The longing for a long weekend ended in a perfect sense. Vasanth's marraige was on 27th June (Mon), so we used it to bunk office on Monday. Headed to Salem on Sunday, made a short trip to Yercaud, attended reception, night show - Anniyan, attended Muhurtham in the morning, lot of mokkai, cards and usual train journey back to bangalore with pleasent memories.
I guess only in Vasanth's marraige one will be able to see friends cutting across class, departments and batch. He is one heck of a guy who values and preserves so much friends.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Blogger supports posting pictures from desktop
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Steve Jobs speech at Stanford
He says three stories and the moral of each story is
"you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life"
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
Here is the link to the complete speech.
"you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life"
"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."
"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."
"Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish."
Here is the link to the complete speech.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Is blogging definitely male?
I got this weird thought while driving to office today. Firstly I am not a MC and this statement is not a fall out of such an attitude. I feel that there is a strong logical reasoning behind this thought. I have been following/reading blogs for a while now. I have been syndicated to 35 feeds in my bloglines (Pretty low, I knew people who are subscribed to over 1000 feeds). And there are no females in the subscribtion list. I haven't heard any girl blogging in my class or in my acquaintances. And so is the doubt.
I have seen some random blogs of females while I hang around the internet searching for good blogs. There are lot of people who blog (stats says that 20000 new blogs are added per day) on various topics and interests. I am yet to see stats on blog propotion based on sex.
Some people blog on official stuff, some their personal stuff, some their hobbies, some do a mix of all these (like me :-) ). While following the blogs you tend to get a feel of the character of the person. Since blogs are mostly non-commerical and pursued in self-interest, the information posted tends to be authentic. Bloggers remain honest to themselves on the facts that they publish.
Thus I had a chance of observing quiet a few people over the blogs and tend to get a feel of their character. But as I said, I have no female bloggers in my list. Wanted to know whether the same rules apply to them. All this just out of curiousity.
Let me know if some girl around does blogging. I would like to get subscribed.
I have seen some random blogs of females while I hang around the internet searching for good blogs. There are lot of people who blog (stats says that 20000 new blogs are added per day) on various topics and interests. I am yet to see stats on blog propotion based on sex.
Some people blog on official stuff, some their personal stuff, some their hobbies, some do a mix of all these (like me :-) ). While following the blogs you tend to get a feel of the character of the person. Since blogs are mostly non-commerical and pursued in self-interest, the information posted tends to be authentic. Bloggers remain honest to themselves on the facts that they publish.
Thus I had a chance of observing quiet a few people over the blogs and tend to get a feel of their character. But as I said, I have no female bloggers in my list. Wanted to know whether the same rules apply to them. All this just out of curiousity.
Let me know if some girl around does blogging. I would like to get subscribed.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
F1 tussle
I follow a bit of F1, but I am not an avid geek to know all the nitty-grittes of it. I knew the pretty basics of the race jargons. Offlate, F1 has been hitting the news headlines in a different sort. With the agreement of teams ceasing in 2007, there are already issues brewing up on renewing the agreements. There were news sometime back stating that couple of teams has agreed not to renew their agreements but rather to have thier own F1 championships.
The rift became wider with 2005 US GP. 7 teams using Michelin tyres pulled out of the race stating safety concerns. With the rule to use the same tyres for both practise and race, there has been couple of accidents related to tyres. Though I am indifferent to the rule, the claim made by Michelin is not justifiable. If Bridgestone is able to thrive, then Michelin should be competitive enough.
But this fiasco has done enough damage to reputation and interests of F1.
What will be the future of F1?
More news at rediff, hindu.
The rift became wider with 2005 US GP. 7 teams using Michelin tyres pulled out of the race stating safety concerns. With the rule to use the same tyres for both practise and race, there has been couple of accidents related to tyres. Though I am indifferent to the rule, the claim made by Michelin is not justifiable. If Bridgestone is able to thrive, then Michelin should be competitive enough.
But this fiasco has done enough damage to reputation and interests of F1.
What will be the future of F1?
More news at rediff, hindu.
Owners Pride Neighbours Envy
From the past month, I have been trying relentlessly to get my blog listed in the search sites index. There are couple of facets behind this effort. One is that your blog will be shown in the search results page. Another one is that you can enable blog search (site specific search) in your blog. The second one comes handy when you want to search your blog when there had been quiet a handful posts.
I am particularly interested towards getting my site listed in google's index. To get this done, one needs to understand how the google's spider / bots crunch the webpages and index them. One way is to get more incoming links to your blog so that the rank of your page increases (google's page ranking is based on the active links to your blog - this is the simplestic view). Another way is to use the ping service which sends a ping whenever you blog is updated. Third way to enable google adsense in your blog. Apart from increasing the incoming links, I have done the rest. But still my blog is unlisted in the index.
I saw Govar's blog listed in both Google and Yahoo search index. Kudos to him. Owners Pride and Neightbours Envy!
I am particularly interested towards getting my site listed in google's index. To get this done, one needs to understand how the google's spider / bots crunch the webpages and index them. One way is to get more incoming links to your blog so that the rank of your page increases (google's page ranking is based on the active links to your blog - this is the simplestic view). Another way is to use the ping service which sends a ping whenever you blog is updated. Third way to enable google adsense in your blog. Apart from increasing the incoming links, I have done the rest. But still my blog is unlisted in the index.
I saw Govar's blog listed in both Google and Yahoo search index. Kudos to him. Owners Pride and Neightbours Envy!
Gmail Notifier
All of a sudden, Gmail Notifier (ver 0.4.2) extension for firefox stopped working for me. It is a handy extension that enables me to remain logged in at gmail all through the day. It alerts you when there is a new message in your inbox. That way I save a tab in firefox.
Any clues how to get it back to work. The error message shown is "Failed to log in. Pls verify the username and passwd". But I am able to login to gmail using the gmail webpage.
Update:
There is a workaround available. Gmail has changed its address from gmail.google.com to mail.google.com.
Check the extension webpage here.
Any clues how to get it back to work. The error message shown is "Failed to log in. Pls verify the username and passwd". But I am able to login to gmail using the gmail webpage.
Update:
There is a workaround available. Gmail has changed its address from gmail.google.com to mail.google.com.
Check the extension webpage here.
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Power of hash
For the past two days, I was trying to improve the performance of a piece of code that I wrote, during which I learnt the power of hash in real numbers.
On a high level, the problem is about searching an ordered list of objects to figure out the position of the given input object in the list. There is no bounds on the number of objects stored in the list and also on the number of input objects. If the given input object is not found in the list, it also possible that given input object might be subset of any of the objects stored in the list. I was doing a linear search on the list (provided by the Java Collections API) which has a time complexity of O(n).
Profiling the code indicated the bottleneck and I was able to figure out the floppy logic. First I was using 'contains' API to check whether the given input object is found as such in the list and if found I use 'indexof' API to retrieve the location in the list. Thus both the operations were O(n). I updated the code and was able to cut down the time by 50%.
With this fix in place, still the performance was no where near what I targeted. A deep look at the problem revealed that for given 'n' input objects the time complexity of the linear search would result in O(n^2). After pondering a while on the plausible resolutions, I decided to change the data structure from ordered list to hashtable. In the hashtable the key being the object and value being the order that I need to generate. This improved the performance by leaps and bounds.
The following metric should reveal the power of hash in real numbers
No of objects in List: 10000
No of Input objects: 10000
Linear search timings: 255 secs
Hash based search: 25 secs
On a high level, the problem is about searching an ordered list of objects to figure out the position of the given input object in the list. There is no bounds on the number of objects stored in the list and also on the number of input objects. If the given input object is not found in the list, it also possible that given input object might be subset of any of the objects stored in the list. I was doing a linear search on the list (provided by the Java Collections API) which has a time complexity of O(n).
Profiling the code indicated the bottleneck and I was able to figure out the floppy logic. First I was using 'contains' API to check whether the given input object is found as such in the list and if found I use 'indexof' API to retrieve the location in the list. Thus both the operations were O(n). I updated the code and was able to cut down the time by 50%.
With this fix in place, still the performance was no where near what I targeted. A deep look at the problem revealed that for given 'n' input objects the time complexity of the linear search would result in O(n^2). After pondering a while on the plausible resolutions, I decided to change the data structure from ordered list to hashtable. In the hashtable the key being the object and value being the order that I need to generate. This improved the performance by leaps and bounds.
The following metric should reveal the power of hash in real numbers
No of objects in List: 10000
No of Input objects: 10000
Linear search timings: 255 secs
Hash based search: 25 secs
Thursday, June 16, 2005
JS/UIX
JS/UIX is an UN*X-like OS for standard web-browsers, written entirely in JavaScript (no plug-ins used). It comprises a virtual machine, shell, virtual file-system, process-management, and brings its own terminal with screen- and keyboard-mapping.
http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/
http://www.masswerk.at/jsuix/
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Thunderbird
I migrated to Thunderbird email client today!
The verdict is that I did not feel appealing or awesome immediately. The reason I guess is that from where I got migrated.
I was using NS Communicator 7.02 previously and almost all the features that were present in NS is available in Thuderbird. So I guess I could not appreciate the excellence of Thuderbird immediately. Hoping that in the long run, Thunderbird would be my prefered email client.
The compelling reasons for the switch from NS is
The verdict is that I did not feel appealing or awesome immediately. The reason I guess is that from where I got migrated.
I was using NS Communicator 7.02 previously and almost all the features that were present in NS is available in Thuderbird. So I guess I could not appreciate the excellence of Thuderbird immediately. Hoping that in the long run, Thunderbird would be my prefered email client.
The compelling reasons for the switch from NS is
- Close association of Thunderbird to Firefox
- Large memory footprint of NS (annoying)
- Email composer is not that keyboard friendly
- Email Composer lacks complete support for table (advanced options) and other complex formatting
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Google Page Rank
The following link contains details about the google page ranking strategy and how they distinguish legitimate websites from spaming websites.
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-10-2005-71368.asp
This page also contains links to other google related topics.
http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/6-10-2005-71368.asp
This page also contains links to other google related topics.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Handy Features - Titbits
These are nice handy features
In Firefox, go to address box and type more than one word separated by spaces and enter. Firefox will automatically search the string using google and shows the first hit of the search result (I'm feeling lucky option). You can get to address bar using F6 key.
In bloglines, go to a feed that you have subscribed. On the top of the page, you get to see the number of subscribers of that feed. Click the link to get all the public subscribers.
In Firefox, go to address box and type more than one word separated by spaces and enter. Firefox will automatically search the string using google and shows the first hit of the search result (I'm feeling lucky option). You can get to address bar using F6 key.
In bloglines, go to a feed that you have subscribed. On the top of the page, you get to see the number of subscribers of that feed. Click the link to get all the public subscribers.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Jungle Look
http://www.thejunglelook.com
Came across this excellent site, refered by Chandan. The photos are exceptionally well shot. Clarity and focus is amazing. These photos thrashed my (bad) ideology that such good photos could be shot only abroad, as they maintain nature in a better state than us.
Came across this excellent site, refered by Chandan. The photos are exceptionally well shot. Clarity and focus is amazing. These photos thrashed my (bad) ideology that such good photos could be shot only abroad, as they maintain nature in a better state than us.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Apple shifting to Intel chips
This news is the latest buzz in the tech sector. Until now, I just under-estimated the significance of this news which was leaked a couple of days back before the official announcement by Steve Jobs in Apple Developers conference in SanFranscisco.
More details at CNET news.com site.
Link to Scobleizer's blog post on this news.
More details at CNET news.com site.
Link to Scobleizer's blog post on this news.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Shanmugha college alumini profile exposed
I was browsing through web to collect details about Shanmugha college. First of all the website was down. Shanmugha college is a part of sastra, which is a deemed university. It is really a bad example to take the website down at the crucial time of admissions. I feel more and more people are nowadays turning towards web to collect info about the college for which they would like to apply. The absence of apt information in the website really upsets a lot of people.
While continuing browsing, I got a link to SASTRA alumini network. I casually browsed through the site to check whether there are any other Shanmugha sites that I could use in the mean while. Secondly to check any available comments or feedbacks about the college. I was surprised to see all the alumni profiles exposed freely. The site requires a login and the guest login and password are supplied freely. You can get 684 profiles of students who have enrolled in the alumini site. You have a chance to get their full name, reg no, DOB, photo, email id, phone number, blood group, their current positions, etc. It is all exposed.
I remember a similar breach that happened recently with the stanford campus network, where info pertaining to students were exposed by a hacker. The university profusely apologized for the breach and took systems down to curtail the leak. It even promised to investigate further to prevent such future occurances. I guess, FBI were also involved in the investigation. See the personal info is given higher value in West, where as such info is freely available over here, without any hack. Will somebody act on this?
While continuing browsing, I got a link to SASTRA alumini network. I casually browsed through the site to check whether there are any other Shanmugha sites that I could use in the mean while. Secondly to check any available comments or feedbacks about the college. I was surprised to see all the alumni profiles exposed freely. The site requires a login and the guest login and password are supplied freely. You can get 684 profiles of students who have enrolled in the alumini site. You have a chance to get their full name, reg no, DOB, photo, email id, phone number, blood group, their current positions, etc. It is all exposed.
I remember a similar breach that happened recently with the stanford campus network, where info pertaining to students were exposed by a hacker. The university profusely apologized for the breach and took systems down to curtail the leak. It even promised to investigate further to prevent such future occurances. I guess, FBI were also involved in the investigation. See the personal info is given higher value in West, where as such info is freely available over here, without any hack. Will somebody act on this?
Over the weekend
watched "Kana Kanden" movie and did a short trip to Nandi Hills on Sunday. The details of trip and photos are there in my travel log blog.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Summer of code: Google's philanthropic hand to studs
Studs who are enrolled in the colleges should feel elited. Google has stepped up its philanthropic deed once again. It is now easy to get a summer internship. They are coordinating with lot of Open source projects who mentor the studs and their summer project. You get a chance to work on a real world project and feel happy to get an awesome stipend in USD.
More details at Code @ Google
More details at Code @ Google
XML file format for Office
MS Office (Excel, Powerpoint and Word) will be supporting xml-based file format. This is a radical move by MS from its traditional binary file format. Last time when they upgraded the binary file format without backward compatability, there were lot of compliance issues between users having various versions. The open source based format is welcome move.
More details from CNET page.
More details from CNET page.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)