Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Thu, 26 Jul 2007 12:31:00 GMT
Marla, my main web server, died today. Hence the downtime for this site and several others. I have had new servers on order, but they didn't make it in time... Temporarily everything is running off of Yoda, and will be moved to the new servers ASAP. To all my customers, many apologies. This is one of those things you plan for, but can never stop from happening. If anyone is interested in a great adaptec scsi RAID card, or a supermicro server that most likely needs a new power supply, give me a shout, benr -at- x-cr.com.
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:51:00 GMT
The iPhone is almost upon us! As I announced previously I am developing iPhone applications. My first app is a simple Network Test that is formatted for the iPhone. It uses a javascript method for determining the speed of the network the user is connected to. In the future I might start saving the results of the tests and displaying that data. In the mean time be sure to visit iPhoneNetworkTest.com to try it out. As always comments appreciated.
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 12:29:00 GMT
Today's Apple World Wide Developer keynote introduced 10 (sorta) new features for the next version of Mac OS X, Safari for Windows, and an iPhones "SDK". Ok, it is not a full blown SDK, but basically web 2.0 apps that run in Safari on the iPhone. So I am officially an iPhone Developer. If you would like an application to be built in time for the iPhone launch send me an email at benr - at - x-cr.com and we'll get cranking. I know I will have at least one app ready for launch regardless. More details as they become available.
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Mon, 11 Jun 2007 10:19:00 GMT
So the Sopranos ended yesterday night. After speculating for the last 3 weeks about the potential end, none of the ones I envisioned happened. Most of the endings I had considered were from other classic gangster movies. The Scarface violent ending, The Goodfellas turn on the gang ending, or The Godfather ending where Michael ends up utterly alone.
None of these happened. In fact there was really no conclusive end, the screen showed Tony and then went black. My immediate reaction was disgust. The whole episode included seemingly unimportant shots creating tension, but never delivering. I thought my cable was broken when it just went black at the end... But after taking sometime to think on it, this was the ending that needed to be. The Sopranos were such real characters, that ending the series with some sort of apocalyptic explosion would have not served reality. The world in which they live goes on.
Several have theorized that the ending leaves a Movie option open. I really hope it doesn't go that direction. I am happy where it ended, and enjoyed every episode. Kevin Smith wrote a great piece this morning, and I agree with his argument that Tony's meeting with Jr. really summed up the series.
"You and my Dad," Tony said. "You two ran North Jersey."
"We did?"
"Yeah."
"Hm." Beat. "That's nice."
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Thu, 07 Jun 2007 11:33:00 GMT
When Google announced the new Google Co-op, which includes custom search engines, I did not immediately see the value. I wish I understood this services huge value sooner! I was trying to configure a reliable Apache with Mongrel Clustering setup, but was having a very tough time finding information. The Mongrel-users mailing list is hosted using Mailman, which does not have an obvious search function. When querying Google I was getting those results mixed in with the rest of the web. This is a perfect example of how a custom search engine can narrow your scope and get you the right answer fast. I setup a simple custom engine that just searched http://rubyforge.org/pipermail/mongrel-users/. I used the same query I had been using within Google, but this time found my answer almost immediately.
I have started another Ruby on Rails dedicated search engine that I hope to refine as I find more sources of information. This one searches the major Rails/Ruby mailing lists, the wiki, and the main site. I have left the search engine open, so if you have a site to contribute, feel free!
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Thu, 31 May 2007 16:33:00 GMT
At the D5 conference, Steve Jobs & Bill Gates were jointly intervied. You can watch the video here. As a PC or Mac user, this interview reminds us that without both of them we would not be where we are today.
Posted by Ben Reubenstein
Thu, 31 May 2007 11:17:00 GMT
Lately I have been getting IM's and email regarding the lack of posts. Amazing, this stuff is free you know! But I thought I would check in and say, yes I am alive, and I have a really cool announcement coming up plus some new tutorials. Here is a sneak peak:
