Cool Rails Links
Radiant CMS is a small CMS written in Rails that looks full-featured without being bloated. If I were to design a new semi-static site, I think I'd probably give it a whirl. It's got quite a few extensions, too.
There's also a Twitter gem that Rails (or just plain Ruby) developers can take advantage of. Without actually trying any, it seems that Fleakr may be the best available gem for Flickr. There's also flickr-fu. Most irritatingly, the top gem, called "flickr," seems like it hasn't been worked on in a long time and never left alpha.
#unfollowfriday
I sometimes see people post on Twitter to the #followfriday category. Today I decided to go for #unfollowfriday.
It was a tough decision, honestly. I like the variety of what the people I follow on Twitter bring. Some are of a professional interest, others were of more personal interest to me, and still others were friends. But I have so much crap flying by on Twitter that I rarely even fire up a Twitter client because I just don't care.
So I went for broke and removed most of the high-volume Twitterers I follow, along with a few that I never should have followed like snoopdogg. I hope I haven't hurt anyone's feelings, but I just couldn't keep up with all of the tweets. Now I've got a pared-down offering so I can savor each tweet.
People will Soon Forget
Russian gas giant Gazprom formed a joint venture with Nigeria's state-gas company, and chose to name their new venture Nigaz. Most people reading the news respond with, "Are you serious?!," or just burst out laughing.
The BBC has an article about the poor choice, explaining that it's not pronounced the way you might be tempted to pronounce it (but not in mixed company), and interviews a branding consultant who states, "People will soon forget that the name sounds bad."
Really? People will soon forget that naming your African joint-venture "Nigaz" sounds offensive?
Home Fileserver?
What do the gurus think of this (barebones motherboard + Dual-core Atom 330), this case, and a pair of these? Oh, and go whole hog on the memory.
$335.45 for a PC-based fileserver with 2TB of disk, 2GB RAM, and minimal power usage. Put Linux on it and make it an iSCSI target, or use NFS. And Samba gives Windows clients support, too. Maybe you want something like Openfiler?
In an ideal world, I'd spend a bit more and have a machine with a "good" NIC (a high-end Gigabit card), hardware RAID (just basic support is fine), and three or more disks. But this is small and simple. I want to set it in a corner and forget it, and just mirror the drives via software RAID. Thoughts, anyone?
Rain
Could I just go on record as stating that raining nonstop for a month is not natural? Something is wrong.
I just checked the 10-day forecast. Guess what? Eight days of rain! Saturday, July 11 will be warm and partly cloudy. Although, frankly, I don't believe that.
Anyone want to help me build an ark?
Vibram Fivefingers Classic Impressions
These impressions are a bit off-beat: they're about feet. More specifically, they're about a special shoe from Vibram (based right here in MA!) called the FiveFingers Classic. Part of a new breed of barefoot shoes, the Fivefingers Classic is all about minimizing what's on your feet while still providing protection from pointy/hot/painful surfaces. I picked up a pair of these recently because, let's face it, waterproof Merrell hiking boots are not summertime footwear. Plus, all of the extra cushioning and support that regular shoes provide tends to weaken the muscles in your feet and ankles over time.
Actually putting the Fivefingers on is a bit funky; the toes (as you can probably tell) are separated. If your toes are really close together like mine are, you have to get used to spreading them out a bit when you put the shoes on. Once you get the shoes on, there's a small strap in the back you can use to adjust the fit a bit. If you've picked a good fit for your foot size, you shouldn't need much of an adjustment.
So how do they feel? Surprisingly like...walking barefoot! The bottom is thick enough to protect you from sharp rocks and hot asphalt, but still thin enough for you to feel the surface you're walking on. Not to quote from the marketing literature here, but I do feel a bit more connected to the surface I'm walking on. With my hiking boots, there's a half-inch of thick rubber and socks sitting between the bottoms of my feet and the environment. With the Fivefingers, I can feel the grass and the texture of the road. It's certainly a different experience. I'm going to go for some longer (~3 mile) walks this upcoming weekend to see how they hold up under pressure. Vibram claims that they're well suited for just about everything except seafaring and mountain climbing (for which there are other models).
If you miss the feeling of not wearing shoes, or would just like to get away from overbearing, padded shoes, give these a try!
