Today we released a new gem called Ralf, it stands for Retreive Amazon LogFiles
Download the gem at http://gemcutter.org/gems/ralf or browse the source at http://github.com/kjwierenga/ralf
Usage
Prerequirements:
- An S3 account (duh)
- Enable logging on S3 (use cyberduck for example)
Execution:
r = Ralf.new(:config => '/my/config.yaml', :date => '2010-02-01')
r.run
Or run it in one go:
Ralf.run(:config => '/my/config.yaml', :date => '2010-02-01')
Parameters:
:config a YAML config file, if none given it tries to open /etc/ralf.yaml or ~/.ralf.yaml
:date the date to parse
:aws_access_key_id (required in config)
:aws_secret_access_key (required in config)
:out_path (required in config)
:out_prefix (optional, defaults to 's3_combined') Prefix the output file
You can ommit a configuration file when you supply the required parameters :aws_access_key_id_, :aws_secret_access_key and :out_path
They take precedence over the config file
Caveats
- There is no logrotation as we know it like on regular unix machines
More info: S3 Server Access Logging
TODO3>
- CLI executable
- Grouping/combinig on week/month
Credits:
This plugin is created for kerkdienstgemist.nl for processing the logfiles generated by S3.
Authors: Leon Berenschot and K.J. Wierenga
Just a quick and dirty experiment: A Twitter ScreenSaver.

With the Apple Developer Tools installed, you are able to create your own screensavers with Quartz Composer.
(I’ve been experimenting with this tool a few years ago when it was called PixelShox. Later it was bought by Apple to include it in Quicktime.)
This “StreamSaver” is still a work in progress and sorry; OSX 10.5+ only.
If you have any idea’s, lemme know!
Download/see it here, and place it in ~/Library/Screen Savers.
Well…, a war is a little bit exaggerated. But consistency is the issue here, which remembers me the early days of different implementations of webbrowsers (which is still a pain in the ass, ask any random webdeveloper)
For example, today I ran in to the formatting of an URL. In tweetdeck it’s only clickable when an URL has the protocol attached to it (http://). So I complained about it, thinking that people didn’t understand linking in tweets.
Turns out I was wrong, apps like tweetie and the webinterface of twitter itself automagically create a hyperlink from an address prefixed with www without an http://.
So my question is, should there be a standard (like HTML/CSS) or developer guidline to format tweets (or is there one already?)
Problem: How to send a prawn pdf wich normally is generated by a controller.
and keeping it DRY
Required: Prawn & prawnto
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We (@kjw and @leipeleon) participated in the RubyEnRails Rumble last weekend. It was a blast!
Just got a report that we’re getting spammed by a spambot.
Then I recalled a remark @smeevil made about a technique he used to fight off spambots: create a valid form element but put it away somewhere off screen (a hidden field won’t probably work)
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A quick and dirty tutorial for some friends of mine.
Needed software:
Nice to have:
- Textmate: text editor.
- GitHub account (for push rights).
- GitX: Grapichal tool for commiting to local repo (OSX 10.5+).
Create account on github
Go to http://github.com for an account.
Optional: Provide an SSH key for pushing changes.
Clone a Repo

My advice is to generate a special dir for the projects (mine is Rails).
Fire up the terminal and type:
# Goto the dir
cd ~/Rails
# if the repo is read only:
git clone git://github.com/LeipeLeon/facebooker.git
# if you have push rights:
git clone git@github.com:LeipeLeon/facebooker.git
# if you installed GitX (as mentioned above)
gitx |
Adding changes
With the gitx program it’s easy to commit thanges to your local repo. When these are ready to commit to the master you sync it first with the HEAD and then push your changes.
# get changes from the master repo to your local repo
git pull
# push your changes
git push |
Additional info:
If it’s a rails application you’re cloning, startup the server with
# Copy database credentials, uses sqlite3 as default
cp config/database.yml.example config/database.yml
# install required gems
rake gems:install
# make tables
rake db:migrate
# startup server at http://localhost:3000
script/server |
and you will be able to use the application at http://localhost:3000
Bij het gebrek aan een RSS feed van de burgerweeshuis agenda heb ik zelf een (ruby) tooltje gebouwd om alle nieuwe evenementen in google calender te plaatsen.
Tevens wordt elk nieuw evenement automatisch geplaats in het twitter account @burgerweeshuis. Via @nuinhetbw alle evenementen een uur van te voren aangekondigd.
Get yours here:

Dit tooltje heeft de aandacht getrokken van diverse andere organisaties en ben dan ook van plan om hier iets meer mee te gaan doen. I’ll keep you posted!
In the beginning of this year I scored a programming gig for Wakoopa to spice up their Facebook app.
The original app was created in .NET by a third party and was buggy as hell. The goal was to recreate the app in Rails and have at least the same functionality.
Some befriended (PHP) developers warned me that facebook has some serious pitfalls so before I made an estimate for the project I bought a PDF called Developing Facebook Platform Applications with Rails from The Pragmatic Programmers and a PDF book from Peepcode.
Thanks to this PDF and the Facebooker plugin it was doable. I made the sample application as described in the PDF and so I had enough knowledge to create the WakoopaFacebook app. My advice: buy it!
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