I just discovered the very simple but incredibly useful RESTClient at: http://code.google.com/p/rest-client/ .

It’s a simple Java GUI app for testing out one’s REST services. You can choose your: URL, HTTP method, add any custom headers, add a body for PUT/POST, set auth info, SSL info, and do simple scripting.

This is an incredibly useful tool, AND a far cry better than doing it all on the command line with curl.

Thanks @subwiz (the project owner)!

The whole team (Adam, Buck, and I) are psyched! A few days ago we found out Here, File File is a finalist in the AppsFire Apps Star Awards. And today, The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) published a great HFF write up.

If you haven’t seen our promo video yet, give it a whirl!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was wanting to play around with the very cool SASS meta-language using Compass. The language and tool are implemented in Ruby, which is pre-installed on OS X, but as I discovered, I needed a newer version of RubyGems.

I had already known I needed to update Gems, so I was doing the following:

$ sudo gem update

Eventually I got errors like this:

Updating installed gems...
Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.rubyforge.org
Bulk updating Gem source index for: http://gems.github.com/
Attempting remote update of RedCloth
ERROR:  Error installing RedCloth:
    RedCloth requires RubyGems version >= 1.2
Attempting remote update of capistrano
ERROR:  Error installing capistrano:
    capistrano requires RubyGems version >= 1.2
Attempting remote update of net-sftp
ERROR:  Error installing net-sftp:
    net-sftp requires RubyGems version >= 1.2
Attempting remote update of net-ssh
ERROR:  Error installing net-ssh:
    net-ssh requires RubyGems version >= 1.2
Gems updated: RedCloth, capistrano, net-sftp, net-ssh

Turns out, to update RubyGems, one must update the gem system!

So, the next correct command to run is:

$ sudo gem update --system

This updated my RubyGems to version 1.3.1 and allowed me to move forward in playing with Ruby.

Not much more to the story, but I did make a few tweaks to my sample code. The mod_rewrite rule and javascript have been a tiny bit improved, so now after a successful login, it will try to redirect you to where you intended to go. (Previously, it always sent the user to /) 

Also, in the comments I made it MUCH clearer that this is NOT intended to be a secure solution, just a simple way to keep Google and random people out of things. Anyone with a basic knowledge of HTML/Javascript/Cookies (or less than basic) could read the source and figure out how to create the “secure” cookie, and BAM they’re in like Flynn.

This plugin provides a control panel where I can globally enable/disable plugins, set plugins to be auto-enabled for new blogs, and give users the ability to enable/disable only selected plugins.

The perfect scenario is, I want to auto-anable Akismet for my users, so they get spam filtering on comments. Also, I want them to have the ability to try out other various plugins, but don’t want them able to turn off Aksimet.

I’ll echo the sentiments of others I read when discovering Plugin Commander, “this functionality should be in WPMU core!”

I could still write my own version, but eh, what’s the point. Seems to work great!

Then I moved on to bash, but for some reason, I never investigated using vi key bindings. I simply lived with the defaults (which, for the record, are emacs-like key bindings).

So, just the other day I said to myself, “Self, I want to use vi key bindings in bash. I want to again experience the joy of traversing and editing my command line in COMMAND MODE. I want the speed and the power of my precious vi (well, I use vim) at my finger tips. And I NO LONGER want to waste time holding arrow keys or to think about using emacs-like commands.”

So, I fired up google.com; low and behold I stumbled onto this little post about using vi key bindings in bash and zsh. So sweet!

In a nutshell, the bash command to enable vi mode is:

set -o vi

This can be set in your .bashrc file, and if it doesn’t pickup when you start a new terminal session, add something like this to your .profile or .bash_profile:

if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then
. ~/.bashrc
fi

With vi mode enabled, you’ll start your bash session in insert mode, so things should behave as normal. But, to turn on the power, just hit the ESC key to enter COMMAND MODE. Now all your vi commands are availble. Move to end of line with “$”, beginning of line with “^”, delete a word with “dw”, etc.

Enjoy!

Currently the process to put photos into a gallery is:

1. Choose photos in iPhoto
2. Export chosen files to disk
3. Create new Wordpress post
4. Add media via Wordpress uploader

This isn’t too bad, especially for a geek who’s used to lots of arcane workarounds to accomplish simple goals. But… for my wife or others who don’t want the hassle, this is basically annoying.

So I have this idea to create an iPhoto export plugin which will upload directly into Wordpress!

Roadblocks to completion:

1. Time and Commitment (typical)
2. Objective-C (don’t know it)
3. Cocoa (don’t know it)
4. X-Code (don’t know it)
5. Non-Javascript/Java development on Mac OS X (new to me)

So… this is going to be a slightly ambitions undertaking… but I’m excited about it! I’ll be learning a bunch of new stuff. It’ll take more time than I’d like, but I expect it to be a rewarding process. At some point, I’ll be able to create a “project” home for this bad boy, and make it available to all!

If anyone has pointers on OS X development, I’m all ears.

I found this nice article that gives some good examples of a complete build process with Ant: dev, test, prod, etc.