On Rails for a bit - http://stii.co.za

Its a new year. As with every new year in the past, it is good and refreshing to start it with something refreshing. So I got myself a little dedicated server and rolled a cool Ruby on Rails setup on there all in the name of “research”. I’ve set it up to run a Typo blog (which is the preferred blogging platform for me at the moment), running behind Apache 2 and a sweet little Mongrel cluster. Nifty!

I know that some people have warned against running “scattered” blogs, but it is kind of the only option when wanting to experiment with different platforms and languages. So why not. Maybe there could possibly be a use for not rolling everything into one single blog.

So for the next couple of months (hopefully), I will be blogging with a multiple personality. I’ll give some views later on over there on how I find Typo. It would be pretty hard beating Wordpress…

So, please, visit me every once in a while over here: http://stii.co.za

Filed in: Blogging, Ruby (on Rails) by: Stii

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Me and Afrigator in oh eight

I’ll leave the predictions to the masters and thought I’d give you a bit more insight of what is in the pipeline for myself and Afrigator instead.

Lets start with the Gator. Tyler predicted:

“…January should be a busy month for the Afrigator team as they prepare to get their current beta version live…”

and

“…Throughout the rest of the year I believe they will focus on aggregating African Social Media by tapping into more API’s of African sites instead of relying on huge international sites such Flickr and YouTube…”

Tyler, dude, scary how accurate you can predict the future. Spot on, but there are quite a few new surprises waiting. I’m going to have to get my fat ass into serious gear and iron out the current bugs, so that we can start development of an array of new services (which I’d love to tell you about, but 3 other okes will have my hide should I do so…). So, best advice is to cheer me on so I can iron out the nasties and get cracking on the new/good stuff.

2007 ended in a crazy, crazy fashion. Therefore there was little energy and time spent on ironing out of the nasties in Afrigator. Thing is that the way 2007 ended was an exciting sign/omen for 2008. Lots will happen for me personally, so I was quite happy to let it ride and get it going.

On a personal level, I took a mini holiday between Christmas and now and it was intense and awesome. I’ve got some fantastic gifts for both Christmas and my birthday which awakened the “Jamie Oliver” in me and I’m now doing ALL the cooking duties in the house and are LOVING it! Yes, in the past my cooking repertoire was bland and boring, but with great new utensils it is picking up and I’ve discovered that great food is not a nice to have, but an absolute necesity. So I’ll be seriously honing my culinary skills. I’ve also realised that being over weight is SERIOUSLY overrated. Therefore I’ll be dusting off the squash raquet and jogging shoes and get into gear for a more active and healthier year.

May it be a great oh eight to you all!

Filed in: Afrigator, General and sometimes Rants by: Stii

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HO HO HO! Merry Xmas, my friends!

What a year this has been! Exciting with almost too much happening all at once. And by the looks of things, 2008 is going to be double that. Exciting times indeed!

To all those I’ve met and all those I socialize with without having to meet you in the flesh: May your dreams come true in this festive season. May you all get a Wii for Christmas (I ended up not getting one, but no worries, soon…) and may your plans work out perfectly in 2008! I’ve been blessed this year to have met a lot of you, and a fantastic bunch of people you can call yourselves.

So from me and my family:

Merry Xmas!

Here is for some for that festive laughing (You can find a lot more over here) :

And for those of you living in Jozi, PLEASE don’t mistake Santa as a burglar!

Filed in: Funnies by: Stii

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Zoopy v2 launches!

Zoopy released their second version adding bucket loads of new and exciting features! Edging towards a more social media platform, it looks very exciting! In addition to photos and videos, people can now upload podcasts and even run their own blog on Zoopy. Very handy indeed!

The blogging interface deserves a special mention as it is not your usual run-of-the-mill type blogging interface so often found on multi-user blogging platforms. Although untested, it seems like you can add your own videos/photos/podcasts on the fly!

Here is a breakdown as per the Zoopy blog of whats new:

Videos, photos, podcasts and blogs. All in one place.
Advanced video compression and content delivery
More space for your photos to shine
Creative Commons licensing available on your media
A better profile page

The guys also improved quite a lot on these areas:

Groups
Channels
Albums, editing and operating systems

Read more about these features over at the official Zoopy blog. To Jason, Gerry, Pat and everyone else involved, congratulations and a job well done!

Filed in: Social Web, Web 2.0 by: Stii

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Social Media introduced a great sense of humor

I’m not sure if it is just me, but back in the old days, when you’ve hit an error on a site or a site is down you used to get the most terrible and dull messages. Something like: “We apologise for our site being down. Our technicians and programmers are attending to the problem and we should be online momentarily. Thank you.” UGHHHH…

These days, it is like a breath of fresh air! I just visited the Social Networking provider Ning.com and they were experiencing issues. This is the message I was welcomed with:

Quite refreshing and viral if you ask me! You almost do not care whether the site is down! I’m quite keen to see more of that and have a good laugh while I’m at it!

Filed in: Social Web, Web 2.0 by: Stii

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Stormhoek Big Love @ Checkers St. Georges Square

Thought I’d let all the Garden Routers know that I found some Stormhoek Pinotage over here in Checkers, St Georges Square.

Like a good Hoeker, I got me a bottle and although I’ve been a friend of Stormhoek Big Love on Facebook for quite some time now already, I still hope that that 1 year supply of Stormhoek Wine comes my way… Man, I can do with it!

So here is how it works:

1. Go to Checkers. Should be at any Checkers!
2. Look for Stormhoek wine with the Big Love thing around its neck
3. Buy it.
4. Open it and drink it while you head on over to Facebook
5. Search for “Stormhoek Big Love” and become a friend
6. Wait… and while you do that, go buy more Stormhoek over at your Checkers just around the corner!

Thats all there is to it!

Filed in: Funnies by: Stii

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And now the BBC presents: PERL on Rails

Every programming language seem to have some sort of Ruby on Rails like framework. PHP got a couple lot. Python got Django (Django is not Rails though). Now the BBC went and made a Rails-like web framework with PERL.

This I found quite amusing:

“Like most organisations the BBC has its own technical ecosystem; the BBC’s is pretty much restricted to Perl and static files. This means that the vast majority of the BBC’s website is statically published - in other words HTML is created internally and FTP’ed to the web servers. There are then a range of Perl scripts that are used to provide additional functionality and interactivity.”

Their sites are statically published?! I did not know that and find it quite, uhm, shocking that a big organization would have such a primitive way of publishing their sites.

“For applications that run internally we use Ruby on Rail. Because we enjoy using it…”

No surprise there.

They built PERL on Rails because:

“We need to use Perl, there are restrictions on which libraries can and can’t be installed on the live environment and we needed a framework that could handle significant load.”

Now I’m just wondering, are they planning to release the source code, or is it going to stay an internal framework exclusive to the BBC? Should be quite interesting to see it and experiment with it. No-one knows yet. This part of their site is powered by PERL on Rails, they say.

They would almost certainly have to change the name. When PHP on Rails first saw the light, it was quickly slapped with a lawyers letter and had to change its name. Now known as PHP on Trax.

Filed in: Open Source, PHP, Programming, Python, Ruby (on Rails), Software Development, web development by: Stii

7 comments

Bubble 2.0?

Are we facing a Web2.0 / Social networking / Facebook / Google / Blogging Bubble thats about to burst? Check this video. It is brilliant! Here comes another Bubble…

Filed in: Funnies, Web 2.0 by: Stii

7 comments

Python Programming

This is simply too good not to share. I love the xkcd comics. Python programming can make you fly high! Not so sure about that one, but give it a shot. Just don’t try everything in the medicine cupboard and then go programming. It does not work in PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python, etc… In fact, no matter the language, it does not work.

Filed in: Funnies, Python by: Stii

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Rails podcast - Smalltalk web framework sounds intriguing

I’ve just listened to the Ruby on Rails podcast where they interviewed Avi Bryant from Seaside, which is a web framework developed in Smalltalk. I’m no Smalltalk guru, but I know it is quite a mature object orientated language so it does sound very interesting! Specially due to the fact that the framework not only eliminates SQL, but also the HTML! That and the fact that it allows for developing modal components on the web, much like you would for windows or osx. It all sounds extremely exciting and interesting, but I would probably not have any opportunity to play with it anytime soon! If you have or do get the opportunity, please let me know what you think!

You can listen to the podcast on odeo, or download the mp3 here.

Filed in: Open Source, Programming, Ruby (on Rails), Software Development, web development by: Stii

2 comments