fixing not_to raise(SpecificErrorClass) deprecation warning

according to: https://github.com/rspec/rspec-expectations/pull/244, expecting a specific error to not be raised is deprecated and not really a good idea.  Indeed, I found two other testcases where a different error was being raised other than the one we specified.  I will fix those in later commits.
merge local master changes into branch
add additional behavior tests for hash_id and uuid