Blogging in two oh oh six

Welcome! Hope you have a wondeful year that is filled with happiness, fulfilled dreams and other such things. Not to mention more of my blog posts.

Ok so one of my new year's resolutions is going to be blog more. And the other seriously funny one is to be using Skype more often. Towards that end I seem to have somehow mastered the art of getting my Bluetooth headset (Nokia HS4W) working with my laptop (Sony Vaio, as of this writing) using a Belkin Bluetooth USB thingie (which works for up to 100 metres by the way). Its so wonderfully awesome once you get it working (after hours of frustration, cursing and generally draining the laptop battery - unless its plugged in to mains the bluetooth thingie can drain your battery in between blinks). Next up is trying out Skypeheadset which makes it really convenient to use Skype with the bluetooth headset because it supports stuff like call and mute using the headset buttons - just like a regular mobile phone! Ohhhh I love technology!!! :-)

I'm using the Performancing plugin for Firefox to write this blog by the way. Its a neat plugin that provides split screen view so you can use the browser while you type your blog post etc.

I just created a Yahoo 360 account and am trying to figure out what its all about. You can call this my "first signup of the year". But in general I think Blogger is much better when it comes to blogging than Yahoo 360.

Talking of firsts of the year - I already had my first call of the year and first SMS of the year.

For those of you who are wondering - I dumped Opera as my primary browser and am now back to Firefox (version 1.5 is so much more cooler and stabler). The number one reason being - plugins. I think all software should have plugin support. I believe the most important reason why Firefox is so popular is because you can extend its utility using so many plugins. The Firefox plugins (or extensions) I have installed right now are SessionSaver, Tabbrowser Preferences, LiveLines, FlashGot, PDF download, Add Bookmark here, Plain Text Links, Gmail Delete button, Disable XPI Install delay, SearchPluginHacks, Stop-or-Reload Button and ofcourse Performancing.

BTW here's a really cool gadget - its called the Snazio Net DVD Cinema and it allows you to wirelessly stream your digital media collections (mp3, wmv, DVD whatever) from your PC, laptop etc to your regular TV. That sounds exciting to me and I may get one soon.

OK I think that should be enough for the first blog post of the year. More later. Toodle-doo.

Beep

Testing Performancing for Firefox plugin.

The disposable era

The other day the DSL router at home conked off and I had to call the phone company to fix it. The repair guy came, replaced the router and took the old one with him. Seeing this my mom asked me, "is he going to bring back the old one after fixing it?". I replied that he won't be fixing it, he just replaced it with a new one. My mom sounded pretty surprised about that and this set me thinking.

Are we now in an age where everything's disposable? If it doesn't work, just dump it and look for something new? Do we no longer want to "fix" it? This could be applicable to just about anything and not just DSL routers. Just a thought.

In search of the multiverse

Last week I finished listening to Michael Crichton's Timeline. Its an old book but I read (actually listened to it via Audible) only now. The book explores the concept of multiverses - which are parallel universes ("almost similar" to the one we live in) and "travelling" to those universes at different points in time.

This concept of a multiverse sounds very interesting to me. A multiverse contains many other parellel universes which are almost similar (not identical but almost similar) to the one that we live in. So in each of these universes the events that take place are slightly different. E.g. in this universe I'm typing this blog post on a fine Sunday afternoon, and in another I could well be still asleep enjoying a weekend siesta.

Have you ever felt like a situation you were in was something you had experienced before? Its called deja vu but I think its actually an experience that is somehow made its way from another universe into ours - a quirk in the space time continuum or quantum foam gone awry. Do I sound like a quantum physicist? I guess not. :-)

Other books I listened to from Michael Crichton in the past few months are State of Fear, Airframe and Prey. All of them are well researched and make quite a few predictions that I believe will soon be reality - like many of the science fiction fantasies that are now a reality.

PressDisplay

Check out PressDisplay.com - replicas of newspapers from around the world!

Flock!

This is absolutely cool (but still pretty unstable) software. Flock allows you to browse the web (I think it uses Mozilla/Firefox as the backend engine) and blog using the same application. I bet it does a lot more stuff but I haven't checked it out fully yet. You can get a beta release (beware: it may still have lots of bugs) from www.flock.com

PS: I'm posting this using Flock.

Cool links etc

Here are some cool sites I came across today.

 

Windows Live - this is Microsoft trying to get Windows and Office online. Read the news item here.

 

Nedwolf - Dozens of free software including desktop, portable and web-based.

 

Gada.be - brand new metasearch engine. The unique thing about this is that you can search by adding the keywords to the URL itself i.e. http://microsoft-live.gada.be searches for "microsoft live".

 

Thats it for today. Hope all of you had a great Diwali.

Test using Qumana blog editor

This is a test post using Qumana blog editor - let me see if it makes any sense using it rather than using the browser to post to my blog. You can check Qumana at www.qumana.com

 

 

Technorati Tags : Qumana, blog, editor

 

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The fat lady singeth

A couple of weeks back Opera announced that they were going to give away their browser free (no ads and no licensing fee). Just like Firefox.

I promptly downloaded the latest version of Opera and installed it in my laptop. And I was hooked! I really can't say what it was that made me switch but in a day I had Opera as my default browser, uninstalled AvantBrowser and delegated Firefox to the second browser spot. Earlier I had Firefox as my 'first' browser, AvantBrowser as my 'second' browser and IE as my 'third' browser. Now I have Opera as my first, Firefox as my second and IE as my third browser (simply because I can't safely uninstall it and still expect Windows to work).

This Opera is just starting.

By the way, if you're wondering what I meant by "the fat lady singeth" look at this page.

User Experience

The other day (no, it was not THAT other day) I was at an ATM. Lets call the ATM of Bank 'I-52' (why does everyone call the unknowns - X and Y?) So there I was pushing buttons, working the thing and waiting for the dough when I started thinking.

Before that a bit of a background. I have also had the good fortune to access more than one bank. Not that I have a lot of moolah to store, but thats besides the point. So I have used the ATM of Bank 'C-87' also in the past. OK now on with the story.

OK so while waiting for the dough I started to think about the differences I noticed in the ATMs of these two banks.

Bank 'C-87' has this nice plushy casing for its ATM with a touchscreen monitor embedded into the wall (or table or whatever they can find at that particular location). You just press the icons on the touchscreen, the thing gives out a few comforting beeps and out comes the moolah. Plus the graphical interface on this ATM is also quite nice - subtle colors, soft corners on buttons, very easy on the eyes etc.

Bank 'I-52' on the other hand has this box-like contraption which encases its ATM machine. There are hard physical buttons (no touchscreen) for you to type your PIN number etc. The menus are operated by another set of buttons which are nowhere near numeric keypad that you used to type in your PIN number. The on-screen graphics uses very harsh colors which are not necessarily easy on the eyes. Especially when you are desperate for the moolah.

And there are no comforting beeps.

OK so what is the moral of this story? Well I 'feel' happy and content (like a baby that has just had its milk) when I use the ATM of Bank 'C-87'. Bank 'C-87' makes me feel good about the experience. Whereas the ATM of Bank 'I-52' makes me 'feel' that life couldn't get any worse.

I get my dough in both situations (and in approximately the same amount of time) but the difference was in the user experience.

The moolah is really in the user experience.

In search of power

The other day I was on my way to a meeting when my mobile (a Nokia 6255) beeped. I looked at its screen and found the message "Low battery". Accompanying this message was a cute animation of a battery with very little "juice" (power) shaking around all over the screen. This set me thinking - why can't mobile phones be a little more intelligent?

Lets say the phone is nearly out of juice and could shut itself down at any moment. The last thing you would want it to do in such a situation is display a cute animation which uses up even more juice and hastens its end. What I would like the mobile to do in such a situation is to get into a mode that uses as little juice as possible but yet warn me so that I can get it charged again.

Perhaps the phone could have some form of power management (do any mobiles do that already, outside of these 'smartphone PDAs' that is?). Sort of like the power management you find on laptops - with several hundred profiles such as "writing email", "oogling at pics", "trying to get work done in MS Word" etc which adjust the processor's speed etc based on the kind of activity you're currently on. I am sure there must be a dozen activities that the latest and greatest mobile phone does which have absolutely no impact on your life and which could be safely switched off in favor of a bit more juice.

How about if you're on a call and the mobile phone is able to recognize that you are at the receiving end of a boring conversation? The phone could send you a subtle beep which means "Hey this conversation is not worth my juice". You would then have an option to, for example, clear your throat in the next 5 seconds, which the mobile phone would recognize and promptly disconnect the caller. The phone would then send a message to the mobile service provider's server instructing it to automatically issue a 'busy' signal to that caller for the next 12 hours, hence saving some more juice. Hopefully by then they would have also forgotten what they wanted to say, saving some more juice.

More cool stuff

Here's stuff I found on my travels through the Internet today.

LifeHacker.com - downloads, websites and shortcuts to save time.

LifeHack.org - this is a similar sounding site on productivity and "getting things done".

MinimizeToTray - this Firefox extension allows the Firefox browser to be minimized to tray.

AJAX - this technology has been made popular by Google via its various services such as Google Maps and Google Suggest. Here's a good example of a web-based service developed using AJAX.

OneLook reverse dictionary - describe a concept and get back a word. Simple.

Google Blog Search - Finally Google unveils a specialized search for just the blogs. I searched for my name and found a link to my blog and also this post on another blog.

Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions - Yes Microsoft actually gives away "express" versions of its Visual Studio software (includes free versions of Visual Basic 2005, Visual C# 2005, etc).

Cool stuff for the week

Here's some stuff that I am trying out currently.

Qurb - this software provides spam protection as well as a "challenge-response" mechanism to keep your inbox clean of unwanted email. It also has a very fast email search facility for Outlook.

Audible - Listen to hundreds of books, magazines and radio shows. I'm addicted. Atleast this way I read/listen to one book every month.

RhymeZone - When you haven't got the time, to make up a rhyme - visit the RhymeZone and get tons of suggestions.

Engineering the environment

I was listening to Michael Crichton's State of Fear last month (yes, listening and not reading - I finally subscribed to Audible). The book's excellent and well researched like most of Crichton's books. This book and some real life incidents have set me thinking.

In the book, an organization working for environmental protection and against global warming resorts to engineering natural disasters like a tsunami, hurricane and so on in order to prove its point that global warming is leading to disastrous changes in climate.

Over the past month two natural disasters occured that I am aware of - one was the torrential rains that hit Mumbai in the North of India and the other was the Hurricane Katarina that hit the Gulf Coast of USA. Both incidents resulted in unprecedented losses of life and property.

I'm not saying that these incidents are due to global warming. But I am thinking what would happen if real life mirrored fiction and terrorist organizations started engineering natural disasters by manipulating the environment? Would this lead to "eco"-terrorism?

Memories and a lot more

Beep.

That was me booting up. After being in hibernation for a month if not more. Somehow I can't seem to "find time" to write. Or maybe I'm just plain lazy. Its been so long I wonder if anyone still checks this page for updates.

This past week has been eventful. I got duly food poisoned by some fruit juice I had last Sunday and spent the best part of Monday and Tuesday this week vomiting and rushing to the bathroom - not necessarily in that order.

Morbid as it may sound but this was also probably my first experience in passing out. It was a strange feeling. I was seated in my chair trying to get some rest. At first it felt like a rush of blood to my head. As though my brain suddenly needed more of it. I felt my vision blurring. And then there was nothing. It was like as though someone had just switched me off. After a few seconds (or maybe a few minutes, I don't know) I was switched on again and was in a different place (in front of the wash basin actually - put there by mom who was splashing water on me face). What happened in between I would probably never know. It was a strange feeling.

We take so much for granted. Sight, sound, smell, thought, ... I wonder what someone that didn't have one or more of these senses would do. What if I couldn't see? What if I couldn't speak or hear? When you're alive, you exist - and that feeling of existing is felt both by others and by you. You know you exist. Others (even if they choose to ignore you) know that you exist. What would the person that was in a coma feel? Will their existence be of any meaning to them? Will their existence be solely for the purpose of other people, who hoped that one day they would switch themselves on again?

I'm probably crazy, but such thoughts do make their presense felt in me and I wanted to put them down some place.

I went and had a hair cut today and saw many small kids getting their hair cuts. Their dads were proudly standing behind the chairs directing the barber - "hey not so close, leave it natural". I normally don't go to the saloon on Sundays since it would be too crowded, but today was an exception. The sight brought back memories. Memories of when I was a kid and my dad used to take me to the saloon. It was a big event. The Sunday visit to the saloon. We used to go on my dad's scooter (a 'Lamberta' or something - he had to actually wait 5 years after booking the scooter to get it delivered, such was the demand for scooters those days). The saloon was right next to Kamal Haasan's (the Tamil actor) house and it prided itself in having him among its prestigious clientele. The barber used to be delighted to see me. Maybe he was like that with everyone but he made me feel special to sit there in his chair and get my hair cut. He would go about his business telling interesting stories (and gossip) to all those that cared to listen to him. At the end of his labor of love would be me, spanking clean with a nice hair cut and smelling of talcum powder. Wonderful memories.

The past week also saw some techie announcements that I have been following. First of all, iTunes 4.9 is out and it has podcatching support! Which means I can just click and subscribe to podcasts within iTunes and they sync automatically to my iPod. Cool one. And then there was also the announcement from Microsoft that their (here soon now) Longhorn OS will natively support RSS feeds - which means blogs can stream to your desktop, inter-person communications can take place via RSS feeds, and a lot more. Both these announcements were made at the Gnomedex 5.0 conference organized by Chris Pirillo (did I spell it right?). The power of blogs and podcasts meant that I could follow the conference happening in Seattle right from the comfort of my home. The written word, the photos, the audio, the video - created a picture of all that was happening at the conference. The wonder of technology...

A couple of things about the conference. Adam Curry's keynote speech (which was at the end of the conference) - was totally awesome. He is a great podcaster and I admire the way he timed his speech, inserted the punch lines, raised emotions with Rob Costlow's success story and left the audience cheering and clapping and thinking. The showman extraordinaire! And then there is Dave Winer. He's the guy that came up with the RSS specification that lead to the birth of blogs and podcasts. Together they make a great team and have, along with several other pioneers, launched the next big revolution in media and broadcasting.

The future is being podcast! :-) I think podcasts will be a serious alternative to radio and other media sooner than we think. And just wait till iPods get video capability and then we can see a surge in videocasts as well. And that could lead to maybe professionally produced (short) films downloadable to your iPod. And a whole new industry of "indie" (as they call it) media.

There's one thing I noticed with iTunes 4.9. When podcasts are downloading there is no way (atleast as far as I could see) to pause the download. Sometimes when 3 or 4 podcasts are downloading it eats up all available bandwidth and I can no longer browse any other site (or its extremely slow to be usable). In some cases I may want to actually pause the download and then restart it after I'm done browsing. When I cancel a download it actually now starts downloading from the beginning. This is something that will probably need looking into.

Oh well, I go from one topic to the other without any proper sequence but thats the beauty of blogs.

I watched "Black" - a Hindi movie - on DVD today. It generated a wonderful, touching, emotional experience. Sort of encapsulates some of what I've said above - the feeling of being lonely, the feeling of darkness all around, the feeling of succeeding after years and years of trying. I would give it a ten out of ten not because everyone's raving about it, but because I really felt the emotions the director was trying to convey with the film.

Soon it will be a year since I started blogging and I need to clean this place up and give it a new look. Or maybe you would like me to vacate this space forever? :-) Suggestions are welcome.

[o&o]

Gadgetopia - my desk at home with the Sony Vaio, Dell Axim x50v, Apple iPod and the Bose SoundDock.

Some thoughts

Here's something I got in the email today. It set me thinking and its a welcome change from the geeky stuff that I post here. :-)

What would you do if every time you wanted someone they
would never be there?

What would you do if for every moment you were truly happy
there would be 10 moments of sadness?

ipod at last

After months of waiting I finally have an iPod Photo and a Bose SoundDock. More about this including pics later. My "gizmo wishlist" is now zilch. I seem to have everything that one could ever wish for. Well almost everything.

ipcopy

A quick post about this software that allows you to transfer files over a LAN using TCP/IP. Its useful when you want to quickly transfer over a network even if you have access to only good old DOS command prompt. Check it out here.

Pocket PC freeware and other such goodies

Here's some more freeware goodies I discovered for the Pocket PC after wasting several weekends searching.

Agile Messenger - neat piece of free software that allows you to connect to MSN, Yahoo, AOL, and some others I don't remember using the Pocket PC. It also has a nifty Today screen component that tells you how many of your buddies are online and also if you have any email on any of these services.

nPOP - this freeware allows you to check your POP3 email and also send outgoing email using SMTP. Pretty fast and optimized for Pocket PC (I can single tap to select hordes of spam that I receive and then mark them for deletion). It also has an icon next to the taskbar (or whatever they call the place where it shows the wifi and bluetooth status) that allows you to quickly check for new email etc.

sshCE - this is not freeware but I couldn't get PocketPutty to work on my Axim so I had to settle for this. sshCE allows you to connect to remote servers using the SSH protocol. Its useful for mostly for network administrators (or if you would like to show off geeky software on your Pocket PC).

Other than this I'm also exploring Mercora. A sort of a public webcasting network that legally allows you to listen and time-shift music that is not from up and coming artists. They have a small fee monthly if you want unlimited access but the free membership allows you to listen for up to 1 hour a day, so thats probably about 10 songs a day for free.

Some random thoughts

I'm waiting for one of the servers I admin to go back online. And while I wait I had some thoughts.

First, in about two months time I will be completing one year of blogging. I never thought that I could keep this up for so long, even though I've probably not blogged for a few months at a stretch some times.

Second, today after about a gap of about 10 or 12 years I met a some of my old school mates. It was great fun comparing stories (we had lost touch after we got out of school). And sometimes you wonder... oh well, I am not able to get the 'blog flow'. Will write about this later. After all its 12am in the night and I can't be expected to be productive. :-)

More Firefox stuff

I'm still in the 'tweak' Firefox mode. So here are some Firefox extensions that I started using recently - SessionSaver, WebmailCompose and Tabbrowser Preferences.

Firefox tip

Have you seen this Firefox speed-up tip?

Cool software for the week

Here's some software (and an ebook platform) that I'm currently exploring.

StyleTap - a software for the Windows Mobile Pocket PC that allows you to run applications created for the Palm OS!!! This is very good news indeed - there's hundreds of thousands of free software available for the Palm OS and StyleTap opens the flood gates for me to use them on the Axim. Check out this software at www.styletap.com

EReader - this website and accompanying reader software provides hundreds of ebooks for download. All of them are priced ofcourse, but the selections look good and very current. Check out EReader at www.ereader.com

SkypeHeadset - and here's yet another killer app that makes Skype easier to use. This allows you to use your bluetooth headset with Skype. So you could, for example, use the mute or answer button on your bluetooth headset to control the appropriate function on Skype. Its not clear if this would work with Skype for the Pocket PC that I have loaded on the Axim, lets see how this work out. Check out the software at www.skypeheadset.co.uk

Thats it for this week. See you around. :-)

Editing ID3 tags of downloaded podcasts

Here's a program I used today to set the genre on all the podcasts (over 30) I downloaded today. I find that each podcast classifies itself differently but its more convenient to view them on my Zen Xtra if I can have them all grouped into the "Podcast" genre. This program called MP3tag seems to do that pretty quickly and easily.

LogMeIn

I discovered logmein.com today and found it to be pretty good for remote access to my Windows PC. I could even use my Axim to connect remotely to the Windows desktop. All this without having a static IP address assigned at either end. This is sort of like GoToMyPC except that they have a completely free version available that allows remote access. The "Pro" version comes with lots of other goodies such as remote transfer of files, sync'ing between PCs etc. Check it out at www.logmein.com

Skype on the Dell Axim

It just works.

Heavenly thoughts

Just a thought - the new Pope looks cute and when I look at him on TV or his photo in the paper it seems to instill a sense of security and calmness. I guess thats why they chose him.

The whole process of choosing the new Pope is very ceremonious and interesting. The Cardinals gathering for a secret meeting, the concept of black smoke / white smoke, the bells ringing, and so forth.

Books, tons of them

The "Rapid Development" book finally landed in Chennai yesterday along with the Axim (and yes I got the Post-It notes as well). The book looks pretty good (and pretty heavy) based on an initial read. I think its an essential reference for every project manager that works on software development or IT projects.

Other than this I also paid a visit to the friendly neighborhood bookstore (Landmark) and bought these books:

1) Lateral Thinking - Creativity Step by Step (Edward de Bono)
2) Capitalising on Customers (Patricia B Seybold, Mitchel I Kramer, Dr Muhamed Muneer)
3) Business beyond the box (John O'Keeffe)
4) Delegating (Julie-Ann Amos)

All of them look interesting and I'll be reading them during the course of the next century.

Axim at last

The Axim x50v finally arrived yesterday!!!! The wait is over and I'm into the big bad world of the Pocket PC (as opposed to the Palm that I toted around all these years).

One of the first things I noticed was that unlike the Palm most Pocket PC software is priced. The Palm has tens of thousands of free software available. Preliminary looks reveal only few sites that cater to freeware on the Pocket PC platform. If anyone knows any good download sites for the Pocket PC please send them to me.

That apart, the Axim is awesome! I will write more about it as I continue to explore.

Eye care for dummies (and even those who are not)

After arriving home from my visit the eye doc I read the pamphlet that he had given me and realized that it was actually sensible advise, especially for those that spend long hours in front of a computer monitor. Computer Vision Syndrome is an "occupational hazard" for knowledge workers and here's how you can minimize or maybe eliminate it altogether.

But first . . .

What is Computer Vision Syndrome? (CVS)

It is a symtpom complex consisting of vision related problems and posture related problems due to prolonged computer usage. Over 75-90% of computer users have this problem.

How do I know whether I have CVS?

Tired eyes, burning, redness
Dry eyes
Headaches
Loss of focus
Double vision
Blurred vision
Light sensitivity
Neck, back and shoulder pains
Contact lens discomfort

What can you do about these problems?

1) Make a conscious effort to blank more often. Put a note on your computer if necessary.

2) Take a break several times per hour. Take a minute to look around at things that are at varying distances from your computer, like a clock on the wall or something outside a window. Or take one big break, about 15 minutes, per hour.

3) Use eye drops, usually lubricants, as advised by your eye doctor.

4) Position your computer so that windows are to the side of the monitor, rather than in front or the back.

5) Adjust the contrast of your computer monitor for comfortable viewing. Monitor should be placed below the level of your eyes.

6) Adjust window blinds so that sunlight is away from your screen and your eyes.

7) Turn off overhead lights that are too bright and if they are too bright switch over to lower wattage bulb or use a desk lamp.

8) Move your desk lamp to a spot where it doesn't reflect on the screen or shine on your eyes.

9) Attach a glare filter to your screen.

10) Mouse and keyboard should be placed below the elbow level preferably on an extension board. The chair should be provided with arm rests which can be used while typing for long hours.

11) Monitor should be turned slightly away and below the level of your eyes, like when you hold a book while reading.

And finally . . . Remember the 2020 rules

For every 20 minutes you work on computers

1) Stop and blink 20 times.

2) Focus on an object more than 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

3) Make sure you have 20/20 vision and wear glasses if required.


[end of sermon]

20/15 vision

Oh yes it was that time of the year (and in my case that time which comes once in 7 years) and I had to finally schedule an appointment with the eye doc. So I chose yesterday. It was Tuesday, a nice day, a day after Monday.

I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. Like I said it has been over 7 years since I went to the eye doc (the last time I went was for getting contact lenses affixed to my eyes, which is a long story that will have to wait for another day) and I was not sure what exactly lie in wait for me. I reached the doc's office well in time for my appointment and was told to wait. I waited for over an hour and in the process realized why people that visited a doc were called patients. We had to be patient and wait our turn. No point complaining about it. I finally got my turn and shuffled nervously into the doc's room. The doc looked cool enough while he reviewed my past reports and I managed a weak smile. He then proceeded to test me with a hundred different lenses one eye at a time. I realized that he no longer uses the alphabet and that I had to instead read out numbers. I guess this has something to do with the fact that with the alphabet he needs to have one set for each of the possible 50 odd languages that exist in India whereas the numbers, well the numbers are more or less universal.

After a long time switching lenses and trying to make me contradict myself, he finally chose a pair that seemed to have a particular liking for me. Relieved that the ordeal was finally over I managed to beam happily at him but that was shortlived. He announced that he would like to dilate my eyes and proceed to ring the bell for his assistant. The assistant came, shoved my head back and proceeded to squirt some liquid into my eyes. I was then told to wait. I then waited for about half an hour, most of which time was spent with my eyes closed (obviously because the liquid squirted into my eyes was hurting a lot) and some of which was spent looking at the world around me with liquid squirted eyes which made everything look pretty interesting.

Finally the doc called for me and proceeded to do something with a piece of equipment which basically was thrust into my face and which looked pretty empty but suddenly projected a three dimensional picture of a house at a distance. It then proceeded to take several photos of my eye which was surprised by the sudden apperance of a house. This was repeated with the other eye. Then the doc proceeded to tap away at his computer for some time while I sat twiddling my thumb.

After a period of contemplation he told me that I will need to change my glasses and that I was a victim of the Computer Vision Syndrome. Aha! I knew I was a victim of something. He then gave me a pamphlet on the syndrome. Well, simply put the "syndrome" was brought about by the fact that I was staring at a computer screen for long hours without blinking. He also advised me to use some eye drops at regular intervals to keep my eyes lubricated.

Thankful to get out of this in one piece, I left the place as jubilant as I could look with eyes that still had blurred vision due to the liquid being squirted into them.

WMP 10

Maybe its just me, but I'm through with using Windows Media Player 10 to manage my music. The software is so... hare-brained. It leaves files all over the place, it doesn't auto-sync with my Zen Xtra, it messes up tags and moves files to the wrong genres, ... I'm going right back to iTunes and Notmad Explorer to manage my digital music. Oh, I wish I had an iPod.

Zen Xtra fast forward / rewind

OK I found out how to do this. I need to press and HOLD the fast forward or the rewind button so that it goes forward or back within a track. If I just press and LET IT GO then it would just skip to the next track in the playlist. Talk about user intefaces... BTW I also upgraded to the latest firmware for the Zen Xtra last week. And that was a painful process as well which involved fiddling around with the Zen Xtra's reset button with a pointy edge of a pin.

Almost random thoughts

Alright its countdown time again. Just over 4 days to go for me to get my hands on a brand new Dell Axim X50v. The PDA comes with a lot of goodies the least of which is a brilliant color screen.

I upgraded to Windows Media Player 10 after a long wait. Looks pretty good and one thing I noticed immediately was that even video files of low resolution (320x320 or around that) I had downloaded earlier looked better even when the player was maximized to full screen. It also seems to have got sync facility with my Zen Xtra (this was one reason why I didn't upgrade earlier, after reading horror stories about how Media Player 10 and the Creative driver messed each other up, but now they seem to have cleaned up their act). But I still can't figure out how to make it auto-sync.

Talking about figuring out stuff, on the Zen Xtra I'm wondering why I can't find a skip option. That is, while its playing I cannot fast forward or rewind to a certain location in the track. This is almost a given on media players. Maybe I'm not looking at the right place...

BTW if anyone has a Yahoo 360 invite to spare please send me one. I can't wait to check it out.

Check out Google Maps - looks like a cool service in the making. Combines Google's "fuzzy search" with a Mapquest-like maps database and a Terraserver-like satellite database to create something that is pretty easy to use and fast. Just like the Google search.

For those that spend endless hours at the PC (or laptop) try WorkRave - I downloaded it now and it looks neat. A free program, it reminds you when to take a micro-break, coffee break and take off for the day.

And finally here's a new theme for Firefox called Phoenity.

Books anyone?

A friend recommended Rapid Development by Steve Mc Connell. The book looks good judging from the preview I got here.

So what did I do? I went and bought the book on Amazon.com. And that was my first Amazon.com buy. (fanfare) Alright, I'm a disgrace to humanity for not having bought anything from Amazon.com for so long. Well atleast I made a start now. And Amazon.com being what it is promised to give me free shipping to anywhere in the contiguous United States if I bought a Post-It Notes pack. So I went and bought that as well and now the book and a pack of 300 Post-It Notes are on their way to an undisclosed location in the USA from where they'll be sent via underground channels to India. Let me see if thats cheaper than asking Amazon to ship direct to here.

And while I was trying to add the book to my AllConsuming.net list I found that the service was down. Its a pity. I've posted a note there offering to help setup their server again. Lets see what happens.

About ActiveWords

Just one detail - I uninstalled it. It was too counter-intuitive (maybe I could not remember the 20000 words that an average human being could) and kept swallowing up my keystrokes at random leading to lots of frustration.

Administrivia

Yes yes, I know. I've taken to blogging once a month. Hopefully I'll remedy that soon but the fact that I'm posting at 1am in the night tells you what is going on with my life. No I am not suffering from insomnia, rather I have too much to do. But I shall never stop blogging - more power etc!

In other news, I pruned my blogroll (what you sent under the "Blogs I read" list on the right side) because my Bloglines list was getting too big (75 blogs at last count). So I went and bought FeedDemon. And I didn't regret it. Its worth every penny. This excellent program provides an Outlook like interface to read blogs in and has built-in support for podcasts! What more could one ask for? So henceforth I'll use FeedDemon for reading blogs and use Bloglines only to provide the blogroll on this site. And if you really want the list of all of the 75 blogs that I read regularly, then post a comment or email me and I'll send you the list.

There was something else that I wanted to post about but I forget.

ActiveWords

I came across this software called ActiveWords which allows one to setup "active words" that can trigger various things on the computer such as opening a folder, opening a website and so on. This is similar to macro programs like ShortKeys except that ActiveWords seems to have a lot of extensions that have made it very popular and get rave reviews. I've downloaded the 60 day trial and will give it a spin and see how it works.

GSM, SMS, mobiles and other such thoughts

I'm in the market for a GSM connection - mainly because my CDMA provider (Reliance - which is excellent, by the way, and which I can't live without for its near perfect data service which connects to my Vaio to the world when I'm travelling) refuses to provide email to SMS facilities. This is something that GSM providers seem to have done a long time ago (and which I was using till I shifted to CDMA). Its pretty useful - you can use it to allow people to send you short email (with info, alerts calls for help etc) that will then be forwarded to your mobile as an email. You won't need to be logged in to anything, just carry the phone around and it would beep the email out to you.

So I'm in the market for a GSM connection that provides cheap SMS services - so that I can use email to SMS (which uses incoming SMS that is any way free) and also use Yahoo and MSN Mobile services which allow me to get Yahoo/MSN messenger posts via SMS. I just saw Airtel's "MTV" plan and it says 30p for a local SMS. If anyone has any thoughts on this please let me know.

The other day I managed to get my cousin a Nokia 6230 for Rs 9500. It seemed like a good deal and she's now flashing the mobile around for all world to see. The mobile is pretty cool and has almost everything one could want from a mobile (FM, mp3 player, video camera, applications, bluetooth etc).

I wonder why Nokia calls its phones by numbers and not names. For example, I had to actually Google to find out what was the model of the Nokia phone we bought last week. And 6230 could well be 6630 or 6620 or any of the hundreds of phones from Nokia that have a name starting with "6". To test this I actually randomly typed in "nokia" followed by a random 4 digit number starting with "6" in Google and every time it turned out an actual Nokia model.

Maybe in the case of Nokia they actually ran out of names, considering that they release a new model almost every other second.

But why are even other companies infatuated with numbers? Samsung calls its mobiles "SGH-d415" and "VM-A680". Are we supposed to say "my mobile is a capital S, capital G, capital H, hypen, lowercase D, 4, 1, 5"???

Thats like calling an iPod by its manufacturer's serial number. Is it easier to say "iPod Shuffle 1GB" or would you rather have the "M9725LL/A"? (which is, by the way, the actual model number of the iPod Shuffle 1GB)

Long time no blog

Yes yes, I know. Its been over a month since I blogged and most of you thought I was finally rid of my blogusiasm (a word coined by dimbu) or that I was living under a rock.

The latter is probably more true. It does feel like I've been living under a rock.

So what did I do after January 17th 2005? Lets see now...

Lots of work, missed deadlines, strained tempers, some moments of peace, some moments of despair, a few speed bumps, the flu, recovering from the flu, meeting with the family, the flu redux, a heartbreak, lots of drugs (the ones prescribed by a doctor ofcourse), recovering from the flu, and so on.

So, lots of stuff has been happening. :-)

Hopefully I'll have more time on my hands now and will be able to blog as much as I used. Thanks to all of you that have been checking my blog (almost daily) in the hope that I would some day actually post something to it.

Hello World

The rock stirs a bit.

A hand comes out and pushes the rock slowly away revealing something underneath it. One more push and another hand comes out to help the first one. Together they push the rock away completely revealing a gaping hole. A head peeps out of the hole and blinks in the sunlight. The thing hoists itself out of the hole and looks around.

Oh yes, I've been living under a rock alright. Hello world!

Software development mantra?

Here's something I heard today from a friend:

Software development can be two of the following three - quick, cheap, correct. But never more than two.

"My MSN" goof-up

The "My MSN" content customization page with placeholder "dummy" text in it.

Kaadhal and some other thoughts

I was watching the "Kaadhal" movie today evening. Extremely good performances and brilliantly natural direction. Most, if not all, actors and technicians in the movie are on their debut. And this has brought the best out of them. Most Tamil movies these days are crap but I would give this movie a 9 out of 10.

The end of a 3 day holiday is near. Looking back I'm wondering why I slept through most of it, being the insomniac that I am. :-)

I'm wondering why software developers release stuff without even basic testing and usability analysis. I was using Hotmail some time back and decided to click on to the "My MSN" link when I was done reading email.

What greeted me was a new version of the My MSN home page where one could customize the content according to one's interests. I decided to give this a try and clicked the "Change content" link and browsed through the sections on offer.

Clicking through to the "Astrology" section I was surprised to find it filled up with dummy content titled "XXX - No use". Clearly some lazy programmer was responsible for this. I really didn't expect such bad quality output from MSN. See my next blog post for a screenshot.

The rhythm and the blues

Three days of holidays and I have absolutely no clue how to spend these 3*24 hours (outside of doing some pending office work, that is). It was "Pongal" yesterday here in Tamil Nadu. This festival celebrates the harvest season. Read more here.

I was listening to Jay Sean's "Stolen" yesterday. Looks like a good Asian R&B singer in the making. The song has strains of the over-remixed "Churaliya" song in the background with very bluesy English lyrics.

Does anyone need any cleaning done?

I'm really excited - I just discovered that the "wonder" spray called "Colin" which was previously used at home to clean glass, mirrors etc can be used just as effectively to clean laptop screens. In fact I am amazed by its effects on my Vaio screen. So this shall be my tip for the day (or the year, considering that I've never posted any handy tips here before).

1) Take some tissue cloth.

2) First (gently) dry wipe the LCD screen of your laptop.

3) Then spray some "Colin" spray (I guess any *mild* glass cleaning liquid would just as well) onto the tissue. Don't spray it on the screen directly!

4) Then wipe about one inch of the screen starting from the left corner and going from top to bottom (gently does it!). Wipe only in one direction.

5) Step back and view the results. If it appears ugly :-) stop immediately. But I am sure it won't so proceed to the next step.

6) Repeat steps 4 to 5 till you reach the right edge of the screen.

7) If required take another go at it and repeat steps 2 to 6 with a fresh pair of tissues.

8) Step back and view the results. Tada!

I am impressed. Its far better (and cheaper) than those "laptop screen clean" solutions available in the market.

I was driven to such a frenzy by its results that I promptly took up the cause of cleaning everything in the house that even remotely resembled a mirror. With spray in one hand and tissues in another I proceeded to prowl the house spraying and cleaning everyone in sight.

In other news - my bean bag has gone to the "factory" for refilling. So I am sitting here at a regular table and a regular chair and typing this in. I like my bean bag and can't wait to get it back.

BTW I bought myself a pair of Altec Lansing headset with mike. See them here. Skype conversations couldn't get better.

Clean, clean, clean. Clean clean. Clean.

The 50-40-10 rule

Here's something I read today and strongly agree with.

Whatever you earn:

• Do your best to live on half, even if it means living simply and not "keeping up with the Jones." Keep your expenses low.
  

• Save 40% for the future: emergencies, education, retirement, etc.
  

• Give 10% away to those less fortunate or causes that help them out.