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There were several severe troubles with my laptop lately that almost cause a permanent Windows OS damage. I wasn’t able to boot and to dress the system. It simply stuck during the startup letting no anti-virus software do its job. I managed to recover somehow fidgeting in a seat for more than a day.

Once I got everything back online, I decided that it’s about time… yeah after more than fifteen years of pressing and clicking buttons, it’s about time to install some anti-virus software and configure a firewall. So I started with the former. The network is no longer a safe place for me.

I checked several famous solutions, but all of them were either expensive or didn’t promise what I need. I shared my worries with Pito, and he suggested trying one FREE solution which was supposedly what I needed — AVG Free Edition. (Later I discovered that my father uses it for more than two years already.) The checker appeared to be surprisingly useful: with selected and critical area checks, daily updates and other bells and whistles.

Now, that I regained the trust in my applications, it became crucial to protect my network. About a month ago I got a static IP address from my ISP. Since then the idea of protecting the interface didn’t give me a sleep. I recalled some names of respected companies from my distant youth and gave them a quick shot. Nothing looked promising again either it was expensive or weight a ton. The next step was to scan some reviews, and it’s where I found another FREE product crowning the list of competitors — COMODO Firewall Pro. There’s a firewall ratings table showing how all known firewalls stand different kinds of attacks, and you can clearly see the leader, which is to put it mildly, extremely impressive. Installing…

What’s your experience with firewall and anti-virus software?

You know that I’m charmed with the simplicity and the development convenience of Ruby and Rails. I like how the authors of Rails thought out every little detail of their framework bringing it complete and consistent. The flexibility of Ruby language is so extreme that it makes every framework be more or less general for the effective use outside the boundaries set by the author. However, this very flexibility may turn the blessing into a curse, if you don’t know what to expect and where to look for answers to your questions.

Yesterday I found a growing, yet quite loaded, collection of links and cheat-sheets around the Rails kingdom. They all are nicely organized and easy to use. Hope you will like this little chest of knowledge and thank Ryan for his invaluable contribution.

Best of luck to everyone and have fun! Life is SO GOOD!

Here’s one article that grabbed my attention this morning. It’s a nicely compiled list of suggestions for Wordpress bloggers on how to optimize their diaries for search engines. It’s a bit technical, yes, but pretty useful and easy to grasp. Truth be told, the long tail of responses clearly indicates that I’m not the only one attracted by the simplicity of narration.

Every time I think I have already seen all the major wonders of Ruby, I stumble upon something like this.

Ruby continues to teach me one important lesson — BE CURIOUS. I am… by nature, but I still notice a tremendous change in working habits — following what-if and is-it-possible models more often than usual. I used to evaluate the answers on these questions basing on my knowledge of the language. With Ruby things start to look different. The flexibility of syntax is so high that I seem can’t build the complete mental model of the language (like an interpreter embedded in a head) and quickly answer what’s possible and what’s not. It makes me to go Googling more and more to find existing solutions. Sometimes (as in example above) they are so elegant that it makes me cry.

Old man’s note: This workaround for calling private / protected methods smells to me. How they different from public methods then if all you need to figure out how to call that you weren’t supposed is only two more grams of brain cells. Hmmm. Do I get it wrong?

This morning I sent the complete package of documents to Australian Computer Society (ACS) for skill assessment procedure. It’s a lengthy process (3-4 months in the best case) that will confirm me as a specialist in IT. This confirmation is an essential part of the Independent Specialist Visa application.

I hope the letter will reach the institution on next Monday, and they successfully withdraw the payment from my credit card. Then I will start counting days and watch the progress they publish on their site.

Wish me good luck!

Sometimes you need to install a gem in your Rails application for distribution.

If it’s installed as a Ruby gem in your system and you need it to be packaged with the Rails application (/lib or /vendor/plugins directories), go to the target folder and do

If it’s not installed yet, you need to install it first like below and then do unpacking.

I also found several pages that may be interesting:

• Installing gems in Rails applications on hosted environments
• Freezing all used gems to /lib directory with one Rake command