Compiling Ruby on Rails on PowerPC

I had need of a Rails development environment but was low on options. So I pulled out an old Mac Mini running OS X 10.5.8. I downloaded Xcode 3.1.4 from the Apple Developer site.  I think 3.1.4 is the last version of Xcode Apple released for 10.5

RubyonRails.org does not offer a pre-compiled version for PowerPC so I had to download the source for Ruby and compile it. Compiling Ruby 1.8.6 went without incident. I then installed Gem 1.8.24.

When I ran "/usr/local/bin/ruby setup.rb" I received the following message:
     "It seems your ruby installation is missing psych (for VAML output). To eliminate this warning, please install libyaml and reinstall your ruby."

Since it is just a warning, I decided to proceed rather than track down the libyaml library. But when I ran "gem install rails" I received the following message:
     "ERROR: While executing gem ... (Gem::RemoteSourceException) HTTP Response 302 fetching http://gems.rubyforge.org/yaml"

SupportSages had the fix to my issue.  Following their article I did the following:
     1) "gem install rubygems-update --source http://production.s3.rubygems.org/"
     2) "gem update --system --source http://production.s3.rubygems.org/"
     3) "gem sources -a http://production.s3.rubygems.org/"

My next stumbling block was when I tried to install rails a second time. When I ran "gem install rails" again I recieved the following error:
     "ERROR: Error installing rails: activesupport requires Ruby version >= 1.8.7"

[UPDATE 1]

abaird had a solution that worked for me. His solution is meant for Windows, not for PowerPC but it gave me a clue.  So I did a little research and it looks like activesupport 2.3.14 should meet my needs. So I ran:
     1) "gem install activesupport -v 2.3.14"

So, we'll see if I have what I need.  At the moment i have the following installed on a PowerPC instance of OS X 10.5.8:
     - "ruby -v" returns "ruby1.8.6 (2009-06-08 patchlevel 369) [universal-darwin9.0]"
     - "rails -v" returns "rails 1.2.6"

[UPDATE 2]

The normal "rails server" command did not start my default rails app.  After creating the initial app, I had to run "./scripts/server" to load it. I will need to remember to add that command to the server startup scripts.

pinboard

As you may have read, Yahoo has decided to can del.icio.us.  Having been a long time user of delicious, that news has caused some anxiety.  I have looked around at the options and settled on pinboard.

Pinboard is basically delicious but with a few variations.  I can now post links via email.  It has an "unread" feature - not sure why but it is there and may be of use to someone.  beyond that, it is delicious for all intents and purposes from a user perspective.

It does cost, but it is a one time fee and at the moment is less than $10.  I think the cost is justifiable, you may not - but take a look at it.

Lingon

At some point Apple made the decision to deprecate cron.  They replaced that functionality with launchd & launchctl.  I recently found a gui app that simplifies the process of interacting with launchd & it is called Lingon.

It has a clean interface and straight forward options.  For individuals that need a little extra help there is a wizard you can use via the "Assist" button.  The wizard will ask a few questions, ask for some input based on the way you answered the questions and generate the plist file you need and launch it, if you configured it to launch.

Take a look at it over at Sourceforge.

SetACL notes

To take ownership: SetACL -on "[path]" -ot file -actn setowner -ownr "n:Administrators;s:n" -rec cont_obj

To enable inheritance: SetACL -on "[path]" -ot file -actn setprot -op "dacl:np;sacl:nc" -rec cont_obj




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Run an interactive EXE with system

This works for XP, W2K, W23:

sc create testsvc binpath= "cmd /K start" type= own type= interact

If this command succeeds, just start the service.

From:blogs.madness.com/b/adioltean/archive/2004/11/27/271063.aspx

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Excel mod

For me, in Excel 2007, spreadsheets always open in the same "master" Excel window.  If I want to view two spreadsheets concurrently I have to use the internal Excel windows manager and my view is limited to the size of the "master/Primary" window.

Jarrah of "Jarrah's Blog Pile" has a great solution/mod for this issue.  Follow his instructions and you can launch multiple instances of excel, each with only one spreadsheet.


Here is a link to his instructions: How to make Excel open each file in a separate window

Observations on Chrome

I have been using Chrome for almost a month on XP SP3 (on a Compaq 8610p), Windows 2003 Server (on a Dell GX260) and OSX 10.6.3 (on a 2007 17" Macbook Pro).  I have been comparing it to IE8, Firefox and Camino (**I don't like Safari and try to avoid it as much as possible**). So far:

- It is not noticeably faster than a basic Firefox install w/out any plugins.
- It is noticeably faster than IE on both versions of windows.
- It is not noticeably faster than Camino.
- I found a problem with my java install on the W23 box because Chrome kept choking on certain java heavy sites.  Once I fixed java Chrome was fine.
- It does not have the same range of security oriented plugins that Firefox does.
- I tried to use it on my work's Intranet and it failed hard.  For perspective, Firefox has some issues as well & IE, while slow, performs the best.  Being a corporate Intranet I am assuming it is all MS oriented.
- Blogger Dashboard is more responsive in Chrome.
- Gmail is the same in Firefox and Chrome, I don't go to Gmail with IE.
- MobileME is slow on all three browsers, in Windows and OSX.
    :: aside:: (You would think, as a selling point, Apple would want MobileME to be snappy on their platform...)

Overall, Chrome is fine.  I think Firefox is better, primarily because of the plugin "NoScript".  But even without "NoSCript", Chrome doesn't outperform Firefox, at least not in the way I use a browser.  Which shouldn't be a surprise I suppose.  Browsers are basically rendering engines/ code interpreters and as such, all browsers will have their performance dictated by the OS and hardware they are running on.

    :: aside:: (I saw Google's Chrome ad emphasizing the speed of page loads.  I am surprised they put out such an obvious piece of spin.  The absurdness of it made me laugh.)