If you’re not familiar with the concepts behind nomadic programming, you might want to read my introduction before watching the video.

By the way, the Hoedown itself was fantastic. This is the third year Jeremy has run the conference and the presentations were top-notch. By far the best yet. The venue (the Opryland in Nashville) was also quite pleasant, if a little on the expensive side. The expense was worth it, though, if only to hear Jim Weirich present on a source control system that sounded a lot like Git, but wasn’t!

And of course, the nearby mall complete with movie theater and Bass Pro Shop was just the icing on the cake. (C’mon Raleigh, when are we gonna get a Bass Pro Shop? Charlotte has one.)

One of the highlights for me was attending Nathaniel’s talk about startups. It was a longer version of the talk he gave at Ignite which was perfect for me since I was unable to attend Ignite. I was also intrigued by a round-table discussion about developing applications for the Palm Pre. The primary reason I haven’t switched to the iPhone yet is because I adore Sprint’s phenomenal coverage area. I’m not willing to “downgrade” to AT&T at this point. The Pre looks like it could be a nice alternative. The jury is still out though, because Curtis mentioned in a hallway conversation that Sprint is planning on introducing a phone that runs Android later this year. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

I also really enjoyed catching up with some folks I hadn’t seen in a while. Who says geeks aren’t social? By the end of the day I was pretty worn out from all the “socializing” being done. I made sure to get my own presentation in early though, which was a change from last year. I pitched a talk about nomadic programming and jumped on the first time slot in room E, a favorite. The turnout was much higher than expected. I enjoyed sharing some of my own experiences with nomading and hearing what other people had been up to.

If you’re not familiar with nomading, my previous post on nomadic programming is a great introduction to the concept. Essentially, it’s the idea that getting out of the house or the office and to a coffee shop or co-working location has numerous benefits, including enhancing your productivity and providing fresh networking opportunities. I shared a few of my favorite nomading locations, including The Wake Zone. I also ran through the inventory of my “go-bag:”

• Power strip/block w/surge protection
• Wireless mouse (Bluetooth is ideal)
• Headset w/boom mic (for Skype and music)
• EVDO connectivity (Millenicom is my recommendation)
• Laptop (preferably a Mac!)
• Cables for connecting to an external monitor
• Water bottle (keepin’ it cool)

I do plan on writing a follow-up to my original post about nomadic programming. Expect to see something later in September. Something I think we all should do going forward is communicate our nomading plans via Twitter. Make sure to use the #twitter hashtag when you do. Twitter has been the best way for me to coordinate co-working trips with fellow geeks. Chris has said that there really should be an app that makes this easier. Hmm, interesting idea! Anyone want to run with it?

By the way, make sure you’re following me on Twitter. C’mon, you know you want to.

In conclusion, I continue to find BarCamp to be, far from a waste of time, a great way to reconnect with a group of geeks I don’t see very often, and also an invaluable educational resource. I always pick up something new when I attend. And who can resist free T-shirts and food? If you’ve never been to BarCamp before, you should definitely consider subscribing to the blog and attending in 2010. You won’t regret it.

I submitted a talk titled 3 Secrets to Effective Nomading. Check out the description and, if you feel it’s compelling and would want to hear it, please consider voting for it.

And by all means, if you have an idea for a talk, submit it!

I’m really looking forward to presenting again at RubyRX. I’ll be giving two talks this year. Git with Ruby will explore the Git source control system and how Ruby can take advantage of it. In Which Ruby Testing Framework Should I Use? we’ll briefly examine several leading testing frameworks and study the pros and cons of each. You’ll leave fully prepared to pick the best framework for your next project.

Let me know if you’re coming to the conference this year and we can link up in Reston. If you haven’t registered yet, what are you waiting for? RubyRX is a chance to network with the best and brightest developers in the area, and hear from thought leaders like Andy Hunt, Rich Kilmer, Joe O’Brien, and Chad Fowler. It’s a great way to keep your skills sharp in a down year.

In its initial version, Lindo assumed that your app was running at localhost:3000 (a fair assumption given the prevalence of Mongrel last year). Now that Passenger is on the scene, something better needed to be done. The reliance on a running app server was a disadvantage to begin with. Now Lindo doesn’t require anything to be running. It dumps the HTML to disk, fixes any relative asset URLs, and opens the file using your default browser.

Once you’ve written your first test with the assistance of Lindo, you won’t want to go back!

Lindo was developed by my company, Adeptware, and can be pulled from GitHub. I’ve also posted a brief introduction to Lindo and some basic installation instructions.

I really enjoyed the experience. If you’re at all interested in learning more about Radiant, or helping to contribute, I encourage you to consider attending the next hack night. Make sure you’re on the raleigh.rb mailing list to receive notification when it gets scheduled.

Have you ever wanted to force your users off your app if they go idle for a certain period of time? Many online banking sites use this technique. If your app is used on any kind of public computer system, this type of functionality is essential for maintaining the privacy of your data.

After installing the plugin, a small snippet of JavaScript is placed on each page. The JS polls the server every minute to see if the session is still active. If the user has been idle for at least an hour, they are immediately redirected to a timeout page. The session will not timeout as long as the user keeps clicking around. The timeout and polling intervals are both configurable.

The plugin is dead simple to install and configure. To get started:

script/plugin install git://github.com/pelargir/auto-session-timeout.git

Then hit the README for step-by-step instructions.

My initial goal with Fuelinator is to make mileage entry dead simple and to provide some compelling new features… for example, alerts via email or SMS when my vehicle’s mileage changes suddenly. This helps me track down maintenance problems early and gives me valuable information about what does and doesn’t improve my gas mileage. For example, I changed my air filter and inflated my tires last week. If my mileage changes drastically this week, I want to know. Now, Fuelinator will tell me.

The ultimate goal is for Fuelinator to save its users gobs of money on their gas bills. I haven’t made Fuelinator public yet, but if you’d like to participate in the beta program make sure you sign up. It’s going to be a fun ride!