Travel, Code, and Engineering

Tag: coding


Don't Put TEXT Fields in your Main MySQL Database Tables

I learned this lesson the hard way, so you should learn from my mistakes. Don't put big fields like TEXTs or BLOBs in your main database tables. Doing so will result in a negative step change in...


Using cURL in Ruby on Rails to Force Facebook to Rescrape a URL

I recently ran into a problem with the Facebook share button on my blogging platform, Bloopist. Whenever I shared an post, the share box from Facebook showed an incorrect image and description of...


Fixing CORS Security Holes

I recently received an email alerting me to a security vulnerability in Bloopist, my custom blogging platform. The security vulnerability would have allowed attackers to impersonate other users on...


React and Ruby on Rails Lessons Learned

I recently started using React in my web apps to make them more interactive. React is great for the view layer of an application, but it needs to be paired with a backend of some sort. In my web...


Ruby on Rails Status Page

I like knowing what's going on on my servers, but I haven't had time to set up a real monitoring system. Usually when I want to check on my servers, I just remote in with SSH and fire up top and a...