Starry Hope » Web Authoring

Find, Share and Install Ubuntu Apps on Facebook

Jim — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:48:46 +0000

Recently, I wanted to learn how to make Facebook applications using Ruby on Rails. For my first project, I decided to build a small application to let people find, share, install and promote Ubuntu software right from within Facebook. Determining which software we use can be a very social experience, often we’ll ask our friends what they recommend, so why not take this social aspect to the (currently) most popular social networking site?

Here is a quick video that I put together to show off some of the features of the Facebook app.

Give Apps for Ubuntu a try by visiting http://apps.facebook.com/ubuntuapps.

Youtube Link: Find, Share, and Install Ubuntu Apps on Facebook

View your site in (almost) every browser with Browsershots

Jim — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:14:41 +0000

Ever wonder what your website looks like in different browsers? Even though most of us would prefer that people didn’t use browsers like Internet Explorer 6, these old browsers are still widely used. If you want to make sure that your site is not completely broken in these old browsers, try Browsershots.org.

Browsershots generates screenshots of your site in up to 56 different browsers. You can easily test your design in such obscure browsers as Kazehakase, K-Meleon, and Galeon. Of course all the standard browsers are there too, the most useful being older versions of IE and Firefox on Windows and several versions of Safari for Mac OS. Give Browsershots.org a try, it’s free!

Note: While preparing this post, I found a bug in my design that causes problems with IE 7.
Microsoft … Grrr.

Yaml Cookbook for Ruby

Jim — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 20:38:13 +0000

I wanted to learn some about YAML so I could use it in one of my current Ruby on Rails projects. A quick google search turned up a lot of information, but nothing quite as useful as the Yaml Cookbook for Ruby. The cookbook is full of examples of YAML and the corresponding Ruby code. If you learn well by example, browsing this one page should help you get up to speed with YAML.

Firebug

Jim — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 18:06:39 +0000

While working on a new site today, I was reminded of just how great the Firebug extension for Firefox really is. I used Firebug heavily about 6 months ago for a Ruby on Rails application. I used it mostly for monitoring and debugging my AJAX calls. Firebug has come a long way since then, and when working on new projects, it’s one of the tools that I always have open.

Download Firebug today, then check out this screencast for an overview of Firebug’s features.

‘Tis The Season For … Ruby!

Jim — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 09:04:04 +0000

The guys over at Ruby Inside are putting together a
Ruby Advent Calendar. The Calendar features a new article about Ruby for each day of Advent.

Following the trend, Err the Blog has put together their own Advent Calendar that’s packed full of useful Rails tips (focusing mostly on ActiveSupport). There are some great gems in there!

Kevin Lynch Interviewed About Adobe’s Apollo Project

Jim — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 12:17:05 +0000

TalkCrunch recently interviewed Kevin Lynch about Adobe’s upcoming Apollo project. I’ve been keeping my eye on Apollo and it seems quite interesting. Adobe is calling Apollo “a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) to the desktop.” Sounds cool, but also a little confusing. The TalkCrunch podcast helps shed some light on Apollo and is worth a listen.

Save Bandwidth and Speed Up Your Site With Apache 2 and mod_deflate

Jim — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 14:07:00 +0000

If you’re a website operator or up-and-coming blogger, you may have noticed your bandwidth bills growing larger each month. Fortunately, there’s a very easy way to transparently compress your pages and save bandwidth and download time for you and your visitors. Version 2 of the Apache web server features a module called “mod_deflate”, and if configured correctly, it can dramatically decrease your bandwidth usage.

According to Apache’s website, “The mod_deflate module provides the DEFLATE output filter that allows output from your server to be compressed before being sent to the client over the network.” Basically, it allows you to automatically compress certain file types before the server sends the files to the browser (html, css, etc). The browser then decompresses the files once it has received them.

I first heard of mod_deflate when searching for a new host about 2 years ago. I was looking for a host with PHP5 and came across TextDrive. Besides PHP5, one of the features that TextDrive was boasting about was mod_deflate. After seeing the advantages of mod_deflate compression, I wonder why so many other hosts still don’t offer this feature (or Apache 2 or PHP5 for that matter).

I found a great website template from Open Web Design and did some tests to see how much bandwidth savings mod_deflate would give us on a simple website template.

The first page I tested is a simple one-column design with minimal graphics. The savings here are clear. Without mod_deflate, the page and all of its dependent files come in at 64.53 KB, with mod_deflate it’s only 47.90 KB (74% of its original size). This is a 16.63 KB savings in bandwidth without any changes to the page. While 16.63 KB doesn’t seem like a lot for those of us with high-speed connections, I’m sure visitors to your site with dial-up connections will be happy for the extra speed.

Because graphic files are already compressed, they are not effected by mod_deflate. This means that pages that have a lot of graphics will not see as large of a drop in total size. This more complex page with more graphics was 88.09 KB uncompressed, and 70.45 KB with mod_deflate. This is still a 17.67 KB bandwidth savings, but overall the page is only 80% of the original size.

Many hosting companies do not offer Apache 2 or mod_deflate. If you’re in the market for a new host, make sure to ask them about this feature before signing up. Personally, I recommend TextDrive because they offer cutting edge software with good tech support.

If you run your own server, you can set up mod_deflate fairly easily. Here are some pages with more information.

Apache’s mod_deflate page
Installation instructions from nixCraft
Installation instructions from evolt.org
A complete mod_deflate configuration snippet

technorati tags:TextDrive, Apache, mod_deflate

Blake Ross of Firefox Fame Has a New Project: Parakey

Jim — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 12:31:24 +0000

IEEE Spectrum has a great 4-page article about a new project from Blake Ross. His idea seems very similar to Adobe’s Apollo project. It seems that cross-platform, “sometimes connected” web/desktop applications are “coming things“. The article is a little long, but a very interesting read.

37Signals Releases Free Version of "Getting Real”

Jim — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 21:57:34 +0000

I picked up “Getting Real” from 37Signals back when it was first released as a PDF book. It was well worth the $19 price tag. The book is packed full of useful insights into starting and running your own web business.

I’ve recommended the book to several people (you know who you are), but the price kept them from picking it up. Today, 37Signals has released a free version of the book as well as a paper version (for those who hate reading books on a screen). The paper version, available through LuLu.com, is $29 and the PDF version is still available for $19.

Find more details at http://gettingreal.37signals.com/

technorati tags:37Signals, ebook, book

Some Interesting Website Statistics

Jim — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 07:02:41 +0000

W3Counter – Global Web Stats

I hope some people will take Firefox’s 25% market share as a sign to quit making their sites compatible only with IE (um, are you listinging Yahoo!?).

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