Head On

• defmacro - Functional Programming For The Rest of Us
  (tags: functional programming article language)
• Programming Ruby: The Pragmatic Programmer’s Guide
  (tags: Ruby containers article)

• Power Tweak Your Mac’s Stacks [Mac OS X Leopard Tip]
  (tags: mac stacks tweak tips)

• Automate Your Home - Wired How-To Wiki
  (tags: x10 wired article home automation)
• Katz Got Your Tongue? » RailsConf Slides
  (tags: datamapper merb Ruby)
• Getting Started with Merb vol.2: Intro to Routing and Controllers - Ideas For Dozens
  (tags: framework merb programming tutorial)
• XBMC For Mac: XBMC Turns Your Mac into the Ultimate Media Center
  (tags: OSX xbox xbmc)
• Enable Google Contact Sync Without an iPhone or iPod Touch
  (tags: gmail hack apple iphone mac)

• Word Clock Screen Saver
  (tags: screen_saver cool macosx)
• A low cost guide to making music with your Mac, part one
  (tags: music mac)

• InfoQ: Automating Business Value with FIT and Fitnesse
  (tags: presentation fitnesse to_watch)
• Deploying Merb with Git, Vlad the Deployer, and Ubuntu (Fiesty Fawn) - Warpspire
  (tags: merb vlad_the_deployer deployment ubuntu)
• Git tips and tricks
  How to manage dotfiles among other things
  (tags: git dotfiles github)
• HAML + Merb Helpers? Very noice.
  (tags: haml merb)
• An Introduction to Seaside by Michael Perscheid, Stefan Berger, Michael Haupt, David Tibbe, Martin Beck, Peter Osburg, Jeff Eastman, Robert Hirschfeld (Book) in Computers & Internet
  (tags: seaside book)
• Git cheat sheet
  (tags: git cheat)
• Frank Lloyd Wright: The Mike Wallace Interview
  (tags: architecture interview movie)
• TUAW Faceoff: Screencasting
  Comparison of Mac screencasting apps
  (tags: screencasting mac comparison tuaw)

As I have been in charge of setting the administrative infrastructure at WeMind I continuously tried to use web based systems to limit the number of systems administered by us. We use Google Apps, Basecamp and outsource all our servers to Mathias and colleagues at GlobalInn.

We have however run into problems when trying to find web based services that are preferrably local to Sweden, like accounting. Even if marketed as “web based”, they are all based on Internet Explorer using ActiveX or some other proprietary part of IE. As we use Macs at WeMind, these services are as available to us as any software packaged as a .exe file.

I tend to see this in Sweden and not as much in other countries, or am I wrong?

• Drobo - storage robot
  Holds four 3.5″ disks and does some magical RAID’y thing to them. Cool
  (tags: backup mac)
• 2 Workouts That Will Boost your Morning Energy
  (tags: workout)

Robby Russell is a constant source of information on Ruby and Rails, I have used his instruction on how to set up Rails and PostgreSQL on Mac a number of times. It is therefore fun to see that I have actually used 3 out of the 5 things he wants to know more about::

RSpec User Stories

We were very early adopters of this one, we started using it the same day it hit trunk in a useable form. Everyone should start using it today - I cannot speak highly enough of it. The only thing I miss is a Fit-style table approach to rules, but I have my own thoughts about that one.

Using Selenium with RSpec

We have used the now outdated spec/ui library at WeMind. Today we use RSpec Stories almost exclusively for acceptance testing. My position is to use Selenium only where you really need it, for example to test Javascript functionality.

JQuery

I have used it for the dynamic hiding of speaker info for Agila Sverige. Not at all enough to judge a library by, but it feels a lot sweeter than Prototype/RJS.

JSSpec (BDD for Javascript)

Yeah, I wanna know more about this as well.

Using the Google Charts API with Rails

Same here.

Other than that I would love to try out:

• Seaside - I have dabbled with it but nothing worth mentioning.
• CouchDB

• GitNub - git visualizer os x stylee
  (tags: cocoa git mac)

• Top 10 Ways to Get Cables Under Control [Lifehacker Top 10]
  (tags: organization lifehacker cables)
• “Open in TextMate” from Leopard Finder
  (tags: TextMate finder tool)
• ExpanDrive - Bring your remote files closer to home.
  (tags: sftp mac filesystem remote)
• garfield minus garfield - comics
  Garfield comics without the actual Garfield are actually funnier than the original
  (tags: funny comics)

I use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard with my MacBook Pro - make that two, one at home and one at work. The function keys stopped working last week on the one at work which is a pretty big deal if you use Exposé as much as I do. I did the whole routine and could not find the problem. As the keyboard at home worked just fine, I started to believe that there was something wrong with the actual keyboard.

Then I came across this post which finally explained to me that I have a key right next to the F12 key named “F Lock” which makes the function keys do other things than I want them to do. A key stroke later all is good again.

The funny thing is that I have no idea how it got into this mode as I cannot turn it off again.

• ScreenFlow - really powerful screencasting app
  (tags: screencast software mac)
• Disable Space switching on Command-Tab in 10.5.2
  (tags: mac spaces)

• Microsoft’s cool new research building, a photostory
  (tags: architecture design microsoft)
• Jay Fields: Pair Programming thoughts
  (tags: pair_programming)
• Opacity - icon software for mac
  (tags: graphics design icons mac software)
• Why I am a DataMapper convert (it makes BDD happy)
  how to use datamapper and RSpec
  (tags: rspec merb datamapper)

• How to record a podcast between two macs
  Recording on both ends of a Skype conversation
  (tags: podcast howto skype mac garageband audio)
• When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
  (tags: economics free internet)

• Deployment with thin and Rack middleware
  (tags: thin programming ruby cool)

• Little, Yellow, Different on Snoop-Dogg’s new video
  (tags: funny music)
• Noweb
  Handling code in prose
  (tags: documentation programming tool)
• XFN - XHTML Friends Network
  (tags: semanticweb microformats)
• Secure String Interpolation
  (tags: article javascript tutorial hack)
• bitmap fonts
  (tags: typography fonts design free webdesign)
• Rails Analyzer
  (tags: rails performance analyzer log)
• Turn your MacBook’s iSight into a FTP backed up security camera
  (tags: security mac isight)
• InfoQ: The Road to Merb 1.0 with Ezra Zygmuntowicz
  (tags: merb ruby interview)
• Mondrianum
  Tool for kuler color themes
  (tags: color mac design software plugin free)
• iPhone 1.1.2 och SIM-chip
  (tags: howto iphone hack)
• simple_services
  Nice plugin for services, enables a higher level of modularization
  (tags: rails plugin services ruby)
• Doozla - Play to Learn
  TuxPaint but Mac-smooth
  (tags: kids software mac art)
• WebGen - generate static pages from Ruby
  (tags: ruby generator html tools web)
• Inquisitor 3. Spotlight for the web.
  Really good search plugin for Safari
  (tags: safari search mac plugin)
• Amy Editor - A Collaborative Text and Source Code Editor for Developers
  (tags: editor programming)
• How to figure people out - Machiavelli Psychology
  (tags: psychology people lifehacks article)
• InfoQ: Mike Cohn Provides New Patterns of Agile Adoption
  (tags: agile development)
• Automatically Measuring Your Code Coverage Using Selenium (or Watir) and Rcov
  (tags: testing selenium rcov)

• Leopard and w3m
  w3m does not port install on Leopard, this is a solution
  (tags: w3m leopard mac)

I am following the keynote via IRC and MacRumoursLive. Why am I like so many others totally intrigued by this? I suppose a lot of people would say that it is the gadget freak in me who wants to own everything coming out of Cupertino. But to me, this is not about the gadgets per se. It is about seeing progress being made, Others make progress as well, but nobody packages it as well as Apple does.

• Ramaze - Lightweight Ruby Webapp Framework
  One file, camping-style, but less magic
  (tags: ruby web mvc framework)
• Merb - Gems as Plugins as Gems
  (tags: merb ruby gems plugins)
• Thin - A fast and simple web server
  (tags: ruby server mongrel merb)

• Get notified of slow Rails web requests with Scout
  (tags: rails plugin monitoring)
• Twelve Essential Photographic Rules
  (tags: photo tips rules)
• A taxonomy of typing systems
  (tags: programming typing languages)
• iTunesFS
  (tags: itunes macfuse filesystem)
• Panopticode - Visualizing code metrics
  (tags: metrics visualization coverage continuous_integration)
• Ruby Fools Copenhagen 2008 Conference
  (tags: Ruby programming conference)
• 37signals Architecture | High Scalability
  (tags: architecture 37signals scalability rails)
• 14 Educational Games to Teach Your Kids About Business
  (tags: education finance Fun children business learning money)
• Cocoa Dev Central: Learn Cocoa
  (tags: cocoa programming tutorial mac)
• Chart Maker - Generator for the Chart Server API
  (tags: google chart generator api visualization css)
• Monitor Time Machine activity via GeekTool
  (tags: mac geektool timemachine)
• AppJet: Instant Web Programming
  Program an app online in Javascript
  (tags: javascript programming online web)
• Aslak Hellesøy: Profiling builds
  (tags: programming ruby profiling)
• Life outside the IDE - Java World Article
  (tags: development ide editor)
• Chatting with Avi Bryant - Part 1
  (tags: smalltalk interview seaside)