If I want to try something new or risky I can just make a new branch and start coding

Since Git isn't the easiest thing in the world to learn, I thought that I would turn to the internet for help. There are 2 great Git resources available over at PeepCode.com the Git screen cast and Git Internals PDF. I highly recommend the PDF, it explains the how to's of Git very well and as a bonus comes with 8 mini screencasts for only $9.

What I really like about Git is my ability to experiment. If I want to try something new or risky I can just make a new branch and start coding. If it works I can merge it into my master branch, if it doesn't work I just switch to a different branch and forget about it.

The only downside (that I see) to Git is that it doesn't run natively on windows, which I unfortunately use. However there is a tool MysysGit available through Google Code. It doesn't have all the features of Git but pretty close.

While I'm not saying that Git is the answer for everyone or every project but I have a feeling that it will change the way I develop from here on out.

not one, not two but three, count them, three loads in the washer.

As technology advanced and prices drop I replaced my old Lexar jump drive with a 2 Gigabyte jump drive from Sony for a small fee of $20. Well this drive lasted about 2 months before crapping out. So now I’m back to the old standby, the Lexar with 256MB of storage.

Well I lost the Lexar, I just couldn’t find the thing. I looked all over the house to no avail. Then I remembered it was in my pocket of my jeans which had gone through the two cycles in the dryer. I figured it was fried, but it wasn’t because it never made it to the dryer. It had fallen out in the washer and gone through not one, not two but three, count them, three loads in the washer.

I found it in the bottom of the washer when transferring the wash. Now I should have mentioned that the little light had fallen out. So when I picked it up, a little water exited from the open hole in the plastic. I assumed that all was lost.

I dried it with a paper towel and plugged it in. All data was corrupted, jpegs didn’t display right, PDFs were not readable. I lost everything. I put the drive on the table and forgot to throw it out. The next day, I plugged it in again. Everything was there, in all its glory. It dried overnight and worked great. Now my friends that is a quality product. Lexar I tip my hat to you.

my article was number one on page one

A lot of traffic is coming from Google and after looking at the keywords searched I found it was for an article I wrote on the SMS_FU plugin for Ruby on Rails.

I did a quick Google search on SMS_FU and found that my article was number one on page one. Rather weird if you ask me and some crappy indexing by Google. One would think that the author of this plugin, Brendan G. Lim would rank higher. I guess I'll never grasp how indexing works.

The Flickr feed will show the last 30 pictures

Since I have a nice new camera, I thought that I should renew my Flickr Pro account. I have also added a Flickr feed to the side bar. I used the PHP Flickr as the code wrapper and integrated it with theFancy Zoom javascript.

The Flickr feed will show the last 30 pictures that have been uploaded. I hope you enjoy them. If you want feel free to view my Flickr account.

1. Install plugin - ruby script/plugin install http://sms-fu.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/sms_fu
2. Move sms_fu.rb & sms_notifier.rb from vendor/plugins/sms_fu/lib to the lib folder
3. Move sms_fu_tasks.rake from vendor/plugins/sms_fu/tasks to lib/tasks
4. Move the folder sms_notifier from plugins/sms_fu/views to the app/views folder
5. Update sms_fu.yml with a response address - note this file does install correctly with the install of the plugin
6. Open sms_notifier.rb in the lib folder. Change “#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/../views” to “#{File.dirname(__FILE__)}/../app/views” in def template_root.
7. Make sure you have the ActionMailer setup
8. Add “include SMSFu” to your controller
9. Modify sms_fu.yml in your config folder with your reply-to e-mail address. (This file does install correctly)
10. Put this code in to an action in your controller, “deliver_sms(”5558675309″,”AT&T”,”your message here”)”. Change Tommy Two Tones phone number to yours, the service provider to the correct one and the message to what you want.

That is it, this plugin works great and I thank Brendan for sharing it.

So when I need to find a function, there it is.

I have started collecting code snippets to use and reuse in my projects, essentially creating my own code library. I recommend that any coder start this practice as it has saved me a lot of time.

I save each function or set of related functions together in a file that I save into a folder named after the language. So when I need to find a function, there it is.

I thought I would start off by sharing a most useful javascript function, Add to Window on Load. This function is useful on larger sites where you don't have access to add functions to the original window.onLoad().

That is it, pretty straight forward. I would like to point out that I did not write this code. Unfortunately I don't remember who wrote this, so if you know let me so they can get the credit they deserve. If you have any questions, let me know.

The thing is, the term web designer is rather generic. I work on a team of 7 "web designers" each one of us with different strengths and weaknesses. My biggest weakness, design or rather visual design. My biggest strength is code, all kinds of code, XHTML, CSS, Javascript, Action Script, PHP and Ruby on Rails.

I'm just a big code geek and while I don't claim to be an expert in all of these scripts/languages I'm pretty good in all of them. Better in some than others but good in them all.

XHTML, CSS, Javascript, Action Script, PHP and Ruby on Rails

I know that may sound somewhat egotistical but I like to think of it as being confident. Anyhow that really brings us back to the point of this blog and the title, "Design By Blake is back."

I had started this blog a few years ago. Somewhere along the way it lost its way and I lost my desire to write. So it sat dormant for a little over a year. I recently decided to restart the blog. I deleted the old posts and thought I would start fresh.

Future posts for this blog will focus on web design, creating websites and code. The posts will just be my point of view and hopefully you'll learn something you don't know or better yet you can comment and teach me a thing or two.

Think of Basecamp just custom built for my current employer.

Just as the title says, I've jumped on the Ruby on Rails bandwagon and the bandwagon is awesome. For those of you who haven't checked out Ruby on Rails yet go now. It is still very young as far as frameworks go, but I'm willing to bet that it will keep growing year after year.

I've played with a few different frameworks over the years and this is by far the best. The thing I enjoy best about Rails is the fact that it is a MVC (Model, View, Contoller). For those of you unfamiliar with this concept it is a great way to code that focuses on DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). Bottom line is less code to make your site work.

I have to say I really enjoy coding Rails and would really like to make it a full time job. I'm still very new to the whole community but I'm starting to launch some new projects.

I've just launched a new work order list for my full time job. Think of Basecamp just custom built for my current employer. Unfortunately I can't share the URL, since it is for work, but I'm proud of my work. It is the first time in a long time that developing a dynamic website was actually fun.