Free CSS Toolbox
Web developers always care about standards compliant coding and cross-browser compatibility. A great tool to help in that is Free CSS Toolbox from Blumentals.
Running Aptana/Eclipse and InstantRails from a USB Drive
If you are using Aptana Studio for Ruby on Rails development, you may have to repeat several boring tasks to get them up and running on a different computer. First, you need to install Ruby, Rails and MySQL. Then, you need to download and install Java, Aptana Studio and Aptana RadRails plugin. Finally you need to configure Aptana for Rails development. In addition, you may need to install some Aptana plugins and Rails gems. If you don't want to go through all these steps, you can just put everything on a USB drive and go. Here is how.
Quickly Open Command Prompt Window on Any Folder in Windows
While developing under Windows XP, I frequently open a Command Prompt window and go through many cd commands to change to a specific folder. This gets worse when the folder is deeply nested. So I searched for a better solution that allows accessing the Command Prompt from Windows Explorer. Good news, I found it!
Thinking Sphinx in Arabic/Unicode
While using Thinking Sphinx in one of my Rails projects, I needed to search Arabic content. Since Sphinx supports Unicode, I thought that would be easy. But it was not due to the lack of documentation of Unicode support through Thinking Sphinx. So here is what to do to support Arabic (Unicode) search.
Replacing Tabs with Spaces in Aptana (Soft Tabs)
While using Haml in Aptana, I had a problem with line indentation. Since Haml uses space indentation to represent the HTML structure (two spaces for each level), indenting multiple lines with the "tab" characters would result in Haml errors. I tried to search for the word "tab" in Aptana's "Preferences" window but didn't find what I wanted. Here is how to enforce Aptana to replace tabs with regular spaces (soft tabs).
Haml/Saas Syntax Highlighting in Aptana/Eclipse
UPDATE: Some people reported problems while downloading the files. Now, you can download them from here.
Recently, I have been using Haml in some my Rails projects. It simply makes your views clean and readable. One issue I had was syntax highlighting in my favorite IDE, Aptana Studio. The Haml syntax highlighting support has been stopped a while ago and more issues have raised after Aptana recent updates.
Thinking Sphinx on Windows
In one of my Ruby on Rails projects, I needed a full-text search engine to integrate. And after some research, I decided that Thinking Sphinx is the way to go. It seemed simple, fast and well documented. Unfortunately, I had some issues when tried to get it running on Windows.
Installing CommunityEngine on Rails 2.1
In a previous post, I talked about why we chose CommunityEngine. And due to the lack of documentation and several issues I had, I thought it would be useful to go through the installation steps and handling some issues.
We Chose CommunityEngine for a Rails Social Network
Last week, I and Mosta were about to start a new project at eSpace, a social network in Rails. And instead of reinventing the wheel, we decided to check the available solutions to choose one to build on. Here is why we chose CommunityEngine.
tog, An Open Source Social Network Platform for Ruby on Rails
Few months ago, I have talked about some helpful open source solutions for building a social network with Ruby on Rails. Today, a new member has joined the family. Unlike other solutions, tog doesn't believe in generic social networks. Instead, tog is a collection of useful plugins that can easily add social network features to your Ruby on Rails application.
Microsoft Windows Cloud
Last Wednesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced releasing a new operating system within a month. The new operating system is not a replacement of Windows 7. It is not intended for normal users neither. Instead, it is intended for developers of Internet-based applications. So, the code name is Windows Cloud.
eSpace Launches Jsoor.. Jsoor Lanches Alsaha
Today, eSpace has launched Jsoor, the new spin-off that will offer web development services. Interestingly, on its first day, Jsoor has launched the new version of Alsaha, the largest Arabic online community.
Installing Mephisto 0.8 on Rails 2
Finally I'm done with installing and running mephisto for ExpressionLab. ExpressionLab now is powered by mephisto. However, It was not that easy so I thought documenting it may help me in the future and may save someone else's time. Actually, a lot of time.
Why 100% width may damage the layout
One of the common mistakes developers make when creating layouts is specifying a width of 100% when they need the block element to take the full width of its parent element.
How to avoid the IE box model bug
One of the common bugs of IE is the box model bug which affects the box model of any HTML block-level element when the page is in quirks mode. In brief, IE includes the padding when calculating the width of the block. Personally, I found this very logical and don't like to consider it a bug. But since it violates the W3C standards, it is a bug.
Rails 2.1 restful_authentication with Internet Explorer
restful_authentication plugin is very helpful,
and probably the most common, when developing an authentication system on Rails. I have used it with Rails 1 and 2.0.2 with no problems.
But with Rails 2.1, I got some strange behavior.
Routing for a Singleton Resource on Rails 2
While developing your RESTful Rails application, you use ActionController::Resources which magically generates a bunch of named routes to use in controllers and views.
libmysql.dll error with Rails 2.1 on InstantRails
Today, I was playing with Rails 2.1 on Windows and thought about trying InstantRails. I have successfully created a new Rails app but when tried rake db:migrate, I got an error saying that libmysql.dll cannot be loaded.
Ruby on Ramaze
Ramaze is a simple, light and modular open-source web application framework written in Ruby as an alternative to the Ruby on Rails framework. It aims to make the development simple and fun.
What I Like Most About Firefox 3
You probably know that Mozilla has finally released version 3.0 of the great Firefox browser. The latest version contains several enhancements, fixes and new features. But I just want to mention what I find really useful and like most.
Testing on Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer
Web developers are always concerned about cross-browser compatibility issues and spend a long time testing and handling issues for different browsers.
A New Google API for JavaScript Libraries
Two days ago, Google has announced the new Ajax Libraries API. The idea is to provide a central location to host the most popular JavaScript libraries on Google servers to benefit from the high speed and global caching.
E-TextEditor: TextMate for Windows
If you, like me, develop Ruby on Rails applications on Windows and feel bad when watching TextMate in Railscasts, you probably will be happy to know about E-TextEditor. E-TextEditor is a text editor that aims to bring the power of TextMate to Windows platform.
Open Source Social Networking for Ruby on Rails
Web 2.0 concepts and trends have led to different types of web applications. In general, the main targets are information sharing and collaboration. A typical example is social networks. Features include forums, blogging, file sharing, photo galleries, video galleries, and so on.
Menus Behind Flash
Have you ever tried to include a Flash movie in an HTML page that contains a drop-down menu? Have you noticed that the menu, when triggered, has dropped behind the Flash movie? You probably have tried to change the HTML code to include the menu after the Flash movie. You may even have tried to change the z-index of the menu to 50000 with no different results.
A Quick Start to Octave
Two days ago, I have started working on a new web application that manages a power quality monitoring and analysis system. The system consists of multiple censors that are spread through multiple locations and periodically send readings to the server which pass the data to a Octave script to process and analyze.
Open Source Web Analytics
Piwik is an open source web analytics software that has been launched under a GPL license. Piwik gives you detailed reports on your website pageviews, visitors, search engine keywords, popular pages and more. Their goal is to be an open source web analytics software that is a good alternative to Google Analytics.
Redmine: A Software Project Management Solution
As a professional developer, I am always concerned about tools that help developers and ease the overall project management process.
For long time, I have searched for the best application that I can trust and use as my all-in-one solution for project management and issue tracking. I have seen many applications that claimed being the best, downloaded many free tools and signed up for many trial accounts. Examples include EasyProjects.NET, Trac, XPlanner, Bugzilla, Mingle, Basecamp, and Goplan.
YouTube Platform
Unless you lived on Mars for the last couple of years, you already know about the Google's video sharing service, YouTube, that lets you upload, search, play, comment and rate videos for free. YouTube also has released some APIs that let you embed and play videos from your website.
One Month Application
eSpace, like many other web development firms out there, is always busy developing projects for clients and can't find the time for its own products.
A very effective way to help a development firm to build their own products is to do what clearfunction did. They knew that the way is to elect a small team and enforce them to do the job in a short time frame.
Firebug problem with Firefox 2.0.0.12
No doubt Firebug is an essential tool for web developers. Unfortunately, after I updated to the latest Firefox version, 2.0.0.12, I noticed that Firebug failed to inspect link elements and their child elements. Many of my friends talked about the same problem.
JavaScript Jump Menu
A JavaScript jump menu is a normal drop down menu, HTML select element, that, using a JavaScript function, jumps to a predefined URL once you make the selection. I know everyone knows how to do it, but I just wanted to record it.
Product Idea: Open Source Agile Project Management Tool in Rails
The idea is to use Ruby on Rails to add a new member of eSpace's products family and create a tool that is used daily by all eSpace employees to ease their life.
