tag:foliosus.com,2005:/blog/atom 2009-10-31T13:06:40-04:00 tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/140 2009-10-31T12:58:19-04:00 2009-10-31T13:06:40-04:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/botany-photo-of-the-day-halloween-edition" title="Read Botany photo of the day: Halloween edition (with comments)">Botany photo of the day: Halloween edition</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Oct</span> <span class="day">31</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;09</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/plants">plants</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/foliosus/82852225/" title="Tacca chantrieri (Taccaceae) by foliosus, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/41/82852225_03c49adf9f_m.jpg" height="159" alt="Tacca chantrieri (Taccaceae)" width="240" /></a></p> <p>One of my photos was chosen to be today's <a href="http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2009/10/tacca_chantrieri.php" title="Visit the PBotD">Botany Photo of the Day</a> by the UBC Botanical Garden. I think it's because the flower in question is a crazy bat-looking tropical thing. <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/botany-photo-of-the-day-halloween-edition" title="Read the rest of Botany photo of the day: Halloween edition" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/139 2009-09-28T18:13:44-04:00 2009-09-28T18:17:06-04:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/running-git-svn-and-svn-smoothly-with-kerberos-on-mac-os-x" title="Read Running git-svn and svn smoothly with kerberos on Mac OS X (with comments)">Running git-svn and svn smoothly with kerberos on Mac OS X</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Sep</span> <span class="day">28</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;09</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/operating-systems">operating systems</a></p> <p>I've been trying to learn <a href="git-scm.org/" title="Home of the git">git</a>, and I thought that I would start by using git-svn to wrap up my upstream subversion repositories and lean the beauty of easy branching.</p> <p>As I learned, however, getting <a href="http://flavio.castelli.name/howto_use_git_with_svn" title="A git-svn primer">git-svn</a> to work with <a href="http://web.mit.edu/Kerberos/" title="Kerberos home page">kerberos</a> tickets on your system is a pain.</p> <p>With the built-in OS X subversion binaries, you get a very strange error:</p> <p><pre>PROPFIND request failed on '/my_repo/my_project': PROPFIND of '/my_repo/my_project': 207 Multi-Status (<a href="https://svn.domain.com">https://svn.domain.com</a>) at /usr/local/libexec/git-core/git-svn line 1699</pre></p> <p>Wow. That's unhelpful. It turns out that git uses the perl svn modules in order to talk to subversion, and that they are lacking a kerberos binding on Mac OS X. Or something like that. My unix-fu wasn't up to the task of figuring this problem out; I got help from my local unix guru. The solution was remarkably simple, however. <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/running-git-svn-and-svn-smoothly-with-kerberos-on-mac-os-x" title="Read the rest of Running git-svn and svn smoothly with kerberos on Mac OS X" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/138 2009-08-13T23:48:38-04:00 2009-08-14T00:25:39-04:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/digital-plants-by-macoto-murayama" title="Read Digital plants by Macoto Murayama (with comments)">Digital plants by Macoto Murayama</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Aug</span> <span class="day">14</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;09</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/distractions">distractions</a>, <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/plants">plants</a></p> <p>It's not too often that you find a good mashup of plants and computers, but artist <a href="http://www.creatorsbank.com/portfolio/index.php?id=macasshern" title="Portfolio">Macoto</a> <a href="http://www.toray-dca.jp/english/gallery/dca_08/08_1.html" title="Award">Murayama</a> manages the trick:</p> <p><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/digital-plants-by-macoto-murayama" title="Read the rest of Digital plants by Macoto Murayama" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/137 2009-05-19T23:35:16-04:00 2009-05-19T23:56:35-04:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/yoshida-brothers-rock" title="Read Yoshida Brothers rock! (with comments)">Yoshida Brothers rock!</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">May</span> <span class="day">19</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;09</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/distractions">distractions</a>, <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/music">music</a></p> <p>I rarely post about music, but I just got back from an awesome concert, and I thought I'd share.</p> <p>The <a href="http://www.domo.com/yoshidabrothers/" title="Official site">Yoshida Brothers</a> are brothers from Hokkaido (northern Japan) who are just over 30 years old and have been playing the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamisen" title="Wikipedia info about the shamisen">shamisen</a> since they were five. They are truly masters of the instrument. <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/yoshida-brothers-rock" title="Read the rest of Yoshida Brothers rock!" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/136 2009-05-12T18:13:06-04:00 2009-05-12T18:13:32-04:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/railsconf-09-what-professionalism-is-about" title="Read RailsConf '09: What professionalism is about (with comments)">RailsConf '09: What professionalism is about</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">May</span> <span class="day">12</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;09</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/ruby-on-rails">ruby on rails</a></p> <p><a href="http://blip.tv/file/2089545" title="Watch the keynote">Robert Martin's keynote</a> at <a href="http://railsconf.com" title="Conference home page">RailsConf</a> this year, though ostensibly about SmallTalk, was really about professionalism. Many people <a href="http://litanyagainstfear.com/blog/2009/05/06/railsconf-2009-robert-martin-keynote/">are</a> <a href="http://fabiokung.com/2009/05/09/spider-mans-professionalism-at-railsconf-09/">talking</a> <a href="http://jakescruggs.blogspot.com/2009/05/rails-conf-2009-second-day-of-sessions_07.html">about</a> it, but I think there's part of the message that everybody missed. <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/railsconf-09-what-professionalism-is-about" title="Read the rest of RailsConf '09: What professionalism is about" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/135 2009-03-20T14:04:28-04:00 2009-03-20T14:05:07-04:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/howto-create-a-new-link-by-munging-the-current-url-in-rails" title="Read HOWTO: Create a new link by munging the current URL in Rails (with comments)">HOWTO: Create a new link by munging the current URL in Rails</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Mar</span> <span class="day">20</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;09</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/ruby-on-rails">ruby on rails</a></p> <p>I've been working on a restful app that allows very complicated searches. I've been composing scopes to build the searches, but that's another post. All searches use the index action of the resource's controller. I wanted to offer RSS feeds for every possible search, to allow users to really get only the information they are interested. But I couldn't figure out how to generate the custom RSS feed link easily. I could have gone through my list of scopes, and then re-created the URL with :format => :rss, but that's not very DRY. It turns out that there's a much easier way. <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/howto-create-a-new-link-by-munging-the-current-url-in-rails" title="Read the rest of HOWTO: Create a new link by munging the current URL in Rails" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/134 2009-03-04T17:22:45-05:00 2009-03-04T18:55:19-05:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/change-the-prompt-in-the-rails-console" title="Read Change the prompt in the Rails console (with comments)">Change the prompt in the Rails console</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Mar</span> <span class="day">04</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;09</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/ruby-on-rails">ruby on rails</a></p> <p>At work, I frequently find myself in the situation of having two or three or more console windows open, working on multiple apps in different environments. After almost getting myself into trouble on several occasions, I decided that I'd rather have the Rails console tell me what environment I'm running in. <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/change-the-prompt-in-the-rails-console" title="Read the rest of Change the prompt in the Rails console" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/133 2008-11-17T11:50:36-05:00 2009-02-11T00:09:25-05:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/the-devonia-cocktail" title="Read The Devonia Cocktail (with comments)">The Devonia Cocktail</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Nov</span> <span class="day">17</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;08</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/food">food</a></p> <p>Here in Oregon, it's fall. The leaves have changed colors, the weather is changing. When I go to the farmer's market, I no longer see plums; root vegetables, apples and pears are the norm now. And the apple cider is here.</p> <p>I've been thinking about seasonality a lot recently; I figure that, although I can make a drink that tastes like a long summer day on a tropical beach, perhaps in Oregon in the fall I should make a drink that tastes like Oregon in the fall. A few searches on <a href="http://www.cocktaildb.com" title="Great database of cocktails">Cocktail DB</a> later, I've found the <a href="http://cocktaildb.com/recipe_detail?id=661" title="Tastes like fall!">Devonia Cocktail</a>.</p> <p>Wow! What a drink! It's not particularly strong &mdash; it has less than a full shot of alcohol &mdash; but it is extremely smooth and well balanced. <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/the-devonia-cocktail" title="Read the rest of The Devonia Cocktail" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/132 2008-11-11T16:16:23-05:00 2009-02-11T00:09:24-05:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/howto-use-a-rails-model-with-an-oracle-public-synonym" title="Read HOWTO: Use a Rails model with an Oracle public synonym (with comments)">HOWTO: Use a Rails model with an Oracle public synonym</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Nov</span> <span class="day">11</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;08</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/ruby-on-rails">ruby on rails</a></p> <p>The title of this post is somewhat misleading. It turns out that you can't use Oracle public synonyms with Rails, because of how ActiveRecord obtains information about the fields in its models.</p> <p><h2>The problem</h2></p> <p>Let's say you have the following model:</p> <p><pre class="code ruby">class User &lt; ActiveRecord::Base end</pre></p> <p>If you have a public synonym in your database called users AR will fail, with an error message about how it can't get column information for the users table.</p> <p>Why is that?</p> <p>Well, AR queries the all_tab_columns view to get the column list, with something like this: <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/howto-use-a-rails-model-with-an-oracle-public-synonym" title="Read the rest of HOWTO: Use a Rails model with an Oracle public synonym" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller tag:foliosus.com,2005:Post/131 2008-10-01T12:49:19-04:00 2009-02-11T00:09:24-05:00 <div class="post"><h2 class="title"><a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/howto-get-up-and-running-with-postgresql-and-ruby-on-rails-on-leopard-mac-osx-10-5" title="Read HOWTO: Get up and running with PostgreSQL and Ruby on Rails on Leopard (Mac OSX 10.5) (with comments)">HOWTO: Get up and running with PostgreSQL and Ruby on Rails on Leopard (Mac OSX 10.5)</a></h2> <p class="date"><span class="month">Oct</span> <span class="day">01</span> <span class="year">&rsquo;08</span></p><p class="metadata">Filed in <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/operating-systems">operating systems</a>, <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/category/ruby-on-rails">ruby on rails</a></p> <p>I ran into this problem at work today: for once, instead of Oracle, it was time to use a PostgreSQL database. I've never used PostgreSQL before, so this was all new territory to me.</p> <p>Looking around online, I found several pages that describe how to do this <a href="http://brionesandco.com/ryanbriones/2008/01/postgresql-on-leopard-for-rails-few.html">with</a> <a href="http://www.robbyonrails.com/articles/2008/01/22/installing-ruby-on-rails-and-postgresql-on-os-x-third-edition">MacPorts</a>. But I don't have MacPorts, and I don't want it, since PostgreSQL ships binaries with an installer for Mac OSX. I want something simpler, anyway.</p> <p>It turns out that the solution is fairly easy: <a href="http://foliosus.com/blog/howto-get-up-and-running-with-postgresql-and-ruby-on-rails-on-leopard-mac-osx-10-5" title="Read the rest of HOWTO: Get up and running with PostgreSQL and Ruby on Rails on Leopard (Mac OSX 10.5)" class="more">Read the rest &hellip;</a></p></div> Brent Miller