Forum: Rails deployment Easy Noob Question?

I am completely new to RoR and have spent the better part of a week
trying to figure all this out. I have 'Instant Rails' running non a
Windows 7 x64 machine. I have downloaded a number of open source apps
and have yet to get a single one running. I am sure I am missing
something. Do I need to compile them, de-compile them, smash my computer
I don't know. The App I am most interested in is here at github :

http://github.com/quirkey/portfolio

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I just have no clue what to do
and am not finding consistent information anywhere on the web.