Just posting this for those who are new to Rails like I am. I was looking for a complete list of the Ruby/Rails DB data types for use when using “script/generate scaffold demo name:datatype“, after searching online for quite some time, here is what I found:
Hope this helps someone out and saves them some time.
It just sucks when things like phones can be made to make calls that cost you big $$$.
No History. What I mean by this is that in a start-up have no baggage, nothing to protect. In a start-up, you can dream up crazy ideas, without any regard to protecting the company’s revenues/ employees/customers, or upsetting the politics of the organization.
There is nothing more liberal than a government subsidized bailout, and the dems won’t pass it.
Andy Baio:
Here’s my best guess: When you first start speaking into the microphone, the iPhone app opens a connection to Google’s server, waits for you to finish talking, and then does a quick and dirty conversion into a tiny binary representation of the waveform. (And I do mean tiny. These files are between 100-300 bytes.)
Ars is back with an overview of Intel’s most recently launched processors, the Core i7, also known by its codename “Nehalem”:
At an event in San Francisco Monday, Intel officially launched Core i7, the new quad-core, 45nm processor popularly known by its “Nehalem” codename. As we found in our recent review, i7 is a media processing monster. When you combine the new core’s microarchitectural performance enhancements with the bandwidth afforded the device by its new QuickPath Interconnect (QPI), you get some serious floating-point power.
These things look good for the Mac Pro eh?
Love it! The site that got absolutely nothing right is now debunking rumors (not that this one needed much help anyways).
Another great article by the Mises Institute.
Just updated the Realtime Stock Quotes API to allow for json output as well as a user-definable callback function when using json output. Other goodies are in the works, such as the ability to get historical quotes via json and xml. Access to greater analytical data is forthcoming. The new parameters are outputType [xml or json] and the name of the callback function [optional, only with json]. The API is backwards compatible, and the new features can be accessed by the following:
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl/outputType/callback
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl/json/
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl/json/callback
Beautiful app for iPhone.
As with most great ideas (not saying this one is great, but just follow me here), they are generally thought up and developed out of necessity. Ruby on Rails was developed by 37signals for internal use, but was released to the general public and has caused a massive “Happy Coder” movement.
With that said, my idea probably won’t start a movement, but it will allow more web services to take advantage of real-time stock quotes by providing a simple xml api (+ JSON very soon). For now, the beta API only includes access to the actual stock prices + monetary and percentage change. My private API, I guess it would be the beta’s beta, includes access to more analytical data. These features should be released within the coming weeks [2, max].
The API is one of my first attempts at RESTful API design, and, although simple, this realtime stock quote API is technically RESTful. As it begins to incorporate more features, the RESTful design will become more evident, as in GET, POST, DELETE, and UPDATE http requests. As of now, the API simply includes one URL:
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/Symbol
Examples of which include:
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/aapl
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/amagx
http://judstephenson.com/api/Quotes/Realtime/xoho
I am working on offering a JSON option for the data output (with a callback of course), but as of right now, only XML output is supported, but it isn’t that complicated to parse. Since this API is a simple one-liner, the documentation for it is sparse [read: non-existant], but you should be able to get the hang of it.
Now for the disclaimer: This API is released to the public without any warranty, expressed or implied. I am not responsible for any damage you do with it (if thats possible) and I can not guarantee its 100% uptime (although it shouldn’t ever go down). You are free to use this API in an suitable manner, although, if the traffic to the API becomes too much of a strain on the server, I may limit the number of requests/hr. Other than that, have fun hacking away.
Update: The realtime stock quotes api has been updated! New features include json output with the ability to have a user-definable callback function.
The MINI E is basically a beta test for BMW engineers to learn more about how lithium ion-powered plug-in cars perform in real world conditions. In a relatively unusual move, people in the warm climes of the west coast don’t get an exclusive on this one. Customers in the New York/New Jersey area will be able to try out the MINI E in the cold as well.
In a world where litigation has become commonplace, it is no surprise that Apple’s recent hire, Mark Papermaster, has countersued IBM in an effort to take his position at Apple as chief of devices hardware engineering.
Apple Insider thinks so.
After reading the post by Brett Simmons, Kevin Walzer wrote an interesting piece about following in the footsteps of the indie Mac developer community, and whether or not it is a good or bad thing.
What a great article by Andy Finnell covering some of the myths about iPhone App pricing, as well as dishing out some cold hard facts about how many copies an iPhone developer can expect to sell after the initial release (16). Great quote from Andy:
The problem that you’re likely to have, like most developers, is setting a price that you can live on. The temptation will be to price your app too low, such that developing the application isn’t sustainable. You might have the best of intentions, but in the end you’ll cause the premature death of your business before it even gets a chance.
Not going to lie, but I had thought that exact thing when thinking about pricing my upcoming iPhone app. Needless to say, I am now reconsidering.
Simply stunning.
Brett Simmons:
Your first thing might not work out. Despite your faith, despite your hard work, your app may fail.
Be ready to write another one. As an indie, that’s one of your best strengths: turning your ship around is as easy as creating a new project in Xcode. Getting going is just a menu command away.
This article has shown up on my RSS reader at least four times, and I think it is worth posting here too. A strong indie community is what makes the developing on the Mac so great and the advice that Brett gives indie Mac and iPhone developers is right on target.
Update: Kevin Walzer has written a followup.
Seeking Alpha:
I like to focus on my average cost on a given stock. And buying on the way down lowers your average cost. I have taken my average cost in GOOG from over $400 to around $350 and if the good till filled orders I placed this morning get filled, I’ll take it to below $320.
I have the same strategy. My average cost on AAPL is $99.00, but not after I buy it again at $89.
Its True.
Dan Benjamin is at it again with a great article on prep’ing your Mac for sale. Having done this before, the only problem I see with his how-to is that the new owner of your computer won’t have iLife pre-installed. Thats alright though, you still have the iLife DVD that shipped with your Mac, right?
I’m always shocked to find out that some web developers still store passwords in plain text in dB column called “password”.
Great article on how web developers should store users passwords in a db.
Digitimes:
Intel will launch ten CPUs for the Xeon 5500 series with the high end topping out as a quad-core W5580 running at 3.2GHz. Processor speeds of the remaining 9 models range from 2GHz to 2.93Ghz.
Easily the coolest looking camera ever.
Basketball back in the early 1900s.
Via DaringFireball. Any educational material available from Apple, especially in regards to style should be read as the most authoratative source on the subject, because, well, Apple has been pretty successful giving people things they didn’t know they wanted.
Can you trademark a brick anyway?
Fast Company:
Yesterday morning, notorious liberal pranksters The Yes Men took spoofing to new heights by distributing 1.2 million fake issues of the New York Times dated July 4, 2009. Papers with the large bold headline “Iraq War Ends” were distributed at major New York gathering places like Union Square and Penn Station.
The funny part is the date. The NYT will be bankrupt by 2009.
Seeking Alpha:
The #1 online transaction category was travel, with 38% of adult online consumers making at least one travel purchase on the web in the previous six months. Credit-card account management and home banking took the #2 and #3 spots, with 36% and 35% of consumers conducting transactions, respectively.
Interesting — maybe this internet thing will be big one day.
Jason Kottke has come through with a hack to allow high quality YouTube videos to be embedded in web content.
Great report on the performance of the Nikon D700
Yesterday, Henry Paulson stated that the bailout plan, passed in early October, has already “clearly helped stabilize” the US economy. Despite Paulson’s optimistic words however, the Dow Jones index ended Wednesday trading in New York down 4.7%, according to the BBC. Paulson stated that the bailout will not be used to buy up bank’s toxic debts, and instead will continue to be used to buy shares to help boost lenders’ balance sheets.
Sounds like Paulson’s optimism is not helping investor confidence.
The extensions offer convenience methods for your application, wrapping many common AIR Patterns in Dojo-like constructors and providing an entire framework from which to grow. Built-in persistent storage, granular window control from creation to destruction, Window FX, Audio/Video helpers, and extra console debugging facilities are just the beginning.
Just another step forward in AIR development. Having experience developing AIR apps, I can attest to the fact that writing JS to handle some of the events and reading over Adobe’s less than inspiring javascript api documentation (especially in relation to File I/O) made me long for something a little bit better. Finally, found it.
Why am I not shocked? Maybe because the number of seasoned fund managers managing funds that are down 40% on the year is staggering.
John:
Testing JavaScript performance on Windows XP is a crapshoot, at best. With the system times constantly being rounded down to the last queried time (each about 15ms apart) the quality of performance results is seriously compromised. Dramatically improved performance test suites are going to be needed in order to filter out these impurities, going forward.
Just seems like basing things based on timing isn’t a good idea anyways, beyond the whole performance tests idea.
Over at GigaOM, they are loving the idea of using the iPhone as a micropayments platform and want Apple to do all the heavy lifting. I, for one, see an area for exploitation by a 3rd party developer to innovate for a change and make a micropayment platform for the iPhone that can integrate with other applications via an API (RESTful?).
CNet:
LG Display, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges for participating in a liquid crystal display price-fixing conspiracy and pay $585 million in fines, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
As if they would get away with it.
May make me want to buy a new Aluminum MacBook.
James Thomson on his reaction to seeing a tweet by a company that submitted an app to the app store with the same name as his application, PCalc.
Darrell Etherington:
When it comes to OS virtualization on a Mac, there are two major contenders for the title of virtualizer to end all virtualizers.
Likely Parallels and VMware Fusion need no introduction [...], but you might not be aware of what the latest incarnations that both programs bring to the table. VMware Fusion 2, released in September, and Parallels Desktop 4.0, just released today, have a few new tricks up their sleeves.
Spoiler: They both tie and Etherington likes VMware Fusion 2 as a personal preference.
WTFramework, a simple bookmarklet that does what it says.
Not so much an exploit as it is a way for developers to execute arbitrary code (which they do anyways). Not much different than running an application, except iPhone apps are on your precious phone.
Wow. So much information available on the Now Dashboard, where do they get all of the info?
Seeing Alpha:
With oil breaking below the $60 barrier this morning, we thought we’d provide price charts of the commodity since 2000 and since this April. As shown in the first chart, even after oil’s 60% decline since July, it still hasn’t broken below its long-term uptrend line that started back in late 2001.
When looking at the graphs, the trend is obvious, but are the commodity bears enough to break it?
John is really on a roll today, writing yet another great article, this time it is about CSS animations.
Apple, and the WebKit team, have recently proposed two different additions to CSS: CSS Transitions and CSS Animations.
The two specifications are confusingly named - and it’s hard to tell what the difference is between them at first glance. However, to put it simply: CSS Transitions are easy to use, while CSS Animations are made for programmers.
I hope the proposals make it into the CSS spec.
Revolutionary new UI convention for picking time. Follows most of the ideals present in jQuery, ease and simplicity of use.
Performance and feature update to the $59 image editor. New features include a revamped UI for hue/saturation adjustments.
Great software from a great indie Mac developer.
Zaky:
[This] would be the largest revenue beat by any company I’ve ever seen.
My post yesterday on why I own AAPL is right in line with renound Apple analyst Andy Zaky. He knows more about it than I do, and we are on the same brainwave.
Fake. But Cool.
GM has so much on their plate and the credit crisis is not helping. After burning billions of dollars (and counting) bring the Chevy Volt to market, GM just needs a cash infusion until they revolutionize the sedan as we know it with their E-REV platform.
Ars:
It’s common knowledge that spam response rates are low, but new research, conducted from within the Storm botnet, suggests it’s downright minuscule. If true, it explains why spam botnets have to be the size they are, and suggests the malware industry could be targeted economically.
They don’t make a cent off of me, GMail has a 100% filter accuracy and I get around 40 emails a day.
I would love to get this chance
As the markets continue to put our money on a roller coaster ride of speculation, for the average investor, those who don’t make hundreds of trades a day selling stocks for 2 cents more than you bought them for, there are very few companies with such great investing opportunity as Apple, Inc. As the broad market downturns scare away would-be investors, I have been buying up Apple stock like it is going out of style. Why, you ask? Here are a couple of reasons: