Just add the following to your <VirtualHost> section of your Apache configuration:

ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/png “now plus 365 days”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “now plus 365 days”
ExpiresByType image/gif “now plus 365 days”
ExpiresByType application/javascript “now plus 365 days”
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript “now plus 365 days”
ExpiresByType text/javascript “now plus 365 days”
ExpiresByType text/css “now plus 365 days”

You can read all about expires headers by reading Yahoo!’s Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Website guide.

Also, be sure to check out our post on how to speed up your Website by Configuring Apache to Gzip Your Components.

Apache 2.x uses mod_deflate, and all you need to do is add the following to your <VirtualHost> section of your Apache configuration:

AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/plain text/xml text/css text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4 gzip-only-text/html
BrowserMatch ^Mozilla/4\.0[678] no-gzip
BrowserMatch \bMSIE !no-gzip !gzip-only-text/html

All you truly need is the first line.  The BrowserMatch lines are there to handle issues with old browsers.

You can read all about gzipping by reading Yahoo!’s Best Practices for Speeding Up Your Website guide.

Also, be sure to check out our post on How to Set an Expires Header in Apache, which will also help speed up your Website.

Personalized subdomains

Every company account gets a free, personalized subdomain.  In addition to giving you the opportunity to add a bit of branding to the URL, you will now log in to administer your betas using this new subdomain.  For example, if your subdomain is “adobe” you will now log in at http://adobe.prefinery.com/admin

Separate administrator and tester areas

As an administrator of a beta program, you will log into Prefinery using your personalized subdomain (e.g., http://adobe.prefinery.com/admin) and will interact with a management console.  Testers will access your beta at a separate location and view a unique set of pages that you have customized.

Complete user interface redesign

The first thing you’ll notice when you log in is that Prefinery has received a major facelift.  We’re not talking a nip here and a tuck there.  We mean Prefinery fled to a country without extradition and got a brand new identity.

Landing / Welcome page

Create a custom landing page for your testers using our easy to use Web page editor.  You don’t need to know any HTML to create a beautiful welcome page.  We’ll add generic log in and join links to the page, but the rest of the content is up to you.

Improved custom branding

When you subscribe to a plan with custom branding, you’ll be getting a blank slate.  You’ll have complete control over the content and styling of the page so that you may provide your testers with a familiar experience.  In fact, once you add your logo to the page, testers may not even realize they’re not on your site.

Guestbook creation

Specify what contact information is required to be gathered from testers when they join your beta.  Pick from email address, name, address, employer, job title, and telephone.

Require a survey to join

Require testers to take one of your surveys prior to joining your beta.  Perfect if you want to collect more information than the guestbook supports.  Also a great way to attach a sign up application to your beta.

Require a survey to download files

Require testers to take one of your surveys prior to downloading a specific file.  Perhaps anyone can download version 1.0, but you want to require the survey “1.0 Feedback” prior to downloading version 2.0.

Sexy survey results

We’re using a whole new package for our graphs and charts.  They’re faster, interactive, and look great when sporting your data.

Bugs, comments consolidated

We’ve combined bugs and comments.  Prefinery is not competing in the bug tracking and ticket management space.  Plenty of excellent tools already exist.  So, we’ve merged bugs and comments since both are nothing more than tester feedback.  You’ll still be able to export the data.

Plus, dozens of tiny improvements

We hope you enjoy these additions and enhancements.  We’d love to hear your feedback!

You want to store raw HTML in the database for a given model and you want to do this with the ease of partials and not a bunch of nasty string manipulation.

Rails makes this difficult for you by not giving you access to the render method when not called from ActionController.  However, you’d like to call the partial helper from within a model, or a background task (such as BackgrounDRb or Starling).

How?

As an example, let’s say you have a Page model made up of a title and a body.  You’d like to cache what a rendered page would look like in the model as the attribute cached_content.

The old way.  This really sucks.

class Page < ActiveRecord::Base

  def write_cache
    the_content = "<div class='title'>"
    the_content += "<h1>#{self.title}</h1>"
    the_content += "</div>"
    the_content += "<div class='body'>"
    the_content += "#{self.body}"
    the_content += "</div>"

    self.cached_content = the_content
    self.save
  end

end

The new way.  This is so much easier and cleaner.

class Page < ActiveRecord::Base

  def write_cache
    self.cached_content = ActionView::Base.new(Rails::Configuration.new.view_path).render(:partial => "pages/show", :locals => {:page => self})
    self.save
  end

end

app/views/pages/_show.html.erb

<div class="title">
  <h1>
    <%= page.title %>
  </h1>
</div>

<div class="body">
  <%= page.body %>
</div>

We were tired of constantly logging in to various sites to see key data for the various projects we were working on. While RSS feeds can provide much of the data, digging through RSS feeds doesn’t provide you with a true executive level overview of your project. You really want to see only the most important, relevant, and timely data… and ideally act on it. Cockpit is our answer to this most annoying problem.

In the 48 hours we had for the competition we decided to focus on getting a simple proof of concept view of key data from just four widely used web services. Lots of other sites provide similarly useful data, and full interactivity would be great, but the clock was a tickin’, so we limited our scope to the following:

• Basecamp messages, todos and milestones
• Github source code commits
• Lighhouse bug tickets
• Hoptoad exceptions

We have high hopes that with the feedback that comes via the competition we will be able to create an application to help rescue all of us from project overload. Over the next 10 days, anyone can vote for Cockpit.  So far we’re off to a great start.  As of the first day we’re ranked #10 of 131 in the Usefulness category — in our opinion the only category that truly matters in the long run.

The competition was a blast, even if tiring. A great big thank you goes out to all the organizers, volunteers, and sponsors.

Note: Most of this article was authored by Marcus Mateus and was originally posted to the SimpliTex blog.

I created Flashlight for my dad and his fine art photography business, William Britten Photography.  He has been using Flashlight to track his sales and inventory for the past four months.  At first, he was providing valuable feedback.  But, as the site exited the beta stage and became a real product, I placed an expiration date on his rather lengthy free trial.  The day it ended he emailed me asking for a free account.  I turned him down.

The sales revenue from friends and family is inconsequential.  However, their decision whether to purchase your product, or subscribe to your service, is priceless.

Most feedback is worthless when there’s no money at stake.  Ask a bunch of people whether they like your product and would pay for it.  Many will say yes.  Now, ask them to pull out their credit card and actually buy it.  Most will change their mind

Your free-loading friends and family are just casual users of your product or service.  They are not invested at all.  However, if you ask them to pay up, and there’s real money at stake, then they are forced to really evaluate whether your offering is something worth paying for.  If their decision is to not pay, then you must take a step back and analyze why.  You need this validation.

So, tell your friends and family the free trip is over and you want some moolah.  Promise them you won’t be offended if they are not willing to pay.  Go ahead.  See what they really think.

Usage

<script type="text/javascript">
jQuery(document).ready(function() {
$("#myTable")
.tablesorter({debug: false, widgets: ['zebra'], sortList: [[0,0]]})
.tablesorterFilter({filterContainer: $("#filter-box"),
filterClearContainer: $("#filter-clear-button"),
filterColumns: [0],
filterCaseSensitive: false});
});

</script>

Search: <input name="filter" id="filter-box" value="" maxlength="30" size="30" type="text">
<input id="filter-clear-button" type="submit" value="Clear"/>

<table id="myTable">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Last Name</th>
<th>First Name</th>
<th>Email</th>
<th>Web Site</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Smith</td>
<td>John</td>
<td>jsmith@gmail.com</td>
<td>http://www.jsmith.com</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Doe</td>
<td>Jason</td>
<td>jdoe@hotmail.com</td>
<td>http://www.jdoe.com</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Configuration

tablesorterFilter takes four parameters:

• filterContainer - The DOM id of the input box where the user will type the search string.
• filterClearContainer - (optional) The DOM id of the button, image, or whatever which will clear the search string and reset the table to it’s original, unfiltered state.
• filterColumns - An array of columns, starting at 0, which will be searched.
• filterCaseSensitive - (optional) Boolean stating whether the search string is case sensitive.  The default is false.

Requirements

jQuery version 1.2.1 or higher and a slightly modified jquery.tablesorter.js version 2.0.3.

The modification to the original tablesorter plugin is the addition of a few lines which will cache all of the rows so they can be searched.  You can download the modified jquery.tablesorter.js code below.

Download

jquery.tablesorter.filter.js

jquery.tablesorter.js 2.0.3 (modified for tablesorterFilter)

For those of you unfamiliar with crowdsourced design, here’s how it works in a nutshell. Basically, we used 99designs and Crowdspring to run a design contest where many contributors from around the world submitted entries over a seven day period.  At the end of the contest we picked a winning entry and paid out a bounty.  Throughout the whole process we gave constant feedback to the designers to ensure the designs were moving in the desired direction.  And, it worked!  We ended up with two outstanding designs.

99designs

We ran a contest with a $175 bounty for the Flashlight logo design.  Over a seven day period we got 64 entries from 20 different designers.

99designs charges a flat $39USD to post a contest.  They do not act as a middle-man and handle the transaction between buyer and designer.  At the end of the contest, it’s up to the parties involved to exchange emails and swap the design for money via PayPal or some other means.

The site is, ironically, bland in design, but its both very usable and fast.  It appears that the site is run by a team of three out of Australia.  At the time of this writing there have been about 17,000 contests run on 99designs, yielding an assumed half-million in revenue for the small company.  Not bad for the short period they’ve been in business (less than a year we believe).  Plus, from the looks of things, they are bootstrapping their company.  Best of luck and keep up the excellent work!

Crowdspring

We posted a $150 bounty for the design of a postcard-sized publicity flier for Flashlight.  Over a week we got 36 entries from 11 different designers.

Crowdspring charges a flat 15% listing fee to run a design contest.  So, we paid them $22.50 to run the contest, and gave $150 to the winning designer.  Unlike 99designs, Crowdspring does act as the middle-man in the transaction and places the bounty in escrow.  This helps the designer feel confident they will get paid, and to ease the minds of contest holders Crowdspring offers a money-back guarantee if you don’t get at least 25 entries.  We much preferred having this buffer — it made the entire process of closing the transaction run smoother.

The site is beautifully designed; however, it is very slow.  We’ll cut them some slack since they’re new and growing pains are expected.  It appears they’ve only been around for five months or so, and they definitely don’t attract the same number of contests or designers … yet.  The founders handled all of our support tickets.  While they’re also a small team — of about six — they have received a round of funding and it shows.  Everything seems very professional.  Let’s hope there’s room for both them and 99designs.

Closing thoughts

We got a logo designed for well below what most (decent) design firms would have charged — and we got to pick from many different creative options.  We got the postcard advertisement for a steal, saving possibly hundreds of dollars.  In both cases we saved money and got better results.  Plus, the money goes directly to the designer, supporting an independent entrepreneur, which makes us feel good.

Quickly input your product lines and corresponding inventory values.  As sales occur, Flashlight maintains inventory amounts and alerts you to inventory shortfalls. Flashlight also tracks sales across product lines and produces a custom set of charts and tables that provide a visual explanation of sales data.  So, whether it’s clothes, art, jewelry, or something else you’re creating, Flashlight will show you which products are selling and when. Use this knowledge to make tweaks to your business and become more efficient and profitable!

Spreadsheets are a pain to write and maintain, especially if you’ve written any formulas, and other inventory management software is expensive and overly complicated.  Flashlight is a perfect replacement for these undesirable solutions.

Flashlight is intuitive and easy to learn.  Flashlight is streamlined and simple, targeted to do a clearly defined task very efficiently.

Flashlight is internet-based and always accessible, online.  You can adjust your inventory or view your sales trends from anywhere: home, retail store, or on the road.

To learn more, visit www.flashlightapp.com.

Grab the datePicker plugin from http://plugins.jquery.com/project/datepicker, and include it in your Rails app.

Get an inline datePicker set up by following the author’s instructions at http://www.kelvinluck.com/assets/jquery/datePicker/v2/demo/inlineDatePicker.html. Quite simply, you only need to do two things.

One: Add this to your .html.erb page:

<div id="date-picker"></div>

Two: To the same .html.erb page, add this bit of jQuery to turn the the div into an inline datePicker:

<script type="text/javascript">
$('#date-picker').datePicker({inline:true});
</script>

At this point you should see the datePicker on your page. It should look something like:

Now, let’s put a text_field in your form to keep the date. Here’s what I’ve got:

<% form_for(@event) do |f| %>
<fieldset>
<label for="occurred_on">Date event occurred:</label>
<%= f.text_field 'occurred_on' %>

<%= f.submit "Save" %>
</fieldset>
<% end %>

We need to catch the user’s selected date and populate our text_field. To do this, we need to modify the bit of jQuery we used to set up the inline datePicker. We need to bind the action of selecting a date to a javascript function which will populate the text_field. Return to your .html.erb file and replace the jQuery with:

<script type="text/javascript">
$('#date-picker').datePicker({inline:true})
.bind(
'dateSelected',
function(e, selectedDate, $td)
{
$('#event_occurred_on').val(selectedDate.asString());
}
);
</script>

Finally, since you probably don’t want your users to see the text_field, just change it to a hidden_field.