If you’re wondering what’s up with Ruby-Amazon, it is actually based on Amazon Web Service’s 3.1 version. I was playing with it earlier this week and realized there was a ton of missing data. So I’ve migrated some of my apps to Amazon-ECS as a result. I have to say I’m pretty impressed with the library as it allows you to flexibly integrate with new versions of Amazon’s platform. There was some effort in integrating a different library but if you’re familiar with Hpricot it should be a snap. I’m not sure why Herryanto built it with Hpricot, as I’m a REXML fan myself.

I totally dig Amazon’s platform though. It really allows affiliates to add value to Amazon’s site.

So I use Trac a lot. I love their search mechanism - you can easily pull up a ticket, changeset, or report by typing #(Ticket Number), [(Changeset number)], or {(Report Number)} respectively. Many times, I’ll get a list of ticket numbers to run through and opening them all can be a pain.

With the help of Quicksilver and its Firefox plug-in, I’m able to get into Trac extremely quickly.

Here’s how I did it.

1. Install the Firefox plug-in for Quicksilver
2. Create a quick search bookmark for your trac site. Use something short like “trc” as a keyword. The location should be something like http://<your trac url>/search?q=%s&wiki=on&changeset=on&ticket=on. Make sure you place it in the “Quick Searches” folder.
3. In quicksilver you should now be able to type “trc” (or whatever keyword you set in step 2) > tab to “Search For” > tab again > enter your search query.
4. When you press enter your search results should come right up in Firefox.

Hope you find it helpful. It saves me a lot of time and aggravation.

Dev House Boston 3 is now open for registration. Last year, I helped a team build a component that searches Amazon for album information via web services. Of course, we built it with Ruby on Rails.

It was a lot of fun and it was great to meet some local developers. If you have a project you’d like to hack around with, I highly suggest checking this event out. I want to mess around with some API’s - maybe EBay, Shopping.com, or Amazon. I definitely want to create some kind of Facebook app, so we’ll see who’s interested in that idea.

I’ve been away for a while but it’s been with good reason. We’ve been working hard on launching www.secondrotation.com, and the company is really excited about starting it up.

Do you have an old digital camera, camcorder, GPS Device, Cell Phone, or MP3 Player that’s just collecting dust in your closet? Sell it to us.

Of course, we built the site out using the Ruby On Rails. It uses some cool open source projects like GBarcode and Shipping.

Launching SR.com has been a really fun project for me. It has been a great opportunity to refine not only my programming skillset and architectural ability, but also my XHTML and CSS skills. I think we’ve done a really good job of maximizing our capabilities with the Rails framework, and there’s a lot more in store architecturally.

The office has been buzzing with activity, we’ve picked up a lot of great press (Gizmodo, Yahoo, and CNet’s News.com). Perhaps the most most exciting exposure was Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht (Revision3) digging our site on CNET’s “Best of the Web Feature” (It’s about 34 minutes in)

What do you think of the site? I’d love to hear your feedback and the business would be all the better for it. Would you sell us your old electronics?

There are many great sites that publish educational material for the Ruby on Rails framework. Of note, Ryan Bates does a great job with Railscasts. I think screencasts are a great way to learn proper programming practices. Block off some time every week to review this site. I’ve already found it immensely helpful.

Here are some of my favorites:

• Pretty Page Titles
• Subversion on Rails
• Conditional Validations
• Console Tricks