Rob Mack - home

Austin on Rails makes the Statesman

2008-01-28T15:33:00Z

There's a nice article about Austin on Rails and the larger Austin Rails community in today's Statesman.

Slides from Austin on Rails presentation

2007-11-14T05:47:00Z

Here are the slides from tonight's presentation.

Austin On Rails Talk

2007-11-07T13:56:00Z

I'll be talking at Austin On Rails next week on performance tuning your Rails app. Here's the info.

Pete Seeger documentary at Dobie

2007-10-19T02:13:00Z

There is a limited theatrical release of Pete Seeger: The Power of Song showing at the Dobie this week. It is a critically acclaimed documentary on the life and music of Pete Seeger. It also happens to produced by my favorite line producer.

Lessons learned from Mountain Biking

2007-10-15T02:50:00Z

Mountain biking can be a nice analogy for life. Here are few things I've learned while riding my bike that are directly applicable to life:

Focus on the task before you - As you approach a hill, it is easy to get overwhelmed if you focus on the size of the entire hill. Only think about the 10 feet directly in front of you. Understand how the 10 feet fits into the larger picture, but only concentrate on the 10 feet directly in front of you.

Learn from your mistakes - When you fall, and you inevitably will, take a moment to analyze what went wrong. Either you picked a bad line, you were leaning the wrong way, whatever. Figure it out, so you don't make that mistake again. Our shortcomings and failures offer far better opportunities for growth than our successes.

Don't focus on the obstacles - A strange thing happens when you are riding down a trail and you focus on the big rock ahead. Your bike will veer right towards the rock. Your body instinctively will go towards whatever your eyes are fixated on. Focus on the path around the obstacle, not the obstacle itself.

Stop every so often and take in the view

Switched to Mephisto

2007-10-13T12:03:00Z

I've switched over to Mephisto software for this site. I was previously using Typo. I liked Typo, but I've been wanted to try Mephisto for a while.

I'm back working in rails professionally and really enjoying it. I'm also going to be speaking at the November Austin on Rails meeting.

Rails 2.0, now with iPhone support

2007-09-30T22:52:00Z

New features in Rails 2.0 for generating iPhone view templates. (and other formats as well) link

yep...

2007-05-06T23:10:52Z

Still dead.

Site's been dead for a while

2007-01-07T20:34:00Z

I know everyone has been jonesing for Rob Mack info and it’s been over 3 months since my last post. Well I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’ve been busy with a great new job. I’m working with Spring/Hibernate/JSF now. My wife and I are expecting our first child next week and we are planning a move shortly thereafter (still in Austin).

Capistrano slides

2006-08-16T19:37:00Z

Here are the slides from my Capistrano talk last night. There’s not a lot to them, but it might help you get started. The official Capistrano guide on the ruby on rails site is probably the best place to look if you need more info.

Rails security patch released today

2006-08-10T08:22:00Z

The Rails team has released an important security patch today. No details yet on what the vulnerability is, but it is highly recommended that you patch your systems. read the press release

Speaking at August Austin on Rails meeting

2006-07-14T06:23:00Z

I’ll be speaking at the Austin on Rails August meeting. The topic will be “Deploying your app with Capistrano.”

More to come ...

2006-07-01T12:26:46Z

Working on the site, hopefully it will be a little more interesting than it has been recently.