Plasticx Blog

If you want to have control over the version of ruby that is available in your user space here’s how to build and install it in your $HOME directory. The Debian Way of packaging ruby and gem deviates from the Ruby Way on other Nix platforms. So its better to just do it Your Way so that you have control of which ruby and ruby tools (gem, rake, rails, etc.) is available to your user environment.

This is a way to compile and install ruby 1.8.5 with local dependency on openssl, readline, and openssl on Debian (Etch/testing) 686 in your $HOME directory. The method also works for FreeBSD 4.8-STABLE. (BTW if you have root privilege on your machine and you just want to enable openssl to your already installed ruby make sure the libopenssl-ruby Debian package is installed and ignore the rest of the knowledge presented here.)

Not saving a yaml file after calling YAML::dump cost me about two hours the other day. Here’s an example:

# load
fnm='myyaml.yml'
h = YAML::load_file(fnm) || Hash.new
# add to hash
h[:foo]='bar'
#save# load

fnm=‘myyaml.yml’

h = YAML::load_file(fnm) || Hash.new

# add to hash

h[:foo]=‘bar’

#save

=begin

	
don’t do it like this …

f = File.open(fnm, ‘w’)

YAML::dump(h, f)

#close writes the file to disk

f.close

=end

# file gets closed after block executes

File.open(fnm, ‘w’) do |out|

   YAML.dump(h, out)

end

A couple of years ago Slashdot reviewed of “Head First Design Patterns” by Elisabeth Freeman, Eric Freeman, Bert Bates, and Kathy Sierra.

The way that I self teach is to read a book and either take notes while reading or take summary notes at the end of the chapter. Then when finished with the book recompile my notes. These are my notes from the book. They will not replace your notes when you read the book but do provide a nice reference in and of themselves (and make for some blog content).

After reading Slashdot’s review of “CSS: The Missing Manual” by David Sawyer McFarland, I was interested in learning more about CSS so I picked up a copy.

I recommend the book for your collection and here are my notes from reading the book …

Here’s the quick and dirty on placing a shaded watermark bug on an image.

The result will be like this example with the bug in the lower right corner.

There are lots of references that say you can decode images and other media attachements in email using the receive method of ActionMailer::Base

Ruby On Rails Wiki is one: HowToReceiveEmailsWithActionMailer.

Rails Recipes Recipe #68 “Testing Incoming Mail” is another.

But those references and many others on the internet don’t show you how to really do it.

Here’s how its done …