Top 10 Tech Predictions for 2012
I woke up this morning thinking about what may happen in the world of tech this year based on all the articles I have read and how I think companies like Apple strategize.
10. Media Companies will continue to suck while wasting more money on anti-piracy
These companies just will not learn. Everyone and their mother realizes that it is far better to watch a show downloaded from bittorrent than on one of the lame network websites with the same commercials repeated at every break, yet these companies conspire to cripple legitimate sites. Take Hulu. When that site started it was great. I loved going to hulu.com and watching old shows. When they added commercials I did not mind. It started to suck when the media companies decided that having all the content for ALL seasons of a show was not a good idea. Hulu then introduced Hulu Plus and the site Jumped the Shark. This site went from being the place I recommended to all my friends to one I have not visited in well over a year.
It is hard for these companies to realize that the gravy train is now over. Instead of fighting legitamate options they should work with them. I am sure a lot of people, myself included would rather watch the latest episode of Survivor on Netflix than on cbs.com, but that’s not an option. Faced with cbs.com or bittorrent, many people will choose the better experience which is NOT on the network’s website.
There is a tiny ray of hope. The service I am recommending these days is HBO Go. This service is the one I recommend to all my friends. I love being able to see Boardwalk Empire, the same night it is broadcast, on my iPad. HBO has always been at the top of their game and I hope more companies follow suit, but I have little hope that this will happen in 2012.
9. Netflix will continue to decline
We all know that splitting the streaming and DVD plans was probably among the 10 top worst business decisions ever. Netflix eroded brand loyalty, customer satisfaction, and share price all in one fell swoop. When the announcement first came I thought it was either the most brilliant move ever, or the dumbest. I gave them the benefit of a doubt and thought that maybe they had something up their sleeve that we were yet to find out. All the subsequent moves, including the Quikster drama has led me to the realization that this is it. Now Warner is going to force them to wait even longer for DVDs and Starz is still taking away their content. Look for more drama when the Starz contract runs out in February and get ready to short NFLX. So sad to see this given that they were the single best hope to bring some sense to the entertainment industry. We all want to stream movies and we don’t want to pay outrageous prices.
8. Apple TV will continue to suck
Whether Apple continues to just sell the current Apple TV or a new iTV integrated television is irrelevant. in the end it is about the content. Having to pay for each episode of a TV show is not something people are clamoring for. Maybe Steve had some great epiphany and Apple will surprise me, but I have little hope that the content war will be won this year. A Siri integrated TV may sound great on paper, but if that TV can’t control your cable box and you have to get all your content from iTunes, there’s little chance that people like me will be satisfied.
There is one bit of hope I am holding out for. What if the whole Netflix debacle WAS indeed a brilliant plan. See Apple doesn’t need or want DVD distribution, they just need streaming. Now that Netflix is so weak Apple can take all the money in their bank and make the perfect move against the media companies. The checkmate move for Apple is to purchase Netflix, pay the movie studios a ton of cash to get rights to more content and release this iTV with Siri integration. No one will use bittorrent if they can just ask their TV to play the latest Breaking Bad.
7. Corporations will begin to demand technologies not tied to Microsoft
As devices like iPhones and iPads and even Android devices start gaining more acceptance in the enterprise, companies will begin to see the error of choosing technologies like Microsoft SharePoint. Decisions like wanting to have a full Microsoft stack will finally be seen as less attractive and as these systems reach end of life companies will be sure to assess Webkit/open standards compatibility with any and all new enterprise apps.
6. Fragmentation of Android market will continue
There is no sign that manufacturers will streamline their product offerings and focus on building brands and a few good devices. I don’t know a single lay person that can name an Android phone. Everyone knows Android , but no one knows a single phone model or what the difference is between the models. Most of these users are guided by store clerks, just like in the PC industry. On the contrary these same people know iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and can at least tell you that 4s = Siri.
Manufacturers such as Samsung have built their business on hardware. They could care less about the whole user experience. They know how to churn out new devices at an astonishing rate and there are no signs of that slowing down.
5. Google Chrome will continue to gain marketshare at the expense of Firefox
Sadly Firefox has become today’s Internet Explorer. Years of features and bloat has taken their venerable browser to the point where it can no longer be compiled in 32-bit Windows. Many people still swear by FF and the competition from Chrome has led to the Mozilla team changing the way they version their browser and moving to automatic updates, but I’m afraid it’s a little late. I believe Mozilla will use this opportunity to start over with a new browser, maybe one based on Webkit. Only time will tell.
4. iOS will continue to surge in marketshare
Two factors will help iOS continue to grow thus fueling the whole ecosystem.
1) Phones: As more Adreoid contracts come due, a lot of those users who were attracted to a “cheap” device will realize how much better their iPhone friends live life. I have yet to meet anyone who owns an iPhone who is not satisfied. The same can’t be said for people I know with Android phone.
2) Touch Pads: iPad still has no true competition. Apple is so far ahead this is not even a fair fight. Most fortune 500 companies are looking to deploy or have deployed iPads. I know of companies that have deployed iPads to their entire salesforce. iPads are now on planes and boardrooms across america. Corporate users are loving their iPhones and welcome devices that are instant-on and have great battery life. Consumer love and enterprise acceptance means huge win for Apple and iOS in 2012.
3. Mac marketshare will continue to increase at the expense of PC manufacturers
Corporations are realizing that Apple devices can function well in the enterprise. They are reaping the benefits of reduced support costs. Many corporate apps these days are web based. This fact alone allows companies to deploy Macs and have them work well for their users. I know a Microsoft centric company that has allowed departments to get Macs as long as they did not have to support them. Users have taken the opportunity to ditch ugly, slow HP laptops in favor of MacBook Airs and Mac Book Pros.
Companies are also looking at products that will allow users to use remote windows desktops for those applications native to Windows while users get to benefit from fast 64-bit machines that are almost instant on with SSDs and hardly ever need rebooting unlike their Windows counterparts.
2. Adroid touch pads will continue to suck
While Android phones have been successful mainly because the OS is free to manufacturers (in my opinion). I don’t believe we will see the same scenario in the touch pad arena. While Android phone manufacturers were helped by mobile carriers’ need to offer phones where they could install their crapware, the same is not true of touch pads. There is no overarching entity that can subsidize the development of these devices so that manufacturers can flood the market. No subsidies and lock-ins means that no one will by sub-par devices. Amazon’s Fire has seen some early success, but this is due to the loss leader strategy they are following. Companies like Samsung can’t sell a device below cost. The only other companies that “could” offer a touch pad are Facebook and Google. I don’t see Facebook doing it, and I don’t think Google would heavily subsidize a touchpad just to gain marketshare.
1. iPad 2 will be kept on the market at a lower price when iPad 3 is released
The Kindle Fire seems to be off to a good start primarily because of its price tag. I think Apple will mirror the iPhone 4/iPhone 4S pricing by offering the older model at a $100 discount. The iPad 2 will still be at a premium in terms of price, but iPad 2 is hands down a better device than the Kindle Fire. This lower cost may be enough to fight the Fire while helping to keep other manufacturers at bay.
User Centric Experience at its finest
I recently had the opportunity to fly Virgin America for the first time. I had read about this airline since before it was approved for commercial flights in the US, so I was eager to see what it was all about. I came away feeling very pleased with the whole experience and three things stick out in my mind:
- Efficiency
- Customer Focus
- Great Design
Efficiency
When I arrived at the Virgin America check-in counter a few things struck me:
- there was a short line
- there were only a few check-in kiosk and they weren’t all in use
As an industrial Engineer it’s second nature for me to analyze a process. I knew there had to be something different about Virgin right away. There was no mass chaos as I am accustomed to seeing at almost every other airline.
What could possibly contribute to this harmonious sight?
The first thing is the kiosks. As someone who has done his fair share of flying I know that the User Experience of an airline kiosk can vary greatly. At Virgin I could not ask for a more streamlines process. Swipe a credit card and your information comes right up. Select the number of bags to check-in and print out your boarding pass. Contrast this to the American Airlines kiosk which has 3 ways to find your information and if you are flying AA through another carrier good luck figuring out what your record locator is.
Like most other airlines today, at Virgin you do have to pay to check-in a bag. Unlike other airlines however, for $25 you can have up to 70 lbs. in your luggage. I am sure this is a huge contributor to the fact that I saw a short line at the check-in counter. How many times have you seen people repacking at the airport in order to meet the 50 lbs. limit most airlines have.. No one wants to pay an extra $100 or more because they packed an extra 10 pounds in their luggage. It is very common to not only see people repacking their luggage at the airport, but to see passengers argue with airline staff when they are over the limit.
Customer Focus
The Virgin boarding pass is a welcome change to the hideous boarding passes that are common in the industry.
Not only is it smaller than a traditional boarding pass, thus saving paper. It actually has only the information you need, fantastic. I am not the only one to have noticed.
That ticket was made for us, not the airline. Someone actually sat down, figured out what we need to know and laid it out in a clean concise form factor. Beautiful. Oh, and that boarding pass is also your baggage ticket, one barcode to rule them all.
Who here likes listening to or watching the flight safety information before the flight departs? I do, well, I do on Virgin America. The flight safety video was animated and really well done. It was actually entertaining. Again, someone, like me realized that all passengers would have to endure the flight safety information video and decided to actually make it pleasant, that is simple customer centric design.
The in-flight entertainment system which includes live TV, on demand movies and tv shows, music, games and in-flight text chat with other passengers is top notch. I know this alone would keep my kids entertained on a 6 hour flight, no need to let them use the iPad 
One negative I would note about the on demand movies and TV is their cost. At $3 to $6 I find them kind of expensive. I’ve always been turned off to the constant nickel and dimming when it comes to the airlines. I would much rather they increase the cost of the ticket by $20 and include all these “extras” than ask me to take out my wallet at every turn.
Virgin America also has in-flight wifi, but yeah it’s at an additional price. They do have mobile device pricing which is a few dollars less, but an iPad is considered a full computer so no break.
That entertainment system has another trick. You can actually use it to order food right to your seat. They have a nice assortment of items on the menu, but overall I have to give Virgin a negative rating for not even including a cookie in the price of your ticket. Here Jet Blue wins. I have always loved that about Jet Blue. At least you can get one or 2 snacks from those guys and the quality of the food is really good.
Great Design
I’ve already spoken about the great design of the boarding pass and that’s the type of quality to expect from Virgin America’s design decisions. Prior to flying VA I had noticed that their website was extremely user centric. If you do a search you will note that the departing city is auto populated and if you leave the site and come back a few days later and perform a search, the last criteria you entered will be auto populated. It’s these little things that count.
When you walk into a plane you are greeted by a pleasantly illuminated modern interior. You kind of feel like you are walking into a Star Trek movie set, but its actually a welcome change from the drab interiors most airlines have.
Another well design object at Virgin America is the remote used to control the TV. When you first sit down you may wonder how you control this screen in front of you. While the screen is a touch screen, hidden beneath the arm rest is a tethered multi-function remote. In the arm rest it serves the typical functions you would normally see on seat controls like volume up-down, but when you take it out you notice that it not only has more functions on that face of the remote, but underneath it has a full keyboard and a credit card reader to pay for the food and on demand offerings.
Thank you for flying
No airline is perfect. I can say that there are things I like better about Jet Blue and there are things I love about Southwest, but all in all I can say that Virgin America really impressed me. From the simple check-in and 70 pound luggage limit to the efficient and effective boarding pass and the great in flight entertainment system. One thing that you have not heard me say is anything good about the legacy airlines. In my mind they have no redeeming qualities. They are bloated, inefficient, rude and the polar opposite of customer focused. My dream is that one day there will be no American Airlines, no Delta, no United, no Continental and a new era in air travel will arrive. An era where these newer players get to compete on service and where efficiency, customer focus and design are used to create a measurable differentiating advantage by all airlines.
Using Mechanize to download images from Stock Exchange
I wanted to download several images from stock.xchng and thought this would be a good time to learn how to screen scrape with Mechanize.
It turns out it is pretty simple. This is why I love Ruby and the Rails community.
Branding: EVO, Droid X, Captivate, Galaxy S, Epic, etc. vs iPhone
This morning while reading Crunchgear I came across a review for the Samsung Galaxy S. The blurb to the article made my brain hurt.
There are a total of five Galaxy S-based handsets: The AT&T Captivate, which I have here in my hand, the T-Mobile Vibrant, the Verizon Fascinate (identical to the Vibrant except for an LED flash), the Sprint Epic 4G (with slide-out keyboard), and the “vanilla” international Galaxy S. They’re much the same but have some features setting them apart, mainly in the body department. Even so, the experience on one should be pretty similar to the experience for another, so consider this our review of the Galaxy S line — with the caveat that your mileage may vary slightly on the other models.
All the models listed there are for ONE phone from ONE company. This is nuts. Now if you start adding all the other Android phones in the market like EVO, Droid X, etc. you start realizing that these companies have no chance against Apple marketing.
I consider myself a techie and I can hardly keep up with all these names, imagine how well the average Joe keeps up. The only unifying brand is Android and I dare you to ask a lay person what that is. I can just imagine the blank stare. Now I know from experience that everyone knows iPhone. Simple, one company, one brand, one phone. Did these people not learn anything from “Intel Inside.” This is basic stuff people. A friend posted a picture of his new Droid X and what brand stood out most to me when I saw the picture? Verizon.
If Google wants to have a shot at Apple, it should get some marketing behind Android and work with device manufacturers to unite under the Android brand instead of creating one phone with 5 names. When I saw Palm not focusing on one simple Pre model I saw their end, I feel like a fortune teller again with the mess that is the android device marketplace.
Post with Echofon Bookmarklet – Updated
UPDATE: The old bookmarklet broke, here is a working one
I couldn’t find a good bookmarklet for Echofon like the one I had been using for Tweetie, so I modified that one to work with Echofon. Just drag the link below to your bookmarks toolbar. Enjoy
The Secret to Losing Weight by David Heinemeier Hansson (or what he would say)
Disclaimer: David had nothing to do with this post, but I am a big fan of his and I have watched several of his speeches like this one. His words (or my version of them) been my inspiration for losing weight over the last month and a half.
I have created a book for losing weight in the form of DHH. It’s embedded below for free, enjoy:
The background for the book
Over the years my wife would come to me and mention how she wanted to join some program like Weight Watchers and every time I would say “Give me the money and I will tell you to not eat so much.” She would moan and grown about her weight about once a year, but about 6 months ago she started reducing her caloric intake. Without counting points she switched to eating smaller portions for lunch and dinner and she began eating a lot more vegetables. This has worked for her, she has lost weight and is very happy with her results. Her mantra was “Nothing tastes as good as Skinny feels” We heard that from some skinny girl on a reality show, don’t remember where.
I had kept my same routine, but in January I finally thought I needed to loose some weight after speaking to a friend who had managed to do just that. He had reduced his caloric intake and began exercising and in a few weeks had amazing results (Biggest Loser type of results). He has been at it for about 10 weeks and has lost over 40 pounds.
My Journey Begins
So taking my own advice I decided to “Stop Eating so F-ing much.” I didn’t think I could cut calories since I only had breakfast on the weekends and rarely had lunch. My main meal came at dinner and I thought I couldn’t possibly be consuming so many calories. My one weakness was for dessert. I love my ice cream before bed.
My friend, who is married to a dietician who does not necessarily like our method to weight loss, told me that to loose a pound of fat you needed to burn 3500 calories. The engineer in me kicked into high gear. Now I knew all I had to do was consume a lot less then what my body burned. This was not necessarily a new revelation, but this number gave me a target. I had read how people who began a diet and exercise program tended to either remain the same or gain some weight. A few years back when I was doing a lot of traveling I began taking advantage of the hotel’s fitness centers and after months I saw little to no weight loss. At the time I thought that given how little I ate adding exercise would have an impact. Realistically I think at most I probably burned an additional 500 calories a day. Hardly a dent. Exercise also tends to have the negative effect of giving you a sense of entitlement to more food since you now are exercising.
To top things off, Linus pretty much nailed it when it came to exercise, at least for me.
Counting Caliroes
To be fair my wife and I already ate fairly healthy compared to most of America. We would have salad with a side of protein at least twice a week and very rarely had any sort of fast food. She cooks almost every day so our problem wasn’t eating a lot of takeout or ready to eat meals.
For me it all came down to having no clue how many calories I was consuming. I had become complacent since I only ate one meal a day on most days, but once I started looking it was obvious.
I set a goal of consuming 1000 calories a day. I didn’t go out and get a food scale, but I started looking at labels and modifying what I ate so that I consumed fewer calories. Ice Cream was substituted with a single piece of Lindor Truffle (I love these things). 73.3 calories to cap off my day with milk chocolate goodness.
The most amazing fact was opening my eyes to how many calories are in all sorts of things I ate. The tortilla for a breakfast burrito was over 100 calories each and that’s just the tortilla. One wouldn’t satisfy me on the weekends so I would have to eat 3. How about In N Out once in a blue moon. A Double Double, French Fries and a Chocolate shake? That can’t be so bad, I have that less than once a month. Well, that meal is over 1600 calories, WOW!!!
I still have no clue the calories in certain things my wife cooks, but we have increased the number of salad only meals and I have reduced my portions.
How has it worked?
In just over 6 weeks I have lost about 10 pounds. I have not suddenly picked up exercise. I do the same things I used to do, all I have done was stopped eating so many calories. If you watch Survivor you know that losing weight is not so difficult. Everyone on that show loses weight. I am convinced that the US would be a lot thinner if the government did not subsidize high fructose corn syrup because everything unhealthy has it and it packs in the calories. I am also pretty sure that if everyone became more aware of how many calories they consumed, they would actively work to reduce them.
Is this Healthy?
I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I just had a physical last week and all is well. Carrying around an extra 10-15 lbs. can’t be so good and realistically a lot of people in the world, probably the majority, get by with fewer calories than I was consuming. I have also read studies on longevity and reduction of caloric intake.
“I am so hungry… WAAAHHH“
Most of my life I have not eaten breakfast or lunch and I have met many people who ask how I can go all day without eating. I have come to the conclusion that their attitude is both psychological and related to their ingrained belief that X meal is important or that the body has to have food X number of times a day. They get a headache if they don’t eat, they can’t function if they don’t eat, etc. How are people in third world countries surviving? My dog eats once a day and she has had a pretty full life. I will admit that whenever I am on vacation I tend to eat more meals per day and switching back to the single meal after an extended period of multiple meals is difficult. It is hard to fight the hunger, but after a couple of days you body adjusts. Another thing which makes hunger worse is eating junk food or anything high in carbs or sugar.
When I started my calorie reduction the hardest part was the weekend. I could no longer have 6 pancakes or 3 burritos, but after a few weekends I had conditioned my mind to not expect such luxuries. Watch the contestants on Survivor. The first few episodes people talk about how hungry they are, how they can’t function, etc. But that, they adjust. So can anyone.
The first rule of process improvement
Everyone knows that you can’t control that which you can’t measure. Now that I am actively calculating the calories I am consuming I have been able to qucickly achieve that which had aluded me for many years. My goal is to loose at least 10 more pounds. I then figure that a person my size probably consumes around 2000 calories(educated guess, I am not a health Nazi yet lol), so I can probably increase my intake without gaining any more weight, but at least now I will be more aware of what I am consuming.
Now, as Peldi would say…. Onward
Medicare Fraud – Inspecting Quality into a process rarely works well
I just watched a story on 60 Minutes on how simple it is to game the Medicare system out of millions of dollars. Essentially, with a few pieces of static data a criminal can bill the system for medical equipment without having even met the Medicare patient. The government will pay the charges in 30 days and if the criminal gets a hint that they are under investigation, they just close shop and open up another business reusing the same list of patients.
The criminals purchase lists of patients for $10 per patient and bill Medicare for any number of devices or drugs. In the report they interview a person whose credentials were used to bill the system from two prosthetic arms. The man had his real arms and only learned of the fraud from a quarterly statement from Medicare.
What I found most interesting is that the solution being employed to reduce the fraud is more law enforcement and more auditing. To me this is backwards. The government is trying to inspect quality into the billing and payment process. No matter how successful the government is, given the simplicity of the crime, I doubt the effectiveness of their efforts.
Instead of inspecting quality at the back end of the process, it is always better to prevent the defect. From what I know of the process based on the report, it seems that the main flaw is the fact that it is so simple to acquire the static patient credentials needed to bill the government.
While there are probably more ways to prevent fraud, the solution I thought of immediately is giving each patient a single use token device like Secure ID. If the patient is involved in a medical transaction, they would be required to provide the provider a single use number which the provider would use to authorize that transaction with the government. While this would not prevent fraudulent companies from billing for unnecessary equipment, it would immediately render the patient lists useless since companies could not use them without the single use token.
A second line of defense would be to employ data mining software like those used by credit card companies. I imagine it would be possible to develop algorithms that would catch potential fraud before invoices are paid. For example, prior to paying for prosthetics, the system would assure that amputations had been billed.
It is usually simpler to add more inspections to the end of a process, but it rarely has the impact that error prevention does.
Competing poorly outside your core is not the way to win
On Twitter today @paul_irish shared this infographic which illustrates why the legacy carriers can’t effectively compete with low-cost airlines.
The information on this picture is nothing you can’t learn from taking any business school class, but what is interesting is how something so obvious is not put to good use. I have felt for a long time that by trying to compete with the low cost airlines, the legacy airlines are “stuck in the middle” as Porter suggested. Today these companies are neither differentiated nor low cost.
Bailout after bailout the legacy airlines pursue the same failed strategies. They continue to cut costs at the expense of service and I have noticed in my travels that the low cost airlines continue to outperform. The same was true of the US automakers and we see where that led.
Instead of trying to compete on price, legacy airlines should look for ways to leverage their size and put up a good fight against low cost airlines. A “fly anywhere” for a month pass from American Airlines is surely better than one from JetBlue. How about giving passengers who have to go through hubs the flexibility to book their connecting flight on a different day? I think everyone would see the value in being able to take a detour for a few days in Chicago on their way to Indiana. This perk would win favor with passengers while only increasing airline costs marginally (for additional baggage handling, automated check-in, etc.).
When a company sees itself losing sales to someone following a different generic strategy it can’t defend itself by trying to compete using the competitor’s strategy. It needs to get better at their strategy when on the surface it appears they need to abandon it.
Could Target ever beat Walmart on price? Probably not. Instead it chooses to have reasonable prices and compete on differentiation tied to style and trendiness. Dell has been trying for a few years to compete with Apple on style and has not done any better. When Apple was faced with extinction in the 90s instead of trying to compete on price they chose to go after innovation which was their core and is why today they are the model every company tries to copy. If you look at the early 90s, you can argue that it was the CEOs who lost that focus at Apple which put it in the predicament in the first place.
So when someone is competing with you don’t blindly abandon your core strategy. Look for ways to leverage what you have because your competitor won’t be able to effectively counter a strategy foreign to them.
Virtual relationships and the art communication
Services like Twitter and Facebook have allowed us to connect with people in ways we never imagined. They have also allowed us to learn more about these people and to put our virtual feet in our mouths without even know we had.
You see, verbal communication and written communication are very different beasts. When you hear someone tell you something you get cues about their intention and motivation from the manner in which they say it. If someone is speaking to you and you are standing in front of them, you can pick up additional cues, but in the written word all you have are the words in front of you.
Some people are naturally gifted at writing eloquently. These people can defuse conflicts with just the right words, however, there are others who can innocently put a few words together and come across the wrong way. A comment made in jest or the combination of several tweets over time can distance those with whom you’d previously had close relationships.
The problem with social networks is that it is very hard to know if those in your network have been offended by something you said or something you did. It is even more difficult to try to mend a relationship once you think you have offended someone. In this new medium we don’t “have to” work with one another. We can block a user or simply choose to ignore them.
An employee known to work at a certain company posts a link to a video and their followers will unconsciously attach the emotions the feel while watching the video to the company. If a person makes a comment about healthcare reform, the type of computer they use, the political party they belong to or if their positions on such matters can be inferred, some followers will superimpose their offline prejudices on to those people and possibly the companies they work for.
We all look for ways to connect with others who share our passions, the problem now is that these passions are now being merged on to the same stream. One of your followers may share your interest for a programming language, but the same person may detest your love for Sarah Palin.
In the long run we are going to have to make a few concessions if we want to make the most of this new medium. We are going to have to learn to be more open with one another and instead of ignoring those who hurt us we could try to find the best in them and learn to forgive. We are going to have to understand that we are all multi faceted individuals and while in some ways we will agree, in other ways we may not. We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water because there are still great things we can learn from one another. Now more than ever we need to give people the benefit of a doubt because some people are just not as gifted at putting together 140 characters as others.
Sending email in Rails via GMail & using HAML with Action Mailer
Sending Email via Gmail
I was following the Action Mailer Rails Guide to set up outbound email from my app and I came across a problem when trying to use GMail. Many blog posts and the Rails guide point to plugins which enable TLS. I kept running into a wall and getting this error:
wrong number of arguments (3 for 2)
Luckily I finally found there is a very simple solution which is defined in the Rails API in ActionMailer::Base. This essentially says that Section 5.2 of the Rails Guide can be simplified by adding an additional parameter to the smtp_settings:
ActionMailer::Base.smtp_settings = {
:enable_starttls_auto => true,
:address => "smtp.gmail.com",
:port => 587,
:domain => "domain.com",
:user_name => "user@domain.com",
:password => "password",
:authentication => :plain
}
There is no plugin / gem needed, but you must be on Ruby 1.8.7
From the Rails API:
:enable_starttls_auto - When set to true, detects if STARTTLS is enabled in your
SMTP server and starts to use it. It works only on Ruby >= 1.8.7 and Ruby >= 1.9.
Default is true.
Using HAML with ActionMailer
Section 5.3 of the Rails Guide also mentions a configuration setting to get Action Mailer to recognize HAML templates. This configuration is not needed. As I found here.
I added comments to the Rails Guide Lighthouse ticket, so hopefully the guide will be updated.