Static assets on CloudFront can speed up page loads, but cache invalidation, gzip handling, SSL, fonts, and mixed-content rules need careful handling.

Distributing array items into visual columns is awkward with in_groups and in_groups_of; in_columns returns wrapped column arrays in pure Ruby and Rails.

Ubuntu Server in VMware needs manual VM setup, VMware Tools installation, and display and keyboard configuration for a usable desktop console.

Run rspec and Cucumber from any project directory with optional spinner support; features are skipped when specs fail.

Ubuntu One can start after installation and try to sync the entire home directory, making Nautilus File Manager extremely slow.

Set a Mac’s network name from Terminal when the default hostname is wrong or needs to match a local domain.

Bootable media can be tested quickly in QEMU instead of setting up VirtualBox, using an ISO or a USB drive directly.

Convert raster images to scalable vector files for cleaner artwork, smaller files, and sharp resizing without manual tracing.

Browser audio playback is fragmented across Flash and HTML5, with codec, seeking, loading, and styling limitations that often require a hybrid library.

The trick is this: send a low-resolution version of your image to the screen, and a high-resolution version to the printer.

Git state management is easier when you know which commands change the working tree, index, stash, or upstream references.

Whenever is a Ruby gem that provides a clear syntax for writing and deploying cron jobs.

Conditional validation across associated records can fail during new parent creation because the child object is not yet linked. Moving the check to the parent and using sticky errors keeps the child invalid.

Capistrano deployments can be much faster by reusing a cached repository copy on the server instead of cloning from the git host each time.

A lightweight jQuery alert and dialog replacement with full control over styling, content, position, and behavior, without a full UI framework.

Flash messages can appear twice when render is used instead of redirect_to; flash.now is for the current request, flash[] for the next one.

Airbrake can suppress selected exceptions by default or through config.ignore, reducing noise from expected failures such as invalid requests and unsupported HTTP methods.

Sass now comes with user-defined functions, keyword arguments, list manipulation. Haml and Sass are now two separate gems.

Awesome presentation for the new HTML5 features we will get to play with. This presentation should probably be viewed in Chrome only.

User Stories should describe what a user wants the system to do. Purely technical tasks should usually be implemented as part of a User Story. But, sometimes there are technical tasks which cannot be directly linked to customer value. Things like “Upgrade to MySQL 6.0″ or “replace magic numbers with enums” need to be done. How can you prioritize these critical chores against User Stories? How can you make the product owner aware of the importance of such tasks (and the business risks of procrastination)?

We can now plug into every facet of the Rails jQuery UJS adapter, binding to custom events, and even customizing internal functions, without hacking or monkey-patching the rails.js file itself.

Storing application objects in sessions can trigger ActionController::SessionRestoreError after class removal or deployment. Keep session data to strings and numbers, or provide stubs for old classes.

Daily Apache access log rotation without logrotate uses CustomLog with rotatelogs to create timestamped files and avoid nightly web server restarts.