This is the first post from the rough and ready Ruby on Rails powered backend of dx13. If all goes well this will appear on the front page and then migrate to the archives as soon as I work out something more interesting to write about!

Already the backend is almost as good as on the old, ASP-powered version of dx13, though it’s still not very pretty and is very unpolished. It would be great to have a nice backend to post from, to encourage me to write things through the sheer joy of being able to use it. Whether my skills are up to that, I don’t know.

In Rails 2.0, ActiveRecord changed the default for per-request SQL query-caching to on. The cache caches the results of each SQL query made during the processing of a single request to the application; the cache is flushed after the request is completed.

Caching can obviously save trips to the database if queries are repeated multiple times in a request, so it makes sense to have it on by default. I ran into a problem which was traced to this caching behaviour the other day, so, as information on query caching seems to be spread across several blog posts, I thought I’d draw together the bits I found.

The Sony Ericsson w910i will not sync with iSync out of the box. This is very annoying! It is possible to get the w910i to work using a plugin for iSync, I found, as follows.

Update: I have found an alternative to the Feisar plugin: a chap named Andreas has written a free iSync plugin for the w910i. I recommend this plugin over the Feisar alternative as it works for me, it’s free and Andreas is planning to release the source code so we can make sure it does nothing nasty.

If you can read this, it means that the first stage of moving dx13 is complete: moving the current content to the new host and changing where the domain name points to. Great!

I finally have some control of my fate again. The dx13.co.uk domain has passed into the hands of my friend Jason, an able custodian if ever there was one. The previous person looking after the domain for me went missing in action sometime ago, which was rather worrying. Fortunately the domain was renewed last June when it came up for expiry by some mysterious entity. Needless to say, however, having a trusted friend looking after the name for me, able to point it wherever my whim desires, is most relieving.