CentOS is a great Linux distro with possibly the worst selection of up-to-date packages. I love the ease of use of CentOS and the close ties to RedHat, but using it often means that I need to compile the libraries I need from source. When setting up a new VPS recently, these are the steps I took to install the latest version of Ruby.

$ sudo yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'
$ sudo yum install readline-devel
$ cd /usr/local/src
$ wget ftp://ftp.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/1.9/ruby-1.9.1-p376.tar.gz
$ tar xzvf ruby-1.9.1-p376.tar.gz
$ cd ruby-1.9.1-p376
$ ./configure && make
$ sudo make install

Everything you need is in the development tools, except for readline-devel.

This article is a bit dated by now, but I only just got the chance to read it today thanks to a friend of mine who pointed it out to me.

Tim O'Reilly:

It’s a matter of balance. Every business needs to pay attention to its bottom line; every individual needs to put a roof over his or her head and provide food for loved ones. But take a look inside: how much are you thinking about yourself and what you might gain, versus what you might create?

Read the entire article for an interesting perspective on exactly why we should all be doing what we do.

Jim Coudal, of Coudal Partners:

I don’t know what’s next! It’s kind of a joke, but we’re proudly “without business plan” in our 13th year. We’ve had a lot of things not work, and that’s OK too. If it’s a good idea and it gets you excited, try it, and if it bursts into flames, that’s going to be exciting too. People always ask, “What is your greatest failure?” I always have the same answer – We’re working on it right now, it’s gonna be awesome!

An interesting and inspiring read for anyone interested in doing business for themselves.

Hans Kullin:

So instead of doing the right thing and using the input from readers to improve a poor article, TechCrunch choses to leave incorrect statements up on their site. Instead of subscribing to Dan Gillmor’s view that “my readers know more than I do”, TechCrunch apparently thinks that their readers are idiots (and that Swedes can’t read).

Incidents like this one definitely make me pause and think before linking to anything from TechCrunch. (Via Hacker News.)

In the past year I’ve attended several conferences directly targeted at the web developer community. At each one, I’ve been less and less surprised at the large number of Macs in the audience. Of course, everyone at a developer conference has their laptop out during all of the talks, so it was pretty easy to take a survey of Mac vs. PC users.

The most recent conference I attended was the Mountain West Ruby Conference held in Salt Lake City back in March. It would be a conservative estimate to say that at least 90% of the audience had a Mac. Conference attendee Jim Knowlton pretty perfectly summed up the sentiment one might have when viewing the audience from the stage.

It truly is remarkable how the Mac has won over so many developers in such a short period of time. Just three years ago I clearly remember walking in on the first day at the Information Systems program at BYU and being the only one there (besides the professor, Dr. Albrecht) with a Mac. Of course, not everyone there was setting out to be a computer programmer. However, certainly everyone in that program could be considered a fairly “technical” person. Now, you can hardly spot an Inspiron or ThinkPad at a developer conference.

It all just adds a bit more credence (as if any was needed) to John Gruber’s statement yesterday about the platform of choice for computer nerds:

People who love computers overwhelmingly prefer to use a Mac today. Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts. Regular people don’t think about their choice of computer platform in detail and with passion like nerds do because, duh, they are not nerds. But nerds are leading indicators.

Later in the same article, Gruber addresses some remarks made by former WalMart executive and current Microsoft COO Kevin Turner at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this month. On the subject of competition with Apple, Turner said:

I pulled this out of my Sunday newspaper. I have an old habit because I came from retail looking at the Sunday tabs and circulars that are in newspapers. This is straight out of my paper last Sunday. This is a comparison out of a leading electronics retailer that you can get a 13.3-inch Macbook for US$1199 from that retailer. Guess what. That same retailer, you can get the same PC with more RAM, a bigger hard drive, and almost a three-inch bigger screen for US$649. What an incredible opportunity.

…

This is out of last Sunday’s paper, the Apple tax. It’s getting out. And when we put Windows 7 in there, which we’ve got coming out in October, what an incredible opportunity for us to fight back. And it feels really good to be on the offensive here. And we know we’ve got plenty of work to do. We don’t have it all figured out. But I want you to know, ladies and gentlemen, we’re doing stuff and we’re in the game and continuing to take some of these hard market share opportunities head on and compete because it’s a test of will, as I said.

This kind of WalMart thinking is not going to work for Microsoft for one simple reason: they are not in the business of turning profits on volume. If they were, you’d be able to pick up a copy of Windows Vista WalMart-style, for $10. No, Microsoft definitely cares about their margins just like most other tech companies do.

The problem is that when they try and compete in the same price range as Apple, they lose. It’s not that they’re not trying. I can definitely buy a PC over US$1000 if I wanted to. The products are already brought to market. Microsoft’s problem is that when prices get into that range, the vast majority of customers run a comparison and for whatever reason they pick Apple.

I interpret Turner’s statement above as an admission of defeat in the high margin price category. He’s basically saying that PC manufacturers make a superior product, but they cannot sell it for as much as Apple can sell one of theirs. He’s saying that PC manufacturers must incur greater costs from the better components they are using without the benefit of collecting the premium.

The question he should be asking himself is this: If Apple really is selling inferior products, why can’t I charge more than they charge? If PC’s really are superior products, why don’t we get to charge a premium?

It’s not difficult. This is Business Management 101 type stuff. This is the question that PC manufacturers need to answer if they want to compete with Apple in the high margin space. It’s a tough question to ask, because the answer requires a lot of creativity and change to the way they’re currently doing things. It will require a shift from resting on their laurels to putting some more polish on their products. Given this kind of talk from guys like Turner, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I’m heading out to the Ruby Hoedown in Nashville at the end of August. And for some reason, I suspect I’ll see another slew of Macs in the audience.

David Pogue:

These messages are outrageous for two reasons. First, they waste your time. Good heavens: it’s 2009. WE KNOW WHAT TO DO AT THE BEEP.

Do we really need to be told to hang up when we’re finished!? Would anyone, ever, want to “send a numeric page?” Who still carries a pager, for heaven’s sake? Or what about “leave a callback number?” We can SEE the callback number right on our phones!

Second, we’re PAYING for these messages. These little 15-second waits add up–bigtime. If Verizon’s 70 million customers leave or check messages twice a weekday, Verizon rakes in about $620 million a year. That’s your money. And your time: three hours of your time a year, just sitting there listening to the same message over and over again every year.

Please keep ranting David! I have expressed my frustration countless times to those who know me on this very issue. It’s absurd that I’m still listening to such instructional messages every time I call someone in 2009. This is a very good example of the telecommunications companies following one another around like sheep instead of thinking for themselves.

All it takes is one person to stand up in a meeting and say, “Why in the world do we still have those silly messages whenever someone calls one of our customers?” (Via John Gruber.)

Seth Godin:

When I get a manuscript or see a sign that misuses its and it’s and quotes, I immediately assume that the person who created it is stupid.

I understand that this is a mistake on my part. They’re not necessarily totally stupid, they’re just stupid about apostrophes.

This is something I’ve always been annoyed by. It really diminishes the credibility of the organization behind the message.

I’m so glad that somebody is talking about how difficult it is to install software on the Mac. I find that the majority of my friends who have Macs are running their applications from the always-mounted disk images on their desktop. Of course, if they ever reboot this means they have to go online and download the application again. When I show them the correct way to install an app, it flies right over their heads and they look at me as if I’m some gifted computer genius.

I remember transitioning from Windows to the Mac several years ago, this was one of the biggest annoyances for me—that I actually had to go hunt down the application that I had just downloaded and drag it to my Applications folder. It’s a relic of the Mac’s Unix heritage, and should have been addressed a long time ago.

Paul Graham:

Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the schedule of command. But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

…

Each type of schedule works fine by itself. Problems arise when they meet. Since most powerful people operate on the manager’s schedule, they’re in a position to make everyone resonate at their frequency if they want to. But the smarter ones restrain themselves, if they know that some of the people working for them need long chunks of time to work in.

A thoughtful piece about the need for understanding schedules by both managers and makers. Smart people from both parties learn to respect and work with the schedule of the other. Ignoring the differences results in significant drops in productivity. (Via Ryan Tomayko.)

My most sincere apologies for the duplicate items that have been showing up in your feed reader. Until my last post, I was neglecting to include a proper Atom ID in my feed, so when I would make any small change to the feed format some readers would assume that every article was new.

It’s all been fixed now so this shouldn’t happen any more in the future. Thanks for your patience!