So I wanted to mess about with the Google+ api for Hangouts. I wrote a little dice rolling app  perfect for those D&D games people play using Google+ Hangout!

That’s what everybody is using Google+ Hangout for, right?

Right now it’s stilll a little convoluted to make it work. When the Hangout loads you’ll get a screen asking permission for the app to run. Then it’ll most likely reload the Hangout. Then you’ll get a little drop down message by the address bar asking for permission again due to ‘insecure content’ (that’d be the images). Once you agree to all that then… possibly another reload of the screen… then click on the Apps button and then Recent  tab within the Google+ Hangout to see and use said custom app.

A bit of a pain in the ass to get there, but they’re still working out the kinks.

For days I was banging my head against a firewall issue for a client. I had to set-up a Ruby on Rails environment plus a few other needed gems.

Everytime I tried the: gem install it would run through the motions, download a copy to the cache and then error out with the ‘invalid gem format’ message.

A number of Google searches only turned up the following, “delete the gem in the cache folder and try again. Fat lot of help that was.

Eventually through trial and error I found that if I manually downloaded each gem, moved to the directory of the downloaded gem and did a: gem install –local , it would finally work.

The error message I kept getting was worse than useless, it kept pointing me in the wrong direction.

This was a pain in the ass, especially when setting up Rails where you have multiple gems that have to be installed in a certain order AND you are brand new to it all. Worse, I never found one site within Google’s vast search domain that had a similar problem. So, no help from the crowd.

Hopefully this post will save someone else some headache down the line.

So I’m currently reading Ryan Dewsbury’s Google Web Toolkit Applications (in between wrapping up this final semester and work and kids and looking for a new job). It’s a nice read so far (though already dated in regards to the version of gwt and thus some of the code examples are  deprecated). I do like how he was a fun application as the first example. I went through the steps and got it to work (and then visited Ryan’s  site and updated the code to 1.5.3).

So, if you feel like playing a game of Hangman, check it out here. All the words tie back to Oi! bands so it should be challenging to most.

Now to get through the final 6 weeks of school and work so I can dive into GWT full time.

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is slated to be the next big thing. The neat-o thing about it is you can program something in java then use GWT to compile it into JavaScript.  For those not in the know that’s kind of a big thing. This has some pretty hefty implications.

1) GWT will become a standard.

2) It’s Google’s baby (meaning more Google dominance in the marketplace).

3) Many more websites will have a lot more JavaScript.

On the one hand the things you can do with GWT are mind blowing. You can make a website look and act like your desktop.

On other hand, most of the population is not computer security savvy. A malicious individual can do a lot of damage with scripting to those that don’t know how to secure their browser and computer.

Either way this is one of those tools that will be a must-have to the serious web programmer (and something I’m diving into). I would like to point out one very particular annoying item with the Get  Started area of Google’s GWT page.

There’s something missing between Step 3 and Step 4. Something fairly critical that keeps Step 4 from being as simple as “Done! Start using Google Web Toolkit!”. Here is the text that should be there:

Step 3.5:  Set the System Variable Path to wherever you are going to have the GWT folder located. To set the System Variable Path, right click on My Computer and  select Properties. Choose Environment Variables. Under System Variables click on Path and choose Edit. Add the Path plus the GWT folder name followed by a ‘;’ and click OK.

Your Path  might look like this:
c:\gwt-windows-1.5.3;

Otherwise it doesn’t work. A fairly big omission in my opinion. Hopefully this will help someone out there that was initially as frustrated as I was. Keep this in mind the next time you write a step-by-step for someone, don’t omit a key step in the process by assuming they already know what to do!