.

Ouh, almost forgot: It’s invitation only — I have a few left, just drop a note if you want one!

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mod_rails out!

michael whittaker — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:08:59 +0000

To simplify the process of deploying a Rails app, mod_rails is really helpful! Just upload, open your browser and you’re done - like PHP etc.

And it’s free and open source! … and faster than Mongrel (comparison done by the vendor).

I’ll test it later on, though I pretty much like Capistrano

More here (see also Williams message about memory usage and its follow-ups)

Tags: rails capistrano mod_rails deployment php

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Compile Ruby On Rails

michael whittaker — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:29:56 +0000

Just a quick post to save someone else’s problems while compiling Rails from source…

I had to compile it from sources since the server I had to deploy the app on was an old SuSE machine for which only outdated Ruby/Rails RPMs existed…

Ruby compiled without problems, and Gem installation was very simple. — But then installing Rails with dependencies always failed with “SSL not installed on this system“.

I found the solution in “comp.lang.ruby” and it is so simple… You only have to compile OpenSSL-Ruby-Extensions (of course you need to have OpenSSL for your system, but I assume that you’ve already figured this out)!

If your Ruby-Source-Dir is /root/ruby-src/ you have to do (as root or with sudo):

cd /root/ruby-src/ext/openssl ruby extconf.rb make make install

That’s all! Enjoy.

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Locking my screen when going away from Laptop

michael whittaker — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:54:27 +0000

Today I found a wonderful tool called "Salling Clicker". It connects to my Nokia phone via bluetooth bidirectionally, so I can remote control my MacBook Pro (iTunes with cover art and searchbar, Presentations, etc.), but also - killer feature - locks my screen when I move away from my notebook!

This auto-lock is pretty hot, since there is - at least without third party software - not standard "Windows + L"-shortcut on OS X and you’d have to do 2 clicks to lock the screen. Now it’s automatically and I’ll never forget ;-).

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simple PHP Single-Sign-On

michael whittaker — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 09:06:16 +0000

Just a small snipped I’d like to share with you to create a Single-Sign-On for multiple applications, who do not operate on the same (V)Server/Subdomain and/or don’t share their session. It’s also possible, that they operate under different programming languages.

So you can have a user log-in to Application “A” on Server 1 and redirect that user via a link/pop-up to another Application “B” without requireing the user to login again.

It uses a database-server to store login-sessions with a secure and random token-hash, the IP address and an expire-date. Since a database-connection can established from anywhere via TCP, you can use it as well for different physical servers.

(more…)

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MacBook Pro arrived

michael whittaker — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:43:26 +0000

My MacBook Pro finally arrived! Delivered by TNT from the Netherlands in 13 hours… Now I have it!

After unpacking, I was just amazed by the Mac experience: Everything worked like a charm - and it looks sooo good

No dead pixels, no yellow patterns on the screen (LG-panel) and no overheating!

(more…)

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HTML 5 coming

michael whittaker — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:05:06 +0000

I just read about the revival of HTML Version 5 at slashdot or rather in this article here, which describes some of the reasons why we - or the W3C - now need HTML 5 instead of more marketing for XHTML (version 2 exists, but no major browser supports it…).
(more…)

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MacBook Pro delivery problem

michael whittaker — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 07:35:42 +0000

After my MacBook Pro order on June 9^th, 2006, I was really looking forward to get in during the next week… Now it’s almost 3 weeks later and it still isn’t built yet in Cork, Ireland.

My dealer “MacTrade” said it was because of the 7200rpm-hard disk I ordered and that Apple is only delivering the 17″ models right now.

I guess I have to wait another week… or 2… or three… but waiting a month to get a notebook >2500€ is really not what I expect from super customer-focused Apple Inc.

(PS: It was the same with the last MacBook Pro Series.)

Update:I still don’t have my macbook. It’s more than 5 weeks now! Apple is simply not delivering to their channel partners (see heise.de here).

Tags: apple macbook macbookpro order ireland mactrade

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Java-Exceptions-Tutorial online

michael whittaker — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:43:02 +0000

Da nun der neue Blog steht, kann ich auch wieder alte Inhalte hochladen, wie z. B. das Referat über Exceptions in der Java Programmiersprache aus dem Informatikunterricht.

Download Java-Exception Tutorial als PDF (850 KB)
Download Java-Exception Tutorial als XPS (685 KB)

View online (Flash at Scribd)

Tags: Java Tutorials Exceptions Sun

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Safari 3 on Windows

michael whittaker — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:54:55 +0000

This is some news from the WWDC - prolly the most important for the web designers and the professional windows users:
Safari, Apple’s (former only Mac OS X) web browser, is available for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista!

It’s still a beta, but feature-complete… I immediatly restarted to Windows XP to give it a try - it works … okay…., fonts look smoother and more “anti-aliased” then with Firefox or IE7. Some sites don’t show text where it’s expected - hey, it’s a beta (see screenshots).
So in future, I don’t have to miss my favourite browser when I’m using windows (not a lot though)!

Oh, and: Of course the release of Sarafi 3 for Windows also means an update for Mac OS X Tiger!

I’ve put are some screenshots on Flickr… Some compare sites with IE7, one shows a youtube-video and… the successfull Acid2-Test in Safari !

And I’m very prod that the German Mac-online-magazine “MacNews” featured my screenshots

(3 pictures of the 6 available on Flickr)

Tags: safari apple microsoft windows wwdc

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