Open Source Development Rocks

It’s been a month since I started working for Learning Earnings, and it’s been a pretty good month. Using the LAMP stack of tools feels really nice after spending a couple of years with Microsoft technologies. The technology I’m using isn’t the latest, but solid design and good coding practices can make most environments tolerable. Some of the technologies I’m using are:
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Oversleeping is a problem

I’m kicking off my polyphasic sleep schedule, and I seem to be oversleeping quite a bit. So far:

• Sunday Morning (4-8)
• Monday Morning (4-5:30)
• Tuesday Morning (midnight – 1:45

I hope this is not a harbinger of things to come. I’ve been using a timer app on my Android phone to wake up :30 min later. I’m going to switch back to using the trusty (and low tech) egg timer and see if that makes any difference.

So far I’ve felt really good. I exercised Monday morning at 2am, rode my bike to the Dr (1 hr), and was able to awake after :30 every time other than the incidents mentioned above.

I’ve decided that I’m going to take measurements of my mental acuity from time to time. I’ve got a “brain training” Nintendo DS game and a particular high score. I’m interested if I’ll be able to beat my high score, perform dismally, or something in-between (and normal). I’ll post results.

Polyphasic – engage

Let me start off by saying that my life heretofore has been an experiment in sleep deprivation. I don’t sleep very well and constantly wake up during the night. During these waking episodes, I’ll usually grab a snack and watch some TV – not a good thing especially for a Type-II diabetic
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Friends wedding drawing closer

Next weekend is the big day for the wedding of a friend of ours. They met last July, and have had a whirlwind romance for the past few months. My wife and daughter have been hosting showers and buying gifts for the past few weeks. I’m sure our friend has been making last minute arrangements and buying bridesmaid gifts.

Thankfully the wedding has reminded me that my anniversary is drawing nigh. We celebrated our 25 wedding anniversary back in December by taking a cruise, but I’ll still need to acknowledge the wonderful past 25 years to my wife on the actual day.

More College Visits

We made another college visit this week. My daughter is considering several colleges, but has almost decided on “the one”. I wonder how many students make college visits and actually talk to the admissions people. Some admissions counselors really stand out. Their excitement and genuine enthusiasm for the school is hard to suppress.

As we toured the newly constructed dormitories, I noticed a small kiosk in the lobby. This kiosk (no bigger than a gas station ATM) allowed the students to print documents from a flash drive (for a fee). This is a great idea, since it allows students to complete the document on their computer, and print it when they need it.

Finished my second underquilt

I’m making underquilts for camping hammocks so that my son and I won’t freeze if the temperature dips while doing a bit of bike touring. The first one I made was warm, but I made a few mistakes like grommets and the general length of the quilt. The second quilt is longer, and won’t have any grommets. I finally finished it last night, which mainly meant I needed to stuff it and sew it closed. I stuffed it with Cluster fill, which is pretty easy to work with and I’m pretty sure won’t cause Mesothelioma Cancer or anything nasty.

I really need to post some pictures of the underquilts that I’ve made. I promise that Version 3 will get a decent photo history…

Learning Rails: Live Editions

Today O’Reilly media tweeted the following:

#Ebook Deal of the Day: Learning Rails: Live Edition – Only $9.99! Use code DDRAS http://bit.ly/cfevxN

I’d never seen this “Live Edition” term, so I decided to check it out. First of all, it’s a pretty good deal ($19 discount), from a reputable source. The “Live Edition” indicates that it’s an interim release of updated material (in this case Rails 2.0.0 to 2.3.5). Also, it appears that “Live Edition” means you can re-download the book if the content changes (i.e. Rails 2.3.5 to 3.0.0). That sounds like a pretty good deal.

The deal isn’t quite as good as the PeepCode deal, but it’s worth a try. I bought the E-Book, and will read it over the next few days. Downloading updates to the content is like of like having technical knowledge life insurance.

Rails generator logging

I cranked up the Ruby on Rails beta 3 and am working on re-implementing an application I started in RoR 2.x. After the initial fight with upgrading Ruby, the rails generate command was working (almost) fine. The problem is that the output from this command was colorized, which didn’t play well with Emacs. After a couple of scaffold generations, I couldn’t stand it anymore and went in search of the setting to disable it.

In your config/application.rb file, put the line:

config.generators.colorize_logging = false

And that’s all there is to it. It wasn’t as hard as finding some low cost business insurance, but it did take me a few minutes to find. Hopefully, this helps someone else.

Snow Commute Day

Today is one of the few days that I can count as a “snow commute day”. Here in the South, we just don’t get that many snow days. Since I’ve been bike commuting, though, I’m sure the CO2 savings that I’ve accumulated have increased our snow chances. I’ve had two snow commute days already this year. I’ll probably have another one, but spring is knocking on our door. Now it’s time to go inside, pull the blinds and get to work. It probably won’t be snowing when I leave.

Sewing under quilts

I’m planning a hammock camping trip soon, and I’ve heard that I need an underquilt until the weather gets warm. The previous link is a great site with home made projects for all kinds of camping gear. I built a quilt last weekend, but didn’t interpret the instructions correctly. This weekend, I’m determined to get it right.

I found some material at Wal-Mart for $1.50 / yd, have some similarly cheap fiber-fill, and am busily brushing up on my sewing skills. Finished pictures posted later, unless I end up needing some tretinoin cream.