June 30th 2009
This post helped me with setting the connect_timeout, receive_timeout, and send_timeout attributes for the ruby SOAP client. Make sure to read the first comment!
The timeout is specified in seconds. You can use a decimal number to set sub-second timeouts.
June 11th 2009
If you use Postgresql for your Rails development, and if you reset your local database a lot, then you may appreciate this tip.
No more annoying NOTICE messages.
January 8th 2009
I’m at CodeMash 2009 in wonderful Sandusky, Ohio.
The Day 0 panel discussion was about Rich Internet / Interaction Applications. For about 1 hour, 4 panelists debated which RIA platform is the best. They concluded that it’s a waste of time debating which RIA platform is the best. I can’t say if the bottle of bourbon they polished off while debating influenced their conclusion.
November 27th 2008
If you’re looking for a book or two about software development, check this out…
November 6th 2008
This is my first week at Academic Management Systems. We write software that helps universities manage their medical programs.
We’re a Ruby on Rails shop. My 6 year run as a .Net developer is over for now. I still like .Net. I still think .Net is a good platform. I see myself working with .Net again sometime in the future.
I’m also, however, very excited to step away from MS technology and to try out some new stuff. Although I am using Ubuntu for my workstation (I’m just not that interested in working on a Mac.).
I work with a good group of people and I’m looking forward to writing some cool software.
April 21st 2008
I’ve been having a major VMWare problem on my Fedora 8 x64 workstation. Creating a new VM was no problem. Whenever I tried to power it on, however, my entire system would lock. Being the demanding, unreasonable jerk that I am, I wasn’t willing to accept this behaviour 
I found this post (I was amused watching the two posters bicker over 64 bit VMWare) which pointed me in the right direction. I unloaded the kvm_intel and kvm modules. After that, my vm powered on like a champ!
So, if VMWare Workstation 6 is crashing your linux box, see if running these commands helps:
sudo rmmod kvm_intel
sudo rmmod kvm_amd
sudo rmmod kvm
P.S. I’ve added learning about KVM to my homework list. This link is a start.
April 19th 2008
Udi Dahan, an active enterprise software community member, posted a great podcast on using Rest for large scale projects.
Here’s my summary:
Does this mean that every large system should be RESTful? No. Does this mean that REST deserves serious consideration when designing SOA based systems? Absolutely yes.
At the end of the podcast, he mentions his concern for a lack of REST service description tools. The community is working on this. Check out WADL for details.
February 23rd 2008
If you’ve got a program, Firefox for example, that regularly orphans its processes:
No more orphans!
