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.