Decaflon

"lightweight" is a single page script. When you start talking about MVC, Rails become a very suitable choice. Besides, RoR isn't the only Ruby framework around either, a couple have recently appeared - Merb for example.

Cake PHP is simply a translation of RoR into PHP. Or at least as close of an attempt as PHP would allow.

oh hey, you are right! Seems kind of non-obvious, but I'm gonna give TextMate another shot now. Thx.

@subimage - it's all grayed out unless I have a particular file open and in focus.

In comparison, Eclipse has a "synchronize" feature where it would compare my working project against the SVN and visually show all the files that can update/commit, or are in conflict (and then also show a diff for each file). It also keeps track of local changes and lets me know what files I've updated.

With TextMate, I can't seem to figure out how to make SVN consider the entire project, not just the file currently in focus.

I'm pretty disappointed in Textmate's SVN integration. It works wonderfully for a single file, but it's a pain when multiple files are added/removed/changed in a large project. Maybe I'm just missing something...

Does this even work? There are 4 opening { but only 2 closing }. Try indenting your code to see the logic flow of the if statements.

It's a geek thing to upgrade to a newever computer, before the previous one(s) become completely obsolete. Though in such situations we just geek it out some more, and repurpose the older system. Run a NAS server, outsource batch jobs, etc.

I think this might be a lot similar to having more than one TV in a less geeky house - one wouldn't throw out a good working TV, even if they've just gotten a shiny new Plasma for the living room. So it goes elsewhere. Right now, my older laptop is living in the bedroom. Just in case I'm in a mood for some late night Wikipedia surfing.

;)

This might sound kind of crazy, but the other week I was using all 3 of my computers (desktop, two laptops). At the same time.

I usually work with two computers - actual work on a laptop (it's faster), secondary stuff (IM, email, references, etc) on the desktop's screen. Though that one time, I was also installing some work-related software (VM stuff) on the other laptop. I've had them set up around myself on the desk, and was spinning around in the chair. I walked away with that surreal feeling of an evil genius in a secret lair.

I have a Mac Mini and a MacBook - the latter is replacing an older PC laptop (running Ubuntu).

I think we first need to better establish the definition of VR. From 10 years ago I'm thinking large rooms with bulky equipment and polarized glasses that presented some polygons in seemingly 3D space.

Today we have FPS video games with hyper-realistic rendering engines.

Both are Virtual, so which one seems more Real?

Another, though less likely, route is that of Final Fantasy series
OS X-2
;)

Well according to Wikipedia, we are left with "Lion", "Cougar" and three more flavours of Leopards ("Snow Leopard" for example).

Not to break the naming trend, the next release might be promoted all the way to OS 11.0 and start a new theme. German Tanks perhaps? ;)

lol Josh, the original theme is "big cats"

10.0 - Cheetah
10.1 - Puma
10.2 - Jaguar
10.3 - Panther
10.4 - Tiger
10.5 - Leopard

So maybe Apple has only recently started plotting a subliminal blitzkrieg.

In the conversations that I've been having, the references were usually made to a specific release of OS X. So Panther, Tiger, Leopard... no numbers ;)

So wait... Flash doesn't actually work on iPod Touch, unless it's YouTube? That doesn't make much sense... Well unless it's a special Touch player, and not actually Flash at all.

The novelty factor would probably have to play quite a role, in order to overcome the fact that everything else seems of so little importance - especially when QWERTY is already well practised.

I used to be "that guy with a Mac". Now that everybody else is catching up, perhaps it's time to try something else that's new. Think Different ;)

Well the supposed argument is that one would get to the same 100 WPM, but with less effort / strain / errors / etc. The counter-argument is that everybody already knows QWERTY, and it takes quite a bit of effort to learn something new.

My first gen Mac Mini is still running on Panther! I've also recently gotten a MacBook, so I'm thinking of migrating the latter's license of Tiger onto the Mini, and upgrading the MacBook to Leopard. Yey for upgrades. Or you know.. just take advantage of that student discount and get two copies ;)

With extremely limited knowledge of php, you'll find yourself way over your head, extremely fast. Besides, there's a problem of social networking fatigue - requiring users to maintain a yet another online profile. Why join a new network to connect with just you and your friends, when they are already on Facebook and can connect with _everybody_.

Depending on the target audience, you might be able to get away with creating a group on an already existing social network.

Or at least start off from some Open Source project - there are some on Source Forge.

Salting is good because you can't trust the user to actually use a strong password. It's also good in terms that when someone is working on the database (helping you out, or otherwise) -- they don't have the passwords in plaintext, and it's so much more difficult to crack.

Though you are right - all of that does seriously get in the way if you try to merge two different encryption implementations.

But if web applications function well, and are more usable than their offline counterparts... why would you want to hold them back?

"Really, the whole point of web applications is that they are basically desktop apps accessible through the web. Therefore, you should use them like you would use a desktop application, not like you would use a website."

arthus, you are beginning to sound as if you want desktop application to behave like web applications do!

Which is cool, because Google Gears are working on a platform for offline web applications.

That's not a bug, it's a feature ;)

I don't think it makes logical sense to use something that has not yet been declared. We're getting into the whole goto/comefrom territory here. Bad.

arthus - you're missing the point.

All the issues you've listed: accessibility, load time, plugin requirements - those are website concepts, not that of a desktop application.

Gmail is an amazing example of AJAX. Their handling of history's back "event" is remarkable as well.

If we're going to pretend that there's no "web" in "web application", why even use AJAX? Just go all out, single file, Flash app.

There certainly are ways to "over-ajax". If pressing "back" at any point in time seriously breaks the app, then something should probably be changed.

You could just get a plugin

Should anyone even be using IE's ActiveX? Microsoft says: "maybe".

Because IE6 is mostly used by the kind of people who would not care to upgrade. We'd just have to wait until they buy a new system with IE7 preinstalled for them.

*sigh*

I've been playing around with F8, mostly as research and prove-of-concept stuff for work - nothing public.. yet. As much as I love Ruby, it's much simpler to get really simple things going with PHP. Unless you're building anything that could use an ActiveRecord ;)

I'd really like to heard your opinion on scaling RoR based Facebook apps. Since all the FBML is cached and FQL queries are run against Facebook's database, it's really a completely different ballgame. FBML comes with IF-logic tags and other nifty features. If you can avoid needing to use your own database, you could really push out a multi-million user app from your cellphone ;) So it's the database that takes the huge hit -- how's the ActiveRecord tradeoff? (performance vs. development as usual I guess?)

Adium mostly. Unless I'm not at my desktop, then I keep google mail open in a tab. If video conferencing picks up, I can see myself throwing Skype or iChat into the mix.

I notice that my CPU usage shoots up to full whenever there's flash on the page.

yes, you have to go out and buy windows if you want to use ie.

Yup, pretty much.

Has anyone else tried installing IE7? You need IE with ActiveX controls just to download the installer (or download a standalone executable to authenticate your system). Which I find to be quite silly, since the installer makes sure you're running a genuine copy of Windows (for the second time now!) before starting anyways.

Now IE7 is a remarkable improvement over IE6, but I am of the opinion that the manual installation process is aimed at people who would normally be using Firefox already.

Wordpress adds rel="nofollow" to any links in the comments section. Links that you post in the article itself will be followed. There are a number of plugins that offer various degrees of "follow" for comments as well.

I think that pingbacks are treated as a type of a comment.

This is largely a SEO - Search Engine Optimization topic. Basically all external links carry a certain "in-favour-of" weight with them, unless there is a rel="nofollow" - then the link is supposed to be ignored.

You want to not follow any "spammy" links, as that reflects badly on you by association.

Arguably you want to follow relevant links as that offers value.

If you make it clear that your blogs comments are followed, it might attract more replies from SEO aware readers.

It's also a good strategy to use nofollow to block out robots from things such as duplicate content or irrelevant links. Although it's probably a better idea to get that done in robots.txt file.

Having worked with both PHP and Ruby/RoR -- Ruby is simply cleaner, easier to understand and express yourself in, and in a totally subjective way - more fun and enjoyable than any other programming language I have had a chance to use.

PHP does have some advantages though - it takes my preference if I need a single dynamic page. Anything that begins to resemble an application is done with Rails. Unless it's Wordpress.

Also, isn't cakePHP simply a PHP port of Rails?