I was experimenting with google places and I found it to be quite awesome.

In this app you can search for a geocode address or establishments, move the marker and get the the GPS coordinates, and also get the gps coordinates out the search results.

it’s also possible to restrain the autocomplete results by limiting it to bounds:

autocomplete.setBounds(defaultBounds);

here is the demo app: http://electric-sunrise-8410.heroku.com/
source: https://github.com/fred/google_places_autocomplete

Definition
Homebrew: The missing package manager for OS X

Why? well, the reality is, macports is not that good anymore.
Once you have many packages installed and start updating, everything start to break apart, lot’s of failing packages.

Homebrew is very easy to install, it’s fast and simple. That means you can make your own homebrew formula for your package so easily. oh, and homebrew is in ruby! :)

Back to topic, this is you how you get rails with mysql up and running with homebrew and rvm.

Clean up

To make sure to have a clean install, I recommend removing any previous .rvm installation and previous Xcode.

# rm -rf ~/.rvm/
# sudo rm -rf /Developer

1. Xcode

Install Xcode from AppStore. it’s 3 GB download so it may take a while.
after it’s downloaded it will not install automatically, you need to open Applications and install again from there. the name will be “Install Xcode”

Update: If you don’t want to download and install huge XCODE (3.0GB) :
https://github.com/kennethreitz/osx-gcc-installer
It allows you to install the essential compilers, GCC, LLVM, etc.
PS: I have not tested it
Thanks JP for the tip.

2. Install HomeBrew

UPDATE: in the comments some people recommended to do create the folder “/usr/local/Cellar” before hand, due to some bug on homebrew.

mkdir -p /usr/local/Cellar

#  /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/gist/323731)"

Installation instructions: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/wiki/installation

3. install RVM

#  bash < <(curl -s https://rvm.beginrescueend.com/install/rvm)

then after RVM is installed run this 'one-line' command.

# echo '[[ -s "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" ]] && . "$HOME/.rvm/scripts/rvm" # Load RVM function' >> ~/.bash_profile

Details instructions: http://beginrescueend.com/rvm/install/

4. Install ruby 1.9.2

OS X Lion comes with Ruby-1.8.7-p249, but we all want ruby 1.9.2 right?

# rvm install 1.9.2
# rvm use ruby-1.9.2
# gem install rails thin bundler
....

I tested both ruby-1.9.2-head and ruby-1.9.3, latest sources from git, and it works well with all my apps.
With Ruby-1.9.3-head, Rails booted a lot faster.
If you wish to try 1.9.3:

# rvm install 1.9.3-head

Optionally you might want to install GIT, wget,
ack, imagemagick
and other mighty software tools for daily use.

# brew install git ack wget curl redis memcached libmemcached colordiff imagemagick

5. Install Mysql

# brew install mysql

one-line command:

# mysql_install_db --verbose --user=`whoami` --basedir="$(brew --prefix mysql)" --datadir=/usr/local/var/mysql --tmpdir=/tmp

Once mysql is installed you might want it to load automatically each time you start your mac.

# mkdir -p ~/Library/LaunchAgents
# cp /usr/local/Cellar/mysql/5.5.14/com.mysql.mysqld.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
# launchctl load -w ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.mysql.mysqld.plist

*check that the version I use here is 5.5.14

6. Troubleshooting:

if you have problems with mysql "cannot connect to /tmp/mysql.sock"
then create a file /usr/local/etc/my.cnf and add this:

[client]
port = 3306
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
[mysqld]
bind-address = 127.0.0.1
port = 3306
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock

if encounter errors with homebrew run this command and follow recommendations:

# brew doctor

update: If you end up with Segmentation fault or cannot install Ruby-1.8.7, you might want to try this solution:

# export CC=/usr/bin/gcc-4.2
# rvm install ruby-1.8.7

by the way this is my /usr/local/etc/my.cnf optimized file, when using this file you may have to recreate your db

# mysql_install_db --verbose --user=`whoami` --basedir="$(brew --prefix mysql)" --datadir=/usr/local/var/mysql --tmpdir=/tmp

[client]
port = 3306
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock 

[mysqld]
event_scheduler = ON
skip-character-set-client-handshake
collation_server = utf8_unicode_ci
character_set_server = utf8 

bind-address = 127.0.0.1
port = 3306
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock
max_connections = 20

table_open_cache = 256
max_allowed_packet = 32M
binlog_cache_size = 1M
max_heap_table_size = 64M 

read_buffer_size = 2M
read_rnd_buffer_size = 4M
sort_buffer_size = 8M
join_buffer_size = 512k

thread_cache_size = 2
thread_concurrency = 2
query_cache_size = 16M
query_cache_limit = 2M 

default-storage-engine = INNODB
thread_stack = 192K
transaction_isolation = REPEATABLE-READ
tmp_table_size = 64M 

# MyISAM Options 

key_buffer_size = 64M
bulk_insert_buffer_size = 64M
myisam_sort_buffer_size = 128M
myisam_max_sort_file_size = 1G
myisam_repair_threads = 1
myisam_recover 

# INNODB Options
innodb_additional_mem_pool_size = 16M
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 128M
innodb_thread_concurrency = 2
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 2
innodb_log_buffer_size = 4M
innodb_log_file_size = 8M
innodb_log_files_in_group = 3
innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct = 90
innodb_flush_method = O_DIRECT
innodb_lock_wait_timeout = 120
innodb_file_per_table 

[mysqldump]
quick
max_allowed_packet = 16M 

[mysql]
no-auto-rehash 

[myisamchk]
key_buffer_size = 128M
sort_buffer_size = 128M
read_buffer = 16M
write_buffer = 16M

[mysqlhotcopy]
interactive-timeout 

I choose the simple and I believe clean way to use everything from macports and passenger.

The advantage is that it’s all isolated from the OS X system and using latest cutting edge version of softwares.

I assume you have textmate, because it’s easy to edit files that need sudo access. Textmate will just ask for your password.

Try and download the 30 days trial for easy of this tutorial. http://macromates.com/

Trust me, you will love Textmate, it’s state of the art editor.

ps: I use “mate” instead of “open -a TextMate” but not everyone might have the mate symlink.

Requirements:

• Snow Leopard 10.6.4 or greater
• Xcode 3.2.3, 2.4.1 or greater
• Admin privileges on your mac.

Software preliminary:

• Mysql 5.1.49 (macports)
• Ruby 1.8.7 (macports)
• Apache 2.2.9 (part of OS X)
• Rubygems (download)
• passenger (gem)
• ImageMagick
• rmagick

1. Preparing System

If you are upgrading from Leopard to Snow Leopard, I recommend you delet your old installation.

sudo rm -rf \
    /opt/local \
    /Applications/DarwinPorts \
    /Applications/MacPorts \
    /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.* \
    /Library/Receipts/DarwinPorts*.pkg \
    /Library/Receipts/MacPorts*.pkg \
    /Library/StartupItems/DarwinPortsStartup \
    /Library/Tcl/darwinports1.0 \
    /Library/Tcl/macports1.0 \
    ~/.macports

1.1 Prepare PATH environment:

$ open -a TextMate ~/.bash_profile

Edit your ~/.bash_profile file and add these 2 line.
Check if they are not there already.

export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export MANPATH=/opt/local/share/man:$MANPATH

1.2 Download and Install Xcode

http://developer.apple.com/technologies/xcode.html

1.3 Download Macports and install

Download Page: http://www.macports.org/install.php

Download Direct Link: http://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-1.9.2-10.6-SnowLeopard.dmg

You might use this guide for installing Macports:

Full Install Guide: http://guide.macports.org/#installing

1.3.1 Update macports

sudo port -v selfupdate

2. Mysql

2.1 Intall Mysql

sudo port -v install mysql5-server mysql5

2.2 Make mysql autoload on startup

sudo port load mysql5-server
sudo -u mysql mysql_install_db5

3. Memcached (Optional)

sudo port -v install memcached libmemcached

3.1 Autoload memcached on startup

sudo port load memcached

4. Ruby, Rubygems, Rails, other gems

4.1 Install Ruby from macports

sudo port -v install ruby

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.7 (2010-08-08 patchlevel 302) [x86_64-darwin10]

4.2 download rubygems from http://rubygems.org/pages/download

cd /tmp
wget http://production.cf.rubygems.org/rubygems/rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
tar xpf rubygems-1.3.7.tgz
cd rubygems-1.3.7
sudo ruby setup.rb

4.3 Install rails, rake, rspec etc.

sudo gem install rake rails thin tzinfo capistrano ruby-debug rspec

extra:

4.4 install mysql gem

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/opt/local/lib/mysql5/bin/mysql_config

5. ImageMagick, Rmagick and mini_magick (Optional)

lets install ImageMagick with support for JPEG, TIFF, WMF, PDF, and PNG images, and for Postscript and TrueType fonts.

sudo port -v install tiff -macosx imagemagick +q8 +gs +wmf

sudo gem install mini_magick rmagick

Test rmagick

$ irb -rubygems -r RMagick
>> puts Magick::Long_version
This is RMagick 2.13.1 ($Date: 2009/12/20 02:33:33 $) Copyright (C) 2009 by Timothy P. Hunter
Built with ImageMagick 6.6.3-0 2010-08-19 Q8 http://www.imagemagick.org
Built for ruby 1.8.7
Web page: http://rmagick.rubyforge.org
Email: rmagick@rubyforge.org
=> nil

6. Passenger

6.1 Install Passenger gem

sudo gem install passenger

6.2 Check Passenger path

passenger-config --root

 -> /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15

6.3 Build passenger for apache

follow instructions on screen

sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

6.4 Enable Passenger on apache:

open -a TextMate /etc/apache2/extra/httpd-passenger.conf

Put this on that file, change wherever necessary for your directories.

LoadModule passenger_module /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so
PassengerRoot /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15
PassengerRuby /opt/local/bin/ruby
PassengerMaxPoolSize 6  # maximum global rails servers
PassengerMaxInstancesPerApp 2  # maximum rails servers per application
RailsFrameworkSpawnerIdleTime 1800
RailsAppSpawnerIdleTime 600
PassengerPoolIdleTime 600
PassengerMaxRequests 1000  # after 1000 requests will restart server, to skip memory leak :)
 
# Enabling NameBased Virtualhost
NameVirtualHost *:80
 
# my rails app virtual host 1
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName my-rails-app.local
    DocumentRoot "/Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/public" # change this to match your folder
    RailsEnv "development"
   <Directory /Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/public>
        # change this to match your folder
        # MultiViews must be turned off
        Options -MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    # logs are optional, change this to match your folder
    CustomLog  "/Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/log/access_log" combined
    ErrorLog   "/Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/log/error_log"
</VirtualHost>
 
# my rails app virtual host 2
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName myapp-xyz.local
    DocumentRoot "/Users/fred/rails/myapp-xyz/public"  # change this to match your folder
    RailsEnv "development"
    <Directory /Users/fred/rails/my-rails-app/public>
        # change this to match your folder
        # MultiViews must be turned off
        Options -MultiViews
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
    CustomLog  "/Users/fred/rails/myapp-xyz/log/access_log" combined
    ErrorLog  "/Users/fred/rails/myapp-xyz/log/error_log"
</VirtualHost>

6.5 Enable Virtual host on apache:

open -a TextMate /etc/apache2/httpd.conf

Add this new line at the bottom:

# Include Passenger ModRails config file
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-passenger.conf

6.6 Add your .local domain to /etc/hosts/

open -a TextMate /etc/hosts

Add this line to that file and change to the name of your choosen application

You might add as many as you want, each line for each that ServerName on your VirtualHost blocks

127.0.0.1 my-rails-app.local
127.0.0.1 myapp-xyz.local

I have more than 50 .local apps in there.

5 Start Apache

first let’s test apache configuration:

apachectl configtest

if you get “Syntax OK” then you are ready to start it

sudo apachectl start

If you want Apache to autostart when you boot your computer,
then enable Web Sharing from preferences.

7. Final

go to your browser and open the url of your application http://my-rails-app.local

If it works, congratulations.

If didn’t work, let me know here in the comments.

Extras

Nokogiri

  sudo port -v install libxml2 libxslt
  sudo gem install nokogiri -- --with-xml2-include=/opt/local/include/libxml2 --with-xml2-lib=/opt/local/lib --with-xslt-dir=/opt/local

Sqlite

sudo port install sqlite3
sudo gem install sqlite3-ruby

9. Sphinx, thinking-sphinx, sphinxsearchlogic

sudo port install sqlite3
sudo gem install thinking-sphinx sphinxsearchlogic

Update:

From the comments, some people might want to enable php and your Sites folder.

To be able to enable php and others you will have to enable another default vhost with localhost as servername.

Edit the file /etc/apache2/httpd.conf to enable vhosts

# Virtual hosts
Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf

then open /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf file,
delete or comment everything from there and add this block only:

#
# Use name-based virtual hosting.
#
NameVirtualHost *:80
 
# Change /Users/fred/ to your appropriate login name
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName localhost
    DocumentRoot /Users/fred/Sites/
    RewriteEngine On
    DefaultType text/html
    <Directory "/Users/fred/Sites">
        DefaultType text/html
        Options +ExecCGI FollowSymLinks Indexes
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Links and Resources

http://rmagick.rubyforge.org/install-osx.html

http://wiki.github.com/tenderlove/nokogiri/what-to-do-if-libxml2-is-being-a-jerk

http://www.macports.org/install.php

http://guide.macports.org/#installing

http://distfiles.macports.org/MacPorts/MacPorts-1.9.1-10.6-SnowLeopard.dmg

http://rob.by/2009/installing-mysql-via-macports-on-snow-leopard-for-ruby-development/

http://macromates.com/

http://github.com/joost/sphinxsearchlogic

http://www.sphinxsearch.com/

Methods I have seen so far:

1. Checking content-type from file name: this inefficient, a user can just rename a file and you are fooled, or the file can have a different file format and you will not get the expected result.

2. Using Rmagick to check if the file is an image. This is so slow and uses so much Ram. You can try to initialize an rmagick object from an image file, then rescue when the file is not an image.

3. Using mini_magick to check if a file. This method is faster than rmagick. Implemen ted same way as rmagick.

A Better method for OSX and Linux,  is to use the command line tool “file” included in most UNIX operating systems.

It is very fast and very accurate.

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file = "/path/to/file.ext"
if RUBY_PLATFORM.match(/darwin|linux|unix|solaris|bsd/)
 content_type = `file --raw --brief "#{file}"`.chomp
 case
  when content_type.match(/image|png|jpg|jpeg|gif/)
   real_type = "image"
  when content_type.match(/pdf/)
   real_type = "pdf"
  when content_type.match("Microsoft Word|Microsoft Office Document")
   real_type = "doc"
  else # This can go on and on
   real_type = "Unknown"
  end
end

Some examples of content types:

.doc = Microsoft Word document data

.doc = Microsoft Office Document

.pdf = PDF document, version 1.4

.pdf = PDF document, version 1.3

.psd = Adobe Photoshop Image

.png = PNG image data, 3508 x 4961, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced

.gif = GIF image data, version 89a, 195 x 109

.jpg = JPEG image data, EXIF standard

etc…

I hope this can be useful to someone.

You would like to use haml, textile or HTML to edit your Article from the admin interface.

  create_table "articles", :force => true do |t|
    t.string   "title"
    t.text     "body"
    t.string   "formatting_type", :limit => 20, :default => "HTML"
  end

app/models/article.rb

It’s quite simple. All you have to do is to add this helper in your application_helper.rb

  def print_formated(type,text)
    case type
    when "HTML"
      text
    when "Plain Text"
      h text
    when "HAML"
      Haml::Engine.new(text).render
    when "Syntaxy"
      Syntaxi.line_number_method = 'none'
      Syntaxi.new(text).process
    when "Textile"
      RedCloth.new(text).to_html
    end
  end

In your views/articles/_form.haml add the select field.

  = label :article, :formatting_type
  = select(:article, :formatting_type, Article::FORMATTING_TYPES.collect {|p| p }, { :include_blank => false })

Then in the Show view (articles/show.haml)

 
.article
  .title
    %h1
      = h @article.title
  .body
    = print_formated(@article.formatting_type, @article.body)

that’s pretty much it.
:)