After spending the past 4 hours attempting to solve what boiled down to a rather simple problem, I figure I’d better blog about it to save someone else the time and effort. If you’ve been leveraging Passenger’s new –nginx-config-template command line option to add CORS headers to static assets served … Continue reading
In part 2 we coded our PDF generator as a background job. But the PDF is still being stored on the local file system. Let’s store it in S3 instead and give our users a URL so they can download it. First let’s add the AWS SDK gem to our … Continue reading
In part 1 we learned why backgrounding is important. Now let’s dive into some code. First things first. Add wicked_pdf and delayed_job to your Gemfile: Now we can generate a PDF from inside our Rails app with this simple command: You’ll notice that the more complex the HTML, the longer … Continue reading
What do you get when you combine the slick PDF generation capabilities of wicked_pdf with the elegance and efficiency of delayed_job? A high performance way to convert HTML pages into beautiful PDF documents. I’ve been leveraging wicked_pdf to generate high school transcripts from my SaaS app, Teascript, since 2009. Prior … Continue reading
I’ll admit it: I’ve been coveting a standing desk for years. The idea of escaping the uncomfortable prison of my 10-year-old desk chair is compelling. But standing desks are prohibitively expensive for many people, and up until recently that included me. It finally got to be too much, though. A … Continue reading
Muut (formerly Moot) is a lightweight, customizable commenting system. Octopress is a static blogging framework built on Jekyll. Mix the two and you have a delicious recipe enabling visitors to comment on static blog posts without having to resort to a database. My Octopress plugin makes this integration super easy. … Continue reading
Thanks to everyone who turned out for my API talk at the Triangle Ruby Brigade. I wasn’t expecting such a large crowd and the resulting Q&A was really good. It was interesting hearing how other developers are using APIs in their projects, and what problems they are encountering and solving. … Continue reading
If you’ll be in or near Raleigh the evening of March 12th, consider dropping by the Triangle Ruby Brigade. I’ll be presenting on how to build HTTP-based APIs in Rails, including: Creating an API controller Wiring up versioned routes for your API Protecting your API with authentication Choosing a transport … Continue reading
When did developers start defaulting the “remember me” checkbox during login to NOT be checked? 99% of the time I’m on my own computer when logging in, which means that 99% of the time I want that box checked. I’ll uncheck the box myself for the remaining 1% (when I’m … Continue reading
I’ll be presenting on A/B testing at tonight’s raleigh.rb meetup. As developers, we use tools like RSpec and Cucumber to verify that our application is functional, but how can we verify that the layout of our home page is user-friendly? How can we determine the ideal size for our signup … Continue reading