hash = {:symbol => "value"}

can be written as

hash = {symbol: "value"}

now, what if both key & values are symbols, in ruby 1.8 & before you would write

:pick => :any

but now, this could be written in short form as

pick: :any

And this both new & old syntax for hash are supported in ruby 1.9, you can use whatever syntax you are comfortable the most but it helps to know both forms of syntax specially when reading the code that other might have written. personally, I like the new one — fewer characters to type

PS: this new has syntax is applicable only if the key is a :symbol. In case when key is not a symbol. you have to still stick with old array syntax(=>)

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1. Enable gzip compression for Rails 3.2 on heroku Cedar

In Cedar, the HTTP requests terminates directly at your app server & no longer goes through a proxy server(Nginx), hence there can’t be automatic gzip compression. More information about this can be found in HTTP routing dev center article So we have to manage gzip compression on our own. fortunately, this is trivial as adding just one line to your config. basically, you will need to use Rack::Deflater & make sure that it get loaded before ActionDispatch::Static. The simplest way to enable gzip compression in Rails 3.2 is by adding “use Rack::Deflater” in config.ru file.

After the change, this how your config.ru file should look like:

# This file is used by Rack-based servers to start the application.

require ::File.expand_path('../config/environment',  __FILE__)
use Rack::Deflater
run Improvingoutcomes::Application

I spending sometime gather information about this. So Hope this post help you save some time.

This article made into Times of India on march 11 2012, I got little delayed in posting it here. Not something big but it feels nice to read your name in paper upon waking up

you read the article Online at:
How your phone can be your compass – Times of India

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1. Go to Site Configuration -> Performance:
   • Set the following options, and click Save configuration:
     • Caching mode: Disabled
     • Minimum cache lifetime: none
     • Page compression: Disabled
     • Block cache: Disabled
     • Optimize CSS files: Disabled
     • Optimize JavaScript files: Disabled
   • Click Clear cached data.
2. Go to Site building -> Views -> Tools:
   • Check Disable views data caching and click Save configuration.
   • Click Clear Views’ cache.
3. Install the Devel module, and go to Site Configuration -> Devel settings:
   • Check Rebuild the theme registry on every page load and click Save configuration.
4. Add the following to your .module file to disable menu caching

function hook_init(){
   //FIXME: remove before going into production
   menu_rebuild();
}

With this, now ALL caching in drupal will disabled. Enjoy quicker development & don’t forget to undo these changes once your site goes into production!

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1. Getting Started with Drupal Module Development
2. Enable right-click on pages where its been disabled

Learning Drupal Module Development

In Drupal, Whatever you want to do. There is a modules for that! If not, then you have to write a custom module that accomplishes that.

Introduction

A Drupal module mainly consists of bunch of loosely coupled functions  written in procedural style(you can use some OO features though). some might ask why it’s not object-oriented, that because Drupal was written in the time when PHP didn’t support OOP & lacked namespaces. Sadly, that hasn’t changed even when even now PHP does support full OOP including namespaces(PHP 5.3+).
However, it is commendable on Drupal’s part that it managed to work around PHP’s limitations by adopting design such architecture.

Hook System

Hook System is nothing but a glorified naming convention adopted universally by Drupal Community. Infact, entire architecture of Drupal is build around this naming convention. According to this naming convention, the module name you choose must be unique, and should be all lowercase, containing only letters & numbers, always starting with a letter. Within the module itself, all functions must then be prefixed with the module filename, followed by an underscore, and then action(called hook in drupal land) in following way

function ModuleName_action()

here,
ModuleName = name of your module
action = pre-defined hook

These hooks are pre-defined and are called automatically by Drupal when specific event occurs, so you just have to define an appropriate hook/action & Drupal will take care of the rest. for example, your module was called “mymodule” & want to add some help text. so, in custom module, you will add function named “mymodule_help“.

/**
* This Implements hook_help()
*/
function mymodule_help($path, $arg){
    if($path=='admin/structure'){
        return t('This is the sample help text');
    }
}

This function gets called automatically by Drupal when a page is displayed, then we check if $path is admin/structure, if yes. then the help text is displayed. Simple!

So, this was a 20,000 feet view to Drupal Modules. I hope now you have at least basic idea about Drupal’s hook system, how it works,why its build that way & how go about writing custom modules. To end, I am leaving you with some resources that would guide you further on this journey of writing Drupal modules.

• Drupal API reference site
• Books: I am reading “The Definitive Guide to Drupal 7“, however there are lot of other options to chose from.
• Building Drupal Module – Drupal.org Docs
• Examples Project – Standard repository of sample modules that can be used to learn module development,

Good Luck & have fun Drupalizing the web!

• eval() works within the current execution scope and can affect local variables.
• new Function() cannot affect local variables because the code runs in a separate scope

So both are evil & should only be used when there is no other way but as you may notice new Function is slightly less evil

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Long story short, he came to our college and addressed us, so I saw & hear him speak right in front of me. first thing I noticed he just another human being like us who gets annoyed when his hair get messed & starts combing them right on stage in front of everyone!

But there is few things I noticed though observing his actions,body language & works, I want to share

• Dreamer:  He likes to dream BIG & says “Dream BIG, Aim High. Aiming small is a crime.”.His final dream is to see India as a Developed Nation. Hence the reason that even after writing multiple books about India’s development, he still is coming out with a new Book —  Target 3 Billion. I don’t know if India will become a developed country but I suspect Kalam will  keep coming out with more such books. I guess he enjoys writing
• On a Mission: While addressing the crowd, he told that last week he was in a village near Cochin, Kerala. before that he was in Delhi & looking at this last year’s schedule. It seems he travels a lot.  keep in mind that these are voluntary as his current job is of a professor/dean. the question is — a) Does he travel this much because he likes to meet people? or b) He is on a self initiated mission & that mission requires him to travel so much & meet all kinds of people? Don’t know what case it is but seems there is a bigger motive.
• Frank: He was the president of our country, one might expect him to be bit reserved & not speak freely but he is frank & to the point. Kalam says whatever he has in mind. for example, when a question when stretched too long — he simply said “woman, you are giving a lecture!” which shows that he is frank even with people that he hasn’t met before; seedhi baat no bakwas!
• Less Religion & More Spirituality: During the interaction session, a question was asked related to shia vs sunni  sects(not sure exactly what it was, as the ascent of the girl asking the difficult to gasp). Anyways, the muslim girl belonging to the some gulf country who asked the question did mention in her question that kalam is a muslin.  Unlike other questions where he took keen interest & in this case his facial expression were that of a  ”disinterested” person & stated that his name is arabic. And while he always interested in talking about spirituality in his books, talk etc. It seems that he is not interested in the whole Caste System or religion thing which is a good thing if you ask me! btw, do remember I said he looked disinterested. But any of his actions it didn’t seem that he hated any religion or loved another. I got an impression that he was more interested in other topics.
• More abstractions, less practicability: Dr Kalam talks meta – instead of giving straightforward answers, he likes to go deep. For example, when a boy asks him a simple questions — How to be confident? instead of providing him a straight answer, he recites him some poem.  And during our interaction, he talked so deep that many of my friends were bored to death which is something he should consider improving on. However, I being a deep thinker myself like going deep – so I enjoyed his talk & was able to understand gist of what he said.
• Likes Poetry:  Kalam likes Poetry so much that he even made us recite few lines along with him. It was bit silly but was fun
• Political system is broken: Like everyone, he too knows that indian politicians are all corrupt, care about their personnel wealth than nations progress. Basically,the whole system is broken. That’s why he even encouraged all the students to join politics. But Mr Kalam, Thanks but no thanks

Further, I will share  4 thing that he said are needed if someone wants to achieve success:

1. Aim High
2. Do Hard work
3. Continuously gaining knowledge throughout your life by books or teachers.
4. Perseverance: Steady persistence in a course of action, apurpose, a state

lastly, I am not too sure about accuracy & there may be errors in my observations, mostly because I little distracted & did lot of bird-watching…lol! But In all seriousness, I do appreciate the work kalam has done & is still doing for the country. He seemed quite patriotic. It was a nice experience to the 11th president of India on last day of 2011!

Hopefully, people will draw inspiration from him/his work & embark on struggle to make India a developed country!

Wish you Happy New Year 2012!

[Update]
Corrected 4 mantras for success, Thanks Preeti

No Right-Click Allowed

So I created clever JavaScript bookmarket to disable this restriction

Remove disable right-click restriction

Drag the above link to bookmarks bar & click on this when you want to enable right-click on pages where its been disabled!

here is the code:

javascript:void(document.oncontextmenu=null)

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Take a look this simple maths to check if they are right or wrong:

1) Currently, International crude oil prices are around US$ 109 per barrel or Rs.5,360/- INR. $1 = Rs49.17 current exchange rate
2) Each barrel contains about 158.76 litres of oil.
3) crude oil costs Rs33.76 per lite(5360/158.76) + add the cost of refining it to petrol which is 6.52 paise per litre + cost of transportation (Rs 6) + petrol pump’s commission (Rs 1.05) = 47.33(Total cost)

so, price should Rs47.33/L but Govt charged price is Rs73/L…how? well, rest all are Taxes imposed by our own Govt!!

Bhai, It seems you have fallen victim of this media created propaganda! Govt is NOT losing money, instead the earn thousands of crores in taxes on petrol!!!

Wake UP India, Don’t get confused!

What is my age in number days?

Now, I am not good at maths to figure it out manually but since I am decent php programmer, I wrote this small code snippet which helps calculate my age counting in terms days. And its just one line!

$birthday = '1989-03-06';
$now = date("Y-m-d");
echo 'You are '. date_diff(date_create($birthday), date_create($now))->format('%a days old');

So according to this,
Today is the 8,244th day of my life. Cheers!