Simple enough problem, but I couldn’t find a quick solution that worked out of the box for my configuration. Here’s a quick guide to setting up a read-only user on your MySQL server (useful for safely inspecting production databases): Note that you may need to change Host = ‘localhost’ depending on your MySQL server configuration.
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This is a continuation of my first post on automated testing a large rails app…
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I recently setup continuous integration (via CircleCI, which I’m really impressed with). It ended up being a bit more tricky for a couple of reasons: I needed to pull semi-static seed data into the application. For this app, this was product data that isn’t changed often and is pulled from an external system. I wanted to use seed data from the production database because the integrity of the data in the external DB couldn’t be trusted and I wanted to ensure that if the tests passed it was a real representation of if the app would function in the live environment. There were a number of custom rails engines that app was compromised of. Each of these engines had separate unit tests, but not separate integration (feature) tests…
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I hate saying I’m busy; I cringe when I hear myself say “I’m good, it’s just been busy!”. It’s so easy to do, and it feels so good; “I’m busy: I’m accomplished and valuable. People want me involved in projects.” Tim Ferris is right when he says “being busy is a form of lazyness”. It’s hard to swallow; but it’s the hard truth. If you are always busy, you aren’t being disciplined in managing your tasks, effective enough at delegating your work to others, or creative enough at eliminating work through automation. Busyness is not effectiveness. The number of hours worked does not equal results.
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As a developer, upgrading to a new OS is always a task, especially when it comes to rails dependencies (surprisingly, Cocoa projects didn’t have as much of an issue with Yosemite). I always wipe my machine and start fresh. This introduces a new class of problems, some of which I was able to mitigate this time around with mackup (a preference backup and restoration tool) and some upgrades to my dotfiles. I customize bundler to work in parallel, store all gems for a given project in the vendor/ directory for that project, and to not use shared gems at all…
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I work on both PHP (WordPress) and Rails sites. It’s important that it is easy to switch contexts and manage all of the different environments. I’m constantly tweaking my dotfiles to make things easier. I recently updated to Yosemite and ran into some issues getting Apache and Pow to play nicely along with each other. Here were my goals: Run rails apps through Pow. I want to be able to visit http://myapp.dev/ and spin up my rails app Visit WordPress sites on *.dev domains…
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I talked with a cousin this past thanksgiving that I hadn’t seen in a while. She stands out from the crowd: she’s traveled to remote Indian villages, traveled around the country in a RV with her husband for the entire summer, wants to move to Italy and work on a farm for a summer. Adventurous, smart, unique, rustic, etc. I love listening to her stories, so do most people she encounters. She’s wanted to start a blog for a while. “Everything has already been said before. Who wants to read me?” is what’s preventing her from committing. I’ll admit, this is something I’ve struggled with too. There is so much noise out there that it seems like another blog or article is just adding to the mess of the blogosphere…
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I’ve done a lot of NetSuite development in ruby over the last couple years. It’s very challenging to integrate NetSuite with external applications. During the process of completing several NetSuite integration projects I’ve developed a set of tools and shortcuts to speed up the NetSuite development workflow. One key tool is search shortcuts for Alfred.app. I have a production and sandbox search shortcut which drops my search query directly in the NetSuite global search bar. This search shortcut allows me to just type in NetSuite customer number, sales order number etc and jump right to the record in the NetSuite environment. Many times if you go to the NetSuite homepage directly you are required to login again…
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I have the amazing opportunity to attend Michael Hyatt’s platform conference. I’ve followed Michael Hyatt for many years ago – I’ve read his books, blog posts, and religiously listened to his podcast. I’m a big fan. Although in a web application and website developer by trade, I love marketing. I’ve made learning marketing a priority over the last year and I’m excited to dive into a full two day conference dedicated to building an online platform and an online business. Here’s what I’m looking for from the conference. Copywriting I’m a horrible speller. I got a 10% on the state spelling exam in high school. However, I love the craft of communicating ideas and grabbing someone’s attention. How to effectively test multiple headlines?..
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98% of my work is software engineering and web development but sometimes I get pulled into troubleshooting random internal IT issues. One of these was building a small business phone system. Recently it was setting up a wireless headset for the Polycom 321 IP phones. Sounds easy, right? Nope. VOIP systems are not well documented and seem to suffering the same fate as router hardware. All the innovation in the VOIP is in the cloud, on the hardware side there is a lot of progress to be made. So, for all those who just need to get their wireless headset to work: Hardware CS510 – The wireless headset EHS APP-51 – The adaptor Plantronics adaptor for the Polycom phone…
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