Jimmy Z

So, I’m finally diving into Ruby on Rails. The transition to Ruby on Rails from using CakePHP is going fairly smoothly. Now that I am really comfortable with the MVC framework that CakePHP uses, the learning curve has been pretty minimal.

My web hosting provider offers Ruby on Rails support, but I don’t like editing files directly on a server, so I decided to get things running locally on my own machine. It has been kind of a headache to get things working with FastCgi. Without FastCgi, everything runs pretty slow. With fcgi support, it runs really fast, which is nice. Just remember that you must restart Apache after you change your database.yml file.

If you want to start developing on Rails, I suggest following the WARR (Windows Apache Ruby on Rails) setup instructions. These instructions finally got my fcgi to work. You don’t have to put things in the directories that the tutorial suggests, especially if you are already set up with apache, mysql, etc.

If you want to learn some of the basics on Ruby, I suggest the following sites:

• Try Ruby – This site lets you type ruby commands into a little console in the browser window. No installation needed, just a browser. Follow their tutorial! It gives a pretty good, quick run-through of Ruby programming principles.
• Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby – This is an online book that is an easy read.

If you’re looking for some good Rails tutorials check out:

• OnLamp.com RoR Tutorial – A good introductory tutorial. This was the first Ruby on Rails tutorial I ever completed.
• OnLamp.com RoR Tutorial II – A continuation on the other tutorial.

If you really want a good understanding of Ruby on Rails, and Ruby, I suggest buying these books:

• Agile Web Development with Rails – This is a good book whether you’re learning Rails or another inspired framework such as CakePHP. It was written by David Heinemeier Hansson, who is one of the master minds behind Rails and is on the 37Signals team. All parts of the MVC framework are discussed thoroughly in this book, and it has the best explanations for Model relationships such as Belongs To, Has One, Has and Belongs To Many. This book is awesome.
• Programming Ruby – This is an in depth guide to Ruby programming. It covers the basics all the way to the advanced features such as distributing Ruby objects across several processes and servers, much like Java’s RMI or CORBA. It is written by Dave Thomas (not the Wendy’s guy) who is also a co-author of the Agile Web Development with Rails book.

So, now I’m off and running, or at least jogging, with Ruby on Rails. Ruby is a really cool programming language. A lot of stuff seems backwards from what I’m used to with languages such as Java or php, but the differences actually make Ruby super elegant. It will take me a while to become super proficient in it, but I’m on my way.

I’ve already noticed some differences between Ruby on Rails and CakePHP, which I’m taking note of. I’ll write again soon with a detailed comparison of CakePHP and Ruby on Rails.

The small team at 37signals has created some of the most innovative, clean, and useful products on the web. Their development philosophy has turned them into one of the marvels of the 2nd web movement (I know I’ll get beaten if I say “web 2.0″).

If you haven’t read 37signals’ book titled Getting Real yet, you should start reading it today. Get it free on the web, and listen to the Business Jive interview with Jason Fried, President of 37signals.

I have had intentions to read the book for a long time, but I have a hard time getting around to buying books. I discovered the online version just yesterday, and I just read about a third of the book tonight.

Every essay that I’ve read so far has given me important insights that will help me become a more effective project manager and software engineer. Now I plan to implement each principle and write about the successes gained by doing so.

Happy reading. Honestly, this book is the best thing I’ve read in a long time.

Wikia has unveiled Openserving.com, a new collaborative blogging platform based around Open Source principles. Anybody can start a new collaborative blogging site, centered on any topic, and the community contributes their expertise on that subject. The individual that initiates and sets up the site gets 100% of any Ad revenue that comes from visitors to the site.

I signed up for an Openserving site this afternoon. I’m still waiting for an email that will be sent when my site goes live. I’ll post an update when my new site is up.

Wiki Component: It appears from the tour that users will be able to edit pages. I’m not sure how this will work exactly, but the “discuss this page” and “edit” links seen at the top of the screen lead to believe that pages will will have wiki-style read/write.

Drupal Component: Openserving sites are built around community, much like drupal-powered sites. Openserving may be a good platform for college clubs and organizations.

Digg Component: Openserving has followed the Digg model for article and comment voting. Articles will be featured on the front page if they receive a lot of votes. This will hopefully motivate users to write quality content so that their content will be promoted to the front page.

The Openserving announcement was worthy of a mention on Techcrunch, which which has given a little more insight on Wikia’s business model behind Openserving.

“The main thing we’re looking for is that they drive traffic back to Wikia but we’re not just thinking of any link back to the home page, but a content-relevant link,” [Jimmy] Wales said.

One doubt I have for this project is that users might not contribute to a site’s content if they know someone else is going to be receiving adsense revenue for their content. Will anyone write quality content for someone else’s gains? Or would they rather publish it to their own blog?

Another doubt I have is that many of the sites will reach a critical mass to where an article voting model will become relevant. I hope the sites are able to get some traction and the world will benefit from high-quality content sites.

I’ll post an update as soon as I have access to my account, and have a site set up.

I’ve been hesitant to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 because according to analytics data on several of my sites, the majority of Internet Explorer users are still on IE6. My wait is now over. I can finally run my automatic update to install Internet Explorer 7 because Microsoft has released a Virtual PC hard drive image for testing web applications in Internet Explorer 6.

This is great news for web developers and web designers, because IE7 has changed the way it interprets CSS. While I have yet to do much extensive testing of CSS in IE7, I have heard from several designers that the CSS implementation in Internet Explorer 7 is a lot nicer to work with and that it is more standards compliant.

Web surfers are now split between 3 browsers: Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox. Web designers can now test their sites in all 3 browsers by using Microsoft’s Virtual PC. Read more about this on the Microsoft IEBLog.

Browser Distribution from my Google Analytics:

Internet Explorer Distribution:

Yahoo! is sporting a new banner at the bottom of its search results urging its users to upgrade to a Yahoo! optimized version of Internet Explorer 7. The ad appears for both Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox users. Eric Friedman of Searchviews.com believes that the ad “is clearly targeted towards FireFox users.” I’m not convinced that it’s a direct attack against Firefox. Internet Explorer 6 is still the most popular browser on the planet and Yahoo! wants to be the default search bar when users upgrade to IE7.

Why has Yahoo! not chosen a Yahoo! optimized Firefox? I believe it is because people have a hard time dealing with change. The majority of web surfers are familiar with the blue e and are more likely to install a Yahoo! optimized Internet Explorer than to install a Yahoo! optimized Firefox.

Google has already buddied up with Firefox by promoting the Google-Firefox tool bar with their Adsense campaigns, including Firefox in their Google Pack, and developing several extensions for the Firefox browser. Firefox returns the love by making Google the default search bar when installing from Mozilla.com. So, trying to convert Firefox users back to Yahoo! isn’t going to be an easy task.

Yahoo! is much more likely to gain or retain users through its Yahoo! optimized Internet Explorer efforts than it will trying to convert people to Firefox.