First the technical background. This website was created by me and I both wrote articles and programmed the website. Back in 2000 I did this in plain HTML, then jumped on J2EE. Looking back that was a nightmare. When Rails hit the scene in 2005 (I think) I ported everything to Rails and have been using that ever since.

In fact GO Magazine has been running every Rails version from 0.9-something until now. In recent years the website has been defunct and completely stagnant. Until now!

After a quick website design contest using freelancer.com, which was eventually won by Webdeezine from Serbia, I had SliceCraft do the HTML5 front-end. This all went very smoothly.

I coded the back-end in Rails 3.1 using the awesome asset pipeline. What does that mean? Well, it’s the Rails solution for all the CSS and javascript files that make up a modern web site. The asset pipeline makes sure all these little files are grouped together, so they can be pushed into your browser in the least amount of time possible. And when you visit www.gomagazine.nl you can see exactly that. There is only one CSS file and only one Javascript file visible to you, but actually there are lots of different files in the back end. Last but not least SliceCraft did their magic and made sure the HTML is squeeky clean. Check the source to see what I mean, it’s beautiful.

With this massive refresh, GO Magazine can continue showing all the articles written by me and my friends, when we were heavily into electronic music and DJ culture. Enjoy!

My involvement was pretty minor but still significant: I added the button for the fresh ‘Social Player’ which not only streams live channel audio, but also video, RSS updates and #zwartelijst tweets. It’s pretty nice to see. The event is getting a big reponse on the twitters it seems. If you’re into soul & jazz do yourself a favor and check it out.

Fuckin’ aye.

The stickers were designed by Dirk Laucke, major props to him!

The idea is this: you receive a sheet of building blocks (these are the stickers) and a postcard to which you can paste the blocks. You assemble your Space Baby according to the examples. Each baby has six variants. Or you use your own imagination. As a matter of fact, most people do. Guess they are too impatient to follow the example (which I admit will take a few minutes!).

You want a sticker? Leave a comment here!

The site is currently experiencing somewhat of a daringfireballdotting, but is still holding up. Ymmv. They are not using Rails (because Mootools …. ahh I crave!) but they (he? she?) are/is using Amazon’ S3 to store all music.

Smart move.

40.000 x 10 MB x 12 songs is …. ehh …. a lotta.

If you look at the history of American railroads in the nineteenth century, it was similar. They controlled distribution of goods and in many cases could charge what they wanted. Farmers, manufacturers, retailers, and consumers suffered, but had no alternative. At least till technological development changed things (trucks and highways). Then suppliers and consumers had a way of bypassing the rails, and did so. Eventually the rail companies adapted (mixed mode transport) and even prospered.

Clicky

The live mix performed on John Digweed’s show Kiss 100 FM in 2005 is one of the best musical journeys of this century. Really, it is that good. Grab it if you can.

I remember hiring these CDs from the local video store since I couldn’t afford them. And now they’re available online, plus they fit on a DVD easily. Sweeeet.

I just implemented a blog import tool for GO Magazine. Ruby and Rails just make it so easy. I generated two models: Blog and Post. Blog gets hooked up to an Artist, and Blog has_many :posts.

Blog is hooked up to a Link as well. Every day, I just traverse the Links, fetch the feed and parse it using Ruby’s built-in RSS Parser. Walk the items and insert them into the database, done!

I’m even surprised at the speed, tens of blogs are imported in a few seconds.