Keywords: ruby on rails, ruby gems, windows

Most of the tutorails for installing ruby on rails are available for Linux and Mac. And very few for Windows. You know I got vexed because I don’t know how to install rails and rubygems. To be frank I nearly tried around 1.5 weeks for instaaling ruby, rubygems, rails. So I have decided to write a tutorial to help you people out there. This installation process may take about a hour.

Installing Ruby

Installing ruby is easy. Just an click will do the job. You can get the one click installer from here. It is advisable that you install ruby in the following directory C:\ruby and also I recommend to install ruby 1.8.6. Having installed ruby you need to make sure wether ruby has been installed in the system.

Try this command line “ruby –v” (without quotes)  and you should get something like this: ruby 1.9.1p243 (2009-07-16 revision 24175) [i386-mingw32]. That’s it ruby is installed in your system.

Installing rubygems:

When installing ruby you will have gems installed in to it. All that you have to do is to update the gems. So for updating gems use this command in the command line. You should be in the following directory before trying out this command. C:\ruby\bin. If you don’t know how to get in to this directory type this command “cd  C:\ruby\bin” without quotes. Note you will see the word ruby in the command. This may vary for you. Probably it could be rubyX, where X is version. So check the exact folder name in C: or in the directory where you have installed ruby in your system.

“gem update –system”  without quotes. Probably it will take some 4 to 5 minutes not more than that. Note: if you get error such as cannot connect to socket or any other error that is related to network, try disabling your windows firewall and anti virus firewall. After disaling the firewall it should work.

Installing Rails

Go to C:\rubyX\bin in your command prompt and type this command

“gem install rails” without quotes. Installing rails will test your patience. Even there will be no progress for sometime, don’t panic ! Have some coffee or tea or whatever you want to have in the mean time. Now you need a database. I’ll teach you how to do that in the next paragraph

Installing  sqlite3 :

Again you can do this from the command line itself. Make sure you are inside C:\rubyX\bin, then type this command

“install the sqlite3 gem” without quotes

You may get an error when you build your apps such as “sqlite.dll not found. Re-installing the application will fix it”. So what you have to do is download the sqlite.dll file put it in your ruby\bin folder, which will fix the problem. You can get sqlite.dll from here

Time to test your rails installation: Create a folder called rails in C:. Go to command line and change the directory to C:\rails. Then type “rails project_name”. In my case project_name is “basic”, so instead of project_name, I’ll use basic. Hit enter. It will create a list of folders inside Basic. Ruby ships along with WEBrick. Now you need to start your WEBrick server. For doing that “ruby script/server” hit eneter some messages will displayed. Goto your browser type http://localhost:3000. You will have rails web page. Alas you have made it.

Feel free to ask questions. You can either ash here or contact me at praveenram05@yahoo.com with subject as installing ruby on rails.

Have a nice time

In this beginner level Photoshop tutorial, which will hardly take 15 minutes, I will teach you’ll to create  an embedded style logo in Photoshop. It’s a easy method in photoshop, dealing with a few layer effects only.

Final Effect

Create a New Document :

Open up your photoshop and create a new document (Ctrl + N). We need a small canvas here, and 550px by 250 px will do the trick for us.

Creating A Background :

We will add Gradient Overlay to the background. But since you know that the background layer is locked by default (Layer 0), we will double click on the layer and rename it to Background. This will unlock the layer for us.

Now go to the Layer Menu and click on Layer Menu -> Layer Styles -> Gradient Overlay. I will use a blue background and a vertical gradient which goes from Dark to Light Blue. After so many attempts, I finalized Dark Blue (#003471) and the Light Blue (#448CCB). You can go off the track and try your own color scheme.

We must have the dark blue to be the dominant color as compared to the light blue. So we move the color midpoint of dark blue to 60%.

Now, to add another effect, select a brush with a large size (I used 500 px). Set the color to white (#FFFFFF). Change the opacity to 60% and the flow to 70%. Create a new layer now and then use the brush on the top-right of the canvas.

Use the typing tool and type your text in the center of the screen now. Make sure it is in the center because it looks kinda odd if not properly aligned.

Now comes the main part : adding text effects to make it look like embedded text. We are going to add Gradient Overlay, Inner Shadow and Drop Shadow. Open Layers -> Layer Styles and go to the Gradient Overlay tab.

Now, we need a blue darker than that of the background. So I am using Dark Blue (#022854). The second color will also be darker than the background but lighter than the color we just selected moments back. So the Light Blue will be (#0F498C). In this, we need to have the light blue more than the darker shade. Set midpoint to 30%.

Next, we go for Inner Shadow effect. Check the box of Inner Shadow and set the angle to 120 degrees. Set the opacity to 50%, Distance at 2px, and size at 3px.

To make the text look consistent, we will add the Drop Shadow. It will be hardly visible but will enhance the looks of the final output. First, change the blend mode to Normal. Since I want it to be small, I will use Distance as 1px and size of 2px. I sampled a few blues and was happy with the output produced by the Light Blue (#A8C9E6). Make sure that the angle here is also 120 degrees.

Yeah, we are done now and the final image should look something like this. You can go in for your own variations, try a few more effects, and Whoa! You will create something that is very unique

There are many softwares available in the market to make your PC into a virtual machine with a completely new OS (Operating System) like VMware. But today, I will make a small post on how to create a virtual OS of the OS you are currently using without starting from a scratch. (It will be a snapshot and none of your data will be deleted.

Disk2VHD is a small little program that will help you to make a virtual operating system in just a few minutes. It will convert your entire PC into a Microsoft Virtual PC virtual machine. The catch is that it will only run on Microsoft Virtual PC but that’s not a major issue since it is free.

This program doesn’t require any installation, just double click and you are off. Due to this, you can also make a copy or a backup of this software on your pen drive for easy portability. Since it is using the snapshot feature, there is no risk in loosing your precious data and various PC boots and restarts. When you create a virtual drive, be sure to create it on a new partition where no OS has been installed. Even creating it on a external hard disk will do. The maximum capacity of the virtual drive is 127GB, so if you have a bigger hard disk, this program will not work in your case.

There are many benefits of using a virtual machine. First, in case you get a virus attack, you can just switch back to the earlier OS without any damages or data loss. Second, you can create a backup of your data for future uses. People who want to virtualize the computer just for testing may also use it.

I am sure many of you might have gone though the situation when you take a lot of images and when you try uploading to the internet for sharing, you find that they were taken at a very high resolution and uploading is going to take ages. So you have the option of opening all images, resizing which is simply time waste if nothing else.

Instead of using the basic image editing program, how about try something where you can drop your bunch of files, select common settings and just start the process? You would say that’s good but not worth paying. So the best thing here is that it is free

MODI (the software) is a non-setup program. So just download the exe file from here and you are all ready to go. To run the program, just locate the executable file from the folder.

At the top of the screen, you can drag and drop your images into the gray area which works pretty fine. Enabling quick view will show your image in a small thumbnail when you hover above it.

After you have selected the images, click on Add Modifier button to select settings for the images to be edited/resized.

In the modifier area, you have a drop down menu with several options. For each choice you need for your image, you have to click the Add button at the bottom. This will create an entry in the main MODI screen.

Let’s try making the size of the image half the original size. To do this, select the resize from the menu. Now in the box that follows, select 50% as Max Height/Width. Make sure you click Add which is at the bottom.

Similarly, you can put a watermark or sharpen/blur the image as I have done in the following screenshots.

Once you have made all your settings and ready to convert, go back to the main screen of MODI where you will see a list of modifiers which you selected. If you want to remove any effect, just click remove which is on the right. In case you want to preview the image, click on Preview Result. If everything is fine, select one of the writers from the low left corner.

If you want to try some advanced settings, click the configure button. I have done some settings for my convenience.

Now that you have done everything, go to the main menu and start the processing. After some time, depending on the speed of your computer, it will show that the conversion/modification was done to your images. If you want to use the same settings for your future editing, do click on the Save As Preset button and give it some name.

Web 2.0 is nowadays used by almost all websites, either for the logos or the full template. It is now the main attraction of the website, after all, who would be interested in dull websites? So I will teach you how to create a basic, simple but stunning Web 2.0 logos. In another chapter to be posted just in a few hours, I will discuss how to choose the right color for a web 2.0 logo.

Note : For all tutorials, I am using Adobe Photoshop CS3 so functions may vary from version to version. Also, my operating system is Microsoft Vista so mac users should refer Ctrl as Command.

Final Image after the end of the tutorial should look like this :

1-> Open Adobe Photoshop and then create a new file (Ctrl + N). For this tutorial, I am using 700px as Width and 500px as Length. You may select your own depending on your preferences and space on website.

2-> Now fill the background layer with Black (Press G on the Keyboard for the Paint Bucket Tool and make sure your background color is set to black. Then click on the screen).

3-> Now for the logo, select a font depending on the theme. My favourite ones are Baar Zeitgeist and Cocon. Select Font Colors that look attractive and bright. As a better effect, I am writing ‘TechYou’ on a different layer and ‘i’ on a different layer with different fonts and colors so that I can use both my favourite fonts.

4-> After typing the text you need, go to Layer >> Layer Style >> Blending Options and use the settings given in the screenshots below. Since I am using 2 fonts on seperate layers, I have given different settings (like light pink outer glow for the pink text and light blue for the blue). The screenshot only shows blending options for the pink layer. For the blue layer, all settings are same except the color for inner and outer glow. (Light Blue – #2175ff)

5-> Now merge the text layers (in case you have made 2 different text layers) and then duplicate it (Ctrl+J). In case you have all the text on 1 layer, just duplicate it and remove the Layer Styles (Right Click the layer in the layer menu and select Clear Layer Styles for the duplicated layer only).

6->Now select the duplicated layer and invert it. (Edit >> Transform >> Flip Vertical). Now Press Ctrl + Down Arrow and shift it such that it looks like a reflection. Apply a layer mask to the layer. Now select the gradient tool and then the follow the screenshot.

7-> In the layer menu, select the duplicated layer but not the layer mask. (The box on the left side). Now go to Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur and give a blur of 1px. This will make it look like a real reflection.

8-> Now comes the Web 2.0 part. Press Ctrl and at the same time click on the layer where you have the main text. You can see that it gets selected in the main canvas. Now select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and use the settings in the screenshot. Then select a circle such that the top part of the text is selected.

9-> Now press Ctrl + Shift + N and create a new layer. Make sure that some part of the text is selected. Now change your background color to white and press Ctrl + Backspace. This will make the top part of the text white. Press Ctrl + D to deselect and change the opacity of the layer to 10-12%.

11-> Here is how the final image should look. I have just added a cute little RSS Feed icon on the top. Do comment in case you liked it or have any problems. Even a small ‘Thanks’ will motivate us more for such tutorials.

In today’s video tutorial, we are set to learn how to create the mist that comes out when we use a deodorant right in our PC’s on photoshop. In case you have any doubts, feel free to share them through comments.

This is my first video tutorial where I will explain the best things of photoshop, whether basic or advanced. Keep tuned in to TechAddicts.In for more videos

Who doesn’t like the effect of neons? It looks amazing and you can have a similar effect in Photoshop too. And this also takes a couple of minutes to be done. Just remember, this isn’t the original neon glow but Odd Neon Glow as mentioned in title.

Final Image :

Steps :

1. Open Photoshop and create a new custom sized canvas of 800*100 px.

2. Create a new layer and make the background Black.

3. Create a new layer and give your text in it. Use fonts that are bold and have a good character spacing so that you can get the effects properly. Now right click on Layer and select Rasterize Type.

4. Select the layer which has the text and go to Filter > Distorts > Polar Cordinates. Set it as Convert from Polar to Rectangle.

5. Now you must have got an odd shape as I have got above. Don’t worry, just click Edit > Rotate Canvas > 90 CW. We have to do this because the wind we apply in the next step just moves from left or right.

6. Now go to Filter > Stylize > Wind. Select the method as Wind and give the Direction as Right.

7. Again go to Image > Rotate Canvas > 90 CW. Do this until you get the below image.

8. Apply Filter > Distort > Polar Cordinates and convert from Rectangular to Polar. Here, again add Wind as in Step 6.  (I just gave Wind from both sides you can also give from one).

9. Now navigate to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance and use the details given below.

10. Done. Here are the examples of the creativity I did with this tutorial. You do your own.

Some Other Creations In Same Format :