Jamis Buck has a lot of details about the upcoming verison of Capistrano on his blog today.

Capistrano is a tool for automating tasks on remote servers, especially those running Ruby on Rails applications. It lets system administrators execute commands and roll back changes in parallel across multiple machines. Very handy for large-scale deployments. If your Ruby on Rails website is small and easy to manage, then Capistrano is something to keep in mind for once your app grows to the revolutionize-the-web size proportions that you keep promising your VCs.

In addition to showcasing new features, Jamis gives the details on how to try out the pre-release version, Capistrano 2.0 Preview Release 2. If you are using Capistrano but aren’t the beta-test type, then his post will give you an good idea of what will be coming soon in the official release.

If you are going to RailsConf 2007 next week, Rob Sanheim has a helpful Google map of downtown Portland on his blog with points of interest to attendees.

If you aren’t going yet but want to, I’ve added a few updates on ways to get tickets to my post from earlier this week.

[Rob's blog post]
[Google Map of Portland with Rob's RailsConf overlay]

I love music—most music, most of the time. But when I sit down to code, not just any music will do. I need music that will help me get the job done, not hinder me. It has to be simple enough not to distract, but complex enough to engage me and to keep me from being distracted by everything else besides my code. Keep me awake but don’t make me hyperactive. The best coding music can be half-tuned out when you’re working through a difficult problem, yet you can sing along when you finally solve it.

I’m going to profile some of my favorite music every Friday. I realize everyone’s taste is different so if you prefer a good polka while you work then go for it (just wear headphones if I’m working next to you). Even for me, it depends on the time of day, my mood, and the particular bit of code in front of me too. So buyer-beware, your-mileage-may-vary, and I’m-not-saying-your-taste-sucks-if-you-don’t-like-my-choices.

For the inaugural music post, I’ve picked Elliott Smith. (Plus other music releases from this week after the jump.)

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Adobe is putting on a multi-city tour called CS3: The Creative License Conference to demo some of their latest CS3 software offerings (Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign) as well as to give design and workflow tutorials and tips.

The tour will take place from mid-May through June in eight cities: Chicago, Austin, San Jose, Toronto, Seattle, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. The first six cities are one-day events while the LA and NYC conferences are two-days long and definitely offer the best value of the bunch.

If you live near the San Francisco area (or like to road trip), then you may want to check out Make Magazine’s Maker Faire on May 19-20 (one week away). It’s not programming but it’s the type of do-it-yourself engineering that programmers can’t resist. In their words: “It’s for creative, resourceful folks who like to tinker and love to make things.” Raise your hand if that’s you. Okay, you can put them down now.

Today is the last day to get tickets at the reduced price of $20. (Even cheaper for kids, students and one-day passes.)

And if you can’t attend, but this is exactly the kind of shindig you would attend, then you can also subscribe to Make Magazine or check out their excellent blog.

A List Apart has a good article by Andy Rutledge on Contrast and Meaning in graphic design. He goes over the fundamentals of how to visually convey meaning to communicate clearly (and give a better user experience) using contrast.

Obviously, bigger text should have more importance than smaller text. But Rutledge goes beyond that and talks about size, position, color, texture, shape and orientation as areas where contrast can be used effectively. In easy to follow steps, he evolves an example from basic web site copy to a page with hierarchy and meaning.

I think it’s worth a read for all web application developers, even if graphic design isn’t your primary focus. Contrast and meaning play a role in the features you add and in how you use links, buttons, Ajax, forms, feedback… and the list goes on.

O’Reilly has posted their quarterly State of the Computer Book Market for Q1 of 2007.

The report is in three four parts: Part I – Part II – Part III – Part IV

Some of the web and programming topics on the rise since last year are: Ruby on Rails, Ruby, Flex, .NET, Python, SQL server, MySQL, Agile programming, JavaScript and Ajax.

Programming topics in decline are: ASP, JSP, C/C++, C#, Java, Perl, and Visual Basic.

It’s worth a look, especially if you are wondering if your skills are in step with the larger market.

[Via Riding Rails]

Update: Links for part 3 and 4 added.

RailsConf 2007 will be next week, May 17-20, in Portland, Oregon. Maybe you already knew that and have your tickets in hand. But if not and you are wondering how you can still get tickets to this sold out event, the O’Reilly Wiki has a page with some extra tickets just waiting for a buyer.

Sadly, I won’t be able to attend. So if you go, tell everyone who didn’t what we missed!

Update: There’s a ticket for sale on eBay too. Sold.

Update 2: And another ticket for sale on eBay. Sold.

Update 3: And another on the Rails Google Group. Ticket has been sold but hotel reservation still available.

Update 4: And a second via the Rails Google Group.

Update 5: Two free tickets turned up on the Rails Google Group. Sold.

Slashdot has a review of VisiBone MySQL Cards and Charts, a compact summary of all SQL statements and MySQL functions (i.e. cheatsheets).

The Cards are two 8.5″ x 11″ pages for $15. Charts are intended for the wall, a single page chart is 24″ x 33.3″ for $25.

Seems useful, especially if you write a lot of raw SQL. If you’ve tried them, let me know what you think.

Let’s kick off with something easy—zebra stripes! What’s that, you ask? It’s what we call it when rows alternate between two colors, usually light and dark. Here’s an example:

Contrasting row colors make it much easier to read. The reader’s eye can easily follow along the row to associate the state with the dollar amount. It’s a useful technique whenever you are outputing reports or lists of data. I’ll demonstrate three ways to do it.

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