On March 15th, I’ll be speaking at Refresh Events at The Drake Hotel in Toronto to discuss the benefits of Grails.
Here is the talk outline:
Programming Java applications is often viewed as less than pleasurable. This perception is exacerbated when enterprise Java frameworks are stacked up next to all the wonderful new web frameworks and methodologies available to developers today. Grails, a Java-based, agile web development MVC framework, may change all that.
In this talk, learn from a one-time skeptic how your team can use Grails to speed up project delivery, streamline maintenance and support, increase functionality and performance, allowing you to spend more time focused on business objectives in your next web project.
If this sounds like something that might interest you, register here!
DataTO.org is a community website, built as a venue for the users of Toronto’s open data to request and discuss open datasets. On top of enabling conversation, the site also helps users garner support for their request so as to establish a democratic prioritization of requests.
I first became interested in the open data dialogue back in early 2009 at ChangeCamp in Toronto, which was an event aimed at re-imagining government and citizenship in the age of participation. ChangeCamp spawned ChangeEngine, a project where a group of citizens (including myself), imagined a geo-aware issue tracking system, aimed at bringing communities together to solve problems and to provoke systemic change.
As the launch of Toronto’s open data site approached, some of my colleagues at Architech Solutions and I, met with Mark Kuznicki (organizer of ChangeCamp) to discuss the possibility of building a community companion site to the city’s site. We all felt there was a need, and so DataTO was born. Continue Reading
For those of you who may be familiar with Jörn Zaefferer’s jQuery Validation plugin, I’ve written a method for validating zip/postal code fields, which was not included in the plugin.
To start validating zip/postal code fields, include this code somewhere after you’ve included the plugin:
jQuery.validator.addMethod("postalcode", function(postalcode, element) {
return this.optional(element) || postalcode.match(/(^\d{5}(-\d{4})?$)|(^[ABCEGHJKLMNPRSTVXYabceghjklmnpstvxy]{1}\d{1}[A-Za-z]{1} ?\d{1}[A-Za-z]{1}\d{1})$/);
}, "Please specify a valid postal/zip code");
Now you can add postalcode to your validation rules like so:
$("#myform").validate({
rules: {
postalcode: {
postalcode: true
}
}
});
Note: this will accept both Canadian postal codes (with or without a space) and U.S. zip codes. Enjoy!
Rather than using one of the pre-existing authentication libraries in kitolab, which I find bloated and generally so-so, I’ve decided to write my own. I’ve also decided to share the core of the library for all to use. It’s intentially minimalist, and provides only the bare essentials so you can use it as a starting point to build out our application specific user library needs.
To download and get more information, check out the user library project page.
Although I’m not completely sold on the usefulness of Facebook Connect, it seems I can’t go a day without somebody asking me about it. Hence, as a little experiment, I’ve implemented the API here to allow you to make comments on this site with your Facebook account. What can I say, I can’t help myself.
Let me know what you think about Facebook Connect, and its many appications.
