Latest Blog Posts
Quick Tip: Bash Script for Running RSpec Tests Under Rails
Tue October 11, 2011
This will be specific to our particular setup but could easily be adapted for other similar use cases. Basically, I got tired of typing: $ rake spec SPEC=spec/acceptance/path/to/file.rb SPEC_OPTS=’–line 42′ …in order to re-run a single test after attempting to fix it. The rspec output gives a stack trace that shows the file/line number the [...]
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Bootstrapping an Ubuntu Server on Rackspace Using Cloud-Init and Fog
Fri August 19, 2011
Recently at work I needed to figure out how to bootstrap a server image on Rackspace, preferably using Ubuntu’s Cloud-Init package since we already had that working on EC2. I couldn’t find a single person who had done this before, so after struggling for a day or two and finally figuring out that it does [...]
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WordPress: Sort Posts by Multiple Fields (Part II)
Sun July 17, 2011
Here’s a fast and easy way to sort your posts by multiple fields, using the posts_orderby filter hook and a simple function.
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University of Denver
Tue September 15, 2009
Yesterday was my first day of classes at the University of Denver. I’m entering into the Information and Communications Technology program. I’m excited to start learning, and it’s interesting (and validating my decision) that I’m already learning things that I never even knew I needed to know. Next quarter will be more about specific techniques [...]
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Web Experiments #1: Ajax Convo
Fri September 4, 2009
1) I’m learning object-oriented design, design patterns, object-oriented PHP, and object-oriented JavaScript right now. I wanted to do some experimenting with building systems using these concepts, so I came up with the idea of doing a series of “Web Experiments” where I take an idea for some kind of web application and make a demo [...]
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Book Review: PHP Solutions
Mon August 31, 2009
In my quest to expand my knowledge of the web industry, I knew I needed to understand more PHP. PHP is one of the (if not the) most popular languages used on the web today. I had been exposed to it a little, and I have experience with other C-ish syntax languages, but I needed [...]
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WordPress: Sort Posts by Multiple Fields
Tue July 21, 2009
UPDATE: I have written a new post about how to better accomplish this task: WordPress: Sort Posts by Multiple Fields (Part II) Please see the above link for a much more efficient way to sort by multiple fields. I was recently creating a star-rating system for a client, and we were sorting the reviews (or [...]
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WordPress: Tabbed Sidebar Widgets with jQuery
Wed July 1, 2009
Tabs are a great way to show more information in less space, assuming the initially-hidden tabs are non-essential information. Recently a client asked me to put a few Wordpress widgets into a single tabbed container in the sidebar. Here’s how I did it.
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Book Review: Javascript: The Missing Manual
Fri June 12, 2009
In my ongoing efforts to realize my dreams of becoming a true web ninja, I recently read Javascript: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer MacFarland. I had read his previous book in the Missing Manuals series on CSS, and had both enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. I did find this book interesting [...]
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Site Upgrades: WordPress 2.8!
WordPress 2.8 was released on Wednesday, and I’ve upgraded my site.
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