1. Generate the sessions migration.

   rake db:sessions:create

2. Migrate the database.

   rake db:migrate

3. Configure environment.rb.

   # Use the database for sessions instead of the cookie-based default,
   # which shouldn't be used to store highly confidential information
   # (create the session table with 'rake db:sessions:create')
   config.action_controller.session_store = :active_record_store

4. Configure application.rb.

   # See ActionController::RequestForgeryProtection for details
   # Uncomment the :secret if you're not using the cookie session store
   protect_from_forgery :secret => '83c8a9e668d98a650e444d7f72d44dff'

Using PNG definitely has come with some frustrations though. Mainly, 24-bit PNGs that use alpha-channel transparency don’t work in IE 6 but you can get around that fairly easily with some simple JavaScript. On a side note, you should definitely check out Angus Turnbull’s IE PNG Fix. It even works with background images. Nice, dude… very nice!

Transparency aside, another major issue has been that even if you get the alpha channel to work, the colors are always off. Well, in most browsers anyway. Safari and Opera seem to be the only two that actually followed the rules for PNG support and even they don’t do it perfectly. Firefox supposedly handles the color profiles correctly too but I haven’t seen that it does. Because most browsers choke on PNGs color profiles, there’s one thing you can do to make things look right: remove the color profile.

Remove the color profile, eh? I don’t know about you but that sounds about as simple as brain surgery to me! Luckily, it is much simpler. There are a few tools out there that do this but I’ve had pretty good luck with pngcrush so I’m going to focus on that. According to the website, it works on Mac, Linux, and Windows but I’ve only tried it on Mac OS X.

I installed it using the MacPorts package manager (formerly DarwinPorts) and it honestly couldn’t have been easier. In a Terminal window, type,

sudo port install pngcrush

and that’s it. You might want to do a sudo port selfupdate first just to make sure you’ve got the latest and greatest MacPorts too. After you’ve got it installed, the following command will remove the color profile from any PNG:

pngcrush -rem gAMA -rem cHRM -rem iCCP -rem sRGB original.png fixed.png

That’s a whopper of a command to commit to memory. Luckily, you can do a couple things to make using pngcrush a little more convenient.  Create an alias for the command in your .bash_profile or the equivalent for your shell.  I used the following line:

alias crush='pngcrush -rem gAMA -rem cHRM -rem iCCP -rem sRGB'

This makes it very easy to pop open a Terminal window and do:

crush original.png corrected.png

If you’re a Mac user running Tiger or above, Ryan Schenk built a great little Dashboard widget called PNGpong that lets you drag and drop PNG onto it and either create a new image or optionally overwrite the original.  Using PNGs on the Web just became a whole lot easier!

A better, cleaner way to go about it is to use the pseudo elements built into CSS2. There are four useful pseudo elements, :first-line, :first-letter, :before, and :after. The before and after elements are some of my favorites but, of course, no version of Internet Explorer supports them. Amazingly enough, IE does support the first-line and first-letter pseudo elements.

Assuming you would only want a drop cap on the first paragraph, give your first paragraph a class of drop-cap, unless you want all your paragraphs to have them. Then, include the following in your CSS:

p.drop-cap:first-letter {
   float: left;
   font-size: 3em;
   line-height: 1em;
   padding-right: 0.125em;
}

CSS techniques I use all the time –The Montoya Herald

Now, I know there are all kinds of hacks out there that you can do so that you might possibly be able to get a Verizon phone to sync with OS X but most of them (that I’ve seen) include buying some beta software or seriously screwing with your phone. Why is something so simple such a pain? Verizon has chosen to disable the Bluetooth profiles that allow for such things.

To add insult to injury, their support for the Mac has always been horrendous. You might wonder why I bother when them if they’re so terrible — especially with the iPhone coming out!? Well, that’s easy — they’re the _only_ wireless service I can really depend on wherever I go.

So, back to the title of this post. I had pretty much given up on the idea of syncing. I never did get it to work with my Motorola V710 and I even asked the guy at the Verizon store if there was any phone Verizon supports that would work with the Mac and … no. There is apparently mediocre support once you get up into the PDA and whatnot but I don’t want all that. I just want a phone that makes and receives calls and syncs up with my address book and calendar.

So, frustrated, I’m now just looking for a cool-ish phone. I decided on the MOTOKRZR, or “Krazor,” because the guy at the store was an obvious phone nerd who knew his stuff and he had nothing but good things to say about it. I opted to subscribe to the VZ Navigator service (which totally kicks ass, by the way) as some consolation for not being able to sync things. I’ve been pretty happy with everything and then the other night, I thought, why not? I’ll see if it works.

I went into the Bluetooth settings on my phone, set it to be “discoverable”, opened iSync on my Mac, searched for new devices and there it was. What’s more — the checkbox for syncing my contacts with Address Book _wasn’t_ grayed out! What, what, WHAT?? So, I checked that box and the one to include e-mail addresses, and clicked “Sync Now!” It asked me if I wanted to overwrite the address book on my phone, computer, or merge them. I merged and just like that, it was done. My phone and computer were synchronized — all wirelessly via Bluetooth.

I’ve since done some tests of adding, deleting, and modifying contacts in one place and not the other and so far, everything has synced up flawlessly. Score!

Now for my calendar… The MOTOKRZR apparently doesn’t support it. Actually, I think the issue is that Verizon has unified the UI for all of their non-PDA phones (no doubt, to minimize support costs) and the calendar they use on all of their phones is pretty lousy. It definitely doesn’t use the iCalendar standard (RFC 2445). With Verizon’s calendar, things like multi-day events and recurring events are impossible or limited at best. You just can’t create an event like a haircut that happens every six weeks.

Oh well, maybe in the next version … at least the Address Book syncs! :D

Building robust Ajax apps could mean a lot more coding and perhaps even some logic duplication between the client and server. I’m thinking though that a good way to do things would be to put as much of the logic as possible on the server-side and hit them through asynchronous function calls. If a client’s browser supports JavaScript, everything will be just peachy–if not, you’d have to handle whatever processes you’re handling on the server-side anyway.

In related news–ha, I’ve noticed a lot of developers will give anchors (the “a” tag) with onclick event handlers href attributes like href="#" or href="javascript:whatever();". Visitors using browsers with JavaScript disabled will render these links useless and probably quite frustrating. A solution to this problem is to make the href a link to a page that will actually do something and make sure the onclick returns false. For example: <a href="logic.php?task=deleteRecord&id=123" onclick="deleteRecord('123'); return false;" id="delete_link" >Delete</a>.  Even better, attach your event handlers programmatically when the DOM finishes.

// external javascript:
var deleteLink = document.getElementById('delete_link');
deleteLink.onclick = function() {
   deleteRecord(123);
   return false;
};

// or with jQuery, you could do:
$('#delete_link').click(function(){
   deleteRecord(123);
   return false;
});

Another use for this is in form submissions. Don’t put an onclick on a form’s submit button. Submitting the form by other means will completely bypass whatever validation you have in place. Instead, put an onsubmit event handler in the form tag and return whether or not it passed or failed. The submit button can then be event handler-free and your validation code will run if someone hits the return key or if they tab to the submit button and hit the spacebar… whatever.

For example, make your form tag like this: <form id="…" action="…" method="…">…</form>.  Just make sure that your validation function returns true or false and for the love of Pete, use labels with your inputs!

So that’s what I’m doing. I’ve registered adknotebook.com and I’m starting to collect ideas for what you’d like to see. I’ve got some ideas as for what I would like to see — trip notes, GPS data, photos, etc. — but I would love to hear what’s important to you.

* ADK Notebook Wish List
* Make a Wish

From there, just decide whether or not you like a song. Pretty soon, you’ll be listening to all your favorite songs and a ton of new music too. It’s a great way to make your workday go by a little faster or put some new life into your music library.

Speaking of your music library, every song you’ll hear comes with all the information details you’d expect as well as some links to buy the song or album from the iTunes Store or Amazon.

Check it out: pandora.com

I don’t know, maybe I’m a simpleton… maybe it truly is a superior design. All I know is that I used two-button mice for years with Windows and more recently, with the Mac too. I first started using a one-button mouse when I bought my first Mac–a G5–in 2003. Then, when Apple released the Mighty Mouse, I had just bought a PowerBook and figured, why not. I have to admit, that little scollball is absolutely awesome and the seamless shell is pretty sweet too. But after a few months of use, I found myself reminiscent of the good ol’ one-button days.

There’s just something about the click on this little one-button beauty I just picked up on eBay (that seems to be the only place you can find them anymore) that I can’t find with anything else–even the wireless one-button. It’s like it sets the mood for my whole environment every time I sit down to do something. Okay, I’ll say it! The Apple Pro Mouse is quite possibly the greatest piece of computer hardware ever designed. The end.

Holy crap, I’m a nerd…