Real Dimensions

Google has announced a new toolkit and set of browser extensions that allow web applications to run on your desktop (but still in the browser) without an internet connection. Google Reader is already running Google Gears.

You can get the browser extensions here. They have them for both IE and Firefox on Mac, Linux and Windows.

I’ve read how others are wondering why Google made this when Adobe already has Apollo and Joyent had Slingshot. Well for starters Joyent’s Slingshot is for Ruby on Rails apps only and Adobe’s Apollo, while do you don’t “need” to use Flash it really is directed more towards the Flash and Flex developers. On top of this Google Gears is the only one out (in bete, but they are all in bete) that works in Both Major Browsers , Firefox and IE, and also works on all three major platforms.

Initially, the tools will enable Google Reader to work off line, but the more obvious candidates for off line use are the documents and spread sheeting applications. I expect this in the not too distant future. As well as anything that any one else wants to develop.
And one of the really cool things is that Google Gears is open source software, licensed under the New BSD license. This license is very permissive.

If your looking got he plug-in you can get info here.

If your a developer you can get more info here.

Hopefully I will have some time to build something with and, if I do I will post it for anyone interested in taking a look. If anyone has any ideas for a great Web application that needs to be taken off line as well, let me know.

Today was a longer day, being the first day of the Conference (yesterday was the Tutorials Day) we had the opening Keynote from David Heinemeier Hanson (DHH). He had some really interesting things to say about the future of Rails in 2.0 and some Milestones.

Milestones:

• Over One Million Downloads, with 700,000 in the last year.
• Hundreds of plugins made for Rails (conservative number)
• Over 1600 attendees this year with over half getting paid to develop with Rails.
• Commercial Grade IDE’s from some big players.
• A rash of new books.

Rails 2.0:

• It’s real and it’s coming soon. DHH actually said “It’s not a Unicorn”
• Using Highrise as an example, 24 controllers with 22 of them being restful showing that the new stuff works and works great.
• Shopify and Fluxiom are both using Active Resource.
• Action Web Service will no longer be part of Rails 2.0, but it will be available as a plugin. It will be replaced by Active Resource.
• Friends and Allies:

• Ajax
• REST
• OpenID

• <%= javascript_include_tag :all, :cache => true %>
• <%= stylesheet_include_tag :all, :cache => true %>

• script/generate plugin defaults to MIT

Well I’m here, I got in late last night (about 3AM EST / 12AM local time here in Portland, OR). I’m staying at a hotel that goes by the name of “The Jupiter Hotel”. It’s a nice place, nothing that amazing but it does have a nice atmosphere and it’s within walking distance to the Conference Center.

The first day consists of two tutorials, there are about 8 but you can choose two to attend. I chose “Intro to Test Driven Development for Rails” and “When V is for Vexing: Patterns to DRY up your Views” The Test Driven tutorial was really good, I got a lot from it that I think will help my development. The V is for Vexing is a different story. The first half of this one was a bit slow, I didn’t get very much from it, I’m hoping the second half will be better. Were on break right now so after the second half I
I’ll update this after the second half is over.

UPDATE !!!

Sorry this comes a day late, the WiFi here is anything but reliable, and in my hotel it’s just non existent. I suppose I should also mention the local Brew Pubs here are quite nice as well, so you can blame them in part for this delay as well……

So, the second half of V is for Vexing was not all that much better than the first half. Now ow this could be just me since I just couldn’t hear the speaker that well. Now, that being said, there was some really good advice and some valuable examples so it was not at all a total waist of time.

Recently I was lucky enough to get an invite to try out the new IPTV service Joost. So far it’s pretty nice. I’m still waiting for the really good content to come though. I read an article on downloadsquad that Joost will be showing NHL games, so I’m waiting patiently to be able to see some good hockey games on my TV screen, umm, I mean my computer screen.

As it turns out I have lots of invitations to give out as well, so if your interested, post a comment with your name and email.

If your getting an “mkmf (LoadError)” when trying to install a gem like this one;

$ sudo gem install mongrel
Building native extensions. This could take a while…
extconf.rb:8:in `require’: no such file to load — mkmf (LoadError)

You probably just need to install dev files for Ruby. The standard apt-get install ruby does not install everything you need, it has something to do with the Debian Packaging Guidelines. But don’t worry this is a simple fix.

$ sudo apt-get install ruby1.8-dev

And that “should” do it. Good luck!!

The error:

The 411 (as take from PHP.net):

“The behavior of array_merge() was modified in PHP 5. Unlike PHP 4, array_merge() now only accepts parameters of type array. However, you can use typecasting to merge other types.”

Example:

The offending code –

The fixed code -

The fix is simple, you cast the offending argument in to hell and wash your hands of it, ok maybe not. But you do cast it just as an array.

You place (array) before the argument that your error says is not an array. In my example you can see the error referred to “argument 2″, so I placed (array) before my second argument.

No all is good and no one gets cast to hell

The new IE 7 is a huge step in the right direction for Microsoft, but it’s still lacking in some areas.

There are still some significant differences in the way IE 7 and other browsers like Firefox and Safari handle some CSS. But there is a some what simple way around this, Microsoft recognizes it’s short comings and has built in something called Conditional Comments that are kind of like regular HTML comments.

You’ll need to create a CSS file for any IE 7 only commands and then use these conditional comments to send this CSS file only to IE 7. To do this, place the following code into the header of each HTML file, after the link for the main CSS file.

The only CSS you need to place into this extra file are those which will override commands in the main CSS file. You don’t need to duplicate commands across the two CSS files as IE7 will also read through the main CSS file.

And remember that conditional comments can only be placed inside HTML files and not CSS files.

How do I uninstall a program in OS X? I’ve been getting this questions a lot lately with the recent surge in Mac interest around my Company and friends. So listen closely………

In almost every instance, you only have to do one thing, you drag it to the trash, or Ctrl-Click (right click)and choose “Move to Trash”.

How simple is that? No uninstall, no Program Manger to deal with, it’s as simple as Apple Pie. (I never really understood that saying, why is apple pie simple?)

If your not sure where the program is on your hard drive, that’s east to fix too, you simply Ctrl-Click (right
click) on the alias for an application (on the icon in the dock, for example) and click “Show in Finder.” A window will open showing the original application on your hard drive, most likely in the Applications directory right off the root.

It wasn’t always this simple, you see there are two basic kinds of programs for OS X.

The old kind, consisting of a program file (or “application,” as Apple calls it) and usually a few other files. When you want to get rid of a program of this kind, need to locate and move all the files to the trash.

The other kind is a newer, and much better way, called a package, an idea that came with with OS X. Apple liked the idea of packaging software so much that it even called it a “package.” On the surface, a package looks like a single file, you only see one icon.

A good example of a package is iCal. Put your mouse over the icon for iCal in your Doc and Ctrl-Click (right click) on it, choose “Show in Finder” That’s the iCal package. If you Ctrl-Click (right click) and choose “Show package contents” you will see there are actually more than 350 separate files inside the package, now I think this is a massive improvement over the way some other Operating systems handles software.

Now, before you drag a program to the trash, you have to make sure you’re getting rid of the whole program. If it’s a package, you’re good to go, move it right into the trash. But if the program you want to get rid of is the old, unpackaged kind, you need to move it and any associated files into the trash.

Good luck, and I’m glad to try and help if you have any questions.

I just found out that I will be attending RailsConf 2007!  A few people I work with will actually be presenting ideas there.

I’ve known about Ruby on Rails for a while now but not until recently have I had a chance to really do any development in it, all I can say is it’s total friggin cool!!!! I love it!!! It’s a bit of a change from PHP which I normally do all my development in.

Soon you may notice a post here or there on the subject, so if you have any comments or questions send them on over or just leave a comment to this post.