Chartkick is a Ruby gem (also has a JavaScript API which doesn’t require Ruby) for creating good-looking charts very easily and quickly.

It integrates with 2 charting libraries: Highcharts and Google Charts where it is possible to use the same functions for generating charts with each library.

There is support for multiple chart types and multiple series in a single chart.

And, like mentioned there is also Chartkick.js which brings the same functionality to the client-side, without Ruby.

Today, HTTP requests are used widely in websites as we fetch data using APIs, get screenshots or AJAX requests.

Unirest is a pack of lightweight HTTP libraries for many languages (PHP, Ruby, Python, Java And Objective-C).

It has support for GET, POST, PUT, UPDATE, DELETE operations and its methods + response structure are the same in all languages.

The usage is very simple and straightforward. Also, it is documented well.

Scout is a free application (with Windows and Mac versions) that allows anyone to make use of Compass and Sass without the complexity of Ruby + command line.

The application runs Sass and Compass in a self-contained Ruby environment, has support for defining multiple projects and various settings to customize the use.

Using Scout, we can define custom output folders (so that any generated CSS can be directly written into our project folders) and also set the style of the CSS (nested, compressed, etc.).

And, a logging interface displays every action performed by the app (with any errors occurred).

FnordMetric is an open source web application for creating real-time dashboards that can visualize the data you want.

It uses Redis as the datastore (if you have the date in another db, it should be pushed there) and allows defining our own plotting + counting functions as Ruby blocks.

The application has a UI for for visualizing the data and, also,  it offers an HTML5/JavaScript API for inserting charts/data into web pages as widgets.

FonrdMetric has a detailed documentation from its installation steps to API usage.

Squash is an open source application, that is built by Square (with Ruby), for finding and killing bugs.

The application is multi-user, has client libraries for different systems (Ruby on Rails, Objective-C, etc.) and can catch + record errors when they happen.

Once they are caught, it sends them to the API, logs them and triggers any defined actions like sending e-mails.

Squash has a web interface that displays bug information and guides developers to locate + fix them. It is possible to collaborate through it, comment  to bugs or assign them to teammates.

Also, the application also visualizes the occurrences of bugs so that their frequency can be analyzed better.

Dashing is a flexible framework, built with Ruby (Sinatra-based) and Coffeescript, for creating attractive dashboards.

The dashboard is formed of widgets which can pull data from any source. The widgets interface is powered by Gridster and they can be re-positioned with drag 'n drops.

There are sample widgets like Twitter, clock or iframe to ease getting started with it and an API exists for pushing data to the widgets if wanted.

QR Codes, a tracking code technology which was created in 1994 by Denso<Toyota to keep track of vehicles, is now a standard being used everywhere from websites to magazines, apps or stores.

In the web, considering the mobile devices are used as the barcode reader, QR Codes are usually used as an alternative way to show app download/purchase links, wi-fi passes, mobile version URLs of websites, etc.

I needed to create few of them in the past, used online QR Code generators and I was done in a few minutes.

Recently, a project required hundreds of them being generated automatically and I have played with many different JavaScript + server-side solutions. I have faced solutions that are -sometimes- not working correctly, not supporting too short or long texts or they were not simple enough. Here is the list of solid and good-quality QR Code generation resources that all work very straightforward:

P.S. I ended up using a JavaScript library which is so easy to implement, flexible in all levels, and, I knew that it would always be used by a modern browser. You can choose the solution that  fits the best to your case from the list below.

Online QR Code Generators

QRhacker

QRhacker is a beautifully implemented online QR code generator with many options for creating the QR code we want.

It allows many different input types (text, URL, phone number, VCard and Wi-Fi access) and offers customizations like the roundness of the blocks, their foreground/background colors, using images for them and more. Also, the code can be painted pixel-by-pixel.

Once the QR code is created, it can be downloaded either as an image or PDF.

Unitag

QR codes have a built-in error-correction mechanism and codes that are slightly morphed can still be recognized correctly.

Unitag makes use of this and allows users to transform QR codes by curving the blocks, adding extra shaped and more.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pondasee is front-end base, created by the developers of Tokokoo, for quickly starting a new web project.

It makes use of Compass + Sass and includes styles for handling all major stuff like typography, forms, tables or buttons.

The project includes several other well-known resources like HTML5 Boilerplate, Modernizr, jQuery, Normalize.css, Formalize, Selectivizr and more.

strftime, the popular function for formatting date-time (with PHP, Ruby, Python and C) has many parameters which are usually hard to remember.

There are several web-based references that ease the usage of strftime by enabling us to view the details of each parameter and test them instantly. Here they are:

strfti.me

Strfti.me simply lists the parameters for dates + times separately with an explanation to each and allows us to view the output of any custom format.

Strftime.net

The website displays all the parameters where each of them can be clicked to create the custom function.

P.S. It would be much better to see the result of the function instantly (feature request).

For a Good Strftime

Besides presenting the parameters, there are presets for for the widely-used formats.

Also, there is a drag 'n' drop custom format builder.

Other References

• PHP strftime reference
  
• Ruby strftime reference
  
• Python strftime reference
  
• C strftime reference
  
• Strftime cheatsheet (this & that)

MobileESP is an open source project for easily detecting users browsing the web pages with a mobile browser.

It has server-side versions for PHP, ASP.NET, Java, Ruby and a client-side JavaScript version with light features.

There are methods provided for detecting a specific device (iPhone, Android, WebOS, etc.) or a wider selection if it is a smartphone, tablet, game console, etc.

The project has support for most of the well-known devices and can even identify their capabilities.