With the release of Rails 4.0.0.rc1 it's time to try it out and report any bugs. Here I walk you through the steps to upgrade a Rails 3.2 application to Rails 4. (12 minutes)

Rails commands, such as generators, migrations, and tests, have a tendency to be slow because they need to load the Rails app each time. Here I show three tools to make this faster: Zeus, Spring, and Commands. (8 minutes)

The ActiveModel::Serializers gem can help you build JSON APIs through serializer objects. This provides a dedicated place to fully customize the JSON output. (10 minutes)

Learn how to easily add a user activity feed using the public_activity gem. Here I show both the default setup using model callbacks and a manual way to trigger activities. (10 minutes)

Here we take a look at two tools to aid us in development: Better Errors which makes it easier than ever to debug exceptions, and RailsPanel, a Chrome extension to see Rails requests. (8 minutes)

Rails 4.0 is still unfinished, but it is shaping up to become a great release. Here I show how to setup a new Rails 4.0 (edge) application and walk through many of its new features. (20 minutes)

Allow users to import records into the database by uploading a CSV or Excel document. Here I show how to use Roo to parse these files and present a solution for validations. (10 minutes)

Instead of presenting a sign up form to the user, consider creating a temporary guest record so the user can try out the application without filling in their information up front. They can then become a permanent member afterwards. (9 minutes)

Turbolinks can make your Rails app feel faster by using JavaScript to replace the page content when clicking a link. It will be default in new Rails 4.0 applications, but here I show how to use it in Rails 3 and mention some of the gotchas. (7 minutes)

The cache_digests gem (also included in Rails 4) will automatically add a digest to the fragment cache key based on the template. If a template changes the cache will auto-expire. But watch out for the gotchas! (7 minutes)