thiya.blog

thiya.blog has moved to the base website!

2007-03-28T13:32:00.000+05:30

thiya.blog has moved to the root URL, thiya.net and will be accessible there now on. I have migrated the blogging application to WordPress and am in the process of porting all the old posts to Wordpress.

Please continue to view my blog at thiya.net and I apologise for any inconvenience caused. This blog will be eventually replaced and removed and hence I request you to update your bookmarks too!

Thank you!!

Even aliens prefer firefox! :-P

2006-12-04T20:16:00.000+05:30

I came across this page which shows a Crop Circle that some Oregon State University students and some local firefox fans from Dallas have created sometime in August this year! This crop circle is visible from space and Google Earth has also picked it up!! Find it out on Google Maps here!

Coimbatore!! Here I come!!!

2006-11-30T19:42:00.000+05:30

Atlast I am starting to my home after more than a month!! :-) Will be boarding a bus to take me to Coimbatore by tomorrow morning!! I am coming there to attend a wedding of one of the best staff who had taught me back at College!! Feeling great!!!! :-)

This is hilarious!

2006-11-09T17:08:00.000+05:30

Check out this faux website that talks about apparently "MS Firefox" and a takeover of Firefox by Microsoft!! Its hilarous.. Though News sites talk about the site disappearing, Its still there!! Check it out here and here.

Here's an excerpt:

MSFirefox 2007's new TakeOver(TM) technology protects the Windows Kernel by automatically recognizing all McAfee and Symantec programs as viruses. Downloading has never been safer.

He he he! I dont know how this guy(or gal) is still staying online!

Dont bother searching for Nemo

2006-11-03T14:24:00.000+05:30

If current trends continue, Its curtains for sea-fish by 2050 according to research performed by leading researchers and published in the journal Science.

There will be virtually nothing left to fish from the seas by the middle of the century if current trends continue, according to a major scientific study.

Fishing bans and other regulations that prevent over-fishing are the only things that can prevent this decline. But there are a lot of other factors, including political, that is preventing this from happening.

Protecting stocks demands the political will to act on scientific advice - something which Boris Worm finds lacking in Europe, where politicians have ignored recommendations to halt the iconic North Sea cod fishery year after year. Without a ban, scientists fear the North Sea stocks could follow the Grand Banks cod of eastern Canada into apparently terminal decline. "I'm just amazed, it's very irrational," he said. "You have scientific consensus and nothing moves. It's a sad example; and what happened in Canada should be such a warning, because now it's collapsed it's not coming back."

From The BBC.

Orkut improves functionality!

2006-10-31T19:17:00.000+05:30

Though I had openly voiced my dislike towards Orkut's unintended non-functionality, Orkut has finally given in to feedback from users I guess to include a "Reply" feature in each scrap! I had personally given this feedback quite a while ago and I guess a lot of others had done the same too!!

Now this is cool! You dont have to waste a lot of time just to reply to a 'scrap'! Just click on "reply" at the bottom of a scrap you have received to open up a "Reply-box"!

Pretty cool! :-) Now it isnt a pain to reply to scraps!

Firefox 2 has been released!!

2006-10-25T16:05:00.000+05:30

The Award Winning Browser just got re-incarnated! Spell Checking is a cool feature that has been added in addition to the loads of other features like Tabbed Browsing, Pop-up blocker etc!!

Download and check it out for yourself if you still havent tried it out!

Portable Anonymous Browsing

2006-09-22T17:34:00.000+05:30

Download Torpark and browse the internet anonymously by connecting via the TOR Network. Your true IP address is not displayed to the server.

Its based on the portable version of Firefox and can be run from a USB Drive without any traces of installation on the system where you intend to run it on. Regarding privacy at the exit servers, I could not come up with information on that at the site. Except that the Creator, Steve Topletz supports privacy!

And yeah, its free. :-) Download it from here.

Lazy

2006-09-20T16:59:00.000+05:30

That is precisely what I am. Its been close to a month in the Corporate World. I am getting a grip on the way of life here. Kinda settled down for the time being. I have not yet been fully incorporated into the project that I have been assigned to, a lot of training sessions are still going on, but I strangely felt lazy to update my blog even though I had quite some free time left. Lethargy is having me for lunch.

I have settled down at my residence with more than two months having passed since I came out of the confines of my house, my parents, my sister and my(unofficial) kitten. Had to buy supplies that had gotten over. Finally I am beginning to know that maintaining a house is really no easy task. Hats off to you mom(and a little, to you sis!).

One thing I have noted is that I am beginning to find people familiar even if I have never met them before in my life! When I was in school, I could place anybody I had met before at the location I had met them, the circumstances etc. But as time passed by and I made more contacts and moved to more places, College, Small organisations etc., I am beginning to face difficulties in ascertaining the initial meetings that I may have had with people. And one strange off-shoot to this is finding people familiar!! Whew!!

I bought a TVS Bike to carry me along the roads of Bangalore, my First love (Bike only! Dont scream Maddy!)which is still at home, with my dad having taken over its control.

Other than that, I am still the same guy, albeit a bit more lazier than what I was. :-/

PS:- Now, after beginning to 'work', I really appreciate people like Jax, Mahendran, Kishore and all the others who maintain great blogs even with all the work that may come across their way!

Enlightenment

2006-08-24T12:21:00.000+05:30

Two days earlier, I went home from work, The previous night I had washed all my clothes and hung them up to dry, on the second floor. All the clothes were dry, but a gap broke the peaceful row of clothes on the clothesline where a very good shirt was. I assumed my friend would have taken it and kept it inside.

It was only yesterday evening it dawned to me that the shirt will not be found in my premises again. It was stolen! It was a good-looking shirt and I was flustered. When I told this incident to my friend who has been residing here at Bangalore for quite some time, his reply was

"Welcome to Bangalore!!" :-/

Life @ Bangalore

2006-08-22T13:38:00.000+05:30

No.. That's not an incomplete email address.. :-P

Now that I have started working, the things that need to be worked out are my day to day activities! My part-time Masters programme in Computer Science and Engineering will be beginning shortly and the only day I'll be free(thankfully) is Sunday! But, come Sunday and I take the form of a ghastly human washing machine, Washing all my clothes that I had worn the previous week which takes away the better part of the day. Aaargh! I have contacted a maid who was willing to take up the washing job shortly, So I'll be having time to spend around with other activities like Programming and Music!

I am planning to take up guitar classes though I have to fully settle down here at Bangalore! It has always been my dream of being able to play the guitar, if not the likes of the greats, atleast something that is pleasing to the ear on rainy days. I learnt to play the trumpet and the cornet during my stint at my school's music troupe. I'll try to find some good maestro here!

Right now, I have to decide on the right career path that I'll have to take to pursue my interests, and generalising that is something that I dread. I have to decide on what exactly I have to do in order to be where I belong.

Time can tell.

Coimbatore was better!

2006-07-30T20:31:00.000+05:30

In some ways, I feel Coimbatore is a lot better when compared to Bangalore. But the reassuring thing is, there are quite a lot of people who are willing to help! Lost your way, ask someone! If you ask a few people, chances are highly likely that you would come across a person speaking your own language in addition to the regulars like Hindi and English! And people help us out by giving complete directions! I know this is quite contradictory to my previous post, :-P But almost six out of ten people I ask for directions are either new to the place or have directions only to reach their own places!! Ha ha ha! :-)

Another crazy thing which I guess is improving is that the place names are not written in English in the buses that ply around Bangalore, leave alone for the 'Volvo' buses. But the situation is improving with ordinary buses getting those stylish LED displays!

So, gotta start for home! Tata for now..

All roads lead to roam

2006-07-29T18:46:00.000+05:30

Without a bike and without proper directions, its walk walk walk all the way criss-crossing small parts of Bangalore!!!

Its been quite a while since I got my hands on an internet enabled system and the time to access my blog! Life without internet is getting on my nerves!

I landed here at Bangalore on the 16th of June and have been going through the phase of change.. I am so homesick that I want to go back home.. Its like all of this is just a small vacation and that I would be going back home soon, but the fact remains that I have finally become a professional and I have to get used to living alone. Yeah, with friends.. But the atmosphere that existed at home no longer exists. I am almost getting done with the formal induction at the company I have joined. Yet to get some hands on experience though.

So, thats it for now.. Am living in a rented apartment with one of my friends along for company. I dont have a clue of where I'll be posted after my training. It would be three cheers if it is somewhere near the place where I stay! Lets hope for the best!!

WARNING: Disgusting stuff ahead!
There's one disgusting thing I do not like about the place here at Bangalore. People spit almost on all possible places! I mean all!! I was in this well-known hotel as part of my induction and people had spat on the corners of the AC conference hall.. Aaaaah! You need to watch your step when you are walking on the road to avoid well.. Lets leave this for now...

I am literally going crazy without Internet. I am planning to get a broadband connection as soon as my location is finalised and I am sure of the place where I stay. Until then, its just those stolen moments every now and then when I take the slightest opportunity to post an entry, as I did now! :-)

Two days and counting

2006-07-14T01:08:00.000+05:30

I'll be on my way to Bangalore in two days. I have begun to think over the various things that I would have overlooked or taken for granted back here at HOME!!

There are quite a lot of things that I can think off! I have to wash my own clothes, sweep the house, clean everything, get food ready. I cant expect to wake up in the middle of the night and expect something to be there to gobble if something wasnt kept ready already in cold storage! I have never thought of all of this when I am at home. But now, that I have to let go of these luxuries and begin my new life there, I must rethink everything! Get ready for come-what-may!

Staying away from home for the first time, I must get through this difficult time without any kind of home-sickness on the long run. The time has come for me to fly, to be free, to be more responsible. There is a 'first time' for everything and I hope this would be filled with happy moments!

Free E-books

2006-07-11T00:57:00.000+05:30

R. Prabhu brought to my notice about the World Ebook Fair that is giving free access of its ebooks to the public from July 4th to August 4th, on occasion of Project Gutenberg's 35th Birthday!

Project Gutenberg is the oldest producer of free ebooks on the Internet. There are quite a lot of free ebooks that can be downloaded from there. Visit www.worldebookfair.com to download them! Enjoy! Support them too!

To the moon and back

2006-07-07T23:59:00.000+05:30

Well, it almost seemed like one!

I was on an offhand trip to Bangalore last Tuesday! I left by the Intercity and after a what-seemed-like-a-never-ending journey, finally reached Bangalore! The main reason for me to go there for such a short trip was to get accustomed a bit to the locality where I'll stay at, so as to make my next arrival with dad a bit easier and also to carry some heavy stuff here. My friend Ashakir caught me at the station, took me home, had a late dinner and slept nicely!

The next day, he left for college and me being alone, started on foot to explore. I kept looking for landmarks as I trudged on, after a point of no return, I guessed I was almost a semi-circle from the place where I started and decided to make it a full normal circle! And without knowing what I had in store, trotted off again and finally, I guessed right and reached the place, by now my legs were aching real bad. I got myself a phone number for use at Bangalore and went back home and slept after a small dinner.

My friend came back later than he was supposed to and we started hastily to his Uncle's place where he was to pick some stuff, He was coming with me on the way back! We just made it on time to the station to catch the 10:05 Kurla Express when we realised that the train was delayed by over seven hours and was expected to arrive by 4:55 AM. This due to the incessant rains at Mumbai, the starting point of this train! After a few thoughts, we decided to go back to his uncle's place and watch Portugal vs France. But considering the places we roamed earlier, it was tiring and both of us were dozing in no time

Then we woke up around 3:30 AM, got ready and came back to the Railway Station, and to our dismay, noted that the train would arrive at 6:25 AM. We waited in the lounge, along with some others. The time was updated again and the train arrived at last at 6:45. We boarded it and it started around 7:30AM. Whew! I reached Coimbatore at 2:30 PM.

Home sweet home at last!

Today, I went shopping in the evening and got myself some formals, something which I dont possess now! Gave it to a good tailor and my tummy has grown too, I need to exercise! I have a little more that a week to start for the next state of my life. To take up my job! Boy ain't I excited!

High School Reunion!

2006-07-03T22:48:00.000+05:30

Thankfully, we ended our high school reunion as originally planned on a high note! Though some guys boycotted the event with no reason at all, who cares anyway, they have lost a valuable opportunity to be with their pals from yester years. It is very unlikely for anybody to take the efforts that I, Prashanth and Arjun took to conduct this wonderful party. So, even if they are willing to come next year, it may not happen, God forbid!! If only I am in Coimbatore next time around, I would do my best to bring everybody together as I always do! The responsibility has fallen on my shoulders, whether I like it or not. And I'm not complaining!

We had ordered for more plates at the buffet at Hotel Mangala International than there were people present and ended up paying close to a thousand bucks more by pooling all what we had! Luckily we had some money to spare. Many idiots who had promised to come didnt turn up! :-( And our efforts to contact them at the last moment turned on deaf ears.

We had a blast of a time, a wholesome dinner, lots of laughs and we all took a lot more photographs than last year. Then after everything was over and each one had spoken a bit, a guy said "Ok, lets start!", But all the other guys were still seated, wondering what to do and it appeared they were reluctant to leave.. I'll miss all you guys.. Altogether, we had a nice time together and went home with memories to share! Hope we do a similar party next year...

The Weird Side of me!

2006-06-30T00:54:00.000+05:30

I was tagged by Mahen, who has written some weird facts about him.
Now I have to write six properties or acts of me that might seem strange and weird to others! So here we go!!

My mom still hand-feeds me if I am at home!
I cry easily when I miss someone. I think this is weird for a guy! Never seen other guys cry
If I find something amusing or funny, I laugh out loud almost instantaneously!! I dont seem to have any control over my laughter!! I remember one moment in my class when the whole class was silent and I burst out laughing loud and everyone turned and stared at me.. I just reduced my laughter sheepishly and turned red! :-D
I'll keep staring and meddling my mobile even if I do not receive anything!! I just keep doing something on it.. Go in and out of menu items... Drives my best friend mad!
I am terribly afraid of trains, I dont mind travelling in them, but when a train starts moving on the platform, I get very anxious whether or not I am travelling on the train! My knees start shaking, my heart starts racing!! If I have come to see off a person.. I ask them to stand on the train and speak, so that if the train starts, atleast they can go with it! Ha ha! I cant figure out why, maybe it was because of an incident in my childhood when my dad hopped aboard a railway engine on the platform and the driver blew the horn, I was 4 years old or so, but my intelligent pals of those years had told me that once the train blows the whistle, it would start and I was afraid of losing my dad!! That has probably manifested into this phobia now!
I start drawing and scribbling on any paper that is near me if I sit still for sometime, or especially if something boring is dragged on in class. I try sketching figures and shapes, and usually write the word "Google" again and again in a particular style, something I cant explain, Maybe I am using the search engine a little too much!

For my turn, I am tagging Persian Humour and Dee. Others are also welcome to write about your weird facts. :-)

My blog featured in a newspaper article!!

2006-06-28T01:27:00.000+05:30

My blog was featured in a Tamil article on blogging and related information in a supplementary page of the Dhinathanthi!! The screen shot of the article is given below,

It reads

Kovaiyai saerndha kaloori maanavar oruvar http://www.thiya.net/blog endra paeril oru blog uruvaki irukirar. Adhil kadandha ayendhu varudangalaga dhinamdhorum thanadhu yennangalai padhivu seidhu varigirar. Atthudan nanbargalin karithukalai arinthukollavum dhinandhorum pudhiya pudhiya seidhigalai veli idugirai.

Which in English literally means

A College student from Coimbatore has created a blog under the name http://www.thiya.net/blog . In that, for the past five years, he has been updating the blog with his thoughts on a daily basis. In addition to that, he posts new items everyday to get to know the opinions of his friends.

Thanks to Thiyagaraj (not me!) for including me in his article. Thanks to Balamuralie and Siva Parkavi who brought the article to my notice! :-)

The only thing I would like to add is, I haven't had this blog for five years, I had a few starts and ends.. But I only started blogging on a regular basis from early 2004 under the guise of Thiyagaraj's Jottings. I moved to blogger sometime in 2004 too, but then after a few ups and downs, I have started to blog here from mid 2005, which is indeed powered by blogger. Thank you for reading people!

Spooky!

2006-06-27T00:28:00.000+05:30

I was reading Xavier's post on What would you be if you weren't in the Information Technology Services Industry?

This set me up thinking. I had been thinking of many ways to drum up money over the days. One was freelancing in web design, something which I am already doing. Another was serving advertisements on pages, and some more were software development, corporate profile designing etc. Now i have begun to notice that all of these are in the IT field and I have never thought of any other revenue generator other than IT!!

Phew!! This set me thinking! I can try my hand at selling stuff, since I talk well, but it will surely take more than that!! I can write something for publications if they are willing to publish and pay me as well.. ;-) I can start my own laundry business!! Hmmm...

I am out of ideas!
So, I am putting the same question as Xavier put in..
What would you be??

Easy million!

2006-06-26T01:16:00.000+05:30

I came across The Million Dollar Webpage again today. It is a totally novel concept of selling pixels to advertisers over a guaranteed five year period and perhaps more which helped the founder of the site, Alex Tew to pay his way through college.

It is kind of interesting to see so many small images advertising and automatically incites us to click on the whacky ones! Looks cluttered, but he's sold out!! At 1$ per pixel, he's already made a cool million!!

I have also come across many copy-cat sites similar to this which aren't popular. On the internet, if one guy (or gal) comes up with an idea, all the others try to ape the same and try to acheive success, sometimes ruining the original business too.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So I think any copy-cat sites will only have pure comedy value, whereas mine possibly has a bit of comedy PLUS some actual pull in terms of advertising dollars (I will be able to afford swanky socks, they will only get to buy crappy ones probably! They could have my old ones, if they like).

Alex Tew in his site's FAQ to the question Are you worried about copy-cats/rip-offs? :-)

Got an original idea? You might just make a million out of it! Good luck!

Orkut sucks!

2006-06-22T23:06:00.000+05:30

Orkut is a good community website alright, but the functionality sucks in a whole variety of ways. There's something called the Scrapbook, which is as the name suggests, Scrap.

It is something which you can write notes and other stuff and post it for others to see and others can write in your scrapbook too, but of late, it has become a convention of sorts to 'scrap someone' as it is called and then, the reply has to be 'scrapped' in the scrapbook of the person initiating the conversation!!

Crap!!

Small messages are good, but people who I believe either do not have any work to do or Google is paying them to scrap, they just start chatting right in the scrapbooks. There is absolutely no privacy, anybody and everybody can track what you are talking with one another. Replying is another pain if you follow the convention of replying in the scrapbook of the person who initiates the conversation. There is no "Reply" option. You have to Click on the person's name, migrate to the person's profile, click on his scrapbook and then scrap!! Crap again!! And there is no way to easily track what you are talking about if a person is late to reply and your original message drowns under newer messages!!

The community feature is another pain. Yeah, Anybody can create communities, but there is no way to search for posts within a community which is not very good news. In a large number of support related communities and other similar communities, people ask you to 'search' for posts before posting a similar one.. And with over a 1000 posts and an even larger number of replies, it isnt easy work and we'll be better off asking someone directly instead of through the community and being at the receiving end of the Orkut Experts who can somehow search for entries magically(as they ask you to do).

Orkut is good at networking friends and having contacts, but other than that, it sucks bigtime. I do occasionally hangout there, but everything for courtesy's sake to reply to people who 'scrap' me and to prevent myself from going to the dumps by not replying to friend requests. Eventually.

Searching for a place to live!

2006-06-19T23:34:00.000+05:30

My friend Vignesh set off on a quest to find us a decent place to live in that wouldn't be too far from our workplace at Bangalore. Due to some illogical reasons, I was unable to accompany him to the same. He went to a few places and was almost contented with a house which had a small hall and two small bedrooms. This would be more than enough for the two of us, but he wasn't contented and set off again.

He hasn't had any luck today and is on his way back. Think I'll have to go with him the second time and see if the previous house I was talking about is still available and maybe finalise the deal. I need a place to stay and I need it soon.

People from Bangalore, Any peaceful-residential locality-near Bannergetta road at Bangalore? Hope I am not asking for too much.. :-D

Create mobile picture messages to be sent through SMS easily!!

2006-06-17T00:16:00.000+05:30

I came across this nifty utility for converting conventional image files to the OTA format to be sent as picture messages using your mobile phone. The source code and the binary for the same can be found at The Code Project. Since zipped files are only available for download to registered users(free) of the Code Project, I am uploading it to my own server for your convenience, Instructions to use follow below.

The source code and binary available here were developed by Alireza Naghizadeh and are available for free download here. All copyrights for the below two files rest with Alireza Naghizadeh.

OTA Converter Source 5.79 KB
OTA Converter Binary 4.58 KB
(Ready to Use, Requires .NET framework, WinXP ready)

The interface is very minimalist with only one option as shown below,

All you have to do is, drag your black and white image of dimensions 72 pixels Width X 28 pixels Height (The standard size of SMS Picture messages) into this tiny window, Here you can see that I have dragged a small logo into the utility.

Works best when the image is 72px by 28px and in the .bmp format and has only black or white pixels. You can draw using MSPaint too.

When you click on Convert, it'll prompt you with a dialog box to store the resulting file as an OTA picture file with the .ota extension occupying 256 bytes. You can transfer these .ota files to your mobile and then sms your friends with your custom picture messages messages!!

This application is not good at converting grayscale images, but you can create bitmap images having only black and white and use this to convert to the .ota format.

You can also get hundreds of preview images of picture messages online which you can convert to the .ota format without paying a penny! ;-) ;-)

Some cool free preview images can be found at the Moby Project. Just save all the pictures that you like from the site, download the OTA Converter Binary, Drag your selected pics into the application, convert it to the .ota format, transfer to your mobile and message your friends! Save money by not paying premium rates for direct mobile downloads! Enjoy!

Monopoly sucks

2006-06-16T00:19:00.000+05:30

With the Football World Cup fever at its peak, I consider myself lucky that my Cable TV provider, SCV, has decided to air ESPN on which the matches are shown live. For over two years, some channels were not provided here at Coimbatore since they were pay channels and not everyone was willing to pay for it. And with the absence of Set-top boxes, we cannot individually ask for the channels to be provided as there was no way for custom downlinks.

I lost two years of Formula 1. Two full seasons since Star Sports, the official broadcaster wasn't provided here. I wasn't interested to follow the happenings online as the thrill of watching a live race is absent. :-(

Ofcourse, it was my mistake of not going in for a Direct-to-home connection like Dish TV.

But anyways, as of now, they are temporarily providing ESPN and I can watch the football matches. Peace. And my dad has announced that we'll be going in for a DTH connection soon. :-D Sadly I'll be far away..

Where is the EXIT?

2006-06-14T20:18:00.000+05:30

I am talking about the almost obsolete floppy disk. I have known it to be one of the most unreliable of digital media that I have personally used.

Right now I am looking after an internet cafe. Sathy, my friend, who owns a browsing centre near my place asked me to take care of his cafe since the usual worker was on a holiday. A customer came along, saved some document in his system and asked me for a diskette to store it on. I turned around to the shelf and took a CD, but he was like "NO! Give me one of those floppy diskettes!" CDs cost lesser than floppies, but maybe this chap did not have a CD drive in his destination or who knows what, he wanted his data in a floppy and I was only too happy to oblige.

I have come across a lot of people who chose to use floppies to CDs even though both cost almost the same and the only drawback in using CDs is that you need a CD writer which is usually not present in systems more than two years old here, unless it had been specially ordered. They usually keep a floppy for a few months and after that, attempt to retrieve the data in them. They would be lucky if it was intact.

The year was 2003. I was in the twelfth standard in my school and it was the time of the year when we have the customary farewell. I had planned some cartoons and animations to be displayed on a LCD projector and had painstakingly designed some cartoons and other stuff to go in hand with some of the onstage events. I stored the same in TEN floppies, with separate archives for each file and each floppy had two copies of the same data. And with the function about to start in ten minutes, I inserted the floppies, one after the another and you know what happened...

All ten failed.

Damn.

I did not know the reason, maybe I accidentally brought it near some magnetic material, but I was so annoyed that I tore each one down and threw it in disgust. I managed to run the show with some on-the-spot crappy looking development(The original system was in my cousin's place some 18 kms away so couldn't take an immediate backup :-( anyway)

I haven't used a floppy since. I am always amused to find people still using them and throwing up their arms in disgust if it fails on them! But they still keep using them, but floppies are definitely on their way out now! Good bye good ol' Floppy Disk!

Get-together '06

2006-06-12T00:29:00.000+05:30

I have informed most of my batch mates from my school about our annual get-together. The response wasnt as usual, not many responded, but having taken up the responsibility indirectly of getting everyone together, everyone expects me to contact everyone and make arrangements and I would be happy to do so, but I am not sure about the next year... All the other guys have one more year to study while my college life is over and I have to take my new responsibility at my workplace and I am not sure about my availability one year from now,

So the plans next year, only time can tell...

Watch out for that Fireball!!

2006-06-09T00:28:00.000+05:30

I was wasting my time over at Google Mars when I recollected the famous "Face on Mars". It attracted huge attention in 1976 when it was made public and which was put to rest in 2001 after more detailed photographs were published by the Mars Global Surveyor Spacecraft that it was just a plain landform, though the original caption explained it in plain terms that "is formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth."

I was lead to the photographs site where a 3D photo of the Face of Mars was given with instructions on how to view it in 3D,by means of a special eye glass, I immediately remembered the movie "My Dear Kutti Chaatan", a 3D movie in which we wore glasses to see the movie and had always wondered how it worked!! I immediately searched for it and was led to HowStuffWorks.

The technology used is really simple, it just makes one eye see a part of the image(which the other eye cant) and the other eye to see another part. The brain merges both and you get the illusion of a 3D image!! The simplest form in which this can be acheived is by having a red filter in one and a blue in the other, thus seeing only red in one eye and blue in the other, But modern 3d glasses use polarisation for better results and full colour!! It simple alright, but who would have thought of it?!! Hats off to the guy who invented(or discovered) it!!

Nuts!!

2006-06-06T16:50:00.000+05:30

All along, I had been waiting impatiently for my call letter from my prospective employer! And I received it too - July 18th is the day!

And now, I am wishing that it could have come a little later!! I want to spend some more days here!! I am nuts! Nuts I am!!

Palani - A holy city

2006-06-02T23:49:00.000+05:30

Yesterday, I was on a trip to Palani, the holy city with my Parents and my sister to offer prayers at the Temple there. The company for which my dad works has been commissioned to make the guard rails and other crowd controls made of stainless steel and my dad had to go there to check if things were fine.

We started from home around 6:00 AM for the three hour or so journey to the city, reached there around 10 and proceeded to have breakfast. Then we made our way to the winch or rope car as it is called here and were disappointed to hear that two cars weren't functioning and the available one would take two hours till the next trip began.

So, we decided to walk and trotted on to the entrance(the Winch entrance is quite some distance from the main adivaram or foothills). My father and mother had some difficulties climbing the steps to the top, but eventually we made it, Mom struggled a lot though. There are no other ways to the top, only by the stairs and the rope cars/train which weren't functioning sadly.

The Gold-plated Spire of the Palani Murugan Temple

We waited for our turn, and then had a good darshan, offered our prayers, had lunch at the temple and then we returned the same way, and were home by the evening. I was ok till evening, but now, I have cramps in my legs!! But it was worth the climb!!

May 31st

2006-05-31T23:23:00.000+05:30

Today, one of my friends who had been recently inducted in a company got her first salary and she was very excited about the whole thing! I cant wait to get my first salary too!! The first fast bucks in our hands, which we can spend or save or do anything that pleases us!! But I guess it makes us feel more responsible the moment we get some responsibility such as accountability of money!

Now, after getting their own salaries, people should begin to understand the true meaning of hard earned money, where each rupee spent is properly planned and executed. I got my first money when I started professional web development freelancing way back when I was in the eleventh standard when I designed a website for a school called Geetanjali Matric. The order was an outsourced one and I had received seven hundred and fifty as an advance payment!! My joy knew no bounds when I took the money home and gave it to my mom - "Keep this for your expenses!"

She refused to take it, but I cannot forget all the times when she spoke with relatives and other well-wishers when they came home or over the phone of how her little boy had started helping out with some money!

Now, five years and dozens of projects later, I doubt that I would have the same excitement when I receive my first salary, though it would be just as special!

The Right to get a reply????

2006-05-29T22:27:00.000+05:30

One of my juniors had mailed me about four times and seeing that he hadnt obtained a reply(within an hour) immediately took to my blog, commenting in it and asking me whether I "dont receive any email" and that he was waiting for my reply and that he had mailed me four times(some duplicate mail since he did not get a reply).

Is it an obligation to respond on time to email received? Email is something that just makes communication a whole lot faster and easier. But when you possess a personal email and somebody emails you, I know it would only be polite if you replied, but if it was someone whom you dont remember meeting and he/she was asking some questions irrelevant and not logical to you, would it be an obligation to reply??

Is anybody paying me to do that??? Hrrmmph! Somebody ought to teach him to be polite.
I can just tell balls to you and continue with my work, but I know better to be polite. These days, people need a lot to learn.

One of the things he wanted to know was whether I was the first mark in my class and he wanted to satisfy himself that I wasn't! Who cares more anyway!!!

Results out!

2006-05-29T00:38:00.000+05:30

The results were out two days ago and I didn't fare bad! Mailed my result details to my prospective employer and hoping that I would get a favourable reply from them. It was raining all afternoon, drizzling rather, and the weather was very pleasant compared to the days running up to today when the days were blazing hot! Better days now, and more than that, most of my classmates have cleared their exams too.

The days are rushing by and I have all but a few days to spend here at Coimbatore. I must make the time here worthwhile!! Hmmm..

Cricket after a long time!

2006-05-25T23:56:00.000+05:30

I was just relaxing back home in the late afternoon and planning to take a nap when Ashakir and the other guys called me and asked me to come over to Anvar's house immediately as all were there. I reluctantly got ready since I wanted some sleep, the weather was cloudy and nice and just as soon as I started on my two wheeler, it began to drizzle!! I thought of turning back, but since it was windy, I figured the rain would abate soon. But it didn't and by the time I reached the place, I was soaking wet! But my back was dry! Made me think of day and night on earth! Ha ha!

Then these guys were all laughs at seeing my predicament. Then they suggested that we play a game of cricket in the parking lot of Anvar's place that was big enough to play a decent game. It was still drizzling, but by the time we had the stumps up, it had stopped and the sun showed up brilliant than ever! We had quite a nice time making fun of Anvar who was the butt of all jokes that we made! Then we decided to have a snack outside and also to have a "Gola" which is a slush, made from crushed ice and topped with some essence and some spices and condiments, with a stick to hold it as we relish its tasty goodness!! My mouth is waterings as I type!! You should try it out some day. We had some snacks and then, we decided to book tickets for a movie, Pudhupettai which was releasing tomorrow. We reached the place after a small hiatus on the road and we were disappointed to know that only second class tickets was available, but considering the small size of the Senthil-Kumaran theatre, it wouldn't make much of a difference!!

But by the time we responded, even those tickets were sold out! Drat! We aren't exactly great fans of Dhanush, the protagonist in the movie, we just wanted to spend some time tomorrow when it will get so boring in the afternoon. Then we started again to have our delectable "Gola"

But surprises of surprises, the Gola Guy wasnt there!! He is a small vendor at the side of an eatery who was missing now! It has been quite some months since we had a Gola there and we had no clue where he was, sadly. Might be he packed up for the day or perhaps moved to a better place, and we returned home, minus our Gola!

The time has arrived!

2006-05-24T12:18:00.000+05:30

News has been out that my college results will be out anytime! Once the results are announced, a company which will become my employer soon will send me their offer letter and pretty soon I'll be headed to Bangalore. Earlier, when classes were still going on, I wished that I should be at home as long as I liked before I left for my job.

But a month after staying at home and doing nothing much productive, and since my sweetheart has left for her job at a place far away from here, my job has become an obsession and I can hardly wait for them to call me and to join there! So much so that I mailed them and asked them when they would be sending anything to me! The person was kind enough to say that he "understood my concern" and that he would mail me the offer soon and not to worry!

I am also in a dilemma, having been placed in two companies and having no clue which to join! There are an equal number of people favouring one to the other and this adds to the headache, of choosing, and hoping that it will be the better of the two!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...
And I am still waiting for directions!!

Any views?

Yahoo Answers, whats all the din about?

2006-05-22T00:19:00.000+05:30

I have noticed that Yahoo has begun advertising Yahoo Answers in a major way with a link or an ad appearing in most of its services like mail, groups etc. What will they get out of it!! I mean what is the use of advertising this service in such a great way!

Flickr, the photo service from Yahoo is good, but I haven't seen a lot of ads for that on the Yahoo Network. But Answers, its nothing to create all the ruckus about! The service is great and interesting, but the users tend to ask stupid and non-sensical questions that may not be of any interest to the third person reading, Ask Yahoo! is a lot better when it comes to gaining some knowledge as the questions are all logical and reasonable instead of nerdy user questions on Ask Yahoo like

wats the average weight for a 15 year old female?
What Do You Like To Add To Ramen Noodles?
how do I make a long distance phone call from Tijuana to Monterrey, Mexico??

A boring way to waste time?? Also, they give you points for answering questions and choosing answers. I admit that I was hooked for about two days when I wanted to be the first one to give reasonable answers to other reasonable questions, but I lost interest pretty fast!! I dont see ads on the pages too, I wonder what Yahoo gets out of this?!

My only question on Yahoo Answers!

The Da Vinci Code Issues!

2006-05-20T00:13:00.000+05:30

The controversial movie, The Da Vinci Code has run into a lot of trouble here in India with representations from Christian groups that the movie offended their faith. They have even demanded that a disclaimer be put up before the movie saying that the movie is a work of fiction and not based on actual events.

Now the point is, they have brought undue attention to this issue and people would very well know of the issues involved when they go to the theatres after the movie premiers. Was it worth the publicity. I personally feel that the movie benefited from all the negative publicity it gathered and hence more people would want to see the movie just to find out in what way the movie offends the faith of the people. People could have just ignored that as a work of fiction, But by voicing their concerns in a big way instead of just boycotting the movie, it is like a negative denial of sorts on their parts of something that is just pure fiction, but something that is needlessly blown out of proportions and as if there was some cover up right through the centuries! This could indeed work against them.

Coldplay - Warning Sign

2006-05-19T01:02:00.000+05:30

A warning sign,
I missed the good part then I realized,
I started looking and the bubble burst.
I started looking for excuses.

Come on in,
I've gotta tell you what state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.

When the truth is,
I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.

A warning sign,
You came back to haunt me and I realized,
That you were an island and I passed you by,
You were an island to discover.

Come on in,
I've gotta tell you what state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.

When the truth is,
I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.

And I'm tired,
I should not have let you go.

So I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms.
And I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms...

Miss you maddy...

Its raining!

2006-05-17T00:09:00.000+05:30

Its raining outside!! Makes me wanna break out in song! :-)

Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in

Moby - Raining Again (Hotel - 2005)

There are a lot of people praying for rain in India and elsewhere, in the recent news and in the past, to help them survive drought or even sustain crops and their livelihood. But, many of the urban people, in the cities and suburbs, though we like rain as a respite from the heat, would curse the rain if they are stuck in a place when it rains and they want to reach someplace elsewhere. Wierd people! Like they say, we realize the importance of something only when we lose it!

Honestly, I like getting wet in the rain, so I wont complain, if you were wondering. :-P

Cut down on mobile phone bills!

2006-05-13T23:41:00.000+05:30

Visit YourBillBuddy.com, a website that helps you choose the best plan from a host of other plans based on your mobile phone usage patterns. Yeah, you have to upload your bills and YourBillBuddy will let you know which plan is appropriate for your usage. It just analyses the number of calls/smses you make/send and selects the plan with the lowest tariff in your network. It supports most of the Networks in India and monitors them too, to track any changes.

I haven't tried it out, because I know to analyse my usage and select my plan myself and I suppose most of you do as well. But it sure is a novelty and may perhaps help some of the 'move-by-the-book' users! But it sure helps if you do not have the time to sort through all the pamphlets looking for the right mobile phone plan when Your Buddy can do it for you! :-P It supports prepaid plans too!

Address Harvesting Scam

2006-05-13T05:19:00.000+05:30

I got an email from a close friend of mine that had the following subject.

Forward this message to any 10 of your friends and you will get free bonuses worth Rs. 5,995/-

The bonuses might have been real, because all the said bonuses were eBooks such as the "Hacker's Black Book", "100 Google Hacks", ".NET codes" etc. and were promised to be sent as soon as the messages were sent.

I guess you are thinking how the person issuing the bonuses can track the forwards being sent. Thats easy if you fall for it, the email goes like this...

Its simple. To get your free bonuses worth Rs. 5,995/-, all you need to do is forward this message to any 10 of your friends (write their email in "To" field) and as 11th email, write our address, vyom.gifts@gmail.com. We will send you free bonuses worth Rs. 5,995 (to see your bonuses, scroll down this mail.) Please note that we check all the mails and your free bonus request will be processed only when you refer 10 of your friends.

In turn, your friends can also forward this mail and get all the bonuses.... its a great win-win game!

So now, you have sent an email having 10 legitimate email addresses and with a Carbon Copy to the scammer. The scammer can turn into a spammer any time! And what a way to collect email addresses. After a few hours after getting this forward from my friend, Some one totally unrelated to me sent me a copy. She got it from the copy that my friend sent and just copy-pasted the addresses again. Damn.

The also have an FAQ in their mail and one of them goes like this!

3. My friends might be annoyed by this mail.
A. No. Your friends will thank you for this! Believe me. They will love all the free bonuses, because they will also get these, absolutely free of cost. Its a win-win game. So, forward this mail now to 10 of your friends.

We try our best to stay away from the inevitable spam that is likely to be generated by signing up for newsletters at websites who do not prominently display their privacy policy by not registering our email addresses with them. And our friends do the stupid part and help the spammers in their adress harvesting methods by following such lowsy instructions. Damn.

Airtel Telephones Customer 'Dont' Care

2006-05-12T14:41:00.000+05:30

I had a few issues with my Airtel telephones account and I logged into my Airtel Account and tried to send a complaint through a form provided onsite. Apparently, the form was just a mailer of sorts and guess what I got as an instant reply!

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at airtelbroadband.in.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<care.tamilnadu@airtelbroadband.in>:
The users mailfolder is over the allowed quota (size).

So much so for instant customer gratification! They are quite popular too judging by the full mailbox! Ha ha ha ha! And by the way, my current posts are mostly about customer care escapades, should write something more interesting! Ha ha ha!

Looking for a good blog software?

2006-05-11T22:49:00.000+05:30

Try Wordpress.com, its a very good publishing platform and is the freely hosted option of one of the largest self hosted blogging software in the world. Go to Wordpress.org to download and install on your own server!

It has a lot of built in features that Blogger(this blog runs on) doesn't possess! Such as built-in trackback and categorisation of entries. You can also add pages to your blog, making it a small website in the progress!! There are also templates that rock onsite!!

This is from the Wordpress.org website!

WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. It is the official successor of b2/cafelog. WordPress is fresh software, but its roots and development go back to 2001. It is a mature and stable product. We hope by focusing on user experience and web standards we can create a tool different from anything else out there.

2005 was a very exciting year for WordPress, as it saw the release of our 1.5 version which was downloaded over 900,000 times, the start of hosted service WordPress.com to expand WP's reach, the founding of Automattic by several core members of the WP team, and finally the release of version 2.0.

Best of all, its open source!

Some Wordpress blogs in action:
Xavier Roy's Journal (Self-hosted)
All in a day's work! (Kishore's Blog on Wordpress.com)

HCL Infinet Nokia Customer Care sucks!

2006-05-10T23:29:00.000+05:30

I got back my mobile phone that got screwed today after waiting for nearly an hour and a half in the waiting hall and two weeks in total. A bluetooth problem that had to be rectified at Hyderabad. Baa.. What a day!

The estimated time for delivery was "1 day" in the Job sheet. They informed that it would take more time as they had to send it to Hyderabad to meddle something and see if they could get it to work. Today, I went over, after nearly fifteen days, and waited half an hour to get the mobile. And surprise of surprises, the software hadn't been updated and they just gave it to me just like that! Imagine! They did the same thing the previous time when an Ass by name Madhu was there. He came out and started shouting when I opposed without even trying to find out the reason. That time around, I wasnt sure about the latest software version. But this time around, I had a few friends of mine who had recently purchased the same handset and hence could compare the version with theirs and could find that mine was old, over a year old.

Then I had to wait for another 45 minutes to get the software updated and they apologised saying that they overlooked it since the handset came from Hyderabad.

Now here is the funny part. They had a notice of sorts stuck near the delivery counter that had the numbers and email addresses of The Regional, Zonal and National Managers for any grievances. I noticed it the first time I went there, but now it was missing. I requested that information, but the Girl at the counter said that type of information cannot be revealed!! Ha ha ha! I tried visiting the HCL Infinet site, but there is no way to connect with the managers, Maybe I am looking at the wrong site, who knows anyways!

Flickr Toys! (Non-flickr users too)

2006-05-10T00:15:00.000+05:30

I came across fd's Flickr Toys during one of my sojourns online! It has a lot of tools for everyone(including non-flickr users) like creating Calendars, CD Covers, Magazine Covers, Motivators etc from your own photographs! You can even make your own Movie Poster with correspoding titles and credits! Pretty cool huh? :-) Though you can do all of them yourself with an image editing program, these tools do the work in a jiffy! Its fun!

And for flickr users, it has tools such as Scout - used for finding your photos in the explore pages, A Favorite Finder - used to find a user's photos faved by another user and more! Visit http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr for the complete list!

I rule!

2006-05-08T23:02:00.000+05:30

Well, atleast indirectly! i made my choice and voted today! It was over in a minute with the Electronic Voting Machine letting out a loud beep which I wasnt expecting! I assumed that it would be a small, discrete beep, but apparently, the polling officers in the whole area too are supposed to hear I think... :-)

But anyways, and they kept a big stripe of indelible ink! To prevent me from voting again! This one looks ugly and draws from the first joint in the finger right upto the nail tip! Talk about art! Then I was on my way back home! Contented and rather satisfied to exercise my right! I feel great!

I got the power!

2006-05-07T23:44:00.000+05:30

Finally, I will be allowed to vote in the general elections to be held tomorrow!! Though the legal age permissible for a Citizen of India to vote is 18 and I'm 20. This is the first elections that are taking place after I have reached the magic age!

The funny thing now is, I have to decide on whom to vote for and I dont have a clue! I dont know what each one of the parties will do?! Call this plain ignorance, but frankly, I have to devote sometime from now on to decide on the right party(from all of the wrong ones) to cast my vote for. Or I can chose not to exercise me vote but that would be a shame! I have the right to vote! And I should exercise it!

It has become more of a marketing gimmick than a legitimate show of care for the citizens with all the parties competing to give the citizens their share of perks! All of that can be left out and instead, education, a much needed service for the lesser few must be provided free of cost right upto college. Its only because of the lack of free education facilities that poor people tend to drop out of school and go to work. So what about their children, they may study for a while, but will be eventually sent off to work to support the family, so the end result, The rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer! This can be avoided by letting them study as much as they want to and to be able to support themselves in a more rewarding way.

According to Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, if an elector whose roll number has been entered in the register of electoral rolls in Form 17A, decides not to vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry by the Presiding Officer and the signature and thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark

As for my decision to vote, it depends on whether the "no-vote" option too is by ways of a secret ballot.. Sigh!

You can decide not to vote - from The Hindu dated Apr 04, 2006.
'O' Podu - Social Awareness Movement about the 49-O Rule.

Check your Spam/Bulk folder before trashing it!

2006-05-07T01:10:00.000+05:30

With reference to my previous post on spamming, though Yahoo's SpamGuard does an excellent job in identifying spam and moving it to a bulk/spam folder. Occasionally, some legitimate mail gets marked as spam.

One of my friends, who has been co-placed with me in a company was supposed to have been intimated by the company. I got a phone call and my part was through, but he apparently never received either phone call or email. It was only after about a week that he found that the mail which required an immediate response and of which he thought had never been sent was lying in his spam box! He sent an immediate reply and luckily, it wasn't too late!

So, its always best to atleast go through the senders and subjects before emptying your spam box! As you never might know, something very important may be lost!

PS:- Yahoo marked its own notifier from Yahoo groups as spam! Way to go!

Do people read spam?

2006-05-06T00:03:00.000+05:30

After reading about the recent attack on an anti-spam website, I have begun to think whether the fight against spam is worth it. I agree that spamming is a pain in the butt, on the other hand, do people read the spam that they recieve? I personally just trash email that I identify as spam and most of the time, they are so obvious. And especially, the Spam Filter on my Yahoo Box does a pretty good job of identifying the spam and 'frying' them as promised! ;-) But still, its pretty annoying with all the time wasted in identifying and deleting unsolicited email.

What do the perpertrators actually get from these? When people stop responding to spam email or ignore it all together, would the spammers get what they wanted? Business? I am of the view that spammers will thrive only until gullible users endorse or fall into the traps that the unsolicited emails announce, such as medication or instant money. Once everyone starts ignoring them, maybe the spammers would pack up and go home.

Retaliation for Antispam Success?

Money or Interest?

2006-05-04T22:04:00.000+05:30

With the next academic year starting in a month or so, parents are rushing towards premier institutions to apply for programmes. But do they have a word from their wards. I have seen a lot of my fellow students being 'pushed' into doing a degree that they didn't have any liking for, due to peer pressure. I agree that money does have a role to play as eventually, everybody wants to earn a quick buck and settle in life, But is it worth it to sacrifice individual interests just for the sake of making money?

The most likely degree that parents would want is for their children to become a doctor. Mainly because of the fast buck that is likely to be made. Most of the children give in to peer pressure to take up the course that is decided by their parents, leaving little way for interests to come in. Can this be agreed upon? Let people decide what they want to do! Counsel with them, give them their likely choices. And then let them decide. This will make them more responsible, instead of disinterested students faring very badly in studies.

Money is the root of all evil.

Microsoft - Yahoo merger?

2006-05-03T22:42:00.000+05:30

Microsoft is apparently on the talks with Yahoo for either a tie-up or an acquisition which would place it competitively on the Search Engine market against Google. Microsoft has invested a lot of money in its search technology, though not very successful in its hunt for the Google's share of Web Searches. With its new AdCenter advertising service, it hopes to close the gap with the competition and with a merger with Yahoo and the combination of technological advances, this would mean a system that is better able to meet the challenge of Google.

Check this out! Google also earns millions of dollars from typos in web addresses by serving advertisements on domain names that are mis-typed and owned by other bodies not connected to the parent company or domain name!!

Mobile phone nightmares!

2006-05-01T23:32:00.000+05:30

My mobile phones bluetooth device started acting funny by disappearing often with other devices not being able to detect it. I had to give the mobile for service and check it out since I was using the bluetooth to connect wirelessly to the internet through GPRS. They informed me that they tried rectifying the mobile here, but to no avail, and hence, they were sending it to one of their main service centres at Hyderabad and they would get back to me in two weeks! Damn! Two weeks without my mobile phone! I would go nuts!

Thankfully, since my phone was still under warranty, they informed me that they would try to rectify the problem and would replace the phone's board if the problem could not be resolved.

The mobile phone is such a wonderful invention! Well, all inventions are equally wonderful and each of us can tell something good about each! Be it gas stoves, or pens, or electricity, or motorised vehicles!! I remember the first time I rode a motorised vehicle, a scooty when I was young. Having cycled all my life, the moment I sat on the scooty and raised the throttle, I was so exhilarated to ride the scooty! You just had to accelerate and the vehicle moved! I was so amazed! Just our petrol and zoom your way through! At that time, I felt that this was the most amazing invention of all time!

I felt the same amazement when I first used a mobile phone! Being able to reach someone wherever they are, directly and being able to speak with them was way too good! I felt that this was the most useful invention of all time! (I have felt the same for Email, the WWW, etc etc.) Ha ha ha ha ha!

The moment I am amazed with a particular invention! I feel that is the greatest! :-) Ha ha ha ha! But now, i am seated here without my mobile phone and literally disabled in a way! Fortunately, my sister was kind enough to let me use her mobile phone! So for the time being, I am still connected! But I have to make alternate arrangements and return my sister's mobile back to her!

In case you were wondering what mobile phone I was using that went dead, it is a Nokia 3230.

Group Portrait!

2006-04-30T01:05:00.000+05:30

From left,
Standing: Anvar, Ashakir, Prasad, Karthik.
Sitting: Myself(Thiyagaraj), Vijayanand, Raghavendra and Nishyanth!

I am starting for the Nilgiris at 3:00AM to attend some relative's marriage. Have to get some quick shut-eye! Gave my goodbyes to Sidharth Sundaram, my school/college mate who started for Jaipur sometime back. Guess there isnt anybody left to send off now!

So keep your goodbyes in your pocket,
You ain't going nowhere at all,
Your memory's staying right here with me,
Coz you're still the sweetest of all.

- Dr. Hook

Bade farewell

2006-04-27T23:11:00.000+05:30

To the last three guys who were remaining at the hostel. One, Yeshi is from Bhutan and we helped him board his train for Guwahati two days earlier at 1:00 AM. Surprisingly, many of my classmates turned up and we bade farewell.

Then yesterday, said my byes to Vignesh and Ram Mohan. Chances of meeting Yeshi and Mohan are very remote. Whereas, Vignesh and myself, being placed in the same company might probably stay together in Bangalore where we are most likely to be posted.

Hard times, but time has to go on.. The world is a small place with all the means of communication available! The choice is ours, absolutely ours.

Getting lost online!

2006-04-24T22:50:00.000+05:30

I have all of this work that I have to complete, I come online, I find somebody has added me as thier newest contact on Flickr. I pause to check out thier website, And I click on some of thier links.. And off I am.. Into the eternal realms of Cyberspace.. After a while, I remember that I still have work to complete! But I forgot the reason I came online for in the first place! Deja Vu! Happens everytime!

The Last of the examicans!

2006-04-21T21:38:00.000+05:30

Today was the last of our Under Graduate program exams. We decided to take a group photograph.. But not everybody turned up! Some 35 of the 52 members in my class turned up. Some of them went to meet some friend's parents who had arrived. Some other locos wouldnt pose for the photo since they have some personal enmity with some others in the class. Our paths may never cross again with each one of us heading for each others' ways.. See the silly reasons.. And they lose a chance of a lifetime, A photo with all their classmates.. I prefer to call these people who chose to boycott the photo session for no reason at all: BRAINLESS people. Seriously.

Opera 9 beta is out!

2006-04-21T00:34:00.000+05:30

Though a supporter and user of Firefox, I decided to download Opera 8.5 and give it a try since it is free of cost. The interface was too good! And now, Version 9 beta with more Widgets support are out! The BitTorrent support has also been extended. Looks good!

Read the Opera 9 news on ZDNet.
Download Opera 9.0 beta

Rainy Days!

2006-04-20T00:09:00.000+05:30

Today's Ecommerce exam was ok considering I hadnt spent much time
going through what I suppose should have been enough for a easy
write-through! Halfway past the exam, it started to rain heavily with
gusty winds! A spray of water came from a half-open window nearby
which was immediately shut down by a classmate of mine to prevent the
papers from getting wet!

From the third-floor where we sat, we could see the winds lashing at
the tree tops which were incessantly swaying from one extreme to
another! Looked as if most of them would come down, but after a brief
blast, sy about 20 minutes, the rains subsided into an eerie calm. I
finished the exam and walked in the light drizzle outside and bought a
chocolate bar to satisfy my hunger. Then after meeting everybody and a
few byes, I was on my way home.

It was only after seeing the heavy traffic and the reason behind it,
did I get to see the effect of that short cloudburst! Around three
trees along a very short stretch on the busy Avinashi Road had fallen
right on the middle of the road and there were policemen all around
clearing the mess. One truck driver was unfortunate enough to have a
tree fall on his cargo! There was a huge traffic jam and I was lucky
enough to get out of it before things got worse.. Then it started
raining again! Then it too subsided.. Dropped maddy.. picked up my
sister on the way back.. and came home.. and now. My nose feels kinda
funny!

New Template!

2006-04-18T22:56:00.000+05:30

Today, selected one of the readymade templates from the Blogger Application and updated my site. This design is a lot cleaner with plenty of white space. I figured that people would find reading dark text on a black background wasn't that captivating, let alone the text! ;-)

Am planning for a complete CSS/XHTML layout for my website and hopefully, will be able to style the blogger template too to blend with the overall look and feel of the website.

For those of you who are interested in the Blogger Specific tags, take a look at this page.

For those who are interested in getting some free Blogger templates, try visiting Blogger Templates. The site is not recently updated, but some of the templates are good and they can be easily integrated into your blog without any major changes or with no changes at all! The K2 theme for blogger based on the original K2 for Wordpress is my favorite pick!

Good Virtues!

2006-04-17T22:01:00.000+05:30

We all know our parents and elders take a lot of pains to teach us
what's wrong and what's not. A lot of us show our obedience and good
virtues in a lot of ways, But this is more like it!

Security exam is over, did sorta ok! Looking forward to the rest!

Semester Exams!

2006-04-16T22:36:00.000+05:30

My semester exams start tomorrow! Got three exams in total each spaced
two days apart! Got two computer related papers, one on Security in
Computing and the other on E-Commerce. The third paper is on Marketing
Management. Boring to study.. But have to do something.. The last
semester of my Under Graduate programme. Guess this is the end of my UG..

What a response!

2006-04-15T22:55:00.000+05:30

Yesterday night, I mailed the animated version of "How online shopping works" to the staff I was speaking of in my previous entry, She called me sometime in the afternoon, Said thanks.. Said the work was good.. and blah blah blah.. But she didnt sound too satisfied, She gave a hint of asking me to do it for her again, But I have some other commitments of my own, so I refused.. But I was wondering why she wasn't very pleased considering that I had done what she wanted in a very short time frame with all the other work that I had to do.. Well, I was a little flabbergasted, But as I said below.. She's a negative critic and I didn't think much about that afterwards.

And surprises of surprises! She called me again in the evening, she told me that she had only seen a part of the file before it was completely downloaded and thought that I had only done a half-baked work! She had only seen the beginning, say 10% of the animation and thought that the animation was over! God! She was all praises for me, But she wanted the source to "add some colour" . I had added a not very visible footer that pointed to www.thiya.net. So I figured out that might be she wanted to remove that. But on the contrary, she said that she had told every staff she met about the work I had done and that she was pleased! What a turnaround! She also accepted that it was her fault of viewing the file before it was completely downloaded.. Hmmm...

It rained heavily in the evening, just after I gave my bike for service after a long time.. Hmmm.. The weather might get awfully warm tonight! :-(

Credits for nothing!

2006-04-14T23:17:00.000+05:30

Today, the whole day, I was whiling away my time watching television and working on my laptop. I was designing something about online shopping for a staff of mine, Who wanted it done by '10AM tomorrow morning' when she called yesterday night! I finished it only sometime back.. Its 11:30PM and there is still no word from the staff.. Wonder where she went!

They make schedules about doing something in thier name! And they finally get somebody else to do it for them in a hurry! And then they dont show up! This particular staff is a very good critic! A critic of nothing in particular! She just tells something because we gave her a little importance and asked her for her opinion! Some people.. Wierd! Why would somebody assure that they would do something and then get somebody else to do it for them with little or no explanation towards what and why that is being done in the first place!

Who cares less after all this! Just another one of my meaningless rants!

Google Calendar Launched!

2006-04-13T23:44:00.000+05:30

Google has launched a calendar app... Finally! The interface is ok with some more of the Ajax thingies. The functionality is great with the option of creating multiple calendars and also the option to import public calendars.

I tried a search for the term "India" in public calendars and immediately got a public calendar for the list of Holidays in India! Pretty cool huh?

English movies? Coimbatore? Forget it!!

2006-04-12T23:20:00.001+05:30

There are no good theatres in Coimbatore that offer a show of English movies! There used to be the famous "Central Theatre" which is closed of late due to some legal issues.

Other than that, the two theatres that display English movies prominently are at the Carnatic theatre and at Maruthi.

Carnatic theatre has been fully refurbished with new seats, etc. But they show a whole range of languages from Tamil, Malayalam, English, English(Tamil dubbed) etc.

The other one, Maruthi shows English movies, but the interiors leave a lot to be desired. The seats are all "Rock-solid" and very old. The air-conditioning doesnt work! Some of the ceiling fans dont and it gets awfully hot at times! I'll be surprised to find more than twenty patrons on weekdays! And they only play the 'masala' type of movies that has everything in it! What I personally feel is that the crowd would swell if the whole theatre was refurbished! Many family members would come instead of watching the movie back home on thier DVD players. Maruthi theatre can develop its infrastructure in its own fancy to increase patronage among the movie-goers.

The bottom line: There is NO theatre in Coimbatore as of now where you can enjoy a decent English movie without sweating it out or peering over others shoulders to get a glance of the whole screen FULL STOP

CSS Blues!

2006-04-11T21:54:00.000+05:30

Tried my hand at CSS today! Made some sample layouts, was sort of buggy with all the hacks that are available to make the website look the same across all browsers. Got some designs running! Hope to upload my website www.thiya.net finally. Planning to do it in a standard's compliant way. But all have to look the same in all browsers. That is the only problem I am facing for the time being. Hope to come out of the blues!

Table-less designs rocks! Visit the CSS Zen Garden to see the sample designs and decide for yourselves! CSS is in, Tables for layouts are out! Make the change now!

College working days over!!

2006-04-10T23:24:00.000+05:30

College working days are over! :-( So soon.. Only three exams remain.. And after that.. Its all over..

Got selected by a reputed company in a Campus Placement at GRD. Hoping to join that company. Yet to get the offer letter. I went on a trip to Ooty with my class pals. Took a lot of pictures, some of which can be viewed in my photo blog at Flickr!

The whole trip was nice, barring an incident in which my classmate, Subash was thrown off the bike due to the pitiable condition of the roads here at Coimbatore.
THE ROADS SUCK BIGTIME. #$%@#$%!@#^$^$#$%&@$!@

The poor chap was hurled to the ground, he was the pillion rider to another guy. He had scrapes all over his body and had some cuts on the insides of his cheek. The incident occured because of a surprise hole in the road! The rider Rajan braked, but the pitch of the bike resulted in Subash thrown off the bike and landed shoulder first on the ground. Luckily no broken bones.

The roads really need some work to be done on them. More recently, an woman was run over in a similar incident when a vehicle ran over her feet. Thank god nothing of that sort happened to us.

Freaking roads. Damn.

Tamil People, who we are!

2006-02-22T23:36:00.000+05:30

Read this article on Wikipedia about Tamil People! Pretty interesting, tracing to the origins of Tamil and the journey through the ages! According to the free encyclopedia, there are an estimated 74 million Tamils around the world!!

Click here to go to the article.

Gway.. leaves no space for leeway...

2006-02-20T23:40:00.000+05:30

Been quite busy all these days... Working for my College Computer Science Department's function.. Gateway '06
Now I'm yet to complete the design for the website.. I get a sort of eerie feeling when I imagine the invitations hurtling down roads to thier destinations to be picked up early tomorrow afternoon... Have to complete the design somehow... Tata for now.... :-):-(

Adi Shamir points out holes in RFID tags

2006-02-15T21:20:00.000+05:30

Shamir points out that "a cellphone has all the ingredients you need to conduct an attack and compromise all the RFID tags in the vicinity"

He proved his point by using a directional antenna and digital oscilloscope to monitor power use by RFID tags while they were being read. Patterns in power use could be analyzed to determine when the tag received correct and incorrect password bits, he added.

This could pose a huge security problem in the way RFID tags were read, making it possible to try out combinations and getting the password right after a while.

Read the full story

And the winner is...

2006-02-14T23:13:00.000+05:30

The selected logo of Gateway'06!

And the poster!

Click for larger previews! :-)

Gateway 2006 Logo Design 'Attempts' :-)

2006-02-07T23:39:00.000+05:30

Please follow the below link to view some of the designs.
http://www.thiya.net/twinklers/2006/02/gateway-2006-logo-design-attempts.htm

A new payment system from Google!(?)

2006-02-06T22:28:00.000+05:30

Paypal prepares for challenge from Google

At the rate at which Google is expanding, in a few years, there'll be Google stuff offline too.. Like McDonalds or Starbucks! The Google Cafe perhaps!! ;-) ;-)

Wife / Marriage!

2006-02-05T21:28:00.000+05:30

Every man should get married some time; after all, happiness is not the only
thing in life!!
--Anonymous

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be
happier than others.
--Oscar Wilde

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't marry for money; you can borrow it cheaper.
--Scottish Proverb

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't worry about terrorism. I was married for two years.
--Sam Kinison

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your
wife will give you for free.
--Anonymous

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't, they'd be
married too.
--H. L. Mencken

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Men have a better time than women; for one thing, they marry later; for
another thing, they die earlier.
--H. L. Mencken

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A man without a woman is like a fish without a bicycle."
--U2

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marriage is a three-ring circus:
--engagement ring
---wedding ring
----suffering

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When a newly married couple smiles, everyone knows why.
When a ten-year married couple smiles, everyone wonders why.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Love is blind but marriage is an eye-opener.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When a man opens the door of his car for his wife, you can be sure of one
thing either the car is new or the wife.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back to home
always.
--Anonymous

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I asked my wife, "Where do you want to go for our anniversary?" She said,
"Somewhere I have never been!" I told her, "How about the kitchen?"
--Anonymous

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We always hold hands. If I let go, she shops.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My wife was in beauty saloon for two hours. That was only for the estimate.
--Anonymous

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She got a mudpack and looked great for two days. Then the mud fell off.
--Anonymous

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
She ran after the garbage truck, yelling, "Am I too late for the garbage?"
Following her down the street, I yelled, "No, jump in."
--Anonymous

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Badd Teddy recently explained to me why he refuses to get married.
He says "the wedding rings look like miniature handcuffs....."
--Anonymous

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife yelling at the front
door, who do you let in first? The dog of course...at least he'll shut up
after u let him in!
--Anonymous

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A man placed some flowers on the grave of his dearly parted mother and
started back toward his car when his attention was diverted to another man
kneeling at a grave. The man seemed to be praying with profound intensity
and kept repeating, 'Why did u have to die? Why did you have to die?" The
first man approached him and said, "Sir, I don't wish to interfere with your
private grief, but this demonstration of pain is more than I've ever seen
before. For whom do you mourn so deeply? A child? A parent?" The mourner
took a moment to collect himself, then replied "My wife's first husband."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A couple came upon a wishing well. The husband leaned over, made a wish and
threw in a penny. The wife decided to make a wish, too. But she leaned over
too much, fell into the well, and drowned. The husband was stunned for a
while but then smiled "It really works!".

Simple AJAX Implementation using XMLHTTPRequest

2006-01-30T23:12:00.000+05:30

Today, i did a small application that selects an image from the server as requested by the user and displays it on the screen. Has an ajax implementation though the same can be implemented in pure javascript. But this shows some of the limitless possibilities by using the xmlhttprequest API! Click on the below link to get a preview of it.
http://www.thiya.net/ajax/

Planning to do my E-greetings website completely based on AJAX. But I have a lot more to learn!! My sincere Thanks to Prabhu Anna for his continuous support and encouragement!!

QuizTrac 2006

2006-01-30T00:44:00.000+05:30

I did the presentation for them this time around too. And just like
last time, due to unforeseen circumstances, i ended up doing it the
whole of yesterday night. Slept for two hours around 5AM. All because
there was a complete power shutdown yesterday. I really cant
understand what type of maintenance work that these people do by
shutting down power supply for a whole day regularly!

Too crappy! Wasted a whole day! Some of my other friends in other
parts of the town with electrical power available were all occupied
with some other work or were not available. :-( So ended up working
the whole night!

It turned out ok and both the Secretary Mohan and the former
president, Kumar liked it. After it played, they even felicitated me
on the spot! :-) :-) Felt very happy!!

Now I have to complete some more websites and design some posters for
a'la Gateway 2006!! Filled up hours in the weeks to come!!

Funny Quote of the day!!
Robert Orben - "Never raise your hand to your children it leaves your
midsection unprotected."

How did a stork come to symbolize childbirth?

2006-01-23T22:18:00.000+05:30

Find out here!! :-)
http://ask.yahoo.com/20060119.html

Viruses Spreading through Yahoo groups!

2006-01-22T23:16:00.000+05:30

Now viruses are spreading through Yahoo Groups! The Virus mails itself
from a remote server identifying itself in a email address that is a
legitimate member of the group. So the message gets posted to the
group bypassing everything!

The virus promises funny pictures... When clicked, variants of the
MyWife virus gets loaded into the host system I think!

Virus Info - http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_101135.htm

It is bypassing groups "members only post" feature by appearing as if
it is the sender by changing the "From" address! Lets hope something
is done about it.. Like authorising the server using Yahoo Domain Keys
or something!

Gateway 2006 PSGCAS

2006-01-21T23:08:00.000+05:30

At last, after much hurdles and stoppages.. We have obtained permission to go ahead with our department's Intercollegiate technical festival for this year! Have a lot of things in mind.. Hope all of these turn out well..

Have to design the wallpapers and other stuff to go with the marketing plan. All of this is to be done at a very fast pace. The function is supposed to take place on March 1st. We had initially planned to do so on the 8th of March, but the pricipal was kind enough to atleast grant us permission to conduct the festival on this day atleast as all department functions are supposed to be done with by the 15th of February. We consider ourselves extremely lucky!

Have to garner enough strength to go thru everything! Have to design a few sites of my own too! And also.. Quiz Trac came back calling asking me to do a flash presentation for them similar to last years.. All those nice words that they say about my design is really heart warming! Hope to do something better this time around!

Find no time to blog! But anyways! Will post a bit more regularly!

Love - Buy it cheap on Ebay!!!

2006-01-13T23:52:00.000+05:30

Was trying out Google Suggest by typing in some characters and looking at the suggestions.. Somehow I typed L.. and so on and landed typing love.. On getting the results.. I saw a sponsored link that was a bit funny, see the screenshot for yourself!

I tried clicking on the link, it asked for login information! Duh! Thought I could purchase some for cheap! ;-)

Blogging Introduction - Class

2006-01-12T23:36:00.000+05:30

I gave a small introduction about what blogging is, and what it can do for you.. In class.. Was well accepted with a few people immediately signing up for the service.. :-) :-) Way to go guys!!! Keep up the good work!

Gmail Mobile Launched!!

2005-12-16T22:21:00.000+05:30

Gmail Mobile has been officially launched by Gmail!! The only thing
I've been waiting for so long!! Log on from your mobile by visiting
http://m.gmail.com

Stay wireless!! :-)

That Deadly Kiss

2005-11-29T00:48:00.000+05:30

A teen with peanut allergy apparently died today after
kissing her boyfriend who had just had a peanut snack.

So sad.. :-(

View story

My very own Computer!

2005-11-28T00:04:00.000+05:30

I got my very own computer, a HP NX6110 Notebook! I wont be having
problems blogging hereafter and think that I'll give my blog a fresh
start all over again.. Quite a lot to write! And now from the comfort of
my own home! Very excited!

My Life of Late

2005-11-07T23:48:00.000+05:30

Been good as of late.. Not blogging much! There's this internet rule sorta that says the happier you are with your life, the lesser you blog. But I feel that I'd be back to blogging pretty soon.. :-(

College will be over pretty soon.. Hardly six months left.. It's like all of it started just yesterday and its over tomorrow.. Time flies and it brings me memories of the emotional downtrip I had when I parted with my school friends at Carmel. Will miss all my friends at PSGCAS!

Blogging is really good in many ways.. Gives us an outlet to let loose our thoughts and emotions.. Its really tough to keep it all inside when there's nobody to listen..

The remaining four working months at college will fly.... Hope I get through them in a steady emotional state.. Semesters going on now.. Doesnt make any real difference.. College remains college! And it'll be in my memory for years to come!

Serial Blasts in New Delhi

2005-10-29T18:33:00.000+05:30

Around 5:30 PM at two crowded markets and another place.. Two days before diwali.. :-( :-( What do these people get from this?

Lab Exams!

2005-10-04T17:49:00.000+05:30

Have to prepare for my lab exams tomorrow. Have to output some SQL queries and develop a small Visual Basic application. We were supposed to create three Visual Basic Applications during our normal lab hours. But we managed to complete only one. Hmmm... Lets see the fun tomorrow.. Planning to do a combined study with my friends at Sarav's house... I'm off.. Lets roam around the city for a while before settling into academics!

Power Shutdown

2005-09-24T17:04:00.000+05:30

Power shut down from 9 to 5...... So boring.. Sitting in my friend, Sarav's place..

Client / Server Techniques Exam

2005-08-19T10:25:00.000+05:30

Sitting in my class and studying for my client server internal exam to
be conducted in the afternoon. Only 14 people are present out of the
usual 58! Boring!

The day ahead....

2005-08-17T23:57:00.000+05:30

Why do we miss certain people.. Who mean so much to us.. Maybe having
someone who can be by our side at all times makes life worth living..
:-) :-) A major hard disk crash took out most of my files at a
computer centre where i design my work.. Sorta frustrating.. Tried
using a file recovery tool.. Could only recover a paltry four files..
All the rest couldn't be recovered and i cant afford professional data
recovery.. :-( Guess its back to the drawing board for me.. I have my
lab session tomorrow.. A solid three hours.. Gives meaning to the word
'drag'... Afternoon, its an Extra Departmental Course or EDC for
short.. Its a course which we are allowed to choose from a wide
variety of papers from a department other than ours.. I'd chosen
'Event management and Marketing' hoping it would prove useful for me
when it comes to managing my department function - 'Gateway' some
months away.. Course is sorta ok.. Drives most of us to sleep most of
the time.. :-) :-) Its almost the end of my college life.. Hardly some
months more.. All of us have to part and go our separate ways.. I want
to stay in touch with everyone..... Started another blog for my class,
which anyone can post.. Hope it is well received.. Haven't told
anybody other than a few.. Assignments, friends, lab, fun...
Everything seems to be drawing towards a close.. Feel sick when i
think about it....

Unified Modeling Language Class

2005-08-16T13:59:00.000+05:30

Sitting in my class.. So sleepy.. Boring.. The educative system needs
a very important change....

My first proper mobile post!

2005-08-15T20:25:00.000+05:30

This is my first proper post from my mobile.. I'm presently attending a
marriage of a relative of mine.. Someone whom i dont remember meeting
before.. Came on my dad's request.. My cousin, Rakesh is with me..
Boring..

Was thinking about the way technology has made all of
us closer.. My dad kept introducing me to people whom he had last met
years ago.. No contact whatsoever all these days.. The same cannot be
said in these days with the advent of communications.. Email, mobiles,
telephones.. Its almost impossible to lose contact with anybody
nowadays..

Technology has made this world a lot smaller place!
And I ain't complaining! :-) :-)

FROM mobile!

2005-08-14T15:39:00.000+05:30

THIS mail is from my mobile! Posting is so cool!

New Post!

2005-08-14T15:30:00.000+05:30

Hi, this is a new post to my blog from my email..

Hi

2005-08-14T14:45:00.000+05:30

my first post1