Ruby Error - "no such file to load -- digest.so"

I was getting a weird error whenever I invovked Ruby interpreter. Like ruby script\server or ruby script\console. The error message ended with "no such file to load -- digest.so". I reinstalled Ruby, but the error came back.

I learned from a Google groups message that the error was due to AVG quarantining the digest.so file. I opened AVG Control center, selected Virus Vault, clicked Open button. The digest.so file was in the vault. I selected the file and restored it under its original location (AVG points to the file's original location while replacing.)

Now ruby is working as expected. I hope digest.so is not really infected :)

Yael Naim & MacBook Air

Yael Naim's song - "New Soul" was hand picked by Steve Jobs to be used in the Macbook Air commercial. After the commercial went on air the song rose to the top ten list in US.

I went to BlogPulse to see if I can spot any trend for Yael Naim, sure enough I could see a spike against her name around Jan 16. The interesting thing is MacBook Air was released only on Jan 29. So something else happened between Jan 16 and 29. Another trend you can notice is that after Jan 29, the number of posts has come down, but is higher than the pre Apple commercial days.

Paste special

One of my pet peeves while copy pasting is that the formatting gets copied always. Like, if I copy a text which is BOLD and I paste it elsewhere the text is pasted in BOLD. This is really annoying when you copy text from a web page or a document that I did not prepare, so it has completely different formatting. Even Google docs and other web based have transferred this quirk. At least give me an option to disable this stupid annoyance.

MS office and other desktop word processors have the ability to "Paste special" where I can paste only the text without the formatting. Sweet! But I can't make it the default paste option. Every time I need to paste, I have to select paste special -> Past Unformatted text.

This is not a big deal if I have to do it occasionally, but I happen to do this a lot while writing. So this annoys me. And frankly I don't see why the special paste operation should be "Paste with formatting"

What is Dell doing with Ubuntu?

Dell has been selling Ubuntu loaded computers for long time. I think it is a very important move for Linux desktop. But Dell seems to be using Ubuntu to its advantage rather than passing the cost savings to the customers. Today I found this deal in deals2buy.com. A Dell M1330 loaded with Ubuntu (30 day support) is only $10 less than Windows loaded machine with extra fingerprint scanner.

I don't know if Dell is giving a better pricing with other models, but this is just ridiculous. I don't think users will be buying Ubuntu loaded Dell due to cost. But at this price difference any rational consumer would buy the Windows model and load Ubuntu in it FOR FREE.

RSS and trip DC

I spent the spring break in Smithsonian Natural History Museum, Washington DC. I was working with the web branch team to create RSS feeds for a few sections of the websites. The RSS feeds had to manually generated for two reasons. The website uses a CMS that didn't support RSS natively. Many sections were not updated in a manner suitable for generating feeds.

Some quirks I noticed while working on the project:
* RSS 2.0 is not a standard yet. ATOM the competing format has been approved by IETF.
* RSS 2.0 spec is copyrighted by Harvard University under creative common license
* IE6 doesn't recognizes RSS XML files. Many enterprise applications are still support only on IE6
* Analytics on RSS is a challenge. It is not easy to find the number of subscribers without using third party services Feedburner. Feedburner has only a limited free service.
* Apple refuses to the use the conventional orange icon for RSS; may be due to its similarity with thier AirPort icon.
* Most website have the RSS icons unobtrusively in the corners, hence many users don't notice them.

Spock.com - Search for people

At spock,com - you can search for people. Type in any persons name - it lists their city, photo, related people, news and any other related links. Spock has crawled the web and created ready made profiles. The website was launched in August'07 to provide "richest people search experience on the web." Once you find a profile - you can "claim" it or let someone know that you have found their profile.

I did some searches with impressive results.

More info here and here,

The Right way to shop?

I wasted many hours in shopping for the right product. Once a desire to acquire something comes to my mind I start debating its need. The minute I convince myself that I need the product or service. I start the process of "hunting for the right product". Of course there no such thing as "right product", whether I'm buying a laptop or a electric toothbrush. But my optimism keeps me running, I read reviews over and over. Until I think - I know what are the right traits that are required in the product I'm buying. By this time it becomes obvious to me which product I need to buy. How much time has passed since I made the decision to buy? Anywhere from two weeks to six months.

Now what is the problem? After I get the product the flaws in product which I may not have considered become obvious. Or I realize that I underrated the cons of the product. Then comes a period when I try to decide if I should return or resell the product. I have never resold a product, at least in this stage. I change myself to live around the product. Like how I got used to my heavy laptop, shabby images of my camera, etc.

Moral of the story - be aware of the time spent in pondering over the reviews; maybe it is better to buy a common product and get used to it.