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.

The flash hash is a great way to provide feedback to your users. Here is a quick tip for hiding the flash message after a period of time if you don’t want to leave it lingering around.

Raw dates and times in Ruby are not too user-friendly!