Coding Standards

I am a big fan of coding standards. I get jitters when the conventions are grossly violated. It really hampers the understandability.

Most developers are either lazy or does not have the diligence to appreciate the advantages of following the coding conventions. It is really good that the contemporary IDEs has come up with the automatic code formatters to lend a helping hand.

For the past couple of days I had been working with a peer in a piece of coding. I could see how the absence of coding standard hampers understanding and impacts productivity.

A better way to spend lazy Sunday morning

It is always interesting when you hack around something. BSNL DataOne has a scheme by which anything downloaded between 2 am to 8 am is unaccountable. This scheme helps you to get some really heavy downloads from the net. It is pretty easy when you just need to schedule some download in that time. But the hiccup is that the router session should begin after 2 am.

So myself and Gops came with the idea of hacking this up. Gops knew that router CLI interface has option to restart the session. We wrote a simple perl script which connects to the router CLI telnet interface and restarts the session. We used Windows Task Scheduler to run this script after 2 am. The happy download hours are back in our control now.

Sharing of Contacts across multiple phones

There are various web services like Plaxo that help you to organize your contacts. These web services will allow you to import, export and maintain your contacts. They also allow interoperability/sync-up across various Email clients or Address Book softwares. But I doubt whether you have some service by which you can share your phonebook across multiple phones.

It would be a nice service to build up so that you can keep your phones books in sync if you use multiple phones. And in this time I see multiple phones is not a remote possibility. For instance I have a mobile phone and a LG Wireless phone (for landline). Both of these phones support PhoneBook feature. But there is no interoperability between these phones. So I will not see my contacts in one phone in another.

As a first cut thought, the phonebook contact should have a standard industry agreed format. All the phones should support that format. Then build a common service which can be accessed by any phone service provider. Keep your phonebook in your phone in sync with your account in the server.

ERO100

ERO100 is a quiet innovative service by the TamilNadu State Transport Corporation(Erode). There are umpteen number of buses that ply between Erode and Coimbatore. The distance between the two places is 100kms and it generally takes more than 2 hrs to reach the other destination. Thus the average speed is around 50 km/hr.

ERO100 is a non-stop service between Erode and Coimbatore run by the state transport corporation buses that reaches the destination in 100 mins. Avg speed equates to around 60 km/hr and it is a hassle free travel. Prior to this service, there were Point-to-Point services (PP) which on contrary had stops in almost all the points between the cities. At the least ERO100 lives up to its name now!

Mobile Nonsense

It is a lame title for this post.

Everyone knows that mobile penetration is very high in India and every other individual is trying to possess one sooner than later. But at the same time the mobile usage sense among people is in abyss. The other day I was travelling to Coimbatore from Erode in a bus. The travelling time is around 120 mins. More than 50% of the occupants in the bus should have possessed a mobile phone. And every other minute there was a call. I ended up hearing at least 30 different ring tones (all popular songs tunes in Tamil) all screaming at all possible volume.

Shouldn't people consider putting their mobile in vibration mode while in public places. This way they will not end up disturbing others.

Currency Notes

How long has it been since you counted currency notes in a pack?

I do not have an answer when I counted a pack last time. Most of us have started using online transactions say it for bill payment or account to account transfer. With credit cards being prevalent most of us hardly carry any cash these days for shopping. But the scene is not same in smaller towns in India. Hard cash is used in every transacation and monotonous counting still needs to be done.

Bangalore Weather

Temperature during summer in Bangalore has been scoring high in the recent years. Over the past four years of stay in Bangalore I haven't seen such horrible sweltering summer. Adding to it, the temperature controlled office space makes us much more less adaptable to heat. This weekend during most part of the day, I survived the heat with liquid foods like butter milk.

Maximum Temperature(Deg C) 34.9
Departure from Normal (Deg C) +2

An increase of 2 degrees from normal indicates where we are heading to.

Bangalore traffic update

Bangalore traffic woes are scoring new heights this week. Particularly the Airport Rd and MG Rd users has suffered major brunt because of VVIPs hitting the road during peak hours.

Here is a humble request to VVIPs. Please do not block traffic and make commoners suffer. probably if you travel once in the peak hour traffic in bangalore, I guess no VVIP would turn back again to bangalore. TOI reported that it nearly took 1 hour to cross the section of Indira Nagar, Domulur and Airport Rd junction yesterday. And believe me it is no exaggeration.

Choices

(In philosophy)
It is not just in Matrix that Neo, "The One" has the choice, every other move you make in life has choices. Choosing the right one gives you the taste of success.

Organization Phrases/Jargons

Different organizations use different set of jargons/phrases in their own terms. The following are the some that I have recently come across

1. Touch base with -- to check out what is recent or get the latest update
2. statying on top -- to get it done with top priority