Try Ruby

Why the lucky stiff, who brought us the fabuolous “Why’s (poignant) guide to Ruby”, just released this new awesome web application: Try Ruby Try Ruby is a web based, interactive Ruby tutorial, sort of like IRB on steroids. If you are curious about the kinds of things newbies and script kiddies are trying out in the console, check out Why’s recent blog post. I love the idea of making “wtf” an alias for “help”....

November 30, 2005 · 1 min · 75 words · DigitalHobbit

Firefox 1.5

Firefox 1.5 has been released. You can grab it here. Some of the new features are improved popup blocking (I am curious about this one, now that some sites have figured out how to circumvent the previous version’s popup blocker), drag & drop tab reordering, noticeably faster navigation using the Back and Forward buttons, and more. You can find out more details about the new features in the Firefox 1.5 Release Notes....

November 29, 2005 · 1 min · 72 words · DigitalHobbit

Why I won't buy any more Sony CDs

I just had a chance to catch up with the tech news from the past week or so, and I almost couldn’t believe what I read about Sony’s trojan-horse rootkit that was shipped on over 50 CD albums. Apparently this malware searches your computer for illegally downloaded music and reports this to Sony. And not only does the actual rootkit compromise your PC, but the removal application that Sony later issued under pressure from the public leaves your PC in a highly insecure state....

November 17, 2005 · 2 min · 287 words · DigitalHobbit

Typo Theme: opyT

The Rails based Typo blog engine has been gaining a lot of traction lately, and I’m seriously considering switching from WordPress. Don’t get me wrong - I love WordPress. It is a very solid and full featured blog engine that has never let me down. But I can’t deny that there’s a certain attraction to running a Rails based blog. I might even want to fiddle with the blog engine itself as an opportunity to get more up to speed on Rails....

November 15, 2005 · 2 min · 224 words · DigitalHobbit

XINS (XML Interface for Network Services)

Over the past 5 years or so, the hype around web services has grown continuously. At the same time, the complexity of the relevant specifications has steadily increased. Just think of all the buzzwords like SOAP, WSDL, XML Schema, etc. Now it seems like many developers are taking a step back and thinking of simpler solutions to lower the barrier of entry into web services, which seems like a good thing....

November 15, 2005 · 2 min · 235 words · DigitalHobbit