Blog posts

For a while now I’ve been realising that there are many, many links that I want to list here but don’t have time (or inclination) to write about in any detail. So as of today, I’ll be using del.icio.us to automatically post a summary of any links I’ve deemed blog worthy each day. Hopefully the blog will continue to contain more than just those postings, but during those times when I’m not writing much, it should still give me an easy way to flag up interesting, amusing, or otherwise diverting web content.

SafeJSON JSON parser An interesting (and very small) JSON parsing module for ruby. I’ve been looking for something better than passing it through a YAML library, but not as heavy (or as awkward to integrate with rails) as the various gems. (tags: json parser rubyonrails) Make ruby-mysql create less garbage This sounds like a pretty significant speed-up. It’s surprising the patch hasn’t been applied to the main library yet. (tags: mysql ruby) The Ruby Roundup ...

Wikileaks (via plasticbag) looks likely to be a really interesting site. Designed as a wiki that will let citizens of oppressive regime post leaked documents “anonymously and untraceably” it’s been set up by “Chinese dissidents, mathematicians and startup company technologists, from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.” The idea is to provide an online space where people can leak sensitive documents free of the fear of being found out and persecuted. ...

Geocoding Tool for Virtual Earth & Google Maps » Emad Fanous A geocoding API returning javascript calls that can be passed directly to the google maps API. Looks like it supports more locations than most of the (US-only) geocoders out there (tags: apis geocoding javascript) FirePHP - Firefox Extension for PHP Development Somehow lets you write scripts that will integrate PHP debugging into firebug. Looks overly complex for what I need right now, but it’s an interesting idea. ...

For a while now I’ve been wanting to set up one of those fancy del.icio.us posting things, whereby links I’ve added to my account during the day get posted to this blog each evening. But I use my del.icio.us account for a lot more than just topics that are covered here, and I don’t want to clutter it up. Nor did I want to have to switch between accounts to specify which links get posted where. ...

As we plan to move back to a big city, something I’m very much looking forward to, I really enjoyed this piece about an older couple who abandoned the suburbs for downtown Seattle. Obviously the couple in question are affluent enough to enjoy a very particular kind of urban lifestyle, one that perhaps not many could sustain, but after a recent weekend spent in the midst of an ex-urban landscape, I’m happy to take any story I can get of people abandoning that world.

There’ve been some problems with the comment form on this site for the past couple of days (that’s what I get for not fully testing my tweaks to wordpress), which should now be resolved. So on the slight chance that someone may have been itching to comment and couldn’t, now’s your opportunity. Thanks to Brandon for pointing out the problem.

acts_as_geocodable ( blog entry, repository) is the newest kid on the rails geo plugin block. It actually consists of two parts, a gem called graticule which handles the actual geocoding, interacting with external services, etc, and the plugin which offers extensions to your models. I like that separation. Having the generalised code in a gem and the rails-specific hooks in a plugin makes a lot of sense and makes it much easier to use the core code in non-rails ruby apps, and having a single gem that supports multiple services allows for built-in failover should the preferred geocoder be unavailable. ...

Like so many others, since I discovered Textmate I’ve not looked back. Except, that is, on the rare occasion when I find myself working on a windows machine, which is usually because I’m debugging a layout. When I’m over there I really miss the many features of textmate that make me more productive. So I was delighted to spot E, a text editor currently using the tagline “The Power of Textmate on Windows”. I watched the video and it looks like a good substitute, almost to the point that it’s tempting to call it a ‘clone’–there are references to distinctive functionality, but information is scarce. ...

I’ve refrained from blogging much about Yahoo! Pipes, mainly because everyone else seemed to be. It’s definitely an interesting development, and shows how far we’ve come with open data, but also how far we still are from that really making an obvious impact for non-geeks. Two of the more interesting pieces on the use of Pipes that I’ve seen so far are two blog entries that Tim McGhee pointed out on the govtrack list. He’s done some work using Pipes to repurpose various feeds about government activity, and they’re worth a look. Check out: Managing the volume of content from Congress and Geek Out: Mashing Yahoo! Pipes and the Congressional Record over on his blogs.