Nice features on it

Press the command touch (Windows touch on the keyboard) to display Superswitcher.

To switch from a desktop to another press Command + arrow left or right

To switch from available windows in a desktop press Command + arrow up or down

To move a window into another desktop press Command + shift + arrow left or right

To search within all windows name Command + [any text]

Screencast

I’ve just recorded a quick screencast to show all these functionalities

So?

For me it’s now a must have on every computer I use, because it make organizing my desktops really easily.

Why is it use for?

Caffeine stop your computer for going to sleep, or just to switch your back light off.
Really useful when watching a video, or during a meting.

You can also add process, that will automaticaly enable Caffeine. (Like VLC, OpenOffice, what ever ..).

How to get it?

On the Caffeine developer blog, you can find a good introduction to the software.

To install it, just follow the instructions for the Caffeine Wiki.

Hardware

As described in a previous post I now use a netbook as main development machine until September this year.

Machine1: Medion E1312,11.6″,Athlon 1.6 Ghz single core, 2 Gig Ram . For all task, it’s really responsive, but when you run tests, the single core is as slow as a dead cow unfortunately. The screen can sometime be a bit small, but it’s ok most of the time.

Machine2: At home, an old P4 is used to backup everything on 1,5 TB hard drive. (Ubuntu server)

Screen: At home I’ve got a second monitor, 19″ from HP.

Headphones: Sennheiser HD215

External mini western digital HD: 360 Gig in a small pocket size.

Software

Ubuntu, because it’s efficient and easy. If you want to learn more about my setup you can see my Rubyists guide to Linux development environment.

Gedit combined with Gmate makes my editor of choice under Linux. One day, I’ll learn to master Vim …

Gnome-do, a Quicksilver like.

Banshee media player, really good at managing music collection and screencast/podcast feeds.

Firefox 3.5, with web developer extension, bugzilla, Yslow, Delicious.

Tweetcetera is now my twitter client of choice. Normal you would as I’m the developer . Should be released in beta soon.

Liferea is my main RSS reader. Needed to do some tricks to make it quick in Ubuntu.

Gnome-evolution for all my different emails accounts.

Gnome terminal.

Gitg, a git desktop app, better than the old gitk.

The Gimp, I’m not a designer, so, that fit my needs.

Inkscape, same as The Gimp. Fits my needs.

Other

Bike: I use an old Raleigh racer bike, transformed into a single speed after an accident.

Bag: Targus messenger bag that can all my life, and carrying it around the city.

BUT, when I develop/test from from my office, I needed to pass through my corporate proxy. Obviously not when I’m at home, and not on my staging/development server.

For the first days I just manage to remove the proxy config variable in my application.rb and that was ok, but it’s certainly not an elegant solution.

First I wanted to create new environments like development_office and test_office, with specific config files … bullshit.

The solution is pretty easy.

open_uri look at environment variables.
Apache use a file call envvars, to setup these environment variables.

So just edit your envvars file (In your Apache folder), and add your env variable like

export http_proxy=http://mycorporate.proxy.com:8080

Restart apache and it’s ok.

Sweet.

Books

If you really want to learn Ruby on Rails, the best first thing to do is certainly to invest in a good paper/electronic book.
There are lots of books available outside but I would only recommend two of them.

Agile web development with Rails
Probably the most popular book outside. The third version include Rails 2.x support and was co-written by Sam Ruby, Dave Thomas, David Heinemeier Hansson, et al.
A must have.

The Rails Way
Obie Fernandez came here with one of the best book for rails developer. From the beginning to Rspec, you’ll learn how to start coding and testing your new Rails App. Btw, Obie Fernandez is the guy behind Thoughtbot.

Wiki

New ruby on rails wiki
While your waiting your book to be delivered, you might have a look to the  new ruby on rails wiki started by the Rails Activist Team. Let say, in a nutshell, that this wiki is a big FAQ for Rails, and beginners should find here responses to their questions.

On line Documentation

Rails Guides
You know what they say, RTFM before asking a dummy question! So be sure to checkout the awesome Rails Guides before asking any question, you’ll certainly find your answer.

Official Ruby on Rails doc
Well, not the best looking, but at least it does the job.

Rails Brain
Rails brain ajaxified the official ruby doc, for a smoother search experience. The good thing is you can access on line, old Rails versions doc. Note there is also RubyBrain

Rails Searchable API Doc
A very nice Ajax interface to parse the Rails (and some other gems) api. You can download it, and copy the directory in your web server root directory to have an off line access to it.

ApiDock
Probably Certainly the best documentation search tool ever!. It combines documentation and community in the same project. Very smart. (Note there are Firefox and Textmate extensions).

Community

Rails forum
A friendly and smart community, alway here to help. Feel free to ask your question if you didn’t find the answer above.

Ruby on Rails Google group
I’m not a big fan of malling lists/Google groups, but it’s a nice one, with -again- a huge community.

Screencast/Podcasts

Definitively one of the best way to learn how to develop is to listen/watch  some else coding.

Railscast
I don’t remember how was my Monday morning before the Railscast. Ryan Bates will offer you every week  a new free screencast, full of good coding practice and advice. A must to watch, with a warm cup of tea.

Peepcode
One of the best quality screencast for Rails/Merb/Development in general. If you are new to rails, I just recommend you the REST for Rails2 screencast and the Rails2 PDF.

Rails Envy Podcast
Still need to present them? Presented by Greg Pollack and Jason Siffier Saffer Seifer (he never knows how to pronounce names either!) . These guys are just crazy, and yes it’s a compliment. Every week, during 20 minutes, you’ll learn all the hot new stuff happening in the Ruby/Rails/Merb community, with fun. Check it out.

What else?

Sure you can extend this list with blog talking about Rails, Twitters of trendy rails developers to follow, github account to watch … sure, but I think with this list above you’ll have a good entry point to the community.
Now have fun and happy coding (go write your tests!).

I’ve wrote a quick and dirty code for that (tmsnippets2gedit on github)

You just need to copy the script to the textmate bumdle root directory, and run it.

You’ll have a new file call result.xml that you need to edit to specify the language format (JS,Ruby,XSL, …).

Then rename it and copy it to your gedit snippets folder.

The code is not pretty, and is certainly perfectible, but for the moment it works. I’ll to combine it to the tm2gtksw2 project (this one convert Texmate styles to Gedit styles)

I participated this year, and managed to develop a personal stretch reminder, called Sheep Fit. You can visit the application for the beta use here. The blog, with all the creation step was maintained during these 48 H by Nathalie Cacahuete.

How was it ?

Very hard. I was alone for all the development and the design and the deployement process. So just a bit wired not to finish in time.

Because there were contestants from all over the world, the competition started at 00:00 GMT in the night from Friday to Saturday, and finished 48 hours later.

The first coding night was ok, but I was really too tired on the second night.

Lots of trouble with the app, with timezones (finally I had to go in rails 2.1 instead of 2.1.1 …) and with the Linode server. I really thanks Matt for the good advice he gave me : Go to bed 5 hours and come back to finish your application.

What did i learn ?

I have to write test …. really. I don’t write full application test usually, just a few and then that bores me. But this this experience made it clear to me : Tests are the key to develop productively. If you don’t write them you’ll lost and waste too much time resolving bugs which should not be there.

I’ve downloaded the 3 RSpec Peepcode videos and I’ll take time to look at them carefully.

Other developers were really cool. When I shared on twitter my fears about not finishing the application, I had plenty of messages pushing me to keep going and not to stop. Thanks you all.

What was the best part ?

1. Nathalie’s gingerbread

2. Deploy the application and saw it live

Last week I was really busy. A lot of work in my day job, and a lot of work at home on the travelplanner.

I’m now really proud to annonce that Nathalie, my partner, will help me in the launch of the two projects.

What are these 2 projects?

    The first one is a travel planner. The blog and a launch page will be open this week.
This travel planner will help you creating, discovering and sharing you future journeys.
A very cool application, with a mobile and an Iphone access (in preparation).
The blog will be a beautiful blog, with gorgeous travel photos and travel tips, as well as focuses on some travellers

    The second application will be our RailsRumble application. SheepFit.
Just a cool way of not forgetting to take your eyes off the PC (or the MAC) sometimes.
And if you’re very inspired, you’ll also be able create your own stretching programme, and hope for having a lot of persons following you
The blog will be a fun blog, with some cool strench advice, and some tiredness killer tips.

What are going to be the 2 roles?

    I’m a developer, with a geekly nerd view on marketing things. But Nathalie, is a marketing lover. She studied marketing in France, and after worked for 10 month in Lafarge     Plasterboard, she is now looking for a fun job in or around Bristol, Uk. (Take a look to her cv)

    So, Nathalie will be in charge of the Blog and News, and all the marketing/communication stuff.
During the rails rumble, she is going to update the blog, hour by hour, keeping you up-to-date with the state of the application during its creation. Brilliant idea.

    I’ll be in charge of all the technical posts on these blog, and on all the Ruby on Rails development.

How can you help us delivering new cool web apps?

   The first thing you can do is subscribe to this blog RSS (click here)

   The second thing you can do is follow our projects on twitter. We opened the sheepfit twitter account today (Follow Sheepfit)

   The third thing is  spread the word about these applications and blogs .

   Thank you very much for your support, we are looking forward to hearing from you on these ideas. The sheepfit blog will be open tonight, stay tuned.]]> http://www.notgeeklycorrect.com/english/2008/10/13/the-2-projects-launch-week/feed/ 0 http://www.notgeeklycorrect.com/english/2008/10/11/10-places-left-for-the-rails-rumble/ http://www.notgeeklycorrect.com/english/2008/10/11/10-places-left-for-the-rails-rumble/#comments Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:10:51 +0000 Nicolas http://www.notgeeklycorrect.com/english/2008/10/11/10-places-left-for-the-rails-rumble/ The rails rumble team inform us (on their blog) that they manage to open more Rails Rumble seat.

There are now 10 seat left. Hurry up.

WiseStamp Firefox Exension is for you.

This little extension will add a new button on the bottom right of your Firefox status bar. You’ll just have to do a right click, edit, and start your new signature creation.

A basic HTML editor (with Bold, Underline, Link, Center, Image … ) and some very useful Instant Messenger and WebServices helpers icons, like Facebook or linkedin, will be at your disposal on the WiseStamp interface.

Once saved, you’re new signature will be automatically sent with your emails.

The only problem is that WiseStamp is only available for Firefox for the moment.

I was looking for a simple solution for a long time now, thanks to Eric from www.presse-citron.net.

Here is my new signature :