Linux.com offers up an article showing off the power of the shell using pipelines. Linking small utilities with pipes in the shell is the fundamental power of Unix. Most of the examples should work unmodified on OS X.

Ruby has a date library to help you manage and manipulate dates. The date library provides Date and Date/Time objects that can be used to validate dates. In addition to straight Ruby, this helps work around a particularly nasty problem in version 1.x scaffolding date fields created by Rails.

Art of Geek has an interesting list of commands to handle unusual problems.

After some trial and error, I got my first significant Ruby on Rails application off the ground. By significant, I mean a dozen related tables, about 20 controllers, and some tricky business logic. I had been exploring Rails for a while and created a few toy applications, but hammering this one out still presented a challenge.

If you are used to programming CGI, PHP, or any application not built on a Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework, the learning curve is steep. While I can't offer up best practices -- I still have too much to learn -- I can offer up how-the-hell-do-I-get-started practices. For my own benefit, I created a list of steps to ease the pain of getting started.

As I get deeper into the Ruby world, it is helpful to have a few snippets of working code and syntax for common tasks to copy as needed. I expect to add to this tiny reference over time.
updated July 9, 2008 to add a one liner to remove DOS line endings from a text file.

Boot Camp is a set of tools to make dual booting an Intel Mac with Windows XP or Vista easy. The main reason you might want to dual boot as opposed to running Windows in emulation is for the extra performance from running natively. You might need this for gaming or a demanding application like CAD or photoshop where running in a virtual is just too slow.

You must have a CD or DVD with the full version of Windows XP or Vista. An upgrade disk will not work.

I attended the Mountain West RubyConf 2008 in Salt Lake City, UT.



It promised to be enlightening, and was. Some of the best sessions were unexpected gems (no pun intended). Following is my take on the sessions that provided some unique insights. Videos of all presentations are available on the Mountain West site.

Ruby is a popular text processing language that has gained a lot of momentum over the last few years, mostly due to the rise of Ruby on Rails. It has a lot of the good things from Perl, but implements a fully object oriented model and syntax.

Ruby is part of the default install of OS X.

I recently purchased a new Intel Macbook to replace my trusty iBook G4. Much has been written about the Apple's switch from PowerPC to Intel processors and there is no denying the market power of Intel, but I have some comments now that I have spent a little time with both kinds of Mac.