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Deleting Facebook
I deleted Facebook for good a few weeks back. With the #DeleteFacebook hashtag trending and looming figures like Woz deciding to leave I figured I’d add my two cents.
Leaving Facebook is a two part story.
For years I have been absent from Facebook. I truly mean I didn’t get on. I used to only get ...
Debugging in RubyMine with Rails 5.2
If you’ve upgraded to Rails 5.2 and are using RubyMine’s debugger you might notice that breakpoints aren’t working as they should. For me, they would only work in views, but controllers and models wouldn’t stop anything.
Turns out the problem is the inclusion of the Bootsnap gem in Rails 5.2. Bootsnap is ...
Getting rid of Time Machine backup folder
Okay, wow. Have you been pulling your hair out trying to get rid of some old Time Machine backup files that simply won’t delete? Well, if you’ve tried a hundred things and ended up here I just might be able to help because I just dealt with the same thing.
Somehow Time Machine had made a backup to my boot...
Custom validation in Rails
Here’s a little trick I like to do when I’m addressing validations in my models. Let’s say you have a standard...
System Tests with RSpec, Rails, Capybara, and Devise
Since the release of RSpec 3.7 we’ve been able to take advantage of system tests which are new as of Rails 5.1. If you’ve been using RSpec for a while you’re already likely familiar with feature tests using Capybara. For those new to these types of tests: they allow us to test the actual actions of a user. Clicki...
Bootstrap 4 Cheat Sheet
Get your Bootstrap 4 documentation faster!
This got posted on Hacker News the other day. It’s fantastic. It’s much quicker and cleaner than Bootstrap’s documentation. It’s not going to be as verbose, but if you’ve been using Bootstrap for a while and you just need the syntax, it’s lightning fast.
ActionMailer SMTP settings for SendGrid (Rails)
Okay, I got no Google hits for this. Here’s a tip if you’re using SendGrid in a Rails app for your transactional emails. A while back you needed to provide your SendGrid username and password (hopefully via environment variables), but now you can use an app-specific api key.
Here’s some historical context...
Completing our move to Seattle
We started our move to Seattle from Salt Lake City in November of 2015 and are now days away from completing that journey as we move into our new-to-us house. The Seattle housing market is insane and we knew we were going to get killed. Moving here 10 years ago would have been a smarter idea.
We rented an...
Developer folder on your Mac
I’ve had a directory under my user folder called Development for ages. Probably since I started coding. Somehow, for the very first time, I saw someone using a Developer folder and, damnit, they had a pretty icon on their folder.
I’ve been getting robbed of a fancy icon for years because...
Heroku defaults to Puma for Rails 5
It’s now going to be easier than ever to kick off a new Rails project and deploy to Heroku. WEBrick is no longer the default server with Rails 5. If you don’t provide a...
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About These Posts

My blog primarily contains writings about my work on computers, but I occasionally mix in fun life stuff. I am, at best, a mediocre writer, but I like doing my part to give back to the community. Feel free to contact me if you have specific something to chat about. See you around!