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Content Tagged Argon
Moved to our new studio
One of the reasons why I’ve been too busy to write on my blog lately is that we recently moved into to a new studio. We had a lot of preparation to do before we moved in and are finally getting settled in the new space.
We took the space from…
To this…
As you can see.. we have lots of natural light for the entire team…
I think that Chris Griffin shares the same excitement that I do about the new space. ;-)
We’ll be posting more photos on the Planet Argon flickr stream over the coming weeks as we get the studio organized. :-)
Heading to London, grab a pint?
Just when you think that you’re sneaking through Fall/Winter without getting sick… it hits you. Been sick the last week and am finally coming up for air. :-)
Anyhow, I’m going to be traveling a few times over the coming weeks/months and wanted to reach out…
Dear Londoners,
A few of us from the Planet Argon team, (Andy, Paige, and myself) are heading to London in just over a week to visit one of our big clients. We’ll also be staying for a few more days to explore. If you’re interested in grabbing a few pints and/or interested in meeting up, drop me an email we’ll try to coordinate something when we’re over there. =)
The Argon Express 2008? It's not too late!
Picture yourself and your laptop. It’s been over a day and you’re sitting on a train with a group of Rails developers with a view like this over your shoulder.
Hacking and reading on the train.
Enjoying the sceneary of the U.S.A.
Two years ago… a group of us went from Portland to Chicago for RailsConf 2006 on the Argon Express.
I know this is a tad late… but uf you haven’t purchased plane tickets to Portland yet for CabooseConf or RailsConf 2008 and would be interested in catching the train from somewhere the East Coast, email me and we’ll talk. I’m hoping to organize the Argon Express 2008 over next few weeks.
Interviewed by Hanselminutes
Earlier this week, Scott Hanselman from Hanselminutes came down to the Planet Argon studio to interview Andy, Gary, and myself about adoption of Git.
The podcast interview is available online now.
Thanks for stopping by Scott!
update: I’d recommend that you also check out another episode of Hanselminutes when he sat down to speak with David Heinemeier Hansson and Martin Fowler.
Boxcar Conductor: Rails deployment made easy
In a previous post, I showed how we’ve been working on an interactive deployment process for Rails applications to reduce the time it takes to deploy to a Boxcar.
We began to move our Boxcar deployment recipes into it’s own Rails plugin and just made it available on GitHub.
Introducing Boxcar Conductor
The Boxcar Conductor plugin aims to automate the entire process for deploying to your Boxcar. We’re down to just a few simple commands to run to get your application up and running. While mileage may vary with other hosting providers, we did want to open up this work to the community and centralize our work with the community of Boxcar customers who have helped us build and test these tools.
Install Boxcar Conductor
If you’re running on Edge Rails… you can take advantage of the new support for installing plugins in git repositories.
$ ./script/plugin install git://github.com/planetargon/boxcar-conductor.git
note: If you’re not using edge rails, you can download a tarball and install the plugin manually.
Installing the plugin will add a custom Capfile and config/deploy.rb, which has a few things for you to define based on your Boxcar subscription.
Configure Your Boxcar
Once the plugin is installed, you can run the following task:
$ cap boxcar:config
This will ask you a few questions about your deployment needs.
- Which database server will you be using? (along with db user/pass info)
- How many mongrels should run in your cluster?
After a few quick multiple choice answers, you’re application is ready to be deployed and you can run an Boxcar-specific deployment task.
$ cap deploy
We’ve also created a new public project on Lighthouse so that you can submit tickets and ideas to us. With Boxcar, we’re really aiming to remove as many steps from the deployment process that aren’t necessary.
To follow along, visit the project on lighthouse or GitHub.
If you’re interested in learning more about Rails Boxcar, feel free to drop us a line.
Related Posts
- Deploying Rails with an interactive Capistrano recipe to your Boxcar
- Announcing Cobalt and monthly subscriptions for Boxcar
Review: Braintree
Zack Chandler (author of the TrustCommerce gem) writes..
“How do you like Braintree? I’ve haven’t used them yet but may in the future…”
Good question. I was actually planning to write up a quick review of their exceptional service because not many people know about them yet. Now is as good of a time as any.
We’ve been using Authorize.NET for over four years as it’s what our primary banking institution hooked us up with when we began researching merchant services. However, they didn’t provide us with some of the subscription-based management features that we found with some other payment gateways and we began referring our customers to TrustCommerce. We planned to switch over to TrustCommerce with the development of Cobalt (our new billing and hosting support platform).
After we began to set milestones for going live with Cobalt, I tried to get in touch with TrustCommerce. I was provided a demo account and really wanted to get in touch with their sales department to get an application.
...a week goes by. No response. So, I tried to contact them again. No response. tried again… and (yet) again… no response. To date, I have yet to hear back from them.
This was echoed by one of our consulting clients that said, “their support staff seems real responsive, but I can’t get ahold of anyone to actually get an account.” So, I planned to start looking at other options or stick with Authorize.NET.
..and then (as if they were listening to my thoughts)... I receive an email from Bryan Johnson, founder of Braintree, a payment processing company.
(snip)
“I am the founder of Braintree, a payment processing company. We provide credit card and electronic check processing, simplified PCI DSS Compliance through remote storage of credit card data, payment gateway/virtual terminal, etc. We’re a one stop shop.”
He goes on to introduce himself and explain that they’re really focused on subscription-based services, which is exactly what our new centralized billing app is handling.
So, since I hadn’t heard from TrustCommerce, I requested a demo with Braintree. We were able to take advantage of the hard work that has put into the ActiveMerchant project, which already works with Braintree. So, our application that we’d been focusing on integrating with TrustCommerce was just a few lines of code away from working with Braintree.
While I’m sure that many people have had great experiences with TrustCommerce (as I did when I worked with their support team while working client projects)... not being able to order an account isn’t doing them any favors.
So, we just launched and now running Cobalt with Braintree as our backend for managing recurring credit card processing. Their customer support has been great so far. In one case, I messed up some security settings and locked myself out and after they saw that I had failed to login a few times, I received a call from one of their support people. I didn’t prompt it… they took the initiative to call me. She said she’d look into it and called me back when she figured out what I had done wrong. :-)
On Monday afternoon, after I announced that we launched Cobalt on my blog, I got a congratulations from another of their developers who congratulated us and wished us the best of success.
So… Zack. To answer your question, “How do you like Braintree?”
My answer is… I think they’re fantastic so far. Their web interface for managing your account could use a few IxD eyes, but we like that it’s minimal and most importantly… the core functions of their product appear to be working great. Our team has now talked to roughly 5-6 different team members at Braintree and have nothing but great things to say about those interactions. Great customer service that definitely seems to echo that they want their customers to be successful and are here to do what they can to provide us with the tools we need to fulfill our goals.
I only wish that we had the same service from all of our vendors.
Bryan, thanks for introducing yourself. You have a great team.
- For more information, visit http://getbraintree.com/
Related Posts
Rails
planet
business
Argon
payment
subscriptions
trustcommerce
Was away on vacation
It’s been quiet here the past several weeks and that’s because for the first time since I started Planet Argon, I was able to take an extended vacation.
My partner and I headed to France (Paris, Nice, Lascaux II, and Bordeaux) for a few weeks. It was a first time for both of us. I’ve posted some photos on my flickr (vacation set).
I’d like to thank my amazing team for helping make it easy for me to take off for that much time. :-)
In any event, I wanted to post a few non-technical links…
- Veggie Tastespotting (tastespotting without the meat)
- Robby’s Muxtape
- Robby’s Grabb.it
- Robby on twitter
- Robby’s feedflix (netflix queue/stats)
Link yours up!
In the coming weeks… I’ll be posting some more thoughts on Project Management, time management, and anything else that seems to come up. If there is anything you’d like me to write about, feel free to drop me a line with a request.
Boxcar Conductor plugin moved
Update. We’ve moved the Boxcar Conductor plugin for deploying Ruby on Rails applications to a new location on GitHub.
You can still submit bugs/feature requests on Lighthouse here:
Enjoy!
Coming to Portland for RailsConf or CabooseConf
If you’re coming to Portland, Oregon for RailsConf 2008 or CabooseConf… I’d like to invite you all to check out our collection of articles that we wrote to highlight some stuff to do in town. We’ll be posting a few more before the conference, but wanted to help you all plan out your visit in our wonderful little city.
Portland Revealed series
- Episode 2: Beertown
- Episode 3: Get outdoors
- Episode 4: Stay Awake During RailsConf
- Episode 5: Places to Work
- Read them all
Stay tuned as we’ll be posting more over the next week.
Meet us at RailsConf
If you’re coming to Portland for RailsConf or CabooseConf, be sure to introduce yourself (and we’ll try to do the same). A few of us from Planet Argon will be attending the conference. I thought that I’d make it easy to spot us by putting some faces to our names.
In corner #1 we have Alex Malinovich who is our Director of Deployment Services. If you have any questions about hosting options, deployment tips, and scaling your Ruby on Rails application.. be sure to tug on his shoulder. I also overheard that he’ll be giving people discounts on our Boxcar products to those he meets in person.
Alex Malinovich, Director of Deployment Services
In corner #2, we have Andy Delcambre who is on our development team. You might remember Andy from his series of blog posts/tutorials on using Git and getting Basecamp RSS feeds working in Google Reader via a Mongrel-based proxy (our team is still using this approach using this after ten months!).
Andy Delcambre, Software Developer
In corner #3, we have Gary Blessington who has been leading our design and development team. If you’re looking for a job working with Ruby on Rails, be sure to introduce yourself to Gary as he’s hoping to meet up with several applicants who will be in Portland this week.
Gary Blessington, Director of Design and Development
In corner #4… is me. I’m not doing any talks this year so I plan to do wander around stress-free as I’m not finishing my slides at the last minute or preparing for panel talks. I’m happy to field questions and exchange stories with you. :-)
Robby Russell
We are hiring... so feel free to introduce yourself to any of the faces above.
...and most importantly, I hope you have a great time in Portland!
New Boxcar plans announced!
Yesterday we announced our new suite of plans for Rails Boxcar. You can now get started with a pre-configured VPS designed by Rails developers like you for as low as $59/month.
You can check out our new rates here:
If you’re at RailsConf, be sure to introduce yourself and ask for details. :-)
Edge Rails Documentation: Revisited
This question, “where can I find documentation for Edge Rails?” still comes up quite often on mailing lists, IRC, and other places. I just wanted to point out a few resources for you.
In March 2006, our team announced that we’d be updating a RDOC site a few times a day as the Rails project gets commits.
You can still access the PLANET ARGON Edge Rails documentation here:
Caboose also has some Edge Rails documentation here:
If you’re aware of any other online resources for Edge Rails documentation, please let me know.
Boxcar: Open for business
We’ve been quietly rolling out our new Rails hosting solution over the past month, each week… inviting more people to ask questions and place orders. Initially, we invited some of our business hosting customers, and then sent out invites to those who signed up on the Rails Boxcar announcement list. We’ve been taking orders for the past few weeks and have had sites running on Boxcar for over a month now.
You’ll also notice that we’ve begun to phase out all of our older shared hosting solutions for new customers and are focusing solely on our Business and Boxcar accounts (aside from custom managed/dedicated solutions that we’ve been offering upon request).
To learn more about Rails Boxcar, read the announcement on the PLANET ARGON blog.
In other news, Daniel Johnson, our Lead Systems Administrator broke his arm while riding his bike while participating in Zoo Bomb (and cracked his helmet in the process). He’s at home today on pain medicine and we hope that he has a swift recovery.
Rails Business: Weekly Review #1
This past week (give or take a few days), the Rails Business group has covered a lot of topics, that might be of interest to you, should you be running a business and using Ruby on Rails. Many of the members of the new group are independent contractors and have been very open in sharing their experiences of working for themselves. I’d like to take a moment to highlight a few conversations and tips that were covered this past week.
Health Coverage
Mike Pence started a conversation about health coverage…
“Has anyone else found the medical insurance issue to be a show stopper for them? Are you one doctor visit and diagnosis away from financial ruin? I can tell you firsthand that wishful thinking won’t pay those bills…”
This started a discussion about how people are able to work on their own and maintain health coverage, which is definitely not something that should be considered lightly. Read more…
Client Expenses
Another great question was raised by Mike Breen.
“I’m going to start work on my first project that will require me to travel. How should I handle the expenses? Do I build the costs into the contract price or do I submit the expenses to the client for reimbursements? Or does this vary from client to client based on the company policy?”
The responses included links to IRS sites and sections of other peoples’ contracts. Read more...
Hosting Client Repositories
Where do you host your client’s source code repositories? Are you managing it all yourself on your own servers or using a service?
The discussion (so far) has lead us to evaluate our own solution for this at PLANET ARGON. It appears that everyone has different concerns about how they want to manage client code during the development cycle.
For example, do you allow your client access to trunk/ if they aren’t all paid up yet?
Also, it seems like there are a bunch of new commercial options coming out (and are built on Rails). Read more...
Naming Your Business
Jared Haworth writes,
“For those of you who are working as ‘independent developers,’ have you found that it makes more sense to simply do business under your own name, for example “Jared Haworth L.L.C.,” or to come up with a clever business name instead, such as “Code Fusion Studios”?”
This was a good conversation to follow and definitely raised a lot of great questions and things to consider in response to the original message. Read more...
Other Topics
- Magazines, what business magazines do you read?
- Where do you find gigs?
Join the Community!
The community is still only a few weeks old and we’re already approach 350 members! It’s been a great learning about other peoples’ experiences… as well as sharing what I’ve learned since I started PLANET ARGON (and how the name came to be).
If you hadn’t had a chance to join, stop by and introduce yourself!
Rails Code Audits and Reviews, continued
In response to my article, Audit Your Rails Development Team, Tim Case writes,
“I think what you are doing has value and I’ve been anticipating that someone in the rails community would step up and do this, hence the question I posed because I’ve thought about that thorny issue too. I have a feeling Planet Argon is making the first step in a direction that has been building, Peer review has the potential to be positive for the entire community, provided that it’s shepherded properly and with care.”
It’s been just over a year since we first made a public announcement of our Rails Code Audit and Review service and we’ve had different types of clients inquire about it. We make sure to call it a code audit and review because we’re not aiming to only point out flaws. We see our service as a way to help stake holders gauge the capabilities of their developers while also providing developers with some more insight to how things could be done differently. There are a lot of developers using Ruby on Rails now and it’s safe to say that there are many that aren’t very good yet. Some may argue that the ease of getting started with Rails makes it easy for inexperienced developers to stay just good enough and never take the next step. We’ve seen some beautiful code and we’ve seen some horrific code. Some of our clients have made the tough decision to fire their existing freelancers after we’ve completed our analysis… but we’ve seen several situations where our clients were happier with their developers after.
For example, we recently completed a code audit and review for a client, which came to us with some concerns about their development team. Things seemed to be going slower than they thought it would and really wanted to have an outside opinion about the quality of their work. Overall, their application was being developed really well and the biggest problems that they had were related to a lack of testing. So, we’re now walking them through the process of integrating RSpec into their development process. Their development team admitted that they suffered from a lack of testing, but were very honest about the fact that they just didn’t know where to begin as it wasn’t something they had time to learn before. We’ve been able to provide them with some direction and now we’re available to answer questions and review their work from time to time. The outcome was good for everyone. The developers are better off because their manager has more confidence in them. The manager has more confidence in the product as a whole and knows exactly where his team should focus their attention on next. We’ve gained a new Rails consulting client and get to help them with their cool project.
While we love working on entire projects from start to finish, we also love working with other developers and development teams. This has been one of our favorite types of client relationships. We’re currently working with a handful of people as they work their way through the project life cycle and we’re always a phone call, Basecamp message, or email away from assisting them. I feel that these types of services are important to the Rails community, because we’ve witnessed situations where clients were unhappy with Rails because they weren’t happy with their developers. We’ve seen people drop Rails in favor of something else because of the poor quality of code that was being written in Rails. When bad perceptions spread, it’s bad for the community as a whole.
What we can do, is become the backup team for the client and/or development team. Should they run into any weird deployment issues at 2am on a Sunday morning or aren’t able to track down the cause of some performance issue, we’re another set of people that can help out. While we don’t know every nook and cranny of our consulting clients’ applications, we do have a good understanding of them. This allows us to dive in and help more quickly than we can for clients that call us for the first time a few hours after they had an emergency.
It’s my opinion that these types of services are very valuable and highly encourage other consultancies in the Rails community to offer them.
If you’re part of a development team and/or a freelance developer and looking for this sort of relationship, please contact us to see how we can assist you.
Collaborative Bookmarking... UNLEASHED
Like many… I’ve been using del.icio.us for several years and so have some of my closest colleagues. A few of us at PLANET ARGON have been using the for:username tag to send each other links, which has been a great productivity hack as we don’t need to copy URLs and paste them into emails, IMs, or IRC channel windows anymore. One of the things that del.icio.us doesn’t have a totally perfect implementation is sending to a group. There are people in your network, but to my knowledge, there isn’t a way to send everyone in a network the same link without selecting everyone individually. This was adding more time to the process of saving a link for ourselves and our fellow team members. So, we came up with a clever hack… a new delicious user account.
Over the past four months, our team has bookmarked almost four hundred links on topics ranging from Rails plugins, Interaction Design, Business processes, cool new web applications, to any variety of things that we find relevant to our team.
So, all of the links are being sent to a fake user. How do we see the links for that user without having to logout of our current user and into the planetargon account? Well, what we’ve done is take the delicious RSS feed and pipe it through feedburner and given everyone the URL that feedburner provides. Now, we’re all able to subscribe to the same feed and check out links when each of us has time for it.
...and this is what I get to see show up in my RSS reader. :-)
How is your team managing bookmarks? :-)
