Listen to music, look at photography, bicycling, or read ramblings below.

• June 14, 2009photography

  Balloon Maker

  

• June 3, 2009photographytravel

  France, June 2009

  A week in France with my mom. We flew over the Atlantic — the plane had headrest monitors powered by Linux showing our position — then took a train through Barcelona to Cerbère on the French border. Loved it there. Little hostel right by the water.

  From Cerbère we made our way inland to Caunes Minervois to stay with Steve and Marilyn: a wonderful little village with cobblestone streets, a 14th century house, and a Roman aqueduct. They were incredible hosts — cooked rabbit with a 2000 vintage opened at 9am, decanted at 5, served at 8. We also drank a 1996. Best wine I’ve ever had.

  Day trips to Carcassonne’s La Cité: the church, stained glass on the ceiling, narrow streets, and views overlooking the city.

  We also made it to Paris. The line for the Eiffel Tower elevator was long and it was rainy and cold, so we walked up instead.

  Over the big blue — our plane had nice headrest monitors (powered by Linux) that showed where we were.Cerbère — at the train station right after we got off the train from Barcelona. Loved it here. There is a hostel right by the water.Streetview in CaunesRow's House — built in the 14th century. Located in Caunes Minervois.Roman Aqueduct, Caunes MinervoisChurch in La CitéLa CitéStained glass on ceiling, La CitéOverlooking Carcassonne from La CitéCaunes Minervois — wonderful little villageCobblestone streets, Caunes MinervoisFor rent — 750 a week.For sale in France — estimated by Steve to be in the 100k rangeLooking out from Steve and Marilyn'sSteve and Marilyn in the kitchen cooking rabbit. The decanter is holding a 2000 vintage. Best wine I've ever had. He opened it at 9am that morning, then decanted at 5 and served around 8.Straight? Yes. It's the only way.1996 — yes, we drank a 1996 vintage. Steve is the man!The party — Mom, Marilyn, Row and Steve after we ate and were leaving. Best hosts ever.Inside the AbbeyChateauNarrow streetsLa CitéFaint rainbow over Row's backyard in Caunes MinervoisFrench cherries — fresh picked from Row's yard. Almost made myself sick eating them, they were so good.Looking down from the Eiffel Tower. The line for the elevator was long and it was rainy and cold — we walked up instead.

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• May 26, 2009photography

  Toro waiting for the canoe

  

  Toro waiting for the canoe

• May 20, 2009photography

  Obligatory Self-Portrait

  

  Obligatory Self-Portrait

• May 20, 2009photography

  Sunset Beach

  

  Sunset Beach

• May 20, 2009photography

  View From My Old Apt

  

  View From My Old Apt

• May 15, 2009rails

  Use "build", Not "new"

  When working with multiple models and forms in Rails, your associations need to use build instead of new. I never knew there was a distinction between the two. Apparently, I was wrong :\

  For example, this will not work when trying to validate the associations:

  @account = Account.new(params[:account])
  @user = @account.users.new(params[:user])

  The new method doesn’t actually build the association. The @account will be saved, but the @user won’t be if it fails validation.

  Using the build method will automatically take care of the transactional part for us so the @account object won’t be saved until both models are valid:

  @account = Account.new(params[:account])
  @user = @account.users.build(params[:user])

  It’s handy in the controller too. Instead of calling both @account.save and @user.save, you simply call @account.save and it saves the @user association.

• May 11, 2009

  Hubble's Greatest Discoveries

  • virtually all major galaxies have black holes at their center
  • discovering that the process of planetary formation is relatively common
  • detecting first ever organic molecule in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star
  • and providing evidence that the speed at which the universe is expanding is accelerating–caused by an unknown force that makes up more than 75 percent of the universe
• May 2, 2009gadgets

  Michael Scott Quote Mac OS X Widget

  

  List of quotes are managed on listable.org here.

  Code by Wes, graphics by Colleen.

  Download here

• April 26, 2009rails

  Rails and exception_notification with McAfee's ScanAlert Subnet Masks

  consider_local "64.14.3.193/26", "64.41.168.241/28", "216.35.7.96/27", "64.41.140.96/27", "216.49.80.10/32", "165.193.42.64/26", "165.193.42.128/26", "203.82.140.96/28", "210.59.224.251/32", "210.61.79.253/32", "203.66.219.16/32", "85.92.223.0/26", "217.169.58.64/26"

  Plop that below the inclusion of the ExceptionNotifiable module and you’ll never get pesky emails from McAfee’s ScanAlert barrage.

• April 9, 2009programming

  Text Editor Timeline

  I just realized after seeing a post about Redcar (a programmer’s editor for GNOME) that I am uninterested in finding new editors. This used to be something I was desperate to find because I could never get vim to work right for me. I remember trying all kinds of editors like scream, BlueFish, and Kate. All never really sunk in with me.

  Here’s a timeline of my use of text editors:

  1. Notepad
  2. EditPlus
  3. Dreamweaver
  4. VisualStudio
  5. TextMate
  6. Vim

  I feel as though it’s an obligatory crescendo that all developers must play. The desire to find more powerful tools to help them with their daily tasks. It inevitably falls back to the basics. The tried and true editors that have been with us since the dawn of personal computing.

  It does feel good knowing that I never will need to go find another editor ever again.

• April 7, 2009photography

  Pier '09

  

  Pier ‘09

• April 2, 2009photography

  Ft. Pickens

  

  Ft. Pickens

• April 2, 2009photography

  Pier 09

  

  Pier 09

• March 13, 2009rails

  Rails and Ordering by Query String Params

  I needed a reusable way to do query parameter ordering. Currently in our admin section, we use clickable table headers to sort by ascending or descending. It looks something like this:

• March 13, 2009webdev

  Using attr_encrypted with Rails

  attr_encrypted is a dead-simple way to two-way encrypt information in your database. In our latest project, we are storing social security numbers, so obviously we needed an encryption solution.

  I started off with EzCrypto because I had used it in the past. It worked fine, but I came across attr_encrypted and it seemed more elegant.

  I had some problems getting it working, namely getting it included (or required) correctly. Before your class definition, simply put:

  require 'attr\_encrypted'

  and you should be good to go, considering you installed the gem.

  Another, more elegant way of making sure the gem is required properly, set it as an environment option:

  config.gem 'shuber-attr_encrypted', :version => '~>
  1.0.8', :lib => 'attr_encrypted', :source => 'http://gems.github.com'

  In our case, we have a Customer model. This Customer models needs to store encrypted social security numbers. When I first created the Customer migration, I assumed this column would be called ‘ssn’. I had troubles working with attr_encrypted because it has some conventions that I must have overlooked in the documentation.

  In order to use it correctly, the column in the database needs to be named ’encrypted_ssn’. When you specify which column is to be encrypted with the attr_* method, you are essentially creating a virtual attribute that is used to encrypt/decrypt the actual data.

  Hope this helps someone who is having similar problems.

• March 6, 2009photography

  Bayfront

  One early morning at Bayfront Park. So ominous, yet so peaceful.

  So ominous, yet so peacefulWater wake — effects from the wake of a nearby boatMore wakeOne early morning at Bayfront Park

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• February 27, 2009

  Photos

  

• February 12, 2009photography

  Lily Outside

  

• February 9, 2009

  Another glitch looms over the U.S.

  

  Another glitch looms over the U.S.