brendan lim

I've received a couple of e-mails regarding SMS Fu and its incompatibility with Rails 2.1 lately. I've been quite busy lately and haven't had much time to check out the situation, but fret no more. I've updated SMS Fu to be fully compatible with the newest version of Rails. Please visit the SMS Fu project page at ActsAsCommunity if you have any questions or comments or you could always check it out at GitHub. Also, if you're on 2.1, you can install SMS Fu directly from GitHub using the line below -- sexy.

script/plugin install git://github.com/brendanlim/sms-fu.git

This plugin has been sitting dormant for a while and I haven't had a chance to really write about it since I've been so busy lately. Basically what this is, is just a quick Rails plugin that allows you to send an SMS from your application. This does not require any kind of "gateway" or third-party service to get the job done. The plugin takes in a phone number, the carrier, and a message. From this information, it will format an e-mail correctly that will actually end up being sent to that phone in the form of a text message. How easy is it to use? Very.

git clone git://github.com/brendanlim/sms-fu.git vendor/plugins/sms_fu

Supported Carriers: Sorry, International carriers aren't supported at the moment. Alltel, Ameritech, AT&T, BellSouth Mobility, BlueSkyFrog, Boost Mobile, Cellular South, Fido, Metro PCS, PSC Wireless, Qwest, Southern Link, Sprint, Suncom, T-Mobile (US/UK/Germany), Virgin Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Vodafone (UK,Italy,Japan).

class ExampleController < ApplicationController
        has_sms_fu
      end

After this, just edit /config/sms_fu.yml with your custom reply-to address.

deliver_sms("5558675309","AT&T","your message here")

You can set the maximum length of the SMS message, which is not set by default. Most phones can only accept 128 characters, and each phone can handle these messages differently. To set the limit, just pass it in as an option when delivering an SMS.

deliver_sms("5558675309","AT&T","your message here", :limit => 200)

If you want to roll your own mailer and just want to use SMS Fu to retrieve the formatted address of the recipient, you can do so by doing the following below.

get_sms_address("5558675309","AT&T")

Hope you all enjoy, and please send me some feedback on any new features you'd like added.

I've been putting this off for a while, mainly because of the fact that it costs quite a bit of money. Well, I ended up getting one today and I do not regret it one bit, especially since Edel knocked off about $800 of it for me. Since I do work from home, it will be used quite a bit and with the amount of windows I typically have open, I'll be using it to the fullest of it's potential, well, at least the resolution. There is indeed a correlation between screen size and productivity! Oh, and I must say that I find it quite easy on the eyes!

Today, I felt like making a quick little Rails plugin and what better & easier than one that ties into TinyURL's tinyurl.com URL shortening services. The service works by you submitting them a URL, and they return to you a nice shortened version that redirects to the URL that you originally submitted. I've had to integrate their services into a web application before, but I didn't see a plugin made for this, so I thought I'd whip one up called ActsAsTinyURL because it was quick and easy.

script/plugin install http://acts-as-tiny-url.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/acts_as_tiny_url

How do you use it? It's extremely simple. Once installed, open up a controller you want to use it in and put 'include ActsAsTinyURL' right underneath the class declaration.

class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
  include ActsAsTinyURL
end

Once you've got this in place, you can start doing some quick magic.

tiny_url("http://brendanlim.com")  # => http://tinyurl.com/3274fk

Expect updates within the next few days when I get some added time in my schedule.

I'm a big fan of attachment_fu, but one of the things that it doesn't do 'out-of-the-box' is allow you to specify a fixed width and height for a thumbnail so that you can create a cropped image. I spent a while digging around other sites and found some great tips from Toolman Tim regarding cropping images in attachment_fu using mini magick -- but what if you to stick with RMagick? In the model that is used for your uploaded images, just add a bang (!) to force a crop. Notice how the thumbnail type 'cropped' specifies height and width and contains a bang (!).

has_attachment :content_type => :image, 
               :storage => :s3,
               :path_prefix => '/your_directory/', 
               :max_size => 500.kilobytes,
               :resize_to => '400>',
               :thumbnails => { 
                 :regular_resize => '60', 
                 :cropped => '50x50!' }

# Performs the actual resizing operation for a thumbnail
def resize_image(img, size)
  size = size.first if size.is_a?(Array) && size.length == 1 && !size.first.is_a?(Fixnum)
  if size.is_a?(Fixnum) || (size.is_a?(Array) && size.first.is_a?(Fixnum))
    size = [size, size] if size.is_a?(Fixnum)
    img.crop_resized!(*size)
  else
    img.change_geometry(size.to_s) { |cols, rows, image| image.crop_resized!(cols, rows) }
  end
  self.temp_path = write_to_temp_file(img.to_blob)
end

Just got back from Normandy, France, where the actual wedding took place. Now, I'm here in St. Brice, France, 18km away from Paris at my Uncle's house. Yesterday was quite a long day. It started with us going to the actual place of the wedding (45 min drive), setting up the mats & food for the Cambodian part of the wedding. We then all went to the city hall (200+ people) to see Samantha and Olivier get married.

• View as Slideshow (July 2007 Set)
• View Thumbnails of Set (Can download images -> click on "All Sizes")