Musings of a startup junkie and Ruby on Rails nerd.

Welcome to Millarian! I write about web development, Ruby on Rails, consulting, and the occasional startup lesson learned the hard way.

Rails Testing Tips: Testing a helper with a block

Two approaches to testing a Rails helper method that accepts a block using RSpec

rails testing how-to

Rails Testing Tips: Stubbing controller methods in a helper test

In RSpec helper tests, the controller context is self -- use self.stub! to mock controller methods

rails testing how-to

iBug

Firebug for the iPhone -- a small webserver that forwards log messages to the Firebug console

code how-to

Nads: My First Firefox Extension

Building a Firefox extension that hides ads on web pages using XUL and JavaScript

javascript code

Userstamps

Automatically recording created_by and updated_by user IDs on ActiveRecord models

rails how-to

Migration Timestamps deleted_at Magic Field

Extending Rails migration timestamps to automatically include a deleted_at column for acts_as_paranoid

rails how-to

Meeting the Users

Spending a day observing users in their environment and discovering needs we never anticipated

code business

Tuning a Pack of Mongrels

How to benchmark and determine the right number of Mongrel instances for your Rails app

rails ops how-to

Exploring Mongrel... Finally

A getting-started guide to Mongrel and Mongrel Cluster for serving Ruby on Rails applications

rails ops how-to

A Shady Business

Questioning the secrecy around pay rates and the practices of staffing firms

business personal