Friday, July 31, 2009

SetFocus()

When I login to the multiple websites, I'm impatient. Impatient of the jazzy flash to load, for the Ads to be fetched. As soon as I see the Username and Password fields get rendered, I start typing and hit Enter. Many of you would have encountered this problem. When one starts typing the password, the client sets the focus in the Username text box. Result, I end up typing the password in clear text. More over, it gets cached by the browser.

So yeah,
1) Is there a way to avoid this late focus? Can't the code be written to set the focus as soon as the component is created!
2) Is it a problem with the code or the browser?
3) How about making Username text box also masked with "*" character. When one can type long passwords with special characters correctly, (s)he can very well type the Username correctly.
4) Why does this late focus happens? Technically!!

P.S. I've got three UI developers in my home. :-)

Update: psankar commented a cool tip,
one thing that you can do after this has happened is, you can do a shift+del, to delete that entry alone from autocompletion list.

Many people dont know this and end up clearing full history.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Er, you dint say that

Experience one:
I walked into a grocery store the other day, the usual weekly visit. I picked up some biscuits and toiletries. Then, I went to the deodorant section and noticed a bright label saying "buy 2 get 20% off". I thought that was cool. I picked up an orange color and a silver color (they were flavors that pleased me a little). After waiting in the long queue for billing, I got the things billed. Strangely I noticed in the bill, both the deodorants were billed in the actual selling price. Annoyed and tired, I walked to the guy in the billing section and asked him to reason out for the 20% discount that was missing. He wittily replied back,"Its only when you take both in the same flavor". WTH.

Experience two:
One would have seen the latest Airtel ad were a girl and her friends save a paper boat to float in heavy rain. Its for their new connection plan called, "Special 5". I read the specification of the plan in the website and it was good when compared to the corporate plan I hold. I then called up customer care to change my plan. Swiftly she replied back, "Sir its not available for corporate plan holders". WTH++.

Later one of my colleague walks to my place and says, Did you know there is a per day rental of Rs 1 for each of the numbers you add as part of the Special 5 plan. So its like Rs 5 per day! Whooot! Then went back to airtel.in again to find there is a faq section (yeah, you read that right :)) that says about the rental charges. WTH++.

The whole point here is, its sick of these brands to do this kind of false marketing. Letting the customers know only the nice side of it in big banners with a small * sign at the end of each line and its left to them to explore the ugly side of it. These leeches will not let you go unless they are happy. So lesson here is to change oneself to be super smart when you spend on things.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Recent Addiction

I have a natural affinity to Physics. I remember my Physics lessons vividly and still occasionally get time to read something on the same line. Lucky that I either got a good Physics teacher at school or compensated that in my tuition classes. My Physics teacher used to start every unit with this statement: "What is Light? Define light?" After many students trying to guess, he would say, "Light is nothing but Light!". Experiments used to amuse me, I liked the way how candle flame used to get inverted through the convex lens and the Pendulum experiments.

Recently one of my friends tweeted about this new addiction, yeah, it's a game! Gravity Master (http://www.gravitymaster.net/),a game based on Physics. You have a rolling ball, you have to move the ball to the glowing black circles. That's it. Looks simple. Now it's left to your imagination how you reach the destination. Drawing lines, shapes are all left to one's imagination. My room mates, friends and many around me started to play. Incidentally I introduced my friend and she sat thro the night and mailed me in the morning that she completed 21 level in one stretch.

So addictive it is! Right now, I'm stuck with 23 and really need a mouse to play it, because it's hard to work with this insensitive touch pad mouse. Try it, have fun.

P.S: If you are a computer scientist don't miss Box 2D and Crayon Physics in the "Thanks To" section.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Ashes, I'm loving it


Today England recorded their historic win against Aussies in the second Ashes test again. I told my friends in UK,"If you are gonna meet Ponting after the first test, tell him he will lose the next". I wish I was at lords for the Party. :)

A nail biting (no it was even finger biting) finish for the first test match where the tail end saved the test match for England from the jaws of defeat. What does that mean to Aussies?They have an upper hand start in the series. English will become under dogs going forward. They used this label very wittily in the second test. A sensational start from Strauss and Cook in the first innings. They posted a neat 425 in their first innings. Australia came in to bat and Anderson to start the damage of getting through the Aussies wood work. Good fielding and support from other bowlers helped England manage to restrict Aussies for 215. Nasty boy Ponting surely did try his tricks by talking about poor umpiring.

England not forcing Aussies for a follow on was a crucial move (I liked it). It would have been less pressure on the Aussies than coming on the 4th day to defend the test match with a target of 500+. Then a quick 300 at 4.35 run rate, England came back quick to the field. Then the magic man Flintoff to remove both the openers and put a base for the downfall. Finally it was a match turning innings from Clarke and Haddin. Sure the huddle meeting before the new ball worked out. :)

Day 5: I asked Rohit, "Who are you putting your money on?". No prizes for guessing the answer. Wicket for Clarke almost forfeited the match to England. Nothing like winning an Ashes test in Lords.

It was like watching the true sprint of the game. This is what I call cricket! Cricket at its best. The fancy 20 over cricket is an over kill and boring on a longer run, since its money driven. Once again Congrats to the English team. We got more work to do, let's avoid another Amazing Adelaide! Like the Ashes, I wish we make Border-Gavaskar trophy more interesting.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Open feedback

Hey Readers!

Thanks a ton for reading this blog.
A silent friday night like this when I'm running a fever, a friend of mine rings me. She gave me open feedback about the things that have changed with respect to this blog (http://hsejiv.blogspot.com/). What she used to like on my blog and what has changed. What made her read it once and what's missing now. What's good about this blog etc etc.

It's a good wake up call, So here is this 360 feedback. Let me know what you think.

Thanks all, I'm done collecting them. Now it's time for some data analysis.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Are we really busy???

Authored by Red. Read the full post from his blog! A small cross post below!

The latest buzz word which i hear often these days is "busy". its either "i'm busy" or "i thought you're busy".

First, when will you say that you're busy? or how can you identify whether we're busy or not? My answer for that is plain and simple, when you haven't spoken with your friend for 'long time' (and the time-period for that 'long time' varies based on person to person). The reason for me to use 'friend', than any other relationship, is just because, you've the total freedom with friends, its neither a 'duty', which is the case with parents and relatives, nor 'mandatory', which is the case with your other-half or lover. you have the entire control over, when to talk to your friends, and also whom to talk, in that big list of friends. And all these absolutely out of your own personal INTEREST......

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Exhausted

I think that's an understatement. These seems to be those days when you run frantically to get things done. Now running out of gas and for now only this seems to be of some happiness. Thanks Santy! Also removed the batteries from the camera, I know they would get rusted if I keep it like this for long. The new house is good. Its spacious (I can go and seal myself from the Guitar :)), it's spacious enough that it can looks like a haunted place at nights. You got to start singing in the bathroom, no other go since the door lock does not work as per design. It's gloomy all day and all night here in Bangalore.

Yet to catch up with Tour de France and The Ashes!

Sigh! The 9:30 cab is reported and it's time to lock the workstation.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Thursday, July 2, 2009

HC says "Its o'Gay"

X: Hey look!
Y: What?
X: Look there!
Y: Where?
X: That Times Now flash news!
Y: Hmm..

If you had been waiting for this legalising to happen, time has come. Go read the Judgment.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Monsoon hits bangalore

Who cares! I just need a title, so writing something off the top of my head. How many times you want to write something and due to so many reasons you don't write about it. Or the post never graduates from drafts. Sigh!

I will be relaxing the rest of the evening with blip stream from gopal & santy. Also watching the Hewitt Vs Roddick score card.