This didn’t work out so well initially. Trying to use form_for in a view always reflects on the type of object you have and sends the results right back to the users_controller — not what I wanted. I tried a bunch of stuff to force the form_for to do what I wanted but no joy. What I wanted I thought was a way to alias the user model.

class Staff < User
end

Problem solved.

The User model had some nice named scopes for finders, for example:

  named_scope
          :recent,
          :conditions => ["created_at > ?", 2.weeks.ago]

And now I can do all of the following

  Staff.first
  Staff.recent
  Staff.find(params[:id])
  @staff = Staff.recent.find(:all,
              :conditions => ['name = ?',"jim"])
  @staff.last_login_at = Time.now
  @staff.save!

.. which since reflection now says they are staff objects, causes
all the view helpers that reflect on stuff to work properly and doesn’t
break any of the ActiveRecord stuff.

The image is large (9MB) so don’t click if you are on dial-up. Does dial-up still exist?

Upon putting the camera into panorama mode, the next step is to indicate whether you will shoot moving left or moving right. The camera then lets you take up to 26 pictures and keeps showing the last 1/3 of the previous picture on the large LCD screen as an aid to lining up the next shot.

Having taken all the pictures they should then be downloaded to a folder on the computer. This panorama comprises 13 images shot at 3 MP resolution (the camera does 12.1 MP) and then stitched using the Canon software on Mac OS X. The stitching process took about 4 seconds. I think it did a pretty reasonable job and I’m excited to try it out some more.

   def self.up
      create table :users do |t|
         t.string :name
         t.string :password
         t.string :sponsor_name
         t.timestamps
      end
   end

Later you want to insist that every user in the system have a sponsor. You already have a bunch of test data that you are intellectually invested in, so you whip up a quick migration to make sure.

  def self.up
     User.find(:all, :conditions => 'sponsor_name IS NULL').each do |u|
         u.sponsor_name = "The Default"
         u.save!
      end
  end

Cool. Works good. You can go up and down. But some time later you realize the supreme error of your ways. You should have had a sponsor model and the user should have a sponsor_id, not a sponsor_name. Doh! What was I thinking. Time for another migration:

   def self.up
      add_column :users, :sponsor_id, :integer
      drop_column :users, :sponsor_name
   end

and the corresponding self.down method too, and the necessary belongs_to, has_one in the user and sponsor model classes. But now you can’t migrate the database up from bootstrap any more because your use of the the User model with u.sponsor_name above will not work. The user no longer has a sponsor_name.

The root of the issue is that the model objects are not versioned along with the database as it goes up and down. Since fixtures just use the same model objects that doesn’t help one bit.

The only reliable way we have come up with is to inject data using raw sql. So step two above
could change to

  def self.up
     execute 'update users set sponsor_name = "The Default" where sponsor_name IS NULL'
  end

That works, up and down the line, because the database sql IS in sync with the database at every step.

Have a better way to write less brittle migrations? Let me know in the comments.

- %w(info notice error).each do |type|
  - if flash[type.to_sym]
    .warning.flash_message{:class => “#{type.to_s}”}
      %span= h(flash[type.to_sym])
      %small
        %a{:href=>”#”, :onclick=>”$$(’div.flash_message’)[0].hide();return false”} Close this message
 

The problem with this is that if you are Ajaxing a bunch of stuff you could use the flash area for user interaction and highlighting messages, but if it isn’t there, that could be a problem. So how about doing this instead so that the flash area is always drawn, just not displayed:

- %w(info notice error).each do |type|
  .warning.flash_message{ :class => "#{type}", :id => "flash_#{type}", :style => "display: #{flash[type.to_sym] ? ‘block’ : ‘none’}” }
    %span
      - if flash[type.to_sym]
        = h(flash[type.to_sym])
    %small
      %a{:href=>”#”, :onclick=>”$$(’div.#{type.to_s}’)[0].hide();return false”} Close this message

The flash closer is still in there so we don’t have to worry about the complexity of building that again every time, and the message is in a separate span element so it is easy to fill in. So then we can add a little bitty application helper (app/helpers/application_helper.rb)

  def flashnow(page,msg)
    page.select("#flash_notice span").first.replace("#{msg}“)
    page.select(”#flash_notice”).first.show
  end

You might need to change the replace method for replaceHtml
depending on the version of prototype you are working with.
and call it from any view that is building an rjs response:

  flashnow(page,'Yeeha, cowboy, it worked!')

1. Measure 8 tbs ground coffee into a quart mason jar - a nice full-city roast would be good, or a good breakfast blend, or … oh just about any good fresh coffee will do because some coffee is better than no coffee.
2. Fill the jar with some nice water, give it a stir and put on the lid
3. Place the jar on your kitchen counter, not in direct sun, overnight or 8 hours
4. Strain. I use the gold-wire filter that came with the coffee maker, straining it through twice so that the coffee ends up back in the mason jar.
5. Refrigerate the black gold, elixir of life, uh, the coffee.
6. Put some crushed ice in a tall (or grande, or vente) cup, pour in some coffee until about 2/3 full
7. Top off with cold water
8. Add a little Torani caramel or vanilla bean, perhaps a little cream. To taste
9. Sit back and enjoy

The worst thing about it is, when you want a glass full, you will have had to make it yesterday. Which is hard to do.

King James Version

American Standard Version

update: fixed links

So there — Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn.

I’ll leave the RTL test to someone braver.

But when you first see one of these, a chisel bladed jack-hammer bit, and the first though is “Man, XML is even pervasive in *that* industry too!”, well, I don’t know what other category it could go in.

1. Joseph was 39 when Jacob came to Egypt. Jacob was 130 (45:11 + 47:9)
2. Jacob was 91 when Joseph was born (subtract 39 from both sides)
3. Jacob had been in Padan Aram 14 years when Joseph was born (30:25 + 31:41)
4. Jacob was 77 when he stole the blessing and left home (subtract 14 from 91)
5. Isaac was 60 years old when Jacob was born (25:26)
6. Isaac was 137 when Jacob stole the blessing (60 + 77)
7. Isaac lived 43 more years to 180 (35:28)

In the picture, (click to see a larger view) just use the red horizontal arrows to align the columns and work forward from Jacob’s birth and backwards from Joseph in Egypt. Simple.