Blogger Love

What would it make your mom write a blog?
She always thought that was a Pandora box for which myself and my Dad hold the key. She never believed that she could do it herself. I then introduced her to blogger and she did make her first post by herself. Though she was stumped with the Unicode mismatch in her second post. :) (I can see her desperation in comments). How as this possible?, did my mom become a geek over night. Maybe! But the true credit goes to Blogger team to make the interface so simple that anybody can write. Wooo! Thanks guys.

I had been using blogger now for almost 2.11 years. Its my best blogging portal I have ever used. Simple steps to create a blog, make a new post and enough number of layouts to satisfy any starter. Any advanced user actions like tweaking the whole template (Like I have done my dual floating bar), following the comments for a post, scheduled post and cool gadgets.

Whats more to make this fairy tale journey more interesting?
I had been following blogger in draft and things are pretty interesting for us in the future. Follow blogs, this is a feature that's mimicked from twitter. The followers can be shows as a widget. Next cool feature is "Reaction" Immediately after reading the post, one can react on the post. Say I propose a way to reduce the traffic in Bangalore in a post, I can ask "Do you Agree" or "You don Agree", based on the clicks each option will get a vote. You can import and export your blogs. Even embedded comments and private posts. :-)

Migrate from wordpress to blogger?
Oh yeah! This is possible too. Here is a nice tool hosted in google-code to make the transition smoother. (Abirami: I'm just a shout away for any assistance! Or holding peace with wordpress?) Steps are simple:
1) Download the latest version (now its 0.3)
2) Make sure your java path is set. (test: java -version)
3) Run run.sh/run.bat
Tip: At the first time, after saving your account credentials it would say "Cannot connect to server". Now just close and reopen and try the same. I tested them and it works like a charm. Also would recommend to change email password to some random string and after the change back to your original once done. Many thanks to yichao. I promise that I would fix some bugs when I get time as a token of love. :-)

P.S: I have started tweeking a template for my photoblog. I needed some help on CSS and JS. If someone can volunteer teach and help me, I can make them happy with good perks. [kvijesh[at]gmail]

Internet Explorer 8 - First Look

I read that Internet Explorer 8 has surfaced from evilzenscientist blog. So after missing to play my badminton today, I decided to try it out. Here is some of my inference.

1. Download speed was average for the 15Mb of the installer.
2. Internet Explorer team did not have time to install a progressive progress bar. So the default progress bar graphics was adopted in place. So installation status is unknown. Installation was NOT satisfactory and asked for security updates even before installation. So immediately after installation, updates where downloaded and applied. They could have very well bundled with the installer.
3. Tab groupings is awesome cool. I really loved the concept of coloring one family of tabs. (A tab belongs to a family if it is originated from another tab in the window). A default color and unique color to different groups gives a good look and feel.

4. Shit, still the left click on a link opens in a new window. How does it look to open 20 window's. If IE is really trying to adopt tabbed windows, they should have followed FF path of opening links in new tab. KISS guys.
5. IE got more privatized with "InPrivate" mode. None of the browning history, cookies and temp files are retained after the session. Also this mode that does not allow websites to share ones visit to it. They could be really helpful in public computers like browsing centers.

6. Page loading time was also quick, Over all it seems to be good. But still I love FF :-)

Story Time - 1

Being Black

Sankaran pillai was a fun loving person and a responsible parent. He had a kid who was young alert, active who always gets astonished by the things he looks. The kid carried a look of being darker than the other kinds in the street. One day Sankaran pillai took his kid to the near by amusement park.

He was excited and kept on asking questions to Sankaran pillai, how does that light glow? how does the giant wheel spin? How does the pop corn jump? Sankaran pillai answered all his questions with at most importance and dearness. Suddenly the kids his stiff excited body was sullen. Sankaran pillai asked whats the matter dear? The kid looking at a balloon shop said, "Appa, There are so many balloons in the shop? There is red color one, blue one, green, yellow and even white! But why isn't there a Black color balloon like me? Is it that the balloon will not fly if it was like me?"

Sankaran pillai smiled and replied, "Kanna, The air inside the balloon is what that makes it fly and not the color outside the balloon." :-)

Do you know how we got this color? He continued, "It was a day to day routine of God to create new and unique Human beings. Each and every one of the incredibly distinct from the other. He runs a painting division in heaven that does the painting for all the created Humans. In the painting division, all the newly created Humans are made to stand and with their hands folded like praying. At this point God starts to pour the paint that he has chosen for each individual. Once the paint flows throughout the body they are dried and sent to earth. This is the reason why both the palm of the hands and the sole of the foot did not get painted by the pouring paint and they are uniquely white for all Humans."

Note: I din keep track of the author name nor the person who told me.

Google Code Jam

I was there and it was awesome fun.

You like reading stories and thinking about algorithms while in the toilet. Then Code Jam is a place that you should checkout soon. Google CODE JAM as many of you know is like any other online coding competition. Simple - You need to code for an algorithmic problem on a allocated amount of time. Until last year Google was hosting this competition along side with Topcoder. This years code jam had a new and interesting format. One need not code and compile the code online, this time we can code in any language or even a paper pencil logic is also accepted and submit the code along with the solution.

It was great, I refreshed many of my college days maths from distance formula to some probability. I have coded in Java before, but not so fast. You need to code it dead accurate. Check all the boundary conditions and think of that one sample set that breaks the algorithm and handle it. Post match it was fun to discuss (fight) the same with some of my friends and colleague.

Once I read 2 important disclaimer when coding,
1) Read code and get your code reviewed.
2) Read the first disclaimer again.

So, after the coding matches are over, you can open other submitted code and read it. Oh boy! They code like automated codegen's beautifully crafting to its ultimate best. More than coding them, reading code can help you to improve. Similarly there are many other coding arena like Topcode, ACM, TIMUS ONLINE and ... If you are there next time in any of them, just let me know. We can competite.

My first post

I should make some justice after posting one such post like the previous. So this should my first post on a restart. It was interesting to note the kind of feedback that got for that post.

• one reader called my immediately on reading and asked is that true? Why?
• one said, "appada" (sign of relief) finally good news. (I know.. I know..)
  
• one even threatened for my life.
• one asked me, hey is this a marketing gimmick for your blog?
  
• someone asked is it because you are making so many posts now a days. (Oh yeah! that's a good excuse I can ask for. Last month was the record highest month with 16 posts)
  
• many ignored it. :)
  

So how the future is going to be?
Amen...

I will stop blogging

humm, this is yet another thread that takes some of my processing now a days. There are many reasons for it. Primary reason would be that I give equal (I meant more) importance to read some of the blogs I follow. As on date there is a whooping 815 unread items in my reader. Shit! That's bad. Next reason is that there are 6 posts in my drafts that is half cooked. Some of them would really make it online and some of them will be poor drafts for ever :-).

Next reason would be that I started falling in love with something else, yeah something smaller. To be specific, Micro blogging. Yeah its twitter. This 140 character longs posts are easy and does not strain my head or I don't need to review my own nonsense before hitting the publish button. Its easy, fast and I can do it from any where. Also following some interesting people is fun. Only thing that slightly hurts is the fact that it kills my sleep when a MSG beeps at unearthly hours. Now that I can drain some battery power. :)

Not last but the least to spare some of few good hearted people like you who managed to read till here.

System Update 2.0

After the major release its time for some System Update. Here is one of them. Though it does not carry all the bug fixes, I intend to sent a few that suffice the purpose. I thought I would put this here so that I don end up saying, my work keeps me busy. :P

1) With sudden change of plans of not going to Hyderabad (sorry DK, you will with all the greatest hearts forgive us.), I ended up making a flying trip to Cbe. It was two days trip of which I ended sleeping the first and eating the second. Though I had time to meet Bharath, scorcee, bharath's & karthi's parents. (They are all doing great guys...)

2) The tap is broken and its pouring down here in Bangalore. So, I end up spending my life in home->office cab->office->office cab->home. Which means we manage our cooking at home. My chief cook Santy has been rocking along side with my juniors and making it a cooking festival at home. Just in the last week or so we did Onion sambar, Potato fry, Mango & Drumstick sambar, tomato gujju, dosa, rice/tomato vaadaam and egg buriji. Many Thanks to my Mom, Satya and Raji for helping us with some tips.

3) I ended up facing the music for the second time in train after my friend forgot to bring the original ID card for the e-ticket. :) After some trails and acting managed to get that TTR convince that we will not repeat it again. (One piece of advice: If you are booking in 3 months advance, try booking i-ticket. E-ticket sucks just for its rules with ID proof.)

4) The 2008-09 season of English Premier League has started. ManU had a poor start last week with a draw, never mind. But we are frankly an underdogs this time just because of our team composition. We are just missing a fresh leg in the midfield after Ronaldo decided to move out. Chelsea are most spoken favorites and Arsenal are also a good side to give a tough race for the title. Liverpool will again be playing for Champions league place. This will keep me busy on all the evenings in weekend. :)

5) I'm reverse engineering on a something called "facility" oh boy. Its a hard nut to crack. Eh yeah, Its Fire fighting.

Note: You can file all the bugs on this update here and not bugzilla.

Happy Birthday Dad

Wishing you many more Happy returns of the day Dad (Aug -16th). He is one of the kindest and dearest person whom you can come across in life. :-) Carrying a smile always with him. Wishing you all the happiness in this world and wonderful time in the years to come. My learning's from my Dad are immense.

[Vintage photograph of me and Dad. Thanks to one of his frnds who sweetly put a nice back ground for this pic :)]

First thing that strikes me when I think about writing my Dad is his simplicity. Despite of all my valiant efforts to make him wear a jean, He will finally end up picking a light & dark formal. You can find him with the same pose of unfolded shirt, tucked out with his glasses. Secondly, I derived all my inquisitiveness towards Computer Science from my Dad. He did write his programs in BASIC and Foxpro in a 386 machine. Its hard to beat him in at Computers. I used to play "Prince of Persia" in the 386 box we had. On an other usual day from school I came and switched on and launched the game. C:\games\prince\prince megahit (yeah - megahit was the cheat code :)). Suddenly the screen went blank and it typed on the screen. "Do not play and waste time! Go and study!" I was crashed, confused and wondering how on earth would this computer know that I had my exams. Only later my dad confessed that he wrote this program to type in the screen and replaced it by the prince.exe file.

He always loved teaching. Whether its English grammar for my tenant's kid or some computer lessons for the students in his office. He does things with at most involvement. If I had remember he even published a book on English Grammar along with his old teacher. Its always a believed nostalgia that a boy in their home will always get his mom's support. But, here its both - when mom's got to make the decision I would get Dad's support and other way round too.

His Last Lecture

Was my first lecture. "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". Randy Pausch (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) will be remembered forever for his contributions towards the field of Computer Science and inspiring millions. We love you forever Randy, we miss you deeply. I don have words to describe this talk... The rest is history.

08/08/08 08:08

Summer Games in Beijing started on 8th August 2008 at eight passed eight pm. Good luck to the Indian delegates who are representing India. Get us our medallions.

Did you know that my visitors counter just crossed 11111 :)

I liked this animation in the olympics site.

An alternate job

It started as a casual conversation with one of the nerds jayanthi. She posted a question - If you would have not coded for money (being a software engineer) what would have you become? There were some immediate answer and some came to my thoughts during these silent days within myself.

1. Teacher - Guess I carried it from my Dad. I really really adore to teach. Just out of college, I knew what I missed. I want to teach for all grades even in primary school. I love physics. Well, if I get a chance to walk into Tech I would definitely choose "Data structures", "Algorithms" and "C programming". I would leave the grammar lessons to my Dad. I hope talk to Natarajan Sir next time I meet him. :)

2. Photographer - One serious hobby that keeps me ticking is Photography. A photo journalist to a wedding photographer would be something I like to do.

3. Open a restaurant - Well, this is something that I always thought I can easily get doing. Because, I don compromise when the food is bad. A small outlet serving typical South Indian food.

4. A police officer - Ah! Watching lot of movies now a days I guess. Not in law and order or Traffic. But some thing like a crime branch.

5. I want to start a play school. I know its weird for someone to with some beard to talk like this. Still its fun to be with children and teach them rhymes.

6. Last in the addiction was being a blogger. I know how tough it is for you to read this, its ok its just my wish.

7. Dream job - Sit in the cockpit of Maclaren Mercedes.

Why should I be reborn?

Reborn Digitally...

First try answering who you are? or who I'm? Let me take the task of identifying the person who is named "vijesh". I'm being dumb and dependent on (my favorite) search engine Google. I type in "vijesh" (quotes for clarity) in the search box and hit search. The screen reloads in 0.04 sec. Look my blog is there at the second place as on this date. Scanning down, there is one that points to my blogger profile page, that gives some more information about me.

Here is an interesting example of my friend or rather many of them did. When her dad sends them a matrimony profile, via email. Simple! they just log into Orkut (atleast its popular in India). Use the search effectively, spell the groom name and his city correctly to find the target. Ok fine, after getting the profile, go to the communities section and see which company interest group he is a part of. This will cross verify if he's the right groom. Next scan his photos, then his scrapbook, scrutinies his friends and their scrap for his reply. :) His testimonials. (you can't guess how deep the rabbit hole is...) Next get hold of her friend in the same organization and ask them if they knew some details about him.

This way, and more interesting ways an online identity of a person can be sketched. What is his/her interest? What is their favorite, their location based information, their employer (Linked In). Using such public data, one can form a digital image of any Y. Even worse they can know what one is doing right now if they are active in twitter. Online spiders could use this identity for making the online experience better.

Humm, All of them are voluntary by the person. It is oneself who is making these data public and explicit. So we don't have anyone to blame about. So should there be a trade off between whats public and whats private? Maybe yes! Understand a simple phenomenon, when its there for any bot to find, then anyone (yes literal sense anyone who can connect to the Internet) can view your details. So you can consistently use a nick name! Can you recollect how many user accounts you have created in those numerous number of social networking sites, web portals, user accounts to download software? I cannot even guess a number. Its so much, even maintaining passwords has become a pain in the ass. Thanks to those openID's its much more simple now.

Try this, take a paper and do all hacks known to get your identity yourself. You will be surprised to note the amount of details.

So be responsible, know what you are on the Internet.

ZENworks(R) Configuration Management with Support Pack 1 (SP1)

Hurray! One more Happy news to share. Novell ZCM SP1 is released. Its out with flying colors.
Finally! We got something to smile for. :-) :-) :-) Great to be part of this team.

I miss them

Still lingering in the memories of the last dinner conversation I had with them. The pair was great to meet. Take care da. Its already 2+ years since they took that flight. Ah! its a hard wait.

me: nee yethvathu inga (india) vara mathri plans iruka???

:-): definitely da... i will come down in 2-3 yrs.

நீ

உன் கண் சிமிட்ட இன்னும்
எத்தனை நொடிகள்
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