26Blog

gilt-tech: Yesterday Jeremy Ashkenas came by Gilt to talk...

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:10:39 -0500

Yesterday Jeremy Ashkenas came by Gilt to talk about CoffeeScript, a language he’s been working on since 2009. CoffeeScript is a simple language with syntactic roots in Python and Ruby. It compiles into JavaScript and adds interesting features including array comprehensions. CoffeeScript is arguably more readable than JavaScript.

Jeremy gave a great overview of CoffeeScript and who is using it. He gets into detail on the Syntax of the language and also discusses its implementation and how to go about creating your own language.

Use presence | Ola Bini: Programming Language Synchronicity

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:50:57 -0500

Use presence | Ola Bini: Programming Language Synchronicity

attr_accessor_with_default

Thu, 06 Jan 2011 22:37:19 -0500

rubyquicktips:

Here’s a method I haven’t seen before: attr_accessor_with_default

This ActiveSupport method allows you to set a default value for an attribute accessor:
class Person
  attr_accessor_with_default :age, 25
end

some_person.age    # => 25

some_person.age = 26
some_person.age    # => 26
You can even pass in a block.

The essentials of writing high quality Javascript

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 16:45:46 -0400

The essentials of writing high quality Javascript:

dancroak:

Long, but looks like it contains some good nuggets.

bash-it: A community bash framework in the spirit of oh-my-zsh

Wed, 06 Oct 2010 00:06:05 -0400

bash-it: A community bash framework in the spirit of oh-my-zsh:

thechangelog:

Robby Russell’s zsh framework indeed made us say oh-my-zsh!. With over forty themes and a dozen plugins, oh-my-zsh makes it easy to pimp your zsh.

If you’re perfectly happy with bash and things like right side prompts, smart tab completions, and shared session history aren’t your bag, then check out bash-it from Robert Evans. Like oh-my-zsh, bash-it provides a community framework for pimping your shell using themes and plugins.

To install, clone the repo:
git clone http://github.com/revans/bash-it.git
Be sure and backup your current .bash_profile:
cp ~/.bash_profile ~/.bash_profile.bak
… and then start with bash-it’s default profile template.
cp /template/bash_profile.template.bash ~/.bash_profile
Current plugins provide extra goodies for git, rails, and common aliases. Mercurial support is on the way. Got ideas? Well get to forkin’ and send a pull request already.

[Source on GitHub]

GithubFinder: JavaScript-powered Github repo browser

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 22:26:39 -0400

GithubFinder: JavaScript-powered Github repo browser:

thechangelog:

For those times you need to quickly browse a GitHub repo but don’t want to clone it locally, check out GitHubFinder from Alex Le.

Modeled after the Mac OSX finder, GitHubFinder provides a familiar drill-down navigation to browse all the files in a given repo. The project has a plugin-based architecture for extensibility and includes keyboard navigation, file diffs, basic syntax highlighting, and a resizable, panel-based interface out of the box.

Written in JavaScript as part of the 10K Apart Contest, the app uses the same JSONP API we use here on The Changelog and weighs in at just 8.5KB compressed. Bravo, Alex! [Source on GitHub]

This is hot.

facebook-ios-sdk: Drop Facebook into your iOS application

Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:15:44 -0400

facebook-ios-sdk: Drop Facebook into your iOS application:

thechangelog:

Facebook loves iOS developers. First, they gave us Three20, a nice iOS app framework extracted from their popular native app. Now they’ve released the Facebook iOS SDK which lets you easily add authorization, API calls, and Facebook dialogs to your iOS apps.

Authorization

To authorize a user using OAuth2 you can simply create the Facebook client and call authorize
facebook = [[Facebook alloc] init];
[facebook authorize:apiKey permissions:permissions delegate:self];
Making API calls

Now you can do things like getting info for the authenticating user:
[facebook requestWithGraphPath:@"me" andDelegate:self];
or get that users’s friends
[facebook requestWithGraphPath:@"me/friends" andDelegate:self];
[Source on GitHub]

Building Large jQuery Applications

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:00:28 -0400

View more presentations from Rebecca Murphey.

The Changelog - Open Source moves fast. Keep up.: A new look

Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:07:41 -0400

The Changelog - Open Source moves fast. Keep up.: A new look:

Well as some of you have noticed, things have been a bit quiet around here this week.

Fear not, we’re not about to stop covering the fast-moving world of open source. We’ve just been working to give The Changelog a fresh coat of paint.

We love Tumblr, but creating custom themes isn’t the…

Fumblr looks fantastic. Can’t believe I didn’t look for something like this the other day when I was fighting with a theme.

Chris Eppstein's HAML/SASS Progress Bar

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:14:50 -0400

Awesome.

dancroak: Postgres as a secret weapon in Rails apps.

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:15:56 -0400

dancroak:

Postgres as a secret weapon in Rails apps.

HOWTO: Stream Your User Group Meetings

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:07:41 -0400

This should help anyone who wants to get a simple public live stream setup for a meeting of any type and record segments for future use. These instructions are Mac specific.

I’ve used this setup for several user group meetings and it’s worked out really well. Here’s an example video from @commondream last year:

Setup

Download and install CamTwist (direct link)
Create an account with a streaming service. I use Ustream.tv in this example.

Configuration

CamTwist Settings

Open CamTwist. We’re going with a picture-in-picture setup that uses an entire second display as the main image displaying the presentation slides, with a smaller overlay of the webcam feed of the presenter in the bottom right corner.

In the ‘Select a video source:’ box on the left, double-click the Desktop source. On the far right, you’ll see some settings for this source. In that ‘Settings’ area, choose the proper screen. In our example, that screen is probably your projector or an external monitor of some sore. You’ll want to tick the ‘Full Screen’ option.

Next, single click the ‘Webcam’ source in the far left sources box so it’s selected, then click the PIP button below the source list. You’ll notice a ‘PIP Webcam’ item has shown up in the ‘Step 3 Adjust settings’ list.

Highlight the ‘PIP Webcam’ item and change the settings on the right to:

Scale: somewhere between 0.25 and 0.5 should work well. Any larger and you’ll cover up too much of the slides. Our settings are saved at 0.29.
Position: drag the small black box to the area you’d like the webcam video to display.
Camera: select the proper camera you’re using to capture the presenter.

I leave the other options as default. Feel free to experiment.

Now, open the Preview window by selecting the Tools menu > Preview (or hit CMD+P). Check the position of your PiP overlay and drag it to a place that makes you happy using the small black box in the settings pane of the main window.

Save Settings

You can save your current settings in CamTwist by clicking the ‘Save Setup’ button. It saves quite a bit of time.

Once you’re happy with the output, move along to Ustream.

Ustream

Login and create a show. Be sure to add a schedule entry for the time and date of the meetings, too! Do whatever customization you’d like to get your channel hopping.

Click the big green ‘Broadcast Now!’ button on the top right corner of the Ustream site. A popup window will open (check your popup blocker if it doesn’t). Allow Flash access to your mic and camera.

In the Video Source dropdown, select the CamTwist source.

NOTE: If you don’t see CamTwist, you might need to restart your browser or open another browser.

Streaming

When you’re ready to get started, click the Start Broadcast button. Streaming starts right away, so you’re online.

Recording Talks

One of the nice features of Ustream is the ability to record segments as you stream. We typically record each talk separately so they can be embedded independently of the entire meeting.

To record a talk, get your presenter setup and ready to go. When everyone’s ready, hit the ‘Start Record’ button.

When the talk is finished, hit ‘Stop Record’ and a new preview of the recording shows up. Click the ‘Save’ button.

Fill in the details and hit ‘Save.’ Now, repeat the process for the next talk and your meetings are online for posterity!

Conclusion

This should help you get your meetings online to reach a wider audience. Let me know if I’ve missed anything and I’ll try to update as soon as I can.

(via joefiorini)

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:51:09 -0400

(via joefiorini)

thoughtbot-giantrobots: Ben Orenstein is a Ruby buddy of ours...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:01:18 -0400

thoughtbot-giantrobots:

Ben Orenstein is a Ruby buddy of ours in Boston who is teaching our vim training on Friday afternoon/early evening.

Check out this video he made giving a few suggestions for reaching vim mastery. I think you’ll find Ben is a good teacher who thinks deeply about how people learn.

It’s not too late to register, and you have ample time to register for the next session in September. Hope to see you there!

webkitbits: How to tailor CSS for iPhone 4 (Retina display)...

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:58:16 -0400

webkitbits:

How to tailor CSS for iPhone 4 (Retina display) (via esquareda)

Speed up Paperclip in tests

Wed, 19 May 2010 12:28:33 -0400

module Paperclip
  def self.run cmd, params = "", expected_outcodes = 0
    case cmd
    when "identify"
      return "100x100"
    when "convert"
      return
    else
      super
    end
  end
end

class Paperclip::Attachment
  def post_process
  end
end

via Pivotal

iPad Orientation CSS

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:52:10 -0400

iPad Orientation CSS:

webkitbits:

Cloud Four shows how it’s possible to change your CSS on the iPad based on orientation using media query declarations:

Advanced Javascript to Improve your Web App on Vimeo (via Vimeo)

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 13:50:38 -0400

Advanced Javascript to Improve your Web App on Vimeo (via Vimeo)

dancroak: vim cheat sheet

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:26:09 -0500

dancroak:

vim cheat sheet

HTML5 Forms

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 00:20:11 -0500

I wasn’t aware of this, but here’s how the iPhone is able to display different keyboards based on Mobile Safari form fields:

The iPhone does not have a physical keyboard. All “typing” is done by tapping on an on-screen keyboard that pops up at appropriate times, like when you focus a form field in a web page. Apple did something very clever in the iPhone’s web browser. It recognizes several of the new HTML5 input types, and DYNAMICALLY CHANGES THE ON-SCREEN KEYBOARD to optimize for that kind of input.

For example, email addresses are text, right? Sure, but they’re a special kind of type. For example, virtually all email addresses contain the @ sign and at least one period (.), but they’re unlikely to contain any spaces. So when you use an iPhone and focus an element, you get an on-screen keyboard that contains a smaller-than-usual space bar, plus dedicated keys for the @ and . characters.

From Dive Into HTML5