Secure Password Storage With Vim and GnuPG

2012-03-11T23:09:00+13:00

There are a raft of tools out there for secure storage of passwords, but they will all come and go, Vim and GnuPG are forever.

Here's the config:

augroup encrypted
    au!

    " First make sure nothing is written to ~/.viminfo while editing
    " an encrypted file.
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre      *.gpg set viminfo=
    " We don't want a swap file, as it writes unencrypted data to disk
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre      *.gpg set noswapfile
    " Switch to binary mode to read the encrypted file
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre      *.gpg set bin
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre      *.gpg let ch_save = &ch|set ch=2
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost    *.gpg '[,']!gpg --decrypt 2> /dev/null
    " Switch to normal mode for editing
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost    *.gpg set nobin
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost    *.gpg let &ch = ch_save|unlet ch_save
    autocmd BufReadPost,FileReadPost    *.gpg execute ":doautocmd BufReadPost " . expand("%:r")

    " Convert all text to encrypted text before writing
    autocmd BufWritePre,FileWritePre    *.gpg   '[,']!gpg --default-recipient-self -ae 2>/dev/null
    " Undo the encryption so we are back in the normal text, directly
    " after the file has been written.
    autocmd BufWritePost,FileWritePost  *.gpg   u

    " Fold entries by default
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre      *.gpg set foldmethod=expr
    autocmd BufReadPre,FileReadPre      *.gpg set foldexpr=getline(v:lnum)=~'^\\s*$'&&getline(v:lnum+1)=~'\\S'?'<1':1
augroup END

Now, open a file, say super_secret_passwords.gpg and enter your passwords with a blank line between each set:

My Twitter account
malc : s3cr3t

My Facebook account
malc : s3cr3t

My LinkedIn account
malc : s3cr3t

When you write the file out, it will be encrypted with your GPG key. When you next open it, you'll be prompted for your GPG private key passphrase to decrypt the file.

The line folding config will mean all the passwords will be hidden by default when you open the file, you can reveal the details using zo (or right arrow / l) with the cursor over the password title.

I like this system because as long as I have gpg and my private key available, I can extract any long lost password from my collection.

Building RedCloth With Bundler and GCC 4.6

2011-11-25T15:49:00+13:00

Getting ready to work on a problem in Rails on an Ubuntu Oneiric (11.10) machine, I ran across the following problem running bundle install for Rails core:

$ bundle install
Updating git://github.com/rails/arel
Updating git://github.com/rails/journey
Fetching source index for http://rubygems.org/
Using rake (0.8.7) 
Installing RedCloth (4.2.7) with native extensions 
Gem::Installer::ExtensionBuildError: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

        /home/malc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/bin/ruby extconf.rb 
checking for main() in -lc... yes
creating Makefile

make
gcc -I. -I/home/malc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/x86_64-linux -I/home/malc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby/backward -I/home/malc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1 -I.   -fPIC -O3 -ggdb -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-parentheses -Wpointer-arith -Wwrite-strings -Wno-missing-field-initializers -Wno-long-long  -fPIC -O0 -Wall -Werror  -o redcloth_scan.o -c redcloth_scan.c
gcc -I. -I/home/malc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/x86_64-linux -I/home/malc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1/ruby/backward -I/home/malc/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p290/include/ruby-1.9.1 -I.   -fPIC -O3 -ggdb -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wno-parentheses -Wpointer-arith -Wwrite-strings -Wno-missing-field-initializers -Wno-long-long  -fPIC -O0 -Wall -Werror  -o redcloth_inline.o -c redcloth_inline.c
ragel/redcloth_inline.c.rl: In function ‘red_block’:
ragel/redcloth_inline.c.rl:99:9: error: variable ‘attr_regs’ set but not used [-Werror=unused-but-set-variable]
cc1: all warnings being treated as errors

make: *** [redcloth_inline.o] Error 1


Gem files will remain installed in /home/malc/.gem/ruby/1.9.1/gems/RedCloth-4.2.7 for inspection.
Results logged to /home/malc/.gem/ruby/1.9.1/gems/RedCloth-4.2.7/ext/redcloth_scan/gem_make.out
An error occured while installing RedCloth (4.2.7), and Bundler cannot continue.
Make sure that `gem install RedCloth -v '4.2.7'` succeeds before bundling.

Until this is fixed in RedCloth, you can work around it by specifying extra build options for bundler which will only be applied when building RedCloth:

$ bundle config build.RedCloth --with-cflags=-w

After this bundle install should work as normal.

Start as You Mean to Go On

2011-11-11T21:42:00+13:00

Those who know me know I'm a keen cyclist. Not in the lycra clad, ultra high tech, kilometre counting way, but in the cruise to the dairy, 3 speed, lazy cruiser, ride the kids to school way.

The short time I spent living in the Netherlands has made me aware of how Christchurch could be one of the worlds great cycling cities. Flat as a pancake, a favourable climate and super wide streets, all the ingredients are in place.

But biking in Christchurch is, quite frankly, hellish. It's mostly a cultural problem. The city is built for cars, and bikes and pedestrians are very much second class citizens.

But then the earthquakes happened, and the landscape changed, both physically and in the hearts of the cities people.

The council ran the share an idea initiative to find out what the people wanted to see in the rebuild of the city. And common themes started to emerge, a people friendly, green city, with great public transport, a pedestrian and cycle friendly city. When the rebuild began, it looked like we might finally get the city I'd always dreamed Christchurch could be, a great cycling city.

But the reality is, the rebuild began the day after the earthquake. We're not waiting for it to happen, it's happening now. I'd love to be positive about the direction the work has taken so far, but it looks like the same old same old.

Below are a few example of ways cycling has been integrated into the major projects undertaken so far.

The Central Bus Station

For the past few years, the cities buses have been gradually being fitted with cycle racks. This is a great initiative, but it had a small problem. It was not possible, for safety reasons due to the layout, to load bikes onto the buses in the cities central bus exchange. This is fair enough, the exchange preceded the bike racks by many years, and it's successor could be designed without this problem.

The opportunity came earlier than expected, and a temporary bus station has been built to take the place of the damaged bus exchange, and is expected to be in operation for at least 2 years.

And guess what? You still cannot load your bike onto bike racks in the new central station, with lack of space being cited.

Re:Start the heart

One of the most exciting projects in the central city is the 'RE:Start' project. A retail precinct has been constructed using shipping containers in part of the Cashel Mall, one of the pedestrianised areas in the heart of the city.

The project has created a really funky space, vibrant space. Personally, I feel the space is an order of magnitude better than before the quake.

But yet again, we have zero provision for cycles in this space. 3 large car parks have been set up, making access by car incredibly easy. As reported elsewhere by James Dann it seems to be a glaring ommission for our new, supposedly cycle friendly CBD.

... when you remember the focus that the draft city plan put on a "cycle-friendly
city". This was far from that.
While I realise that the whole mall was put together at very short notice, and
this may just be an oversight, it alarms me that one of the main selling points
of the city plan seems to have already been forgotten.

It's not like there isn't a demand, people are locking their bikes to anything that doesn't move. I suggest you do the same, make the ommission obvious.

The Earth From Above Exhibition

Off road cycle paths are pretty rare in Christchurch, with painted cycle lanes on the road more commonplace. One of the few off road cycle paths that we do have on Rolleston Avenue was closed for nearly 2 months in August to make way for an art installation about sustainable development.

Can anyone spell irony?

The St. Asaph Street cycle way

I'm not really a fan of the kind article that I've just written. I much prefer a positive angle. So I thought I'd better write up all the pro-cycling work that has been carried out for balance.

This is really the only thing I can find. A bike lane has been set up on St Asaph Street, shared with pedestrians. This is great. It represents one of the only east-west routes accross the CBD, and it's great that a little common sense has been applied to give cyclists a physically seperate path on this road. It's low tech, but given the circumstances, I'll take it.

Yet, the fact that this is really the best and only piece of bike friendly work I can find in the whole city is fairly sad. If there are other, better projects that have taken place please let me know and I'll add them.

In conclusion, I'm afraid I'm not very hopefull that the city is going to be transferred into the cycling utopia it could so easily be. Please, City Council, prove me wrong. Please.

The Mystery of Tuenti Mobile for Android

2011-10-10T20:07:00+13:00

I'm not quite sure what to make of this, and google is so far not throwing anything up for me. I've put this post up to see if anyone else who's seeing the same thing as me could leave some comments to shed some light on the subject.

A few days ago, I noticed that application 'Tuenti Mobile' was appearing in the upgrade list in the Android Market on my phone (low spec Huawei U8210 on Vodafone NZ, branded as a Vodafone 845, Android 2.1). Now, this is strange in several ways:

I never installed this app
The application appears to be for a Spanish social network
There is no 'uninstall' option for the app.

The application appears to be valid, and before a couple of days ago it was showing nothing but positive comments on the Android Market, with over 250,000 downloads.

However, looking back at it today, it appears I'm not the only person in the dark as to how and why this app has ended up on their device:

to delete this ap u have to go to privacy settings an reset yr,fone. ~ Susan

I dont understand his and i cant uninstall it.help please? ~ Edona

What the hell why cant i delete it?? D: ~ Michael

The fact that there is no uninstall option is very strange, as if the app is part of the ROM on my phone. But it doesn't appear in the list of applications on the phone, only on the Market update list.

Curiouser and curiouser ... leave a comment with details of your device if you're having the same problem.

UPDATE: After further investigation, it doesn't look like there is anything sinister about this app. It appears to be part of the default crapware installed on the ROM from Vodafone, i.e. the default set of software that Vodafone installs when shipping a device.

There is evidence scattered around the net that there is probably a commercial relationship between Vodafone and Tuenti. If you're having the same problem, I'm betting you have a Vodafone branded phone too.

For now, it looks like I may have to put up with this upgrade lingering in the list on the Android Market, but at least it doesn't look like anything malicious is going on. If I work out a way of removing the app I'll update this post.

Chrome vs Firefox Javascript Date Differences

2011-09-09T21:33:00+12:00

Spent a fair amount of time wracking my brain over a problem caused by this today. It turns out there are some subtle implementation differences between Firefox and Chrome when parsing date strings:

// Chrome
new Date('2011-10-31'); // Sun Oct 30 2011 00:00:00 GMT+1300 (NZDT)

// Firefox
new Date('2011-10-31'); // Sun Oct 30 2011 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (NZST)
                        //                 ^^^^^^^^
                        //                 Different default hour

When parsing a date as a string without an explicit time, Chrome will default the Date object's time to midnight local time. Firefox will default it to midnight GMT.

To ensure the same behaviour across both browsers, use the following style of initialiser.

// Note that the month numbers are zero indexed, so Jan is 0, Dec 11.
// Year and day numbers are *not* zero indexed.

new Date(2011, 10-1, 31);
// Returns Mon Oct 31 2011 00:00:00 GMT+1300 in Chrome and firefox.

Presenting Backbone.js at Christchurch on Rails

2011-09-07T12:18:00+12:00

I'll be giving a short presentation on Backbone.js at the next Christchurch on Rails meeting. There's also potentially another short talk on CoffeeScript on the cards, so it will be a Javascript only night and may be of interest to non Rails folk.

Venue is being provided by the lovely folks at Trineo, and drinks and nibbles from the equally lovely folks at Resolve Digital.

Where: Trineo Ltd, Unit 2C, 105 Gasson St (entrance at rear)
When: Thu 15th Sep 2011 - 17:30

See you there!

Geeks on Bikes

2011-08-20T22:00:00+12:00

NOTE >>>> CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST <<<<

~~I've been toying with getting this going for a while now, so lets just see if this thing floats. Announcing ...~~

Geeks on Bikes [0]

Photo credit: Steve Jurvetson

Ever noticed how geekdom and cycling seem to go hand in hand? Perhaps it's an appreciation of the design and engineering perfection of the humble bicycle, or maybe the frittering of funds on gadgets leaves no other transport options. Whatever the cause, on the whole, geeks like to bike.

And so, fellow pedallers, I humbly invite you to lay down your arms in the programming language / OS / editor wars and join me in the first of hopefully many two wheeled forays in and around beautiful Churtown.

Geeks on bikes[0] - geeks_on_bikes.js

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
geeksOnBikes.push({ ride: 'Bottle Lake Forest Loop', type: 'MTB', grade: 'Easy', distance: 10.0, // km (approx) rendezvous: { where: 'Beach Cafe, 16 Beach Rd, Nth New Brighton', when: 'Sun Sep 11 14:00:00 NZST 2011', latlon: [-43.485248,172.722116] } });

Bring yourself and steed. Extra merit for GPS plots, helmet cams, Arduino cycle computers, and other gadgetry. Follow @malclocke for updates, I may postpone in the event of atrocious weather.

~~See you then!~~

Mix and Mash Nominations

2011-08-06T21:25:00+12:00

I'm very flattered to have received 2 nominations for the 'Best Mashup (so far)' category for this years Mix and Mash contest.

The contest runs between August and September and challenges developers and artists to create innovative work using open New Zealand data and content.

As a prequel to the main event, there is a vote open for the best mash up so far, for projects created before the contest period.

Darfield quake timeline

This is a little mashup page I made after the September 4th earthquake in Christchurch. It uses the data from Geonet, the New Zealand geophysical information network, and the Timemap.js library to display the initial aftershock sequence from this earthquake as an interactive timeline.

The most interesting thing about this simple project for me is that I was contacted by Geonet and asked for permission to use the code on their own site, and it's now present in the Canterbury quakes section of their site.

This is a great demonstration of the benefits of open data and open source in combination. Geonet provide open access to their quake data, allowing developers to create interesting and useful tools around that data. By making my code available as open source software, Geonet were free to incorporate it into their site. This kind of 'round trip' is what makes open data such a powerful concept.

Christchurch Metro

My second nomination is for my Christchurch Metro Android app, which uses real time data from the Metroinfo system to display arrival times, route maps and other information for the local bus service.

This was a 'scratch an itch' project for me, to provide a solid Android application for the Christchurch Metro, and also an opportunity to try out Android development. This project is also free and open source software.

The competition is decided by public vote, and any votes for either the Darfield Earthquake Timeline or the Christchurch Metro app would be greatly appreciated!

find_or_create - Did you find, or create?

2011-04-11T00:00:00+12:00

find_or_create_by_* is a great utility in the Rails toolbox. It allows you search for an object in the database by an arbitrary field, and if a matching object is not found, a new one is created.

# If a user with the given email address is present in the database, it is
# fetched and returned.  Otherwise, a new one is created and saved.
@user = User.find_or_create_by_email('user@example.com')

However, there does not appear to be a way to find out whether the object was found, or whether a new one was created.

One solution is to use the related find_or_initialize_by_* method, which is identical, except that is a matching record is found, a new object is returned

@user = User.find_or_initialize_by_email("user@example.com")
if @user.new_record?
  # Do whatevahs ...
end

Here's my solution to doing it with find_or_create. It makes use of the fact that an optional block can be passed to find_or_create_by, which is only executed when a matching record is not found.

class User < ActiveRecord::Base
  # A flag to store whether the record was created by find_or_create_by_*
  attr_accessor :was_created
end

@user = User.find_or_create_by_email('user@example.com') do |u|
  u.was_created = true
end

if @user.was_created
  # Do whatevahs
end

I'd be interested in alternative approaches.

An Everyday Commute Through Quake Town

2011-04-09T00:00:00+12:00

To help give people outside of Christchurch an understanding of how widespread the effect of the Feb 22nd earthquake has been on Christchurch, I thought I'd take some photo's of everything quake related that I see on my cycle commute from the eastern suburbs into town.

It's now nearly 6 weeks on from the quake, but the images below will hopefully show how far we still have to go.

These are by no means the worst of the devastation, but they represent what the typical Christchurch resident will see on an average trip into town. I didn't deviate from my normal route to take any of these shots.

First up is our local chippy, about 100 metres from home. Thankfully, all the staff made it out unscathed.

This is a cell phone tower on wheels. There's a generator inside, and some kind of wireless uplink to the main network.

The reason this temporary tower is in place, taken a few weeks before the rest of these photos.

In many places along the Avon river, the river banks have slumped or collapsed, in some cases several feet. With winter weather approaching, there seems to be a concerted effort to build up the banks to prevent flooding. This is the view west along the river from Wainoni bridge.

Whilst most of the city has regained a water supply, some still haven't. On top of this, many peoples hot water systems require full mains pressure to work correctly, and full water pressure has not returned to a lot of places.

So there are several of these mobile showers available for residents around the city. This one is outside the Avonside Golf Course.

Drinking water for residents is available from large tanks in key locations. These seem to be getting very little use now as mains water returns to more and more homes.

The worst hit areas are designated 'residents only', because heavy traffic can cause further damage to already fragile houses. This notice is still in place from the September 2010 quake.

The beaches and rivers are still no-go areas for recreation, and here's why. The city's sewerage system is severely damaged. The pipe at the bottom of the shot is pumping raw you-know-what into the river, and is one of many sites along the river and on the beaches where this is happening.

The foot bridge in the background is also closed, as it contains a 66,000 volt electricity cable, status unknown.

Post demolition, this is what remains of the average single story house. Most of the houses that were badly damaged enough to warrant an immediate demolition like this would have borne a 'red sticker', an 'absolutely no entry' notice. If that was the case, the house would have been demolished with all of it's contents still inside.

More shoring of the river banks. The river is still tidal at this point, and at high tide the water level is already close to bursting on an average day.

Some areas are still without mains power. Large generators like this one are keeping the lights on for those neighbourhoods. Our own street was on one of these for the first two weeks after the quake.

An ad hock community notice board has also popped up here.

I hadn't even noticed this house, behind a high fence, until the day I took these photos and I was being more observant than usual. This place used to be two story, the lower floor has completely collapsed.

This place was a once grand 2 story residence that was fairly rough around the edges before the quake. It's days are numbered now, a large digger is parked just out of shot ready to begin the demolition.

Demolition in progress. I happened to ride past these shops on the corner of Stanmore Road and Worcester Street at the moment they were pulling the roof off. Thankfully, as with a lot of the cities collapsed buildings, this row of shops were already off limits before the February quake due to damage sustained in September.

The edge of the city cordon. A very large area of the central city is still off limits to the public. Each entry point is manned by police and army personnel. This is the checkpoint on St Asaph and Barbadoes Streets.

One of the stranger factors of all the damage is exposure of the inside of peoples homes to the public gaze. Here's someone's previously private bathroom and toilet.

Trents Wholesalers warehouse. A goner.

Christchurch's biggest headache, the Hotel Grand Chancellor. At 26 stories, it's the cities second tallest building. As is blatantly obvious from this photo, it's not well.

A few days after the quake, the collapsed corner of the hotel was temporarily supported with new concrete struts to allow Urban Search and Rescue to enter the building.

The hotel lies in the heart of the city, and until it is demolished it's likely at least two blocks either side of it will remain off limits for everyone. How the building is to be demolished safely is still, as far as I'm aware, unknown.

Assert Difference With Multiple Count Values

2011-04-06T00:00:00+12:00

assert_difference is a really useful assertion baked in to Rails. It allows you to check that a value has changed by a given amount after a block has been executed.

Here's a pretty common use case, check a comment gets created in your CommentsControllerTest:

# Make sure one new comment is created
assert_difference 'Comment.count', 1 do
  post :create, :comment => @comment_attributes
end

You can also check that several different values change by a given amount:

# Make sure one new comment and one notification email is created
assert_difference ['Comment.count', 'ActionMailer::Base.deliveries.size'], 1 do
  post :create, :comment => @comment_attributes
end

But, you cannot check if multiple values change by difference amounts, i.e. check that 1 comment and 2 notification emails get created.

The following method will allow you to do just that, drop it into test/test_helper.rb and you're away.

# Runs assert_difference with a number of conditions and varying difference
# counts.
#
# Call as follows:
#
# assert_differences([['Model1.count', 2], ['Model2.count', 3]])
#
def assert_differences(expression_array, message = nil, &block)
  b = block.send(:binding)
  before = expression_array.map { |expr| eval(expr[0], b) }

  yield

  expression_array.each_with_index do |pair, i|
    e = pair[0]
    difference = pair[1]
    error = "#{e.inspect} didn't change by #{difference}"
    error = "#{message}\n#{error}" if message
    assert_equal(before[i] + difference, eval(e, b), error)
  end
end

Rendering From A Model In Rails 3

2011-04-05T00:00:00+12:00

Despite the plethora of advice available on the net to never, ever, ever render in a model, I still think there are occasional requirements to do so.

Here's one way to do it in Rails 3:

class MyModel < ActiveRecord::Base
  # Use the my_models/_my_model.txt.erb view to render this object as a string
  def to_s
    ActionView::Base.new(Rails.configuration.paths.app.views.first).render(
      :partial => 'my_models/my_model', :format => :txt,
      :locals => { :my_model => self}
    )
  end
end

Making a ChangeLog with git and automake

2011-02-07T00:00:00+13:00

Here's my solution to this, based upon the solution from Erik Hjortsberg.

This will only get called by make dist or make distcheck and will only get updated when configure.ac gets updated, which is where I increment my release version numbers.

# In the top level Makefile.am
dist-hook: ChangeLog

ChangeLog: configure.ac
    git log --stat --name-only --date=short --abbrev-commit > ChangeLog

No changes - did you forget to use 'git add'?

2010-06-11T00:00:00+12:00

Generally the error messages from git are fairly helpful, and often guide you to a resolution. Occasionally, they're not.

I ran across this little problem today during a rebase. When a conflict occurs during a rebase, you are asked to resolve it manually and then use git rebase --continue.

If you decide during the conflict resolution to scrap the checked out branch changes, and just keep the file as-is from the other branch, you may get a little confused.

$ git rebase otherbranch
First, rewinding head to replay your work on top of it...
Applying: This change will create a conflict during rebase
Using index info to reconstruct a base tree...
Falling back to patching base and 3-way merge...
Auto-merging foo.txt
CONFLICT (content): Merge conflict in foo.txt
Failed to merge in the changes.
Patch failed at 0001 Commit message from checked out branch which creates conflict

When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue".
If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip".
To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

Ok, have a look at the conflict.

$ cat foo.txt 
<<<<<<< HEAD
Foo
=======
Bar
>>>>>>> Commit message from checked out branch which creates conflict

Here, HEAD is the other branch version, not the one that is checked out.

I decide I want to keep the 'otherbranch' version and drop all of the changes I've made on the checked out branch

$ echo "Foo" > foo.txt 
$ git rebase --continue
You must edit all merge conflicts and then
mark them as resolved using git add

Ok, so I need to tell git the conflict is resolved, makes sense.

$ git add foo.txt
$ git rebase --continue
Applying: This change will create a conflict during rebase
No changes - did you forget to use 'git add'?

When you have resolved this problem run "git rebase --continue".
If you would prefer to skip this patch, instead run "git rebase --skip".
To restore the original branch and stop rebasing run "git rebase --abort".

Huh?!? No, I didn't forget to use git add, I did it ... like ... 2 seconds ago!

Turns out that because there is no change from the patch git suspects something has gone wrong. Git expects a patch to have been applied, but the file has remained unchanged.

The error message is not very intuitive, but it does contain the answer. We just need to tell rebase to skip this patch. It's also not necessary to fix the conflict markers in the file. You will end up with the file version from the branch you are rebasing on.

$ git rebase --skip

Active Resource - Associations and Nested Resources

2010-03-08T00:00:00+13:00

I've been working on a wrapper library for the Pivotal Tracker API, and found it difficult to find a single source of documentation on how to map deep nested restful Rails routes into ARes classes.

Using the classic 'Blog posts' and 'Comments' as an example, you have RESTful URL's like these to work with:

/posts
/posts/1
/posts/1/comments
/posts/1/comments/1

The documentation is a little hazy on how you map these, in particular the 'comments', in ARes.

After a little poking around, I've come up with the following solution:

class Post < ActiveResource::Base
  self.site = "http://site.com/"

  def comments(scope = :all)
    Comment.find(scope, :params => {:post_id => self.id})
  end

  def comment(id)
    comments(id)
  end
end

class Comment < ActiveResource::Base
  # :post_id gets swapped out by ARes based on the :prefix_options hash
  self.site = "http://site.com/posts/:post_id"

  def post
    Post.find(self.prefix_options[:post_id])
  end

  def post=(post)
    self.prefix_options[:post_id] = post.id
  end
end

You can then use these classes like this:

# Find post id 1
post = Post.find(1)

# Find all comments for a post
post.comments.each { |comment| puts comment.body }

# Find comment id 1 for a post
comment = post.comment(1)

# Create a new comment and assign it to a post
comment = Comment.new :body => body_text
comment.post = post
comment.save

The key to all this is the :prefix_options hash, which is not very well documented, and allows you to create the 'belongs_to' relationship which nested resources typically represent in a Rails app.

A week of geek

2010-01-09T00:00:00+13:00

Jan 17th - 24th 2010 is going to be a busy week, as I'll be attending both the linux.conf.au and Drupal South conferences back to back.

It looks set to be a great week to showcase Free and Open Source Software in the capital, with some of the big hitters from the Linux and Drupal communities in attendance.

If you'd like to meet up for a chat, please contact me and let me know.

New site launch: slynkey.com

2010-01-04T00:00:00+13:00

We're pleased to announce a new site release for the new year, the womens magazine and community website slynkey.com

The site development was an interesting project because it involved a large content and user base migration from an existing Joomla! based website. Whilst we don't usually recommend a platform migration for a site of this size, the platform was proving to be a real problem for the client.

The decision to move to Drupal was a fairly easy one. The following aspects of the site made it an excellent choice for Drupal:

The site has a very large user base, and has a vibrant community of readers.
The site has a large number of contributing authors, with various levels of access required.

Challenges

There were a few challenges surrounding the site build.

Data migration

The site had a very large user base to import, and a large number of archived articles. Wholemeal updated an existing Joomla import module, porting it to Drupal 6.x and implementing a lot of new functionality and bug fixes, and submitting the code back to the community which, judging by the project usage statistics, have proved fairly popular (we started working on the module in July 2009).

Contextual content

Another challenge was serving contextual content to users, both anonymous and logged in. The site is highly targeted, with users selecting their home town and being served specific content and advertisements related to their location. This gives the site a great marketing lead over its competitors, but proved to be a technical challenge. Thankfully, Drupal provided ample flexibility to solve these challenges.

New project: DogSheet

2009-12-05T00:00:00+13:00

We've been working away for a while on a new Ruby on Rails project, and have decided to release it under the GPL. Check it out on GitHub.

The project will scratch an itch we have for tracking time against stories in Pivotal Tracker, a project management application for agile development. It's still in it's infancy at the moment, but development is moving along at the pace you would expect from a Rails app, keep an eye on the project if you're looking for the worlds greatest time tracker!