April 2012
2 posts
6 tags
RailsConf 2012 Live Coverage
Check Lanyard for notes / slides from the conference.
I will be Live Blogging RailsConf 2012 which will be from April 22 - 25 (including Ignite RailsConf the night before) as long as my phone has signal or I have wifi. Feel free to tweet at me ( @jhsu ).
Aso there’s a Twitter leaderboard for the hashtag #railsconf: http://railsconf.rubyonrails.io/
4 tags
Tip: RVM + Pow
If you use RVM and Pow (http://pow.cx mac os x only), you will probably have to do this inside each of your ruby projects:
rvm env -- --env > .powenv
March 2012
4 posts
“Imagine if you are extended multiple job offers from different companies, and...”
– Ilya Bagrak “The one interview question I always ask”
3 tags
Bullet Points From WNY Ruby March Meetup
Here’s some notes from our march meetup (meetup page).
WNY Ruby March-a-palooza
`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`*.
^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'
'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`* ,---/V\ < RUBY!! )
*'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`*.,* ~|__(o.o)
,*'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^`*.,*'^` UU UU
Riak for the Ruby Brigade
by Andrew Thompson
Traits
key value
simple...
Rails rendering partials
just an fyi
render "some/partial", collection: @things
is not the same as:
render :partial => "some/partial", collection: @things
thing won’t be available in the views in the first one.
8 tags
WNY Ruby Meetup - March-a-palooza
Info
The meetup will be on Tuesday March 20th, 2012 at 7:00pm and be at our usual spot Caputis (2351 Sheridan Dr, Tonawanda, NY).
This meetup will be all about databases (relational and nosql) and star two out of towners. This will be a huge turnout (~40 people rvsp’d)
Speakers
Ines Sombra (@randommood)
from Engine Yard HQ in SF to come talk about MongoDB
Andrew Thompson...
February 2012
2 posts
1 tag
First attempt at d3.js
I just started looking into D3.js, a Data-Driving Documents framework for working with data and displaying using svg.
D3.js is powerful in what it can do (as seen from the examples) but by itself it isn’t specifically meant for graphing. Instead, it helps with positioning and calculations.
My first attempt was creating a line graph
Then, I created a simple sparkline graph along with...
1 tag
Ruby listen on Redis Queue, push to websocket...
Here’s a fun bit of code.
January 2012
2 posts
1 tag
Scratching Itches: Chat
Chat networks
I connect to multiple chat networks:
IRC
AIM
MSN
google talk
facebook chat (jabber)
Needs
I wanted to be able to connect to message a person or read messages from anywhere.
I also didn’t want to have to constantly connect just to check messages. I needed push notifications to my iPhone.
Solution
My solution allows for me to connect via any irc client, since irc...
1 tag
#WNYRuby meetup, my "Using and Abusing Git Hooks"...
http://jhsu.github.com/githooks-presentation
December 2011
1 post
2 tags
November 2011
1 post
July 2011
4 posts
1 tag
Rails (2 & 3) Rake console
A little script (./script/taskrunner) to run a little rake console without having to start up the env everytime, works with environment variables too.
to get it set up, run this from your rails project directory:
curl -o ./script/taskrunner https://raw.github.com/gist/1072723/61b9eb6d458e643b3ea9e679d6501c388f3d3377/taskrunner.rb
chmod +x ./script/taskrunner
./script/taskrunner
June 2011
1 post
1 tag
Scratching Itches: Listening to Music
In this series I’ll be talking about little lifehacks I have found that work for me.
All my music is stored in one location, but I want to be able to listen to it from work, in the car or wherever I go.
I hardly ever plug my phone into my computer and I don’t want to have to manually sync my music over. I want to be able to listen to my latest music without syncing.
My criteria...
May 2011
2 posts
April 2011
4 posts
4 tags
Github Highlight: Annyong
Annyong starts a public static Web server in the current directory, allowing people in your local network to browse your files.
— remiprev, https://github.com/remiprev/annyong
A very simple and nice static file browser.
I liked it a lot, so i forked it and added audio tags for mp3|ogg files. A quick and dirty addition, but it works.
Get my fork of Annyong.
March 2011
2 posts
4 tags
“Anonymity is authenticity. It allows you to share in a completely unvarnished,...”
– Moot via http://ow.ly/4ekTV
February 2011
1 post
4 tags
Rails: Edit the most recent migration
Handy little alias to quickly edit the most recent Rails migration in one command.
January 2011
2 posts
4 tags
WatchGreat presentation on how facebook cut load times by loading js via ajax and abstracted several interactions.
1 tag
Open All Modified Files Tracked by Git in Default...
Quick way to open modified files… in cases where you close your editor.
Updated from comments (Thanks Ixguma)
Place this file somewhere in PATH and name it git-edit (or whatever you want to call it), mark it chmod +x git-edit and then inside a git dir, run git edit (replace edit with whatever you named it after ‘git-‘)
December 2010
1 post
October 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Hidden in Rack-Contrib
Here’s some helpful Rack Middleware found in Rack-Contrib.
Rack::Evil
Force a certain response from anywhere. This is useful if you need to debug something from anywhere.
Rack::Profiler
“Uses ruby-prof to measure request time.”
Rack::Rackety (not in contrib)
Something I started to act as an API end-point to test connectors, somewhat like the other half of Hurl.
With...
8 tags
My Chat Setup
ZNC irc bouncer (allows me to connect from anywhere to my active session)
Bitlbee for instant messaging accounts
Weechat irc client
Since i’m not always at my computer, I have my iphone with Colloquy (irc client) to connect to ZNC to chat and have Notifo for push notifications and a weechat script that I wrote called weechat-notifo to send notifications.
July 2010
1 post
Poke
☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜) ( self-motivation with pokes )
October 2009
1 post
5 tags
Lessons from Market Research / Consumer Product...
photo by Labzeus
I concluded my internship at Ruth Diamond Market Research, a company run by one of my professors Rhonda Ried, and thought I would share some lessons learned about administrating surveys.
Conducting the Survey
For general in-mall surveys, one of the hardest parts is getting people to stop for surveys, aka The Pitch. On location surveys are a lot easier to get response...
August 2009
3 posts
2 tags
4 tags
Local Social Media Application #PRSATalk
From left to right: Liz (@urbanhipster), Me (@jhsu), and Kevin (@brainiopera)
There were two great talks at the #PRSATalk Sunrise Seminar Session 3: Social Media Applications: Local Case Studies given by Heidi Ofinowicz (@RoswellPark), marketing communications manager at Roswell, and Mike Schuler (@schoebdoo), promotions manager at Darien Lake. It’s always good to see application of social...
2 tags
Delicious Changes, Better? Or Deviating From Its...
So Delicious has had some pretty drastic changes. I’m a heavy user of Delicious so I thought I would comment on it.
I hope someone from Delicious reads this because I have a few suggestions.
You can read about the changes in the Delicious blog post, but here’s a quick rundown:
Twitter integration
Time filter
Trends graph
Tag filter
Enhanced search results
Search suggestions
...
July 2009
1 post
How I'm Staying Afloat (and Alive) Through College
Looking back, I’m amazed at how I’ve made it here and still alive.
I’ve changed my major twice, got dismissed, took courses at a community college and got re-accepted back to UB. My GPA has been terrible (on a comeback).
Academic tips:
go to class. Even if you think you can ace the class without being there, go. By being there, you can really absorb the course material and...
June 2009
4 posts
5 tags
Microapp: HDhours
I got tired of manually inputting my work schedule every week for work so I created this mini app that basically parses my work schedule and puts it into google calendar. It still needs some work, but it works for now.
HD Hours ( http://hdhours.heroku.com )
Paste in your schedule and enter your initials along with google account information
prevents duplication (by saving the last shift,...
2 tags
Facebook Username
Awesome, just grabbed my Facebook username: http://facebook.com/josephhsu
FYI: just discovered that you can add/remove periods anywhere in the username so http://facebook.com/….joseph.hsu would work.
1 tag
Easily view site stats that use Clicky
I just noticed that on Kevin Lim’s blog there is a tab that says ‘stats’ which links to a public Clicky page.
I never realized before that Clicky had a public stat page for every user! What this means is if you know a website’s site id, you can view their stat page.
How to find a sites Clicky ID
If the site has the GetClicky button
if the site has the button, it will...
5 tags
Checked out Palm Pre here in Boulevard Mall...
Palm Pre, quick glimpse
So today I went to check out the Sprint Palm Pre at the Boulevard Mall here in Buffalo, NY. First off, I saw a glimpse inside their cabinet and they definitely have more than just three (don’t know exact number though). There was no line when I went and very few checking out the Palm Pre.
Observation: After checking Twitter, you see that ‘Palm Pre’ and...
May 2009
2 posts
3 tags
Buffalo Police + CrimeReports.com
Awesome. Buffalo Police team up with CrimeReports.com. This partnership makes police reports transparent in order to get the data out there and hopefully result in residents providing information to solve crimes.
The city has hired CrimeReports.com, a company that uses computer technology to make law enforcement reports more transparent. — via Buffalo News
3 tags
the Five Eras of the Social Web
Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester senior analyst, gives a look back and a future prediction on how consumers, companies, media and social networks have gone through changes that change the way they engage and will continue to do so. He presents this as “the Five Eras of the Social Web.”
The report was based on both quantitative by Cynthia Pflaum (@cpflaum), and quantitive through...
April 2009
3 posts
2 tags
Event Planning with Social Media
A look at “HOW TO: Plan and Promote Events With Social Media” by Mashable, from a student’s perspective.
The tips given by that article are good for planning large events, but what about an organization that plans multiple events, and often?
A few things to consider:
Is the event open to the public? What is the scope of the network?
Does it reoccur?
Notifying
Facebook...
3 tags
Advertising Proposal for Tonawandas
Last week my group presented a proposal in class, our professor is Rhonda Ried, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Tonawandas here in NY. This campaign was meant to build a consistent brand between the cities of Tonawanda and North Tonawanda.
*Apology for some missing ‘s’s or any other errors in the presentation. As you can tell, I like using 280slides.
On slide 7, we...
3 tags
Marketing for Results: Tour of Entercom
For my advanced advertising course at UB, we went to Entercom for a tour (second time, first was last semester) on March 31, 2009. Once in the lobby, we were greeted by Don Tomasulo, Director of Results at Entercom. He recently had his title changed from Director of Marketing (I believe). Also got to meet DJ Anthony, very cool guy. He recorded each person in the class introducing themselves and...
March 2009
6 posts
3 tags
Company Brands Really Becoming Identities
photo by G3K
Brands
Companies have already been building brands with personalities. Now companies are giving identities via various social media tools such as social networking sites, blogs and twitter (eg. comcastcares).
Brand identity is the intended unified characteristics that form the brand.
Social networks giving brands identities
Myspace & Facebook
Bands have been embracing...
4 tags
Web Usability presentation
For my Communication Graphics course, we had to pick a book and topic to give a presentation. I chose the book “Don’t Make Me Think!” by Krug and the topic of Web UI design.
(See read the full post for presentation)
In the first half of the presentation, I go over some of the points made by Steve Krug. He takes the user’s perspective when visiting a website. ...
The Elements of Social Architecture →
A great article about the elements social architecture by Christina Wodtke.
Posted at A List Apart on March 3, 2009.
3 tags
Facebook Redesign
note: you may not have gotten the new design, I believe they are rolling it out google-style (some users at a time)
Changes
real-Time streaming
My favorite change to the homepage is real-time streaming of updates. This AJAX goodness now auto-updates the stream without us stalkers having to repeatedly press ‘refresh’. What real-time does is allows us to waste less time trying...