2010-07-28T17:06:31-07:00 http://wal.github.com/ wal.github.com man@wal.github.com 2010-07-11T00:00:00-07:00 http://wal.github.com/2010/07/11/Sinatra Heroku NewRelic <p>The docs for instrumenting your Sinatra app with New Relic on Heroku are either wrong or a bit sparse. Its actually very simple.</p> <ol> <li>Add the newrelic_rpm gem to either your .gems or Gemfile</li> <li>require the rpm library when in production <pre><code>configure :production do require 'newrelic_rpm' end</pre></code> </li> <li>add the heroku new_relic addon <pre><code>heroku addons:add newrelic:bronze</code></pre> </li> </ol> <p>A full working example is <a href="http://github.com/wal/sinatra_heroku_newrelic">here!</a></p> 2010-07-10T00:00:00-07:00 http://wal.github.com/2010/07/10/RDS Stats via Cloudwatch <p>If you use Amazon RDS the following might be useful for pulling some simple Min, Max stats (FreeStorageSpace, CPU Utilisation and DB Connection Count) about your RDS instance</p> <pre><code>git clone http://github.com/wal/RDS-DB-Stats.git cd RDS-DB-Stats ruby rds_db_stats.rb AWS_ACCESS_KEY AWS_SECRET_KEY RDS_ID TIME </code></pre> <pre><code>RDS_ID - your rds instance identifier</code></pre> <pre><code>TIME - the number of minutes you want to calculate the stats for (i.e 60 = last hour)</code></pre> <p>Code is on <a href="http://github.com/wal/RDS-DB-Stats">Github</a></p> 2010-07-01T00:00:00-07:00 http://wal.github.com/2010/07/01/Scotland Ruby Conf <video controls='' poster='http://video2010.scottishrubyconference.com/images/video_still.png'> <source src='http://video.scottishrubyconference.com/Day_02LT_04-mp4_500mbs.mp4' type='video/mp4'> </source> <source src='http://video.scottishrubyconference.com/Day_02LT_04-mp4_500mbs.ogv' type='video/ogg'> </source> <object data='http://video.scottishrubyconference.com/Day_02LT_04-mp4_500mbs.mp4' type='video/quicktime'> <param name='src' value='http://video.scottishrubyconference.com/Day_02LT_04-mp4_500mbs.mp4' /> <param name='showlogo' value='false' /> <param name='autoplay' value='false' /> <img alt='__Title of video__' src='/images/video_still.png' title='No video playback capabilities, please download the video below' /> </object> </video> 2010-06-21T00:00:00-07:00 http://wal.github.com/2010/06/21/Git-Submodules <p>Working with work-in-progress rails plugins can be a right pain. Especially if you need to upgrade them often. </p> <p>I've started to install plugins in my rails apps as git submodules, this allows me to upgrade them easily, and also win the power of git for manipulating them. This is especially useful for making patches, and developing plugins</p> <p>Adding submodules is easy. Instead of the usual <pre><code>script/plugin install ... </code></pre> stuff, use</p> <pre><code> git submodule add GIT-URL-OF-PLUGIN ./vendor/plugins/PLUGIN-NAME </code></pre> <p>e.g</p> <pre><code> git submodule add git@github.com:contrast/exceptional.git ./vendor/plugins/exceptional </code></pre> <p>** Warning ** Installing a plugin this way will not fire its initialization. So you might need to run the init.rb for your plugin manually</p> <p>Now you can cd into that plugin folder, and use all its git commands as if it was an isolated git repo</p> 2009-11-05T00:00:00-08:00 http://wal.github.com/2009/11/05/Dreyfus <p>Inspired by a great talk I attended today by <a href="http://twitter.com/Simmy">Ryan Sims</a> I've been swoting up on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_model_of_skill_acquisition">Dreyfus model</a> which defines a model for new skill acquisition. Thinking about this model while acquiring new skills allows you to focus on what you need to do to get to the next level (eventually Expert), rather than just simply spending time with a new technology/subject which I all too often do. Its about 'learning smartly'.</p>