Has Moyes been sacked yet?

C style multiline curly braces (this actually works, but didn’t think it would due to following conventions, but in some case could make code easier to read)

{
// code here ....
}

Modula 3 style named end blocks (possible activated via a strict mode)

def method_name
...
end method_name.

Pascal style “with” blocks

with the_object do
push << "hello"
splice something
end

can you think of anything you’d like borrow from another language into your favourite language?

Slowing down steam so that it loads after I have Wifi

Posted on June 22, 2012 by admin

I had a problem, whenever I turned my mac on Steam would tell me that I didn’t have an internet connection but immediately clicking on retry would connect successfully.

So the problem was that Steam doesn’t give the computer time to get a wifi connection or even silently retry after a second or two before notifying the user.

How to fix this?

go to Applications -> Automator

Find run Applescript

and type this script

delay 5
tell application "Steam"
launch
end tell

Save it as StartSteam or any other name you deem suitable (I saved it in my home folder) and also be sure to save the script as an application rather than a .workflow

Now in Preferences -> Accounts -> Login Items add the script and remove Steam from the list.

Now Steam will start a little later than it used to and will allow your mac to gain a wifi connection before it logs in.

Whenever you come across a site that emails you your password

Posted on June 6, 2012 by admin

You should email the administrator with a message to that effect.

I have noticed that when as user tells the site that they have forgotten their password, that the site will send the password to their email address.

This is not good practice, when your data gets compromised (one day it will) every password will be there in plain text in the database.

This is bad as come users may use that email address and password combination on other sites.

You should look into SHA-2 hashing of passwords and salting.

And rather than send the password in an email you should send a reset key.

I know that the current specification for the site may have come from someone not as security conscious who thinks that sending a password is more user friendly (although it seems it) but it is a security flaw.

Using ostruct to interface with REST

Posted on May 22, 2012 by admin

Have you ever had to work with an external API such as twitter or facebook, those two should be pretty easy to interface with by now as there are plenty of wrappers such as koala.

But let’s say the API we are working on is a client’s API or the API for an obscure service.

What we want is for JSON requests to relate to ruby objects.

This is where ostruct comes along, ostruct takes a hash and converts that to methods that can be accessed as they were from an activerecord object for example.

What you can do is something similar to this.

query = "/notes/1"

c = Curl::Easy.perform(query) do |curl|
curl.headers["X-Auth-Token"] = "my_auth_token"
end

my_hash = JSON.parse(c.body_str)

ostruct = OpenStruct.new(my_hash)

In this example i used curb to send an x-auth header to the “secret” api, and then passed the parsed json hash to ostruct.

Now rather than having to handle the json api like this in your views

<%= my_hash[:my_attrib] %>

You can use you json data like so

<%= my_ostruct.my_attrib %>

This way if your boss falls out with the api company and wants you to re-implement the data in your rails app, all your view logic will be compatible with activerecord for example.

In my production code the post, get (other CRUD actions if needs be) and login actions are abstracted into a separate class and is inherited by each model.

The reason I want to work with rails

Posted on April 17, 2012 by admin

I was initially an admirer of Ruby on Rails quite early on (2005), and did a few examples but carried on working on classic asp then asp.net whilst still following Rails. The main reason for not having used Rails earlier on is that the jobs market was full of asp.net and php shops, and I liked Ruby much more than the other languages but had given myself enough time to use it.

But now I have used Ruby On Rails for fully featured applications and I am looking to work under a team which can help me develop further in my Ruby On Rails career, rather than the lone programmer role; who has to justify not only Myself but Ruby On Rails.

The pseudoscience behind Captain Scarlet

Posted on April 1, 2012 by admin

Captain Scarlett is said be indestructible altho almost towards the end of episode he performs an act of courage that causes him to die, but that’s ok because he will always regenerate.

What is this regeneration? Regeneration comes from the Mysterons. Mysterons are some myterious creatures of which we never see their appearance, they only manifest themselves by using destructive, copying and regenerative beams which they blast through the earth’s atmosphere.

Here is the key to why Captain Scarlet is permanently regenerating; the earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere is what prevents the Mysterons from having a permanent hold on Captain Scarlets mind. When they killed the original captain scarlet and replaced him with a copy the Mysterons made an error getting the dosage right on the regenerative beam, either giving him the inherent ability to regenerate after death, which was only meant to be for one use only. Or making a mistake with the control beam, and it not being strong enough to control an indestructible agent after the first death.

The second theory could explain why Captain Black is so insidious and never really puts himself in harms way; were he to die he would become another indestructible asset for humanity.

Following their failure with creating an indestructible agent (or failure to regenerate Captain Scarlet for single use), the Mysterons have always used hit and run attacks. Often similar to acts of terrorism.

This leads me the believe that the powerful beams that the Mysterons use are severely restricted by the earth’s atmosphere, as when the Mysterons were first introduced they could literally blast everything to shreds, but not from the distance of the moon to earth, this is why they only seems to focus on destroying and regenerating one target per episode.

My conclusion is that there are two heros in Captain Scarlet, The Captain and the Earth’s Atmosphere.