How to implement a singleton model

Question

I have a site in rails and want to have site-wide settings. One part of my app can notify the admin by SMS if a specific event happens. This is an example of a feature that

Answer 1

Simple:

class AppSettings < ActiveRecord::Base 
  before_create do
    self.errors.add(:base, "already one setting object existing") and return false if AppSettings.exists?      
  end

  def self.instance
    AppSettings.first_or_create!(...) 
  end 
end