Ashley Towers' Posterous

Installing Passenger on Ubuntu 11.10 (Or: How I fixed the "OpenSSL support for Ruby... not found" error)

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 02:53:00 -0800

As the title suggests, this is how I got Passenger installed on Ubuntu 11.10 with RVM (with 1.9.2). Hopefully this will save you the numerous blind alleys I went down.

Background

I was getting the following error:

Checking for required software...
GNU C++ compiler... found at /usr/bin/g++
Curl development headers with SSL support... found
OpenSSL development headers... found
Zlib development headers... found
Ruby development headers... found
OpenSSL support for Ruby... not found
RubyGems... found
Rake... found at /home/md1actx/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-1.9.2-p290@portfolio/rake
rack... found
Apache 2... found at /usr/sbin/apache2
Apache 2 development headers... found at /usr/bin/apxs2
Apache Portable Runtime (APR) development headers... found at /usr/bin/apr-1-config
Apache Portable Runtime Utility (APU) development headers... found at /usr/bin/apu-1-config

Some required software is not installed.
But don't worry, this installer will tell you how to install them.

Running the suggested "apt-get install libopenssl-ruby" as root didn't work for reasons that can only be attributed to spite. The ususally successful Google-the-error approach didn't work either.

The fix

So, here's what worked:

$rvm remove 1.9.2
$rvm pkg install openssl
$rvm install 1.9.2 --with-openssl-dir=$HOME/.rvm/usr

This removed my version of Ruby then reinstalled it with the specified openssl support.

Then it was simply a case of running passenger-install-apache2-module again and then all was good!

Your milage may vary significantly, but if this helps then... yay!

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57 Things I've Learned Founding 3 Tech Companies

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:55:00 -0700

I’ve been founding and helping run technology companies since 1999. My latest company is fabulis.com. Here are 57 lessons I’ve learned along the way. I could have listed 100+ but I didn’t want to bore you.

via betashop.com

There are some really good tips in here. Many apply across the board to anyone involved in writing software.

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Entrepreneurship and The X Factor

Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:44:02 -0700

I sat and watched the "judge's house" episode of The X Factor last night with my wife. Cheryl's category of 'the girls' was imho the strongest category by far. Any one of them could have made it through to the top three. However, two of Cheryl's choices caused a bit of a stink. Cher Lloyd and Katie Waissel. Both fluffed their audition performance. Both got through. Other singers, most notably Gamu Nhengu and Keri Arrindell, didn't make it.

As the results were being announced, some Twitter users went so far as to accuse Cheryl of racism, picking the two white girls over talented black singers. This is crazy. She picked the two singers that would polarise opinion. And it was a great move.

The idea of the show is to make money. A big chunk of that money is made by persuading people to dial a premium rate number to cast their vote. If people are indifferent about a musician they wont be motivated to pick up the phone. If they love someone they will vote for them. If they hate someone they will vote for someone else to try and vote them out (as a side note I think the ability to vote *against* someone would make the program producers a fortune!). People will love or hate Cher and Katie.

Creating a product that some people hate is fine if other people love it. It doesn't even need to be a 50-50 split. The internet is such a big place that if (and it's a big if) you can get enough exposure, the people who love it will put their hands in their pockets and pay you for your product and still make you good coin.

The people who love your products will go further and tell their friends about it. Assuming an even distribution, they will encounter the same percentage of love/hate in their own circle of contacts. But those who will love it are still there and will still buy it.

Even those who who hate it are your friends. They'll spread their opinions and detractions - but the same percentage will apply to them too and their circle of contacts will contain people who love your product!

There is no such thing as bad publicity. The controversy caused by the decisions made by Cheryl has made it a hot topic of debate both on and off line. The big 'if' problem of exposure just took a big knock.

So stop trying to please everyone; you can't be everyone's girlfriend and it's pointless to try. Focus your efforts on reaching more people who share your views instead of trying to appease your detractors. And if a little controversy can do that without causing you any harm then go for it!

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Why Free Plans Don’t Work

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 05:40:00 -0700

via softwarebyrob.com

Great article over at Software by Rob on Why Free Plans Don't Work - well worth reading. What I took away from this is that for a free plan to be worth while the free users need to add something. If free users add to the community through content, examples (e.g. code snippets), network effect/validation etc. that the paid users can benefit from then they are a good thing. If, however, they are just getting a free ride because the free version meets their needs then you are potentially leaving money on the table.

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The Rock

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 02:01:00 -0700

via gapingvoid.com

I love gapingvoid cartoons. This one particularly resonates with me - anyone else feel a bit like Sisyphus? I think ownership, or at least the feeling of ownership, is so important in terms of motivation.

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Jeff Bezos Princeton University Speech

Mon, 05 Jul 2010 05:45:00 -0700

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

via princeton.edu

Great speech by Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon). I love the list of questions at the end of the speech. It's easy to sit and think about doing things; much harder to actually do them. One day we will all be very old, some of us are already older than we realise or feel! Build something. Release it. Watch it fail but enjoy the ride. Regrets are more often born of inaction than action. I don't want to be old and saying "I wish I had...."

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Why I Quit A Six Figure Job

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:33:00 -0700

Salaried work isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but the benefits it provided me weren’t benefits I actually wanted.

via two-shay.com

This really is an inspirational post.I can relate to a lot of it (unfortunately not the 6 figure salary part!). I also recommend a read of the related post at the same blog "The Guy In The Giraffe". Awesome stuff.

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Mum.... Dad... I have a confession to make. I use Java

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 09:15:34 -0700

My first programming love was Java. To be entirely honest I don't get why Ruby people (in particular) have so much against it. I guess it's the big bad corporate programming language target du jour.

I'm not saying it's perfect - far from it - being mainly a Ruby programmer these days it is maddeningly verbose. But in my experience all the best programmers I have ever worked with cut their teeth on Java.

But anyway - I came across the above video via @dansumption on Twitter - probably one of the funniest videos I've seen for a long time. Well funniest video about a programming language anyway!

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140 Character Elevator Pitch

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:59:37 -0700

Earlier today I posted a comment on my Twitter profile: http://twitter.com/ashleytowers/status/16922598763

“If you can’t explain your product in one tweet it’s a) Too complicated b) Lacks Focus.”

This turned out to be a bit more controversial than I was expecting, so I signed up to Posterous so I could explore it a bit more.

I see this as the modern elevator pitch. I’m sure you all know what an elevator pitch is – a short description of your product/service/whatever that you could reel off within an elevator journey should you ever find yourself in an elevator with someone influential. In the modern era when attention spans are at an all time low 140 characters should be ample to get the core of your product/service across.

I’m not suggesting a full description of every little feature – but I believe if 140 characters isn’t enough to get across the gist of your project then you won’t have the focus your product needs. This concise definition is your product’s soul – it is the core definition that lets you instinctively know if you should add a feature or not. If a feature doesn’t fit in with or enhance this short definition then it is questionable as to whether it should be added.

The Space Shuttle

“A partially reusable manned space launch and reentry vehicle” 60 characters

Twitter

“A web site that lets people post short update messages and receive updates from others who they find interesting” 112 characters.

The ability to define your product concisely keeps it focused on what matters – Twitter doesn’t need comments, the ability to post longer updates or share photos. They don’t fit in to that core definition – they add weight in the same way adding a bidet to the space shuttle.

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I May Get It Now

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:03:29 -0700

I think I may have just figured out where posterous fits in for me. I've had the .co.uk domain name of my name for a while now but never been motivated to get a personal blog set up. Posterous lets me do that without any setting up. Also, it lets me have a place for all of the things I'd like to write about that don't fit in with my main blog over at http://www.usabilityfriction.com

That's all I'm going to write at this stage. I'm uneasy with the email to do your first post and create an account. I'd be irked if it didn't work!

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