Preston Lee's Blog

Author: preston.lee

  • Presenting At Phoenix Ruby Monday, February 9th

    I’ll be giving a technical presentation to the Phoenix Ruby User Group on Monday, February 9th at 6:30pm. The topic will be using logical programming Prolog concepts within the object-oriented Ruby programming language using the ruby_prolog gem. Attendance is free and open!

  • Everyone Should Grow Up Poor

    There are only two relatives I’ve ever known to whom I’ve felt a strong biological connection. One of them died last month. This is a tribute to her… I spent the majority of my early childhood growing up with my mother in a single-room add-on attached to the side of my grandmothers house in a…

  • How To Change A WordPress Permalink Structure While Preserving SEO

    I’ve been putting off changing my blog permalink structure for about 2 years for fear of getting SEO-smacked by Google. No joke. WordPress allows you to easy change the permalink structure with a few clicks, but doesn’t generate permanent redirect (HTTP 301) responses for visitors using the old link structure. Non-redirection link changes for established…

  • Book Review: slide:ology

    I recently received a review copy of slide:ology – The art and science of creating great presentations by Nancy Duarte, published by O’Reilly Media. I’m consciously making an effort to increase my frequency of speaking engagements, so I was thrilled to see a modern text on visual aids from a heavy usability-oriented angle. I’ve read the…

  • The Three Types of Start-Ups

    At OpenRain Elite Web Software we’ve seen all the popular combinations of startup business models when evaluating new projects. Here is a breakdown of the three most common startup models based on financial structure, the pros and cons of each, and recommendations on which one to choose for your new venture.   1) The Pop-Start The…

  • Major Seagate/Maxtor Fail

    It’s Friday, 10pm, and I’m not a happy camper. This picture is me holding a pile of ordinary hard drives I keep on my home desk. They are cycling backup drives and are not in any way frequently used. Four are Seagate Barracudas–one of which I’ve already had replaced–and the fifth a Maxtor DiamondMax. The oldest of…

  • Asset Tracking Webapp Written In Ruby On Rails

      Keeping track of company assets is important for insurance, warrantee and general informational purposes for purchased software licenses and hardware. I wanted a dirt-simple webapp written in Ruby on Rails, so I wrote one the other night and put the code on github. It’s a really simple Rails 2.2.2 app … no frills but does…

  • How To Make Original iPhone Sim Work In iPhone 3G

    I live in the U.S. and upgraded from the original iPhone to an iPhone 3G. If you simply put your old SIM into the 3G, however, you will only be able to use EDGE, and the phone will not use the 3G network. When purchasing a 3G model, multiple Apple sales representatives advised me that…

  • Ben The Snowman Picture

    OpenRain’s heater when out recently, and it got cold. Property management figured out how to hack the unit into a working state again, but only after some badgering. Ben dropped some not-so-subtle hints 🙂  

  • What If Ruby Had Final Variables Like Java Or Erlang?

    After a long confusing Ruby debate today at OpenRain on the merits of functional, Erlang-esque write-once-read-many variables, I’m going to step onto the podium and just say it… Ruby should get “final” or “const” variables in a similar semantic style to Java, except at runtime. Rather than ramble on for 12 paragraphs explaining exactly how this might work,…