Alan Bradburne

My bestest-buddy Karl has finally released his award-winning short film Eddie Loves You onto the net. It's seriously good. Bloody funny stuff.

FYI, it's not exactly kid-friendly! Elmo goes psycho!

GO WATCH NOW! :)

I'll be consuming copious amount of (free) beer and (free) pizza tonight at the London Pizza on Rails get-together tonight, gabbing about our beloved Ruby and Rails, and also telling you a bit about the much-talked-about launch of Cominded's first product!

Join us! Did I mention the beer is free?

Just a note to myself for getting my other machines Rails environments up and running properly. Basically a collection of info from the Rails Weblog Angry Fly and NullStyle

Thanks guys!

Rails 1.2.3 comes pre-installed on Leopard. To get the rest of the environment up:

Update gems

sudo gem update

Install MySQL package

From the usual place

Install the Ruby MySQL bindings

sudo env RC_ARCHS=i386 gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

Update: If you’re on PowerPC, instead of the above, use one of the following commands (depending if you’re 32 or 64bi). Thanks to Henry for the tip in the comments!

sudo env RC_ARCHS=ppc gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

sudo env RC_ARCHS=ppc64 gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config 

Fix MySQL for Leopard

cd /usr/local/mysql/lib
sudo mkdir mysql 
cd mysql 
sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql/lib/lib* .

Start MySQL with: (the sys prefs box doesn’t work yet)

sudo /usr/local/mysql/bin/safe_mysqld

Now make a link to the MySQL socket

sudo mkdir /var/mysql/
sudo ln -s /tmp/mysql.sock /var/mysql/mysql.sock

Install MacPorts

From here

Install ImageMagick + RMagick

sudo port install tiff -macosx
sudo port install ImageMagick
sudo gem install rmagick

I think that hits the main things that tripped me up. I’ll update if anything else crops up.

Cory Doctorow came to me in a dream last night (in his steampunk van, obviously. He was a wearing a top hat too) and we talked about an iPhone app that should be written. Damn fine idea too, simple, but incredibly useful... Hacking in progress...

I think I should seek help. Seriously.

If you're in or around London, why not come along to Pizza on Rails on Tuesday 10th July for free pizza, beer and books!

It's a great chance to for anyone working in or interested in Rails in London to get together and talk geeky stuff for the evening. This time I'm going to do a brief talk about my book and give away a bunch of copies (how we decided who gets them is yet to be decided - time to think up some dorky competitions!).

Sign up at the Pizza on Rails website. Hope to see you there!

Looks like my book is finally shipping!

Time for a status update, I reckon.

So, first things first - work stuff. As some of you know, my business partner that I founded Incrediblinc with has accepted a job with Atlas Venture, a VC firm that have some very interesting stuff going on here in Europe. But it's all good - I'm in the process of starting a new company to take over where Incrediblinc left off. The company will be focused on Rails development and we have some fantastic people involved - I'm really excited. In the meantime however, I am taking on Rails development projects independently. Just drop me a line if you have a project in mind.

The book is getting closer and closer to 'done' - we're in the final stages now. Phew, what an experience. I listened to everyone's warnings and tales of pain, but I ploughed ahead regardless. And I'm glad I did! I'm really pleased with the finished book, but as I'm sure is normal, would be happy continuing to add more and tweaking what's there forever. I guess you have to let go at some time. I believe we're on for a June release - I know it's going to be a tough decision between Practical Social Networking with Rails and The Deathly Hallows, but who loves ya more? Alan or J.K.?

My phlog redevelopment project is coming along, but slower than I would like, simply because of the 'real' work I'm doing. But don't fear fellow-phloggers, it's shaping up to be something much cooler than I originally planned. I hope to get something out for some alpha-testing in the next month or two. Hold on in there. I've not forgotten you, I promise!

On a similar note, the Incrediblinc project cudlz been put on hold for a little while. I will be re-working it to be an open not-only-UK service as soon as I have a small slither of time in my schedule (ha!)

So basically, all is good and there are exciting times ahead!

I'm so psyched about the Northern Lights movies. You can now take a 'find your daemon' quiz at the Golden Compass site. Fun!

Anyway, my daemon is apparently an Ocelot called Euthalias. Say hello :)

For those that don't know, my brother, Colin, runs a recording studio up North, close to Liverpool and Manchester. There's some fantastic independent musicians come to the studio and so we decided to start a video podcast to showcase some of them.

So here is our first episode featuring Ian Thompson, a singer-songwriter from Merseyside. I do a pretty awful job of introducing and interviewing (I'm gonna work on that) and Colin did a fantastic job of editing.

For more information about the studio, go to http://darkline.co.uk and for the video podcast feeds, head over to http://darkline.co.uk/sessions. Enjoy! Please leave feedback!

Formats available to download:

MPEG4 Video (High Res)
MPEG4 Video (iPod)
MP3 Audio Only

Cross posted at phlog

Hi folks,

I just wanted to give you a quick update as to where I am with regards to the phlog transfer, fixing the current site and developing the new one.

All of the domain transfer stuff is in process and the domain will be back in my paws at the end of next week. At that point, the site will be running off my server and the whole exchange back from 20six will be complete. Right now, we are still running off their servers, but I have access to the server and have a complete backup on my server ready to switch as soon as the transfer is complete.

In the meantime, since I have access to the current server, I have been doing some housekeeping. First thing you'll (hopefully!) notice is that there's less spam around. There is still a fair bit hanging around, but I've been tracking it down and getting rid of as much as possible. I have remove approx 1.2 million spam comments so far... I've also deactivated a number of spam blogs. However, these are a little harder to track down automatically, but we'll get rid of them all eventually. This has had the pleasant affect of speeding up the site a whole lot, so things should feel a little snappier.

For some reason, 20six's mail server seems to be not accepting uploads to phlog via mail at the moment - I currently don't know why. I'm looking into it. Worst case scenario : it'll be up again as soon as it's switched to my server next week.

Also, I've added CAPTCHA things to the sign-up procedure (hopefully stopping some of the spam blogs from being created) and to the guest-comment page. If you have guest-comments turned off, you obviously won't see this - but if you allow guest comments (or want to turn them back on) there's an 'enter the scrambled text in this image' thing. I'm not a big fan of captchas, but if it will stop the auto spam comments and allow genuine guest comments, I'm willing to put up with it for now. Eventually (new phlog!), there will be an option to moderate comments before they are posted (thanks for the suggestion, Ann!). Ultimately, I would love to use Akismet since it is amazingly awesome at killing spam, but it's big-bucks :( That would take a whole lot of adsense clicks to pay for that!

Regarding new phlog - coding is progressing whenever I have a few spare minutes (ha!). The first draft of my book should be out of the door at end of next week(ish), so I will have more time to devote to phlog development. I've got some sketches for new designs here, which I will post in the near future to give you folks something to get excited about!

Anyway, Just wanted to keep you folks in the loop. Stuff is happening :)

Best, Alan

I'm a bit behind, I know, but I'm just catching up with blogs and stuff from December...

Was reading Zed Shaw's blog (the brains behind Mongrel, the awesome app server for Ruby. It's good. He's damn smart). Specifically his rant about the crazy 'simplicity is overrated' posts by Donald Norman and Joel Spolsky. Zed doesn't mince his words, but I have to agree with the majority of his comments. However, he is particularly harsh about Joel's bug tracking app, FogBugz. Now, I remember playing with a trial of FogBugz a while back and wasn't blown away - it just wasn't for me. But that's besides the point...

The (amusing) point is, I diligently read Joel's article to get his side of the story and, yes, he really is slamming simplicity. More features = good, less = bad. So then I click on the FogBugz link to take another look - maybe I just didn't 'get it' before, and what's the first thing I see on the page? A quote from Ben Trott of Six Apart: "What makes FogBugz better than other bug and issue tracking systems is its simplicity."

LOL. Sure, you might be able to read Joel's rant and work it into something that fits the quote, but the fact that they have a big fat quote in the prime position of their product home page stating that the product is great because it is simple is just too funny.

I think Zed was a bit harsh on Donald and Joel, both of which I respect and have written some seriously good articles, but this was just too funny not to share :)

I really want the PS3 to succeed. Well, kind of. It's fun to do a bit of Sony-bashing occasionally, but my PS2 has given me so much fun over the years, and I love my PSP to bits.

But the PS3... It only it was cheaper. You know, something that I could afford. Something that any of my friends could afford. 500 quid ($950!) for the console and a game and a SCART cable is just bloody stupid.

And it seems like most folks here are of the same opinion. Three weeks 'till the UK launch and there's NO excitement at all. All shops are still taking pre-orders and seem to be trying hard to get anyone to order it. I passed HMV earlier and there was a guy stood with a table with lots of photos of games and magazine articles (but NO demo machine - in fact, I have not seen ONE demo machine ANYWHERE!). He was approaching people in the shop asking them if they would like to order a PS3. Didn't seem to be many takers... One guy expressed an interest, but didn't like the sound of the £100 deposit, but the sales guy said that'd he'd happily take a 50 quid deposit instead. Damn - is it really that hard to get people to buy one? I guess so...

How pitiful will it be if there are unsold stocks of a new console on launch day? Sigh. I really want it to do well, but Sony don't seem to be doing themselves many favours...

This was originally posted over at phlog.net - my update to the phlog community. Short story : It was originally my site. It got sold, it's been spammed, I'm now getting it back.

Greeting fellow phloggers,

I'm Alan, the original creator of phlog.net. I'm not sure how many of you know the story behind phlog and what has been going on here over the last 4 years (yes, we're over 4 years old now!), so I'm going to give a very condensed version just in case you've lost track of who and what runs the site. If it starts to bore you, skip the next few paragraph to get to the important bit!

So, I wrote the first version of phlog over a long weekend and ran it from an old hand-me-down 200 MHz laptop with a broken screen on the floor of my study, over a 512Kbps ADSL line. When that started to feel the strain, I up'd to a little server in a datacentre in London. Still just running it out of my own pocket. Anyway, 20six, a German blogging company (they run myblog.de, a huge blogging site in Germany) was interested in what I was doing and bought the site, along with employing me for few days a week to work on it. We released the new version (what you're using right now) a few months later and I started working for them full time.

(still with me? gooood :) ) While working for 20six, we did a lot of interesting stuff, but most of it wasn't on building out the main phlog site. A few improvements, but nothing radical. Since I had learnt a whole lot more since I wrote the first version (and the 2nd version was just built upon the 1st version), I started redeveloping a whole new and improved Phlog. Before this was released, 20six laid off most of their UK employees, including me. So they have phlog, but not me. This was over a year ago, and as most of you know, not a lot has happened around here since then apart from us getting massively spammed and the site slowing down a lot.

I'm not at all blaming 20six, they have been great to me and they have had other things to deal with, but obviously it has upset me that the little site I started on the floor of my study has become rather neglected. So I have come to an arrangement with the good chaps at 20six and phlog.net is in the process of coming back home to me.

So here's the important bit - if you've been skipping paragraphs, you should start reading again now :)

OK, so yes, after over a year of being nothing to do with me, phlog is mine again. Now I hear you all asking the big question - 'what does this mean for ME?' :)

So here is what's happening and my big plan...

I am in the process of moving everything from the 20six servers to another server, which means I can complete the deal with 20six and have complete control again. After that the big stuff comes.

The current code base is not maintainable and frankly, it scares me now. So, I'm starting afresh. But don't worry, you will NOT lose any photos or content, but right now, I'm not scared of implementing big changes. It also means that there is likely to be some disruption around here. If the site is down for a bit, or some things don't work, please don't worry. By all means, mail me and complain, but know that I am doing everything I can to get things running smoothly again.

I have a lot of ideas that I would like to implement on phlog, but I am also open to suggestions. I want to keep the development and running of the new phlog as transparent as possible. I want to make this a happy place for us all to hang out again.

So please bear with me for a bit. It might be a little bumpy for a while, but it will all be worth it, I promise.

I hope you understand and will support me during this transition. I absolutely promise to do my best to make phlog better, faster and more fun. But I do need your help and support. If you have any thoughts, comments or suggestions, mail me. If you want to know more about what I'm planning or have concerns about the transition, mail me. If you have offers of bandwidth or hosting, mail me. If you have offers of large amounts of cash, mail me ;) Basically, I'm all ears.

Anyway, I will post here as soon as there is any more updates, or you can read my regular blog over at alanbradburne.com.

Keep phlogging!

Alan Bradburne

I'm heading along to Pizza on Rails tonight in London. It's always good fun and it's great to spend a few hours totally geeking out about Ruby and Rails with a very interesting group of folks.

And hey, there's free pizza! w00t!

Arg. Just spent far too long going around in circles before hitting the d’oh! moment and spotting the problem.

ar_mailer is a great little library for Rails ActionMailer, allowing you to queue all outgoing emails to a database then use a sendmail-like app to process that queue at will. Nice. The book talks about it.

But actually processing the emails with ar_sendmail fails. Turns out that different folks have different ideas of what the Rails SMTP config should look like. Rails wants ‘user_name’ and ar_sendmail wants ‘user’.

arg.