Sessionsaver in Firefox 2.0

December 25th, 2006

Hi guys, there is a famous plugin called “Sessionsaver” that lets you to save the current tabs open in firefox, so that, when you open firefox next time, all the previously tabs are preserved. I discovered a patch for Sessionsaver for firefox 2.0. Get it from http://wolcano.platon.sk/sessionsaver/.

By the way, I’m still bewildered as to why this basic feature is not implemented in firefox yet.

Mobile Apps

December 18th, 2006

Buying a fair enough mobile at a decent rate was one of the best things that happened to me since “thayir sadham” (curd rice) and “avakai oorga” (a South Indian mango pickle) :-). Today I activated GPRS and BOOM!!, a world of beautiful internet connectivity opened up. It was like moving from a pre-telephonic era to a modern era. It was like inhaling the fragrance of fresh flowers. Being connected is a boon.

I downloaded Opera Mini and Gmail for mobiles. Both are excellent pieces of software. I had been using the desktop version of Opera since a long time. The mobile version is superb. Speed is very good. The pages are rendering very well. The best feature of opera mini is the status bar. You have to see it to believe why it’s so cool. It also has a feature for reading and subscribing to feeds. Overall, it’s been a very satisfying experience.

Gmail for mobiles is amazing as well. Just as the web client is satisfying, gmail for mobile even goes a step forward. It brings the same web interface to the small screen. Gmail on the web has keyboard shortcuts. Even the mobile version has this. You can press the various numbers to activate certain menu items. For e.g. pressing ‘4’ activates the reply screen. ‘*’ key is used to ‘star’ a message. What’s more, you can view attachments right from the app itself. Nearly every feature of the web version is available in the mobile version.

Getjar.com is a superb site that has a very good collection of mobile applications for almost all models of mobiles. Check it out. If the GPRS rates come down a little bit, I would definitely go for a regular connection and ofcourse a better mobile with a bigger and better screen.

The list seems endless…

Hey guys, after quite a long time, assume about 3 years, I have cleaned my small room over this weekend… much to the surprise of my mom ofcourse ;-). It took about 5 hours of day one and another 3 hours of day two to complete it in all glory. Next on line is my blog, which wasn’t touched except for doing new posts. Have to get a nice new template soon. Any suggestions?

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Java SE 6 is out. The whole Java community is gaga over it. Netbeans 5.5 now supports Java SE 6 also. Reading this yesterday, I feel Sun is committed to not making that mistake. The next Sun Tech Days event is happening at Hyderabad on 21-23 Feb 2007. The talks look promising and the topics they pick everytime are exciting. They have also added a Java ME day this time. If you are a java freek, DON’T miss this event. Register.

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Proto has been going on great. The website now sports a new dress skin. If you are a startup company willing to showcase your product at Proto, nominate yourself. The nomination closes on 20th Dec 2006. Registration for other participants will be open soon. So, hang on! Read the Proto blog for more information.

Wow!! exciting times ahead.

I was chatting with a few of my friends. They are placed in different companies and are doing different things. As usual with any chat after a long time, I happened to ask them, “Hi da.. long time no see, how’s your job? Like it?”. The replies were like, “Umm.. yeah sorta..”, “edho podhu da” (meaning – sort of fine). Some were frank enough to tell that they didn’t like what they were doing, which brings me to the question that why do people don’t do what they like?

The first answer to figuring out a good way is to first find out what you like. It’s possible that you may be in a deadlock situation with the Q and A but if you take enough steps to actually answer that Q, then you know what you want.

The second answer is to get some early hands-on experience on different areas of interest. That way you can always try and fail and find your true love. The best time to do this is when you are in college and parents are always available for support and money.

The third answer is better late than never. Always have the quest for knowledge and one day you have that enlightening.

The fourth answer is to be as practical as possible in your approach to your problems. For e.g. you may not like the work you do now. But you wouldn’t want to go and shout at your boss for the peanuts of silly work you are being given. Instead, be patient and tell them your strengths and why you would be able to do the other job better than the current one.

The fifth answer is to set your goals and work on it. This is actually difficult and takes a lot of mental muscle to do. This article, “How to get any project up and running” by Mark Forster is an excellent motivator.

Why this post? A major part of our life is going to be around the work we do and if we don’t like love the work we do, we are wasting a beautiful life. I have found what I love and since some days, I have been taking steps to do it the first thing every morning, otherwise it keeps getting postponed.

WOW!!! what a speech that was! it was a speech given by Steve Jobs to the new graduates of Stanford University last year. This speech is very very inspiring. I know what I love. All it takes is just that little brave decision. Read this.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

A Rainy Experience

October 30th, 2006

At a time when its raining so heavily these days…. at a time when our shirts and trousers take days to dry away…. and at a time when we even have to press our underwears with hot iron to dry them up… and also at a time when roads are water logged, one must necessarily be covered from head to toe with the best of raincoats so that you don’t get soaked up.

So what happened today was that I was ambling my bike slowly through the traffic at a signal. The place was flooded and I had to move beyond the stop line. The signal fell green… me being pissed off at the very little road space available, accelerated the bike to the full possible speed and ran whooosh!! over the water. People next to me were completely drenched. Most notable was a lady, riding pillion, who had no kind of raincoat on her. She got wet from top to bottom. Her husband got angry on me and what followed was a bike race he he he… !!!

The main problem during rainy seasons is that, water gets logged at some places and driving over them creates some nuisanse. But what if the water doesn’t recede from the center of the road? There is no other option but to drive over them. There is no point in shouting at the riders driving over the water. For that point, even I got drenched yesterday and since I was wearing a rain coat, I escaped 😉

Moral of the Story: Buy a raincoat during rainy seasons.

😀

Anbalayam

October 25th, 2006

Hmm.. here is a lady, who seems to be in her mid 20s. She is seen wearing a torn green blouse along with a blue saree which is torn at various places. She is looking very dirty. Her hair is stuck in an inseparable mass and her face and hands have a dash of something black. At the outsight, she looks so dirty that you would never go near her. She picks rags with a stick from the neighbourhood dustbin, eats shit and drinks sewage.

Does that description sound familiar? How many of us have noticed such people? Have we ever cared for them? Oh! we never even took enough time to even think about them, leave alone care them. What is the fate of these people?

Fortunately, some of these people have a very good future. How? People at Anbalayam, located in the South Indian district of Tiruchirapalli (Trichy) have a dedicated set of persons whose daily job is to scout the areas in and around Trichy to find these wanderers. What’s worse is that most of these wanderers are mentally ill. Anbalayam finds them and brings them to their home, which is located near the Trichy airport. They bath them, cloth them, trim their hair and give them proper treatment for their disability. They even let these people stay with them FOREVER. Until now, they have more than 70 mentally ill people out of which many were found wandering the city. They have even reunited these people with their families after treating them.

This was one small and divine experience I got when I visited Anbalayam during Deepavali festival. The home is being run by Mr. Senthil. Though he is a lawyer by profession, he is taking care of the home he lovingly developed and ran successfully for 16 full years. One astonishing fact is that, one of the caretakers of the home was a mentally retarded man. Did you notice was in the previous line? That man was actually brought back to his good senses by the supportive doctors at Anbalayam and now, he takes care of more than 50 mentally retarded people.

Managing the mentally retarded
… is a damn tough job. Some of them are very violent that they will fight heavily among themselves and settle for a good joke. Managing these violent people is a tough task because they have enormous physical power. They urinate in their own places itself and through their sheer muscle power, they even beat up the cleaners, sometimes. People who do this cleaning job and serving them by bathing them and having lunch with them must be worshipped because of the sacrifice they are doing.

Besides housing mentally ill, Anbalayam also has a home for people affected with HIV positive. They also have an old age home.

Festival of Lights
This Deepavali has been enlightening for me because it showed me another world, with another set of people doing great service to humanity. I know many of us will not be able to dedicate ourselves with such service to humanity. But we can surely contribute what we can, either in cash or in kind, whichever is suitable. If you are interested, please get in touch with Mr.Senthil.

Anbalayam also has a website at http://www.wanderingmentallyill.org. Please take some time to go through the site and have a look at the amazing work they are doing. And if possible, contribute too.

(Senti)mental First Salary

October 8th, 2006

First Salary

Yay!! I got my first salary 2 days ago. Tell you what, after a saree for grandmom, a mobile for my bro, wrist watch for my mom and some more expenses and treats later, all that remains of the first salary is Rs.252/- he he!!! We spent two full days shopping weird things. Ok.. that apart, let me you share with you, a little surprise I gave my mom.

After I got my salary, I never asked my mom what she wanted nor did she ask me anything. So, when I went outside along with my friends, we stopped at a Titan watch showroom. We spotted a watch that had a small oval display with a flower designed silver strap. It was superb. Mom would love it. We paid for it and gift wrapped it. I never told her that I got her a watch.

Night came and we all slept. I got up at about 12.30 AM, took the gift wrapped watch and placed it above the stove in the kitchen. Today morning, she was damn surprised to see a gift for her. She was like, “Oh! my God, this is beautiful”. Her eyes were filled with tears. Brushing them aside, she wished me all the best for a good career ahead.

More Spam?

October 2nd, 2006

Yes!! already everybody is getting a lot of spam in our email accounts. Thanks to the spam filters, otherwise our inbox would be rendered useless. I just came across this new thing in yahoo mail, where if you give an invalid username and some password, it takes to a page similar to the one shown below. Remember, an invalid id and invalid password. Look at the text I have blocked in the screenshot. Won’t it pave the way for more spam?

Proto: The Next Big Thing

September 29th, 2006

After BarCampChennai: It was one heck of an amazing event. The talk was on web 2.0 and geeks and only interested geeks were there. Lots of entrepreuners too. Atul Chitnis said that BarCampChennai was the best of all in India.

BlogCamp.in: Six months after the smashing success of BarCamp, Chennai came up with an event tagged as India’s Biggest Blog Unconference. True to the tag, the event attracted participants from around the globe and as many as 60 volunteers owned various parts of the unconference.

After BlogCamp.in: Two weeks later, the same team met again and thought of a DEMO like event for India and Indian products. After some heavy discussions, the event has been named as PROTO. It should be noted that Palm, Java and many other great products were launched at DEMO. Read the DEMOblog.

PROTO cannot be in unconference mode because it will become a bigger BarCamp. This event is one place where we get venture capitalists (VCs) and entrepreuners together so that some of the best brains and ideas in the Indian sphere can get funded. We are aiming for a one-on-one coordination between the entrepreuners and VCs. That is, number of VC companies will be greater than or equal to the number of teams presenting at the event. Ofcourse, there will be a lot of press coverage.

Teams who think they have innovative products will be asked to register at the website that is expected to come up shortly. After that, each team will be reviewed by an expert team from PROTO who have an eye for future trends and the ability to judge products which promise to be the next huge wave. Some teams will be shortlisted for presentation at the event. They will also have the opportunity to have a face-to-face meeting with interested VCs who will gather at the event. The place and time of the event will be announced shortly.

The main reason for coming up with such an event is that, even though there are a huge number of IT companies in India, there is not enough innovation happening on that front. It is like yet another government job where we get a good salary, pension, wife, 2 kids etc. This face of India should change. Entrepreuners should be encouraged. Events like PROTO are a step towards that. As DEMO had set the stage for entrepreuners world-wide, PROTO hopes to be India’s defacto platform for staging new products and technologies. With a pretty huge population and talent raising day-by-day, I think innovation shouldn’t be a problem. It is all in the mindset of the people.

Interested? Read the discussions we had during our first meeting. Our community tech blog says, “India has the potential to become a technological innovation hotspot. It must be noted that, it won’t be the IT majors who make this happen, but startups”. Vijay says, “We are the future of India. Either embrace us, or fear us :)”.

PROTO will make a change on the IT face of India.