If your app allows members of the public to sign up and create a new user account, to post comments or discussion entries, it’s important to maintain some control over the information they can enter.

mp3_player is a simple plugin I built to play mp3s online through my rails application.

For those of you out there with your own blog who want to style your snippets of code to look like your favourite text editor, here is a simplified version of the method I’ve used here on Handy Rails Tips.

The log file can offer valuable information about what’s going on on your app.

Observers are a great way of cleaning up and DRYing up your models. I use them quite a lot to deal with sending mails, logging messages and anything else that isn’t strictly the model’s responsibility.