1. Include ActionController::UrlWriter in your class
2. Call the method directly on ActionController::UrlWriter

When I tried it out, only the first method worked. I was able to use methods generated from named routes in console after including ActionController::UrlWriter. However, it was not possible to call those methods on ActionController::UrlWriter. This looks like an issue with documentation to me.

It might be the case that the second method used to work in earlier version of rails. As rails is constantly being developed, some refactoring might have made the second method obsolete. I hope rails community will fix such issues in documentation soon.

People innovate and develop solutions or machines to reduce human efforts. In other words, machines or solutions are developed to simply our day-to-day activities. By developing complex systems, most of us don’t realize that:

• Instead of simplifying something, we have actually transferred the problem to another new system: Complex solutions give us an impression that it solves the problem completely. But in reality, it might end up creating new problems for you. This new problem could be in the form of maintenance or in the form of some hidden cost.
• Complex solutions are often too costly: This means that only few rich people will be able to use the solution.

I am sure that most of us would have heard about interactive whiteboards (also known as smart boards). These boards are quite costly as they would cost you at least few hundred thousand rupees. Due to this high cost, lot of schools and colleges cannot enjoy the benefits of such iterative systems. Now, is there a cheaper and simpler solution to this problem?

Of course there is!!! Johnny Chung Lee, who works as a researcher at Microsoft – Applied sciences, has developed a simple systems that achieves most of the functionality provided by commercial smart boards at fraction of their cost. His project makes use of an IR pen, Nintendo Wii remote and a small software application. You can watch the following video to know how this system works:

Next time, before developing any solutions or systems, try to ask yourself a question: “Is this the only way of doing this? Can there be simple way to do it?”

I am sure you will definitely find an answer

While I found the concept to be interesting, I was wondering what could be the use of looking at screenshots of pages in search result. What matters to me is getting a list of relevant search results. A thumbnail of a particular page in search result won’t help me in determining how relevant that page is to my search.

However, I do see one use for getting search results along with thumbnails. It can be used to come up with ideas for designing web-sites for a particular theme. You can search on Veesual using a keyword that describes the theme of your site and then take a quick look at the design of pages in the result. This can help you to come up with your own web-page design.

Do let me know if you can think of some more applications of Veesual.com

• Paste it in your chat: I know most of us do this when we quickly want to share the code. However, its annoying as it becomes unreadable and makes your code look as if its obfuscated

• Email: This approach is better compared to previous approach, however the recipient wil need to manually compile the code and run it if he wants to know the output.

I won’t say these approaches are useless. But I would like to have a place, where I can put my code fragment and then share it using a link. I can use this link in my gtalk status, chat or even in twitter posts.

Luckily, there is a site called “codepad” that allows us to do exactly the same thing. It allows us to share a piece of code using a small url.

You can try it now at “http://codepad.org/” or take a look at this example code posted by me at “http://codepad.org/XZpSNngW”

Finally, one thing I would like to see is support for C# code.

Luckily, today I came across a feature in Gmail Labs, which helps you to identify missing attachments as soon as you press send button. This small functionality in Gmail warns you if you have written something like “I’m attaching” or “I am attaching” or “I have attached” in your message body and you haven’t actually attached any file. I’m not sure if it is capable of identifying any other patterns in email text which suggests that you wanted to attach something. However, I tested for above 3 patterns and I’m good with it.

To enable this feature, you will need to login to your Gmail account. Then go to Settings -> Labs, and enable ‘Forgotten Attachment Detector’. Don’t forget to click on ‘Save changes’ after that.

I would like to thank Mr. Jonathan K, for creating this useful feature in Gmail lab. It is definitely an important feature for me, and for many other people who like to eat attachments instead of food.

But wait!!!!! As computers are becoming smarter and smarter, some new age pirates are also becoming smarter. They are now finding new ways of hacking into your computer to steal your information with use of Trojans and viruses. For example, read this report on BBC News called ‘Parking ticket leads to a virus’.

This makes me feel that nothing has changed as yet. Earlier, it was difficult to use computers because users had to learn all the commands which were required to operate it. Now, common users are often scared to use their computers for doing activities like online transactions as they need to learn all the ways to protect themselves and their data from hackers.

Well, what does this mean for software developers? Software developers must keep themselves updated about various security issues and design stable and secure system so that more and more users will be able to use technology without even having to learn things they are not supposed to. For those who think software development is easy, I agree with you. Yes, software development is easy. BUT, developing a stable, user friendly and secure application is definitely not as easy as writing ‘var x=a+b;’.

Being a software application developer, I would like to consider what happens in a typical software industry. What is expected from a software project is nothing but working software. But still, most of companies end up using so called ‘up front’ design approach. In this approach lot of time is spent in designing E-R diagrams or UML diagrams including text documentation. Here, I’m not saying that documentation is useless, but considering the effort that is required to change them once the requirement or design decision is changed, it does feel like a big waste of time. There is another approach in developing software known as Test Driven Development (TDD). In this approach, unit tests are written before the code that implements the required functionality. These tests are written such that:
1. They explain the function of unit under the test
2. The broken functionality is identified automatically as soon as possible

Text based documentation can serve the purpose stated in point 1 but fails to identify broken functionalities automatically. Thus it’s better to have unit tests than to have documentation in text.

Similarly, in case of online forums, threads are created asking for help. But most of the time I see replies like “Yes I agree” or “Wow!!! That was great”.  I have seen replies that advice the creator of the thread to search Google for more information. Such replies don’t add any real value to the owner of the thread or to other readers. If you want to give your opinion then make sure that you also add value to the thread by recommending your own solution. This way, every reply to a thread will improve the discussion further.

Another case I would like to consider is the case of websites which are created only to make money. Such websites are known as virtual real estates and use PLR articles as content. This leads to hundreds of websites having similar content floating in cyberspace. Another fact is that, most of the time such websites are created by people who knows nothing about the topic. The articles are mostly ghostwritten or taken from PLR sources or article directories. Google knows that such duplicate content doesn’t add any value to internet users and thus, hides the results containing duplicate information.

Whatever may be the case or purpose, we should remember that whatever we do, even if it’s little, should add value to our work. Something is better than nothing holds true only when that ‘something’ has a value and not otherwise.

If you are involved in the development of software for a domain where requirements keep changing every second, a developer needs to come up with new and new ideas to prevent the development process from stalling. To think of new ideas, you need to keep your mind focused on the problem which is difficult if your mind is not active.

To keep your mind active all the time, you basically need to keep it engaged in some activities so that your mind won’t have to stay idle. Let’s look at some activities that can keep your mind active and engaged for most of the time.

1. Reading: Everybody knows the importance of reading. Apart from keeping your mind engaged, it also helps you to learn new concepts, and to come up with some new ideas. You could read literature on almost any topic. Normally, whenever I get tired after long hours of software development, I like to read some story books or newspaper. It distracts my mind for a short time from the puzzles I was trying to solve while coding and thus, making it fresh again after some time.

2. Writing: Some people think that writing is generally a physical exercise. Just try to write some original articles or essays and you will come to know how much you need to think. But what to write? You can keep your personal diary where you can write your daily experience or a weblog where you can post your thoughts or ideas which could help others. If can even try to write your own poems or songs even if you haven’t written one before.

3. Playing mind games: Games like chess or sudoku are quite challenging by nature. You can even play these games without moving away from your computer (lol). Don’t worry if you are not expert in chess or sudoku as we are trying to play just for the sake of keeping our mind engaged.

4. Observing mother nature: If you are really bored of reading, writing or even playing then you can just hang out in some nice garden and appreciate the beautify of our mother nature. Trust me, it works!!!!! Once when I was struggling to come up with an algorithm to write one game, Alan had advised me to go out and look at birds and trees. I listened to his advice and soon after that, my problem was solved.

Here I’ve mentioned the activities that I follow to keep my mind active. Sometimes, I even do meditation for around 10 minutes. Don’t just limit yourself to these activities for keeping your mind engaged. Do whatever you like but make sure that your mind won’t stay idle.

I know these experiences are little funny but they clearly show how people have misunderstood the term “Professional” and “Professionalism”. Once I met one of my friends during office timings and noticed that he was trying to be too serious in his approach. At his home, he used to be pretty humorous. When I asked him about the reason behind his change of behavior, he said he needs to be serious to look professional. So what exactly is professionalism?

While at work, it’s true that you need to follow some dress code and work ethics but that doesn’t mean that being professional is only limited to acting serious and wearing formal clothes. According to an article titled ‘What is a professional programmer?’ by Sarah George, being professional is to have set of qualities like trustworthiness, teamwork, leadership, communication, constant updating of skills, an interest in minimizing risks and accountability.

I completely agree with Sarah George. However, now I have a new question in my mind. Are our professional colleges trying to develop these qualities in students or are they trying to make them pseudo professional by training them with false concepts. When I raised this question in front of related authorities, they simply said it’s the fault of students that they don’t take any interest to learn by themselves.

There are many reasons behind misunderstanding the meaning of professionalism. But it’s our responsibility to leave such misunderstandings behind and develop the qualities described by Sarah George. This will not only help us in developing our career but will also help in the progress of our nation, world and the whole human race.