Rails Envy

If you want to know if your application can scale before it actually gets the traffic spike, then you need to learn how to do Load Testing. Thankfully I just released Load Testing – Part 2 of the Scaling Rails screencast series. If you haven’t seen the first video on Load Testing, you should probably start there.

Load Testing – Part 2

Summary

In this second Load Testing Screencast we pickup where we left off with the first load testing screencast and learn how to use httperf load testing with sessions, how to automate our httperf testing using autobench, how to graph the results from autobench, and lastly we talk briefly about a few other load testing tools you might want to be aware of.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the screencast RSS feed or grab it on ITunes to avoid missing any of these episodes. FYI, These videos look great on an iPhone / iPod if you want something to watch on the go.

Recently I put together a video for the guys over at Webbynode. Webbynode is a very affordable VPS host (256 RAM for $15) which has great support for Rails applications. Why should you consider using Webbynode? Just watch the video.

Back in the early days of Rails you could find cheap hosting plans that gave you great Rails support. Since then it’s become harder to find middle ground between shared hosting on Dreamhost and managed hosting on Rails Machine or Engine Yard. A few months ago I was lucky enough to run into Carlos Taborda, who was just launching the beta of Webbynode. I decided to give Webbynode a try to run the Ruby Hero Awards.

Since then I’ve been really impressed by the progress made by the Webbynode team, and I think they’ve created an awesome product for the Rails community. Why have they impressed me?

• Rails Support – I love the idea that if I run into trouble on my Webbynode VPS, I can go direct to a Campfire room or IRC and get helpful support. This is so important when you find yourself troubleshooting an issue for hours, and need a little extra help.
• Readystacks – Readystacks allow developers who don’t have experience with system administration to very quickly get up and running with a Rails server. Just like Rails scaffolding is a great starting point for an app, Readystacks serve as a great starting point for a VPS setup. Back in the day RailsMachine had their “5 minute deploy” script which was cool, but Webbynode did it one step better by providing an easy to use web interface that kicks ass.
• Full Access – Like I said before, Readystacks are great starting points, but nothing beats having full and complete (root) ssh access to configure your servers. I just can’t imagine deploying a client’s application on a production box without it, and Webbynode gives you the keys to the castle.

So, check out the video, and maybe next time you need another VPS, give Webbynode a try.

Just published a new Scaling Rails screencast, this one covering Rack, Metal, and some of the Rails Middleware internals. By the end of this screencast you should know how to use Metal to help Scale your Rails apps, and how to write Rails Middleware.

Rack, Metal, & Rails Middleware

Summary

Rails 2.3 now uses the Rack. In this screencast I give a quick introduction to Rack & Rack Middleware. Once we get familiar with the syntax of these libraries we move into a tutorial that walks through the Rails Middleware stack, so that we can gain a better understanding of what middleware can be used for, and how we can use it to help Scale our application. Lastly we learn how to use Rack Metal to take certain actions in your Rails application and make them snappy.

I hope you find these videos useful. Don’t forget to subscribe to the screencast RSS feed or grab it on ITunes to avoid missing any of these episodes. FYI, These videos look great on an iPhone / iPod if you want something to watch on the go.

Last week at the Orlando Ruby Users Group we had two great speakers. First up we had Thomas Meeks talking about Eucalyptus, which allows you to create your own private cloud (think Amazon EC2 on your own hardware). Secondly Tyler Hunt talked about Chef, a Ruby DSL for system configuration.

I managed to film the talks, which you can see below, and also create an iTunes Video Podcast feed if you want to keep track of when new videos are released from our group. Then again you could also just subscribe to the RSS Feed on the ORUG blog if you want to keep up with what we’re up to over here in Orlando.

View Eucalyptus Video

View Chef Video

Lastly, we’re always looking for more sponsors for the meetings to cover food and stuff, so please drop me a line if you’re looking to market your product or service to Rails Developers.

Here it is, the last MVC video along with the out-takes from the videos. FYI, not all the out-takes will make sense if you haven’t seen all the other videos.

View “MVC Public Service Announcement #6 : Modularity” on Vimeo or YouTube.

View “MVC Public Service Announcements : Out-takes” on Vimeo or YouTube.

Feel free to use all our videos to teach MVC. You can easily download them by going to this vimeo link, logging into vimeo (you need an account), clicking on a video, and then in the bottom right corner you should see a download link.

Much thanks to Adam Keys and FiveRuns for helping with the videos. Oh, and if you ever want our help creating any type of video (maybe for your product or convention), please do drop us a line.

Last week at O'Reilly's Open Source Convention (OSCON) I decided to put together a video attempting to capture the essence of the event (I did something similar with Railsconf in 36 minutes earlier this year).

I ended up with is 37 minute video of great speakers including the keynoters Tim O'Reilly, Damien Conway, Tim Bray, Robert Lefkowitz, David Recordon, Nathan Torkington, and Danese Cooper.

Oscon in 37 minutes

Here is everyone shown in the video. You should really watch the whole thing, but if you want to skip to a certain person just click their name:

Larry Wall, Randal Schwartz, Chris DiBona, Adam Keys, Kevin Scaldeferri, Akkana Peck, John Goerzen, David 'Lefty' Schlesing, Clinton Nixon, Chris Messina, Brian Sam-Bodden, Rod Cope, Jesse Vincent, Darren Hoch, Joey Stanford, Nick Barcet, Gavin Doughtie, Jim Brandt, Ben Bleything, Theo Schlossnagle, Wen Huang, Robert 'r0ml' Lefkowitz, Ryan Briones, Matt Raible, Doug Judd, Vik Olliver, Steve Souders, Clint Talbert, Tim O'Reilly, Leslie Hawthorn, Nathan Torkington, Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Damian Conway, Simon Willison, Dan Mosedale, Jason Hunter, Tim Bray, David Recordon, Scott Kveton, Stephen Lau, Danese Cooper, Anthony Baxter, ongallery, Maker Media, and Edd Dumbill.

Thanks to everyone who gave me their 30 seconds. Sorry if I filmed you but you didn't make it into this video, I had to cut it down to the vids that were short and clear.

If you're wondering how this was produced:

• $150 Flip Video.
• Edited with iMovie 2008.
• Exported from iMovie in mp4 (since that's the format the videos are from the flip).
• The audio levels were all over the place, so I edited the finished audio track in Pro Tools.
• Threw together a song in garage band.
• Recombined the audio track with the video using Quicktime.
• Uploaded to viddler.
• Did my homework, and found all the links for the talks.

We were just holding out on you. There's one more after this one but it's not done yet.

During Railsconf 2008 last weekend we played the following Public Service Announcements before each of the keynotes. Thanks to Adam Keys from FiveRuns for playing the View, film production by Jason Hawkins and original music by Laura Balch.

MVC #1 - Controller Obesity

View on YouTube
View on Vimeo

MVC #2 - The Importance of Tests

View on YouTube
View on Vimeo

MVC #3 - Keeping Views Stupid

View on YouTube
View on Vimeo

MVC #4 - Staying RESTful

View on YouTube
View on Vimeo

Also, here is the MVC Song in mp3 format if you just can't get it out of your head. Maybe use it for a ring tone or every time you teach MVC to someone in a presentation, hehe.

Feel free to embed these videos. If you want to download these videos for use elsewhere, you can go to the vimeo page for the video you want to download, login to vimeo, and you should see a download link in the bottom right.

During the last round of videos, we got quite a few emails about the unfair comparisons we were doing between PHP and Ruby on Rails. You know, PHP is a language and Ruby on Rails is a framework. Don't worry, everyone, we're listening. Here we are with ad #6 in the series: Ruby on Rails vs PHP. Enjoy.

If you like this one, check out our Ruby on Rails vs .NET commercial we released on Thursday.

Just like all of the others, this video was produced by Jason Hawkins and that beautiful Rails Envy logo was done by Erika Greco.

Last Thursday, March 15, I gave a "Why Ruby on Rails?" presentation to the Orlando Ruby Users Group. I've given Introduction to Rails talks before, so I tried to shake this one up and make it as ranty and opinionated as possible (It's more entertaining that way). Over 45 people showed up to the meeting, and I tried my best to preach the word.

Total Running Time: 28 Minutes

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Definitely let me know what you think, or how I might improve the talk.... Feedback is always welcome..