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Articles I have published from time to time...

What are the first “must read” sites covering the movie industry?

While I am not reading them every day, these are the sites I check:film-news-websites
HollywoodReporter.com
Variety.com
IndieWire.com
Deadline.com
CinemaBlend.com
RottenTomatoes.com
IMDB.com
BoxOfficeMojo.com
TotalFilm.com
Movies.com
MovieFone.com
EmpireOnline.com
Hollywood.com

For European film news I am checking from time to time:
FilmNewEurope.com
Cineuropa.org

Also, if you have Flipboard.com app (iphone/ipad) you can get aggregated news which collects news, in one single place, from different film websites.

NOTE: This article was published first by me on Quora.com on Dec 30, 2011.

Technology Startup Resources for Entrepreneurs

startup-resourcesOver one year ago I joined Quora.com which it is “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it” as their authors put it (think of Wikipedia but with real people and real experts answering your questions, or the next generation Wikipedia).

It’s a very good service which I like it a lot (see my profile here). It’s big in startup related information, filmmaking, technology, web development, science, and other areas. I have a good presence there (more than 800 followers), with over 1600 answers given and over 110 questions asked.

If you don’t have an account there I suggest you make one (you can connect with Facebook or Twitter too). The service is in English only for now.

Recently they added the Boards, a feature which allows you to collect and organize content from Quora itself and from around the web (if you are familiar with Pinterest.com – an exploding startup on the social media curation scene – then you will recognize this feature).

I thought to create some Boards and have there resources related to technology startups (advice, articles, tutorials, announce your startup).

Here are the Boards I’ve created which you can follow and I hope you find them useful:

  • Startup Stage (show your startup – launched or not yet launched – to Quora community) – over 410 followers
  • Founders Hub (articles, tutorials and other resources for the tech entrepreneur) – over 510 followers
  • Beautiful Websites (showcase beautiful websites from around the web, including yours) – over 880 followers

If you are already on Quora you can followed them. If you are not yet on Quora you can still read them, but you can’t post anything.

Hope you will find them useful and if yes, please let others know (you can also post them on social media services like Reddit, Hacker News, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc so even more people can benefit).

Ruby on Rails 3.1 Installation – Ubuntu (11.04, 11.10) and Linux Mint (11, 12)

ruby-on-rails-tutorialSince I started dabbling into Ruby on Rails (known also as RoR) I was amazed of the installation complexity surrounding it. That if you want to install it on Linux, because on Windows it seems there is one solution which does it with several clicks: www.railsinstaller.org
Somebody needs to make this installation steps on Linux much simpler and user-friendly.

I spent several days and followed several tutorials to make it work on Ubuntu 11.04 but I always encountered errors.
That prompted me to write my own step-by-step detailed tutorial and I tried to incorporate in it any common errors I’ve got and how to solve them.
This tutorial is made for absolute beginners in Ruby on Rails but also beginners in Linux.

The result is a 35 page PDF tutorial on installing Ruby on Rails 3.1 on Ubuntu (version 11.04 and 11.10) and Linux Mint (version 11, 12).
I released this tutorial under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

 

Download the Ruby on Rails 3.1 installation tutorial for Linux Ubuntu and Linux Mint (PDF file, 3 MB)

(right-click and Save Link as… or Save Target As… – or just left-click on the link to see it online)

The Ruby on Rails installation tutorial has two sections:

  • Ruby on Rails 3.1 installation using Ruby 1.9.2, Rails 3.1, WEbrick web server and SQLite3 database (this is the default installation – WEBrick and SQLite is used only in development, not production)
  • Ruby on Rails 3.1 installation using Ruby 1.9.2, Rails 3.1, Apache web server and MySQL database (this is more advanced – Apache and MySQL is used also in production)

In the future I will add the installation using also nginx web server www.nginx.com.

As for Ubuntu, instead of installing it from scratch I used a pre-made VMware virtual machine saving thus time. If you want to install Ubuntu or Linux Mint from scratch (on your computer or on a virtual machine) you will have to look for a tutorial for that.

To use a VMware virtual machine you need to install the VMware player (free):  http://www.vmware.com/products/player
Then download a pre-made virtual operating system appliance from VMware website (free also):  http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/cat/508 (look for a Ubuntu 11.10, 11.04 machine, or Linux Mint 11 operating systems appliances)

If you get a Ubuntu 11.04 virtual machine you can upgrade Ubuntu to the latest version (11.10 in this case) by going to Update Manager and you will see a note there prompting you to upgrade to that latest version. It’s up to you if you want to upgrade.

Linux Mint www.linuxmint.com is a fork of Ubuntu so it uses many packages which Ubuntu uses.

After having setup the Ruby on Rails environment you can start building the application from this online book which I found very useful and quite explanatory: Ruby on Rails tutorial by Michael Hartl (it is a bit outdated but still useful)

I will keep updating this tutorial I made as the new  Ruby on Rails version are coming out (as well as new version of Ubuntu/Linux Mint).
The name of the PDF file will remain the same, only the content will change.

If you have found this tutorial useful please tell to others too (on Ruby on Rails/wen development groups and forums) and, if possible, link to this page so more people can benefit.
If you have suggestions or improvements for this tutorial please let me know in the comments. Thank you.

 

Download the Ruby on Rails 3.1 installation tutorial for Linux Ubuntu and Linux Mint (PDF file, 3 MB)

(right-click and Save Link as… or Save Target As… – or just left-click on the link to see it online)

 

Useful links:

 

This tutorial is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

First words

Welcome to my website and blog.

This is the first post here and more will come.

I will try to post things from my main fields of interest (web development, Internet, filmmaking, photography, traveling) but not only.
I read a lot on the Internet and many times I stumble on interesting news, articles, images, videos, etc.

Enjoy your stay and you can always contact me using the Contact form. Find more about me here.

Disclosure:
English is not my native language (Romanian is – but it’s not understood internationally) so please excuse my mistakes which, eventually, I will make.