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Showing posts from 2010

December Rain - 2

I don't think many Decembers (exclude the last December!) had as much rain as this December is having in Chennai. Do you love watching the rain? Do you enjoy swimming in the well when it rains heavily? I do. It thrills! But... I have no time for these now. I spend few hours with my friends on every Sunday evening, playing cricket - I hate if it rains! I enjoy local bus travel - the wet umbrellas and raincoats with co-passengers, I hate if it rains. I love walking from Velachery railway station to the company - the potholes and the vehicles, I hate if it rains! If you have the habit of going for a short walk in the evening along the Taramani road, you might have seen few families live on the road side. In fact, you might have seen them preparing and having food at that time, perhaps the Sun sets after seeing this. I went for a shopping in that way yesterday night. It was raining. I wanted few shops to be open so that I can buy those things I had planned to buy. Not everybody thi

Top 20 Programming Lessons I've Learned

==== Jonathan Danylko: is a freelance web architect and avid programmer who has been programming for over 20 years. He has developed various systems in numerous industries including e-commerce, biotechnology, real estate, health, insurance, and utility companies. When asked what he likes doing in his spare time, he answers..."programming." ==== I've been programming since I was 11 and I've loved technology and programming every since. There are some hard and easy lessons I've learned over time. As a fellow programmer, you may not have experienced these, but I'm offering them to individuals who are interested in learning more from my experiences. I'll be updating this as time goes on. I may have more, but in my 20 year period, I don't think there are any additional rules that this list doesn't include. :-) Here are my most memorable lessons so far. Set a duration of how long you think it should take to solve a problem - C'mon, admit it! I'm

Gail

Instead of http://www.gmail.com, I typed http://www.gail.com/ And the page is interesting... A birthday gift! Kovil Pillai P.

Safari & HTTPS issue

Perhaps, this is one and only issue (related to windows software) that I am not able to resolve for a long in time. I mean, I couldn't say it won't work. Safari accessing secured pages through proxy. Oh, yes, Safari is not my browser. I use Firefox. I need Safari for only testing. http://superuser.com/questions/176072/safari-cant-open-a-secure-connection-to-server http://macosx.com/tech-support/mac/safari-unable-to-access-https/6899.html http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=755597&tstart=105 http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=705462 http://discussions.info.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11640883 http://www.mackb.com/Uwe/Forum.aspx/mac-network/1155/Safari-can-t-handle-https Kovil Pillai P.

Hard disk Crashed!

My hard disk crashed today. Apart from losing the stuff related to my work, I have lost lots of photos and videos. I know I need to take backup regularly. I know I can store data online. Yet I lost it. There is one simple answer "I had no time to do". Well, what are the best ways to be discipline enough to avoid this stupid answer? Kovil Pillai P.

Random Reminders

90, 89, 88 ... that was traffic signal countdown and I had to wait, I was waiting. Suddenly a thought, a backward walk in the memory lane, occurred. I had no plan to look back upon those old days yet it came. It came when I was standing in the midst of moving vehicles and people, a stop to the present and the vivid picture of the same road ten years back. We used to play all sorts of games in the same road, just like a playground. We used to see only one bus in every 45 minutes and a random lorry or a car. We never needed to bother about those. But today? Orange, Red and Green signal for us to go. Such is the strength of your brain, such is the beauty of life - you never know what it would bring the next. You may be playing and laughing with your friends and it could be just a single word someone utter that would take you many years back. You don't have to plan for this going back, you don't have to be predefined to have that thought at that moment, in fact, you never can - it

The most annoying Gmail feature

The conversations! I don't think many of you would have seen this as a disturbing feature. Recently I had few conversations that run into a long thread. When I tried to do few things, I found that I had no way of doing anything. The conversation view doesn't give us any control. For my use cases, the traditional viewing works absolutely fine. But I have no way of doing it in Gmail. There is an option to suggest a feature for Gmail (Organization -> Conversation View changes). I wonder how many would suggest a change as this feature is not going to annoy the majority. Here are the two main things I cannot do with this conversation view: 1) I wanted to mark few emails unread, so that I can reply later. 2) I wanted to move/label few mails so that they don't appear in my Inbox. http://getsatisfaction.com/google/topics/why_cant_i_turn_off_conversation_threading_in_gmail_its_fatal_for_my_business http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/gmail/thread?tid=144645c24ddb362b&hl=en

The Mother in You

I just can't believe. How could that be alive for one more day? It was thrown out of its cage when it was just two days old. I had no clue why the mother pigeon did that. My dad put it in a different cage. I thought it was ridiculous. I mean, how you take care of a squab of two days old. At least, you can feed animals like dog and cat. But for a bird? I really felt that that bird would die in a day or two. He used ink-filler (I remember using these sort of plastic ink-fillers when I was in school) to give water, drop by drop on its beak and fried gram flour as its daily food. When I saw him few days back, he was scolding the little bird which was standing on his pillow - "Don't you know that I sleep till 5 PM. Why are you disturbing me in between"? He gave some food and went again to sleep. Now it can run. Now it can fly. Thank God, no one needs to teach this little bird how to fly. Now it can fly as good as its mother. Wings are born out of true love. Only a mother

International Day of the Book

April 23: World Book and Copyright Day Dollar Desam Pa. Raghavan Quote: America is a country that has made wars an opportunity for making income. This has been so with it for a long time. The garbage behind its glamour, the despotism behind its democracy, the burden of debt behind its prosperity are important issues to be understood. By describing the complete political history of the country, this book brings to view the real face of America. This appeared as a series in Kumdam Reporter. The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown Quote: The Bible is neither a book dropped out of heaven nor a creation of man. Rather, it is one that, while coming from God, is written by real people. Pour Your Heart Into It Howard Schultz Quote: tells the story of how small-company values, passion, and integrity turned six local coffee stories into the Starbucks chain. A brief History of Time Stephen W. Hawking Quote: ... if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be unde

Donkey, Tea and Roses

Have you watched the movie Cast Away ? Good one. Part of the movie that shows the companionship between Chuck (hero) and Wilson (volleyball) in a deserted island is very much touching. The point, you don't need a human being to share something, to attach your emotions. It could be a photo of your loved one. It could be a beer bottle. It could be an old book that you don't even open anymore. More than a listener, it is your belief that the other thing is listening to you that matters. May be, half of life's happiness can be achieved by getting a good listener, mere listener, nothing more. Perhaps that is why the pets, the kids all are able to bring those lighter moments. Gardens, surely belongs to those listener category. We had a small garden with lots of flower plants. My favourite is the Rose. I had spent at least half an hour before I touch the coffee cup in the morning. I had spent at least a minute before I went to playground after the school hours. At times, I pressed

Ye Maaya Chesave

Is it really easy to define goals for your life? When can you decide it, school days, college days, in your thirties, fifties? Not everyone can think of long term goals. Not everyone can achieve their goals either. Because Science is allowed to redefine things. Life is full of surprises. Every magic moment is loveable. It is alright to listen to it and follow it. Had Hitler had goals? How about king Ashoka? There were magic of life that directed the goals. It is hard to believe, Hitler, man of his caliber, miscalculated the Russian weather. Take it as a life's magic on its negative role. The other side is for Ashoka. Kalinga war was the magic in his life. There is one simple thing you can do. Take life phase by phase as it comes. Hold the responsibility for the moments when it is given to you (!). Do things whole heartedly. The more you submit yourself to the things you do, the more magic moments will come into your life and sweeter the so called achievements. Blessed are those who

சில திரையிசைப் காதல் பாடல்கள்

இந்த பதிவை எழுத நினைத்து சில வரிகளை யோசித்த போதே இது ஒரு நீண்ட பதிவு என உணர முடிந்தது. பொறுமையாக படித்து நேரத்தை வீணடிக்காமல், ஸ்காரால்பாரை இழுக்கின்ற வேகத்திலேயே கண்ணில் தெரிவதை படித்தாலே போதும். காதல் இல்லாத தமிழ் படங்கள் அரிது என்பதால் காதல் பாடல்களுக்கும் பஞ்சமே இல்லை. சமீபத்திய பாடல்களே நூற்றுக் கணக்கில் இருக்கும். ஒரு சில பாடல்களே இங்கு - சிறந்த பாடலென்றோ, எனக்கு பிடித்த பாடலென்றோவெல்லாம் எதுவும் இல்லை. சில விஷயங்களை சொல்ல அங்கொன்றும் இங்கொன்றுமாய் எடுத்துக் கொண்டது, அவ்வளவுதான். நட்பும், காதலும் இதுதான் என்று வரையறுத்து கூற முடியாது, பண்புகளை பட்டியலிட்டு சரி பார்த்துக் கொள்ளக் கூடாதது என்பது என்னுடைய திடமான நம்பிக்கை. இரண்டுமே கணப் பொழுதிலும் உணர்ந்துக் கொள்ளலாம், காலப் போக்கிலும் அறிந்துக் கொள்ளலாம். ஆனாலும் அடிப்படையில் ஒன்றுதான் - உடல், பொருளையெல்லாம் கடந்து நிற்கின்ற உணர்வுநிலை. எதிர்பாலாருடனான நட்போ, காதலோ தங்களுக்குள் பெரிதான வித்தியாசத்தை வெளிப்படுத்துவதில்லை. நுழிலையான மெல்லிய வேறுபாடுகள்தான் - தனித்துக் காட்ட அதுவே போதுமானது. அதை உணர முடியாத போதுதான், நட்பா? கா

Jenny will come

How do you feel when someone gets huge money in a lottery? You know the Gnanapazham story . Don't you? Who deserves it? Lord Muruga or Lord Vinayaka? Do you need luck to be wiser? If you read newspaper regularly you might have noticed this: at least one news in a week about Dayanidhi Maran's activities, not only when he was a Minister of Communications and IT, even now, as a Union minister for Textiles. He got such a great talent and vision on what he is doing! But then, is he not just one of those luckiest persons to be in the parliament? Can't you point a person better than him in India? Probably, they have all taken different business and different strategy or they had no luck to be in politics. Can you deny luck? It is impossible. Because, you have to start giving reasons. You can say, he has done X and Y so well or you can say, scientifically, that the combination of X chromosome and Y chromosome would make a person behave this much brilliantly. You can immediately no