Also, this is my first post from my wordpress iPhone app.

I have had always thought that it was ok to wait until the end of a project to implement your cacheing, but I found that you need to keep in in the back of your mind the whole time. We are going to have to write some front end code to recreate the personalized aspects of the site. I wish that we would have just done that from the start.

Has anyone else have any cacheing design ideas or gotchas?

My work does require creative abilities, however. For me this is most of the reward for working in software. Software makes me think. Solving hard problems and predicting a user’s expectations are problems that are very satisfying to solve. However, it is not everything. My expression is not noticed by any other is way that may make them feel something that they would otherwise not feel. (expect upset when it does not work the way they want it to)

I hope I can look back at this post in the coming years and be happy that I began to strive to inspire others through my work instead of just making a dime.

First, you need to know the name of the package, and second, if you want to use import some svn repositories, then you have to add in that capability. Here is the command that I ran to install git on my machine. (Of course, darwin ports is already installed)

sudo ports install git-core +svn

I was concerned that it was going to replace the system ssh daemon, but don’t fear. It will not replace the system sshd. It prints out a message to tell you how you can replace it if you want, but it will not replace it.

Find my projects on github.

On another note, I find that I have some issues with darwin ports sometime. If I am installing something that has a lot of dependencies, I find that the build just stops working. For example, as I am installing git-core +svn my build failed on (sqlite3)[http://www.sqlite.org/]. I found that if I clean the project that failed, and build it by itself, it will build successfully, and you can move on. Here are my commands to solve this problem:

sudo port clean sqlite3

sudo port install sqlite3

sudo port install git-core +svn

• sortable_element: This is a method in the ScriptaculousHelper, which will easily allow you to implement a drag and drop list.
• acts_as_list: A rails plugin that will manage an order list of relations. This will add move_up and move_down as methods in your model. It is quote convenient.
• GUID: A rails plugin that will turn your activerecord id into a URL-safe GUID.

In my attempts to use the three of these together, I found that the sortable_element format regex, which is used to extract the id from the id attribute of the li tag, was not acceptable for use with the GUID plugin. At first glance, it looks like it should have worked. Anyway, by trying to follow the documentation, I tried the following:

The document said the format was a regex, so I gave it a regex. This did not work! It creates invalid javascript.

<%= sortable_element('tasks', :url => {:action => 'update_positions'}, 
                              :ghosting => true,
                              :format => /^task_(.*)$/,
                              :only => 'task')%>

Ok so I regex does not work, I will try a string.

<%= sortable_element('tasks', :url => {:action => 'update_positions'}, 
                              :ghosting => true,
                              :format => "^task_(.*)$",
                              :only => 'task')%>

String does not work, so let’s try a javascript string.

<%= sortable_element('tasks', :url => {:action => 'update_positions'}, 
                              :ghosting => true,
                              :format => "'^task_(.*)$'",
                              :only => 'task')%>

As you can see my approach to problem solving is not methodical. It is more brute force.

The moral of the story is to use a javascript string for the format configuration for the sortable_element.

Here at SXSW, I went to listen to Jason Fried of 37signals, and one opinion that he had was that TV chefs are the best business people at this time. His reasoning is that the chefs share what they know. They do not fear others stealing their recipes they share in books and on TV. I bring this up, because I hope that Symantec can share many of their recipes. They have lots of them, and they are the best in the world.

I kinda got put out by the fact that I had to sign up for an account in order to use their service. I am tired of signing up for accounts. I think there are a few reasons that I would rather not sign up for an account.

1. It takes too much time. I just want to make my schedule! click, click, click, and I am done.
2. I do not like everyone having my email address, so they can solicit some new widget or service every couple of days.
3. Privacy. Some people care about this, and others don’t. I feel better if I am able to use a unknown service anonymously until I get to the point that I trust the site and the community.

Now, I know that collecting email address and accounts is the best way to save user preferences, track growth, and market the new features of an application, but there has got to be a better way. Ideally, I would like to use a web application that does not require you to sign up. Application providers need to be more creative in the way that they are designing their applications in order to provide this. Second, the use of openid would cut down on the time to take to sign up for an account. This would also allow for saving user preferences.

More later…

House of Foo, originally uploaded by GregHewett.

I hope that you enjoy this piece. It came from deep within my soul.