Robby on Rails

It came to my attention that this RubyURL site that I built many many months ago… would BREAK on URLs that were too long. Thanks to Xinu for figuring that one out and bringing it to my attention. As a result, we gave him a free Typo blog account!

The Problem?

You see, the field was VARCHAR(255).

I really didn’t even see that coming… DOH!

The Solution

I changed it to a TEXT field.

So, you can all sleep well tonight… knowing that the problem is fixed.

This is also a perfect example of why I like PostgrSQL over MySQL. If the site were running MySQL, it wouldn’t have shown Xinu an error as MySQL would have silently truncated anything over the limit and then people would send out bogus RubyURLs.

truncated url = bad rubyurl mojo

This also reminded me that it is time that I spend a few hours working on new features to the site. :-)

RubyURL ( http://rubyurl.com/ )... over 1500+ rubyurls served…

Thanks again Xinu! .. and welcome to the Rails community!

UPDATE I did a search for ‘rubyurl’ and found a review of it compared to some other short url services.

“rubyurl It may be a tech demo, but rubyurl has a clean interface and a small pae. It may not be the most feature-packed service, but it works, and it works well. If only it were faster – about a second and a half for a URL, by my count, makes it too slow for script or website use.”

Link: Comparing the URL Shortening Services by Brian Cairns

Perhaps it is time to move it to Lighttpd? While I was at it, I shrunk the length of rubyurls by two characters. That puts it at the second shortest on that list. It was a 5 char string, but is now a 3 char string. I think that should be sufficient for a while. :-)

I have been sick since I got back from Los Angeles. I’m finally hoping that this is the tail end of that. (coughs)

This afternoon, I decided to start dialing in my new PowerBook. The last one that I had, I didn’t do too much development on, as it was primarily for some simple Rails testing and working on my book. However, after spending the past few months on it, I might as well start using my new laptop for more development work.

So, I’m kicking osx and trying to figure it all out. GCC? Where do I find that? Oh, XCode, Darwin Ports, Fink… so many options.. what is the best setup in your opinion? I’d also like to figure out how to get Open Office installed on this machine.

My girlfriend got a new iBook two days before I got my new PowerBook. So, these are really our first Apple machines. (the one that I had prior to this one didn’t count… I just dealt with it being a cheap laptop that had Word on it… I’d prefer to just pretend that my annoyances with the screen be forgotten… yes, I was the guy in the cafe hitting the screen to get it to display right) heh

I got PostgreSQL installed, but the postgres and postgres-pr adapters are not working. So, I am working through that. So, I find myself working over SSH to a remote PostgreSQL server. (not as efficient for being mobile)

Okay, XCode is finished installing… wish me luck

I was sitting in a LAX terminal this morning on my new laptop, playing with some Rails code, and working on my book as my girlfriend read an article on String Theory next to me.

Out of nowhere, some guy walks up to me with a big grin and says, “Hi Robby!” and sits down next to me. It’s Mr. Derek Sivers, of CDBaby. He was heading to Portland… and I was heading home from my long weekend in Los Angeles. We chatted a bit, he showed me some of his fun PostgreSQL functions and how they were doing the multi-language stuff there. Pretty cool stuff.

Derek was pretty much one of the main reasons why I opted to really give Rails a full attempt. He and I met a few times last winter and during our meetings we talked about programming, postgresql, php, etc.. He made great book suggestions and talked about his cabin trip when he learned Ruby. This was before he decided to redo CDBaby in Rails. When he made the decision, I just had to know what all the fuss was about. Without Derek, there might not be a robby on rails. ;-)

On the flight home, I know that there were at least 2 passengers on the plane who were working on Rails in mid-flight. :-)

Aside from that, I am back home now and have piles of emails to respond to and things to get done. It was great to get a few days away. :-D

Scott Laird uploaded more FOSCON pictures. :-)

(you can even find a picture of me)

Why

Seriously, don’t let them know. They will hurt me. :-)

New 15” PowerBook G4. I need something to work with each day. So, I got a new laptop.

Now, to get copy stuff to it and get ready for my trip to Los Angeles.

My used powerbook finally decided to go out on me. The screen… which was already fairly screwy, decided to go awaol on me last night. I am heading to Los Angeles tomorrow, so I don’t have a lot of time to figure out what to do in replacement. Might just head to the mac store and buy an iBook and use that for a while until I can get that nicer pbook that I want. :-)