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: 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

Getting Opinionated

How learning Ruby on Rails reignited my passion for software and changed the way I communicate

personal rails