On March 3, 2012 Startup Weekend comes to TechValley. Startup Weekend is a technology focused business competition, where people pitch ideas, form ad-hoc teams, and develop a product idea over the span of a weekend. Despite what a lot of people think, it's not a code competition in the spirit of the Node Knockout or Rails Rumble; points aren't awarded based on cool tech alone. However, also unlike these other events, Startup Weekend focuses on producing real-life companies with making real money. (Like, for real, yo). Why should you care?

As a resident of the Capital Region, it's good for our economy There are almost a dozen out of town Venture Capitalists, executives, and engineers travelling here to learn more about what we have to offer. This area has become increasing important due to our local engineering talent and our vicinity to both NYC and Boston. Startup Weekend is the perfect time to show off our entrepreneurial and technical prowess. It's my belief that while this region has all the right raw materials, it needs a grassroots spark to fan the flames.

As a business owner or manager, it's good for your company Startup Weekend is a great way to let your company and your team think outside the bounds & constraints they work with during the week. It's also a great way to meet other local talent and test your wits against other people in the area. I promise you'll be surprised at all the small startups that exist right here under your nose. Finally, it shows your team, your customers, and your colleagues that you care about their field and our region. Win win!

As a software craftsperson, it's good for your career No one stays in one place forever (particularly in our field). The opportunities locally aren't as abundant as they might be in a larger metropolitan area,but that itself creates a unique opportunity. Great startups (like all great teams) require the right mix of people. It's exceedingly rare to see a single individual take an idea and develop it into something meaningful on their own. Said another way, its more risky (resulting in a smaller potentially upside) to go it alone. At Startup Weekend you'll meet scores of other people interested in the business of technology. Who knows, maybe that idea you've had kicking around will take root and grow.

Agora is encouraging (and helping to subsidize) attendance by any interested employees. Here's a list of other businesses sponsoring the event (current, as I write this post):

• 1st Playable
• Adirondack Basement
• The Anchor Agency
• Arsenal Business & Technology Partnership
• Enable Labs
• GreaneTree Technology
• GreyCastle Security
• Marvin and Company, P.C.
• Nixon Peabody
• Outspoken Media
• Overit Media
• Pinnacle HR
• Rensselaer Emerging Ventures Ecosystem
• TechConnex
• Troy Web Consulting
• Unique Minds

Sponsorship opportunities are still available (but limited) for anyone else interested in helping out. Check out the website for more information!

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Hat's off to Matt Sweeney, patched by your truly to work with el-get 3.1

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;; This emacs configuration comes from: 
;;   http://www.viget.com/extend/emacs-24-rails-development-environment-from-scratch-to-productive-in-5-minu/
;; It's patched to work with el-get 3.1 as noted here:
;;   https://github.com/dimitri/el-get

(push "/usr/local/bin" exec-path)
(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d")

(setq make-backup-files nil)
(setq auto-save-default nil)
(setq-default tab-width 2)
(setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil)
(setq inhibit-startup-message t)

(fset 'yes-or-no-p 'y-or-n-p)

(delete-selection-mode t)
(scroll-bar-mode -1)
(tool-bar-mode -1)
(blink-cursor-mode t)
(show-paren-mode t)
(column-number-mode t)
(set-fringe-style -1)
(tooltip-mode -1)

(set-frame-font "Menlo-16")
(load-theme 'tango)

(defun ruby-mode-hook ()
  (autoload 'ruby-mode "ruby-mode" nil t)
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("Capfile" . ruby-mode))
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("Gemfile" . ruby-mode))
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("Rakefile" . ruby-mode))
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.rake\\'" . ruby-mode))
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.rb\\'" . ruby-mode))
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.ru\\'" . ruby-mode))
  (add-hook 'ruby-mode-hook '(lambda ()
                               (setq ruby-deep-arglist t)
                               (setq ruby-deep-indent-paren nil)
                               (setq c-tab-always-indent nil)
                               (require 'inf-ruby)
                               (require 'ruby-compilation)
                               (define-key ruby-mode-map (kbd "M-r") 'run-rails-test-or-ruby-buffer))))
(defun rhtml-mode-hook ()
  (autoload 'rhtml-mode "rhtml-mode" nil t)
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.erb\\'" . rhtml-mode))
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.rjs\\'" . rhtml-mode))
  (add-hook 'rhtml-mode '(lambda ()
                           (define-key rhtml-mode-map (kbd "M-s") 'save-buffer))))

(defun yaml-mode-hook ()
  (autoload 'yaml-mode "yaml-mode" nil t)
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.yml$" . yaml-mode))
  (add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.yaml$" . yaml-mode)))

(defun css-mode-hook ()
  (autoload 'css-mode "css-mode" nil t)
  (add-hook 'css-mode-hook '(lambda ()
                              (setq css-indent-level 2)
                              (setq css-indent-offset 2))))
(defun is-rails-project ()
  (when (textmate-project-root)
    (file-exists-p (expand-file-name "config/environment.rb" (textmate-project-root)))))

(defun run-rails-test-or-ruby-buffer ()
  (interactive)
  (if (is-rails-project)
      (let* ((path (buffer-file-name))
             (filename (file-name-nondirectory path))
             (test-path (expand-file-name "test" (textmate-project-root)))
             (command (list ruby-compilation-executable "-I" test-path path)))
        (pop-to-buffer (ruby-compilation-do filename command)))
    (ruby-compilation-this-buffer)))

(require 'package)
(setq package-archives (cons '("tromey" . "http://tromey.com/elpa/") package-archives))
(package-initialize)

(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/el-get/el-get")
(require 'el-get)

(setq el-get-sources
      '((:name ruby-mode 
               :type elpa
               :load "ruby-mode.el"
               :after (lambda () (ruby-mode-hook)))
        (:name inf-ruby  :type elpa)
        (:name ruby-compilation :type elpa)
        (:name css-mode 
               :type elpa 
               :after (lambda () (css-mode-hook)))
        (:name textmate
               :type git
               :url "git://github.com/defunkt/textmate.el"
               :load "textmate.el")
        (:name rvm
               :type git
               :url "http://github.com/djwhitt/rvm.el.git"
               :load "rvm.el"
               :compile ("rvm.el")
               :after (lambda() (rvm-use-default)))
        (:name rhtml
               :type git
               :url "https://github.com/crazycode/rhtml.git"
               :features rhtml-mode
               :after (lambda () (rhtml-mode-hook)))
        (:name yaml-mode 
               :type git
               :url "http://github.com/yoshiki/yaml-mode.git"
               :features yaml-mode
               :after (lambda () (yaml-mode-hook)))
	))

(setq my-packages 
  (append 
    '(cssh el-get) 
     (mapcar 'el-get-source-name el-get-sources)))

(el-get 'sync my-packages)

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1. Install Homebrew
2. brew install emacs --cocoa --use-git-head --HEAD
3. Install new version of Emacs Starter Kit
4. Checkout git://github.com/defunkt/textmate.el.git

That's all folks :)

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At Major League Gaming we recently launched an internal profile service using NodeJS. Having never used NodeJS professionally, I decided to use it on my latest personal project. In addition, since CoffeeScript is now included out of the box in Rails 3.1 I decided it was time to try that too. Here's a simple app to get you up and running with Node, Zappa, Coffeescript & Mongoose.

To get it working:

• Install MongoDB
• Install NodeJS
• Install NPM
• npm install -g mongoose
• npm install -g zappa
• Run the gist 'coffee file.coffee'

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require('zappa') ->
   # MongoDB Setup
  mongoose = require 'mongoose'
  db = mongoose.connect('mongodb://localhost/my_database')

  # Declare schema for model
  Schema = mongoose.Schema

  User = new Schema
    name: String

  # Use the schema, create an object
  User = mongoose.model 'User', User

  @get '/': ->
    user = new User
    user.name = "Ted"
    user.save 
    title = "Testing 123"

    #Render the view
    @render index: {user, title} 

  @view 'index': ->
    h1 @title or 'View template'
    p @user.name

Dig it?  Follow me @genexp

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Tired of MySQL wrapping long rows when running selects from the command line?  Here's a crazy useful tip:  add \G to the end of your 'select' statement and your output will go from gobbledygook to great.

Here's an example:

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mysql> select name, identity_url from members \G;
*************************** 1. row ***************************
        name: 
identity_url: 
*************************** 2. row ***************************
        name: support
identity_url: NULL
*************************** 3. row ***************************
        name: testuser
identity_url: 
14 rows in set (0.00 sec)

ERROR: 
No query specified

mysql> 

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Entle in the park

See the full gallery on Posterous

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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I'm toying around with in-browser XMPP in order to publish information to our users in real time.  To start, I wanted to get the strophe.js echobot demo working.  I found the posted steps a bit lacking, and thus I present a more detailed procedure for how to get nginx+ejabberd+strophe.js up and running on Ubuntu 10.04 Workstation.  When we're finished, we'll test using Firefox and Empathy.

Note: The process should be the same for a Ubuntu server, though you'll have to futz with hostnames and test using your workstation or something like irssi+bitlbee.

Installation

Configuring ejabberd

1. Setup account admin account [source language='bash'] foo@bar$ sudo ejabberdctl register admin localhost admin [/source]  
2. Edit /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.cf and make the following changes. In the admin user section, add the username "admin" so that it looks like this: [source language='bash'] %% ejabberd.cfg %% Admin user {acl, admin, {user, "admin", "localhost"}}. [/source] In the modules section add mod_http bind to the list of loadable modules: [source language='bash'] %% ejabberd.cfg %% {modules, [ ... {mod_http_bind, []}, ... ] }. [/source]
3. Restart ejabberd [source language='bash'] foo@bar$ sudo /etc/init.d/ejabberd restart [/source] 
4. Verify ejabberd is working by browsing to http://localhost:5280/http-bind

Configuring nginx 

1. Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/strophe and include the following: [source language='bash'] #nginx.conf server { listen 8080; server_name localhost; location /http-bind { proxy_buffering off; tcp_nodelay on; keepalive_timeout 55; proxy_pass http://localhost:5280; } location / { # This is where you place your strophejs sample. root /var/www/strophe; } } [/source] Note: If for whatever reason the new configuration conflicts with an existing one, you can probably get by if you change the port number.  I used 8080 so that this won't conflict with the default config. 
2. Symlink the config to the sites-enabled folder [source language='bash'] foo@bar$ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/strophe strophe [/source] 
3. Be a good little sysadmin and check your work. [source language='bash'] foo@bar$ sudo nginx -t the configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf syntax is ok configuration file /etc/nginx/nginx.conf test is successful [/source] 
4. If it passes, restart nginx [source language='bash'] foo@bar$ sudo /etc/init.d/nginx restart [/source]

Setup strophe.js

1. From the directory where you downloaded strophe [source language='bash'] foo@bar$ tar -xzvf strophejs-1.0.1.tar.gz foo@bar$ sudo mv strophejs-1.0.1 /var/www/strophe [/source]
2. Modify /var/www/strophe/exampl/echobot.js [source language='javascript'] // echobot.js var BOSH_SERVICE = 'http://localhost:8080/http-bind' [/source] 

Test!

1. Open Firefox and go to: http://localhost:8080/examples/echobot.html 
2. Enter the following: JID: admin@localhost Password: admin  
3. Click connect, it will show message like this. Strophe is connecting. Strophe is connected. ECHOBOT: Send a message to admin@localhost.local/4199388567126350847984920 to talk to me. 
4. Open Empathy and create a new Jabber account. Login: admin@localhost Pass: admin 
5. Initiate a new chat with the contact id shown in the web browser, in my case: admin@localhost.local/4199388567126350847984920  
6. Type a message, and it will appear in the browser. Done!

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