Microsoft

Interesting Ruby and Rails Tidbits #31

The latest installment of our series of roundup posts, covering some of our latest findings in the world of all things Ruby (or not). These items wouldn't make it in as separate posts, but they should be of enough interest to Rubyists generally to make it a worthwhile browse for most readers.

360Flex last day.

What a conference! The talks where really awesome so far. Not exactly sure what I will attend today. I might attend “Optimize it! ActionScript Tips for iPhone Games” followed by “Adobe is from Mars, Microsoft is from Uranus: A View from the Client”. Then I will have to split early to catch a flight to Salt Lake City for the MountainWest RubyConf 2010.

Ruby & PowerPoint: Inserting HyperLinks

I've written previously about automating Microsoft PowerPoint with Ruby. Someone recently asked how to use Ruby code to insert hyperlinks into a PowerPoint slide. Let's take a look now at how this can be done.

Setting the Scene

Let's quickly review the code that will launch PowerPoint...


require 'win32ole'

Saving Microsoft Office Documents as PDFs

A recent discussion in the Ruby Forum reminded me that it is possible with Microsoft Office 2007 applications to save a document in Adobe PDF format.

In the Microsoft Word object model, you can call the Document object's SaveAs() method, passing it a filename, and the document will be saved in the default format.


document.SaveAs('c:\temp\MyDocument.doc')

Connecting to One of Many Open Documents

If you've hung around here for a little while, then you probably already know that you can use the WIN32OLE.connect() method to connect to a running instance of applications like Microsoft Word. Just pass the method the ProgID of the Application object:


word = WIN32OLE.connect('Word.Application')

LDAP Directories: The Forgotten NoSQL

When most Rails developers encounter LDAP, it’s usually for user authentication. And most of the time, there’s no choice, they’re working under a dictate that requires them to use it. Usually, this means Active Directory, but very occasionally something like OpenLDAP or the Sun Java Systems Directory Server.

Software engineering can lie

When you have no idea where you are going - find a customer you can rely on, write some code and don’t stop until he says "fine!"
If you have no idea where the rabbit hole ends - you can make no plans
and so to prepare or fantasize about the fantastic mechanism that will be the kernel of your dream ship software is to fool yourself.

State of Ruby VMs: Ruby Renaissance

Ruby is commonly associated with the frameworks (Rails, RSpec, and many others) that it enabled, but it is much more than that. The same ideology and design principles that popularized the language at the start are also the reason why it is being currently ported to a variety of alternative platforms: JVM, Objective-C, Smalltalk VM and Microsoft’s DLR.

Ruby En Rails 2009 Recap

The last past days in Amsterdam for Ruby En Rails 2009 were really great.

I arrived on Thursday and had the chance to discuss a possible security vulnerability in Rails I discovered a while back with Yehuda and Mislav during lunch.

Afterwards we went to the conference dinner and met many very nice people and had a long discussion about voting systems, European vs. American culture, gun laws, and political systems.

Presently Adds SharePoint Integration

We’re always looking for ways to make it easier to integrate Presently into your day-to-day workflow. Today, we’re happy to announce something that will make it much easier for businesses using Microsoft’s SharePoint to integrate Presently. Starting today businesses can use the Presently SharePoint Web Part.

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