Big Dave’s Blog
-
Ruby Background Tasks with Starling – Part 3
In my previous post, I went over the changes I made to Workling to add threading and allow it to run for long periods. Now, we need to deploy and monitor everything. In the Linux word, there are several options, but monit seems to be the most popular. However, I wanted to give god.rb a…
-
Ruby Background Tasks with Starling – Part 2
EDIT: The latest workling on github has all of the changes described here. There is no need to download my patch anymore. See github.In my previous post, I briefly described how simple it is to add background processing to your RoR app with Starling and the Workling plugin. Now, let’s discuss the changes I made…
-
Ruby Background Tasks with Starling
At Inquisix, we help sales professionals exchange trusted referrals. To do that requires several background tasks, some that could take 10-15 minutes to process. Obviously, I can’t make a client wait for that, so I needed a system that could handle background tasks. At first, I started with backgroundrb, and it worked just fine. Backgroundrb…
-
F-117 stealth fighters to make final flight and Agile Development
F-117 stealth fighters to make final flight no one will know about – Engadget It’s the final flight of the F-117. It’s not exactly the prettiest aircraft in the world, but it sure broke new ground. At first, I was surprised, but I didn’t realize there we so few of them left. Then it makes…
-
Vodafone demos “Otello” visual search
CeBIT 2008: Vodafone demos “Otello” visual search Now this is interesting, and it sure would save a lot of typing. Now, the engineer in me marvels at how you could actually pull this off. The data requirements to do this kind of pattern matching is staggering. I suspect it will be a while before it…
-
Eco Mouse Gets Its Juice From Laptop Itself
DORmino Eco Mouse Gets Its Juice From Laptop Itself! – Ecofriend This wouldn’t help me because I use my trustee MacBook Pro with an external monitor and keyboard most of the time, but I could see how it could work — especially with aluminum laptops like the MacBook Pros. The aluminum transits heat out of…
-
High stakes salvage – smarts over brawn
High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace Photo: Courtesy of US Coast Guard These guys use some smarts instead of heavy machinery to salvage ships in trouble. When you get offered $30M to save one ship and hold out for more, that extra savings makes for a nice…
-
Google May Buy a Balloon Company to Build Huge Wireless Networks
Wireless: Google May Buy a Balloon Company to Build Huge Wireless Networks OK, I’m intrigued. The balloons only last a day or so, and then they come down. This is my problem. Exactly where do these things come down? If Google wants to put up bunches of these things every day, that means bunches of…
-
The Web Me
It took a while, but I finally got to the top. Those of you with a name like a celebrity or a common name know what I mean. Use Google to search for yourself. What page are you on? I happen to have the same name as a former Mr. Olympia and actor from from…
-
Body Heat Could Charge Your Cellphone
Body Heat Could Charge Your Cellphone Saw this article the other day, and I couldn’t get over the possibilities. As interesting as charging your cellphone from body heat is, think of all the other possibilities. If you live in the North East like I do, you could generate electricity from the lost heat of your…