rails 3, bundler, git and dreamhost

Now that rails 3 has hit beta, I decided to see if I could get it running on my dreamhost account. I’m already running a few rails applications using bundler 0.8.1, so the forced upgrade to 0.9.3 (as of this writing) is actually a point of pain, since both versions cannot co-exist.

If you’re not running an old version of bundler, this should be an easy update. If you are, it gets complicated to the point that for now, it’s not worth updating since bundler 0.9.3 still seems to have issues with rails 2.3.x.

The first thing I did was to install the bundler gem in your usual location for dreamhost. This isn’t going to be a “how do I set up rails and custom gems for dreamhost?” post as those resources exist on the web already.

On dreamhost:
gem install bundler

Now you want to setup your rails 3 application, get it into a git repository and push it there. The main point of this post is to include my deploy files which are based on the github ‘git’ deploy strategy, which is really nice. I’ve added in some code for jammit as my asset packager, and some custom bundler callbacks.

I’ve included a gist below with my deploy code. Make sure the files are in the proper directories.

Heroes will be canceled and I’m not really sad about it

And while it was really good in season one, I think every season since then has flopped. I think Season two was the low point.

Why did it fail?

It failed because it never lived up to the single scene where “Future Hiro” met with Peter in the subway. This single scene set up so much of what could have been great about the show, and instead they turned Hiro into a clown, and Peter into a limited power moron.

TV needs to start accepting shows with specifically limited runs so they can cut out all the crap and just have episodes of excellent. Notice how Lost got good again when they set the end date. Dollhouse, for is spectacularly bad beginning, became brilliant when they stopped doing the “story of the week” and focused on the downfall of the tech and corporation.

TV executives need to find people with brilliant ideas, give them a show that will ONLY last 1-2 seasons, but give them the ability to make more than one series. The audience will follow great storytelling, even if it’s not the same characters.

Visual password strength checker for jQuery

A simple JS file that uses regex to determine the strength of a password.

built on the work of
http://www.zorched.net/2009/05/08/password-strength-validation-with-regular-expressions/
and
http://www.techpint.com/programming/regular-expression-check-password-strength

Wisconsin and drunk driving

I am embarrassed to be a resident of this state.

We’re just now passing a bill that makes your FIRST offense a crime? (and only if you have someone younger than 16 in the vehicle) And… after the FOURTH, that’s right 4 times, a felony.

Who is possibly thinking anything less than felony on the 2nd offense, and permanent loss of your driver’s license on the 3rd offense is acceptable?

How do our representatives get told to make these toothless laws? Oh, maybe because some of them have been arrested SEVEN times for DUI. And he thinks he deserves to keep his job…

The is NO EXCUSE for driving after drinking. If you need to drive, don’t drink before doing it. If you need to drink, then don’t drive afterward. It’s just that simple.

Hey Tiger Woods…

What would your father mother think?

LeBron James and the number 23

I appreciate why he’s trying to do this, but really as I read somewhere, why stop there? Too many numbers in the NBA have an iconic meaning.

In the end, if you think about it, isn’t it to his benefit, for two reasons, to change is number?

1. Anyone seeing him play now, will still see 23 and think MJ. You can put it on “respect” but either way, it’s still “remember me, not him”.

2. Jersey sales. Hello? Who isn’t going to buy a LeBron 6 if you’re a fan? Get your Cleveland 6, and soon enough, your “insert team with the most money” 6.

Google Wave as the new irc or Basecamp

I was thinking about this last night, and Basecamp is a nice tool where people can collaborate and upload attachments, discuss, and post. This is really what Google Wave does, so once it gets out there, and into “private” wave hosts, Basecamp may have less utility.

If you think about Wave as an irc replacement, you’ve already got the archiving capability built in. Now, you’d need to set it up a bit differently, but now there’s a record of the conversations, and ordering.

Now if only I could find the invites for other people in my account.

Cameras in Cockpits?

OK, is this idea just too obvious?

No, I don’t want a camera on me while I work, but then, my conversations aren’t already recorded, and I’m not in charge of a vehicle that contains hundreds of people.

Add another black box that records the video.

Attn: AT&T, Time Warner, TDS or anyone else

We spoke to TDS about the situation last year, and its director of legislative and public relations told us that TDS didn’t act earlier because it didn’t actually know that people really, really wanted fiber; once the referendum was a success, the company moved quickly to give people what it now knew they wanted.

I really, really, really, really want fiber to my home.

Really. Really want it.

Even better is the price, which starts at $49.95 a month for 50Mbps fiber service without the need to buy other services.

And yes, I would like 50Mbs for $50/month.

You now know I want it, so get moving.

Story from ArsTechnica

(In case you didn’t get it, YES I want it.)

jQuery function to set elements to the same height

I was trying to setup some boxes to be the same height using css, and it seemed that eventually one of the boxes had enough content to make the box go into scroll mode. So instead of hard coding the box height, I decided to write a jQuery function to find the tallest one, and set all the boxes to that height.

$.fn.allMatchTallestHeight = function() {
  var max_height = 0;
  elements = $(this);
  elements.each( function() {
    if ($(this).height() > max_height) {
      max_height = $(this).height();
    }
  });
 
  elements.each( function() {
    $(this).height(max_height);
  });
}

So once you have that, you can then use it like this.

$(".cloud-box-content").allMatchTallestHeight();