Feed items

Episode 247: Offline Apps Part 1

Learn how to make a site usable offline through an HTML 5 cache manifest. This first part of the series covers rack-offline and problems you may run into.

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Episode 246: AJAX History State

The new pushState function in JavaScript allows us to change the full URL with AJAX. This means the back button, reloading, and bookmark support can be easily added.

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Episode 245: New Gem with Bundler

Creating new gems is easy with the `bundle gem` command. In this episode I will walk you through how this works.

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Episode 244: Gravatar

Gravatar is a service for providing user avatars. See how easy it is to use in Rails in this episode.

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RubyDrop: A Dropbox Clone in Ruby

Ever used Dropbox? It's awesome. A cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux, and even mobile) file syncing and backup service with 2GB for free (or 2.25GB if you sign up with this link).

Is the Ruby Standard Library a Ghetto?

In The Ruby Stdlib is a Ghetto, Mike Perham argues that Ruby's "standard library" (all the libraries that come by default with Ruby installs) is old and crufty and suggests some parts that should be removed.

Rails for Zombies: An Online Rails Learning Environment

Rails for Zombies is an intriguing attempt to teach people how to use Ruby on Rails directly in the Web browser. It comes from Envy Labs (and specifically Gregg Pollack, once of RailsEnvy fame).

Realigning the Engine Yard AppCloud UI

My colleague, Andrew announced the new Engine Yard AppCloud User Experience team about a month ago. We are very excited about the ideas we have for AppCloud's UI, and are working surely and steadily toward a better user experience. Along the way, one of our priorities was to refactor the UI's HTML/CSS for better maintainability and consistency. This allows us to work more efficiently on our design and front end architecture.

Today, you will notice a major layout update: We've moved to a fixed-width layout.

Resources for Getting Started with Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is leaving the early adopter phase and becoming more mainstream. More people want to learn Rails but don't know where to begin. Well, I have come to the rescue. The resource list below is a good starting point. It includes tutorials, books, blogs, podcasts and many other educational resources that have done wonders for me throughout my Rails learning process. I hope others will find them helpful too.

I personally enjoy interactive and visual experiences. The interactive tutorials (sometimes with a live person) were very useful to me.