thinkPond.org

Review of Dreamhost website hosting

There are a lot of site hosting options out there. I chose Dreamhost to host thinkPond.org and I'm pleased with my choice. First I'll list the features advertised by Dreamhost at the time of writing. Then I'll let you in on some things you wouldn't otherwise find out until you signed up.

jsTest JavaScript unit testing tool

This article is about jsTest, a JavaScript unit testing tool. Although this tool could be used in many JavaScript testing scenarios, it is specifically designed for writing unit tests as part of the Test Driven Development (TDD) iteration cycle: write a test, make the test pass, refactor, repeat.

Mock object testing with jsTest

This article picks up where we left off in the first article on jsTest. Everything we cover in this article can also be applied to the jsTest Eclipse continuous testing plug-in. Last time we looked at how to write unit tests using assertions in jsTest. This time we'll look at mock objects, which are useful when tests deal with interactions between objects. To understand some problems with testing using assertions alone, consider this example (borrowed from Wikipedia).

�Torrent Google gadget moves to a new home!

Welcome to the new home of the �Torrent Google gadget. Drop this gadget into your Google home page, or any web page, to remotely monitor your torrents when you are away from home. I wrote it to check up on my torrents while I'm at the office. It sits in my Google home page next to gmail and my RSS feeds. But you could use it at school or on your PDA.

Introducing the �Torrent Web UI Firefox extension

Download the extension here. Welcome to the new home of the �Torrent Web UI Firefox extension. The Web UI lets you control �Torrent when you are away from home, via a web page interface. I use it to start torrents when I am at the office. For a better description, installation instructions and help, visit the Web UI forum. This extension makes the Web UI a little easier to use in Firefox. These are the features...

CoderMCE, a Joomla WYSWYG editor for source code

I set up my Joomla site and one of the first things I wanted to do was publish an article with source code examples.

New look for 2008

It's been a long time since I did anything with this site: over a year now. Hopefully I'll be more active this year. I decided to stop using Joomla as my CMS. It's an excellent piece of software but I wanted more control of the layout and structure of my site. Now most of the content is static, except for pages with comments. I'm using the Simple Comments script to drive those.

New feature for the �Torrent Firefox extension

The �Torrent Firefox extension is an extension I wrote to connect to �Torrent remotely. It lets you add new downloads via drag and drop and view your current torrents, etc. Thanks to Phunkyfish, you can now connect to �Torrent over SSL. This is great if you want to use a secure SSL tunnel. I've integrated all his changed into the trunk and bumped the version to 0.1.6. Sorry it took me so long!

How this site works

This site is built from source assets using a python script. Briefly, this is how it all works.

Using Rake to build a site

I've been continuing to experiment with ruby. This morning I took a look at rake. It's ruby's equivalent of make and instead of writing a makefile you write a rakefile. What makes rakefiles powerful is that they are actually valid ruby programs. Rake is an example of a DSL, in this case embedded within the ruby language. Here's an example rakefile: