This installation process has always frustrated me and I always do something wrong. I decided to finally document it. Read more...
Big Bang Blog
Tutorials
Rails 3 upgrade - A Retrospective
UPDATED: October 11th, 2010 Now with more working code!
August 29th, 2010 was a glorious day for Rails developers around the globe, not only because it is my birthday, but also because Rails 3.0 was officially released. I would like to send congratulations and thanks to all 1600 contributors that helped make this release a reality.
I’ve spent the better part of September upgrading our main application to Rails 3. My hopes are that you will read this and gain some insight as what to expect when upgrading your own application.
How we implemented Continuous Integration on Engine Yard Cloud
I was recently tasked with making Continuous Integration a regular citizen in our daily workflow. Read more...
Installation, Configuration, Deployment: node.js Applications on Media Temple
I'm very excited about node.js. I'm sure if you're a javascript fan that you've heard about it too. I'll leave determining the usefulness of node to you. This article serves as a guide to installing, configuring, and deploying node.js on a media temple dedicated virtual server. Even without a Media Temple (dv) you should be able follow along on your own server. Read more...
Writing Tests First in FireUnit
A couple of weeks ago I made the decision to only write code that turns a unit test from failing to passing. This is also known as BDD (Behaviour Driven Development). This is a big step towards becoming the ninja programmer I want to be. I'll leave the philosophical discussion out of this post, and rather use the time we have together to share what I found to be a pretty good BDD solution for writing JavaScript. Read more...
Using Prototype to Inject Custom Class Instances into the DOM
I've been using the Prototype Javascript Framework more than usual recently to develop some fancy reports for a client. I'm going to share a simple technique that involves using toElement on a class as an easy way to insert it into the DOM. Read more...
Using the Typographic Principle of Baseline Rhythm to Enhance Website Readibility
Recent updates to the Big Bang Technology website take advantage of Baseline Rhythm to evenly space text elements and help readability. We hope you like it. Read more...
Pimp your Twitter
We're poppin a digital collar. If normal twitter is a beat-up oldsmobile with food-stains on the driver's seat and a broken door-handle, our article will take you to a pristine cadillac with suede seats and a nice furry set of dice in the mirror. Read more...
How to Build An iPhone Web App - Part 1
I've been trying to figure out what the best way to share some of the ideas we've been coming up with over the last few months. Instead of doing a bunch of case studies, or trying to get permission from some of our higher profile clients, we've decided to do a short series on how to build an iPhone web application. Read more...
Setting Up Communication between GitHub Repositories and Lighthouse Projects via a Secure Token
Integrating Github with Lighthouse has been a great time saver. It has allowed us to stay on top of fixes and keep track of everything we're doing in one place. We don't need to have everyone looking through the git logs now! This short screencast shows you how to get things set up. Read more...
Combining CSS For Production Use
This article shows how we've been combining our cascading stylesheets for production usage. We use a combination of a rake script, a borrowed class from the folks over at Prototype.js and a little PHP. This lets us have multiple stylesheets files in development, but then combines them into a single one ready for deployment on the server. Read more...
Testing for a Corrupted FLV Video on OSX Leopard
I recently had an issue with flash videos being corrupted on a project. I decided to use FFmpeg to try to open the file automatically and generate a thumbnail. My reasoning was that if I could open the file with FFmpeg than it probably wasn't corrupt. Read more...