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Snow Leopard bites me on the a$$ again

2009-12-03T22:02:00Z

Twice, actually.

First, there was the, I think, Ruby 1.8.7 upgrade. Suddenly, my home-grown acts_as_my_thing plugin stops working. The classes with "acts_as_my_thing" crash and burn when loading, saying that "acts_as_my_thing" doesn't exist. Crap. Now what?

Eventually I managed to find the proper incantation. I have an abstract super class for a bunch of my models. It's called LabRecord. In the file that defines my "acts_as_my_thing", I had:
LabRecord.class_eval do include Lti::Acts::MyThing end

I think there is a class-loading chicken-and-egg problem going on, so after trying a bunch of stuff like moving around "requires" in the environment.rb file, I eventually decided that I was "doin it rong", and did this instead:
class LabRecord < ActiveRecord::Base include Lti::Acts::MyThing ...

But, that wasn't the end of my day. I did say twice, didn't I? A little while later I was diddling around with svn in my Rails project, and then BOOM. 3rdRail/Subclipse couldn't read my workspace anymore:
Unsupported working copy format svn: This client is too old to work with working copy '/Users/lori/Documents/workspaces/labrador/dev2'. You need to get a newer Subversion client, or to downgrade this working copy. See http://subversion.tigris.org/faq.html#working-copy-format-change for details. I'm too tired for this shit. Sigh. At least if you follow the link, you can download the Python script which will convert your Subversion workspace back to 1.5 (Snow Leopard has SVN 1.6), and get back to it.

Interface Builder hates me - PragProWriMo

2009-11-01T21:30:00Z

Since I've already tried the write-a-book thing before, and I know I suck at it, I'm opting for the "blog entry a day" thing... which actually means more like "blog entry a week". I know that sounds bad, but when you consider how often I've been blogging, it's a vast improvement, so...

To get down to it, maybe it's more like I hate Interface Builder... but not really. It's just that I have not yet "become one" with my tool, and we have these little spats from time to time.

I've been fighting with an Array Controller in IB, because it has no bindings listed. If you know IB and Array Controllers, you will know why that is wrong/bad. I can't bind any content into my array, and that's a big problem. I finally noticed that the icon for my bad array controller didn't look like the icon for a different, working array controller. This was a key breakthrough. And I finally figured out what I did wrong. When I added the array controller to my XIB file, I dragged in a plain old Object, and then changed the class to be my custom NoiseArrayController. That was it. What I shoulda done - drag in a generic ArrayController object, and then change IT to be my custom class.

Simple error. Hours of frustration. So, if an Array Controller in your XIB file doesn't have any bindings, maybe you did what I did. You have to get rid of it and start over with the correct base NSArrayController. Then you'll be rockin. Sigh.

Pulling out your Mac app version number

2009-09-17T05:14:00Z

File this one under useful snippets for Mac Cocoa development. How to extract the application version number out of your app's info.plist file.


[[NSBundle mainBundle] objectForInfoDictionaryKey:@"CFBundleShortVersionString"];

Creating application support files on the Mac

2009-09-05T15:04:00Z

You are writing a Mac Cocoa application, and you know you want to store your user specific application support files in a predictable location, like ~/Library/Application Support/<Application>/. So... how exactly do we do that?

Once again, Google to the rescue, and we find the answer at Cocoa Dev Central. This will not only construct the file name for you, but it will create the directory if it doesn't exist, too.


- (NSString *) pathForDataFile { 
    NSFileManager *fileManager = [NSFileManager defaultManager]; 

    NSString *folder = @"~/Library/Application Support/MyApplication/"; 
    folder = [folder stringByExpandingTildeInPath]; 

    if ([fileManager fileExistsAtPath: folder] == NO) { 
        [fileManager createDirectoryAtPath:folder attributes: nil]; 
    }

    NSString *fileName = @"MyApplication.mysettings"; 
    return [folder stringByAppendingPathComponent: fileName];
}

Again, an example that just works. I'm on a roll today.

Cocoa Sheets

2009-09-02T21:28:00Z

I was struggling with my Photoshop plugin again. The plugin window is modal. But then I need to pop up a modal window, in order to prompt the user for new name/description for the user-saved presets. I was puzzling and Googling, and then I stumbled across a reference to "sheets". Bingo!

This page has the best little example of sheet usage. I was able to copy/paste and then a couple of tweaks, and a couple IB bindings and it all just worked.

- (IBAction)openSheet:(id)sender
{
	[NSApp beginSheet: theSheet
			modalForWindow: theParent
			modalDelegate: self
			didEndSelector: @selector(sheetDidEnd: returnCode: contextInfo:)
			contextInfo:NULL];
}

- (IBAction)theSheetOK:(id)sender
{
	[NSApp endSheet:theSheet returnCode: NSOKButton];
	[theSheet orderOut:nil];
}

- (IBAction)theSheetCancel:(id)sender
{
	[NSApp endSheet:theSheet returnCode: NSCancelButton];
	[theSheet orderOut:nil];
}

- (void)sheetDidEnd:(NSWindow *)sheet returnCode:(int)returnCode contextInfo:(void *)contextInfo
{
	if (returnCode == NSOKButton)
		NSBeep();
}

I really love code examples that just work.

Interesting endless loop

2009-07-08T20:24:00Z

Cocoa-in-Carbon application. Note to self. Do NOT "freeze-dry" a controller object in your NIB file, especially if your controller object opens your NIB file in it's init method.

Just sayin.

My cyborg name is...

2009-06-22T18:36:00Z

Get Your Cyborg Name

Because sometimes, you need to just have fun, too. BTW, My husband made me do it!

Resizing Windoze Parallels hdd files

2009-06-19T17:36:00Z

Parallels provides a nice tool for resizing the file you have chosen as your hard drive for your virtual machine, called the Parallels Image Tool. Unfortunately, Windows is not quite so cooperative, and will not just recognize the resized file as a larger HDD automagically. You need to resize your partition, and Windows doesn't provide any easy ways of doing this.

Googling for a solution, I discovered this very detailed example using Gparted - the Gnome Partion Editor Tool with Parallels. Unfortunately, it is old, and when I tried it the Gparted image refused to boot cleanly, with some sort of error on ... mouse detection, I think. You should just go directly to the Gparted project at SourceForge, and find the most recent stable ISO file to download. While booting, most of the instructions from uneasysilence no longer apply to the new version of Gparted, but I just went with the defaults, and it all worked. Once GParted is up and running, then the instructions from uneasysilence are useful again.

Who needs pagination in a blog?

2009-06-15T22:00:00Z

I don't really blog that often. Even when I was going at full tilt, I rarely posted more than 10-12 times a month. So... I don't care about the pagination plugin anymore. I especially don't care when it involves 3 inter-related plugins, at different/conflicting versions!

So I took the easy way out, I'm afraid. Googling for alternatives, I discovered this example pastie, which gives me the month-by-month archive in the sidebar you see now.

See? Who needs pagination?

Mephisto upgrade started

2009-06-13T04:58:00Z

I've upgraded the blog to Mephisto 0.8.1 Drax. I would have been in serious trouble, had it not been for Rob Seaman's blog. Waves! Hi, Rob. Thanks.

It wasn't just a simple upgrade, in fact, it was pretty freaking complicated. But, since I worked so hard, it should be smooth sailing for the future.

Upgrade to new Mephisto, and learn more about Git at the same time (Rob's blog was really useful for that part)
Moved from Nginx/Mongrel setup on a Nitix box, to Apache/Passenger on Solaris 10 (SunFire V100). (More on that later)
Capified the blog, for better/faster customizations and updates. (Yeeee!!!!!)

Seems like a lot, doesn't it? I thought so too. There was even a couple of days of yak-shaving involved, as I attempted to force certain plugins to work, which were not compatible with 0.8.1. Never mind. The blog is up and running, and it will survive for a day or two without a tag cloud, or pagination. I'll get to it. Promise.

Speaking at RailsConf 2009

2009-05-02T18:57:00Z

I'll be going to RailsConf next week, and (surprise), I'll also be speaking.
Discussion Panel: Women In Rails
Feel free to comment here, if you aren't going to the conference, but have any good discussion points to add.

3rdRail and custom Ruby on the Mac

2009-02-20T16:51:00Z

I was having a lot of problems with my humongous Rails project lately, with a lot of long delays, build problems, hangs, etc. This all came to a head on Wednesday, when I couldn't do anything without having 3rdRail go and hang on me. But, one of my coworkers who also uses 3rdRail was not experiencing similar problems, so I had to come to the conclusion that the problem was... me.

I've been doing Rails development on my Mac for over 3 years now. This was pre-Leopard, so I had an installed-from-source Ruby that I used. I've been telling myself that this was just smart, because the Ruby that comes with Leopard now is subject to change, any time that Apple cares to issue a software update. I prefer to have my development tools under my own control.

Unfortunately, it seems that this custom Ruby install was the primary difference between my coworker and I, so on Wednesday afternoon I bit the bullet and ripped /usr/local out of my system (bye-bye custom MySQL, Apache, Ruby), and started the painful process of re-installing all the gems I needed using Apple's Ruby (yes, including the Oracle drivers and RMagick.... it wasn't a pleasant afternoon).

Well, now, don't I feel stupid... 3rdRail now builds/rebuilds my project in a reasonable amount of time, without all the stutters and hangs.

So, I'm posting this as an FYI. IF you run into build problems with 3rdRail, it might just be your Ruby install.

Blackfish install on Mac - Leopard

2009-01-23T17:48:00Z

This is old information, too, but I hope it is still useful. When I was attempting to install the most recent version of Blackfish (successor to JDataStore) on my Macbook Pro with Leopard, the install failed. Looking in the console for a clue as to what went wrong, I discovered:


08/08/03 12:03:02 PM [0x0-0x30b30b].jds_install[50294] sh: /usr/sbin/lookupd: No such file or directory

This is not an uncommon problem for Leopard. The lookupd command was replaced by dscacheutil. I got around the problem, and got the install to complete successfully by doing this from a terminal:

lori@draco ~
$ cd /usr/sbin
lori@draco /usr/sbin
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin/dscacheutil lookupd

Make sure you delete that lookupd link when you are finished. The syntax for dscacheutil is similar, but not identical, and you might end up with other weird errors if you forget, and some application tries to use lookupd in a different way.

The Blind Men and the Cloud

2009-01-23T17:22:00Z

I know this article is old, but it's worth repeating... over and over. Originally appeared on The Server Side

The Blind Men and the Cloud

It was six men of Info Tech
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Cloud
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind

The First approached the Cloud,
So sure that he was boasting
"I know exactly what this is…
This Cloud is simply Hosting."

The Second grasped within the Cloud,
Saying, "No it's obvious to me,
This Cloud is grid computing…
Servers working together in harmony!"

The Third, in need of an answer,
Cried, "Ho! I know its source of power
It's a utility computing solution
Which charges by the hour."

The Fourth reached out to touch it,
It was there, but it was not
"Virtualization," said he.
"That's precisely what we've got!"

The Fifth, so sure the rest were wrong
Declared "It's sass you fools,
Applications with no installation
It's breaking all the rules!"

The Sixth (whose name was Benioff),
Felt the future he did know,
He made haste in boldly stating,
"This *IS* Web 3.0."

And so these men of Info Tech
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were partly wrong!

Rails page fragment caching

2009-01-23T05:08:00Z

Our Rails application is very dynamic, so page and action caching are not really suitable. But page fragment caching is quite useful. I was implementing this yesterday, and using Greg and Ryan's very useful little tutorial, when I ran into a little difficulty...

Where the heck are the cached fragments?

It was puzzling, but I just couldn't find them, and I was going nuts searching. I thought maybe Passenger was overriding the default location, and stashing them somewhere under Apache. Nope.

Turns out, the answer is fairly simple. The tutorial was written some time ago, and since then the default cache store has changed from :file_store to :memory_store. So you can look for the cache files forever, but you ain't gonna find them.

So, if you want to see caching files in your development environment, you need to have these lines in your config/environments/development.rb file:


config.action_controller.perform_caching             = true
config.action_controller.cache_store = :file_store, RAILS_ROOT+"/tmp/cache/"