Stepping into your Ruby On Rails code with ruby-debug

I’ve been developing a website with Ruby on Rails since August(more on the choice of the technology later). I like Ruby on Rails the framework a lot so far and it has made me very productive. However, the default debugger breakpointer (ruby script/breakpointer) is somewhat primitive. One of the big minuses is that breakpointer does not provide the functionality to step through your code. I didn’t feel that was a big problem because frankly the output from WEBrick and development.log, together with breakpointer allowed me to diagnose any problems I had until now.

The implementation of PayPal payment for my website changed my requirements and I now need to step through the code to have a better understanding of the payment process, to ensure payments are handled correctly. I dug around the net a little and found ruby-debug. The first version of ruby-debug was developed by Kent Sibilev in July. The current version of ruby-debug has very convenient features such as stepping into or over a line of code, viewing the code, saving your breakpoints to a file, etc. It has made my life a lot easier.

I’m currently running Ubuntu Dapper Drake and the installation of ruby-debug is very easy if you install

Home builders continue their uptrend

It’s often true that stocks trade 9 to 12 months ahead of their fundamentals. The home builder stocks are showing signs of bottoming. Does that mean that the U.S. housing market is stablizing?

I’ve found that the housing stocks trade in tandem. Let’s take a look at some of their charts. The trend sure looks great.

I’m going to meet Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger!

CNBC had a special program on Warren Buffett yesterday. It was just an hour long of great entertainment as well as education. Among other things, the program talked about the annual shareholder meeting of Berkshire Hathaway. It showed how enthusiastic people were attending the meeting. It reminded me how I’ve always wanted to go to a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting and that I never had the time to go(or I made up an excuse for not going).

I’ve always admired Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger. Not only they have great business sense, that they can make the most complicated things look so simple, they also have high ethics and integrity. I decided that I did not want to put off meeting these two giants anymore and so

Starbucks took a beating with a reverse head-and-shoulder

Starbucks the stock took a beating today. It’s trading down 6% after a “lackluster” earnings report. I continue to like the stock and here’s why.

Technically, the stock is forming a giant reverse head-and-shoulder with a major resistance at $40. I didn’t expect the stock to blow past the resistance as soon as today. If the width of the right shoulder is going to be about the same as the width of the left shoulder, it’ll probably be another month before we have a breakout above $40, that is if we do get a breakout.

Fundamentally,

Google Apps for your Domain has a slow UI

I had been procrastinating to set up my company email up until last week when I had to start signing up for services for my company. I thought about managing my own email servers since having total control and privacy is certainly nice. I spent a few hours learning about Postfix but finally decided that it was too much of a hassle to manage my own email server. Plus I want to dedicate all my VPS resources to my web application(more on VPS hosting later) anyway. I also didn’t want to just spend $10 a month to get a shared hosting plan just to get managed emails.

Coincidentally, a Help page of a hosting company mentioned Google Apps for your Domain and it reminded me the free

Paypal vs Google Checkout online payment systems

Update: see my post Paypal vs Google Checkout online payment systems – Part II

As I mentioned on my About page, I’m in the process of starting a website(more on the nature of the website later). One of the things I need to do is to set up online payment for my customers. I considered handling credit card transactions myself but that simply has too many security implications. Instead, I’m looking into PayPal and Google Checkout. It’s best to leave online payment processing to the specialists.

One thing that would be really nice for my website to have is some kind of shopping cart/checkout feature which would allow me to streamline the payment process nicely. However, Google Checkout requires you to work with a 3rd party e-commerce partner to enable the checkout feature.

Steve Jobs’ speech resurfaced

This was originally posted on November 6, 2006:

Thanks to Digg, I had a chance to read Steve Jobs’ commencement speech again. We all have limited time on the face of the earth and I wish you all be able to make the best use of it. Here’s a link to the speech if you haven’t read the script or you’d like to reread it. It’s worth the time.

What are your dreams? What do you want in life?

Great improvements in IE7

This was originally posted on October 19, 2006:

I had a moment to play with the newly released IE7 http://www.microsoft.com/ie and I’m very impressed. Tab browsing is finally there. The RSS functionality is really slick and users can subscribe to a feed easily and without seeing ugly XML code. The favorites are now nicely organized(thank you, what took you so long?). Font scaling(resizing) has finally been fixed. So has transparent PNG files. It also seems IE7 is a lighter application and slicker than Firefox 1.5x. That’s a big plus. I believe IE has regained the #1 spot in the browser world. Kudos to the IE7 team!

Options trading ideas

This was originally posted on August 22, 2006:

My friend Keith has launched his Tipping Monkey website on options trading. He has devised an algorithm to scan for opportunities daily. If you’re into options trading, you might want to check out the website and use the tips as one of your starting points. The site address is http://www.tippingmonkey.com/ and is currently in alpha. I heard more features are in the work. Oh, while you’re there, don’t forget to click on an ad or two to provide some support

As always, we’re responsible for our own trades. Be careful in the stock market.

Quotes

Since I’m moving my blog to WordPress, I’m moving the quotes I posted earlier on another blogging platform.

Originally posted on September 11, 2006:

Wisdoms

In the process of remembering someone who perished 5 years ago in the World Trade Center, I came across these words of wisdoms. I’m listing them here to pass them on. I’ll also be working on some of these starting right now.

Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

Follow the three “R’s”: Respect for self, respect for others, responsibility for all your actions.

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

Learn the rules, so you know how to break them properly.

Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

Spend some time alone every day.

Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.

Be gentle with the Earth.

Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

Concern yourself only with the things you can change, and remember that you can always change how you perceive any difficulties.