Are you looking for a web wrapper for the Amazon Advertising API for your Ruby on Rails Application? ramazon_advertising is a library that provides this. It supports request signing.

The Amazon Advertising API allows you to retrieve Amazon catalog data and use it in your application. It can be really handy if you’re participating in the Amazon Associate’s Program

There are a few users of Amazon Associate that might want to know that I’m deprecating the library in favor of ramazon_advertising. Amazon Associate was an older library that I was maintaining. It uses HPricot and really doesn’t jive well from a design standpoint, so amazon_associate is deprecated in favor of ramazon_advertising

Ramazon Advertising uses John Nunemaker’s awesome library happymapper along with nokogiri selectors. It’s much more object oriented and cleaner, so I hope you’ll enjoy using this library.

Right now, it supports product data acquisition via the ItemLookup request. Here’s a simple example where you can find the product data for a given asin:

@products = Ramazon::Product.find(:item_id => "B000NU2CY4", :response_group => "Medium")
@products[0].title
@products[0].asin
@products[0].upc
@products[0].large_image.url
@products[0].url
#you can also use a nokogiri search string to get elements that don't have built-in accessors
@products[0].get("ItemAttributes Actor").collect{|a| a.content}

The ruby gem is available on Gemcutter and the documentation is available at rdoc.info. Patches and feature requests are welcomed!

I’m going to regularly post links, discussions, and tips I’ve found helpful every Friday.

• Version 2.3.3 of Ruby On Rails is Released – includes improvements to JSON and a touch command that allows you to update the updated_at timestamp for associated objects
• Timecop – a really awesome gem that makes it easy to mock time related functions
• JQuery Rounded Corners – I might be a bit late to the party on this, but rounded corners are so Web 5.0. Seriously, though the browser support for this plugin is impressive. I also like the api.
• Giles on “Magic” Frameworks – I hear from a lot of programmers outside of the Rails community that it does too much “magic.” Giles’ thoughts are extremely poignant. I look at it this way: you drive a car every day. You put gas in it, get oil changes, etc. I don’t know everything there is to know about what’s under the hood, and chances are, neither do you. You have common interfaces with the automobile and all the smaller details have already been manufactured and put in place for you. A framework is definitely similar. Would a mechanic tell you that you cars run on “magic”? If you don’t understand something, that doesn’t make it magic.
• Huddle’s Thoughts on Bootstrapping the development of a web app – Although I have to disagree on the usage of Elance, Guru, or design contests, there’s some good tips here. I’ve rescued many projects for clients that attempted to use inexpensive resources like those found on Elance. There is a similar lapse in quality when you run design contests. Credible and reliable help in building your application is the best investment you can make for your online property.

Most Rails developers know of PeepCode but I know only a few that have actually purchased a screencast from them. I’m really happy that they’ve reintroduced their year subscription. There’s no excuse now – go and buy this! After watching two or three I can say it’s already paid for itself.

Interestingly, I’m enjoying the pdf’s just as much as the screencasts. Keep it up PeepCode!

If you’re a cheapskate, start out over at RailsCasts – but if you like them, help Ryan out and buy some PeepCode material.