The Idea Ether

Ruby 1.8.1 Preview 2 Released

Quickly following the release of preview 1 of Ruby 1.8.1, preview 2 was released by Matz today. Preview 1 (which I blogged on a bit earlier) left out a header file that broke the build. Tom Copeland mirrored it on RubyForge here. Matz also indicated that the final 1.8.1 release will be out within about 2 weeks. Cool!

Down with Activation

Jim Rapoza over at eWeek just published an opinion piece on Macromedia using product activation titled "Down with Activation". As you can see from my previous post I rather dislike activation. Jim documents how Intuit included activation in their last TurboTax (2002) product and it was a terrible failure. Macromedia should learn from others mistakes before they have to learn the hard way.

Nice job Jim!

Ruby 1.8.1 Preview 1 Released

Matz has posted the first preview of Ruby 1.8.1. Lots of little fixes in here from the 1.8 release. This should transition to a 1.8.1 release soon. Tom Copeland mirrored the download of it on RubyForge here.

Thanks Matz (and Tom).

Macromedia's Activation and Panther Woes

Well, its been one of those days. Actually, it started last night when I tried to start my installed copy of Macromedia Flash 2004. First some background.

Last friday (10/24/03) I upgraded to Panther from 10.2.8. When I performed the upgrade I selected the Archive/Install option. The upgrade went great...no worries...all my applications were still there in my dock after the upgrade. The first thing I did (after playing with some new features of Panther) was build Ruby 1.8.1. You can read my instructions on how to do this here. Last night I needed to jump back into a super-secret cool Ruby project I am planning that uses Flash. I will blog that project as I get something to show, but the problem arose when I clicked on the Flash icon. The icon started bouncing, then just stopped. No error messages, no dialog boxes...nothing.

I actually paid $$$ for a Macromedia Devnet subscription so I called the hotline (yeah right!). It was 7:30pm EST (4:30 on the west coast) and their tech support was closed! OK...so...I just started Googling around a bit and discovered that Macromedia now incorporates activation technology into their programs. One listing I found stated that you should deactivate the product prior to installing Panther. Nice suggestion, but too late for me. Suck!

So, I went on a deletion spree and removed all hints of Macromedia stuff from my computer. I removed the folders in the Applications folder, the /Library/Application Support/Macromedia folder and the ~/Library/Application Support/Macromedia folder. I then re-installed the application. I figured this purging would suffice, but lo and behold demons were still present. I double-clicked on the Flash 2004 icon and it bounced around and the quit...just like before. Suck^2!

The next day I called tech support and finally reached a human and told them my problem. They recommended that I remove all the Macromedia folders and try again. I told them I already did, and that threw them off the script a bit...then they told me they would call me back. I got many calls. Each one asking me to try something that I had already done, like installing other Macromedia apps (Dreamweaver, etc). All those apps behaved the exact same way. I did some more searching and stumbled across this page. About half way down you see a section titled Mac OS 10.3 user authentication dialog fail.

Just before reading this I opened up the Console application to see if there were any reported errors there. What I saw was re-enforced by what the release note said. I saw a message "Authentication Service: Started" appear just before the bouncing Flash icon died. Hm...smells like smoke. It seems that there is this creepy little application in this creepy little folder (/Library/Application Support/Macrovision/AuthenticationService). Ah ha! I cried and promptly removed this folder, removed all the Macromedia folders (again) and re-installed. I then clicked on the Flash 2004 application and it bounced a couple of times, then quit...just like before. Suck^3!

Fortunately Macromedia tech support called back and told me to try something. They said to delete this folder named /Library/Application Support/Macrovision. "Been there--done that!", was my reply, and they told me it was time to escalate the problem to the next level of tech support. I was really just pissed at this point. Then something struck me...plists. What if this damned Authentication Service had little plists somewhere. I went to the /Library/Preferences and there I found a Macrovision directory. "Move to trash" was what I said and then double-clicked on the Flash 2004 application and....

Bam! The dialog that said "You need to activate Flash on this computer..."

Yippie. I entered my 10^1000 digit license code and...chorus of angels singing...Flash worked (as did Dreamweaver, etc). So, like a good citizen I called back Macromedia and told them how I fixed their freaking activation service. They were so thankful that they closed the issue and charged me one of my tech support incidents.

A couple of lessons learned:

(1) If Macromedia did not have cool technology, I would never do business with them.

(2) Activation-based software license enforcement sucks^4!

William Blake

Every now and then I am going to post a stanza or two from poems that impact me. I have been reading William Blake lately and his poem from Poetical Sketches, Song: "Love and harmony combine" begins...

Love and harmony combine,
And around our souls intwine,
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.

There's more, but this first stanza is just...perfect. The power of words amaze me.

Building Ruby 1.8.1 on Panther

Well, last Friday was my day for Panther. Since I pre-ordered it, my disks arrived early in the afternoon. It was one of the most painless upgrades I have ever performed, while having some really great new features. Of course, shortly after my install, I needed to install the latest version of Ruby. I tried (with a lot of help from James Duncan Davidson) to get Ruby 1.8 in Panther, but it was too late. In order to proceed with with the steps below you need to install the xCode developer's tools that come with Panther.

So, here it goes:

1) Make yourself a directory to build your stuff in (like build) and enter that directory.

2) A great tool that comes with Ruby is irb (Interactive Ruby). One really nice thing in irb is using the up arrow to recall previous lines of typed in Ruby code. The problem is this depends on readline which is not included in Panther. So, we need to install readline prior to installing Ruby. You can do it after, but its more of a PITA.

$ curl -o readline-4.3.tar.gz \
   ftp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/readline/readline-4.3.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf readline-4.3.tar.gz
$ cd readline-4.3
$ perl -i.bak -p -e \
  "s/SHLIB_LIBS=.*/SHLIB_LIBS='-lSystem -lncurses -lcc_dynamic'/g" \
  support/shobj-conf
$ ./configure 
$ make
$ sudo make install
password: (your password)
$ cd ..

Note: That perl hack was found to fix a linking problem.

3) UPDATED: Now onto my favorite programming language. Ruby 1.8.1 is the current stable release, and it should be the version built. From the command line do the following:

$ curl -o ruby-1.8.1.tar.gz \
   "http://rubyforge.org/download.php/262/ruby-1.8.1.tar.gz"
$ tar -xzf ruby-1.8.1.tar.gz  

4) Build and install Ruby.

$ cd ruby-1.8.1
$ autoconf
$ ./configure

Its worth discussing here that when you run ./configure you can specify the prefix for installation with --prefix. It defaults to /usr/local (which is not included in the default path for Panther's terminal). I leave it in /usr/local even though the Ruby that ships with Panther is in /usr so that I can keep the old version around (for Apple updates, etc). Anyway...

$ make
$ make test
$ sudo make install
password: (your password)

5) Update your path to include /usr/local/bin. I am still running tcsh instead of bash (since the Panther upgrade honored my existing shell...thanks Apple!). Anyway, once you do that test out Ruby and verify its installation:

$ ruby -v
ruby 1.8.1 (2003-10-24) [powerpc-darwin]

Cool!

BTW: I am going to try and build a .dmg file of this Ruby build for simple installation by folks that don't want to go through these kind of low-level steps.

I finally have a blog!

Well, this is my new place in the blog-o-sphere. I will be posting my ideas about the various threads that pass through my brain. I have lots of interests from Ruby programming to Reformation Theology, from P2P computing to HCI research, from poetry to early childhood education. Technology can be an enabler for so much good, or so much mischief, that all technologists should discuss intended and unintended consequences of their creations.

With that in mind, let the idea flow begin :-)