Hi there, my name is Myles Eftos and I’m your new Ruby on Rails blogger! I’ve been hacking rails for almost two years now, building a number of online apps, such as my time tracking system: 88 Miles. I am constantly pushing for that Rails-zen state, that harmonious balance between simply beautiful code and powerful functionality.

For those of you yet to be bitten by the Rails bug, it is as close to web development heaven you are going to get (Yes, I’m a bit of a Rails-fan boy - you have been warned). I have worked professionally on just about every web platform out there, and Rails is by far my favourite - things that take hours in PHP take minutes in Rails. The completely self-contained development environment, built in database migrations and deployment system means that you can get a Rails application out the door before some of the other guys have finished setting up their XML configuration files.

The soon-to-be released version 2.0 of Ruby on Rails will once again re-enforce the simplicity and power of the framework with a number of improvements that will make the lives of the humble web developer just that little bit easier. Serving up different versions of pages for different devices is a piece of cake with the new multi-view features, the security model has been improved and fancy new controller based exception handlers make ugly nested if statements a thing of the past.

I am going to try and present a good spread of topics throughout this blog with everything from beginner topics to more advanced bleeding edge techniques, but this ultimately will be driven by you. Please ask any questions you may have and I will do my best to answer them. I’m also lurking around the sitepoint forums waiting to pounce on any Ruby on Rails questions.

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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I’d like to introduce myself: my name is Kay Smoljak and I’m a ColdFusion developer. I’m going to be posting here from time to time on topics related to my development language of choice.

I’ve been coding in CF for a while now. I started way back in 1999 - the version 4 days - when Netscape Navigator 4 ruled the web, PHP was at version 3 and the dot com bubble was just starting to get interesting.

Things certainly have changed since that time. Over the course of four versions and a complete rewrite in Java, Allaire ColdFusion became Macromedia ColdFusion and then found a new home at Adobe. What hasn’t changed is that CF is still not well-known in the general web development community, and a lot of misinformation regularly makes the rounds of both individuals’ blogs and large tech publications.

So, I’m going to be doing what I can to dispel those nasty myths (number one: no, ColdFusion is not dead!) and highlight some of the cool things that are happening in the ColdFusion community. There’s certainly a lot to cover: from frameworks to open source projects, from built-in features like reporting, image manipulation and Ajax controls to third party tools and IDEs. Not to mention integration with other Adobe products like Flex, Flash, Acrobat and AIR.

As if that’s not enough, even though version 8 has been out less than three months, at the MAX North America conference just a couple of weeks ago Adobe showed a sneak peak of what’s coming in version 9. For the ColdFusion developer, exciting times lie ahead!

Now, over to you: is there something in particular you’d like to see covered, a question you’d like to see explored or a favourite myth that needs busting? Leave a comment, and I’ll see if I can answer or more likely, find someone else to bug for a response.

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Fandom, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels

Though it’s been a relatively slow process, the Star Trek XI is starting to come together. Variety reports that Eric Bana has landed the role of villain in the film, which will be some sort of re-boot — a “when they were young” Star Trek, kind of like when a character opens up a high school yearbook, notices their first crush and has a flashback. Variety has no other details regarding Bana’s character, however Star Trek.com claims his name in the film will be ‘Nero.’ Also cast in the film thus far are Anton Yelchin (Chekov), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhuru) and Leonard Nimoy. Production is set to begin this November, which means more casting is currently underway.

And that brings us to Captain Kirk. The Hollywood Reporter tells us this morning that Chris Pine is in talks to take on the role of Kirk; a guy whose only other major role came opposite Lindsay Lohan in Just My Luck. (And here’s where I should say, “Looks like his luck is about to change …” ) I’m not too familiar with Pine, as I’m sure you’re not either, so I can’t say whether he’s right for the role. Variety had said folks were chasing a big-name actor for the roles of villain and Captain Kirk, but Pine is hardly a big-name actor. As it stands right now, this is a pretty interesting cast, and not the one I expected after guys like Matt Damon and Adrien Brody were originally reported to be up for the roles of Kirk and Spock. I love the choice to go with Bana as villain (the guy seems as if he was born to play a Star Trek villain), and I like the Quinto casting move, but the others I’m iffy about. How do you feel about this Star Trek cast?

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Foreign Language, Independent, Thrillers, Deals, Remakes and Sequels, Cinematical Indie

John Woo was first cool in Hollywood back in the Stone Age (AKA the early 90s), thanks to festival exposure and a limited theatrical run for The Killer in 1990. The Killer is a superb action melodrama starring Chow Yun-Fat as a hitman who accidentally blinds a beautiful singer (Sally Yeh). He tries to make things right by carrying out another hit so he can earn enough money to pay for a cornea transplant for her, all while dealing with unhappy mobsters and a hard-nosed cop (Danny Lee) who becomes sympathetic to his cause.

A remake was planned; Walter Hill was to direct, and Richard Gere and Denzel Washington were mentioned as the leads. The purported script for the remake, set in Hong Kong, is still floating around the Internet, but the project became mired in Development Hell. The rights now evidently reside with Woo and his producing partner Terence Chang, and Chang says that a director has been hired for a remake, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The director is John H. Lee, with two features to his name: 1998’s The Cut Runs Deep, a gangster coming of age tale set in New York City, and 2004’s A Moment to Remember, a slow-paced romantic drama that drove me nuts — and not in a good way — but which is beloved by 895 voters at IMDb (8.5 rating).

Chang says that Lee will “move the action through L.A.’s Koreatown, Chinatown and South Central” and that “the actor has to be Korean in this version.” Sounds like a good opportunity for a Korean actor. Director Lee told the trade paper: “I ask myself why they chose me and whether I can top it … But then I realize it’s not about making it better. It’s about making my own version.” Still sounds good; here’s the part that makes me leery: “My strength is dealing with human emotions, austerity and elegance,” says Lee. The original was overblown and over-the-top in every wonderful, melodramatic sense, so if Lee plans to make an “austere” and “elegant” action film, how is that going to get my blood pumping? Is he going to downplay or reduce the action scenes? A new script is in process.

This is another sign that Woo and Chang have tired of trying to get their own projects made in Hollywood. (The Battle of Red Cliff, directed by Woo, is due to wrap filming in Asia shortly and is looking for a US distributor.) But why do they feel the need to cannibalize the past? Blood Brothers, a reworking of Woo’s earlier Bullet in the Head, met with mixed response in Asia and didn’t make much headway with critics who saw it at the Venice and Toronto fests, which is not very encouraging when considering the prospects for a killer remake of The Killer. The announcement was made on the first day of the Asian Film Market, held in conjunction with the Pusan film festival.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Folks hoping that Apple would be so kind as to allow developers to craft their own 3rd party applications and have Cupertino accept ‘em with open arms can now commence sulking, as a new WebApps directory unveiled today by Apple is nothing more than a dressed up version of Apple’s bookmark list. Essentially, Apple has neatly brought together a selection of company-approved apps (listed here) that should function fine in Safari, but alas, there’s absolutely no new functionality. So although iPod touch / iPhone users now have a central hub to go to for links to web applets, Apple is still leaving us high and dry when it comes to native 3rd party application support outside of its browser.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Hardware

With the European 40GB PlayStation 3 finally out in the open, Sony execs just can’t stop talking about it. According to Ray Maguire, SCE UK managing director, Sony’s newest console is part of “a very carefully thought-out plan.”

While acknowledging that other factors like decreasing production costs, industry pressure and a need to increase its install base contributed, Maguire said Sony has been considering this model since the PlayStation 3 launched.

Of course, the main complaint against the PlayStation 3 has always been its price, but Maguire thinks the lower-priced 40GB model will appease the haters. “If the product was too expensive, of course they’re going to feel ‘anti,’ but now I imagine there will be some changing of attitudes,” he told MCV. It’s true, the 40GB model’s price is much closer to the Xbox 360’s, only with a lot more features. However, only time will tell if the move will help Sony recapture the lead in the console wars.

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Filed under: Deals, Google (GOOG), AT and T (T), Technology

AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) will buy about $2.5 billion in wireless airwaves from the privately held Aloha Partners, according to the nation’s largest wireless carrier. The additional airwaves will give AT&T 72 of the top 100 markets for wireless service in the 700 Megahertz radio spectrum, with a potential of serving 196 million customers in 281 markets.

This is probably an effort to head off pressure from Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), which has expressed pretty strong interest in the same radio spectrum as part of its plan to create a new way of providing wireless services to customers. The idea is to allow customers to buy any device designed for that radio spectrum and use it on any carrier that wishes to provide service. Right now, U.S. wireless carriers have a death grip on the wireless handset market and frequently lock customers into their own networks, shoddy phones and all.

Aloha was planning on rolling out a mobile television service using those airwaves and was in testing in the Las Vegas area, but apparently the AT&T offer was too tasty. What is unknown now is if AT&T will participate in the upcoming 700 Megahertz airwave auction that Google wants to dominate (if certain conditions are met).

Did AT&T just do an end-run around Google? In a sense, yes. But there is more at stake here, and Google’s war chest of cash is in prime position to challenge any and all established telecom companies as it tries to re-invent the rules of how communication happens.

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I recently played with these cubes created by Radica Games. These pixel men are interesting. One pixel man per cube, they each have their individual behaviors. They can play, visit and interact with one another. They can play games and be pestered: just tilt the cube and the pixel man falls!

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