NWRUG Google Group

spree+protx

2009-12-01T09:53:02Z

Hi there,

I'm in the process of setting up a protx account for my spree shopping cart,
I want to use my protx test server first, I tried use the following in spree
configuration gateway page:
sub-account: my_test_user
user: vendor_name
pass: password for my_test_user

and i uncomment

ActiveMerchant::Billing::Base. gateway_mode = :test

10th Dec meeting

2009-12-02T11:30:34Z

The sneaky buggers at Geekup have gone and organised their Christmas do on the 10th, the same evening as this months NWRUG. There's some cross-over between NWRUG and Geekup groups so before I go ahead and organise the NWRUG meeting for the 10th clashing with the Geekup meeting I wanted to get a feel for the number of people who actually care :)

Graphic/Web Artists

2009-12-01T17:50:59Z

Hi guys

Im looking at some new projects which may entail a lot of work and more importantly need to look amazing.

Can you recommend any amazing front end guys you've worked with?

Thanxs, Alex

Speccing views & controllers in Sinatra

2009-12-01T14:59:57Z

Hi -- I know there's a couple of Sinatra devs around on the list, so thought
I'd ask -- how do you spec your views & controller actions?
There are examples all over the place for speccing the whole stack with
RSpec, but I'm already doing that with cucumber, and want to spec out the
parts with stubbed & mocked values, like I do in Rails.

Re: [GeekUp] Fly The Coop has a new home

2009-11-26T11:17:53Z

This is a reply to geekup, copied to nwrug-members where it may be more relevant.

Hi Paul

I'm really interested in this idea. Just experiencing the process would be exciting.

The Coding Kwoon session I did at NWRUG got lot of people talking about doing a longer session, perhaps at a BarCamp. Would the FTC venue be suitable for a day/afternoon-long Coding Kwoon? Needs a projector and a load of chairs.

Tokyo Cabinet/Table

2009-11-21T22:39:43Z

Well, im impressed.

I have 10 large datafile ( plus 4gb of data each) that I play about with, its the grace note list of artists, releases etc..

My old simple script was ruby, active record and mysql, to import 8 and a half million rows.

This used to take around 24 minutes, and eat my processor and ram for fun.

Linkparser

2009-11-21T02:39:52Z

Hi all,

I've been fiddling around with a linguistics
library<[link]>for ruby that
has a link parser module which wraps around the link-grammar
from abiword and I'm having some trouble getting things to work together.

Has anybody ever used this ?

Thanks,

NWRUG signup reminder (for tomorrow)

2009-11-18T20:28:10Z

Hi all

If you're coming to the NWRUG event tomorrow, please sign up on the
event page. The BBC like to know who is coming in advance of the
event. It means they can prepare passes beforehand instead of as
people turn up.

[link]

Will says people often forget to sign up, so I thought I'd send out

Coding Kwoon hardware

2009-11-18T18:04:52Z

Hi all

Anyone got a spare Apple keyboard and a mouse they can bring to NWRUG? It will be better if we have two of each on the night, so my MacBook can go in the middle. All my keyboards have Dvorak stickers on them.

I can bring my mice with me, as I've got two identical ones, but would save lugging them around if someone from Manchester has a pair. (Having different mice is a pain for pairing, as the tracking speed will be different.)

Sinatra, accessing the environment variable & setting up databases

2009-11-17T22:41:01Z

Hi -- any of the Sinatra buffs out there able to help me with a couple of
issues?
I'm wanting to use Datamapper for my models, and *think* I'm okay with that,
but I want to be able to set them up for testing, development, and
production.
How do I access the environment variable? I mean to set and to get at any

Sinatra and SSL Certificates

2009-11-16T13:39:12Z

Hi -- has anyone used Sinatra with SSL?
If so, have they any advice to offer, or any tuts & resources they could
point me to that would explain to a simple man how it's done?
Cheers,
Doug.

DailyJS - a new javascript blog

2009-11-14T14:49:58Z

This is not strictly Ruby-related, but many of us Ruby hackers are web-
developers in general, so I thought this might be of interest...

Although still chiefly a Ruby developer, I've had much more to do with
Javascript recently but I've had trouble finding many technically-
focused Javascript blogs or resources on the web.

OpenCoffee Manchester

2009-11-13T10:08:51Z

Hi Guys,

OpenCoffee Manchester
24th November
Urbis (next to Victoria Station)

Free wifi - feel free to bring an app to demo

[link]

See you there.

Tim

Google Wave invites

2009-11-12T22:00:07Z

Trying to get rid of the feckin things. Anyone want one? Let me know
if you do...
Ashley

subdomain-fu, RSpec & namespaces cheesing me off

2009-11-10T22:11:52Z

I'm getting really cheesed off with RSpec not matching some of my routes
when controller testing (that appear in the rake routes output, and via
HTTP requests) when I have subdomain checking (courtesy of subdomain-fu)
on namespaces. The really annoying thing is it's working fine for routes
that aren't at the root of the namespace.

Some contract work - one home based

2009-11-09T12:35:34Z

Hi,
Just had an agency contact me with two roles, one is home based the
other is on site and london based. Both sound interesting. If anyone
is feeling the pinch it might be worth talking. If anyone is
interested let me know and I will send contact details.
------------------------------ ---
John Jones

Screencasting the next NWRUG meeting (Coding Kwoon - 19th Nov)

2009-11-09T12:21:15Z

Hi all
Given the lack of speaker, I've offered to do a Coding Kwoon session
[1] at the next NWRUG. That's like a Coding Dojo[2], but with a
Chinese name.
I have a question though. Who would like this screencasted and
recorded, so the pair programming session can be published on
t'interweb?
Let me know if you think this would be valuable (eg, to study after,

DataMapper & Rails

2009-11-07T10:43:40Z

Has anyone has experience using data-mapper for a rails project.
Ive been using it for a while in Sinatra and in scripts, its blazing
fast, has no migrations and everything seems great.
I can see a problem though, gems which rely on active record,
paperclip, sunspot etc
Any thoughts?

Many many sprouts.

2009-11-06T23:58:04Z

Does anyone fancy a NWRUG Christmas do?
If there's enough interest i'll look into arranging one.
Any preferences as to Location, price, general timing etc?
Anyone organised one of these before and got any advice?*
Will.
* Other than 'do it in September' :)

Small contract project

2009-11-06T11:44:43Z

I wanted to check with the group to see if anyone has some time for
some contract work at the moment.
Back in January I led a project to try and get an ecommerce website up
and running using Spree[1] for the non-profit Just Coffee People[2]
based in Leeds. They are a social enterprise who in their own words

Anyone else had a play with Limelight?

2009-11-06T10:33:41Z

[link]
Started to have a play with it last night, and it looks pretty cool.
Not sure where best to fit the "M" in "MVC" in, yet, but pretty cool.
Doug.

Using ActiveResource classes in Cucumber -- stubbing the JSON returned? Or something ...

2009-11-03T14:28:50Z

Hi -- I have an ActiveResource class in my rails app that I want to test in
Cucumber.
The best way I can think of to do this is just to swap in the JSON that the
web service returns with my own controlled JSON data.
Can this be done, that anyone knows of?
&, if not, is there a better way to be trying to do this?

Group sponsorship

2009-11-02T17:28:33Z

It's not necessary for the meetings, but it's nice :)
We currently have meetings planned for November (Coding dojo run by
Ashley, details soon), December and January but no sponsorship. Let me
know if you or your company is interested. Usual cost is ~£100 for the
meeting.
Will.

Rails - Scoping through multiple models

2009-10-30T14:11:59Z

I've a few rails applications out there that need scoping to limit
data access.

The Rails wiki has a page on Proper Scoping at:
[link]

However I have models with lots of has_many's such as:
Account has_many Recipie_Books which has_many Recipes which has_many

Talks in November/December

2009-10-28T15:08:24Z

We have a couple of options for talks over the next two months, please
consider and comment on the following plans:
Plan a) All meetings on the regular day (third Thursday):
November: Mihai on Tokyo Cabinet (& possibly redis)
December: David on "Get that skinkin' PHP outta my face"*
January: nothing organised

NOKIA - OVI STORE DEVELOPMENT EVENT: LEEDS, 17TH NOVEMBER

2009-10-27T10:00:28Z

Hi all,

I thought this may be of interest to developers interested in building
mobile applications.

Thanks
Matt

===

Over the past twelve months we’ve seen a significant shift in
development opportunities within the mobile marketplace, with
downloadable applications to consumer handsets now offering new

Rails checklist

2009-10-25T09:34:51Z

Hi guys
Colin tweeted this but I thought it might be better here because it will be
easier to find:
[link]
Thanks and regards,
Francis
Follow me on twitter [link]
Blog at [link]
(you can also buy my books from there!)

be_equivalent_xml_to matcher

2009-10-24T07:08:16Z

Hi all
Something I almost forget. When I posted my slides to rspec-users, I
got positive feedback about the be_equivalent_xml_to matcher. So I've
put it up on a gist in case anyone wants it.
[link]
I think I'll sort out a company blog soon and try to be more liberal
posting shareable code snippets etc I write.

Ruby Course Marketing

2009-10-22T21:45:09Z

Hi,
I'm looking for a bit of help and advice marketing some Ruby courses
Jim Weirich and Joe O'Brien are giving in Edinburgh in November: two
day Ruby and a three day Rails course, 9-13 November. Part of the
problem is that those most likely to want these courses are those
that I can't reach and don't know who JIm Weirich is, because they are

Next NWRUG, speaker needed!

2009-10-22T12:26:24Z

Hi All,
Mihai has volunteered to talk on Tokyo Cabinet at the November NWRUG.
It would be great if there was another talk on that day along similar
lines, so maybe redis, memcached, couchdb, mongodb etc.
Anyone fancy having a go?
Will.

OpenCoffee Manchester October

2009-10-21T09:44:33Z

Guys,

OpenCoffee is back with a bang on Tuesday 27th October from 10am -
12pm at Urbis. Previous meet-ups have drawn in over 60 people.

Besides the coffee, Urbis also provide free WiFi so if you want to
demo then just bring your laptop

Facebook event:
[link]

How much success (or otherwise) have people had migrating Rails apps to 1.9.1?

2009-10-20T12:18:29Z

Hi -- fighting an ongoing battle to get everything running under 1.9.1I
haven't actually sorted my system out, yet (bloody MySQL -- bet I need to
reinstall everything!), but was wondering if anyone had any hints or horror
stories to share before I get to trying to get the apps themselves to run?
Most of mine are Rails 2.3.*, but I've got one 2.2.2 that I don't think I'll

Jim Weirich and Joe O'Brien - Ruby and Rails Training

2009-10-19T22:02:33Z

Hi all,
I'll save you the long marketing email. You all know who Jim Weirich
and Joe O'Brien are, and you know they are excellent trainers. Jim,
Joe (and I) are running Ruby and Rails training in Edinburgh between
9th and 13 November. Details are here:
[link]
----------------

Fwd: [GeekUp] I saw this and thought of geekup.

2009-10-19T14:14:32Z

In case anyone is not on the GeekUp list I thought this was worth
reposting here.
I like the footnote =)
Ashley
Begin forwarded message:

Slides from "Uses & Abuses of Mocks & Stubs" Oct 15th

2009-10-17T19:47:12Z

Hi all
Thanks to everyone that attended, to Will (as always) for organising
it, and to Jamie of Boxedup.com for arranging sponsorship so that
people actually turned up :)
I've finally corrected the broken slide, and a bit of OCD crept in
correcting some more of the output of the dodgy syntax highlighting

MySQ-fecking-L and Ruby 1.9.1

2009-10-16T23:26:17Z

Hi -- I've just upgraded to 1.9.1 with RVM (which rocks), and have got every
gem installed that I have under 1.8.7, apart from bloody MySQL.I've found a
few guides around & about detailing how to get MySQL working with Snow
Leopard & Ruby, but I already did that when I upgraded to Snow Leopard.
Does anyone know of any fixes that are less drastic than reinstalling Ruby,

Ruby on Rails Job - Stockport

2009-10-12T11:46:58Z

Hi folks,

We're in the market for a RoR developer. Job details below. No
agencies please.

==================

Web Developer

* Job Role: Systems Developer
* Job Position: Permanent
* Job Hours: Full-Time
* Sector: Other
* Location: Stockport
* Company: Businesshelp
* Salary: circa £25K

Devver.net Caliper

2009-10-10T16:12:18Z

Hi
Thought many of may be interested in this, if it's not already widely
known. It's sold as "Easy metrics for Ruby projects".
[link]
Ashley

Ruby Sass TMBundle needs a new maintainer

2009-10-10T15:14:17Z

Hi all
The Ruby Sass TMBundle is in need of a new maintainer. I thought I'd
post here in case there are any big TextMate+Sass fans around.
[link]
Ashley

Next NWRUG meeting (15th October)

2009-10-09T16:02:28Z

We now have sponsorship courtesy of [link], so there
will be free pizza in Odder after the meeting (yes, I booked it ;) and
maybe the odd beer.
Details of the meeting: [link]
If you're coming along please sign up as soon as possible here:
[link]

Next NWRUG - 15th October – Uses and Abuses of Mocks and Stubs

2009-10-05T09:45:08Z

This month Ashley Moran will be talking about Uses and Abuses of Mocks
and Stubs.
No sponsorship this month, but never fear, the BBC bar is fairly cheap
and the Odder bar across the road serves nice pizzas.
Schedule:
Please note we’re back on our old start time of 6:30pm
• 6:30pm :: Welcome & Pre-session bar visit.

Is it just me or is Ruby Forge down?

2009-09-28T11:33:12Z

Cheers guys
Thanks and regards,
Francis
Follow me on twitter [link]
Blog at [link]
(you can also buy my books from there!)
Skype: fjfish

Fixtures & ERb

2009-09-23T12:27:11Z

Hi all,
We have a bit of a strange database column in one of our projects
where we need to store some ERb. Yes, this might not be the most
sensible idea but, it's the simplest given what we're having to do in
this particular context.
When we shove something into a fixture with some ERb, Rails does the

Varnish

2009-09-18T11:04:26Z

There's a couple of related varnish articles I read that are relevant
to the talk yesterday:
[link]
[link]
Thanks all for turning up, it was great to see so many people and

OpenCoffee Manchester

2009-09-14T13:48:36Z

Guys,

OpenCoffee is back with a bang on Tuesday 29th September from 10am -
12pm at Urbis.
Previous meet-ups have drawn in over 60 people.

Besides the coffee, Urbis also provide free WiFi.

Facebook event: [link]

See you on the 29th.

Rails Wiki Code Projects

2009-09-11T10:43:50Z

Hi all,
I've been doing some searches for Rails based Wiki systems. Googling
on anything with the word wiki is of course full of false positives.
At this stage I have two options, either a wiki project which will
stand on its own, or one which is easily integrated to another
project. I'm using clearance for authentication.

Next NWRUG - 17th September – Smooth web apps with Varnish

2009-09-02T23:04:47Z

This month David Smalley of Litmus will be talking about Varnish, the
high-performance HTTPaccelerator that makes doctype.org fly.
No sponsorship this month, but never fear, the BBC bar is fairly cheap
and the Odder bar across the road serves nice pizzas.
Schedule:
Please note we’re back on our old start time of 6:30pm

[job] Senior Rails Developer - Join the Brightbox team!

2009-08-26T13:10:36Z

Hi NWRUGgers,
we're looking for a Senior Rails Developer slash Project Manager slash
Slash-fiction Writer[1] to join the Brightbox team and we're hoping to
pluck from the plentiful pool of NWRUG talent.
The summary is, we need someone to lead development on our internal apps
- the things that manage our "cloud".

How to create a user session with authlogic and cucumber?

2009-08-26T13:01:01Z

I'm trying to test authlogic-openid authentication using cucumber. I
was wondering if any has any experience of doing this already? I'm
trying to create a user session so that I can test actions for an
authenticated user. However I can't actually log in a user as I can't
get webrat to follow the open-id redirects.

Talks and Sponsorship

2009-08-25T12:07:36Z

Sponsorship:
------------------
There's a talk lined up for next month (I'll announce that in the next
few days) but so far no sponsorship. It's not essential that we have
sponsorship, just nice, so if anyone knows a friendly company that
wants to step up please ask them to get in contact. It costs ~£100 per