A few days before New Years, I posted how neat it’d be if we had a Ruby Appliance. This, and the mail to the ruby-talk mailing list has resulted in a couple of results already.

For one, we found a name: Ruby Zen, which fits quite well, and is appropriately Web 2.0 without being unintelligible.

For another: rubyzen.org has been registered, and we are feverishly working on getting the website up and some content, too.

We are also working on evaluating Linux distros, with Gentoo, Turnkey Linux, and Ubuntu being hot candidates for the appliance’s operating system.

We’ve also decided to focus on Ruby 1.9.1.

The guys over at gemcutter.org were so kind to provide me with a quick dump of the top 100 hottest gems, so we can pick some great gems to start with.

Unfortunately, this is happening behind closed doors of sorts, since, at the moment, we are using Google Wave which is still closed to the general public. However, if you leave me a comment here, we can organize a handful Wave invites for certain! (I still got 5 or 6 left from the first batch alone.)

So, what else?

Future plans!

In the short term:

• Get a website up for easy contribution (and to move the development process in the public, where it belongs, it’s done by the community for the community, after all)
• Have a prototype VM ready in a couple of days
• Get more contributors. You can help if: You can test a virtual machine, read proposals and comment on them (provide a reality check! Always good!), write a tutorial (maybe for your favorite gem, or Ruby feature)
• Got TikiWiki experience? I’d be glad to hear from you, if you could lend a hand in implementing features (like an issue tracker, or user wiki page).

So, yeah, the Ruby Appliance isn’t forgotten. Considering that this was between the years we did get quite a bit done yet. Thanks to every one (here or on Ruby Talk) who contributed already.

ClothRed is in dire need of help. Your help.

I simply don’t have the time, or will–truth be told–to begin work on ClothRed again. The code’s become foreign to me, way too foreign, and I have to get back into the thick of things, to write any useful developments for ClothRed.

So, what is ClothRed? In theory, it’s an HTML to Textile parser, for example to filter user input, so it goes well with RedCloth (see what I did there? Boy, did I think I was clever).

However, the architecture of this thing is rather stupid, if not braindead, working off of hardcoded Arrays of HTML tags and entities, and #gsub’ing those tags. Embarassing, really.

However, it has a complete set of tests from my TDD (it even passes them, except the one I left off, natch). Still kinda proud of this, since ClothRed was my first project to make use of TDD, and the Unit::Test framework).

If you don’t know where to start: I’d get a rewrite off the ground, using Nokogiri, it seems simple enough (and allows to extract innerHTML, and attributes, and all kinds of neat stuff. Would’ve been nice to have that available when I worked on ClothRed).

The Rakefile needs clean up, too.

So, head on over to http://github.com/CynicalRyan/ClothRed, and take a look if you’d be willing to take up the work from there.

Update: Fixed link.

In this context, an appliance is a ready-to-run virtual machine. No set up to speak of required.

But why? Isn’t it easy to install Ruby wherever you like?

That is very true.

However, the Ruby ecosystem is very *NIX centric. Not everyone has the luxury, or time or ability, to setup and maintain a UNIX-like operating system.

Virtualization and thus appliances turn operating systems into just another kind of program. They reduce the risk of using a different operating system. Further, not everyone using Ruby wants to, or can, dig through C extensions to make them work on their operating system of choice. The hurdles as a Windows user are too high in most cases.

An appliance makes it easier to setup test environments, so they are great for seasoned developers, as well!

You can start with a clean slate, only Ruby, RubyGems, and a compiler tool chain are installed, and you can easily revert to this blank slate at the push of a button. With the different networking tools in today’s VM tools, you can even test network deployment of Rails applications.

So here is my proposal:

To create the best possible Ruby appliance and experience, I want to know which Gems and tools the Ruby community sees as essential to make life as a Rubyist easier.

Submit your ideas, and the Ruby Appliance will benefit and with that, all of the Ruby community.

Speaking of which: Praising “open” and using Macs, makes a hypocrite at best, and an idiot at worst. Use OpenSolaris, *BSD, or Linux if you want to be open in spirit. Or, like me, stop bothering, and use what you are comfortable with, and stop pretending you use it for any other reason than that you are comfortable with it.

Anyway. vim.

After nano, vim is the best editor in the world (once you get used to its idiosyncrasies), making editing code, or plain ol’ text a breeze, and its distinction between editing and normal mode is quite sweet.

But, while using the official (well, as official as open source gets) gVim 7.2 distribution from vim.org, I noticed that it is compiled with -ruby (and -perl, or -python). Neither :ruby nor :rubyf work. Which makes the hack, test, hack, test cycle not smooth at all, since :rubyf % doesn’t work.

Fortunately, fixing this is easy, once you know how:

Install the official gVim 7.2 distribution, and get Wu Yongwei’s gVim build. replace the binariesof  your vim installation with the ones in his gVim 7.2 distribution. Done. This works even with the MinGW Ruby distribution from RubyInstaller.org.

Happy Vimming.

Ever since I got an iPod Touch, I’ve been reading eBooks on the go. At least, as far as Stanza’s library of content allowed. Which, while extensive, doesn’t cover my taste in light entertainment.

In theory, Stanza Desktop allows me to sync my eBooks with my iPhone, but since Stanza insists on its own version of Bonjour (and with Apple’s software I’m loathe to replace what comes with iTunes), this never worked out.

Until I discovered Calibre, that is.

Stanza has the ability to add content libraries (Random House offers a channel of free books exclusive to Stanza users, that alone makes Stanza worth checking out).

First, grab Calibre and Stanza from its website, and the iTunes App Store, respectively.

Once Calibre is started, add the eBooks you want to get on your iPod (or all of them). Calibre supports several formats, it seems, my collection is in .lit (MS Reader) and, now, ePub formats.

Once you have imported them, you’ll have to convert them. Calibre fortunately picks a sane default format (ePub), which Stanza understands.

After the conversion is finished, go to Calibre’s Preferences, select Content Server, and pick Start Server. You can test its functunality with the provided button: This will open the server’s website in your default browser.

Now all you need to do is configuring Stanza to access your eBook library.

From Stanza’s Library, Select Online Catalog:

Once there, touch the plus, and select “Add Website”.

In the new screen, enter Name, and the IP address of your computer, plus Calibre’s port:

Obciously, your iPod/iPhone has to be connect to the local WiFi in order to access your library. Now, with the touch of a button, you can get all your eBooks on your iPod, too.

Downside: There is no syncing for bookmarks / reading state for eBooks you happen to read on your PC.

The power of visualizing data, what globalization can really mean, and possible power players. Highly recommended, that one.

Apple. iTunes made it to version 9. And if you edit MP3 Tags, it a) cannot search in the whole database, but only can compare the beginning of strings, and b) auto-completion doesn’t like being overriden the second it goes into effect, but insists on its changes. Dear Apple, even MS manages that in Vista, the OS widely regarded as the worst evar (at least, until Windows 7 sees wide release).

Cisco. Their VPN client, for some reason, saw fit to change my proxy settings in IE. Without telling me about it. Nor changing it back. Lovely.

My fellow students at the Cologne Institute for Applied Science. You guys need to learn to read a clock, and look up “on time” in the dictionary. The whole day, people managed to be too late to classes. With 15 minutes of time to find the next room. And the campus consists of a whopping 2 buildings. Shall I draw a map, if you don’t know where to go?

Public Transport. God knows, the timetable and routes for the busses are a major source of annoyance. Good thing I don’t mind the weather in my neck of the woods, so I can walk the 2 kms, day and night.

Granted, we start early (0800 in the morning. Yay. I’m in need of a nap already..).

Granted, travelling from home to college can take some time (I’m up since 0600, whence me needing a nap).

Gut fuck you (general you), if you ain’t able to properly plan your travel, and show up at 8:45, instead of 8:15 in the morning. Why do you bother in the first place? If you don’t think you need to visit all of the session, stay the fuck at home. It’s no use showing up later. The sessions start seamlessly. Stay home, get sleep, and let teh rest of us work without interruption.

When you enter your serial number, you will be redirected to a website in order to fully register and activate your product. This website will require a new Autodesk login id – different from your student community login id.

Apparently, it isn’t enough to remember Yet Another Set Of Login Credentials(tm) for any given website I want to use semi-regularly (Sorry, NY Times, but your login wall works quite well in keeping me from perusing your news section), but AutoDesk requires bloody two of them. Which is rather obvious nonsense. Even my college manages to provide a SSO behind the scenes. Too bad my college uses AutoCAD, too, so I’m pretty much stuck with it. Awesome.

BTW, AutoDesk: Acronyms are capitalized. It is “ID”. Otherwise, I’ll call it Autodesk cad, m’kay?

And a 13 month limit on an install is rather ridiculous, considering that college takes at least 3 years, and that I could, you know, use a torrent instead. Great job in punishing me for being honest. Gotta love market leaders. Always the same crap.

Also, an explanation for the long silence: I was busy applying for college to get a mechanical engineering degree. That took up a lot of time, and cost me a lot of nerves, so I couldn’t sit down to properly write something.

Image by jovike via Flickr

Die gute Tat der Piraten (German) is an article talking about how the relationship artist – record label is changing. The Big 4 labels are moving away from finding and publishing new artists (and risking their investments if an artist isn’t as good as hoped, and doesn’t produce a steady revenue stream), while new artists are using the internet to generate publicity for themselves and their music. And that this approach isn’t a guarantee to stardom for artists, either.

The services a record label traditionally provide aren’t needed anymore: recording, promotion, booking,

In short, the music industry is changing.

Something similar can be seen in print (and a bit in TV news). More and more, especially younger, people are using the internet as their (primary) source of information.

Both industries, news and entertainment, are gatekeepers. And their role is diminishing. This isn’t bad or good. It is a result that formerly expensive activities (like producing a song, or publishing news) has become

cheap. Nowadays, you can get blogging in a minute, can buy music online (iTunes, Amazon MP3, and that’s just the big ones!), or can use Twitter to get news. Two examples: The Iranian election, or the Chengdu earthquake.

And the gatekeeper of the gatekeepers, the wire services, will fall victim to this, too. AP is already feeling the pain.

On the other hand, this shifts a burden that the gatekeeper had onto our, the consumer’s, shoulder: filtering the good from the bad.

After all, Britney Spears isn’t dead.