http://route19.com/ Route 19 web design & development logbook updates. http://route19.com/logbook/view/tide-data-for-canada http://route19.com/logbook/view/tide-data-for-canada Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:41:00 -0300 I recently had a need to get tide data from waterlevels.gc.ca but they didn’t offer a feed or data service so I had to build my own. I wrote it in PHP to fit a specific project, but rewrote it in Ruby for my own use. If you… http://route19.com/logbook/view/simple-referral-tracking http://route19.com/logbook/view/simple-referral-tracking Mon, 09 Nov 2009 07:52:00 -0400 I recently had need for a simple referral tracking mechanism in a Rails application, what we used to refer to as promo codes at AOL. Here’s the method I chose for implementation. In my application controller I’m capturing any ‘referral’ variable in the… http://route19.com/logbook/view/ruby-html-indentation http://route19.com/logbook/view/ruby-html-indentation Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:47:00 -0300 I’ve very particular about the html I write. On top of writing to a strict doctype, keeping tags semantic and limiting the number of divs and classes, I also like to ensure the html is easy to read and looks great. Part of this is formatting indents… http://route19.com/logbook/view/ssh-keys http://route19.com/logbook/view/ssh-keys Thu, 28 May 2009 05:01:00 -0300 I frequently log in to various servers via SSH, and like to share an SSH key so I don’t need to type the password every time. Here’s a quick step by step for doing so from Mac OS 10.5 to an Ubuntu 9 server (so I don’t have to look for instructions anymore).… http://route19.com/logbook/view/codeigniter-urls-nginx http://route19.com/logbook/view/codeigniter-urls-nginx Sun, 19 Apr 2009 09:42:00 -0300 As I’m testing the latest release of Passenger for Nginx I’ve also been looking into moving my PHP apps to that web server. Getting CodeIgniter to use friendly URIs with Nginx is fairly simple (after an hour or so of trial and error with various solutions… http://route19.com/logbook/view/lighttpd-and-rails-via-thin http://route19.com/logbook/view/lighttpd-and-rails-via-thin Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:49:00 -0400 I briefly experimented with running a server for Rails with Apache and Passenger (mod_rails), and it was certainly convenient by way of how few moving parts there were to manage, but I just prefer Lighttpd and was annoyed by Passenger’s delay on an initial… http://route19.com/logbook/view/long-distance-wifi http://route19.com/logbook/view/long-distance-wifi Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:31:00 -0400 With my wife on maternity leave I’ve been putting my work-from-home mobility to the test by spending January and February living in rural Cape Breton. Broadband access is limited, and the government-initiated rural wireless network is still unavailable… http://route19.com/logbook/view/replacing-mobileme-mac http://route19.com/logbook/view/replacing-mobileme-mac Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:41:00 -0400 I signed up for .Mac service for the most part to take advantage of the seamless integration for a number of my “needs”… scheduled backup, synchronization between 3 Macs, publicly shared folders and photos. It all worked relatively well until recently,… http://route19.com/logbook/view/simple-rails-permalink http://route19.com/logbook/view/simple-rails-permalink Sun, 23 Nov 2008 12:15:00 -0400 The simplest way to add friendlier URIs with Rails 2.x is with the model’s to_param method. Requires no database changes and works with existing objects. So a URI like this: http://route19.com/logbook/123 Becomes: http://route19.com/logbook/123-title-converted-to-uri… http://route19.com/logbook/view/quicksilver-score-in-php http://route19.com/logbook/view/quicksilver-score-in-php Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:09:00 -0300 I really liked the search scoring method in the Quicksilver style live search by John Nunemaker (Ordered List). When I couldn’t find a PHP equivalent I was able to port (re-port?) the Javascript version to PHP for an upcoming project. It turned out well… http://route19.com/logbook/view/client-expectations-process http://route19.com/logbook/view/client-expectations-process Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:29:00 -0300 Some quick notes on what you can expect when working with Route 19. Discovery & Planning We’ll begin with discovery and planning, determining what site elements and content your visitors require, and who those visitors are. The end result will be a… http://route19.com/logbook/view/ci-162-sqlite3-with-pdo http://route19.com/logbook/view/ci-162-sqlite3-with-pdo Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:23:00 -0300 After finally running into a few occasions where version 3 of SQLite would be preferable, I’ve decided to look into getting CodeIgniter up and running with it again using the PDO library. Specifically I’ll be using CodeIgniter 1.6.2, SQLite3 and the… http://route19.com/logbook/view/php-mysql-and-utf-8 http://route19.com/logbook/view/php-mysql-and-utf-8 Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:40:00 -0300 I’ve always had trouble getting PHP and UTF-8 to play nice with a database (mostly because I don’t have a complete understanding of the issue). Through trial and error I think I’ve found a way to prevent extended characters (usually French accents)… http://route19.com/logbook/view/monit-410-on-ubuntu-804 http://route19.com/logbook/view/monit-410-on-ubuntu-804 Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:03:00 -0300 I’ve been using the monitoring tool Monit for quite some time now, and it works great. One issue I’ve always had is that I don’t run a mail server, so Monit had no way to send me alerts. Recent versions of Monit allow SMTP to be used for email alerts,… http://route19.com/logbook/view/filtering-dot-underscore http://route19.com/logbook/view/filtering-dot-underscore Wed, 14 May 2008 09:09:00 -0300 When tarring up a subversion release on Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard), it’s difficult to filter out the dot underscore (._*) files that riddle the filesystem. The exclude flag for tar won’t do it. By adding this command to my ~/.bash_profile these files are… http://route19.com/logbook/view/basic-subversion http://route19.com/logbook/view/basic-subversion Tue, 06 May 2008 12:27:00 -0300 Here are some of the basic commands I use regularly for managing web projects with Subversion. I find it’s relatively easy to rely on the command line rather than GUI tools, but I do like the SCPlugin for Mac OS X. Setting up a repository on my VPS:… http://route19.com/logbook/view/diving-into-python http://route19.com/logbook/view/diving-into-python Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:50:00 -0300 I’ve had it in the back of my mind to expand my programming language abilities for a while now, and I was procrastinating on a decision between Ruby and Python. I still consider myself a designer at heart, but 10 years of developing websites as a self-taught… http://route19.com/logbook/view/benchmarking-codeigniter http://route19.com/logbook/view/benchmarking-codeigniter Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:09:00 -0300 In trying to come to grips with my increased dependence on CodeIgniter over the past few months I’ve been looking for reasons to not use it on particular projects. I recently had an opportunity to subcontract on someone else’s “legacy” PHP code, written… http://route19.com/logbook/view/codeigniter-mcrypt http://route19.com/logbook/view/codeigniter-mcrypt Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:38:00 -0300 Just a heads up for anyone baffled by CodeIgniter’s encryption library not transferring well from one host to another (e.g. development to production), it’s possible one of the hosts doesn’t have the MCrypt library installed. CI allows encryption with… http://route19.com/logbook/view/quote-why-accessibility http://route19.com/logbook/view/quote-why-accessibility Sun, 09 Mar 2008 16:43:00 -0300 “If we call ourselves professionals, we owe it to our clients, their clients, and ourselves, to do our job properly. A chef must care about health, a builder must care about safety, and we must care about accessibility.” James Edwards, “Why Accessibility?…