MySQL database backup with remote storage
Prevent a disaster After reading Jeff Atwood’s backup failure last month I decided to finally get around to doing something I’d been intending to do “one of these days” but had in actual fact been putting off for years. Here’s the steps I took to ensure the databases on my webserver were backed up every night and copies of the dumps stored remotely. On the remote storage machine Generate an ssh key pair with and empty password and put the public key on the remote server.
6 months of Rehab
I find it hard to believe, but I crossed the 6 month milestone at Rehab this week. The time has went in quickly, with a fast-pace and quick turnaround times being the norm. The vibe in the office has been great, with a decent soundsystem pumping out dance music all day and my producer Gary, aka DJ Gary Quinn, dropping in a few choice chunes. The guys here have a real passion for the web and enjoy a good laugh, for instance, this week we had a challenge to wear a different hat each day.
Mashing up Twitter Trends and Google Images
I recently released the latest entry in my series of nano-apps. As with my previous efforts, istrending.com serves serves no real purpose other than as an act of deliberate practice: going through the process of coming up with an idea, writing code, registering domain names, setting up Cron jobs and configuring deployment systems to get it all up and running in a production environment. I questioned why I was even bothering with an app that was likely not going to see any traffic or be of use to people and when I hit a minor javascript problem the project was shelved for a few months.
5x5 strength training program
Since my last update strength training I’ve progressed from 3 sets of 5 reps to 5 sets of 5 reps: the infamous 5x5. I’m still training 3 days a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday before work, still not doing any cardio and the Osgood Schlatters is still giving me gip. Here’s what my routine has been like lately: Monday Front Squat Overhead Press or Dumbbell Bench Press Clean Wednesday Front Squat Overhead Press or Dumbbell Bench Press Barbell Row Friday Front Squat Overhead Press or Dumbbell Bench Press Deadlift I’m training the front squat every session and alternating the overhead press and the dumbbell bench press between sessions.
Developer Rehab
My unemployment is over! Last week I started as a developer with Rehab Studio. Code on!
Because everyone needs their own URL shortening service
At the moment I’m in between paid work and have been using my time to generally enjoy life but to also improve my skills. I’m all about the skills. As an act of deliberate practice to hone my skills with web-application development and to deepen my understanding of the Rails framework I’ve been adding to my collection of nano-apps. A while back I had an idea to develop a URL shortener just to see how little code would be required but decided the world really didn’t need another one.
Finally, after 2 and a half years, my Rails DVD catalogue is go
Well, it only took me 2 and a half years but I finally used Rails to develop a catalogue for my DVD collection. The catalogue loosely fits in with my series of nano-apps and is hosted on movies.stevenwilkin.com. The code is publicly available on GitHub for anyone who’s interested. All’s left now is to actually use the system and fill in the details of my collection!
An experiment with Sinatra, HAML and Blueprint CSS
In my last post I considered transforming stevenwilkin.com into a Sinatra app. Well, I did it, although I’m only mentioning it now. Not only was this my first experience with Sinatra but I also decided to try using HAML for the markup and Blueprint CSS to help with the styling. If I’m going to play with a new technology why not play with a few new technologies? I found Sinatra quite straight forward: you match up a HTTP verb (eg ‘GET’) and a url (eg ‘/’) with a block of Ruby and the results can be sent directly to the browser or an optional view template can be rendered.
First production Rails app
I released my first production Rails application, hugagoth.com, last night. I first started playing with Rails over 2 years ago and it has taken me until now to take an app through from conception to initial deployment. And an interesting journey it has been. When I first started investigating Rails I had never used a web framework before and the Ruby language really confused me, but there were a few things I liked.
Nano-Apps
Last month Giles Bowkett in the trawls of his hypergraphia wrote a post on Nano-Apps, quirky one page apps which serve up a piece of trivia or answer a question like is George W. Bush still president? Previously I had put together hometi.me, a little AJAX-y app to let me know how much longer I had to go until I could leave work for the day and when a new nano-app reporting Belfast’s goodonpaper’s coffee drinking habits surfaced the bug bit me and I wanted to do something and do it quick.