Their local server guy (thanks Will) helped me solve the issue. Their website needed to use only www.

Here’s his notes:

Company XYZ Mortuary has two separate DNS systems

1. The public-facing DNS server that you control

2. The internal DNS server for Company XYZ’s private network that we control

Since both of these servers are authoritative for the CompanyXYZ.com domain, both need to be updated when IP addresses of public servers change.

The other issue we had was the web site removing the www from the URL, which caused computers on Company XYZ’ private network to access an internal server. Windows domain controllers reserve the IP address for the domain name for themselves, and modifying this behavior breaks functionality such as DFS and Exchange. For this reason, Microsoft and other OS vendors recommend using a TLD that will never be used on the Internet, such as .local.

And here is the adjusted nginx config file to use www & point appropriately.

The key line(s) are:
server_name company-xyz.com;
rewrite ^/(.*) http://www.company-xyz.com/$1 permanent;

upstream domain4 {
        server 127.0.0.1:3400;
        }

server {
            listen   80;
            server_name company-xyz.com;
            rewrite ^/(.*) http://www.company-xyz.com/$1 permanent;
           }

server {
            listen   80;
            server_name www.company-xyz.com;

            access_log /home/username/public_html/railsapp/shared/log/access.log;
            error_log /home/username/public_html/railsapp/shared/log/error.log;

            root   /home/username/public_html/railsapp/current/public/;
            index  index.html;

            location / {
                          proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP  $remote_addr;
                          proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                          proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
                          proxy_redirect false;

                          if (-f $request_filename/index.html) {
                                           rewrite (.*) $1/index.html break;
                          }

                          if (-f $request_filename.html) {
                                           rewrite (.*) $1.html break;
                          }

                          if (!-f $request_filename) {
                                           proxy_pass http://domain4;
                                           break;
                          }
            }

}

server {

            listen   443;
            ssl on;
            ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/certs/company-xyz.com.crt;
            ssl_certificate_key   /etc/ssl/private/companyxyz.key;       

            server_name  company-xyz.com;
            rewrite ^/(.*) http://www.company-xyz.com/$1 permanent;

           }

server {

            listen   443;
            ssl on;
            ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/certs/company-xyz.com.crt;
            ssl_certificate_key   /etc/ssl/private/companyxyz.key;

            server_name www.company-xyz.com;

            access_log /home/username/public_html/railsapp/shared/log/access.log;
            error_log /home/username/public_html/railsapp/shared/log/error.log;

            root   /home/username/public_html/railsapp/current/public/;
            index  index.html;

            location / {
                          proxy_set_header X_FORWARDED_PROTO https;

                          proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP  $remote_addr;
                          proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
                          proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
                          proxy_redirect false;

                          if (-f $request_filename/index.html) {
                                           rewrite (.*) $1/index.html break;
                          }

                          if (-f $request_filename.html) {
                                           rewrite (.*) $1.html break;
                          }

                          if (!-f $request_filename) {
                                           proxy_pass http://domain4;
                                           break;
                          }
            }

}

I’m pretty impressed I was able to pull it off. It’s a great deal of detail to go into, but I used Recipe 75 in Advanced Rails Recipes and adjusted some of my old hpricot & mechanize scripts.

Best of all, it keeps me out of the crontab on the server. No hand editing. The capistrano cron rake task takes care of that.

I’m not gonna explain it too much. Here’s the code.

script/plugin install git://github.com/technoweenie/restful-authentication.git

script/generate authenticated user sessions --include-activation

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#Add an observer to config/environment.rb
config.active_record.observers = :user_observer
#put it just before the very last 'end' on the page

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#Add routes to these resources. In config/routes.rb, insert routes like:
    map.signup '/signup', :controller => 'users', :action => 'new'
    map.login  '/login',  :controller => 'sessions', :action => 'new'
    map.logout '/logout', :controller => 'sessions', :action => 'destroy'
    map.activate '/activate/:activation_code', :controller => 'users', :action => 'activate', :activation_code => nil

rake db:migrate

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# create new file config/initializers/mail.rb
 
require "smtp_tls"
 
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
:address => "smtp.gmail.com",
:port => 587,
:authentication => :plain,
:user_name => "you@gmail.com",
:password => 'yourpassword'}

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# edit config/environments/production.rb & put these lines at the top
SITE_NAME = "Your Site"
SITE_URL = "www.yourdomain.com"
SITE_EMAIL = "admin@yourdomain.com"

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# edit config/environments/development.rb & put these lines at the top
SITE_NAME = "ToolTime"
SITE_URL = "localhost:3000"
SITE_EMAIL = "scott@scottmotte.com"

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# Make app/models/user_mailer.rb look like the following:
class UserMailer < ActionMailer::Base
  def signup_notification(user)
    setup_email(user)
    @subject    += 'Please activate your new account'
 
    @body[:url]  = "http://#{SITE_URL}/activate/#{user.activation_code}"
 
  end
 
  def activation(user)
    setup_email(user)
    @subject    += 'Your account has been activated!'
    @body[:url]  = "http://#{SITE_URL}/"
  end
 
  protected
    def setup_email(user)
      @recipients  = "#{user.email}"
      @from        = "#{SITE_EMAIL}"
      @subject     = "#{SITE_NAME}"
      @sent_on     = Time.now
      @body[:user] = user
    end
end

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# create file lib/smtp_tls.rb with following code in it
 
require "openssl"
require "net/smtp"
 
Net::SMTP.class_eval do
  private
  def do_start(helodomain, user, secret, authtype)
    raise IOError, 'SMTP session already started' if @started
    check_auth_args user, secret, authtype if user or secret
 
    sock = timeout(@open_timeout) { TCPSocket.open(@address, @port) }
    @socket = Net::InternetMessageIO.new(sock)
    @socket.read_timeout = 60 #@read_timeout
 
    check_response(critical { recv_response() })
    do_helo(helodomain)
 
    if starttls
      raise 'openssl library not installed' unless defined?(OpenSSL)
      ssl = OpenSSL::SSL::SSLSocket.new(sock)
      ssl.sync_close = true
      ssl.connect
      @socket = Net::InternetMessageIO.new(ssl)
      @socket.read_timeout = 60 #@read_timeout
      do_helo(helodomain)
    end
 
    authenticate user, secret, authtype if user
    @started = true
  ensure
    unless @started
      # authentication failed, cancel connection.
      @socket.close if not @started and @socket and not @socket.closed?
      @socket = nil
    end
  end
 
  def do_helo(helodomain)
    begin
      if @esmtp
        ehlo helodomain
      else
        helo helodomain
      end
    rescue Net::ProtocolError
      if @esmtp
        @esmtp = false
        @error_occured = false
        retry
      end
      raise
    end
  end
 
  def starttls
    getok('STARTTLS') rescue return false
  return true
  end
 
  def quit
    begin
      getok('QUIT')
    rescue EOFError
    end
  end
end

Restart your server, visit http://yourapp.com/signup and give it a shot.

Once that works. Then put before_filter :login_required in your controllers where needed.

It was an easy install and pretty easy to use. Intead, of just using the pre html tag, I know do something like this:

pre lang=”ruby” line=”1″
#put some ruby code
Categories.find(:all, :conditions => ['cool_field = ?', 'awesome'])
pre

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#put some ruby code
Categories.find(:all, :conditions => ['cool_field = ?', 'awesome'])

or html

pre lang=”html4strict” line=”1″>

Title me

That car was bright blue.

pre

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<!-- comment -->
<h1>Title me</h1>
<p>That car was bright blue.</p>

So how do we add validation techniques to something like a contact form on our Rails site that does not have a database?

Install the plugin active form

script/plugin install git://github.com/xgamerx/active_form.git

Then create a file in your app/models folder called email.rb. Paste in the following into that file. Line #1 is key

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class Email < ActiveForm
  attr_accessor :name, :email_address, :message
  validates_presence_of :message
  validates_presence_of :email_address
  validates_presence_of :name 
end

Then create another file in app/models called contact_emailer.rb and paste in the following. This is what will let you send the email

(Wait: make sure you know how to setup email so it works. See my post on creating a contact form with gmail smtp and rails. In that post I called the following file Emailer.rb. You could do that as well, but Line #1 with ActionMailer::Base is key.)

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class ContactMailer < ActionMailer::Base
 
  def contact_email(email)
      recipients  "site@email.com" 
      headers     "Reply-to" => "#{email.email_address}"
      from        email.name + " <" + email.email_address + ">"
      subject     "SiteName"
      body        :email => email
  end
 
end

Then in your views create a folder called contact_mailer & inside of that folder create a file called contact_email.html.erb
app
-views
–contact_mailer
—contact_email.html.erb

This will style the email so put something like the following. This essentially routes to the contact_email method in contact_mailer.rb

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Name:
 
<%= @email.name %>
 
Email: 
 
<%= @email.email_address %>
 
Message:
 
<%= @email.message %>

Now you can create a controller and use the form. Here’s an example using a static based site. The key is line #14 (ContactMailer.deliver_contact_email(@email)). This uses the contact_email method we created, and rails knows that if you put deliver_ in front of it, then it will deliver it according to your email setup (which you shoud have done already here).

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# static controler
class StaticController < ApplicationController
  def index
  end
 
  def overview
  end
 
  def faqs    
  end
 
  def contact
    if request.post?
      @email = Email.new(params[:email])
      if @email.valid?
        ContactMailer.deliver_contact_email(@email)
        flash[:notice] = "Your email was sent successfully. Thanks."
        # without the redirect the params[:email] gets filled back into the form making it look like the form did not get submitted
        redirect_to :action => 'contact'
      end
    end 
  end
 
  def signup    
  end
 
 
end

And here’s what the contact.html.erb looks like associated with that action.

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<h1>Contact Us</h1>
 
<p>Email us.</p>
 
<% form_tag( {:action => "contact"}, :id => 'contact') do %>
<%= error_messages_for('email') %>
<ul>
	<li>
		<label for="email_name">Your Name</label>
		<%= text_field "email", "name", :class => 'input-txt' %>
	</li>
	<li>
		<label for="email_company">Your Email Address</label>
		<%= text_field "email", "email_address", :class => 'input-txt' %>
	</li>
 
	<li>
		<label for="email_message">Message</label>
		<%= text_area "email", "message", :cols => 10 %>
	</li>
	<li class="actn">
		<!-- <a id="sendmessage" href="">Send Message</a> -->
		<input type="submit" value="Send Message" />
	</li>
<% end %>

Finally, make sure to restart your local server using script/server before testing. Otherwise, the plugin active_form won’t load the first time.

Here’s a recent solution from Ryan Bates for handling validations across associations in Rails.

The key code is:

  validate :category_must_exist
 
  def category_must_exist
    errors.add(:category_id, "can't be blank") if category_id.blank?
  end

If you are new to how these custom validations work, here’s some more context.

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  belongs_to :category
 
  validates_presence_of :title
  validates_presence_of :permalink
  validates_uniqueness_of :permalink 
  validate :category_must_exist
 
  def category_must_exist
    errors.add(:category_id, "can't be blank") if category_id.blank?
  end
 
end

and my category model looks like this (so each post only has one category as of now.

class Category < ActiveRecord::Base
  has_many :posts
end

Resource

#example
class AddCategoryIdToPosts < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    change_table :posts do |t|
      t.references :category
    end
  end

  def self.down
    change_table :posts do |t|
      t.remove_references :category
    end
  end
end

# another exmample. note remove_integer doesn't work. just use plain old 'remove'
class AddRedirectLocaleToPages < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    change_table :pages do |t|
      t.integer :redirect_locale, :default => 0
    end
  end

  def self.down
    change_table :pages do |t|
      t.remove :redirect_locale, :default => 0
    end
  end
end

First, make sure you can do the basic javascript. See the pastie.

As you can see we are just going to use a basic toggle. Let’s keep things simple to start.

Now make sure you’re capable of doing a basic select box with selected working.

	<%= f.label :redirect_locale, 'Page redirect:' %>
	<%= select("page", "redirect_locale", {
		"Yes, to posts. (works like a blog or news)" => 1,
		"No. (keep as a normal page)" => 0,
	  }, { :selected => @page.redirect_locale })%>

Now combine what you just did, but let’s use show and hide instead of toggle

<%= f.label :redirect_locale, 'Page redirect:' %>
	<%= select("page", "redirect_locale",
		{"Yes, to posts. (works like a blog or news)" => 1, "No. (keep as a normal page)" => 0,},
		{ :selected => @page.redirect_locale },
		{ :onchange => "if (this.value == '1') { $('body_toggle').hide(); $('sidebar_toggle').hide() } else { $('body_toggle').show(); $('sidebar_toggle').show(); }" })%>

That should work as long as you have some divs or spans or p with the id=”sidebar_toggle” and id=”body_toggle”

This is best used with passenger (mod_rails).

Here’s the capistrano deploy file:

set :runner, "scottmotte"
set :use_sudo, false

# =============================================================================
# CUSTOM OPTIONS
# =============================================================================
set :user, "scottmotte"
set :application, "motte_cms"
set :domain, "209.20.84.209"
set :site_url, "uniteddev.com"

role :web, domain
role :app, domain
role :db,  domain, :primary => true

# =============================================================================
# DATABASE OPTIONS
# =============================================================================
 set :rails_env,       "production"

# =============================================================================
# DEPLOY TO
# =============================================================================
set :deploy_to, "/home/#{user}/public_html/#{site_url}"

# =============================================================================
# REPOSITORY
# =============================================================================
set :scm, "git"
set :repository,  %w(/Users/scottmotte/Documents/code/rails/motte_cms)
set :branch, "uniteddev"
set :deploy_via, :copy
set :copy_exclude, [".svn", ".git"]

# =============================================================================
# SSH OPTIONS
# =============================================================================

default_run_options[:pty] = true
ssh_options[:paranoid] = false
ssh_options[:keys] = %w(/Users/scottmotte/.ssh/id_rsa)
ssh_options[:port] = 2008

Instead I followed the scientist article, but when it came to creating the git user I followed the slicehost article for ubuntu (which I am on).

—
Most all of this comes from the excellent article by scientist on hosting git repositories the easy and secure way with some adjustments for my own setup that you might find useful to get you started, especially if you’re a newb at this like me.

If you hosting your private projects on github is becoming to expensive you can do the following and host your projects with git on slicehost (or any vps for that matter) using gitosis.

First, let’s install git on our server.

I recommend installing from source. Some people ran into problems using apt-get (source)

# 1.5.6 as of Aug 14th, 2008

sudo apt-get remove git git-svn
mkdir ~/sources
cd ~/sources
wget http://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/git-1.5.6.tar.bz2
sudo apt-get build-dep git-core
tar xjf git-1.5.6.tar.bz2
cd git-1.5.6/
./configure
make
sudo make install

Test that git is installed.

git --version
# git version 1.5.6

Good. Now you can delete all the contents of the ~/sources directory if you’d like.

Second, let’s install gitosis. (source)

cd ~/src
git clone git://eagain.net/gitosis.git
sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
cd gitosis
sudo python setup.py install #this hung me up for a while. I thought gitosis was installed, but it wasn't. I had to run sudo.

UPDATE: I just used my standard user already setup on slicehost.

After that installs setup your user. It could be different than ‘git’, but let’s just use ‘git’ as the user.

sudo adduser \
    --system \
    --shell /bin/sh \
    --gecos 'git version control' \
    --group \
    --disabled-password \
    --home /home/git \
    git

Now copy your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub on your LOCAL COMPUTER to your server.

# on your LOCAL computer
cd ~/.ssh
cat id_rsa.pub
#copy and paste what spits out

# on your slicehost server
cd /tmp
sudo nano id_rsa.pub
# paste in what you copied from your local computer

Now let’s put your public SSH key into gitosis’ permission

cd ~
sudo -H -u scottmotte gitosis-init < /tmp/id_rsa.pub
sudo -H -u git gitosis-init < /tmp/id_rsa.pub

Next

sudo chmod 755 /home/scottmotte/repositories/gitosis-admin.git/hooks/post-update
sudo chmod 755 /home/git/repositories/gitosis-admin.git/hooks/post-update

Then back on your local machine account for the fact that I run ssh on a different port (put your port here)

sudo nano ~/.ssh/config

put this inside
Host www.example.com
Port 32767

UPDATE: The above didn’t work for me like the scientist post on hosting git repositories the easy and secure way said so I took a look at the git clone documentation and realized I could put ssh:// in front of the git clone string. Then I was able to add the port at the end of the string without it crapping out.
It didn’t work because I’m retarded and was doing sudo nano ~/.ssh/config on my server rather than locally. Make sure you do this locally.

cd ~/documents/code
git clone scottmotte@209.1.1.xxx:gitosis-admin.git
or
git clone ssh://scottmotte@209.1.1.xxx:32767/home/scottmotte/repositories/gitosis-admin.git

in irb

12.is_a?(Integer)
=> true

from Introduction to Ruby

I am currently much happier with the yui_editor and would recommend it over anything else I’ve been able to find out there.

Plus, setup was a breeze. Thanks larsklevan.

Here’s the api documentation for the yui editor.

How to skin the yui editor with css.

And here’s how to setup a custom image browser.

<% form_for :product, @product, :url => { :action => ‘update’, :id => @product.id } do |f| %>



    <%= render :partial => ‘form’, :locals => { :f => f } %>


Save Listing

Basically, it uses regular expressions so here’s a good cheat sheet for regular expressions.

This:

class UsersController < ActionController::Base
  before_filter :find_user, :only => [:show, :edit]

  def show
    # do something with @user
  end

  def edit
    # do something with @user
  end

  def find_user
    @user = User.find(params[:id)
  end
end

to this:

class UsersController < ActionController::Base
  finder_filter :only => [:show, :edit]

  def show; end
  def edit; end
end

Login to your slice and setup the directory structure for the site

cd ~/public_html

mkdir -p website.com/{public,private,log,cgi-bin,backup}

cd website.com/public

sudo nano index.html
# put a simple message

Now setup your apache config files

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available

sudo nano website.com
# fill it with your configuration

Here’s an example config file

sudo a2ensite website.com

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Test out in your web browser at http://website.com

Then repeat the process for your other site(s).

See Recipe 33 in Rails Recipes.

  def contact
    if request.post?
      Emailer::deliver_contact_email(params[:email])
      flash[:notice] = "Your email was sent successfully. Thank you for your contact."
    end
  end

sources: rails-send-email-tutorial and Action-mailer reply-to header

def contact_email(email_params, sent_at = Time.now)
    # You only need to customize @recipients.
    @recipients = "scott@scottmotte.com"
    @from = 'Does not work'
    @headers['Reply-To'] = "'#{email_params[:name]}' <#{email_params[:email_address]}>"
    @subject    = 'Contact Form'
    @sent_on    = sent_at
    @body["email_email_address"] = email_params[:email_address]
    @body["email_message"] = email_params[:message]
    @body["email_name"] = email_params[:name]
  end

–
This assumes you already have a rails app

Create emailer model

script/generate model emailer

Edit app/model/emailer.rb

class Emailer < ActionMailer::Base
    def contact_email(email_params, sent_at = Time.now)
        # You only need to customize @recipients.
        @recipients = "contact@website.com"
        @from = email_params[:name] + " <" + email_params[:address] + ">"
        @subject = email_params[:subject]
        @sent_on = sent_at
        @body["email_body"] = email_params[:body]
        @body["email_name"] = email_params[:name]
    end
end

Create a file called lib/smtp_tls.rb and paste this code into it.

Create config/initializers/mail.rb & put the following in there:

#from http://www.prestonlee.com/archives/63
require "smtp_tls"
# from http://www.avnetlabs.com/rails/restful-authentication-with-rails-2
ActionMailer::Base.delivery_method = :smtp
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
    :address => "smtp.gmail.com",
    :port => 587,
    :domain => "gmail.com",
    :authentication => :plain,
    :user_name => "username",
    :password => "password"
}

In controller for your contact form add

def send_mail
    Emailer::deliver_contact_email(params[:email])
end

Create file app/views/emailer/contact_email.html.erb

Name:

<%= @email_name %>

Message:

<%= @email_body %>

Create form

<% form_tag :action => "send_mail" do %>

Name: <%= text_field "email", "name", :size => 30 %>

Email: <%= text_field "email", "address", :size => 30 %>

Subject: <%= text_field "email", "subject", :size => 30 %>

Body: <%= text_area "email", "body", :rows => 8, :cols => 30 %>


<% end %>

Resources:
- useful but out of date

It isn’t slicehost specific though, so here’s some help.

For the part where Ryan adds the necessary passenger lines to httpd.conf (the apache config file) instead for slicehost users edit the /etc/apache2/apache2.conf file.

sudo nano /etc/apache2/apache2.conf

& paste at the end of the file

   LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.2/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
   PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.0.2
   PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8

Then upload your rails app to the public folder like you would php files or index files (assuming you setup your apache like slicehost recommended in Apache Virtual Hosts #1

Finally, make sure you apache sites-available config file is setup correctly (full example). The document root should be something like:

DocumentRoot /home/demo/public_html/yoursite.com/public/public

and yes, that is two publics - the first one is the one as setup here, and the second is the rails app’s public folder

Also, you might need to restart your apache.

sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Useful:
- Configuring passenger on slicehost by Ben Hughes

sudo apt-get postfix
or
sudo aptitude install postfix

Say Yes at the prompt.

2. After it’s finished installing run:

sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart

vmstat 1 10

2. Create temp directory and create the key and csr

mkdir /home/username/temp
cd /home/username/temp
openssl genrsa -des3 -out myssl.key 1024
openssl req -new -key myssl.key -out myssl.csr

For the csr, you will have to enter information. Try to make it match to what you put in GoDaddy’s ssl form online.

3. Remove the passphrase you just had to create for reboot reasons with the server
See the slicehost tutorial for this

4. Copy the contents of myssl.csr to the GoDaddy form to generate the ssl certificate

cat myssl.csr
# then copy and paste the resulting text

5. For server software drop down box just choose apache, then press continue, and then check your email.

6. The technical contact on the domain name whois information will have to approve the certificate then you will receive an email with details of the certificate. Click the link in that email and on the next screen choose Apache once again. Then click ‘Download Signed Certificate’. You will get a zip file containing to files - your certificate file and the gd_intermediate_bundle.crt.

7. Combine the contents of these files into one file called myssl.crt (from here) and upload onto your web server at the same place you generated your key and csr - /home/username/temp I just used my ftp program to do this step.

8. Now we need to copy the relevant files to the /etc/ssl/ directory

sudo cp myssl.crt /etc/ssl/certs/
sudo cp myssl.key /etc/ssl/private/

9. Now follow the slicehost article for ssl and vhosts on nginx

10. Then I installed the ssl_requirement plugin in my app by following the instructions from Advanced Rails Recipe 68.

Note: This required one additional change to my /usr/local/nginx/sites-available/domain.com file. I had to add ‘proxy_set_header X_FORWARDED_PROTO https;’ at the top of my location section of the file.

Example:

server {
  listen 443;
  ...
  location / {
    proxy_set_header X_FORWARDED_PROTO https;
    ...
  }
}

Resources:
- GoDaddy ssl on gninx
- SSL certificates on slicehost with nginx
- Rails development with ssl

By changing the mpm_prefork_module I was able to get my slice to run much lighter on memory.

# default

    StartServers                  5
    MinSpareServers           5
    MaxSpareServers          10
    MaxClients                    150
    MaxRequestsPerChild   0


# to this - thanks to http://forum.slicehost.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=2099#Item_2

StartServers       3
MinSpareServers    3
MaxSpareServers    3
ServerLimit        50
MaxClients         50
MaxRequestsPerChild  1000

Here’s the difference in my memory:

Before:

After:

sudo lsb_release -a

or here’s another way to do it from a slicehost article

cat /etc/lsb-release

gem sources -a http://gems.github.com/
sudo gem install googlecharts

Then add the following to the end of your environment.rb file (for some reason, if you put config.gem ‘gchart’ in the new rails 2.0 fashion it does not work.

require 'gchart'

Then put some code in your view and clean up however you want or need.

<%= Gchart.line(:data => [0, 40, 10, 70, 20]) %>

I am trying out mongrel instead of thin for one of my apps on my slicehost. I was running 3 apps, but my swap kept getting used slightly.

So far the mongrel is definitely slower than the 2 thin apps running, but my swap is now down to zero as I would like. Maybe mongrel is lighter on the server than thin?

Passenger looks to be pretty darn quick. I’m impressed.

  def test_email
	...#content here
  end

In your routes.rb file

map.resources :flowers, :collection => { :test_email => :get}

What you’ll need:
- the paperclip plugin: run the following from your terminal in your rail’s project root folder:

script/plugin install git://github.com/thoughtbot/paperclip.git

Useful tutorials:
- Paperclip project page
- Paperclip original tutorial
- Paperclip more useful tutorial

How to:

1. Create a new migration file: script/generate migration add_images_to_flowers and rake db:migrate

class AddImageToFlowers < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    add_column :flowers, :image_file_name, :string
    add_column :flowers, :image_content_type, :string
    add_column :flowers, :image_file_size, :integer
  end

  def self.down
    remove_column :flowers, :image_file_size
    remove_column :flowers, :image_content_type
    remove_column :flowers, :image_file_name
  end
end

2. Change your form to use multipart. (I don’t see why http just doesn’t default to multipart with its forms. It’s seems a little ridiculous to have to add multi-part)

	<% form_for [:admin, @flower], :html => { :multipart => true } do |f| %> #if you put your new/edit under admin/flowers_controller.rb
	or
	<% form_for @flower, :html => { :multipart => true } do |f| %>

3. Add the file field to the form

<%= f.label :image %>
<%= f.file_field :image %> #as you can see if uses the pre-name to the above migration fields 'image'. This is one smart plugin.

4. In your model add the following

class Flower < ActiveRecord::Base

  # Paperclip
  has_attached_file :image,
    :styles => {
      :thumb=> "100x100#",
      :small  => "150x150>",
      :medium => "300x300>" }

end

5. Now try uploading an image and check your database to see that it got added. You’ll also see that in your public view it added a folder called images (plural of image) with a subfolder defined by the id of the post, and with more subfolders for the different sizes of your image as you specified in the above model (thumb, small, medium).

Pretty darn cool, if you ask me.

This is a great tool for simple single image adding to a model.

6. Add it to your views. This is pretty easy just call the following:

<%= image_tag @flower.image.url %>
<%= image_tag @flower.image.url(:thumb) %>
<%= image_tag @flower.image.url(:small) %>
<%= image_tag @flower.image.url(:medium) %>

I think you get the idea.

“We don’t celebrate ‘dependence (on the government) day’ July 4th, we celebrate Independence Day!”

“I can’t help thinking, while much of the 20th century saw the rise of the federal government, the 21st Century will be the century of the states. I have always believed that America is strongest and freest and happiest when it is truest to the wisdom of its founders.”

“Too often, character assassination has replaced debate in principle in Washington, D.C. Destroy someone’s reputation and you don’t have to talk about what he stands for.”

“One thing our Founding Fathers could not foresee…they were farmers, professional men, businessmen giving of their time and effort to a dream and an idea that became a country…was (today) a nation governed by professional politicians who had a vested interest in getting re-elected. They probably envisioned a fellow serving a couple of hitches and then looking eagerly forward to getting back to the farm.”

“The image of George Washington kneeling in prayer in the snow is one of the most famous in American history. He personified a people who knew it was not enough to depend on their own courage and goodness, they must also seek help from God, their Father and Preserver.”

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”

“How can we not believe in the greatness of America? How can we not do what is right and needed to preserve this last best hope of man on earth? After all our struggles to restore America, to revive confidence in our country, hope for our future - after all our hard won victories earned through the patience and courage of every citizen- we cannot, must not and will not turn back. We will finish our job. How could we do less? We’re Americans.”

I followed this tutorial for setting up your ruby script as a .exe on windows.

RubyScript2Exe docs

First, install mechanize and hpricot and htmldoc (pdfs)

gem install hpricot
gem install mechanize
gem install htmldoc

Save web page as pdf with mechanize and htmldoc

require 'rubygems'
require 'mechanize'
require 'htmldoc'

agent = WWW::Mechanize.new
agent.user_agent_alias = 'Mac FireFox'
agent.redirect_ok = true

page = agent.get('http://scottmotte.com/archive')
pdf = PDF::HTMLDoc.new

pdf.set_option :outfile, "~/Desktop/outfile.pdf"
pdf.set_option :bodycolor, :white
pdf.set_option :links, true

pdf << page.body

if pdf.generate
  puts "Hallelujah"
else
  puts 'No Joy'
end

Log into a website with mechanize, save some data with hpricot, and then insert that data into another website

For this one, I wanted to be able to automatically save my stock values each day, and insert them into my personal application where I graph them on a daily basis. I was tired of doing this by hand so I used mechanize and hpricot to automate the process. (I just need to set this up on schedule as a cron task now.)

require 'rubygems'
require 'mechanize'
require 'hpricot'
require 'open-uri'

agent = WWW::Mechanize.new
agent.user_agent_alias = 'Mac FireFox'
agent.redirect_ok = true

## FIRST TIME ##
page = agent.get('http://scottrade.com')

login_form = page.forms.first
login_form.account = '*****your account number*****'
login_form.password = '*****your password*****'
page = agent.submit(login_form)

link = page.links.text("My Account")
page = link.click

doc = Hpricot.parse(page.body)

# positions
positions = (doc/'span#DetailedBalances_lblCashStocksMutFdsCDBonds').inner_html
positions = positions.gsub( "$", '') #strip the dollar sign
positions = positions.gsub( ",", '') #strip the commas

# cash
cash = (doc/'span#DetailedBalances_lblCashTotalMoneyBalance').inner_html
cash = cash.gsub( "$", '')
cash = cash.gsub( ",", '')

# total
total = (doc/'span#DetailedBalances_lblCashTotalAcctValue').inner_html
total = total.gsub("$", '')
total = total.gsub(",", '')

page = agent.get('/Default.aspx?log=off') #log out

# now insert that content
page = agent.get('http://app.scottmotte.com')

login_form = page.forms.first
login_form.login = '***my username***'
login_form.password = '***my password***'
page = agent.submit(login_form)

page = agent.get('/daily_stock_values/new')

f = page.forms.first
f.set_fields( 'fund_value[positions]' => positions)
f.set_fields( 'fund_value[cash]' => cash)
f.set_fields( 'fund_value[total]' => total)
# the date field gets inserted automatically using rails created_at method. The app is built in rails.
page = agent.submit(f)

page = agent.get('/logout')

Get an image from a website and save it locally

require 'rubygems'
require 'mechanize'
require 'hpricot'
require 'open-uri'
require 'uri'

@agent = WWW::Mechanize.new
@agent.user_agent_alias = 'Mac Safari'
@agent.redirect_ok = true
page = @agent.get("http://intype.info/home/trailers/alpha_3/bg.png")
myStr = page.body
aFile = File.new("mypicture.gif", "wb")
aFile.write(myStr)
aFile.close

1. Installed ruby for windows using the one-click installer from ruby-lang.org (for some reason I had to install under the Administrator account on my windows machine)

2. Installed
windows console 2.0. It beats using the dos command, but it still is poor compared to the *nix command line.

# helpful commands
cd (just like *nix)
dir (similar to ls -al in *nix)

3. Opened up console and typed:

irb
puts 'hello world'
exit

Good, ruby seems to be working.

3. Installed intype as my text editor of choice.

4. Installed watir

gem install watir

5. Then after trying watir, I wasn’t really all that happy with it so I decided to go with using a combination of mechanize and hpricot. See useful scripts with mechanize and hpricot.

—
—
Mind dump
—
1. Install ruby for windows (use the ruby one-click installer from ruby-lang.org) (i just installed to c:\ruby. it will take about 5 minutes to complete the installation. while you’re waiting download intype or your text editor of choice for windows. e-texteditor comes recommended but will cost you $30 bucks.) Don’t do any of this or your cygwin with ruby will not function correctly.

2. Install cygwin (this will emulate *nix-like command terminals. The windows dos command console is a pain to work in and most all the examples you will find online are for *nix)

a. Download the setup.exe from Cygwin.com and then run setup.exe
b. Install in c:\cygwin
c. Install the local package directory to your desktop
d. Install from direct connection
e. Choose an available download site and press next
f. For the Select Packages make sure you do the following:
i. Go to Devel -> ruby, and change ‘Skip’ to 1.8.7 by clicking on the ‘Skip’ on the ruby line (here’s a tutorial with screenshots (but ignore the packages being installed. they won’t apply to you.))
ii. Go to Devel -> and install all the lines that start with gcc by once again clicking on the prospective line’s ‘Skip’
iii. Go to Devel -> make and install by doing the same as above
iv. Go to Devel -> openssl-devel and install by doing the same as above
v. Under Database -> sqlite you might as well do the same since if you run rails one day you’ll want it
vi. Under Net -> openssl install
vii. Under Net -> openssh install
viii. Under Editors -> vim install
ix. Under Editors -> nano install
x. Under Net -> curl install
xi. Under Shells -> rxvts install all of them
xii. Under System -> ping install
xiii. Under Web -> wget install
g. Then click next and wait for everything to download. It will probably take about 10 minutes.

Open up Cygwin and type in the prompt:

irb

puts 'hello world'

exit

As long as that didn’t throw any errors than your ruby is setup correctly. Time to get watir. Wait first we have to install rubygems.

3. Install ruby gems
a. Go to the rubyforge ruby gems installation page and download the latest version as a tgz file. (rubygems-1.2.0.tgz at the time of this writing)
b. Save this file to My computer c:\cygwin\home\user name\sources (you’ll need to create the directory sources)
c. Open up cygwin and do the following

cd ~/sources
tar -pxzf rubygems-1.2.0.tar
cd rubygems-1.2.0
ruby setup.rb

4. Install watir

gem install watir

# correct
content '//body/table/tr/td

# incorrect
content '//body/table/tbody/tr/td

-It will skip over font[@size=n] but not over just plain font

-extractor.to_xml will output to the xml you specify within the:

extractor = Scrubyt::Extractor.define do
..
end

-extractor.to_text i’m not sure how to work

**However**, I am starting to understand how scrubyt works, and it really is one heck of an awesome and powerful gem.

I hope the following small scripts and basic tutorial will help speed your learning process for scrubyt.

Install Scrubyt

sudo gem install scrubyt

Create your first scrubyt script
Create a .rb file to test scrubyt. Call it scrubyt_example.rb and save it in your documents/scripts folder or documents/ruby folder or wherever you like.

Edit that file with the following code

require 'rubygems'
require 'scrubyt'

data = Scrubyt::Extractor.define do
  fetch 'http://google.com'
  title '//head/title'
end

data.to_xml.write($stdout, 1)

Test run the file
In your terminal cd to the folder where you saved the scrubyt_example.rb

cd ~/documents/code/ruby

& then run the file with the ruby command in your terminal from inside that folder

ruby scrubyt_example.rb

Ok, way to go, you just learned how to use the xPath (//head/title) to define the part of the website page you wanted. You can get deeper and deeper into the site content by creating just about any xPath you want (i.e. //body/title/table/tr/td).

NOTE: I am using firebug in firefox 3 to view the path to these html elements. You could just as easily view source, but there is a good chance you’ll make a mistake. I recommend using firebug.

Now let’s get a little more complicated by basically creating a for loop with scrubyt.

require 'rubygems'
require 'scrubyt'

extractor = Scrubyt::Extractor.define do
  # go to website
  fetch 'http://scottmotte.com/archive'
  # move down to the ul and call it content and for each ul *do* the following
  content '//body/div/div/div/ul' do
    # grab the content of the li element and call it post
    post '/li'
  end
end
puts extractor.to_xml

This script loops through all the li items on my archive page at http://scottmotte.com/archive

Ok, way to go. Now let’s learn how to login somewhere. This is actually pretty darn easy with scrubyt. We are also going to click a link to change pages, and spit out the url of the page so that we know we have actually changed pages. (Of course, you’ll need to change this to a website you have login access to [just don't try gmail, it uses heavy javascript and so there is another trick to doing that that I haven't tried yet. Scrubyt is not good at handling javascript because www::mechanize is not.]. As well, your fill_textfield names will be different depending on the website. For example, in youtube they are simply ‘username’ and ‘password’. View source or use firebug to find out.)

# example from http://scrubyt.rubyforge.org/files/README.html
require "rubygems"
require "scrubyt"

data = Scrubyt::Extractor.define do

  fetch 'http://www.investors.com/logOffConfirm.aspx?REG=un'
  fill_textfield 'htmUserName', '***your username***'
  fill_textfield 'htmPassword', '***your password***'
  submit

  click_link 'Today In IBD'
  click_link 'Today In IBD'

  click_link 'The Big Picture'

  url "href", :type => :attribute #this part isn't technically correct
end

data.to_xml.write($stdout, 1)

Note: for some reason, I had to do the click_link ‘Today In IBD’ twice. This seems to be a bug or something weird with investors.com. Either way, you might have a similar problem so try doing the click_link twice.

Note 2: the url “href”, :type => :attribute isn’t technically correct, but it will spit out the present url in your terminal. Just don’t use it for production or in a rails app yet. I’m still learning and figuring out how to make this correct.

can't activate RubyInline (= 3.6.3), already activated RubyInline-3.7.0] (Gem::Exception)

I found this solution for how to fix the Scrubyt RubyInline version error, and it worked great.

sudo gem uninstall RubyInline -v 3.7.0

1. install it: sudo gem install yahoofinance
2. require it in your environment file - for