diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 6fb4a2479..0fe404faa 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -16,6 +16,18 @@ are either old, abandonned, hosted on CVS, written in platform-specific C, etc.
 Rust provides a good platform-agnostic way of writing systems utils that are easy
 to compile anywhere, and this is as good a way as any to try and learn it.
 
+Contribute
+----------
+
+Contributions are very welcome.  You may *claim* an item on the to-do list by following these steps:
+
+1. Open an issue named "Implement [the utility of your choice]", e.g. "Implement ls"
+2. State that you are working on this utility.
+3. Develop the utility.
+4. Submit a pull request and close the issue.  Your pull request should include deleting the utility from the to-do list on this README.
+
+The steps above imply that, before starting to work on a utility, you should search the issues to make sure no one else is working on it.
+
 To do
 -----
 
diff --git a/cat/cat.rs b/cat/cat.rs
index aa7f60c20..05ab62f5a 100644
--- a/cat/cat.rs
+++ b/cat/cat.rs
@@ -182,7 +182,7 @@ fn open(path: ~str) -> Option<~Reader> {
         return Some(~stdin() as ~Reader);
     }
 
-    match result(|| File::open(&std::path::Path::new(path.as_slice()))) {
+    match result(|| File::open(&std::path::Path::init(path.as_slice()))) {
         Ok(fd) => return Some(~fd as ~Reader),
         Err(e) => {
             writeln!(&mut stderr() as &mut Writer,
diff --git a/wc/wc.rs b/wc/wc.rs
index a6b91774b..70f9cec50 100644
--- a/wc/wc.rs
+++ b/wc/wc.rs
@@ -121,12 +121,12 @@ pub fn wc(files: ~[~str], matches: &Matches) {
                     // try and convert the bytes to UTF-8 first
                     match from_utf8_slice_opt(raw_line) {
                         Some(line) => {
-                            word_count += line.word_iter().len();
-                            current_char_count = line.iter().len();
+                            word_count += line.words().len();
+                            current_char_count = line.chars().len();
                             char_count += current_char_count;
                         },
                         None => {
-                            word_count += raw_line.split_iter(|&x| is_word_seperator(x)).len();
+                            word_count += raw_line.split(|&x| is_word_seperator(x)).len();
                             for byte in raw_line.iter() {
                                 match byte.is_ascii() {
                                     true => {
@@ -221,7 +221,7 @@ fn open(path: ~str) -> Option<BufferedReader<~Reader>> {
         return Some(BufferedReader::new(reader));
     }
 
-    match result(|| File::open(&std::path::Path::new(path.as_slice()))) {
+    match result(|| File::open(&std::path::Path::init(path.as_slice()))) {
         Ok(fd) => {
             let reader = ~fd as ~Reader;
             return Some(BufferedReader::new(reader));