Weekend Reader – programming, lifehacks, code, blogging, funny
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. You can follow this list of links as I post them on Friend Feed or on Twitter. Or you can get the weekly update by subscribing to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] 70 Simple Power Tao Secret Hacks to Writing the Perfect Productivity Article, Plus a Guide & System for Doing It, thegrowinglife.com
- The ultimate guide to writing lifehack posts. :)
- [BLOGGING] A Secret to Blogging Success – Build Upon What You Build, problogger.net
- Good advice for anything, really. Always leverage what strengths you already have.
- [BLOGGING] Thurday at Noon is the best time post and be noticed (PST), 3.rdrail.net
- When is the best time to post a story that will get noticed?
- [CODE] Git forking for fun and profit, blog.labnotes.org
- Really good explanation of distributed version control and GIT and why you should git it.
- [CODE] Invitation to try out open source code review tool, mail.python.org
- Google’s Mondrian code review tool is going open source.
- [CODE] Programmers Don’t Read Books — But You Should, codinghorror.com
- Reading one programming book a year makes you a better programmer than the average.
- [COMMUNITY] Listening to Customers is Hard, Hard, Hard, continuations.wenger.us
- Some tips on how to make the most out of customer feedback.
- [CROSSLOOP] The Crossloop Community, winextra.com
- I’ve been unhappy with the social aspect of Crossloop before (namely, takes to long to get someone to install the software), but the “helper” marketplace can be a great thing.
- [DIGG] The StatBot pits Digg vs Digg, thestatbot.com
- Digg 2007 vs Digg 2008 for keywords
- [GEEK] J.K. Rowling, Lexicon and Oz, linearpublishing.com
- Harry Potter author misuses copyright to sue related work by fan she once gave an award to.
- [GEEK] Nomophobia and The Curse of The Mobile Phone, putthingsoff.com
- What kind of mobile phone user are you?
- [IPHONE] iPhone Canada: Pay me now, or pay me later, mathewingram.com
- The iPhone is coming to Canada, but will this mean data plans open up? My guess, big no. Rogers has too much of a track record when it comes to sucking.
- [LASTFM] soundamus – new and upcoming music releases from the artists you listen to, soundamus.net
- Website that gives you an RSS feed to alert you when your favs on Last.FM release new music.
- [LIFEHACKS] The Battle for Our Minds, thegrowinglife.com
- Using our minds at work all day is making us stupid.
- [SLEEPHACKS] Sleep deprivation is not a badge of honor, 37signals.com
- From the article: ” If you encounter someone who’s acting like an ass, there’s a good chance they’re suffering from sleep deprivation.”
- [SOCIALMEDIA] Greasemonkey Scripts For the Social Media Addict, readwriteweb.com
- Scripts for Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Delicious, Facebook, and Flickr. Several of them by yours truly.
- [TECH] Early adopter angst, scobleizer.com
- Arguments why earlier adopters do matter.
- [TECH] What’s Mainstream Technology? Ask Joe Average, The Spouse, Grandma, and Dave Letterman — Webomatica – Technology and Entertainment Digest, webomatica.com
- How to figure out if tech is mainstream.
- [TWITTER] TwitterSnooze! v0.13, twittersnooze.com
- Stop following someone for a few days.
- [WORKHACKS] Up or Out: Solving the IT Turnover Crisis, thedailywtf.com
- Embrace change, and quit your job when you start to stagnate.
Delicious Links – 20 links – tools, gamers, workhacks, code, links
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BITTORRENT] Dutch University Uses BitTorrent to Update Workstations, torrentfreak.com, via:l33t.reddit.com
- Pretty cool. Then when from 20 servers and 4 days to update clients to 2 servers and 4 hours to update clients.
- [BLOGGING] 17 Tips For Getting Bloggers To Write About You, informationweek.com, via:doshdosh.com
- This should be titled “WELCOME TO THE INTERNETS”. Mandatory reading for understanding linking. It gets bonus points because the article doesn’t follow its own rules.
- [CODE] insomnia and productivity, sob.apotheon.org
- hack mode
- [FRIENDFEED] Elite Bloggers Joining FriendFeed In Droves, louisgray.com
- List of tech bloggers who are on friendfeed
- [GAMERS] Animal Crossing Is Tragic, animalcrossingtragedy.ytmnd.com
- Sad little tale of a gamer who shared Animal Crossing with his/her dying mother.
- [GAMERS] The Co-op Gaming Bill of Rights, ozymandias.com
- Co-op gaming can be a ghetto on a lot of platforms. I’d love for more games to adopt these.
- [GAMERS] Warlords Online, warlords-online.com, via:lazycoder.com
- Online MPORG based on Puzzle Quest
- [LINKS] Ten Sites for Finding Wonderful Things, readwriteweb.com, via:twitter.com
- Some suggestions for ‘best of the weird web’
- [OPENID] Zero Sign On – 1 better or Infinitely better than Single Sign On?, drnicwilliams.com
- How to use OpenID certificates so that you NEVER have to log in to any site that supports OpenID.
- [TECH] The real reason I left my career in tech, backinskinnyjeans.com
- What women have to deal with being in the hightech workplace
- [TWITTER] 17 Ways to Visualize the Twitter Universe, flowingdata.com
- Some cool examples of visualizing data
- [TWITTER] Need help managing your Twitter Karma?, dossy.org, via:experiencecurve.com
- Something I’ve been complaining about. A better Twitter followers manager. Needs more info about the followees though.
- [WEBDESIGN] 20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer, sixrevisions.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- List of webdesign related websites. Most are familiar.
- [WEBDESIGN] Administrative Debris, tomayko.com
- Content is everything… then why do we display so much stuff that isn’t content?
- [WEBDESIGN] IE App Compat VHD, microsoft.com
- Virtual machine images of different versions of Internet Explorer so that you can test a website on multiple versions of the same web browser.
- [WEBHACKS] Down for everyone or just me?, downforeveryoneorjustme.com
- Find out if a website is unreachable for the entire net or just your machine
- [WEBSAVVY] the Awesome Highlighter – be nice, highlight, awesomehighlighter.com
- note to my parents: please use this all the time so I have some clue why you sent me that web page in an email.
- [WORKHACKS] 10 Ways to Improve Your Programming Productivity, matthewpaulmoore.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- Good advice, even if none of is groundbreaking.
- [WORKHACKS] 9 Simple Strategies to Getting Things Done At Work, lyved.com
- Tricks for being more productive in the office
- Powered by Delicious Links Pro
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- [DELICIOUS/STUMBLEUPON] Delicious Stumbles v2.0
StumbleUpon upgraded their interface last nice so that means you get a new version of Delicious Stumbles.
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- Installing ruby-prof as a plugin on Rails 1.2
- rails/mysql: Load your production database on to your development server
- How not to replace WEBrick with Thin
Tags: blogging, code, design, gamers, links, programming, tools, twitter, workhacks
Searching for the Perfect Inline Code Documentation Tool
Even amongst programmers I’m weird because I have an intense love for documentation. No, that doesn’t mean I overly comment my code, or that you’ll catch me browsing happily through the product requirements document during my coffee break. I should be more specific.

I have an intense love automatic documentation generation. Nothing makes me more tickled pink than seeing code and documentation living side by side in perfect harmony. I hate seeing documentation put on the company intranet only to diverge from the code it’s supposed to explain as the days go past. I hate hitting my head against a brick wall as I’m pouring through the source code trying to understand an API because at no point does it mention that it’s documented in a Word doc in another directory.
This is my rule of programming: documentation should live beside the code it documents, in the comments, especially if it’s API documentation. If your language of choice doesn’t already have some kind of automatic code generation tool then you’re probably using the wrong language.
Delicious Links – 19 links – tips, google, music, code, blogging
This is my weekly collection of the best stuff I saw on the Internet. They’re saved on delicious and stumbleupon and cross-posted to Twitter and Tumblr as they happen and then collected together for my blog on Internet Duct Tape.
Subscribe to Internet Duct Tape using RSS or using email.
- [BLOGGING] The Benefits of Keeping a Private Journal, doshdosh.com
- Brilliant tip and way to keep mindful of your goals.
- [BLOGGING] What’s it Like to Run a Popular Blog?, skelliewag.org
- Skelliewag talks about her meteoric success and what’s different about having 3500 readers vs the 100 or so she had just a few short months ago.
- [BOOKS] Inside Google Book Search: Your library, my library, booksearch.blogspot.com
- You can keep track of the books you’ve read with Google library, and limit your book searches to only the books you’ve already read.
- [CODE] Programmers At Work, programmersatwork.wordpress.com
- New website about the 1980’s book.
- [COMICS] Rampant Plagiarism, mightygodking.com, via:io9.com
- The rampant plagiarism of the comics industry is revealed!
- [FRIENDFEED] 10 Ways to Get More Out of Friendfeed, blogoscoped.com
- Some quick tips for the new service that everyone’s blogging about.
- [GMAIL] Gmail Tips and Tricks – 35 Cool Gmail Hacks, botw.org, via:doshdosh.com
- Yes, we’ve seen a lot of them before. But a good collection.
- [GOOGLE] The Real Story: Why ComScore’s Google Clicks are Flat, seoblackhat.com
- Google Adsense changes are why adclicks are down. Buy Google stock because the market is full of idiots.
- [HUMOR] Mobile Desktop, improveverywhere.com, via:codinghorror.com
- Improv Everywhere brings their desktop computers to Starbucks.
- [HUMOR] Stuff White People Like, stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, via:gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
- Recursion at its best. White people like Stuff White People Like.
- [LASTFM] Build Last.fm: Extend your Last.fm experience, build.last.fm, via:del.icio.us
- Last.FM is promoting community created tools that use the service.
- [LIFEHACKS] Your Brain Is In 10 Kinds of Trouble, secretgeek.net
- No solutions, but a discussion of the information overload we’re all experiencing.
- [MUSIC] The Filter Releases New Version of Music Recommendation Software, readwriteweb.com
- Playlist generator from your iTunes library
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] FriendFeed Changelog, changelog.friendfeed.com
- wth? A web app that publishes its new features via it’s version control changelog.Brilliant.
- [SOCIALSOFTWARE] This Psychologist Might Outsmart the Math Brains Competing for the Netflix Prize, wired.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- Interview with the guy who is building a better recommendation engine using psychology instead of math.
- [SOFTWARE] Rethinking Recommendation Engines, readwriteweb.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- Damn good point in this one. The human psychology behind recommendations is what makes recommendations fail. Instead of telling use what we like, just remove what we’re NOT going to like.
- [TWITTER] Nearly a million users, and no spam or trolls, russellbeattie.com, via:news.ycombinator.com
- From the article: ” Twitter, however, has almost a million members, a thriving community, lots of discussions and yet doesn’t have spam or troll issues. If you step back for a second and think about it, that’s pretty amazing.”
- [WORDPRESS] Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP, geeksaresexy.blogspot.com
- I don’t know why I never did this before.
- Powered by Delicious Links Pro
This Week at Internet Duct Tape
Internet Duct Tape is my blog where I talk about software, technology, blogging and other geeky subjects.
- How to Explain RSS to Normal People – 2008 Edition
- As a geek who enjoys spending too much time on the internet, I like RSS almost as much as delicious toast. As a blogger, RSS is the shiznitz because it lets you consume a lot more information and it makes it easier for other people to read your blog without having to drop by every few days to see if…
- I Can Has Ruby?
- I have a new tumblelog for ruby stuff.
- How to delete your Tumblr tumblelog with TumblrCleanr
- There’s one feature missing on Tumblr: how do you delete your Tumblr? At some point you might want to destroy all traces of your tumblr (privacy concerns, or you want to use it for something else) and there isn’t an option to do that — other than click the delete button on every individual…
- Delicious Links – 13 links – programming, lifehacks, productivity, geek, games
This Week at IDT Labs
IDT Labs is where I announce new software tools I’m working on.
- [TUMBLR] Regular Post Digest of the Last X Days
- Build a list of the last X regular posts from your Tumblr account in the past Y days. Useful for doing weekly digest posts with Yahoo Pipe Cleaner
- [TUMBLR] Delete your Tumblr with TumblrCleanr 0.0.1
- There’s one Tumblr feature that’s missing: how do you delete your Tumblr? At some point you might want to destroy all traces of your tumblr (privacy concerns, or you want to use it for something else) and there isn’t an option to do that — other than click the delete button on every…
This Week at Ruby, eh?
Ruby, eh? is where I blog/tumble about the Ruby programming language.
- Rake RDocTask with all of the options stubbed out
- http://pastie.caboo.se/159372 Rake::RDocTask.new(:rdoc) do |rd| # rd.external # run the rdoc process as an external shell # rd.main = “name” # ‘name’ will be the initial page displayed # rd.rdoc_dir = “html” # set the output directory # rd.rdoc_file = [] # List of files…
- Rake: Recursively parse a list of all the requires from a source file
- There’s probably an easier way to do this. http://pastie.caboo.se/159362 # Recursively parse a list of all the requires from a source file def local_requires(source) results = [] File.open(source,’r’).each_line do |line| if line =~ /require [‘”]([^'”]+)[‘”]/…
- I Can Has RSS?I’ve switched to FeedBurner for RSS support . And set up full feeds, thanks to Alex . (I had no idea that they were turned off!)
- Bulk updating Gem sourcegem install allison Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org I swear to god that rubyforge is actually a humongous peer to peer network made up from stealing our bandwidth when we do a gem install.
- Rake Tip: force tasks to run based on operating systemhttp://pastie.caboo.se/158812 task :windows_only do raise “Must be run from Windows, not #{RUBY_PLATFORM}” unless RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /mswin/ end task :linux_only do raise “Must be run from Linux, not #{RUBY_PLATFORM}” unless RUBY_PLATFORM =~ /linux/ end
- Rake TipBAD: s.gsub(/.rb$/,’.exe’) GOOD: File.basename(s).ext(‘exe’)
- Rails: how to delete ActiveRecords to a recycling bin
- The contenders: acts_as_paranoid – 2005-09-17 Creates a delete_at column and overrides finders to ignore columns with deleted_at set. Last release was 2005-12-20, about 1600 downloads. Around ~100 blog mentions. This guy is using it instead of acts_as_trashable Reported not working on…
- validates_presence_of and validates_length_of
- Pick one : validates_presence_of :snausages validates_length_of :snausages, :maximum => 3 OR validates_length_of :snausages, :maximum => 3, :allow_nil => true I broke my app because of not including allow_nil grep validates_length_of app/models/*.rb | grep -v allow_nil // engtech …
6 comments