RSpec Color Output in Windows

As part of the Rails Tutorial I'm moving through, RSpec is introduced as an alternative to the standard Rails test framework. RSpec tests can be run directly from a windows command prompt and it will deliver nicely formatted output, making it easy to spot test failures. Except, the first time through, this is what I got -

Feh. Mostly unreadable.

Then I found this little gem - Ansicon - which provides proper handling of ANSI escape sequences on windows machines. Follow these steps:

1. Download the most recent package (v1.52 at the time of this writing)
2. Unzip somewhere convenient
3. Via a command prompt, navigate to the directory and run "ansicon.exe -i" to install

Running the same test again now yields - 

Much prettier.

Heroku

Just when I was thinking how great it is - it's down.

On to Rails

With the basics behind me, the next step is Rails.

Getting Started

As with most new endeavors, you have to start somewhere.

It's Done

So, I moved on.