So, I’m really happy that my  proposal, focussing on that issue, was accepted at the conference. In my double role as a designer and developer I’ll talk about

DESIGN ON RAILS FOR USABILITY … Or why designers should start to understand code and developers should start to sketch and use design methods.

I’m really glad be a part of the conferece in September - and to meet all these interesting people - and hopefully some codedifferent-blogreaders, too And please don’t forget to join Bratwurst-on-Rails on the evening before the conference starts.

Last year it was a great and fun event - you’ll finde some pictures at Flickr. A great developer community shoud know how to party - and there is one thing I know for shure: Yes, we can

So, for all Ruby-on-Rails enthusiasts, who are in Berlin on the first of September – one day before the RailsConf Europe starts: Sign up for Bratwurst-on-Rails! See you there!

By now: Warm thanks in advance to the Ruby User Group Berlin for organizing this event!

Context:
In the first corner: A Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.3) machine
In the second corner: A Kyocera 2000D laser printer connected to a Windows XP printserver which is protected by password and username.

Problem:
Adding the printer via the standard Apple-way as a windows printer works - but printing does not work because it is not possible to authenticate against the printserver.

Solution:
You need to add the shared printer via the hidden “Advanced” printer feature in the Print & Fax preferences.

• Open “Print & Fax” in “System Preferences”
• Click “+” to add a new printer
• Control-click (or right-click) on the toolbar at the top of the window and select “Customize Toolbar…”
• Drag the “Advanced” icon to the toolbar and select “Done”
• Click on the “Advanced” icon … and be patient … after a moment or two, you can select “Windows” from the “Type” dropdown-menu
• Enter the SAMBA URL of the shared windows printer in the “URL” textfield:
  smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@WINDOWSDOMAINNAME/PRINTSERVER/PRINTERSHARENAME or
  smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@IPADDRESS/PRINTERSHARENAME
  If the shared printer does not need a password, you can use smb://USERNAME@…
• Fill out the other fields “Name” and “Location” as you prefer
• When printing the first time you will get prompted for your USERNAME and PASSWORD. Fill in your windows printserver username and password and enable the “Add this to your keychain” checkbox.

… it’s nearly plug-and-play

Congratulations to all the developers behind the to 50 apps!

• Australia
• Czech Republic
• Egypt
• Greece
• Italy
• India
• New Zealand
• Portugal
• South Africa
• Turkey

… wow. There is still an open question, which rates Vodafone will offer with the iPhone - and whether Apple will go on with their strategy of working with national exclusive partners. Whatever we’ll here in the future - that deal will boost the market for mobile iPhone applications.

So, let’s see what will come next …

Some warnings before you start: Back up your system! The following steps are only recommended for those, who know what they do with their command line terminal. And everything you do - you do it on your own risk!

• Problem 1: I use apt-get instead of aptitude … but you should not use both systems at the same time!
• Solution: You can just use apt-get instead of aptitude. So the commands are:
  
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
$ sudo do-release-upgrade

  Be sure NOT to restart at the end of the upgrade … see problem 3 why!
• Problem 2: The do-release-upgrade script starts but aborts by telling me that I don’t have enough diskspace on my boot-partition:
  
The upgrade aborts now. The upgrade needs a total of 52.4M free space on disk '/boot'. Please free at least an additional 18.1M of disk space on '/boot'. Empty your trash and remove temporary packages of former installations using 'sudo apt-get clean'.

• Solution: Start to clean up your packages by using the suggested command:
  
$ sudo apt-get clean

  … but this was not enough on my server. So I figured out that I have a bunch of old kernel versions on the boot partition - which also can be removed. Check which kernel versions are installed by using the following command:
  
$ dpkg -l | grep linux-image

  In my case, I was able to delete the old linux-image-2.6.15-29 and the linux-image-2.6.17-12. Be sure to keep at least the Gutsy Gibbon version!
  
$ sudo apt-get remove --purge linux-image-2.6.15*
$ sudo apt-get remove --purge linux-image-2.6.17*

  Then you need to update your menu.lst:
  
$ sudo update-grub

  After doing this I check the kernel list file by looking into the file with the vi-editor:
  
$ sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

  If everything looks right within the automatic kernel list at the end of the file I go on.
• Problem 3: The Ubuntu-geeks solved thisone themselves, but when I upgraded from Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon, I ran into big trouble: The do-release-upgrade functioned well, but when I restarted the server it did not boot properly anymore! The kernel list was not setup properly by the do-release -upgrade script!
• Solution: Therefor I always finish the do-release-upgrade script without restarting the server;
  then I re-update the menu.lst by
  
$ sudo update-grub

  after doing this I check the kernel list file by looking into the file with the vi-editor:
  
$ sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

  If everything looks right within the automatic kernel list at the end of the file.
  
$ sudo restart


When you are finished with the upgrade and restarted your server … you should be able to access the server again via ssh. Then you can check the version of the installed linux version by typing:

$ lsb_release -a

The result should look like this ;-):

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 8.04
Release: 8.04
Codename: hardy

I hope this howto / problem solving saves some time for you

Source: development.apple.com

April 4th/5th 2008: ScotlandOnRails, Edinburgh, Scotland
http://scotlandonrails.com
conference language: English

May 29th - June 1st 2008: RailsConf 2008, Portland, Oregon, USA
http://en.oreilly.com/rails2008/
organized by O’Reilly - conference language: English

June 9th/10th 2008: Rails-Konferenz.de, Frankfurt, Germany
http://www.rails-konferenz.de
conference language: German

June 10th 2008: Ruby en Rails 2008, Amsterdam, Netherlands
http://2008.rubyenrails.nl
conference language: Dutch

September 2nd-4th 2008: RailsConf Europe, Berlin, Germany
http://en.oreilly.com/railseurope2008/
organized by O’Reilly - conference language: English

There are probably a lot more conferences focussing on Rails … just drop a comment so the list can grow