Lindo helps you write and verify Rails functional and integration tests by opening the HTTP response body in the default browser for inspection. This can be a real time-saver when you’re trying to figure out why your assert_select or have_tag calls aren’t passing. In its initial version, Lindo assumed that … Continue reading
I released the initial version of my auto-session-timeout plugin for Rails at West End Ruby tonight. 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 … Continue reading
After spending nearly an hour tracking down where a particular TextMate bundle was coming from, I have surmised that there are no less than four places on my Mac’s hard drive where bundles may be lurking. In no particular order, they are: ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Pristine Copy/Bundles ~/Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles /Applications/TextMate.app/Contents/SharedSupport/Bundles /Library/Application Support/TextMate/Bundles
I’m really enjoying using Brightkite. It’s a location-based social networking tool that lets you see what other people in your vicinity are doing. A GPS unit isn’t required and it integrates fairly well with Twitter and GMaps. (I’d love to see even tighter Twitter integration in the future.) Drop a … Continue reading
I began getting a strange error message from git earlier this week: key_read: uudecode (random SSH key junk here) ssh-rsa (more random SSH key junk here) failed The error message only showed up when I ran git pull. Google didn’t find much to help me, but acting on a hunch … Continue reading
Being at RubyConf this weekend has provided the necessary motivation for me to finally release a new Ruby gem I’ve been building. It’s an extraction from a project I’ve been working on for Relevance. I’m a regular user of assert_select in my functional tests. I find myself frequently doing something … Continue reading
Capistrano is a wonderful tool. I have this really old PHP-based web site, TolkienMovies.com, that I needed to make a change to earlier today. (The spam bots had finally found my news submission form.) I decided this was as good a time as any to automate deployment of the app. … Continue reading
I picked up a neat TextMate trick while pair programming with Justin Gehtland on Monday. Check out a directory from a Subversion repository and open it in TextMate. Click on the root directory of the project and hold down Ctrl-Shift-A. A menu will appear allowing you to select from a … Continue reading
37 Signals’ latest web application, Highrise, is now open for business. They offer a free account so you can try out the service without laying down any dinero. Looks like a useful tool. It’ll be interesting to see how tightly it integrates with Basecamp.
Have you wondered how to effectively synch bookmarks between work and home? I discovered the Foxmarks plugin for Firefox almost by accident last week and it does the trick for me. Better still, it’s fast and lightweight, the perfect companion for an agile developer. Foxmarks installs into Firefox in seconds. … Continue reading