Installing RSpec, Autotest, and Spork on Ubuntu/OS X

I’m an Ubuntu lover in the process of learning Ruby on Rails. I’ve spent a good majority of my time “learning” rails trying to get Rspec, Spork, and Autotest to play nicely. Unfortunately, our designer is an Apple fanboy, so my testing suite needs to perform on OS X as well. It’s extremely frustrating to spend so many hours trying to get these gems to work, just so you can continue on with the tutorial! Thus, to save you all the heartache I endured, here is a definitive guide to integrating Spork and Autotest with Rspec for Ubuntu AND Mac OS X!

Rails Singular/Plural Reference Chart

I’ve begun my descent into pure Rails. The whole naming convention idiom is hard to remember while I’m just learning, so here’s a reference chart for myself and for any other Rails noobs.

Snippet: What Linux Distro is Running?

Quick snippet here for you guys! You’re a dev SSHing into various VPS’s and you need to know what linux distro you’re running.

Avoiding the AJAX New Line Pitfall

Here, my friends, is a JavaScript pitfall that has plagued entire workdays. It’s small and simple, but menacing … you’d do well to heed this warning!

Daily Contact Form Tests with Python and Cron

For most websites, the contact form is the primary means of lead generation. A contact form that fails to email you those leads can potentially devastate your business – no exaggeration. How can you tell whether business is slow or your contact form just isn’t working? The answer is to simply test the form by filling it out yourself and seeing if you receive the email. This article aims to automate that process.

GitHub API – Get Latest Commit Details (PHP)

Want to show off the cool open source project you’re working on via GitHub? This PHP code snippet will snag your most recently updated repo information and its latest commit message through the GitHub API. All you have to do is plug in your username.

Example .screenrc – A Simple Workflow

GNU screen is a terminal application that lets you run multiple terminals within a single terminal instance. This tool, which has been around for ages, can greatly improve your organization and workflow.

Install PyQuery under Cygwin

Quick snippet for you Cygwin users out there wanting to use the awesome PyQuery library. If you’ve tried to run a pip install pyquery or easy_install pyquery, you may have been greeted with a wall of GCC error messages. If this has happened to you, don’t worry, the solution is simple! Get lxml running The [...]

Static Classes in JavaScript with Immutable Members

Okay, we know that JavaScript doesn’t actually have classes. Prototypes, yada yada, life goes on. So while Static Classes in JavaScript don’t exist, let’s talk about them anyway!

Remove All Ruby Gems (Ubuntu)

Recently (as in thirty seconds ago) I needed to remove all ruby gems from my system. After searching the interwebs, I came across an article explaining how to remove all ruby gems on Fedora core linux.

The snippet adjustment for Ubuntu was easy, just involved remove some quotes and adding sudo. For a detailed explanation on how the command works, check out that article.