Ruby on Rails – Build a blogging engine in 15 minutes!
With Ruby on Rails (RoR) it is possible to develop a blogging engine in 15 minutes. Watch this 15 minute video demo-ing RoR. The Ruby language was developed by Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz) in 1994. According to Matz:
“Ruby is the interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming. It has many features to process text files and to do system management tasks (as in Perl). It is simple, straight-forward, extensible, and portable.”
I have to admit that I’ve not heard of Ruby until recently. I programmed a lot of Smalltalk and C++ in my former life as a programmer and Ruby seems to be a great OO language with great reflective capabilities. Matz also mentions that Ruby was inspired by Eiffel and Ada — languages that I studied as a student in the late 80’s and then forgot about. Reflective features and MVC are now commonplace. These features were very esoteric in the 80’s.Well back to Ruby on Rails. This framework was developed by David Heinemeier Hansson and released in July 2004. David is from Denmark and a partner in the 37signals.com company. I really appreciate the simply, yet powerful design of the 37signals web applications. Do yourself a favor and learn a few things from these guys.RoR is a framework to quickly develop and deploy enterprise web applications based on Web2.0 principles. It uses Ruby as a scripting language and quickly and easily generates a web application framework. You can quickly link this application to a database back-end. The beauty of RoR is the interaction with the application while developing and the rapid deployment when you are done. Rapid prototyping is back! Rapid prototyping or agile programming involving the user is a great way to quickly develop an application that is highly usable and valuable. I really enjoyed Hasso Plattner’s (SAP co-founder) recent keynote at SAPPHIRE 2006 in Orlando called (re) design (scroll to the bottom of the page for Hasso’s keynote).At some point I would like to compare RoR with SAP’s Webdynpro technology. You can find an interesting discussion on this topic and AJAX on SAP’s SDN website. This is your first hint that my plan is to relate some of the new Web2.0 technologies back to enterprise software, specifically SAP. Watch this space…More links: Attend a RoR conference in a city close to you. You can also find a number of books on Ruby and RoR on Amazon, e.g., Ruby and Ruby on Rails.Oct 26, 2007 update: Ruby and Rails are now standard in Apple’s OSX LeopardPlease give me your personal experience using Ruby or Ruby on Rails.[amtap book:isbn=0974514055][amtap book:isbn=0977616606][amtap amazon:asin=B000FK88JK]
Read MoreUsing Google Spreadsheets
In an earlier post I mentioned Google Spreadsheets. I decided to use this web app for a fairly detailed spreadsheet recently. My initial comments are:The good…
- The web-app is fairly responsive and you can easily and quickly update a spreadsheet. Navigation within a spreadsheet is fairly snappy.
- Smaller spreadsheets load quickly from the Google site. Smaller spreadsheets also load quickly from your local machine.
- To format a cell, change the font, and create a function is very initiative and easy.
- Spreadsheet navigation is quick, easy, and initiative.
- It’s very easy to share a file to collaborate on a spreadsheet.
The bad…
- Maybe this is a Mac problem, however I couldn’t see a cursor when editing a cell. This makes it very difficult to edit a function, especially very complicated functions.
- Uploading a file of any significance size takes loooooooooonnnnng. I have a 6Mbps connection. It’s still very slow. It’s not really practical to work like this.
- Ok, so you developed an elaborate spreadsheet and now you want to print it. Well, the printing functions are VERY limited in this version. The only way to print a spreadsheet is to render it in HTML and then to print the web page. Not the most powerful way to print. The rendering is also very bad.
Current assessment: Don’t delete your Microsoft Excel application just yet!I would like to hear about your experiences with Google Spreadsheets.
Read MoreOnline web-based applications
I received my writely.com login today. Writely is an online word processor. You can also collaborate online and export to MS-Word, pdf, OpenOffice, etc. It is still in beta and doesn’t support Safari. Not a problem I also use Firefox. Have a look — it is almost viable. I also mentioned Google Spreadsheets previously. These days you have many choices to create, and edit MS-Word documents online:
- WebOffice from Webex. Use to share applications. Online database.
- KDCalc. Generate enterprise application (Java or .NET) from Excel spreadsheets.
- JotSpot. Quickly develop wiki-based applications including web-based spreadsheets.
- Thinkfree. Thinkfree lets you create, access, and edit Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint documents within a Browser. Cool!
Let me know if I missed one!I will test drive some of these over the next couple of months and then report back.
Read MoreWhat a website!
I live in Atlanta and every October Atlanta hosts the Catalyst Conference for young leaders. The conference was birthed by John Maxwell the Leadership Guru and this is it’s sixth year. The keynote speakers include: Andy Stanley, Marcus Buckingham (First, Break all the rules fame) and Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz). Very worth attending. The Catalyst website is stunning and very different from what’s out there today.The company that produces it is called: FiveStone. Have a look at their website and some of their clients — very cool stuff.[amtap book:isbn=0785288376][amtap book:isbn=0785263705][amtap book:isbn=1416502661][amtap book:isbn=1590523296]
Read MoreWhat color is your personality?
There are numerous personality profiling systems in use today, e.g., Myers-Briggs, DISC, etc. How about one that profile your personality based on a color system. Yes, colors. The system is called the Dewey Color System.
From the publisher: In 1981, Sadka began experimenting with color as a means of better understanding people’s personalities. Today, his Dewey Color System has become a patented business of its own, boasting a website, merchandise—such as stuffed animals and home decorating systems—and a number of devotees. Starting with the question “What’s your favorite color?” Sadka leads readers through a series of questions to help them get to the root of their hopes, dreams and fears. His system relies upon various combinations of a person’s favorite and least favorite colors, which the reader selects from four palettes provided with the book. Astrology-like descriptions of the inner workings each color profile (e.g. if yellow is your favorite color “finding common ground is the game you play best”) make up the bulk of this book. The rest of it consists of arguments that support the validity of the test that may or may not sway skeptics. Credulity aside, however, Sadka’s test is lots of fun, and his personality descriptions may surprise even the most cynical of readers.
You can also find more information on their website: www.deweycolorsystem.com. Unfortunately the website only supports IE. No support for Firefox for Safari.[amtap book:isbn=1400050626]
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