Cloudrobot

Use these instructions to quickly get a new linode up and running and deploy a Rails app. Obviously a lot of things are missing.

1. Deploy distribution: Ubuntu 8.04
2. apt-get update
3. apt-get upgrade
4. adduser deploy —disabled-password
5. adduser deploy sudo
6. visudo # uncomment sudo group line
7. Copy ssh pub keys over to deploy user (and root if you want to)
8. apt-get install build-essential git-core mysql-server apache2 apache2-prefork-dev libapr1-dev libaprutil1-dev memcached libopenssl-ruby ruby ruby1.8-dev wget rdoc ri
9. wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/69365/rubygems-1.3.6.tgz
10. tar xvfz rubygems-1.3.6.tgz
11. cd rubygems-1.3.6
12. ruby setup.rb
13. gem1.8 sources -a http://gems.github.com
14. sudo ln -s /usr/bin/gem1.8 /usr/bin/gem
15. sudo gem update —system
16. gem install passenger
17. passenger-install-apache2-module
18. Copy the 3 lines “LoadModule…” to /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load
19. ln -s /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load /etc/apache2/mods-enabled/passenger.load
20. Add site files to /etc/apache2/sites-available/ and symlink them to /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/
21. mysql -u root -p
22. Create databases, grant a new mysql user access to databases your rails app needs. See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/adding-users.html
23. Deploy your app using a capistrano script.

Last week a friend (http://tommy.chheng.com/) and I launched http://nextsprocket.com for the PayPal X Developer’s Challenge.

Next Sprocket allows people to put up money to get developers to complete open source programming tasks and allows programmers to make some extra money by contributing open source code.

Watch the video below to see how you can create a task.

We’ve gotten some great feedback and we’re trying to get more open source projects involved - if you want to talk send me an email or even give me a call (info on the left).

Digg this story!

The interaction between the numerous devices we work we on a daily basis is almost non-existent. Unless you have the privilege of having your car connect with your phone or your phone tether with your laptop there are few and far between other interaction between our devices. Moreover, these interactions only provide a very specific and limited set of new features to the end user - the ability to make phone calls or access the internet through your phone’s signal.

What if we’re looking for something more flexible?

Some people argue that your phone doesn’t need to start talking to your microwave or your laptop connect with your dining table but that’s besides the point. Sure there are a number of interactions that could prove to be pointless - but there are many more interactions that can make everyday tasks easier.

What we really need is more open and automatic communication between devices. Not necessarily a new way of communication: Bluetooth, WiFi, RFID, and other technologies already exist.

Let’s say I end up at a retailer’s website (say www.bestbuy.com) looking for something. It would make life a lot easier if I could pick up my iPhone and simply tap a button and get directions to the nearest Best Buy.

These kinds of interactions are not about how appealing something is or how we can just hook devices up because we can. Rather, it’s about the ability to share contextual data like what I’m doing on my laptop right now with my iPhone or TV so that they can provide functionality to help me out.

Today a number of improvements are live on BetterCarbon.com. These updates resolve a number of issues dealing with carbon footprint profiles and interface and graph quirks.

So whats changed?

Backend

• User authentication has moved from restful_authentication to authlogic.
• Fixed a number of bugs resulting in estimated values becoming actual user data.
• Various carbon footprint algorithm tweaks to produce better results.
• Doubled our carbon footprint data around the United States. (See USA map on homepage)

Frontend

• Your claimed address (when logged in) is shown on the homepage.
• Graphs are no longer in flash, we’ve moved to Flot and Flot.pie resulting in better performance.
• You can now claim any address (But only one)
• Updated geocoding to resolve issues where apartment carbon footprint profiles were not visible.
• You can now view & change your claimed address and suggestion under “Settings.”