skepsis

Join Multiple FLAC Files for Gapless Playback via Command Line on OSX

I am working on post that includes a segment of live music embedded via SoundCloud. The segment consists of 5 songs that transition into each other seamlessly. The source I had was split into separate flac files and I wanted to join them into a single file for gapless playback. I also wanted to do this via the cli because why the hell not?

Rendering a Collection of Heterogeneous Objects with View Resolvers

About a month ago Obie Fernandez showed us how to do this using the new Object#to_partial_path API in Rails 3.2. This feature has been a long time coming and represents a significant improvement over the hacks I’d been using for this sort of thing.

There was one thing that bugged me about his post however. In order to reuse the same templates from within a namespace Obie monkey patched a private ActionView method. In my opinion this is almost always a Bad Idea.

Fortunately Rails 3 exposes a public API which allows you to accomplish the same thing via View Resolvers. This post will show you how.

Showing the Count of Commits in git log

Why and how to level up your rebase with numbered commits. Like this:

A Short Story About a Tweet, a Video, an Idea and it's Execution

I’ve just had a surreal 10 minute interaction that I am compelled to share. It involves code editors, touch screen devices, global communication networks and a small group of people hanging out in a basement apartment.

How I Fast Test with Rails

Corey Haines has been busy bringing the gospel of fast tests to the Rails world. A few others have since taken up the call and written up their own approach. This is all wonderful but I didn’t quite feel like I could get behind the implementations I’ve seen. So I decided to work out an approach that would fit with my workflow. This article is the result.

The iPad is Cool but I Really Want a MacPad

Yesterday Apple revealed their assault on the tablet market & like the rest of the internet I’m going to weigh in with my thoughts. A product launch with this much hype is bound to create a lot of expectations & some people are going to be disappointed. I can’t help but consider what I want from an Apple tablet; even if it means paying twice as much. Despite that I think Apple did a great job of matching the features to the asking price on this one.

Write 750 Words Every Day

One of my goals with this blog was to post regularly. A quick look back at the recent posts and it is clear that I failed to deliver on that. In an effort to increase posting consistency I’ve set a new goal of writing something every day. I’ve been using a web application called 750 Words to help me with this.

How I Became a Morning Person in Two Easy Steps

After over a month at Coco Vivo I’ve adapted to island living in some unexpected ways. One of the most significant is a complete 180 in my sleeping patterns. While living in Brooklyn I was a creature of the night. Here, I am out of bed every day at 6:30. And it wasn’t even hard.

How to Land an Awesome Gig with Blogging & Twitter

I am currently three days into an experiment in nomadic bootstrapping with the guys at Spreadsong. We spent these three days working & brainstorming in Panama City & are moving on to our next destination today. This post is about how we got here.

Book Review: The Merb Way from a Rails Developer's Perspective

In December of 2008 the Rails team & Merb team announced that the two frameworks would be merging to form Rails 3. This came as quite a shock to many & reactions were rather polarizing. For Foy Savas the news raised the question of whether or not there would still be a place for his work-in-progress The Merb Way. After several weeks with the book & playing around with my first Merb app I am happy to say that I believe there is.

The Pomodoro Technique: Using Rhythm to Increase Productivity

Over the last few years I have read about lots of techniques for increasing productivity. Getting Things Done is all the rage & there are many apps that claim to help you Getting Things Done better than anything else. What most of these amount to is a glorified task list, just one more thing to manage & keep me from actually Getting Things Done. In the end it turns out that the real enemy of productivity is time.

Ruby Developer For Hire

In the interest of speeding up my job search, I wanted to write a post to complement my resume & cold calling efforts. If you are looking for someone to write Ruby codes for you, please take a gander & see if I might be a good fit for your company or project.

Inventing the Future by Owning It: Reflections on the FutureRuby Conference

I recently attended the FutureRuby conference in Toronto, Ontario CA. It was put on by the incredible people at Unspace & was exactly what I needed at this point in my life.

Practicing What you Preach: Complete Web Monitoring

I recently picked up the book Complete Web Monitoring by Sean Power & Alistair Croll. It’s a large book with extensive details about monitoring everything needed while running a business online, from infrastructure to marketing. After skimming the PDF for a bit I posted my initial thoughts on twitter. Today one of the authors responded to my tweet & the other had begun following me. This is a perfect example of online marketing done right.

Crazy Idea or Best Gig Ever? Destination Bootstrapping in Costa Rica.

I recently took a week long trip to Costa Rica, combining a bit of sightseeing with a bit of soul searching. The natural beauty everywhere is very inspiring, and I came home determined to make some changes in my life. At this point I am considering several different paths to follow & wanted to share one of the more ambitious ones in hopes that maybe some others might be interested in sharing my vision.

Poaching Customers on Twitter

In the right hands, Twitter enables businesses and brands to interact with their customers in ways previously unheard of. But if you’re not careful, it can do you just as much harm as good. Today I witnessed the power of this firsthand.

Give your Resources Context using render_with_context

Use convention to simplify your object partials by giving them context.

3 Essential Turntablism Videos

I am generally not a fan of Turntablism. I admire the skill involved, but I don’t find the results to be all that listenable. Most turntablists come off as extremely self indulgent, at the expense of musicality. There are however, some key exceptions.