I put my personal nanoc boilerplate setup on GitHub. Maybe you find the deployment process useful.

Deployment Process

I assume you’re public html folder is called htdocs/ and you can create new folders below your domains folder but outside htdocs/.

I also assume you use my Rakefile: upon rake build it will checkout the branch ‘deploy’ and put all files from output/ in there. Uploading from ‘deploy’ to the production server will only copy the HTML output, not the nanoc setup.

1. Initialize bare production git repository on the server:

   git init --bare ~/doms/example.com/git
   

2. You’ll want automatic updates when you push to the server. Use git’s own
   post-receive hook:

   # add to ~/doms/example.com/git/hooks/post-receive
   echo "Updating website ..."
   cd /the/full/path/to/doms/example.com/htdocs || exit
   unset GIT_DIR
   git pull origin 
   echo "Update complete."
   

   Make it executable:

   chmod +x post-receive
   

3. Initialize git repository in htdocs/. This will point to the bare
   repository on the server and check out the current version:

   # given you're in ~/doms/example.com/htdocs
   git init
   git remote add origin ../git
       
   # setup branch to pull from:
   git config branch.master.remote origin
   git config branch.master.merge refs/heads/deploy
   

4. Setup production server locally:

   git remote add production ssh://user@example.com/~/doms/example.com/git/
   git remote show production
   

5. Commit changes locally and put them on the server:

   git commit
   rake build
   git push production deploy
   

   You can push all branches via git push production to backup your code.
   Only the branch ‘deploy’ will be visible to the public.

Sources

I once combed this together from various sources:

• dead simple git deployment
• Using Git and a post-receive hook script for auto deployment
• Deploy websites using Git - the easy way
• Using Git for Deployment

I like this interactive guide a lot, because it focuses on basic rules of nice-looking typography which result in a quite beautiful example page.

The reference to http://modularscale.com/ was nice, although I seem to fare well with a selection of the traditional scale: 16, 18, 21, 24, 36 (measured in pt; I use ems, though).

Eddie stumbled upon Calendar Paste first!

I think about publishing sales stats on my website; maybe this would be a cool add-on for the upcoming e-book as well. I already sold the app 12 times in the past few days without any marketing whatsoever. I’m curious where I’m heading with this niche app.

Also, I got some cool feedback and suggestions! However this is going to turn out financially: It will be a fun ride, that’s for sure.

Thank you, dear early adopters!

Calendar Paste release

Dec 13th, 2012

My very first iPhone / iPod Touch app Calendar Paste hit the App Store this week!

It’s about preparing events and pasting them into your calendar when needed. Saves time for scheduling and entering team meetings, for example.

The fixed duration is a real time saver in my opinion. No more spinning “Starts” and “Ends” in Apple’s Calendar app.

Get Calendar Paste on the iTunes App Store!