GeoKit is a new Rails plugin developed by Bill Eisenhauer and Andre Lewis that provides several powerful geocoding related features:

Akhil Bansal has created a cool bash script that will create a new Rails project, import it to an SVN repository, then remove and ignore log files, sessions, temporary files, and set up database.yml correctly. I was previously using a Rake task for this, but installing this script at the OS level might prove easier for me in future.

Charles Nutter is asking for help in squashing Rails bugs with JRuby. It seems full support for Ruby on Rails with JRuby is only just over the horizon, with over 90% coverage of ActiveRecord and ActiveSupport so far. Charles provides instructions on how to set up Rails with JRuby and run your own tests.

Josh Susser is reporting on Mark Carey's announcement that the "SDForum Ruby Conference" (informally known as the Silicon Valley Ruby Conference) is now requesting papers for the conference taking place between April 21-22, 2007. Interested parties can submit their proposals to proposals2007 [at] rubysf [dot] net. All proposals submitted before February 4, 2007 will be given consideration, and those submitted after then may not, so if you want a chance to give a presentation, you need to be quick!