Install Ruby on Rails for Mac Snow Leopard using MacPorts

Not sure why but I had a heck of a time running my ruby on rails code after updating my Mac to Snow Leopard. I use MacPorts to do my development so I simply removed it and all of my ports as well as the gem I had installed in my home folder.  I went through a complete uninstall/reinstall several times before I found the combinations that worked for me.  These are the last steps I did where it worked…

sudo rm -rf /opt
sudo rm -rf .gem

I downloaded and installed the latest MacPorts (1.8).

I then executed the following commands:

sudo port selfupdate
 sudo port sync
 sudo port install ruby
 sudo port install git-core +svn
 sudo port install rb-rubygems
 sudo gem update --system
 sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install sqlite3-ruby -- --with-sqlite3-dir=/opt/local
 sudo gem install rails cucumber

I got a lot of “No definition for” warnings on the RDoc for sqlite3-ruby-1.2.5 but it doesn’t seem to matter.

Thanks to Ken Collins for his great blog entry that goes into much more detail.

Six degrees of Barack Obama

You’ve heard of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon?  It is the concept that you can connect to anyone in the world in six steps or less.  Microsoft has demonstrated this after checking (snooping?) through 30 billion IM conversations.  Well, anyone who knows me can (if they couldn’t before) trace their route to President Barack Obama.  Today my sister introduced me to her boss of many years, Ted Mondale.  Ted is a former MN state senator, and the son of the former Vice President of the United States Walter Mondale.  Walter’s boss was JimmyCarter, the President of the United States (POTUS for you West Wing fans).  Jimmy is in the very exclusive club of men who answer to the title “Mr. President” of which Barack Obama is the newest member.  So there you have it.

Step 1: you -> me  :^)
Step 2: me -> Shawna Rosso (my lovely sister)
Step 3: Shawna -> Ted Mondale (son of former Vice President)
Step 4: Ted -> Walter Mondale (former Vice President)
Step 5: Walter -> Jimmy Carter (former President)
Step 6: Jimmy -> Barack Obama (current President)

Blackberry preferred development platform is Windows

Well, I am in the middle of learning to write my first blackberry application. Since Blackberry uses the Java platform so heavily, I was excited to be able to develop natively on the Mac. Apparently there is no easy way to actually do this. I am used to using Eclipse for my java development so I was excited that Blackberry had an Eclipse plugin. I was very disappointed to learn that this plugin only works on a Windows machine. I believe it is the Simulators that cause the problem. I didn’t want to spend days fighting this issue, so I gave up and installed Eclipse on a Windows 32bit virtual machine. I was quite bummed to have to do this. I don’t understand why they go to so much trouble implementing the JME which is platform neutral, and then totally bomb when it comes to forcing developers to develop on a Windows box. I think it is crucial for them to support more than Windows so they can attract the thousands of iPhone developers that love their Macs (like me). Or maybe they know that if you really want to develop for the blackberry, you will just install Windows. I am looking forward to some Android development…