David Acevedo's Blog

Nothing is worse than having to print a retraction, one of my posts  is on the lightest way of installing a new Ruby on the Mac. Turns out the rbenv and ruby-build do indeed require Xcode. Even though the website and even some people believe it's not required , ruby-build needs a compiler. Suddenly the case for rbenv is nil, null and void. I am a bit upset that this requirement is not clear from the documentation, and its harder configuration, coupled with the need to always preface your Rails commands with 'bundle exec' and its lack of advantage of rvm in size, make rbenv a looser and I can't recommend it anymore. I have just switched to RVM , which while it requires the behemoth of Xcode or possibly just the ' command line tools for Xcode ' is a far better choice. RVM or Ruby Version Manager, allows you to create gem sets per project that then can be shared with the project itself. It's command line interface is super polished, and there is way more ...

Markdown for those that don't know is a type of file encoding (extension .md) that can be easily converted to HTML. To use Markdown, you just need a text editor but some programs make using it easier by showing you the rendered output in HTML. For Windows there is the excellent Markdown Pad which is a great example of a small light program that does what it does best. And for Mac, I suggest Textmate but there are others like Mou . I haven't found a great one for Linux but once you get the hang of Markdown you don't need a specialized text editor for it, any will do. For the iphone/ipad I suggest NOCS , which I got for free on a sale and is great. # Why is Markdown so awesome? # 1. It can be rendered easily into HTML, but also LaTex, and PDF. But that's a given right. - It makes writing HTML easy. Especially lists. It makes it so easy I use it for writing my TODO list. I love that after you establish  the first number every dash get's converted to the next num...

Opera Opera was for the longest time my favorite browser. It had tabbed browsing when that was just an idea in the back of a Firefox developer and it had a great hiding ability in the PC which made it great for work, Ctrl+H (they changed it afterwards) and it minimized to a task-bar icon, perfect for that unexpected visit to your workstation and even better, as my job was visually intensive but I could listen to whatever, it has a voice reader built-in on Windows XP. Unfortunately, Opera has more or less dropped from my the list of browsers I use with one exception: It's my default feed reader and IRC chat client . I also use it on my Mac laptop because it allows private tabs (as opposed to the whole browser) saving screen-real-estate. Sadly on the PC it has gone from main browser to occasional special use, which is a bit sad considering Opera pioneered a huge amount of the technologies used in other browsers like: tabbed browsing, keyword searches, persistent tabs, bu...

Typing accents on a PC is a complicated Alt + three numbered code affair. One feels like a sorcerer casting a spell. "I summon thee accented é! I press the weird magical key Alt, and with 0191 get the flipped question mark!" For a bilingual person this meant that writing on the computer was a start-and-stop process. With Mac's it a whole lot easier, just Alt + e and the letter you wanted for accents and alt + ? for the question mark. No need to leave the keyboard for the number pad and no need to remember arcane number combinations or have a paper cheat sheet next to the keyboard, as I've seen in virtually every secretaries computer in Puerto Rico. Linux has a interesting approach to foreign language characters: using a compose key . You hit this key which I typically map to Caps Lock and ' and the letter you want and voilá you get the accent. Kinda makes sense: single quotation mark is an accent, double gets you the ümalaut , works pretty well. Except for the ñ...

As a companion to my blog on Windows utilities, here are two paid apps on the iPhone that I consider so fantastic that are must buys in my opinion. -Easy Calendar ( $1.99 ) The iPhone Calendar is one of its weakest features in my opinion. I miss the clear Black Berry calendar on my pearl whenever I had to use it. This app makes the calendar not only easy to use but way more useful, I see my week laid out for me with an easy ability to push things to other days (rather than having to re-enter the appointment). This app has completely re-made the way I organize things. I'm way more organized and rarely miss appointment now. This app is a steal at it's prize. No other app adds such simple functionality to the iPhone like this one does. It's like my secret organizer helper. -Sleep Cycle ( $.99 ) I tried out this app because it was recommended on Tim Ferriss's books . I had seen this app before when it came out and thought it was intriguing, but it was way expensive. N...

Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. A true visionary, he will be missed by people who not only used his product but got inspiration from him. His vision allowed him to defer credit to the team that build the company and create a fierce loyalty in his costumers. Along with his many inspirational words in Standford's Commencement Speech we have dictum about art: Real Artists Ship and Real Artists get paid. Both of which are really good ones I think. Steve Jobs was not perfect, but he did have the courage of his convictions and dared take one the hyper conservative world of running a corporation with an attitude of running a start-up. Like the apt writer from Ars Tecnica, John Siracusa , summed up "In a post-Steve-Jobs world, there is no longer an excuse for large corporations to be less bold than start-ups." He will be missed by me, because in a world where people can seem to sit and look for opportunities to discourage you, it is great to see one daring and succeeding ...

I'm not much for Horror Novels and while I've read lots of Stephen King I've more or less avoided all his scary books. I never saw the point of it. I had however read one of his horror novellas: The Mist which I completely enjoyed.  When I was in Japan, nursing a broken collarbone that kept me indoors for months, I entertained myself playing with the Play Station. I had a couple of games two of which proved to be amazing ones. One was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night , which had a lot of nostalgia Gothic flavor and the other one was Silent Hill . Playing Silent Hill was an altogether new experience for me. This game did it right, it felt like you were playing a horror novel or a good horror movie. Before actually reading the Mist, I had heard a radio play done in 3-D audio which was utterly fantastic (and better than the decent movie Frank Darabont did a few years back). Silent Hill felt like you were there. Surrounded by the mists, that rolled off the sea in the littl...

I've played a few really great indie games recently and would like to share a bit about them. None of these games are brand-new and all are available in both Mac and PC versions. 1. Aquaria Aquaria is a gem of a game for those that loved the original metriod games. In Aquaria you play a young mermaid creature that decides to explore her world beyond her home waters. In doing that you guide her through many adventures that reveal a bit about her world. The game is visually beautiful and the game mechanics, though simple, are very nice. You can play the whole game with a mouse if you wish though gamepads are supported too. In the game you access special abilities by singing different songs. It is a neat concept.  The game was made by an indie outfit of mainly two people out of Canada. But it feels much more than that. It's very big like an underwater version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, with multiple treasures to collect and many secrets to uncover. It is available for ...

Back in the nineties Apple made some key mistakes: 1. It refused to sell computers over catalogs, even thought it had one (Dell and Gateway took off with this) 2. It messed up the licensing of its operating system and 3. Having a better graphics platform than many PCs of the time it actively discouraged the use of the Mac for gaming. Now finally gaming is coming of age on the Mac. This year has seen the release of Valve's steam platform for the Mac. Which not only brings Valve's very popular games like Team Fortress 2 (TF2) but also allows cross platform purchasing. If you buy a game like Braid that is available for both Mac and PC you only need to buy it once and you can use it on both Operating Systems (OS).  Arguably the beginning of this period was the smart move by Bioware to release it's popular MMORPG World of Warcraft (WOW) as a Mac and PC release. Now the Mac has become a great gaming platform for most casual and occasional gaming. And Apple has learned it's le...