Setting up Ruby on Rails on Ubuntu

This did not go easy for me and that is why this post.

Step 1: Install Ruby by downloading its source listed here. Compile and make install it.

Step 2. Download rubygems from the same link given above. Run the setup.rb as shown.

Step 3: Install rails by running this command: gem install rails. This threw an error for me: no such file to load — zlib

Step 4: To overcome this problem, it is a two step process. Download the ruby-zlib package from here and also download the zlib-devel and install it through this command: apt-get install zlib1g-dev

Step 5: Now install ruby-zlib package by running extconf.rb file. It should install successfully. Now go back and install the rubygems setup.rb again just to make sure.

Step 6: Now you continue with the rails installation.

Hope this helps!

Enabling wifi on Ubuntu (bootcamp on Apple Macbook)

This was not an easy task until I bumped into the right link which made it to work. While searching on Google takes you to a lot of places and tried them all but in vain. This link got my wifi to work on Ubuntu installed on my MacBook via BootCamp.

Goto https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MacBook and choose the appropriate link according to the Apple machine you are on and the version of Ubuntu you run. You can find that by running this command:

sudo dmidecode -s system-product-name

Choose your link based on these and you get access to all the documentation. Goto Wireless section and install those patches and restart. Voila!

Interesting Articles – 05/05/2010

I would like to share some of the interesting articles I came across:

• The Big List of JavaScript, CSS, and HTML Development Tools, Libraries, Projects, and Books: A comprehensive list of web development tools and technologies.

• MS IE 9 and HTML5: Surprised to see IE9 supporting HTML5 completely and better than other leading browsers.
• Intel steps up competition in the mobile market: Interesting to read the computer architecture that goes behind Intel’s performance boost.

Have a nice time reading!

My thoughts on the Apple-Adobe fiasco

I assume that you would have read Steve Job’s thoughts on Flash by now and the following are my thoughts on this.

Firstly, let me put down the points on which I agree with Apple. Yes, Flash is not a low power software that can run on mobile phones, and HTML5 will become the way to go, given how rapid new browsers are supporting it.  And, all old Flash apps cannot run on touch-based smart phones unless they are re-implemented with workarounds for the hover functionality.

And now let me put down why Steve Jobs, in his thoughts, is not entirely convincing for me.

1. Flash is proprietary so is Apple SDK, iPhone hardware, etc. Apple, exactly similar to Flash, has 100% control over its future enhancements and pricing. As Steve Jobs said Apple is open only on the web-front and not with the App Store.
2. All the apps being written for the App Store cannot be reused in any other smart phones. This is the same problem we ran into in the 80′s with many platforms and having implementations for each. We need cross-platform technologies to implements apps. Is there any other way to have interactive, cross-platform apps other than Flash without writing proprietary code for the App Store? (Note that Flash apps will resolve cross-browser issues as well which HTML5 cannot until all browsers support HTML5)
3. Apple has to realize the fact that it does not have the major market share for the OS or browsers, Flash even though crashes on Safari works well on Firefox and other browsers. Adobe will obviously push efforts to the back burner if it is not affecting a majority of its users. That will be the reason for the late adoption of Cocoa as well.
4. The sixth point stated as most important by him actually sounds very devious. The desktop/web software development has taught us that writing code for proprietary hardware/platforms has to be rewritten and definitely cross-platform solutions are rewarding on the longer run. The third layer between the hardware and the developers is definitely needed so that the creations of today does not get obsolete sooner.

The actual scenario are pretty obvious that Flash is buggy on Safari and Apple does not yet have the majority of the users on the desktop/web front. But on mobiles, iPhone leads other smart phones in apps and browsing web content. Developers will continue building apps for the iPhone App Store as long as iPhone leads sales and app usage. This gives the voice for Apple to bring down Flash and go with HTML5 within the iPhone. I do not think Apple will allow Flash on iPhone ever since it is a direct threat to the App Store. Apple will have the voice until Android gets a significant market share.

Android app store has already 50,000 apps and is fast-growing. I hope Android gets there sooner so that the world can have a really open stack for the mobile platform.