Information:

* Fernand Galiana: fernand.galiana@gmail.com : @kitesufer
* Rackamole: http://rackamole.com : @rackamole
* Forum:     http://groups.google.com/group/rackamole
* Git:       git://github.com/derailed/rackamole.git

Rackamole: Observe your web applications in the wild...

These days, companies love to claim their entire devotion to the Agile process. 
We all iterate, do the SCRUM thing, often for longer than we care for, and we are 
all sworn into delivering early and often... 

But how can you really measure if your application is a success or a bust? 
We all know that page hits and heat maps are only good in the eyes of marketeers, 
or some usability PHD... How do you accurately assess that the "must have" features
in your application are actually being used and how are your customers actually using them ? 
More importantly, how can you accurately assess you are iterating down the right path for 
your product and company success, and not simply digging further in the rat hole ?

In other word, at times do you feel you are adhering to the frAgile methodology 
whose motto is 'Deliver early and often deliver the wrong shit?

Rackamole is a rack application that allows you to cover the 'death zone' in your application
life cycle. Prior to your next iteration, why not take the time to observe the interactions of your 
customers with your application in the wild. Rackmole specializes in trapping and recording 
feature usage, performance issues and application exception. By being part and not seating
outside your application stack, the mole can record the very essence of an interaction.
You can then leverage this new found knowledge to prepare for your next iterations.
As an added bonus, you can leverage Rackamole, to track your QA team progress and making sure  
no features is left unturned prior to the big push.

Installation:

> gem install rackamole -s http://gemcutter.org

Usage:

use Rack::Mole, {...}

You can simply log the interaction to the console (the default) or log file.
Alternatively leverage the mongo adapter to use MongoDB to store the information 
for later querying and reporting.

The gem comes bundled with an email notifier to alert you when something is happening and 
needs your attention. Granted this won't improve your social ranking much, but additionally 
you and your team can follow your application 'happenings' on twitter...

We are currently working on companion application aka 'Wackamole' that will allow you to view 
and drilldown on the collected information.

Thanks for stopping by!