ActsAsFlinn

Some friends recently reminded me that my blog has been down for almost 2 months. So I’ve managed to spend some time to bring the site back up in Typo 5. It kind of goes without saying that deploying rails apps on shared hosts sucks and I can stand behind that. But that’s OK – right tool for the right job.

In the last two months there’s been a lot written about Ruby. There’s been some bad press (zed and friends) and a lot of good press (Rails Machine, Rails 2, Ruby 1.9). Some crying fowl about Rails not being enterprise ready, the community sucking, it’s hard to deploy or whatever else. Who cares! Most of the complaints and accusations I’ve read are from people that need to point the finger in the mirror.

While my site was down a lot changed. Anyone keeping track of me (yeah lots of you I’m sure) knows my startup was a non-starter and I spent 2 long dreadful PHP filled months at a search marketing company and have since moved on to more reputable endeavors with a Connecticut firm building Rails based entertainment apps. I’m working with a team of experienced producers and engineers and I couldn’t be happier. So you can expect some new Ruby and Rails tidbits here again soon.

One last thing to mention before I sign-off…if you read my post mentioning PHP’s lack of late static binding PHP and ActiveRecord you can rejoice or cringe depending on your perspective because the team is adding the static:: runtime resolution that will get PHP that life extending kidney implant that it so desperately needs. This new feature will allow Zend and friends to build a pragmatic Active Record in PHP. I’ve bolded this because a friend of mine said they are fixing the problem but it’s not a fix – it’s no doubt a feature request from Zend that was originally slated for PHP6. Given the slow adoption rate of PHP5 I’m sure the team decided to add almost all the new goodies originally slated for PHP6 to PHP5.3 in an effort to keep up. With all the new (untested) features I’m sure sysadmins will be rushing to deploy this new version.

I’ve just joined the masses of other happy Ubuntu users. Yesterday I started work at my new job and my workstation was all set up for me with Vista (argh). I tried to use Vista thinking it might get better over time. I’ve been away from the Windows world for a while now and Vista seemed interesting…but it was really bad. I tried copying a folder overwriting an existing folder and I was prompted 4 times to make sure I really really really wanted to do it.

So by 1pm I was running Ubuntu 7.04. I’ve also been away from Linux for a while and I have to say I’m impressed with Ubuntu as a desktop system. At this point I see no legitimate reason not to use Linux in a corporate setting. apt is a really great package management system and it’s made the transition really pleasant. Ubuntu as a distro also provides a number of really nice easy features like automatic enabling of the nvidia driver and automatic network configuration.

I’ve actually used Suse 10.2 recently and had issues with their RPM base package system and lack of some drivers. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Ubuntu and I’ve been a skeptic of desktop Linux for the last few years but I’m really happy.

Yesterday I took my family to Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, PA. It was about an hour drive most of which was on 80 and 81 which sucked because of the sick amount of trucks on those roads. Once we got off the highway it was a nice scenic country drive to the park. If you’ve never been to Knoebels I highly recommend it for a family trip.

We’re fortunate to be in the vicinity of a few really nice parks. Dorney Park and Hershey Park are not much further than Knoebel’s. We went to Hershey last year and it was a blast. This year we decided to checkout Knoebels since my wife and I haven’t been there in years. I think we all had a really great time.

Knoebels is often featured on travel guides and amusement park guides on a few cable channels and wins awards for food and atmosphere. Yesterday I really got to see why.

1. Fun for Kids: Most of the parks rides are classics that kids will love. The part features a kiddy section for the little ones but most rides are kid friendly anyway.
2. Fun for Parents: The park sports two world class WOODEN roller coasters (and they’re building a 3rd). You won’t find the really big productions you get at Hershey and Dorney but you also won’t find the lines!
3. Staff: Most of the ride operators were middle age and seniors, not rude teenagers! At the international food court, you’ll find a lot of food most parks just don’t offer and the staff are excellent.
4. “Environment:” The park is set in the middle of the woods on a country road. The park is covered by trees everywhere which provides a really nice cover from the sun and lots of shade. Last but not least, the park is flat – no hills to constantly walk up and down (like Hershey).
5. People: The crowd (mostly PA, NY and MD what I could tell from the accents) were families. Like any park it has it’s share of mutants, but the ratio was better than most. Also in other parks you sometimes feel like you need to guard your wallet, not so at Knobels.
6. Money: For the three of us we spent only about $150 on day passes for all rides and food. The best part – Knoebels is an open park and you can bring grandma and grandpa along to eat, watch the kids and enjoy a day out with the family at almost no cost.

The only tip I would offer anyone planning a trip there is just to order tickets online because you can bypass the day pass lines and go straight to the office and pick up your hand stamp and bracelet.