We are running an intense 3 day – Speed Rails – course later this month. The course dates are 26-28 October. Places are strictly limited so please contact us immediately if you are interested in attending – email carl.penwarden@abletech.co.nz. For more information about the course take a look here>>

Able Technology has acquired the on-line mapping and addressing business of ProjectX Technology Ltd.

The acquisition promises an exciting future for ProjectX developments such as the Address Finder service and mapping applications.

Able Technology director Marcus Baguley says ProjectX’s expertise in geospatial data and mapping services will enable Able Tech to quickly deliver location-based applications; from hand held apps to large corporate websites that want to geo-enable existing datasets.

“The acquisition strengthens our specialised online mapping and data visualisation capabilities,” says Marcus.

The move is a natural progression for Able Tech, an influential member of Wellington’s growing Ruby on Rails software development community.

John Clegg, founder and CEO of ProjectX, says he is very pleased to be handing over to Able Technology “because their experience and reputation guarantee our customers will receive exceptional leadership, services and support.”

The ‘new’ Able Technology will be headed by Carl Penwarden who has joined the company from his previous role as Marketing and Product Development Manager at CityLink.

Carl says, “We are very excited about the capabilities we have brought together – the combination of ProjectX’s broad geospatial and addressing experience along with Able Technology’s strengths in agile development offers a compelling proposition for organisations seeking innovative web applications.”

Members of ProjectX’s team joined Able Technology in early July and will continue to support their existing clients. All staff are located together at Able Technology’s Wellington-based office.

About Able Technology

Able Technology specialises in cloud-based software development and consulting. In addition to their loyal customer base, Able Technology is also the developer of SAAS share portfolio management service, ShareSight.

About ProjectX

ProjectX, an award winning software services company, specialised in online maps development and data visualisation. Recognised by the Open Source Society for its use and contribution to Open Source in business, ProjectX has lead modern technologies such as HTML5.

Installing the latest upgrade from Apple of Snow Leopard version 10.6.3 will update the installed version of Ruby.

The version of ruby installed is:

<br /> ruby –version<br /> ruby 1.8.7 (2009-06-08 patchlevel 173) [universal-darwin10.0]<br />

Unfortunately, there is a known problem with patchlevel 173.

<br /> BigDecimal.new(“3.0009″).to_f<br /> => 3.9<br />

Under the previous version of ruby that was shipped with Snow Leopard, you would have received the expected answer of 3.0009.

There is a patch that you could try in the short term, otherwise you’re probably best advised to hold off installing 10.6.3. Or, if you’ve already installed it, you can wait until Apple or someone else releases an update.

Update: We are all using RVM now, as this allows us to easily install and use different ruby implementations. At the moment, this is normally the current version (2010.02) of Ruby Enterprise Edition.

Make your own sign here

I have had a to load a list of valid country and currency mappings for sharesight. It proved difficult to find a current correct list with the mapping between currency and country on the internet that is easily extractable.

wikipedia has a good source of current and obsolete codes – currency codes ISO 4217, country codes ISO 3166.

Here is what we came up with. If anyone knows of a reliable up to date source then please comment.

And to load into your rails app

There’s a recession on at the moment, and we’re doing our bit to help ease the pain.

Able Technology is offering a free half-day session with one of our technical consultants. You can use us for any of our usual services during this time.

We have up to four slots available – one for each week in October. The weeks are:

• 5 October – taken
• 12 October – taken
• 19 October
• 26 October

To apply, speak to Nigel on 0800 14-ABLE (0800 142-253).

Small print

• First-come, first-served
• No strings attached
• For new customers only
• Not available to our competitors

We’re on the lookout for some office space in Te Aro. Somewhere between 75 and 125 square meters.

Our wish list includes:

• Character
• Earthquake safe
• Showers
• Cycle parking

Would appreciate a call if you’re aware of anything like this.

There was a great article in the Herald about Sharesight today. Shame it didn’t mention me or Marcus, but it did explain what we’ve been up to.

Check out Kiwi-made online share trading system hits the market.

We’ve just put together a calculator to work out your savings from Michael Cullen’s Budget 2008. It’s on the Sharesight website here:

http://www.sharesight.co.nz/tools/budget_2008_calculators/