Happy New Year!

Wish you all a great 2006!

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Programmers. Nice Read.

You call this "stupidity"?

Iam trying to understand what the BJP is trying to gain by arguing against the expulsion of all the parliament members who were involved in the cash-for-question scandal.

Advani, terming the MPs' action as "stupidity", argued that the expulsion was not "commensurate" with the offence. "It's like inflicting capital punishment for unbecoming conduct," he said while leading the walkout.

Mr. Advani, When we elect people like you to the parliament, we don't expect you to get involved in "stupid" acts like taking bribes just for doing your job. As a party president, you should have asked these guys to resign on day one of the expose. By walking out of parliament protesting against the expulsion, you have just made sure that i never vote for your party in the future. And be sure that iam not the only one taking this decision today.

Guido van Rossum is now working at Google!!

Iam still trying to figure out whether to go buy a white iPod Nano or a regular 30GB iPod. Somehow the iPod Nano looks too small and fragile to me.

After Operation Duryodhana its now Operation Chakravyuh. Iam loving this!

How Google woos the best and brightest. - More on Google's hiring methods.

Colgate introduces toothpaste aimed at children in the agegroup 3-8. What's special you ask? According to them "the toothpaste cap plays music for 70 seconds, encouraging kids to brush longer". (Link via Prabu)

Has been a pretty busy two weeks. Have been just managing to keep up with reading blogs. Still the number of posts i have marked "Keep New" in Bloglines has crossed 200. Hope to get back in sync pretty soon.

Linus encourages people to switch to KDE. I liked KDE far better than GNOME anyway (but not for the reasons he is mentioning)!

This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.
Please, just tell people to use KDE.

Do read the Follow-ups to the mail too.

Google: Ten Golden Rules - Eric Schmidt on how Google manages its "knowledge workers"

Sachin eyes Sunny's Record. He has been eyeing it for quite some time now. :)
Update: He makes it this time!

A Random Thought!

Most of the general purpose languages like C, C++, Java start their array index from 0. Isn't it more natural to start from 1? Now the last index of the array is also the size of the array, thus avoiding subtraction of 1 to get to the last index. Also 0 could have been used to represent an invalid index in the array. What could have been the reason to start indexing from 0?

ESPN considering offering programs on Apple iTunes. Wonder how long it will be before we can download Cricket classic videos from iTunes.

One of the interesting data points provided by Google Analytics is the connection speed of users visiting your site. I was surprised to know that only 6% of the visitors to this blog use dialup. Rest of the folks are all from corporate/home broadband.

This is one of the funniest articles i have read in the Onion in the recent past.

Worried about scratches on your CDs and DVDs? You can now buy Scratch-Less Discs

Xooglers

If you aren't yet reading Xooglers, you should sure check it out. Two Ex-Googlers are posting their experiences while they were at Google.

Gmail name change?

Google seems to have changed Gmail to Google Mail. All instances where "Gmail" was found is now Google Mail.

Even the logo has undergone change.

Update: Looks like it is back to Gmail again as far as the main page is concerned. But the Gmail Help mentions Google Mail all over the place, and still holds the new logo! :)

The latest BusinessWeek has two nice articles on Google.

• Googling for Gold
• Filthy Rich, but Froogle

Must Read!

Microsoft Research India has a blog on MSN Spaces. Doesn't look like a frequently updated blog though. But they have some nice photos of their office in Bangalore.

Some time back i had the mentioned the need for multiple tabs in your chat windows, so that you can use a single window to chat with all your buddies. Looks like the new AIM Triton has this now. I don't use AOL, so will have to wait till either Yahoo/MSN/Google Talk can get this implemented.

NDTV.com has now added rss feeds. But surprisingly you have to register at the site to view the RSS feed links!

Back in Bangalore, but still waking up on US time. :(

Looks like Sony is getting into more trouble with its rootkit music CDs. Now its been found that the music player that ships with the CDs uses components of the open source LAME music player without acknowledging its use!

Refrigerator Code - It’s code that you’re so proud of that you want to take it home and hang it on the refrigerator, right alongside of your children’s drawings.

• Google opens London development centre.
• Photo shots of Google's new 311,000 sqft NYC Office.

Do check out the repository of potholes in Bangalore, the BangalorePothole.com

One thing iam noticing here in Houston is that there are a lot more Hyundais on the road than a year back! And my rental car is also a brand new Hyundai Sonata.

Wired has a list of the 10 worst software bugs of all time.

Amazon creates artificial artificial intelligence - a program called Amazon Mechanical Turk. [Wikipedia link for Mechanical Turk]

Travelling!

I will be on travel for the next three weeks to Houston, Texas. A vacation followed by a business travel is always tough, but hope to have some fun anyways!

Back in Bangalore!

Back after a very nice vacation. Most of the time was spent in playing with my sister's son, who is just 6 months old. Its really fun to see a kid grow up!

Vacation Time!

Will be on vacation till next Friday(4th Nov). So expect only occasional posts. Iam planning down to drive down to Madurai tomorrow, but quite unsure how bad the roads are after the heavy rains. Expecting to cover the 460km in about 7.5 hrs. Should be an interesting trip.
And just before i forget, here goes Happy Advance Diwali wishes to all my readers!

I just don't get this ad for Microsoft LiveMeeting.

Indian Express carries the transcript of Narayana Murthy's interview on BBC's HardTalk.

Let us remember 32 per cent of India lives in urban areas. Bangalore contributes to 60 per cent of the taxes. I think it is only proper that we use some of that to make sure that Bangalore becomes better.

There are about 15,000 of us in Infosys who have made decent sums of money and there are another 25,000 who have not made that kind of money. So as somebody who believes in fairness I think we need to work hard so that they too can make some money — that is what motivates me

Looks like Alan Cox will be in Bangalore for speaking at foss.in 2005. Cool!

Hillary Clinton calls for an automotive summit to address the issues faced by the US Auto industry. Good that there is atleast someone who is noting that the US auto industry is in a mess.

"Less" as a competitive advantage.

Google Reader now has an official blog. Surprisingly comments are missing. Only email feedback!

A nice post by Cringely.

My point here is that we're entering another period of Internet exuberance. Yes, a lot has changed since 1999, but it's amazing how many of the ideas being pushed are the SAME ideas, just empowered now by dark fiber, cheap broadband, and six years of Moore's Law. And this time I think it will actually work and the Internet will change even more than it has the ways we live and work. But it isn't going to come easy and it isn't going to come cheap.

Video Ipod dissected!

As i guessed, the rumour of Apple using the Sharp LH7A400 SOC for their video iPod isn't true. Apple is using the Broadcom VideoCore BCM2722 for Video decoding and audio encoding and the Portal player 5021C-TDF for the audio decoding. ArsTechnica has done a very good job of dissecting the ipod with detailed pictures. Another site for more info on BOM for the video ipod(pdf)

Now you can book train tickets through SMS

Kashmir quake - do Indians care? - I have been wondering about this myself.

Due to increased comment spam, Iam enabling word verification for comments. Lets see if it helps reduce spam!

Coffee may actually be good for your health.

Back!

Back in Bangalore after taking a week's vacation. A week with no access to email, blogs and other official stuff. Feels great to be back after a refresh!

Looks like a lot of stuff has happened in the Indian blogosphere over the last week. The IIPM issue seems to be the most discussed topic of the past week. Even though a little bit late, here goes Kudos to all the bloggers who stood up in support of Gaurav and Rashmi. Such high-handedness on the part of institutions such as IIPM should be dealt with in the harshest manner possible.

The 2005 Ig Nobel Prize Winners

Google reader!

OK, Google comes up with a Feed reader. Initial impression: Unintuitive to use and is buggy! For now, i guess Bloglines is much better, even though it doesn't have all that Ajax-y goodness of Google Reader. May be we can revisit Google Reader once the initial issues are ironed out.

Apple iPods are being used as vocabulary tools in kindergartens. iPods have surely become a social phenomenon.

Wonder what this could be?

CNN - Where might Google go next?

BigTable

Jeff Dean of Google is giving a talk on BigTable at the University of Washington CS Department. The talk is also available live on the internet! :)

BigTable is a system for storing and managing very large amounts of structured data. The system is designed to manage several petabytes of data distributed across thousands of machines, with very high update and read request rates coming from thousands of simultaneous clients. In this talk, Jeff will discuss the basic design of BigTable and its implementation, provide some performance measurements, and outline some current applications of the system. He'll also touch on Google's future goals and directions for the system.

Kam VedBrat on Why Wndows Vista isn't skinnable out of the box.

Hindu RSS Feeds!

Never knew that Hindu had a set of RSS feeds for their various news sections. Wonder why NDTV doesn't have them yet!

Native PDF support in Office 12. Thats cool!

Blogbot goes opensource!

Need info!

Does anyone know where John Battelle's book "The Search" is available in Bangalore? Sapna Book House doesn't have it. Any other pointers?
Update: Found that the book is available online from FirstandSecond.com. Now the long wait for the book begins!!

Forbes has a list of the world's most expensive cars

Asian Age quotes a study by ACNielson which mentions that Google is second only to Microsoft in the preferred employers list selected by Indian engineering students.

Links!

• BusinessWeek - Managing Google's Idea Factory
• An interesting interview with Michael Schrage - On Innovation (via)
• Unix is dead, Linux's the future.
• Sramana Mitra's popular blog posts. Some are very interesting.

One wishlist item!

Participate in this atleast next year!

Note to job seekers!

This post goes to those folks who have been sending me resumes and mails with queries on whether TI India is recruiting, and what positions are available etc etc... Yes, TI India is recruiting. The current open positions are mentioned here. You can either directly apply online or you can opt to send it to me(There is no advantage you gain by sending it to me, as i will just put your resume into an internal database. But in case you get hired, i might get a bonus!). One note: Please also mention which job opening you are interested in when sending me your resume. You cant expect me to figure out a proper job profile for you!

Back online from home!

After more than a month of shifting my house, we have finally managed to get BSNL to provide us the long disconnected landline! It has taken so long even though the phone shift was supposed to be within the same telephone exchange. Next time i have to take a new telephone connection, iam sure i wont be going for a BSNL one! Wonder if Touchtel, Reliance or Tata Indicom are any better as far as quality of service is concerned!

Monday morning links!

• The Ramifications of Google Talk
• In case you haven't yet seen the Office 12 UI, please go ahead and see Julie Larson-Green's video. Pretty interesting video with a few "wow" moments as well!
• Now, a five blade Gillette Razor! :)
• What's up at Microsoft! asks Om Malik. Interesting Read
• Microsoft/Amazon Web services Developer Contest
• Overcoming procrastination

• Jacob Nielsen on product usability testing.
• The Art of Nerd Herding

Google blog search!

Great!!! Google blog search is unveiled. I was getting really irritated with Technorati.

Software Freedom Day!

Today is Software Freedom Day. Coincidentally today happens to be my birthday as well! :)

iPod Nano disassembled!

Google Hires Vint Cerf!

Google hires Vinton Cerf! Thats a cool hire! Wonder what all these high profile folks are doing out there in Google!
Update:
1) Vinton Cerf has posted a blog entry at Google blog!
2) SiliconBeat On Vint Cerf, Google, dark fiber and video

Thanks!!

Thanks for all those who wrote in and asked about the scarcity of posts over the last two weeks. Extremely sorry for not replying to mails from some of you as well. Will catch up with that soon. Its been an extremely busy period with lots happening on the career front as well as on the personal side. Will continue in this mode for some more time till things get settled down. Till then, expect only a occasional post or two.

CruiseControl - A continous build framework. Need to check this out soon!

• The Powerbook Prank. Extremely Hilarious.


• And someone has already posted a Google Talk Hack. A how-to on broadcasting using Google Talk.

Tuning Firefox!

FireTune helps you to optimize Firefox settings

Catching up..

• Microsoft Design Webpage


• Blogger adds Word verification for comments.


• Blogger also has a MS Word plug-in. So you can post directly from MS Word itself.


• Adobe starts blogging


• SlashFood. All about Food.


• A picture of the Googleplex from a B-24 Warcraft

Slow Blogging!

As you would have noticed, blogging is and will be slow for a few more days. In a house shifting-settling down mode.

Happy Independence day!

Symbian Worm!

There's a worm doing the rounds which affects Symbian Series 60 devices. Kiran reports that it has hit him thrice in a day. So if you have bluetooth enabled on your mobile, watch out!

IE7!

Got my hands on IE7 today. Should say that it is pretty good. In a typical browsing session for about an hour, i didn't miss Firefox at all! One nice(and surprising) thing was that the search bar in IE7 had Google as the default! And yes, you can also choose other search engines.

+ Tabs
+ Feed discovery.
+ Phishing Filter (Haven't checked whether this works!)

- Looks bland. May be i miss my fav Firefox themes! :)
- There is an addons page for IE, but it doesn't have the kind of cool extensions that makes Firefox effective!

Top 20 innovative Companies

Businessweek has a list of Top 20 innovative companies in the world. The list was compiled after a poll of 940 senior executives in 68 countries by the BCG.

A messenger idea!

Woudn't it be nice to have a single Yahoo! messenger window with the various chats arranged in tabs? That will atleast save some task bar space!

TI Completes 20 years in India

It's been 20 years since TI first set shop here in India. To commemorate this occasion, TI chairman Tom Engibous is here in India. Press coverage of Tom's visit is here, here, here, here and here.

Updated: Added the TI India 20 years of innovation logo! Pretty cool, isn't it?

Who the heck is interested in these kinds of studies?? No wonder there are just too many TOI bashers around!

Are Python and Perl obscure and strange languages? Atleast Novell seems to think so!

And now, Bush questions the theory of evolution.

Never knew there were so many procedures involved in eating food with your hand! :-)

Temptation Blocker!

A windows software that you can use to block programs that you do not want to access for a specific period of time. Basically it helps in resisting your temptation to use your mailer/browser/game when you could better be doing something productive! And it's free.

Can Google Stay Google?

A Fast Company Story.

How can Google keep its edge for the long run? What can it do to make sure it's still a hot company in 2010? How can a maturing organization with 3,000 people hold on to what made it a great startup?

The article strives to answer the above questions. Nice read!

Another funny patent!

Adding and removing white space from a document - Patent applied by Microsoft.

Gmail woes..

Srijith has a bad experience with Gmail and decides to switch to Yahoo! As he puts it

What I look for in an email account is reliability more than coolness.

Another Firefox vs IE story

This time in IE's favour. ComputerWeekly has an article which says Firefox had more flaws in 2005 so far than IE. As Firefox becomes more widespread, I expect such news stories to rise.

Video iPod rumours!

Looks like Apple will be going with the Sharp LH7A400 SOC initially for its Video iPod, with a future switch to a Intel XScale processor. My only doubt about this rumour is because Video iPod should be able to transfer huge amounts of content quickly, but the SOC's spec shows only a USB 2.0 Full speed Device, and no Firewire!

Bomb Hoax!

We had a anonymous bomb threat call at Bagmane Tech Park today. No, we didn't evacuate, but we had a huge posse of policemen with sniffer dogs searching the length and breadth of the tech park. Fortunately they didn't find anything. Wonder what satisfaction people get by making such anonymous hoax calls!

2005 IDEA design award winners. Browsing through all 158 products is sure to take lot of your time, but there are quite a few cute products!

A programmer's view of a baby. Joe Beda writes about his new baby, Anne.

Currently Reading...

The Code book by Simon Singh

Seminar on Recent Advances in Coding Theory

Seminar by Krishna R. Narayanan
Associate Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering
Texas A&M University, College Station

Title: Recent Advances in Coding Theory
Date: 25-7-2005 (Monday)
Time: 4.00 to 5.00 PM; Tea after the talk
VENUE: Auditorium, Texas Instruments India
Bagmane Tech Park, CV Raman Nagar, Bangalore

Prof. Krishna Narayanan is a well known expert in the area of coding theory. His research interests are in
-Modulation and coding (Turbo codes, Low density parity check codes) for wireless communications
-Iterative Processing - Iterative equalization, demodulation etc
-Equalization and coding for Magnetic recording and wireless communications
-Joint source-channel coding
-Hardware implementation of LDPC decoders

Prof. Narayanan will provide an overview of the recent advances in coding theory in this talk. The talk is open to all.

Sleeping in Airports!

The Budget Traveller's Guide to Sleeping in Airports. Singapore is the 2005 Golden Pillow Winner and Bombay is the 2005 Poopy Award Winner! Having been to both airports, i tend to agree! :)

Google China!

Google goes to China. Google opens up a R&D center in China which will be headed by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, who joins Google from Microsoft. [Microsoft has sued Google on this hire]

Links..

• A list of tech podcasts


• Flickr Architecture


• Thinking machine. Interesting looking chess game!


• Cryptographic Curiosities in Python.

Watch Tower!

Karnataka.com has a watch tower where they track stuff making news in Karnataka. The Bangalore International Airport watch and Bangalore Metro rail watch are very informative. If you need a one-stop information on what has caused these projects to slip so badly, then go read! Heights of red-tapism.

Visitor Browser stats!

Just had a look at my visitor stats and the browser stats showed this.
50.00% MSIE
40.00% Firefox
4.00% Safari
2.00% Konqueror
2.00% Mozilla
1.00% Opera
1.00% Galeon

I remember seeing almost 90% for IE almost a year back!

Weekend Links!

• BusinessWeek on blog search. Finding a blog in a Haystack.


• Google's MasterPlan. O'Reilly Radar has done a good job of compiling the list by browsing through google job postings! The comments are funny!


• In case you didn't know yet, Charles Simonyi's company Intentional Software has a nice blog!


• PeeGoals! Where the heck do people get these product ideas?(via)

HP to restructure?

HP may be announcing huge layoffs come Monday. Analysts are expecting more than 15000 people to be laid off! Oops. More here and here

Well said!

Varnam : Blair is following the Nut-War Terrorism Fighting Design Pattern in which even though we know there is a problem, we just wait till actual humans die

Today's Links [13 July 2005]

• Luxist.com - A weblog obsessively covering luxury products.


• PressDisplay - Displays Newspapers as in the print format. Has a few Indian newspapers as well.(via)


• The world's smallest mp3 player!

Today's Links [12-July-2005]

• Bjarne Stroustrup on the future of C++ (pdf)


• Wesner Moise has all the recently popular entrepreneurial posts linked to in one single post.


• All things automotive at Amazon Automotive Beta


• The Contiki Operating System


• Estimating Realistic Project Deadlines. I had learnt that Project Duration Formula in one of the PMP courses i took last year. Haven't yet tried out whether it works for my projects, though!


• What is/is not considered to be good OO programming

Corporate blogging in India

Even though blogging is popular in India, there is a noted scarcity of corporate weblogs. One would expect at least the IT sector to pitch in with some blogs that offer an industry perspective. Wouldn't it be interesting to have Nandan Nilekani or Azim Premji blogging? Or atleast some of the junior executives out there? It's not just in the Indian-owned companies that we see this huge absence, but also in the MNCs that have set shop here in India. Take Microsoft for example, where Scoble has been trying to get every possible product/test group to start blogging. Yet we do not see any groups blogging from the Microsoft India development center. Even Channel9 India is almost non-existent. There may be some Indian companies that encourage blogging and are supportive of it, but i haven't atleast heard of any. Have you?

BangaloreWALKS - Exploring Bangalore by foot.

Odeo is now open to all.

Getting CDROM Track Information using Python

First for some basic info. All CDROM discs(both Audio as well as data CDs) are organised as tracks. The CD tracks are numbered from 1 upto 99. The lead-out is considered as a track and is given a predefined number of 0xAA. The CD-Recordable FAQ is an excellent source of information on all these basics.

Now onto how to use Python for extracting all the track information from a CDROM on Win32. To access any device on your Windows machine from Python(and also to use most of the Win32 API calls), you need to install the Python Win32 extensions. ActiveState has excellent info on all the modules that constitute the Win32 extensions. All windows CDROM ioctls are defined in the Windows DDK, so you will want to install that as well.
The CDROM ioctl we are interested in is the IOCTL_CDROM_READ_TOC, which gives information on the Table of Contents(TOC) of the CD. For working with the CDROM device, we need to first obtain a handle for the CDROM device. This could be done using the CreateFile API.

#Assuming your cdrom drive is at E:
hdevice = win32file.CreateFile("\\\\.\\E:", GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, None, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, 0)

We can now issue the ioctl using the DeviceIoControl function in the win32file python module. The DeviceIoControl function expects the size of the output structure that's expected. For this IOCTL, the return value of this call is the entire TOC information as defined by the CDROM_TOC structure. The maximum size of this structure is 804 bytes. This is the space required for 100 tracks(Max 99 tracks + 1 Leadout). That's defined using MAXIMUM_CDROM_TOC_SIZE. Unfortunately the ioctl numbers are not published at the MSDN website, so you have to browse through the DDK include files for these values. The value for the IOCTL_CDROM_READ_TOC ioctl is 0x24000.

IOCTL_CDROM_READ_TOC = 0x24000
MAXIMUM_CDROM_TOC_SIZE = 804
data = win32file.DeviceIoControl(hdevice,IOCTL_CDROM_READ_TOC,"", MAXIMUM_CDROM_TOC_SIZE, None)

The CDROM_TOC structure, which is returned as a string can be easily unpacked using the python struct module. Even though most CDs will have less than 99 tracks, the structure data that is returned will always have 804 bytes. And when you are done unpacking, do not forget to close the device handle you obtained with a CloseHandle call.

win32file.CloseHandle(hdevice)

So using the code snippets above, we can get the various tracks in the CDROM, along with their start offset in the CDROM in the form of Minute-Second-Frame(MSF) information. Note that this will work for both Audio as well as Data CDs.

London bomb blasts!

I can't figure out what joy these crazy terrorists get by killing innocent civilians. My heartfelt condolences to the families of the deceased.

Juniper acquires Peribit Networks

Is this the time for an Emergency?

Read Cho's interview with Rediff. He talks about the emergency days and also feels that the time is ripe for imposing Emergency.

Today, nobody is aware of his duties in this country. Laws are there to be broken. Rules are there to be violated. Regulations are there to be ignored. That's the present mood of the country.

Why is China advancing at a more rapid rate than us? It is the discipline, which is helping them. We are the most indisciplined of all democracies in the world. Those who were part of JP's movement against corruption are symbols of corruption now, like Laloo Prasad Yadav.

Is this the Anniyan Effect?

Today's Links

There is a recurring theme to today's links : Design simplicity.

• How To Write Unmaintainable Code.


• The Top 10 Elements of Good Software Design


• Is Design Dead? - Martin Fowler. Old but good article.


• What Makes Good Code Good?


• Insects and Entropy - A story on simplicity in design


• Top Designers' picks for home, office, and the road.


• Various Programmer fonts. Though i haven't found anything other than CourierNew appealing to me. And can this font really be used for reading code?


• The power of simplicity

Bill Swanson's '25 Unwritten Rules of Management'

1. Learn to say, "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be often.
2. It is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it.
3. If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.
4. Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what's there, but few can see what isn't there.
5. Viewgraph rule: When something appears on a viewgraph (an overhead transparency), assume the world knows about it, and deal with it accordingly.
6. Work for a boss with whom you are comfortable telling it like it is. Remember that you can't pick your relatives, but you can pick your boss.
7. Constantly review developments to make sure that the actual benefits are what they are supposed to be. Avoid Newton's Law.
8. However menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your best efforts.
9. Persistence or tenacity is the disposition to persevere in spite of difficulties, discouragement, or indifference. Don't be known as a good starter but a poor finisher.
10. In completing a project, don't wait for others; go after them, and make sure it gets done.
11. Confirm your instructions and the commitments of others in writing. Don't assume it will get done!
12. Don't be timid; speak up. Express yourself, and promote your ideas.
13. Practice shows that those who speak the most knowingly and confidently often end up with the assignment to get it done.
14. Strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports.
15. Be extremely careful of the accuracy of your statements.
16. Don't overlook the fact that you are working for a boss.
* Keep him or her informed. Avoid surprises!
* Whatever the boss wants takes top priority.
17. Promises, schedules, and estimates are important instruments in a well-ordered business.
* You must make promises. Don't lean on the often-used phrase, "I can't estimate it because it depends upon many uncertain factors."
18. Never direct a complaint to the top. A serious offense is to "cc" a person's boss.
19. When dealing with outsiders, remember that you represent the company. Be careful of your commitments.
20. Cultivate the habit of "boiling matters down" to the simplest terms. An elevator speech is the best way.
21. Don't get excited in engineering emergencies. Keep your feet on the ground.
22. Cultivate the habit of making quick, clean-cut decisions.
23. When making decisions, the pros are much easier to deal with than the cons. Your boss wants to see the cons also.
24. Don't ever lose your sense of humor.
25. Have fun at what you do. It will reflect in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump.

Taken from http://www.ccgmedia.com/article_william_swanson.php

Seattle Bus Monster

Absolutely brilliant! An application of google maps which shows bus stops, paths and even current bus locations! Link

Cleaning a laptop screen

I have been looking around for the best way to clean my laptop screen. [i would like to get it to the way it was when i bought it! :)]. Using normal cloth or cotton leaves wipe marks on the screen. All i could find was this article on about.com. Any other practical ideas?

Update: Did some more googling and here is what i found. Jeremey has already blogged about this way back in 2003, and some of the comments over there are pretty good. Some comments are pretty hilarious too. There is some info over at cnet as well. Seems like the best method is to use the 3M Scotch Brite Cleaning Cloth for Electronics.

IEEE Bangalore Section Frontier Lecture Series 3-2005

Title: Model-Based Design and Testing - Perspectives for Automotive Embedded Systems Design
Speaker: Dr.Wolfgang Mueller, C-LAB, Paderborn University,Germany
Venue: Golden Jubilee Hall, ECE Dept, IISc

Date and Time: Thursday 30 June 2005 at 04.00 PM (coffee at >3.45 PM)

ALL ARE WELCOME (including non-IEEE members). There is NO registration Fee.

Abstract: Embedded software in automotive systems has reached a considerable complexity requiring new methods, languages, and tools. The presentation first reviews the current status of the Matlab/Simulink-based design flow for automotive software and tools for Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation.Thereafter, we give a brief overview of the AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System Architecture) initiative for a standard infrastructure and components as well as the IMMOS (Integrated Methodology for Model Based Development) Project for model based design and testing. In the context of the latter, we focus on an overview of the Classification Tree Method for Embedded Systems and corresponding tools from dSPACE and Razorcat.

Biography: Wolfgang Mueller received his diploma and doctoral degree from Paderborn University in 1989 and 1997, respectively. He is currently heading the group of Advanced Design Technologies at C-LAB, a joint R&D Institute of Siemens and Paderborn University.His current interests and activities focus on methodology,tools, and languages for the design of Embedded Systems and Systems-on-Chip. He published over 100 articles and most recently edited two books on SystemC and UML for SoC design. He is member of the DATE executive committee since its foundation in 1998 and cofounder of the UML-SoC workshop of the Design Automation Conference.

Eliminating Blind Spots!

Nissan is currently developing a system that will eliminate blind spots from around the vehicle with a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding area displayed on a central monitor. Pretty Cool, but you will have to wait till 2008 for a car to be fitted with this!

The CMMI Song

In case you have not yet heard the CMMI song(yeah, the SEI one), you can get it here. Lyrics also is available! :)

Links for 23-June-2005

• 10 Bad Project Warning Signs


• Evan on incorporating feedback into products


• Why most programmers are bad at designing user interfaces? Because it's hard.


• Another use of AJAX. A dictionary that starts giving results as soon as you start typing your query. (via)

Links

• Florida took baby from visiting Indian woman


• Jack Kilby is dead


• Kiran has posted the links to all the articles in Joel's new book


• How to network with your blog?

EtherFabric!

Level 5 Networks has announced EtherFabric™, which it claims to be Ethernet compatible, while allowing communication at a much higher speed. Performance numbers are here

The Ethernet currently in use was never designed for today’s high-performance environments, and as a result, the interconnects between systems have become one of the most significant limiters of overall data center performance, causing bottlenecks throughout. Other newly proposed networking technologies, such as iWarp and InfiniBand, lack compatibility with the existing network infrastructure, making them too disruptive and costly to implement. Unlike those solutions, the EtherFabric high-speed server interconnect products from Level 5 Networks maintain software and hardware compatibility with the existing environment while reducing the number of servers required by up to 50 percent.

Anniyan!

Watched Anniyan at Innovative Multiplex yesterday. Kudos to Shankar and Vikram for an excellent movie. Iam not going to spoil the fun those who haven't seen the movie, but here is the positives and negatives of the movie, so you can decide whether to watch or not.

+ Vikram's acting. Especially the climax!
+ Camera work dring fights/action sequences (Though a lot of it reminds of Matrix)
+ Vivek's Comedy (First half of the movie rocks!)
+ Art Direction

- Sadha.
- Script (Has too many logical flaws)

A must watch movie.

Is Code Talking the key to great Software?

A very nice article on software team dynamics.

Products can be shipped with good or bad communication, but the job is far easier and more exciting with a group of programmers that talk code. Whether it’s over cube walls, at the water cooler or to-and-from Starbucks – it plays into code that’s far better than one great programmer could create by himself/herself.

Code-Talking happens between developers and cannot be mandated by management. However, code-talking almost never happens in formal meeting environments. Code-Talking happens when no one is worried that sharing their code and ideas will be used against them in any way. Most importantly, code-talking only happens when developers value each others' opinions and experiences in an open environment.

Beyond the communication benefits, code-talking is one thing that can trigger passion in developers. I’ve found that many computer science Phds are natural code-talkers and contribute immensely to team communications – they tend to be highly motivated and view software development as the greatest job in the world.

BMTC Route information System!

Nice site which gives BMTC bus information by Destination and by Route Number.

Update: Fixed the link to reflect the new page.

Today's Links!

• NYTimes talks of a plan to connect rural India to the Internet


• Video of Steve Jobs speech at Stanford!


• GoogleGuide.com


• IBM DeveloperWorks article on Linux system development on an embedded device

Links!

• Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford


• Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak


• Rob Pike leaves Bell Labs to go work for Google


• Oko. Yet another development envionment and an Object Oriented language.

In the Hindu!

Ramya's column on Bloggers in yesterday's Hindu Sunday Magazine has my photo on it. :) Iam the one standing second from left in the first row.

Vacation time!

No blog updates as iam on vacation from tomorrow till the weekend.

Meanwhile, you can read Emily's account on dating an Apple Developer. :)

Book Tagging!

Prabhu tagged everyone reading his book tag post, so here goes my list. Disclaimer : More than 90% of my books are technical, and I read fiction only occasionally.

Total number of books I own:
~75

Last Book I Bought:
Linux Kernel Development

Last Book I read:
Angels and Demons

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:
Alchemist - My most fav book!
Programming Pearls
Freedom at Midnight
The Art of Computer Programming - Knuth
The C Programming language - K&R

I am tagging:
Anyone reading this.

Sound Buzz

You can buy Indian film music online now. The store offers music in Windows Media Audio (.wma) files. Quoting from the site -

Soundbuzz is a digital music service provider and the only provider with a regional focus on the Asia-Pacific markets. Soundbuzz is a 'one-stop-shop' for the digital music media offering technology, creative, editorial and legal services to facilitate digital music commerce. Soundbuzz works with the world's leading digital rights management (DRM) technologies endorsed by the record labels that allows it to distribute its music safely and securely:
Soundbuzz works primarily with Microsoft Windows Media Rights Manager, the end-to-end digital rights management (DRM) system that offers content providers and retailers a flexible platform for the secure distribution of digital media files.

Individual songs cost as little as Rs 12

Athu Oru Kanaa Kaalam

Listening to songs from Athu Oru Kanaa Kaalam. Except "Kili Thattu", all other songs suck! What has happened to good old Ilayaraja?

Bangalore One

Government of Karnataka's one stop website for all services. You can pay bills, contact people in power, download government related forms, check train schedules and much much more. Nice set of links. (Thanks Pramod for the link)

No more "My"!

Ending a longstanding tradition, Microsoft Corp. plans to stop using the word "my" as the default prefix for such folders as "My Documents," "My Music," "My Pictures" and others along those lines. Starting in the next Windows version, due out next year, folders will be known simply as "Documents," "Music," and so on.

Good Riddance! I hated the "My" in those folder names so much, that i never ever used them! (Link)

Links!

• Google Hardware in 1999


• CELL : A new platform for digital entertainment (slides) (via)


• Yahoo Mindset is pretty interesting. The idea seems to have been borrowed from the MSN search sliders, but i feel that Yahoo! has really done a great job here with the customization of the search results. Go Try!


• Now a GreaseMonkey substitute for IE. We really live in interesting times! :)


• The Tao of programming. Cool!!


• All that matters in business is that you get it right once.

Web addiction!

Two days without any internet connectivity due to BSNL cable issues. No internet connectiviy meant no mails, no blogs. Really was a pathetic scenario, and also proved how much iam dependent on the world wide web in my day to day life. If this is not addiction, then what is?

A very interesting note!

I got this as a forward through email. This is supposed to be written by a Global IT Manager of an MNC in Bangalore. I can't vouch for the source, but the note is worth reading.

Every day for the last four months I have been hiring. I come to office each day, hassle my recruitment team, agencies and consultancies for resumes, perform interviews, negotiate salaries and make offers.
It's amazing to see how people negotiate for salaries and perks, no one asks anything anymore about what the job entails, what they can contribute, or how they can grow and realize their dreams here. It's about pay, and people are eagerly willing to display unbridled stupidity in managing their careers by focusing incessantly on money.
Heck, the time it takes to finalize an offer nowadays, I could send out an offer letter, go have several children, watch them grow, put them through school and then head back to office, the candidate is likely to have finished negotiating his pay and ready to join.
This is all fine and dandy; it's a hyper-inflationary job market. What's disturbing is the not-so-new trend of IT jobs flying out of India. I hear an 850-seater call center has decided to move out of India due to attrition and increasing costs. Hell, my own company has pushed out 100 jobs out of India into Eastern Europe, and I was part of that decision.
We need to wake up and smell the stink of the decay we are creating all around us in the IT job market.
Year-on-year end people here expect nothing less than 30 to 45% salary increases, where as the average salary hike in the US per year is 3% and Eastern Europe is 4%.
I could go on and on about the quality of the flotsam and jetsam that washes on to my desk in response to job ads, but we all know it. Sometimes it takes as many as 40+ interviews to close one position. Sad part? The bozos still think they are worth it.
At this rate IT India better ensure they have transferable skills, because in a couple of years from now they will not have jobs to feed their money-frenzied lifestyles.
Let's do justice to the lessons the dotcom tried to teach us, what goes up must come down.

More Catching up!

• The Web Application Leap - More on Ajax.


• Gates Casts Cold Eye on Google - WSJ


• Why smart people defend bad ideas - Excellent Essay


• Best Tech Schools in India - Results of the IDC-Dataquest-Nasscom survey (Registration required). As expected IITs take the top four slots. See the complete scorecard here


• This is how stupid people can be. Two StarWars fans were filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it. How innovative! Not surprisingly, they are in critical condition in a Essex hospital

Catching up!

• Adam Barr looks back at the "Information At Your Fingertips" speech given by Bill Gates in 1990, and does an interesting analysis of how much of it has become a reality today.


• Channel9 Video on Virtual Earth. Pretty nice.


• Put your candidate to work - Nice article on hiring based on instincts by Johanna Rothman


• Writing servers is easy, writing clients is hard


• Bridges, Software Engineering, and God

Slow blogging!

Blogging will be at a very slow pace for a week or two. My bloglines "to read" items have already reached a very huge number, and Gmail account has lots of mails waiting to be replied. :( Hope to atleast catch up with reading blogs soon!

Managed Code

Was generally browsing and wanted to figure out what Managed Code in the .NET environment was all about. Here are the links that I found interesting. In case you know of some good links that provide more info, please feel free to leave the links in the comments.

• What is managed code? - A simple, but good explanation.


• Managed Code too can have memory leaks.


• Memory Leaks in Managed code


• A first look at C++/CLI

First DLP Cinema at Satyam

Today at the Sathyam Cinema Multiplex in Chennai, India will enter the world of digital cinema or DLP Cinema^TM, with the premiere of the final part of the "Star Wars" saga - Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. For the uninitiated, DLP is a Texas Instruments Technology. Visit TI's site on DLP for more info.

Today's Catch!

• Alex Bosworth has compiled a list of Ajax Mistakes that developers often make.


• 5 (Fictional) Rules for Blogging at Google :)


• Don't call them bugs, Call them defects!


• Rajesh Jain on The ABC of blogs. Must Read!

Napster's Response To Yahoo? Sit And Stare, Dumbfounded.

When you can't even admit who your real competitors are, it certainly makes it difficult to respond when they cut your business model out from under you.

Adsense for Feeds

Aww. This sucks. Iam trying to figure how different these are from pop-up ads on websites. Now every browser in the planet has an option to block pop-ups. Wonder how long before RSS readers start providing an option to block the ads in RSS feeds as well.

Today's Catch

Primate programming Inc. Funny :)
Oreilly Radar on How to roll out an Open API. Interesting Read!
Proposition from an Indian ad-clicking syndicate! Never knew click-fraud was so well planned out!

Bangalore Bloggers Meet (15th May 2005)

We met up at Barista/Koshy's on St. Mark's Rd. We had a great time at both places. Nice to meet up with so many high enthu people! Here goes the list of folks who were present. Adel, Aditya, Ambarish, Anand, Arnab, Kiruba, Kishore, Madhu, Muthu, Prabhu, Rahul, Sam, Shubh, Sathish, Suman, Shyam, Venkat and of course, me. Really looking forward to meeting you folks more often! One interesting statistic was that out of the 17 or so bloggers who attended, around 11 were us Tamilians!

As i had forgotten to pick up my Canon, i had to settle with my cellphone for these pictures. So most photos are of not-so-great resolution! In case you want to look at slightly bigger photos, you can do so at my Flickr Page

   

   

   

   

   

Today's Catch!

• In case you are not yet RSS savvy, here is a list of 15 things you can do with RSS


• Here are two entries from the 2004 International Obfuscated Code contest. Amazing! (More here)


• Parsing C++


• So its official : IE7 will have tabs! Iam happy that they finally got it.


• From wikipedia : CodeSmell :)

Links

Long Tail vs. Bottom of Pyramid
Today's Hindu Sunday Magazine on The Train to Pakistan. Really Painful!
High-Dimensional Spaces Are Counterintuitive. Part One, Two
Blogs and social networks and wikis, oh my! - Interesting!

Notepad2

I have been using Notepad2 for a while now, and I really love it. I have never been a fan of bloated up and fancy IDEs, and so this should come as no big surprise. Notepad2 is very lightweight, has syntax highlighting for all languages I use, and has excellent keyboard shortcuts for most of the editing functionality. The only thing i miss sorely is the lack of tabs for editing multiple files at a time. Luckily Notepad2 is open source and is licensed under the GPL, and so i guess i can just add this missing tidbit. Let's see when i manage to find some time for this!

More Links!

• Why Are Startups Like Peacocks?


• Making Wrong Code Look Wrong - Joel scores yet again with another classic!


• In case you are looking for a career with Yahoo! India, Swaroop has a post on what they are looking for!


• Steve Ballmer's Speech at Stanford - Innovation with Impact [300kbps webcast]

Hiring is obsolete - Full essay

Links!

This chilli is so hot, you'd have to drink 250,000 gallons of water just to put out the fire

Folders That Now Seem So Yesterday May Be Very Handy Tomorrow - A viewpoint. But the author doesn't spell out why he feels folders may be very handy. So an argument which I can't buy!

Microsoft IP Ventures

Under this program startups can license technologies developed by Microsoft's research labs and product development teams. A few technology areas also have been mentioned.

Watts Humphrey Interview

BusinessWeek has published an interview with Watts Humphrey, in which he talks about why companies should be moving up to TSP/PSP from CMM. Watts Humphrey was in TI India during March 2005 when he gave a talk on these topics and other related topics.

Philips Semiconductor Business Re-org

Philips has reorganized its semiconductor business to get a market-focussed organization. The changes include the creation of an Automotive and Identification business unit. The other business units are Mobile and Personal, Home and Multi-Market semiconductors. So we are clearly seeing a renewed focus on automotive from the semiconductor companies. Nice.

Go break something

Scoble pointed to Dori Smith's utterances on Microsoft being boring. I liked the following statement in the blog post.

The fact of this business is that disruptive technologies happen, whether you like them to or not. If you create them yourself, you've got some control over how/when it happens. If you refuse to create them yourself, you have no one to blame but yourself when you become obsolete. It's the difference between good products and great products.

Still catching up!

Scott Granneman has posted a list of reviews for Firefox and Thunderbird books

Gates' sights set on automobiles with his gizmos

Might there be an SP3 before Longhorn?

Microsoft learns to crawl - The Story of MSN search!

Rajdeep Sardesai is no longer with NDTV !

75 Years of Innovation

TI has kicked off its 75th anniversary celebration with a website focussed on the company's history, innovative creations and evolution.

Quantum Cryptography for Video conferencing

Video conferencing gets quantum security - Scientists from Toshiba's Cambridge Research Laboratory unveiled an invention, which is capable of generating 100 quantum 'keys' every second. This is fast enough for every individual frame of video to be protected by its own encryption. "This makes the system highly secure," says Andrew Shields, who leads the Cambridge team. "It would take an enormous computational resource to crack this frame by frame."

Weird!

Opening my blog page in IE seems to come up with a dialog box similar to the one below. Iam not sure why IE doesn't think my blog home page is a html file. The second time you open the page, it seems to work fine. Weird!

Hectic..

As life has been a bit hectic both in and out of office, iam still trying to catch up with reading blogs, news, mail etc, etc etc... Expecting return to normalcy in a week or so.

Catching up...

Heather on Exactly what info should one include in the resume
Hiring is obsolete - Paul Graham
Why Geeks and Nerds Are Worth It... :) (via)

Webcast : Comparing Embedded Linux and Windows Embedded

There is a Microsoft webcast on May 3 on Choosing the Right Operating System for Your Embedded Device: Comparing Embedded Linux and Windows Embedded.

Start Time: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 10:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)
End Time: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 11:00 AM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Indian Free Software Projects

Free Software Users' Group - Bangalore (FSUG) is hosting a directory of Indian free software projects. Please contribute with more project listings and help create an exhaustive list.

Links

Ethical resume writing (via)
Infineon India has announced Annual awards for Phd and Maters research Thesis. Awards definitely look attractive. (via)

One idea

There should be a way by which i can click on an email link on any webpage, the browser opens the Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo "Compose mail" page, and not the MS Outlook client that i have on my PC. If a method doesn't already exist, whats the feasibility of implementing it?

Israel's ynetnews reports on a research report which talks on how Israel is in a better position for technical innovation than either India or China. The article also quotes a number of interesting statistics. Iam quickly quoting the paragraphs that i find interesting.

Given the number of engineers that graduate out every year and the cost per engineer per year, Israel will simply not be able to compete against India and China in terms of scale or cost.

Israelis have been much more successful in developing breakthrough technologies than either the Chinese or the Indians. In the case of China, OECD figures indicate that Chinese nationals filed a mere 200 patent applications in 1995 and 299 in 1997. In 2001, only 5.43 percent of the patents filed in China by Chinese inventors were for invention. This was remarkably fewer than the 72.8 percent of innovation patents, as a percentage of total patents, filed by foreign firms in China. While development centers of international companies in India filed for over 750 patents by mid-2003, Indian IT service companies filed for less than 90.

While China and India may have hordes of good but less than phenomenal scientists and engineers, their numbers alone will not mute Israel’s advantage in producing transformative breakthroughs. It is interesting to note that India is having difficulty finding even small numbers of exceptional software programmers.

Links

A look inside the iPod Shuffle

File Managers for Linux

Links

Click Fraud: How to Detect and Stop a Growing Problem

Why Linux can't kill Windows - Very valid points.

Optimizing FFTW and Split Radix

SpaceMonger - A very nice and intuitive application which gives a very detailed view of what's occupying all the space on your hard disk (Windows only). I never knew my GDS was taking up more than 780 MB of space!

Nokia 6600

Finally i bought myself a light grey Nokia 6600. What swayed me was the excellent support for Python on Nokia Series 60 phones

Microsoft BhashaIndia.com. The website hopes to empower Indic Language Computing. They have also announced an Indic Developer Challenge for college students.

BhashaIndia invites all college students to participate in the Indic Developer Challenge and create applications and solutions in Indian Languages. The best application adjudged by our panel will win a cool Toshiba Tablet PC. 1 Smartphone each will be given away for the best applications in the following categories:

- Most innovative Indic Enabled Web application
- Best Application Documentation or Tutorial for the Submitted Application
- Best Indic Enabled Software Application
- Most Innovative Office application (using VSTO, Smart Doc, InfoPath application)
- The Wildcard – An application that displays excellence in any other aspect other than those mentioned above.

Good to see Microsoft putting a good amount of effort into Indian language computing!

Chandramukhi - A quick review

** I hope there are no potential spoilers ahead. Anyway proceed at your own discretion **

Watched it at the Innovative Multiplex yesterday. If you have seen "Manichitrathazhu" in Malayalam, you already know the plot completely, but you can still watch the movie for Rajini. Fight scenes mostly defy logic, but what's the point in trying to see logic here? Its mostly enjoyable, and thats what we are looking for. Nayantara looks good, and thats about it for her role in the movie. Jyothika does justice to her role, but don't bother comparing her performance to Shobana in Manichitrathazhu. Prabhu? Yaa, he's also there in the movie. Vadivel's exploits with Rajini is fabulous at times, but there are instances when its gross. Songs are good, especially "Raa Raa". Overall, a highly watchable movie.
PS: Liked the way the film titles were shown. Found that its done by Rajini's second daughter Soundarya. Cool job.

More Links!

More on the Google 20% time

Bruce Perens asks Linus "to cool it"

Bruce Eckel on Python (Old, but good articles)
   Part 1 - Python and the Programmer
   Part 2 - The Zen of Python
   Part 3 - Type Checking and Techie Control
   Part 4 - Python and the Tipping Point

Hacking the Papal Election

Schneier on how hacking the Papal election process will be tough. After Reading Angels and Demons, the entire election process looked hugely familiar.

Blogbridge - Another RSS reader

This particular feature makes it interesting!

It also includes a server-based service (free!) that enables you to synchronize your subscriptions between different computers.

Need to try this out soon! Link

Currently Reading

The Performance Paradox

If you deliver, you only qualify to deliver more.

Motorola opens Bangalore research centre

Motorola Labs has opened an applied-research facility in the Indian city of Bangalore.

The lab - the 11th such centre opened by telecommunications giant Motorola and its first in India - will work on diverse applied areas such as converged networks, autonomic networking, enterprise applications, embedded systems and physical sciences.

Schaumberg, Illinois-based Motorola already has an India-based R&D infrastructure, which employs 1,700 engineers but it works mostly on software. Read more

That marks one more research facility to be opened by an MNC in Bangalore in recent months.

Links!

GPE is a Free Software GUI environment for palmtop/handheld computers running the GNU/Linux operating system

A First Look at OpenOffice.org 2.0

A Symbian Programming Tutorial Blog

Real World XML Web Services. A draft online book. If you are not into .NET, atleast the first few chapters are interesting

Interesting Google Satellite Maps

Delphi sells 5 millionth Satellite Radio Reciever

Delphi announced today it has sold 5 million satellite radio receivers to retail and automotive customers. The company is the first satellite hardware manufacturer to achieve this milestone, and remains the world's leading provider of satellite radio receivers. Read More

Amazon Zuggest

Amazon Suggest. It lets you search Amazon as you type. You don't have to press Submit or Enter, just type. So a small improvement over Google Suggest.

Google Bangalore

How Google Searches -- For Talent A look at why Google is finding it tougher to staff up their Bangalore Office.

Links

Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications

RFIDs: Technology Friend or Foe?

A city of islands shaped like the World. Each island is shaped similar to a country. You can buy your own private island here. Amazing idea. Wonder how much these will cost though!

From the Times of India

Swaminomics - My family and other globalisers. Very interesting read (Thanks, Rahul for the link)

More Google

Newsweek on Living by Google Rules. The most interesting quote:

When we started Google News, we forgot to put ads in it. It's not deliberate. We actually forgot.

Loved this quote

"Sure, our software interoperates. It interoperates the same way the U.S. does in Iraq." (via Scott)

Most Interesting April Fool's day story!

Here is the most interesting story i have read on April 1st.Google and Yahoo talk merger?
If it really happens, that would be a sensational story!

Update: Somebody has come up with a YaGoohoogle website as well.

How Nerdy are you?

That's my score. I doubt whether iam that nerdy.

Google enhances search for Firefox

Google will use the Mozilla Link prefetching feature to make user searches faster. I already see a potential problem here. Think of the cases where your search results include links to *inappropriate* sites which are normally banned from being accessed from corporate environs. Prefetching is no different from you actually clicking the link. So some users could potentially get into issues here. Luckily Google has a way to actually disable this feature as well.
Update : InsideGoogle notes another problem(?). Prefetching pages like this could cause websites to register a site hit even if no one actually visited the website.:)

Kiruba stops blogging

That came as a real shocker. I sincerely hope thats a Pre-April Fool Day's Joke. Kiruba was one of the main inspirations for me in starting my blog two years back. His non-stop blogging and his varied interests made it a great and interesting blog. Here goes wishes for everything that Kiruba does in his life. We'll miss you pal! [ And hope you reincarnate in a different form soon enough!]

Yahoo! 360°

Got a Yahoo! 360° account. This looks more like an Orkut+Blogger+Yahoo Photos+ Yahoo Groups all put together in one big basket. Wonder how long it will be when Flickr also gets integrated into this basket. May be i can use this as a photo blog, if i find the time and inclination to use my Canon to click some pictures which will be fit for public consumption! :)
Ping me if you would love to have a Yahoo! 360° invite. Send me either an e-mail or leave a comment here.

Greatest Innovation of the Past 15 Years

Texas Instruments today announced that its digital signal processors (DSP) that helped spawn the wireless communications revolution were named the “Greatest Innovation of the Past 15 Years.” Honored by EDN magazine, TI’s TMS320C55x DSPs were heralded as the most significant design innovation in the last decade and a half, beating out the likes of Intel’s Pentium processor and products from HP, ADI and others.

TI's Press Release

An excellent essay!

Organics and Mechanics - Figuring out how your manager acquires information

Today's Links!

How to be a successful intern programmer

Problems of search personalization

A Google OS by 2010? - More speculation!

Tips for Mastering E-mail Overload - A few really good ideas.

Links!

• ZoomInfo - Search for info on people!


• Is Public opinion tide turning against Google?


• The 18th International Obfuscated C Code Contest started on 21st March.


• Metafor: English as a Programming Language


• How does the 'Google 20% time' work? (*Must Read*)

Today's Links!

Q&A with Subramanian Ramadorai, chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services
Eric Sink chimes in on the new Microsoft Team System pricing
Mark Fletcher on the lessons learned building Bloglines
Queryster - One more GoogleX look-alike search interface
The PC Era is just beginning - Bill Gates

Today's Links!

• Windows are not cheap objects


• An interview with Alan Kay. Alan Kay is the creator of SmallTalk and an Alan Turing Award winner


• Google Hyderabad


• Do Ads still work?


• SuperKaramba - Themes for KDE

Mallu Rock Band!

Avial - A mallu rock band. I love the music as well as the Video. (via Ashwin)

Help a deserving student

Raj has posted an appeal from Propoor on his blog to help a deserving student from Chennai. Please read through it and help the deserving boy.

Omea Reader

Finally found a RSS aggregator, that i seem to like. Omea Reader is the lite-version of the Omea Pro which is an all-in-one software. According to the site

Omea pro is a powerful universal client for aggregating and organizing all kinds of information: emails, files, web links, RSS feeds, newsgroups, tasks, contacts, and even custom resource types that you define.

Omea pro costs around 49$, but the good news is that Omea Reader is free(for now). What i liked more is that i can now read usenet newsgroups and RSS feeds in a single tool. And even though the UI looks complex, i somehow felt nice in using it. One thing is sorely miss in this tool, is a way to sync my RSS feeds with Bloglines. That would have been the killer feature for me.

Firefox crashes'

Last two days, and four times Firefox(on Windows XP) has crashed! And iam also unable to report the problem using the Mozilla feedback agent. The feedback agent tries multiple times but fails to send the report. As i normally have multiple tabs open during each crash, iam unable to pinpoint whether the crashes are site-specific or whether iam seeing a general stability issue. Side Note : By any chance, Is "Stable software" an oxymoron?

Cool Photos of Pixar!

A trip to Pixar. Scroll down the page to see the pictures. Really fascinating

Google Personalized!

Google Personalized! You can even set the amount of personalization to be included along with the normal search results. Cool stuff! As Jeremy pointed out a few days back, what seems to be missing is a login functionality. Is Google expecting us to save preferences in every machine that we use?

Today's Links!

• Why Venture Capitalists are the way they are!


• Windows XP Embedded team starts blogging


• How to destroy the earth! Doesn't look an easy thing to do after reading this!


• An article on Donald Knuth (audio)(via Larry)

MSN Desktop Search vs GDS!

Why Google Desktop Still Falls Short of MSN Desktop Search - I tend to agree completely. I have tried both tools for a considerable amount of time. What i have felt is that Google Desktop Search loses out on the relevancy aspect of the search results.

Today's Links!

• The long tail of software


• Firefox Tweak Guide


• Wikipedia has an entry for Madras Bashai (via Sowmya)

Quote!

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image. - Stephen Hawking

iPod Shuffle look-alike!

LuxPro has come up with a iPod Shuffle look-alike mp3 player, with FM Tuner and voice recorder. It should be interesting to see how Apple tackles this!

Amazing statistics!

Iam amazed reading the recent recruitment figures of the Indian IT companies! A few snippets..

Infosys Technologies has been hiring about 50 people a working day for the last nine months
Wipro adds three employees to its staff every working hour
Satyam will see an addition of 30,000 to the present 20,000 in the next few years
TCS’S headcount stands at 43,681 people with over 6,200 added in last two quarters.

Read the full article here

FYI : Amazed because, after starting operations more than 15 20 years ago, we(TI India) are still at a total employee strength of around 1300. That number is approximately what Infosys or Wipro adds in a month. :)

Bloglines!!

What the heck happened to Bloglines today? Its been down all day long, and i dont even have the backup OPML file. Looks like i should start using a desktop RSS aggregator as well. Any suggestions for a simple and free RSS client?

End of an era!

Kasparov retires! And what a nice way to retire!

Link-o-mania

• OSS Software, Deaf Developers & Unsatisfied Users - Interesting read!


• Firefox Is Heading Towards Trouble - eWeek


• Advagato's number - Advice for young free software developers (via Sudhir)


• Best hacking tools and tutorials

MSN Sandbox

MSN Sandbox. This is where MSN puts up its tech previews. Much like Google Labs.

Today's links!

• Why blogging is good for your career?


• Paul Graham on How to start a startup


• Colorization Using Optimization - Excellent (via Chris DiBona)


• Linux Kernel Programming by Examples

Reading wishlist!

My updated reading wish list

Today's links!

• Why Google isn't what it used to be


• The Ten worst engineering pitfalls


• Sony's new range of flash-based MP3 players - Looks interesting, but doesn't have the simplistic look of an ipod!


• Journey of mankind. An amazing animation. (via Chandrachoodan)


• Parsing Techniques.- A Practical Guide (online book)


• Fast Company carries this article on Georgia becoming the outpost of many Indian technology companies.

That's strange!

Boeing's CEO ousted for having an extra-marital affair! I couldn't figure out why the CEO's personal affair could be such a big problem for Boeing's board!