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So, how would you feel if all of your online moves were filtered through FBI wiretaps and filters, looking for any suspicious activity?

The suspicious among us might argue that such is the case already. However, from a recent CNET article, it appears that the FBI is drafting new legislation that would require providers of backbone networking gear to build in ‘backdoors’ for eavesdropping on what is going by.

Now, a small part of me can understand the rationale behind this. The modern day criminal knows that the internet is a fairly viable source for secure communications. If there was no way for law enforcement agencies to tap their communications, all hell could break loose. This is already a requirement for modern telephone routing equipment providers. Why not the Internet equipment providers as well?

What worries me more is the other side of the legislation: The FBI is majorly expanding it’s powers to tap such items as instant messaging, in game chats from video games, and any other source it deems necessary, without so much as yearly notice to the public giving statistics on their tapping habits. In other words, they are expanding their legal power while removing standing measure to increase their accountability.

What can we think about this?

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Half-Life 2 EP 1 contains an advanced statistics system (http://www.steampowered.com/stats/ep1/), measuring how people plays the game. Through analyzing of these statistics, Valve has determined that players are having a lot of problems with the elevator battle, at map Lowlife and therefore updated the game, making that specific battle easier.

This is actually quite cool - I like the fact that they used previous gameplay experiences by their users in order to determine what needs to be modified for the next version…

But is it possible for this feedback to go to far? With gaming companies keeping track of these statistics, how do they determine properly what needs to be changed? I would think that any changes would lead to alot of unrest, since many players, with different skill levels will have different issues at different parts of the game. I am sure that many gamers who appreciated the challenge of these sections of the game were a bit disappointed with the decrease…

What do you think?

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If you haven’t seen this yet, let me bring it to your attention - I found it on the OhGizmo Blog…

Telnet to

towel.blinkenlights.nl

and enjoy the show. It’s actually quit cool. Must have took alot more work that you would expect…

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Hey - all you Mac Ruby on Rails People - this is for you!

This was just posted on Digg, so I thought I would post it here as well. While I myself don’t have Mac/Textmate, after all that I have seen about it, I am kind of tempted to switch over to take advantage of this platform. Does anyone know the latest state of getting MacOSX running on an Intel Machine?

Pragmatic Programmer, Mike Clark, has produced a single page PDF cheat sheet of about fifty TextMate keyboard shortcuts to speed up your Ruby development. As a long time TextMate user who never uses the shortcuts, this is very useful.

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So, I guess this has been around for a while, but I just found this today.

Google has released code to allow you to integrate an AJAX Google Search Box into your website. This means no more sending your users off to Google land when they want to find something. This is pretty cool.

This is called the Google Search API. If you want to find out more, you can check it out . The contains sample pages, and everything you need to implement it on your own site.

I think I might try implementing it into my site here.

I’ve just noticed Damon Clinkscales’ post at the Damon Clinkscales blog entitled ’Presentation Downloads Top 1 Million‘. In the post, he quickly whips up a small Ruby app to parse his logfiles to determine how many times a certain presentation of his has been downloaded. It is really a simple-ten line piece of code, but quite powerful.

Cool Code - check it out!

This really reminds me of alot fo the short Perl scripts I’ve seen floating around. I’ve noticed over time that alot of Perl programmers like to emphasize how they can ‘do so much with so few lines of code’. Well, check this out Perlies!

Cool stuff Damon!

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Well, I commend you! A quick disclaimer - Ruby on Rails is not for everyone, nor suited for every job. That said, spend a couple hours evaluating it, to see if it is right for you, or your project.

Good starting points:

1. Visit the Ruby on Rails website, and watch the Screencasts and Presentations
2. Download Ruby. Now Ruby on Rails can be had in a couple of different flavours depending on your platform
   1. If you are on Windows, I have tried RadRails, RIDE-ME, and Eclipse with the Ruby Development Tools, and never felt comfortable with any of them. Your best bet may be to program things using a text editor such as UltraEdit along with the windows command line to run scripts from, or to use JEdit in place of UltraEdit. Ruby usually comes with an editor called SciTE which many people like. I couldn’t get into it too well. But give it a try - you may like it. I haven’t found a Windows development environment for Ruby yet which really did the trick. There is a thread about it posted here.
   2. If you are on Linux, I would suggest jEdit with the command line to run scripts. Of course, if you develop with linux, you may be comfortable enough with vi or emacs. I wouldn’t stop you from going that way… Most of the suggestions listed for Windows are available on Linux as well.
   3. If you are on a Mac, go with TextMate. ’nuff said For more info, read the thread mentioned in the windows point above.
3. Follow through the O’Reilly Rolling with Ruby on Rails tutorial. That should give you an idea of why Ruby and Rails are great together. Don’t forget Part 2.
4. While you are reading, also check out StartAtTheBeginning and the Tutorial in the RubyOnRails Wiki. And while you are at it, read whatever other wiki pages you see that interest you. There is alot to learn there, and you will find yourself referring to it alot.
5. Like what you see so far? You should get some books. Might I recommend Agile Web Development with Rails: A Pragmatic Guide or Ruby for Rails: Ruby Techniques for Rails Developers .
6. Bookmark the Rails API. You’ll need it. Don’t be scared, though. It’s alot smaller than the Java 1.5 API.
7. Join the Rails Forum. There are alot of genuinely talented people there who would be more than willing to help you with any issues you may have. Really - a great bunch!
8. Register or subscribe to the feed for this blog. I myself am still learning about Ruby with Rails. I will post as much helpful information as I can, to help other newcomers to the language to avoid the same pits and traps I fell into.

Ruby on Rails is a young language, only a year or two old, and as such, there are alot less resources available for it than there might be for Java, or C/C++ or C# or any of the Microsoft Languages. But it is very rewarding, almost a new paradigm for those willing to take it up.

Good Luck! Feel free to post in the comments here or in the Rails Forum if you need any help.

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