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computer

Pairwise Sequence Alignment In JavaScript

I just implemented a sample pairwise sequence aligner in JavaScript for a course. You can demo it at http://alignment.prestonlee.com, and grab the source code under an Apache 2 license at https://github.com/preston/alignment.

Categories
computer

Debugging JavaScript With Safari

I usually use FireBug and other FireFox-based tools for troubleshooting JavaScript issues, but never found a solid way to approach it in Safari, my primary browser. It turns out that the nightly builds of WebKit (Safari’s core) also come with a great utility called Drosera.app, which allows you to attach to a running WebKit process and get funky with a JavaScript console.

w00t l00ps! drosera.png

Categories
computer

Rails attachment_fu/Kropper Scaling Fix: attachment_fu_skip_resize

I recently integrated Kropper into a custom RoR application for OpenRain affiliate img surf. A fundamental flaw in the upload-save-crop-save process used by Kropper is that attachment_fu automatically scales down the image on first save to :resize_to dimensions. After the subsequent crop–which may result in a significant drop in resolution–the image is scaled back up to :resize_to dimensions: an ugly lossy operation.

The attachment_fu_skip_resize plugin gives attachment_fu the ability to temporarily bypass resizing of the full-size original image, thus allowing your final cropped photos to be of the highest quality as possible.

  1. Install the plugin.
  2. In your attachment_fu image class, add..
    attr_accessor :skip_resize
  3. Any time you want to save an image without invoking resizing on the original image..
    image.skip_resize = true
    image.save

    Thumbnails will be generated at their defined resolutions regardless of the skip_resize flag.