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.
One of my absolute favorite online services of the past year is Dropbox. It’s a very easy to use service that integrates with your Linux, Mac and Windows desktops and allows you to sync files across computers (among other things). Think of it as a big USB flash drive in the sky.
Not only is it useful for storing daily documents and sharing files with friends, it can also be quite useful for keeping your application settings in sync across computers. One example is syncing Tomboy notes across computers. Tomboy is an extremly handly note taking application for Linux, but I always found it annoying that it was so hard to sync across machines. With Dropbox, it’s amazingly simple.
If you’re not already a Dropbox user, sign up at www.getdropbox.com. Once you have the software installed, you should have a folder in your home directory called “Dropbox”. All of the files in this directory will automatically be synced with Dropbox and with other computers where you install the application.
Now that Dropbox is installed, just create a folder called “tomboy” (or whatever you like) inside your “Dropbox” directory. Now in your Tomboy prefernces, click on the Synchronization tab and choose “Local Folder” and browse to your “tomboy” folder.
To syncronize your notes, simply click “Tools” and “Syncronize Notes” at the top of any Tomboy note … and that’s it! Repeat these steps for all your other computers and you’ll have fully syncronized Tomboy Notes on all your machines. This also protects against accidentally loosing your notes if something happens to your computers, you’ll always have a copy saved at Dropbox.
I’ve started putting together a list of pre-installed Linux notebooks and netbooks that are currently available for sale in the US. Please check out the page and let me know if there is anything I’m missing.
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.
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.
