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	<title>Chasing</title>
	<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com</link>
	<description>Chase Gray&#039;s blog with solutions to various problems by a curious american Ph.D. student.</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:13:48 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<item>
		<title>Convert XLS to XLSX on OS X with Applescript</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The following Applescript will convert a folder you select from Excel files to Excel XML files (XLS to XLSX).  You must have an Excel version installed that supports XLSX obviously.   set theFolder to choose folder with prompt &#34;Choose the folder that contains your Excel files&#34; tell application &#34;Finder&#34; to set theFiles to &#40;files of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2010/06/convert-xls-to-xlsx-on-os-x-with-applescript/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Alabama Medicaid Agency Open Records Act (FOIA) Violations</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Background I own a small company that specializes in obtaining information from public and proprietary sources.  We then take this information and try to make it easier for the average user to browse and work with.  For this service, subscribers pay a small monthly fee.  Most of the information we work with is is related [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2010/04/alabama-medicaid-agency-open-records-act-compliance-issues/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Reading Advantage Database Server Files (.ADT) in Ruby</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I recently received some data in the Advantage Database Server file format (.adt). In the past I have worked with DBF, Access, and .xls. I was able to find some way to retrieve data from these formats using open source software. The open source solutions were much easier to work with, usually not requiring any [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2010/02/reading-advantage-database-server-files-adt-in-ruby/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Converting Multiple Microsoft Access Databases into a Single MySQL Database &#8211; Rails, Ruby, MDBTools</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Some of the data I&#8217;ve been dealing with lately is in Microsoft Access databases (.mdb files). I&#8217;ve been surprised with the lack of support for manipulating these files outside of Access. There are a couple solutions, but nothing satisfied me needs. The worst data set came to me in a few hundred different .mdb files. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2009/06/converting-multiple-microsoft-access-databases-into-a-single-mysql-database-rails-ruby-mdbtools/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Treat Google Referred Users Special</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The content of my main web application, Myhealthcaresource, will contain more than 15000 detailed financial reports for nursing facilities at its future peak.  Each of these reports contains textual information as well as monetary values.  It might list administrator names, employee names/salaries, owners, products or services purchased.  I wanted to have all of this information [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2009/06/treat-google-referred-users-special/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Uniq for Array or Hash with a Deeply Nested Structure</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Most people have had some experience with ruby&#8217;s built in #uniq method for Arrays. Internally, this method finds the unique items in the array by creating a hash internally, and this internal comparison is done with the #eql? method. If an item in the array is a Hash, then #eql? simply uses the object_id, generated [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2009/01/uniq-for-array-or-hash-with-a-deeply-nested-structure/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Rails Database Connection with Block</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I found myself needing to very quickly connect to an alternate database that was defined in my database.yml like so: alternate_data: adapter: mysql database: alternate_database username: user password: pass host: localhost I was accessing it with something similar to the following: ActiveRecord::Base.establish_connection&#40;ActiveRecord::Base.configurations&#91;&#34;#{state}_data&#34;&#93;&#41; results = connection.execute description_params&#91;:extraction_sql&#93;; #This wasn't actually hard coded, but this is just [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2008/12/rails-database-connection-with-block/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Rails Caching: Dynamic Fragments</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am finally getting around to implementing caching on my Rails application that I&#8217;ve been working on adamantly for the past couple of months.  For the time being, I am using a memcached server with simple action and page caching.  I ran into a few problems with my first few attempts at fragment caching and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2008/12/rails-caching-dynamic-fragments/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>URL Archive System or: URL Hacking Made Easy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Have you ever found yourself slightly modifying a URL to try to find something you know used to exist or should exist but you keep getting that dreaded 404 page?  Perhaps you were trying to find something that shouldn&#8217;t be online anymore but it was simply unlinked to, benevolent purposes or otherwise? Another example might [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2008/11/url-archive-system-or-url-hacking-made-easy/</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>My Google Interview or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Drink the Kool-Aid</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Around November 2007 I managed to get into Google&#8217;s Boston office for an interview.  I had always wanted to interview at Google and this was the opportunity I had been waiting for.  I had applied many times in the past, but never got anything except a generated rejection letter.  Before I got my interview and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://chase.ratchetsoftware.com/2008/09/drinking-the-kool-aid/</link>
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