Two in particular have been consuming my idle time, with some posts causing me to laugh louder than a hyena.

Running a Startup has posts that reflect on life at a start-up. If you’ve lived the moments the blog posts about then you’ll be cracking up right alongside me.

#whatshouldwecallme I believe is written by a young lady in law school (as some posts are specific to that subject). Some posts I don’t find particularly funny, whereas others I’ve shared with every person I know. Two of my favorites are this one and this one, which is easily the best animated gif ever created..

Know of any other funny animated gif sites?

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It saddens me. I have so much I want to say yet nothing is written. In my head I see myself stall. I’ll look straight ahead, think “We’re going to write”, and then…nothing. I never get past the thought. I never start writing or brainstorming. I just stop.

Sometimes I’ll distract myself. Usually I just do nothing. I stare straight ahead and keep staring. I stare at points that don’t exist, willing them to apparate, waiting for anything to break my concentration.

The energy I use thinking about writing is inevitably diverted to non productive gestures. It’s funneled, pruned, puréed, and expunged. I just stare and stare till my eyes sting and my forehead creases.

Then I give up. I find something easy to do and forget my urge to write. I push it down and away. Disowned, abandoned, forgotten.

Better to remember a past without failed attempts. Better for my heart, not for my soul.

And so nothing is written, nothing is said, nothing is shared. My eyes burn, my mind churns.

Thankfully I’ve saved myself the shame of failure. The only cost was passivity. Inert and unproductive, yet wildly successful.

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Fortunately a wonderful individual over at StackOverflow has written out some amazing answers to some advanced Python topics.

The Python yield keyword explained

Understanding Python decorators

What is a metaclass in Python?

I found the Python decorator article to be quite illuminating. Coming from JavaScript where functions are also first-class citizens I found it surprising to find the same was true in Python. I think Python’s white space confused me, it made all the function definitions look too neat and pretty to be equated with JavaScript function’s curly braces.

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Recently I created a new web app using Ruby on Rails. By trade I’m a PHP and JavaScript developer so this foray into RoR broke new ground for me.

I went with Rails over a PHP framework mostly because I wanted to try something new. I wanted to try something different and with its popularity Rails was a great pick.

In brief I found my experience developing with Ruby on Rails to be both frustrating and effortless.

Frustrating: because I was new to RoR I didn’t know all of its tricks and how to do things the Rails Way. As a result I felt like I was coding at a slower pace than I usually do. Really that’s the performance hit anyone experiences when trying something new.

Effortless: once I learned some Railisms and began to get the swing of how Rails works coding went smoothly. Using Rails’ ActiveRecord was magic once I understood how and why I should use it. Also Rails’ form helpers made form handling a joy to work with. Again: this was after I picked up some understanding of how these things worked. Before understanding I was close to pulling out my hair.

So what follows is a run through of my thoughts and experiences while I used Ruby on Rails to create Dates & Pairs.

Disclaimer: I am in no way a Rails or Ruby expert so if something written is incorrect please let me know and I will update the post to reflect the correct information.

Ruby is [more] Complicated (than PHP)

With a PHP application all you need is an Apache server.

With a Ruby on Rails application you need RVM (optional), gems, Rails, and patience.

It isn’t possible to open your favorite Code Editor and start writing. You have to create a Rails application and play within its confines. (To be fair those confines are larger than most PHP applications.)

Ruby is a full fledged object oriented language whereas PHP is a scripting language. There’s no equivalent to an index.php file with <?php echo 'Hello'; ?> in it in the Ruby world. The closest you’ll get is a Sinatra app, yet even then you’re making use of the Sinatra gem.

That was one of the biggest differences I faced while developing in Ruby on Rails. I didn’t know where the entry point for my program was and that led to a great deal of frustration. In a PHP application I almost always know where things start. In my RoR app I had to do a good deal of sleuthing to figure that out. Although it wasn’t really important to my coding it mattered to me on an intellectual level, something that I couldn’t let sit unanswered.

Ruby the Language

Just as there’s a PHP way of doing things there’s a Ruby way of doing things. This goes from syntax to how Ruby functions are named.

As a PHP developer I have grown used to checking if a variable is set by using PHP’s isset() function. In fact most PHP functions, whether it be for array or object manipulation, the variable is passed into the function to perform the desired computation. In Ruby all function calls are made on the object. This makes for beautiful code but also requires a shift in one’s cognitive approach.

In PHP you’d type isset($_GET['name']) to check if the query param name was set.

In Ruby you’d type params[:name].blank?.

In PHP if you wanted to change ‘Hello World’ to ‘Hello Bob’ you would type str_replace('World', 'Bob', 'Hello World').

In Ruby you would type 'Hello World'.gsub('World', 'Bob').

As you can see the Ruby syntax allows you to make function calls directly on the subject, whereas PHP requires you to pass in the subject to the function.

The reason for this is that Ruby is an object-oriented language. Everything in Ruby is an object, allowing you to make function calls on anything.

Besides the power you can get from object-oriented programming, this allows you to write code that is very easy to read and follow.

The main problem with moving to Ruby is that you have to learn what all those function calls are. Also you have to start developing a sense of what function calls would be named. Like above, I would not have guessed that gsub would be the function name to replace part of a string.

That’s why Ruby-Doc.org became my best friend while learning Ruby.

MVC or Bust

Ruby on Rails is an MVC architecture that makes it very difficult for you to cheat. This is a good thing as the more you adhere to a MVC design the easier it will be for you to maintain your application.

As a result you should take advantage of Ruby’s object-oriented powers. Create additional methods on your Rails models. This will allow for later development joy, keeping your code dry and easy to read and maintain.

Deployment

Without a doubt the hardest part to developing my app in Ruby on Rails was deploying the final code to production. I damn near quit at this point as the curve to get my site live was very steep.

I used Rails’ relatively new asset pipeline which in retrospect was probably above my skill level. The documentation for deploying with Rails’ asset pipeline isn’t very rich and as such I had to hunt and peck around the web to find the answers I needed.

I am hosting my program on Webfaction which is a pseudo-VPS service. You get shell access and the ability to host a plethora of applications, Rails being one of them.

I also used Capistrano to deploy my application. Without this software I would dread deploying any updates. With this software it’s a breeze. All I do is cap deploy and I start the automated process to updating my production code.

Conclusion

All in all I had a fun time learning how to create a Ruby on Rails application. Half of it was spent learning Ruby, half was spent learning Rails, and half was spent learning how to learn Ruby and Rails.

I thought RoR would speed up my development time and it did. However my inexperience with Ruby and Rails slowed me down, being the primary source of productivity speed bumps.

I was a little upset at how complicated it was to use Rails` asset pipeline. The biggest reason was definitely its lack of quality documentation. However the features it brings you are quite lovely (CSS and JS concatenation and minification).

Would I use RoR for my next project? Yes. But I won’t. I have my eyes set on using Node.js for my next project. My JavaScript skills have immensely improved and the prospect of coding in JavaScript on both the front-end and back-end brings a smile to my face. Stay tuned for when that happens.

Ruby is a hell of a language and one I look forward to playing with more. It brought an element of joy to my coding that I had never before experienced with PHP.

Sure there were times I wanted to run back to the warm and familiar embrace of PHP’s dollar signs but the fluidity of Ruby kept me close.

Of course at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what language you use. Just start coding and don’t give up. Everything else is just fluff.

Related posts:

1. My Experience with PHP Frameworks – Yii, CodeIgnitor, and Symfony
2. Say Hi To Couplytuna
3. Web Application Development Frameworks – Part 1

Previously I was using the ‘month and name’ configuration for each post, i.e. this post would be “/2012/05/post-name”.

My main problem with this structure was the impersonal tone it set for each post. Rather than each post being unique, important, and self-contained, the numerical structure set a very ordered tone for the posts. That being that each post was sequential and the order held some importance, when in reality that was far from true.

Keeping the URL scheme as just “/post-name” will now put the focus on the content and not the blog as a whole. Often-times I update posts and at that point I always ask myself, “Should I update the URL as well?”. Also I find it much more important to know when a post was last updated than when it was first created. Look to a theme change to reflect that desire.

On a technical note I used the following post by Yoast to help with my URL migration. This way old URLs won’t point to dead 404 pages and users will still be able to see the content they requested.

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How do you start blogging?

The first (non) challenge of blogging is what software or service to use. The most popular choices are WordPress and Blogger. Some may go the self-hosted route which opens up many more options, no decision objectively better than the rest.

After selecting your blogging engine of choice the real challenge begins. You have to write.

What do you write about? Guess what, only you know. You’re blogging because you want to. No one told you to blog or what to blog about. As a result the topics at your disposal are limitless.

At least at first. You should probably figure out what your dominant subject will be. It could be blogging about things you know intimately, or you could chronicle your foray into new experiences.

Or you could be like me and refuse to choose. Honestly it’s a stupid decision, one that causes me to curse my stubbornness daily.

Again, it’s up to you what you want to write about.

Have you chosen what it is yet?

Now start writing.

How often should you write?

Again, this is up to you. You’re blogging because you want to right?

I suggest setting an attainable goal for yourself to hit. When I started blogging I promised myself to post at least once per week. It was a goal I felt confident I could keep without burning myself out.

Write as often as you feel comfortable. Only you know the pace you can maintain. But above all else…

Write.

Write, write, write.

So now you’re writing.

Congratulations! Keep it up! Keep going! It doesn’t get easier but you do become more experienced.

With that experience you learn more about yourself as a blogger. You’ll learn that you blog best in the morning, or while on the train.

You’ll learn the posts that you enjoy writing most and the ones people love reading most.

Along the way you’ll pick up some comments, each one just as exciting as the first.

I yelped after I got my first comment on this blog, and I still do. It’s a joy to know my words bring joys to others.

So stop reading and get writing!

And for starters you can write me a nice comment.

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If you would be so kind as to look around you’ll notice that this blog has a new paint of coat. This paint of coat is one that I’m particularly happy with as it’s the first WordPress theme I’ve used for this blog that I created myself.

I shouldn’t take all the credit. This theme is still a child-theme of the already excellent Twenty Eleven theme (which was the theme I was using previously). However this child-theme has enough design of my own making that I feel comfortably calling it my own theme.

But wait! There’s more!

Along with creating this new theme I’ve also begun to develop it openly. You can view the source code for this theme on its GitHub page. Any changes that you see appear on this blog will appear in that repo. Watch it for fun, or ignore it for glee.

There’s still a few things left that I need to do with this redesign. I need to add a few more splotches of color (somewhere, not really sure where) and also fix up any other styling issues that might pop up. But I was so eager to start using this theme that I figured there was nothing to lose by switching over to it today.

Development Notes

In case you’re curious I grabbed the background repeating pattern from Subtle Patterns. It’s a great design resource to add just that right hint of flavor to the background. I might try a few different backgrounds but for now I’m quite pleased with ‘furley_bg’.

Also I’ve started an important practice while developing this theme: using a local dev environment. This is awesome for two very important reasons:

1. Any changes I make to my local environment don’t affect my live blog.
2. The workflow is much, much faster. Since all files are local the time it takes to refresh the page to see how my changes look is close to nil.

I’ve also kept my ‘wp-content’ folder out of my local WordPress installation. It was getting lost amidst the rest of WordPress files so I moved it into my root directory, which you can see in my GitHub repo.

I followed the information given here on how to move your wp-content and you can see how it looks in my wp-config.php file on my repo. This made the entire dev process much more enjoyable.

And as they say, a happy dev is a productive dev.

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On the other hand I feel quite liberated.

I think I didn’t post anything as a mild act of self-rebellion. For two years I’ve diligently pushed out a blog post, never mind the quality. However that behavior has began to pale for me. I don’t want to read shitty things so I shouldn’t be writing and posting shitty things.

Also I had an excuse.

I’ve come down with a god-awful cold these past two weeks. Last weekend I was all but couch-ridden, watching movie after tv show letting the sickness run its course. (Quick movie recap: *Immortals*: Stupid movie, fun action. *We Bought a Zoo*: Anticipated mushiness, but was a quality film for all ages. Highly recommended.)

So with my cold in my back pocket I let these two weeks ride, watching my blog sit and collect a little dust. I expected my view counts to drop as no new material was being written.

But they didn’t.

They kept strong, with my previously top read posts remaining my top read posts. It seems like some of my pages are high up in some Google searches as they’re constantly hit and read.

It was during these two weeks that I realized that I don’t need to mindlessly push out posts of any quality, but take my time with topics that I care about. Then write about them, take my time and when published their quality should speak for themselves.

Or they’ll just be ignored. At least I tried.

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To supplement this large diet of TV and movies I’ve taken it upon myself to create a home entertainment setup that I would be proud to call my own. At long last I have found the winning combination of hardware and software that now make up my setup.

I thought it would be helpful to the internet at large if I shared what I’ve learned along the way. I’ve gone through a few rounds of trial and error before arriving at my current setup, and hopefully you’ll be able to benefit from my mistakes.

Storage

The first part of any high quality home entertainment setup is a robust storage solution. My first solution to this problem was a simple external hard drive, however I quickly outgrew its limits.

My second forray was to build my own home server, an adventure that ended poorly and with limited success. A combination of choosing my own hardware, learning how to configure Linux on the fly, and just simple naiveté caused this attempt to be quickly abandoned.

After selling off those parts I moved to a Windows Home Server. This served me well for a few years. It was simple and did what it was designed to relatively well. However after a few years I began to outgrow its limited set of features.

I began researching other home storage solutions and eventually wound up choosing a Synology DiskStation as my next server. I’m very glad that I did.

Synology makes DiskStations which are NAS boxes that run a customized version of Linux packed with features that would put most home servers to shame. I have the DS410 (superseded by the DS411). I’m running four 1.5TB hard dives in a 1-disk redundancy volume. I’m using Synology’s Hybrid RAID setup which seems to mimic the features of a Drobo, meaning I can expand the size of my volume at a later date with any size hard drive.

DiskStations run DSM which is accessed through a very slick desktop-like web interface. Synology has made it very easy to set up user accounts for Read/Write/Delete permissions per folder. Those same accounts can be used in a FTP sever.

Honestly Synology can do a lot. It was built with small business needs in mind but for any tech savvy geek like myself it fits right into my workflow.

The hardware is small, quiet, and sleek. Right now it sits on the ground next to my TV and aside from the blinking LED lights (showing HD activity) it is hardly noticed.

I use my DS410 to download Torrents (it has a BitTorrent client accessed through a web interface), stream music (DS audio is sweet – who needs iTunes Match?), backup my Mac (supports Time Machine nicely), and to host all my media files.

I love this device.

HTPC

A media server is no good without some way to play the media it stores. These devices don’t need to be anything special as they’re mostly just thin heads on top of your server. They need only be powerful enough to play your top quality media without any framerate loss.

Although not my top choice I am currently using an Acer Aspire Revo 3610 as my HTPC. It has enough power to play 720p movies seamlessly and it effortlessly connects to my TV via an HDMI cable.

Software

When I first created my home entertainment setup I used Boxee to access my media. For a long time it served all my needs very nicely. It was able to index my files and presented them in an attractive grid with all their cover art automatically downloaded. It was easy to use and just worked.

A few months ago Boxee (the company) stopped supporting the open source version of Boxee and things began no longer working correctly. The straw that broke the camel’s back for me was when clip art stopped being downloaded. Instead of seeing the pretty posters for my movies all I saw was a default image.

I am now using XBMC and I absolutely adore it. Boxee was built off of XBMC so it isn’t surprising that most of what I liked about Boxee I now like about XBMC.

XBMC recently released a major upgrade called Eden. It’s now at version 11 and does everything that Boxee did and a little more.

One of the coolest new features of XBMC is its support for AirPlay video. That means that from my iPhone or iPad I can push video content to XBMC and it starts playing on my TV. It’s magic and I love it.

However one thing XBMC doesn’t do is support AirPlay audio. For a while I was bummed about that until I discovered Shairport4w.

Shairport4w brings AirPlay audio to your windows computer. This means that from my iTunes library on my Mac I can easily and seamlessly play my music through my TV’s speakers – which are a lot better than my computers. Shairport4w was the final missing piece of the puzzle and I’m so glad it exists.

Conclusion

… and that’s my setup. It works wonderfully and I love using it every day.

I hope you picked up some useful knowledge in this post and that it helps you in your quest for home entertainment perfection.

Of course this setup isn’t final by any means. I’d love a dedicated home audio system, and my Acer Revo is beginning to show its age. But for now my needs are comfortably met, making movie time a fun time.

And now, will you excuse me? I have some things I want to watch.

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Two of my favorite artists are putting out new albums this year.

Dirty Projectors is finally releasing the follow-up to their amazing “Bitte Orca”. They just posted a video for the upcoming single off the new album and it is awesome. Groovy drum beat, thumping bass line, and the always amazing vocals.

Watch and listen to the new single from the Dirty Projectors now.

Even more exciting than that…my all time favorite band The Walkmen are putting out a new album this year as well. Titled “Heaven” it’s due out later this year. From Pitchfork:

The followup to 2010′s Lisbon was recorded with noted indie rock producer Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, the Shins, Modest Mouse) at his Seattle-area studio in the woods. Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold sings on the track “No One Ever Sleeps”.

So that was enough to make me start dancing. But what really threw me over the moon was the music playing in their newly released trailer for “Heaven”.

Watch the trailer for The Walkmen’s upcoming album “Heaven” now.

This is going to be an amazing year for music.

Related posts:

1. Stereogum’s 50 Most Anticipated Albums Of 2011
2. Former Fleet Foxes Drummer’s New Music Video
3. The Walkmen Announce Lisbon