I am writing this post using WriteRoom, one super working space on my new laptop Macbook Pro.  I got this one as one major purchase after I landed in US.

I gave up my only companion the PC, to which I have been faithful since my beginning days in computers for a new Mac. Why did I take the decision? I still use Microsoft’s own Visual Studio in office for my development activities. So half of my time, I am on a PC and the remaining time I am on Mac. They both are a different culture. Everything about Mac, at least my first feel of Mac is it is beautiful.

Design – It is Apple’s forte. It has that good finish, wonderful, artistic and everything about it. That is what captured me to it. Being a designer myself, I wanted to own it, and it just happened that I did it in the home of software development.

I have no regrets with Windows or Linux, the two other operating systems I have used fairly so far. The first software that I have licensed, other than the OS is TextMate. It was a worthy buy. So I have bought a license for it. It feels good to own and work on licensed software. I feel as if I own it. I feel that I respect the work that goes into the making of it. I love open source and free softwares. If there is some great work going on, and you can provide your own contributions to it, yes pay them. It is not for the software, but the people behind it.

In India, we use pirated software all the time. Piracy is nothing. Everyone has a copy of Windows, Office running on their machines. The cost of software in Indian currency is much higher compared to the US counterparts. People don’t like to pay for just a CD. We are used to the belief that if you pay more, you get more. For something as big as Rs. 13,000/- a CD doesn’t suffice, we look for something more bigger. We are used to thinking that way, just like grocery and furniture shopping.

Since, everyone is used to using Windows, no one wants to move from the comfort zone offered by it and embrace free software. There has to be paradigm shift, if people should start buying software.

How can that be achieved. It won’t/can’t happen immediately. Schools should start using Linux and open source softwares. Students must be encouraged to read code, tweak existing programs so that they get what they want. They must get that idea, the machine does only what they want it to do, rather than stand amazed at seeing the computer working. After all it is what it is programmed for. Then as they grow up, they will start appreciating software and by the time, they get their own computers, they get to choose what they want. They can buy a Windows or a Mac, or write their own operating systems.

Lets make this happen!

After all, it is necessity that is the mother of all inventions.

Here is a nice incident that happened today at office.

We use Star Team for source code configuration tool. I wanted to move the location where I maintain the project files in my local system, from C:\ to D:\. So I logged into Star Team, and opened the project. Then I clicked on View -> Properties. This opened the Properties dialog. There I selected the “Alternate Path” option and specified the “D:\Directory”.

Instead of showing all the files in the ‘Missing’ status, Star Team just didn’t display any folder excepting the Root folder. For any one who logged in after i made the change, Star Team just was reporting a ‘Not in View’ status, meaning, the file was not in the Star Team. Ah! It turned out that I had deleted all the files from “Source Control”… with a big stress on the word ‘Deleted’.

Actually, we are living in a connected world. So it happened that, our Star Team administrator had removed the ‘Grant’ privilege on all of us as he was doing some testing and he didn’t want us to make change to the Star Team. What he failed to do was not intimating us of the grant change.

So once, the grant was provided to all, we were all able to see all the files. That ended the case of the missing files!!!

Here is the learning: To change Grant options: On the Folder Tree Menu, choose Advanced and then Select Child Folders. Then choose the users who need Access and Grant them the access to the folder. If nothing is specified, all are granted privilege to the folders.

Free, I have broken free, free from proprietary software in my personal life.

I have decided to use only software that are free. Making that move wasn’t that easy, got to leave the comfort of Windows and MS Office, the one’s I have been used to since I started using computers. I have not broken free from the entire MS world of software, coz I make my living coding in C#, I have a Express Edition of Visual Studio for the learning that is needed to keep me hands-on up-to-date on the technology.

For office suite, I have resorted to OpenOffice 3. It does the job well for me. Chrome for a browser and NetBeans IDE for development is all I need. It is a nice feel to be just using free software, at least I know I have not stolen other’s money. I respect another software engineer, for his work.

Here is a nice quote, from the famous film, The Shawshank Redemption where Morgan Freeman says,

“Some birds aren’t meant to be caged, their feathers are just too bright, and when they fly away… the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice…” – The Shawshank Redemption.

I feel I’m one of those birds which is not supposed to be caged, and I have grown one feather that is going to help me in my flight..

After a unsuccessful installation of rails that took nearly 5 hours, I decided to get rid of Ruby. But the geek inside me, wanted me to go for the kill. That started the quest of successfully installing and deploying rails on WAMP server. Here are the steps.

Requirements:

WAMP Server
Ruby Installer for Windows.
Ruby Gems.
Download the latest .gem file for Rake.
Download the latest .gem file for Active Record.
Download the latest .gem file for Active Support.
Download the latest .gem file for Action Mailer.
Download the latest .gem file for Action Pack.
Download the latest .gem file for Rails.

Installation Instructions:

Install WAMP and Ruby on the machine.

Extract the Ruby Gems Zip file to any location and open a command prompt window.

Run setup.rb from the command prompt in the location where the zip was extracted.

Open command prompt and navigate to the folder where the downloaded gems are located.

Install Rake using the following command.

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gem install rake-x.x.x --local

Here x.x.x stands for the version number, for example, to install rake-2.3.2.gem run it as ‘gem install rake-2.3.2 –local’.

Install Active Support, Active Record, Action Pack, Action Mailer and Rails using the command as below

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gem install gem-x.x.x --local

Replacing the gem- to the current gem to be installed.

This will get Rails installed on the machine. The total install time should be close to 10 minutes.