Recently, NetBeans was not able to start up Mongrel automatically from a Rails project. I had to open up a console and manually start “script/server” - not what I expect when using an IDE.
I thought it was because of Rails 2.3.x - unsupported by Netbeans as I suspected.The actual reason behind it was the update to Ruby 1.8.7 in Snow Leopard!
Make sure to give that info to Netbeans via the “TOOLS” -> “RUBY PLATFORMS” window. Just delete your old Ruby record from the list left (don’t delete JRuby, though) and click the “AUTODETECT” button (red circled below):

After that, you’ll see the new Ruby 1.8.7 (see screenshot below). Click “Close” and voilá!

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I’ve just uploaded my recently made presentation about UML 2.0 class diagrams. The German presentation introduces the audience (university) to the UML, object oriented programming and then gives a detailed overview about the notation and graphical representation of UML classes and their relation ships, all with examples.

Get it at the TUTORIALS section!

Tags: uml software engineering class diagrams klassendiagramm fhdw paderborn

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Another quick note… In order to test my web apps with Internet Explorer 6 (yeah, a lot of Wintel users still browse with it!), I always had to use my Windows 2000 virtual machine. I knew it was available via CrossOver, but didn’t want to buy it… It was available via Wine, but I didn’t have the time to figure out how it works.

Now I found ies4osx — which makes is so easy to install multiple Internet Explorer (Windows) versions in OS X via Darwine:

Must have for every web designer developing on OS X out there!
(… and man, I know, this is not brand new stuff — but I just found it and thought I should share with you!)

Tags: internetexplorer mac osx ies4osx webdesign crossbrowser

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Just a quick note… A colleague showed me Evernote, a software/web application to easily capture, organize and sync notes, snapshots and website extracts to all my devices: my MacBook, Windows PC, my mobile and even my office computer via there ajax-web-interface. They have a demo video online.

Capturing is just a click in a browser button or menu bar icon. When you capture a website the URL is saved as well and you can even select parts of the website to save, including images.

Their search-function is amazing: They not only search through all the plain text via web or desktop software (even spotlight on mac!), but also do some kind of text recognition with the captured images, which you can find then (they even understand handwriting).

I hope that this will keep my desktop cleaner from all those links to websites and notes all over my hard disk and dashboard.

Ouh, almost forgot: It’s invitation only — I have a few left, just drop a note if you want one!

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To simplify the process of deploying a Rails app, mod_rails is really helpful! Just upload, open your browser and you’re done - like PHP etc.

And it’s free and open source! … and faster than Mongrel (comparison done by the vendor).

I’ll test it later on, though I pretty much like Capistrano

More here (see also Williams message about memory usage and its follow-ups)

Tags: rails capistrano mod_rails deployment php

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Today I found a wonderful tool called "Salling Clicker". It connects to my Nokia phone via bluetooth bidirectionally, so I can remote control my MacBook Pro (iTunes with cover art and searchbar, Presentations, etc.), but also - killer feature - locks my screen when I move away from my notebook!

This auto-lock is pretty hot, since there is - at least without third party software - not standard "Windows + L"-shortcut on OS X and you’d have to do 2 clicks to lock the screen. Now it’s automatically and I’ll never forget ;-).

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