But development does not stop at whole numbers, and the testing must go on – which is how we got here.

So I’m testing Firefox 3 (Minefield). That’s right, I won’t be outdone. I must run the most unstable software. Well at least on the test boxes. So currently the Vista, Leopard, and Edgy boxes are running “firefox-3.0a1″.

The first things you will notice are the graphics – everything has a nice sheen to it (in fact, looks just like Firefox 2!), while remaining true to the normal Firefox UI. Also of note is the fact that favorites are now run using a SQLite3 database. For the full list of features, head on over to the Burning Edge page.

As far as I can tell this is just as stable as Bon Echo was (that’s right – was stable for me), with inline spell-checking and some other fancy goodies.That’s all for now, some more screenshots from other platforms (other than Windows XP of course) and crash reports as they happen

Note: of course this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I’m sorry for the Mozilla devs. We all need to stop worrying about the cutting edge and appreciate what we have – fantastic browsers! Opera, Safari, IE7 and Firefox are all great, really.

Here’s the quick and dirty way to make a sample Rails environment and start the server.

Firstly, open the Terminal application. You know the scary black window with white text. Well actually it could even be white with black text – your mileage may vary (mine is black with green, for example).

Anyway, we’re wasting time – this is quick and dirty right? Otherwise I would be talking about chunky bacon.

In Terminal, type:

rails example

You’ll be met with a nice list of scrolling lines and when it’s done your “example” Rails application will have been initialised.

And that’s pretty well it!

Moving on, we want to see something tangible to prove to ourselves just how flippin’ impressive this really is, and why you knew when you saw that Apple Developper Connection article about Rails you knew good things were to come.

In Terminal, once more, sweating profusely now, we type:

cd example

ruby script/server

This runs the server for us. Once it has been set up, you can safely minimize the Terminal, and fire up Safari, Firefox, Camino, iCab, heck even Internet Explorer. We’re navigating ourselves to: 127.0.0.1:3000

Here’s what we find there (click the thumbnail to enlarge the screenshot):

The nitty-gritty (no dirt band):

• Ruby version – 1.8.4

• RubyGems Version – 0.9.0

• Rails version – 1.1.2

• Active Record version – 1.14.2

• Action Pack version – 1.12.1

• Action Web Service version – 1.1.2

• Action Mailer Version – 1.2.1

• Active Support version – 1.3.1

It’s set up in a development environment by default (where you want it), using the sqlite3 database adapter (pretty typical).

Next time we’ll show you how to update these and run irb. Until then feel free to vote in our poll and support us!