RubyKaigi 2008
In June I gave a talk at RubyKaigi 2008 entitled "Building a Scalable Startup with Ruby", in Tsukuba Japan. I talked about how we use Ruby at TuneCore on our front and back end systems. Video of the talk is below. I also have slides and a more hi-res video here.
Created on 2008-07-24
Ruby on Rails Finance Sector Job in Tokyo
JOB DETAILS: If I weren't happily employed at TuneCore I would be all over this. The financial sector isn't very strong right now but it's encouraging to see Rails work cropping up. I've heard of teams working on Rails products at Bear Stearns in New York but this is the first finance job I've seen posted in Japan. I hope this is the beggining of a trend. Full job listing at JDV International
This is really cool:
Global Investment Bank is looking to build a web-based tool for the capture of project and budget demand. This will be a global project run out of the PacRim region and will be used by all groups within Equities globally.
Created on 2008-06-04
Ruby Net:SSH and GlobalSCAPE Secure FTP Server
It turns out that GlobalSCAPE Secure FTP Server doesn't play well with Ruby's Net::SFTP client library. The reason for this is that the two pieces of software can't decide which authentication method to use. To get it working call Net::SFTP.start with the :auth_methods parameter set to "password". For example:
Net::SFTP.start(sftp_hostname, sftp_username, sftp_password, :port => sftp_port, :auth_methods => "password") do |sftp|
...
end
Created on 2008-06-04
Installing libxml-ruby on OS X
I had some trouble installing libxml-ruby on my OS X system recently. I kept getting this error when I tried to include it in my program:
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:27:in `gem_original_require': no such file to load -- libxml_so (LoadError)
I found the solution using Google, this is how you fix it:
- gem install -r libxml-ruby
- cd /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/libxml-ruby-0.5.3/
- Run 'sudo ruby ext/libxml/extconf.rb'. This generates the makefile.
- run 'sudo make' and then 'sudo make install'
(Instructions lifted from rajmohan and adapted for OS X Leopard)
Created on 2008-02-26
Stevie Wonder - Saturn (Japanese Translation)
"Saturn" is one of my favorite Stevie Wonder songs. I translated it for my wife (using excite) and she really liked it too. We both think it's timely. On a related note I recorded an interview of Stevie Wonder on Japanese TV last year. Please excuse the terrible quality.
I'm packing my bags
私は荷物をまとめています。
I'm going away,
To a place where the air is clean.
私は空気がきれいである場所へ立ち去る予定です。
On saturn,
土星で,
There's no sense to sit and watch people die
座って、人々が死ぬのを見る感覚が全くありません。
We don't fight our wars the way you do
私たちはあなたがそうする方法で戦争で戦いません。
We put back all the things we use
私たちは使用するすべてのものを戻します。
On Saturn,土星で,
There's no sense to keep on doing such crimes.
そのような犯罪をし続ける感覚が全くありません。
There's not principles in what you say
あなたが言うことには原則が全くありません。
No direction in the things you do
あなたがすることの指示がありません。
For your world is soon to come to a close
すぐあなたの世界が終わることになっているので
Through the ages all great men have taught
Truth and happiness just can't be bought-or sold
歴史で、すべての偉人が、真実と幸福を買うことができないし、販売すること
ができないのを教えました。
Tell me why are you people so cold
冷たくなるようになぜがあなた方人々であるかと私に言ってください。
I'm going back to Saturn where the rings all glow
私はリングがすべて照り映える土星に戻る予定です。
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow
虹、月光、およびオレンジの雪
On Saturn,
土星で,
People live to be two hundred and five
人々は205歳まで生きます。
Going back to saturn where the people smile
私は人々が微笑む土星に戻る予定です。
Don't need cars cause we've learn to fly
私たちは、飛ぶ方法を学んだので、車を必要としません。
On Saturn,
土星で,
Just to live for us is a natural high
人生はナチュラルハイを私たちに与えます。
We have come here many times before
私たちは多くの倍以前、ここに来たことがあります。
To find your strategy to peace is war
私たちは、平和のためのあなたの戦略が戦争であることを学びました。
Killing helpless men, women, and children
殺している当時の無力な男性、女性、および子供
That don't even know what they are dying for
彼らは、どんな原因のために死ぬかを知ってさえいません。
We can't trust you when you take a stand
あなたが明確な態度を打ち出すとき、私たちはあなたを信じることができません。
With a gun and bible in your hand
あなたの手の銃と聖書で
With a cold expression on your face
あなたの顔の上の冷たい式で
Saying give us what we want or we'll destroy
私たちが欲しい、または私たちが破壊するつもりであるものを私たちに与えるように言い
ます。
I'm going back to Saturn where the rings all glow
私はリングがすべて照り映える土星に戻る予定です。
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow
虹、月光、およびオレンジの雪
On Saturn,
土星で,
People live to be two hundred and five
人々は205歳まで生きます。
Going back to saturn where the people smile
私は人々が微笑む土星に戻る予定です。
Don't need cars cause we've learn to fly
私たちは、飛ぶ方法を学んだので、車を必要としません。
On Saturn,
土星で,
Just to live for us is a natural high
人生はナチュラルハイを私たちに与えます。
Created on 2008-02-03
My idea for Amazon's SimpleDB
I've been thinking of ways to use Amazon's new SimpleDB service in a way that will make my life easier. I Googled a bit to see if anyone's working on an adapter that would let Ruby on Rails use SDB as a storage backend and didn't get any hits. I'm sure that's on a lot of people's minds though.
A lot of people are saying that it's not going to be able to compete with a real relationable database due to limitations like the 250 row return limit per query. That's true: it's not going to replace your MySQL or Oracle database anytime soon, but there will surely be some really good applications for it.
My super-duper idea is to use SDS as a session-store backend!
Why? I have a client that wants to run certain pages of his site on an EC2 instance because it's a Java applet serving media files. We can't do it now becuase there's no good way to send objects back and forth between the dynamic EC2 instance and the main app server. By using SDS as a common location to store session data we can share data between servers easliy.
I'm going to start working on this and do some benchmarks to see if it's fast enough to use as a session-store.
Created on 2007-12-15
Amazing Photographs of Tokyo
Chris Jongkind takes some really great pictures of Tokyo. Check out his Flickr photostream. Unbelievable stuff.
Created on 2007-11-01
Collection of scaling videos
According to his blog, Peteris Krumins is a 22 year old Physics student in Latvia. He's put together quite a nice collection of online videos of various tech talks focussing on the always popular issue of scaling your infrastructure. Some of the lectures included are about Google's BigTable Storage Achitecture, Verisign's DNS servces, and YouTube's massive web infrastucture. The best thing about these lectures is that they're delivered by the guys that actually implemented the technology.
I also like the fact that they address scaling technology in general and not only web applications. Nice post, Peteris!
Created on 2007-08-31
T-Shirts at CafePress
I was playing around with some designs in Photoshop yesterday and decided I wanted some shirts printed, so I headed over to CafePress and set up a shop. I like the website because it's easy to set up a shop and upload your designs. The prices are reasonable. Their cheapest t-shirt is under $15.
Created on 2007-08-26
Ippudo Ramen to open in Manhattan
I was very happy yesterday when I learned that my favorite Japanese ramen noodle chain is finally opening a location in New York. For those unfamiliar with real ramen, it's not at all like the instant variety that you had in your college dorm room. It's delicious!
The location of Ippudo New York will be 65 4th Avenue according to permit applications that have been filed recenty with the City. This puts it within striking distance of many other Japanese restaurants and bars in the East Village and I look forward to ending a long night out with a bowl of ramen and gyoza.
UPDATE: I've posted pictures of the soon-to-open shop at Ippudo NYC
Google map of the future location | My pictures of Ippudo in Tokyo
Created on 2007-06-19
Shinjuku Park Hyatt
This weekend we celebrated Koshi's birthday at the NY Bar in the Shinjuku Park Hyatt in Tokyo. This is where many scenes from Lost in Translation were filmed. The drinks were great and food was even better (crispy duck fat fried potatos with homemade ketchup). The jazz singer was on par with the actress in Lost in Translation, which was amusing if not entertaining.
Created on 2007-06-04
@Tokyo Datacenter
This week I did some work for a client in the @Tokyo data center in Odaiba. This is the biggest data center in the world and needless to say it was impressive. The building is home to some of the largest IT operations in Japan such as JPIX as well as international financial institutions. It even has it's own train stop.
Created on 2007-06-04
OSX Regex Tool
I was looking for a simple tool to help me build RegEx in OSX and I came across Reggy by Samuel Souder. It's nice and simple, just what I needed.
Created on 2007-05-29
Lunch with Matz a.k.a. Yukihiro Matsumoto
Today I had the good fortune of meeting the man behind the Ruby programming language, Yukihiro Matsumoto. We ate sushi in Akihabara, Tokyo and discussed Ruby, Ramen, and Bagels. He is not only brilliant but very pleasant and I enjoyed our lunch together. It was nice to be be able to say "thank you" to him for creating such a wonderful language that so many people are now using all over the world.
Created on 2007-05-29
Black MacBook Wallpaper
My friend Curtis recently shot a nice black and white photo of tree branches that makes a great wallpaper for the black MacBook. Download the hi-res image here.
Created on 2007-05-20
SSH vs MTU
I've been having a weird problem for the past few days. I haven't been able to SSH from my OSX laptop to my Linux server (SSH version 1 worked, but not version 2). I was also getting dropped HTTP connections to the sites that I host. After a few days of trial and error and a lot of Googling I found that I needed to set my MTU to 576. I did this by doing:
$> sudo ifconfig en0 mtu 576
And like magic things were back to normal. Not sure why this started happening but I'll blame the Tokyo cable system.
Created on 2007-03-14