e x p r e s s i c a

If you are running through the issues like:

ERROR:  Loading command: install (LoadError)

no such file to load — zlib

ERROR:  While executing gem … (NameError)

uninitialized constant Gem::Commands::InstallCommand

This means, zlib was not installed while compiling Ruby (it’s a question though why it has been kept optional when it’s so required), so you can simply compile it later and fix the above issues.

Install the zlib dev libraries

sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev

Then go to the source directory from where you compiled the Ruby and there you will find source for zlib.
e.g. /usr/local/src/ruby-1.8.7/ext/zlib
In case, if you used RVM, then it will be here

cd /home/user/.rvm/src/ruby-1.8.7-p352/ext/zlib

And do the following commands

ruby extconf.rb
make
make install

And that’s it.

The best way to manage multiple Rails applications on Mac machine is Apache + Passenger + Passenger Preference Pane.

This post is specially dedicated to Passenger Preference Pane … it’s simply awesome and it’s made Passenger even more sweet and easy to use on the development machine.

Managing the /etc/hosts entries for rails apps, server start, adding a new app to be entertained by passenger… all this is as easy as just drag and drop your rails application’s root folder on the Passenger Preference Pane. slick.. hmm !!

Here I am not talking about the Google Ads but a niche marketing technique which is doing really well. James Avery is the guy behind the game. James and Tammy are running the company called InfoZerk. And a subsidiary, a brainchild of James, ZerkMedia is building up a niche advertising networks. The RubyRow and The Lounge are already doing fairly good. Soon there will be an advertising network to reach twitter users. The Lounge is the network for microsoft technologies and has got numerous rooms for publishing. The RubyRow in fact is turning out to be a first choice for advertising Ruby/Rails related products. RubyRow has got 11 super awesome Rails guys as publishers, Obie, Ryan, Dr. Nic, Jamis and Josh to name a few.

Gosu is an open source game development library. Ruby and C++ programming languages can be used to write games using the Gosu library. The Passenger guys presented the RubyStein game written in Ruby. It’s an interesting game and has got many famous personalities form Rails community including DHH, ZedShaw and some as well brands like Peepcode.

If you are on Ubuntu, you can try these steps to enjoy this game.

First, install the gosu and dependent libraries…

sudo apt-get install libsdl-mixer1.2
sudo apt-get install libboost-dev
sudo apt-get install libpango1.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dev
sudo gem install gosu

Now, you can download the game and run it as

 ruby wolf3d.rb

and play it using the arrow keys and space bar.

For any other information contact me at sur.max@gmail.com

Manik started with the introductory session. I then started with the basics of Ruby Programming language covering the variables, functions, lambda, classes, modules and somethings on the meta classes. It went well with discussions on some of the points after that Aman came up with a fantastic OOP presentation , demonstrating how we can leverage the Object of Ruby to create the whole functionality of the Class without even touching the Class explicitly.
After lunch, Vijay did a good presentation on the web application testing using selenium. Currently Sai is presenting the testing with WATIR and also we have opened the boxes for the free Ruby T-Shirts and segregated them by sizes
RFD is going really great.
Sai is about to demonstrate some code for testing with Watir.

RFD - RubyFunDay, is about to start at ThoughtWorks, Pune. Hoping to have a great day.

Will be doing the live blogging as we move.

Right now going to have some breakfast from CCD

After the success of the first RubyFunDay, Geekeerie is proudly bringing up the next RubyFunDay at Pune, India.
Here we are going to cover the latest topics in Rails 2 and the advanced Ruby concepts which will help you in building up your own RubyGems.

The tentative date of 2nd RubyFunDay is 21st Feb, 2009. If you wish to join in, you can register here.

Some of the advanced topics to be covered in Ruby are:

• Metaprogramming with Ruby
• GC - Grabage Collector
• Delegation in Ruby
• Building a simple TCP IP client-server in Ruby

Some of the topics to be covered in Rails are:

• Advanced features of Rails 2
• How to write a Rails plugin
• Deeper understanding of Ajax with examples
• Simple PayPal integration with Rails

Free Goodies

• Lunch
• Ruby printed T-Shirts

It’s going to be great fun, if you wish to join in, you would need to register in advance as we will be having limited entries.

For any further questions, contact me at sur.max@gmail.com

We are looking for sponsors for the Venue, Lunch and the T-Shirts. Please contact me at sur.max@gmail.com

See you there.

Since last one year, there is quite a bit of Ruby and RubyOnRails development happening in India. Still the biggest thing missing here is the official Ruby and Rails meet-ups like RailsConf and RubyConf. Being in Ruby and Rails community since last three years I’ve been attending many events in India but couldn’t find any of them Ruby centric. And in one of the past event I and Manik decided to have an event focusing fully on Ruby and RubyOnRails.

And here we come. We are organizing the first RubyFunDay. Its going to be one of its kind of event in India. There would be sessions on some of the really hot topics…

• Flex + Rails
• Internationalization in Rails
• FxRuby+AR
• Facebook APP + Rails

If you like to have Fun with Ruby, you are most welcome to attend the event. To attend the event, you would need to register online for the event. Its going to happen in a very decent venue, and we are hearty grateful to Impetus Technology for sponsoring the venue. I am sure you would enjoy a lot in the event.


More good things in the event apart from Ruby and Rails includes the printed Ruby Ts … cool yeah ?

RubyFunDay is going to be a pure Code Burning Station. Every session would be full of live code demonstrations.
If you would like to present a session at this event, register online for it and send me an email with your topic’s details on [surDOTmaxATgmailDOTcom]. The only constraint we have is, it should not be mere presentation, you will have to show the live code in the session.

For registration and more details on the event please visit here

I would really appreciate if you blog/tweet about the event and help spreading a word about it. If you do, please add the tag/category to the post as “rubyfunday”.

If you would be there, and get time, I would love to speak to you. You can recognize me easily, its very simple, I wear Jeans and T-shirts mostly

See you there with more and more Ruby.

After a long silence, Simple Captcha is back in move now. Simple Captcha 2.0 will be here very soon.

Here are some very useful features coming up with Simple Captcha 2.0

• Ajax based refreshing of captcha image — a much awaiting one!
• Full control on the image font — now this is fun-do! You would be able to use any font.. yeah literally any font. The overview of this feature is that you would just need to put .ttf font file in the plugin’s directory and that is it. Cool yeah ?
• Better control on the default values and settings via simple_captcha.yml file.
• Ability do define/undefine case sensitivity.