Skip looks a really interesting piece of technology. If it works well, would be well-worth the price of the small business license ($29 per month).

Platform-specific API use (e.g. GPS data and accelerometer) could be extracted into separate Swift methods, with a transpiler directive to gate by platform:

#if os(Android)
   print("Android")
#else
   print("iOS")
#endif

Repeat whenever postgres.app is updated.

(Setup the paths)[https://postgresapp.com/documentation/cli-tools.html]

Build from source and install:

gh repo clone zachasme/h3-pg
cd h3-pg
make
make install

Hat tip to https://github.com/PostgresApp/PostgresApp/issues/683#issuecomment-1274754377

When a DB query returns a binary string, this needs unescaping before use. The case that brought this to light for me was a relatively complex PostGIS query which generates a MapBox vector tile lines geometry imported from OpenStreeMap data:

  WITH bounds AS (
    SELECT ST_TileEnvelope(#{@zoom}, #{@x}, #{@y}) AS envelope
  ),
  tile_geom AS (
    SELECT ST_AsMVTGeom(ST_Transform(l.geom, 3857), bounds.envelope)
    FROM planet_osm_line
  )
  SELECT ST_AsMVT(*) FROM tile_geom;

While all my carreer has dealt with integer, string or even JSON data in the DB, this binary response was new to me. Outputting the result from a Rails controller for consumption by a MapBox GL instance was frustrating, as the tile data was received, but not displayed.

The output from ST_AsMVT() is a protobuf, so not easy to confirm correctness, but pasting the response body into a tool like protobuf-decoder can help verify if the data is a valid protobuf.

The solution was to return the respone unescaped by unescape_bytea():

ActiveRecord::Base.connection.unescape_bytea(response.rows.first&.first)

Well, I’ve been coding in Rails for around 15 years, and I’m still learning…

2024 has lots of potential, but I’ve stopped opening news apps or scrolling for my mood and state of mind.

The subset of things I can influence are much smaller than the set of inputs. So now I get a daily news summary email, and that’s it. I don’t follow links from those articles.

I’m still listening to political podcasts though, which give a deeper understanding of what’s going on and why. I can recommend pod save the UK and The Rest Is Politics for a UK perspective.

Here are the books I finished reading in 2023.

Assuming a few things:

1. the original server is still running, and that the new server cannot be bootstrapped from an image or backup of the old server (for example, they are with different hosts)
2. Dokku has been installed on the new server and is accessible using the dokku user (See https://dokku.com)
3. We have an SSH config entry for both old and new servers in ~/.ssh/config:

host new_server
  RequestTTY yes
  Hostname 55.190.140.231
  User dokku
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Host old_server
  RequestTTY yes
  Hostname 55.78.183.109
  User dokku
  IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

Create new app

ssh new_server apps:create icepop_app

Fetch env vars for original

ssh old_server config:show icepop_app

Set important keys (not DOKKU_*)

ssh new_server config:set icepop_app RAILS_MASTER_KEY=VALUE EMAIL_API_KEY=VALUE MAP_API_KEY=VALUE

Add new git remote repo based on the current one

git remote -v

git remote add new_server dokku@new_server:icepop_app

Create new DB

ssh new_server postgres:create icepop_app_production

Link DB to the new app

ssh new_server postgres:link icepop_app_production icepop_app

Dump the data from the old DB You might want to do this at a slow time to minimise lost updates, or introduce the maintenance page.

ssh old_server postgres:export icepop_app-production > ~/Downloads/sql/icepop_app_production.dump

Import the dump

ssh new_server postgres:import icepop_app_production < ~/Downloads/sql/icepop_app_production.dump

Deploy the project

git push new_server deploy:main

Add domains to the app

ssh new_server domains:add icepop_app www.icepop_app.com icepop_app.com

Configure SSL certificate(s) via letsencrypt

ssh new_server letsencrypt:set icepop_app email james@icepop_app.com

Check where the DNS is configured and move the A records to point to the new server using the registrar’s UI whois will give you a clue which registrar you used if you’re anything like me and have three in use.

whois icepop_app.com

Request SSL certificates

ssh new_server letsencrypt:enable icepop_app

Tail the logs to ensure traffic is flowing as expected

ssh new_server logs -t icepop_app

Connect to the Rails console to check changes are reflected in the browser

ssh new_server run icepop_app "bundle exec rails console -e production"

All being well, your app is migrated (remember to check for any local file uploads etc) and the old server can be decomissioned.