Amateur Geek

Google Latitude on Rails using OAuth

2010-07-09T10:33:00.001+10:00

I'm developing a Ruby on Rails App using the Latitude API. I've spent the past 2 days working through numerous online turotials, API docs and various other sources to finally get a working result. I thought I'd write it down to not only help others, but also remind myself when I come back to it next time.

1) Register domain with Google Webmaster Central

Go to: https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageDomains
Add domain, then verify it.

Create a pair of RSA keys. In linux and OS X you can use openssl

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -sha1 -subj ‘/C=US/ST=CA/L=San Francisco/CN=example.com’ -keyout rsakey.pem -out rsacert.pem

Upload the rsacert.pem, and keep the rsakey.pem in a safe place. For the Target URL path prefix, I just added my domain. It's not important.

Once the domain is registered, you will see an OAuth Consumer Key and Secret. You need this for your app.

Now to your App

2) OAuth Gem

Include in your environment.rb

config.gem "oauth"

Obviously you will need to install it on your system if you don't already have it. I use version 0.4.1

3) Generate an OAuthAccessToken model

$ ruby script/generate model OAuthAccessToken

Note: I've done this because I don't want to store my access token directly in my User model. This gives me the option of having tokens for multiple scopes for a user through a polymorphic association.

Migration:

create_table :oauth_access_tokens do |t|
   t.string :oauth_token, :oauth_secret, :scope
   t.string :subject_type, :limit > 30 #for polymorphic association
   t.integer :subject_id
   t.timestamps
end

4) User model

has_one :latitude_access_token, :model_name => 'OAuthAccessToken', :as => :subject, :conditions => ['scope = ?','latitude']

5) Setup OAuth Consumer for Latitude

Create class lib/o_auth_consumers.rb

class OAuthConsumers

Latitude = OAuth::Consumer.new( CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, {

:site => "https://www.google.com",

:request_token_path => "/accounts/OAuthGetRequestToken",

:access_token_path => "/accounts/OAuthGetAccessToken",

:authorize_path=> "/latitude/apps/OAuthAuthorizeToken",

:signature_method => "RSA-SHA1",

:private_key_file => "#{RAILS_ROOT}/config/rsakey.pem" #path to my rsakey that I saved earlier

})

end

Remember to change the CONSUMER_KEY and CONSUMER_SECRET according to the information supplied when you registered your Domain (Step 1)

6) Generate a controller for the app

ruby script/generate controller latitude

require 'oauth'

require 'oauth/signature/rsa/sha1'

class LatitudeController < ApplicationController

def index

#check the user has a latitude oauth access token

if current_user.latitude_access_token

token = OAuth::Token.new(current_user.latitude_access_token.oauth_token, current_user.latitude_access_token.oauth_secret)

@request = JSON.parse(OAuthConsumers::Google.request('get', "https://www.googleapis.com/latitude/v1/currentLocation", token).body)

@lat = @request['data']['latitude']

@lng = @request['data']['longitude']

@time = Time.at((@request['data']['timestampMs'].to_i)/1000).strftime('%b %d, %Y - %T')

else

redirect_to :action => 'authorise'

end

def authorise

if !params[:oauth_token]

request_token = OAuthConsumers::Latitude.get_request_token(

{ :oauth_callback => "http://localhost:3000/latitude/authorise" },

{ :scope => "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/latitude" }

)

session[:oauth_secret] = request_token.secret

redirect_to request_token.authorize_url + "&domain=example.com&granularity=best&location=all"

else

request_token = OAuth::RequestToken.new(

OAuthConsumers::Latitude,

params[:oauth_token],

session[:oauth_secret]

)

begin

access_token = request_token.get_access_token( :oauth_verifier => params[:oauth_verifier] )

rescue

redirect_to :action => 'index'

end

if access_token

#now save the access token for this user

OauthAccessToken.create :subject => current_user,

:scope => 'latitude',

:oauth_token => access_token.token,

:oauth_secret => access_token.secret

end

redirect_to latitude_path

end

7) Enjoy the Latitude

That's pretty much it. Go to http://localhost:3000/latitude, you will be directed to Google to authorise your account, then once that all goes through, you will be sent back to your app, an Access Token will be created which will be stored for your user. I'm not exactly sure how long this lasts at the moment, but I'm testing that right now and will update if I find anything important.

Thanks to:

Interested in your thoughts and comments. Let me know if my code sucks.

Google Reader goes realtime through PubSubHubbub

2010-02-19T13:29:00.001+10:00

PubSubHubbub is awesome...

Truly awesome.

Keep track of your sex life with Nooky Diary

2010-01-24T17:06:00.003+10:00

I've built a new site: http://nookydiary.com

My wife has kept a diary for a long time now. I'm a web developer, so I thought there could be a better way.

Nooky Diary is the totally private, safe way to keep track of your sex life. Join now for free with either your Twitter or Facebook account and see what you think.

Install MySQL on Snow Leopard including Rails Gem

2009-10-27T08:21:00.003+10:00

After much pain, I've finally got MySQL installed on Snow Leopard including the MySQL 2.8.1 gem:

1) I installed the x86_64 package from:
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html#macosx-dmg

2) Then ran:

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql --with-mysql-lib=/usr/local/mysql/lib --with-mysql-include=/usr/local/mysql/include

This was to fix the following problems I was continually having:

Rails:
uninitialized constant MysqlCompat::MysqlRes

Delete all .svn folders within a directory

2009-08-29T18:18:00.000+10:00

find . -name ".svn" -type d -exec rm -rf {} \;

Expire cache from rake task in Rails

2009-07-28T19:43:00.001+10:00

This will remove all fragment cache files from the cache directory:

task :expire_cache => :environment do
ActionController::Base.new.expire_fragment(%r{/})
end

Inspiration for my home reno

2009-07-20T09:52:00.004+10:00

I'm planning on raising my house by about 8 metres, then turning the hose on and flooding the neighbourhood. It shouldn't take too long before I achieve the desired waterfront views shown here:

Log slow queries in MySQL

2009-07-15T07:45:00.002+10:00

sudo nano /etc/mysql/my.cnf

log_slow_queries = /path/to/mysql-slow.log
long_query_time = 4

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/slow-query-log.html

Stop/Start MySQL

2009-07-15T07:45:00.001+10:00

Start mysql server:
# /etc/init.d/mysql start

stop mysql server:
# /etc/init.d/mysql stop

restart mysql server
# /etc/init.d/mysql restart

rails gem install mysql

2009-07-14T21:09:00.001+10:00

sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

Installing MySQL on Mac OSX

2009-07-14T20:25:00.005+10:00

1) Download MySql: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.1.html#macosx-dmg

2) Install the MySQL package

3) Install the Startup Item

4) Set mysql as a variable in the PATHS environment:
export PATH=/usr/local/mysql/bin:$PATH

MySQL is now installed to run at startup with NO user/password requirements. Now would be a good time to secure it:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/default-privileges.html

5) Log in to mysql as root
mysql -u root

5) Drop the anonymous users
DROP USER '';

6) Change the root password:
SET PASSWORD FOR 'root'@'localhost' = PASSWORD('root');

Done!

Tweeting for change

2009-03-12T15:59:00.001+10:00

www.twitterchange.com

Time to go viral!

A Short Story

2009-01-06T14:45:00.003+10:00

And as the great lord of the Karkan people rose above the rich soil of the blessed land of white dwarves, there was finally peace that overcame the troubled souls of the forbidden palace. For it had begun whereby the cursed rift of day and night had been severed, revealing the first elvan prince of the land of shadows, begot to the evil king Chibeeb, son of Cantance, lord of blood-lust lost souls.

And as the fire descended from the fourth layer of the seventh dimension of the fifteenth sector of possessed corpses, the evil demon king, Karth, reigned terror upon the great pastures that once thrived in the territory of forgotten dwarf knights. The only power which could stop the force of evil showering from the bridge between the afterlife was the once eternal great knight dwarf sorcerer, Ge. For he possessed a power so powerfully powerful that one thrust of his mighty orb-sword would send a shiver through the soul of every poor peasant dragon farmer that once roamed the heavenly mountains of the dry land of the third moon of the Great Sea. A sea so vast it would take a fleet of 30 warrior frigates 95 moon days to cross at full head-wind portside. A sea which saw the loss of 40,000 lives during the everlasting, indefinite battle of 320 years of which the black goddess woman child of the shadow province of the underside of hell lay a terror so evil that her offspring still wince in their mother's shameful memory.

But even in its darkest hour, the north star still rose over the horizon of life, casting eternal health-light over the land. The only shadows that day were cast by the sea of dead; an entire population of elvan dwarf giants had fallen under the wrath of the black goddess - granter of life through the myth of death.

Not even Ge, powerfully powerful power dwarf knight god king sorcerer could repel the force possessed by the blood crazed black goddess, for his once mighty orb-sword cowered at the notion of battle against its eternal enemy - the staff of black rift-war demon spawn.

But Ge could only hide from his destiny for so long, and soon the wrath of the mistress of the demon lord, Chakrine - ruler of the people of the wide lance of the serpent scythe - had cast his demonic soul of elf-blood into the desert field of red atmospheres. And it was on this field that the great battle of kindred death souls was fought between the knight dwarf Ge and his eternal brother rival demon kid, Chakrine.

-- An original piece, inspired by the writing of David Eddings and scrawled onto a notepad during the winter of 2000 in Colorado.

Copyright ME

Lively Room

2008-07-09T12:16:00.001+10:00

Delete old sessions in Rails

2008-04-08T08:12:00.002+10:00

I found a useful method to remove the old sessions that were building up in my Rails apps:


class SessionCleaner
  def self.remove_stale_sessions
    CGI::Session::ActiveRecordStore::Session.
      destroy_all( ['updated_at <?', 1.hour.ago] ) 
  end
end

I stuck this in a new class session_cleaner.rb in the /lib folder.

And then set up a cron job at my host to run every hour:

ruby $HOME/path/to/app/script/runner -e production "SessionCleaner.remove_stale_sessions"

No more redundant sessions!

Comment system moving to Disqus

2008-02-27T09:33:00.002+10:00

Despite the fact that I never have anything interesting to write about, nor do my 11 devoted readers have anything to say, I've implemented the Disqus comment system into my blog today for future posts.

I've known about Disqus for a few months now, but never really thought of any implementations for it. I've decided to give it a chance and played around with it last night. It's a very clever idea, and I'm trialling it here on this blog before possibly rolling it out into my other applications, namely Bopsta and my paid work.

Anyway, I'm going to start talking to myself now.... so please, don't mind me.

Update to my experiment in the Social Graph API

2008-02-12T15:17:00.001+10:00

I've been playing around with Google's Social Graph API for the past few days and thought I'd mention a few of my findings.

I wrote last week that I played around with a few of my sites and updated the XFN relationships between my 'me' links. It wasn't long before my updates where indexed by Google, and the example applications began functioning correctly.

I wanted to build an application that would use this data in some way. So basically, I built a simple iGoogle gadget to display the 'me' links from an address you enter.

As you can see, my sites have been linked quite well, and I'm actually surprised at how quickly the indexes are being updated. For example, I added a 'me' reference to my Aussie Scooters profile, and noticed that the Social Graph API picked up this new link within about 20hrs.

As this was my first implementation using JSON fetched using the iGoogle Gadget _IG_FetchContent method, it took me a little bit of time before I could translate the JSON into usable Javascript objects. Once I got it though, the rest of the work was very simple.

I've since looked a bit more into FOAF and have added a FOAF description to this blog. I'm hoping this is how the Social Graph API finds the profile photo/avatar URL, as it doesn't seem to be finding it any other way.

I'm also going to try working on my friends/acquaintances connections to see where I can go with that, however I really don't have many! Anyway, I'm very interested to know if anyone else is building on the Social Graph API and what they are doing with it. I'm sure there will be some very practical implementations coming out soon.

Wow, it looks good!

2008-02-11T08:13:00.000+10:00

GTAIV says I'm a douchebag =)

2008-02-11T07:55:00.000+10:00

It's going to be hard not to get an XBOX 360 on April 29th....

Rails 2.0 broke my image_tag & stylesheet_link_tag helpers

2008-02-07T14:11:00.000+10:00

I've recently updated a few of my apps to Rails 2.0.2, after first upgrading to 1.2.6 and fixing the deprecations. It's been a smooth transition and I'm enjoying getting into the new conventions and features. However, since upgrading, Rails 2 now breaks my image_tag, stylesheet_link_tag helpers and other asset_tag_helpers.

The code: image_tag("/images/logo.gif") or stylesheet_link_tag "global"
The error: (Action Controller: Exception caught) - too many arguments for format string

Now, I have Googled repeatedly and can find only one meaningful reference to this problem here however it seems to be unrelated and is from August 07.

If anyone else has also had any experience with this problem, please let me know that I'm not the only one! I've created new empty Rails apps on different computers, all in 2.0.2 and I still get the same error!

So, I did a bit of digging around and tried skipping the helper tag and looking at the asset_tag_helper definition:


def image_tag(source, options = {})
options.symbolize_keys!

options[:src] = path_to_image(source)
options[:alt] ||= File.basename(options[:src], '.*').split('.').first.capitalize

if size = options.delete(:size)
  options[:width], options[:height] = size.split("x") if size =~ %r{^\d+x\d+$}
end

if mouseover = options.delete(:mouseover)
  options[:onmouseover]    = "this.src='#{image_path(mouseover)}'"
  options[:onmouseout]    = "this.src='#{image_path(options[:src])}'"
end

tag("img", options)
end

Now, if I try calling <%= tag("img", {:src => "/images/logo.gif"}) %>, the app runs fine and the image is loaded. So I have to look deeper than this.

I tore the helper definition apart and it fails at the following line:

     options[:src] = path_to_image(source)

So let's look at that... But hang on, where do I find that? In asset_tag_help, it's an alias method:

    alias_method :path_to_image, :image_path

The image path definition is:

     def image_path(source)
   compute_public_path(source, 'images')
 end

So, we're traced it to compute_public_path, and that's a big one! Anyway, to cut a long story short, it eventually falls over at the compute_asset_host method at the highlighted line:

        def compute_asset_host(source)
       if host = ActionController::Base.asset_host
         if host.is_a?(Proc)
           host.call(source)
         else
           host % (source.hash % 4)
         end
       end
     end

Now WHY!????????

Well, I ran a few logger.debugs and found the following:

source.hash % 4 => 0
host => 'nothing', ie. blank.

So I rewrote the line to be:

Line 466: host % (source.hash % 4) unless host.blank?

And Voila, it works. Now is this a bug in Rails? Is there something with my setup that's different to everyone else? I'm not quite sure what to do about this, but I might try logging a ticket with someone and seeing what happens. It seems like a bug to me, but maybe that's just me.

Anyway, I'm happy it's working now for me, and I'll just have to remember to keep an eye on it until it's fixed for good. Thanks for sticking with me, if any of you did. And please let me know if you've had this problem, or if it's worked okay for you straight out of the box.

Update: I've added a ticket: http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/11035. Not sure what happens now... unless someone wants to elighten me!

An experiment in the Social Graph API

2008-02-07T09:31:00.000+10:00

Google's newly released Social Graph API seems very interesting to me. As a pseudo-developer type guy, I might just think of a nifty way to use this data in an app of mine.

Anyway, when it released earlier this week, I took a look around and tried testing out the example applications. The results were a little underwhelming for me at first, until I realised that I really don't have much of a public online profile, nor many online friends!

Using the Site Connectivity demo, I entered my blog address (benpetro.blogspot.com) and ran the test. No results! I entered every other site I could think of including Bopsta, my Facebook account, my Pownce account (btw, who needs Pownce?) and all returned no results. At first I thought that the demo may not be work correctly, but when I entered the example page (bradfitz.com), it returned about a thousand sites. That guy is connected!

This led me to investigate the XFN markup that I had built into my sites. Considering I had never heard of XFN before this, I was fairly confident that it was pretty non-existant. I went through Bopsta, and added XFN tags for my user relationships. I then did the same for this blog, adding the links in the sidebar to my public profile pages. I then waited....

And it didn't take too long! Now, 3 days later, I run the test and get the following results:

Your site	Score
benpetro.blogspot.com/	8/8
pownce.com/sebeda	8/8
facebook.com/profile.php	2/8
weewar.com/user/sebeda/	1/8
bopsta.com/bopsta.php	1/8
picasaweb.google.com/benpetro	1/8
weewar.com/user/sebeda	1/8
facebook.com/people/Ben_Petro/500870974

Looks like I'm connected to myself okay, however no-one else connects to me. :(

I ran the test on the My Connections demo and found my one and only Pownce contact connected to me as an acquaintance.

So, after improving the XFN markup of my blog, it has clearly improved my public profile connections. I'm waiting to see if the alterations have any effect on Bopsta, and if they do, I'll update the post.

Now.... what can I do with this data??????

Power of 10

2008-02-06T08:13:00.000+10:00

This makes me feeler even shorter than I normally do! It's a wonderful film, I'd love to see a higher res version.

Prototype.js Cheat Sheet

2008-01-31T08:12:00.000+10:00

Thanks to thinkweb2.com for the very handy Prototype 1.6 cheat sheet:

http://thinkweb2.com/projects/prototype/prototype-1602-cheat-sheet/

There's a printer-friendly version toward the bottom of the post.

Google's Lego Logo

2008-01-29T10:31:00.000+10:00

Apparently it's the 50th anniversary of Lego today. That's cool enough, but Google's logo to mark the celebration is totally awesome.

I'm a fan!

iPod Touch meets metal ball-point pen

2008-01-18T07:52:00.000+10:00

I told you I wouldn't be a very good blogger. I just have nothing interesting to say!

This time however, I couldn't NOT say something.

The iPhone is beautiful, no doubt about it. The iPod Touch as well as it's basically the same product. But what happens when you accidentally drop a metal ball-point pen from 20cm onto it? My friend recently found out....

Apple will replace the screen for $250. Ouch, the price of beauty....