Wednesday, April 30, 2003
Visited more sites after tea. This time, I got hooked onto to technology and its recipe for the future. Here are two articles. If you can spare the time, you can read them.
I just don't know how I got to these links. I seem to keep going on and on round the Internet. It's almost 5 p.m. here. So got to go.
Blog you all later,
Jax
- Michael Alpern
- An interesting concept. Let us see if we can use it for our blog here.
- Micro Content
- Dave Barry
- Freak Watchers
- VinBlog
Jax.
I have not yet stopped browsing. As it is raining heavily outside, I might get caught at office beyond my working hours. I have got a choir practice to go today evening. Hope the rains stop so that I can make it. Ah! the sun has started shining again. The humidity is making me sweat a lot. As Kicha knows, our office is on the top floor, so the heat gets to me very quickly.
Kicha, saw your photos yesterday. Mmmm! looks like a very good computer to me (Dell). I like the black coloured PC's very much. Send the config of your system to me later. I am here stuck up with a very old Cyrix PC, that likes to test my patience and endurance to its limit. As a part of my motto is Durabo, I have to put up with it.
Well my colleagues are calling me for tea. Got to go...
Browsing the web has become very addictive. I just cannot resist from clicking on any hyperlink that appears on a webpage. I spent the morning visiting all types of sites catering tastes ranging from gossip to the unused but very useful technological ideas.
Here is a small list of the sites / blogs I've been reading today
There are still a lot of websites that I have visited today. I am thinking of adding a sidebar that will list a few of the sites that I or you have visited. It can be done, but requires a little bit of programming and tweaking techniques. As I am not the technical expert in this group, I feel that our techie friends can try thier hand at this.
Bye,
Jax.
Before I go, I need a favour from you all. Can you suggest me a good gift for a frind of mine? It is a she, aged 23. Something that would appeal to the feminine side. (No jewellery please). Something simple and elegant.
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
I'm back. Actually I have got a lot of work to do, but I don't feel like doing so. So I'm whiling away time browsing websites. Especially as my boss is out of town, everyone is feeling relaxed. Any way, Thursday is a holiday. I want to rest at home.
Life seems so boring nowadays, especially in the evenings. Not being the type that enjoys going out, I feel so bored. I tried to learn a few languages like Latin and Icelandic. No, nothing worked out right.
How's life at your ends, guys and gals? Same story?..
Ram, Golf is not only a game for great personalities, but it is one game that gives you a great personality. The wide open spaces, the thick woods, dotted with water hazards and dangerous bunkers. I only wish I could get into a golf course and have a few swings. Sindu seems to have the luck. Ram, Kicha and Rini have the facility of dropping into the Bangalore Golf Club anytime. The only golf course in Coimbatore is almost 20 kms away.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have sites to visit and blogs to read..
Currently I am reading
Adios,
Sindu, you call them "golf clubs". There are usually 9 clubs in a set. Each club has its feature. Be careful with them. You can kill a person with one. Especially with a 5 Iron.
Kicha, Good to hear that your presentation went very well. Hope to see your paper on Infy.com soon.
Will get back to you all later,Monday, April 28, 2003
Sunday, April 27, 2003
Saturday, April 26, 2003
Friday, April 25, 2003
Thursday, April 24, 2003
It is true that there is no data available to prove that other computer related workers rise faster in the corporate ladder than programmers. It is perfectly true that growth is more of a personal interest and proactivity. The hidden meaning is that I said most, not all programmers.
But tell me Kicha, be true to your heart and mind and tell me what chances are there for a programmer to enter into top management in a company. I admit the same chances apply to other posts also. The reason is programmers are seen with a notion that you say them something they do it. More of an command-following group. Again I have no data to back me up. I recall a quote by Mark Twain, "There are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics".
As for your query for course, there are indeed several courses available for other IT jobs I had mentioned. But the truth is everyone, including knowledgable persons, believe that programming is the de facto definition of an IT job. They tend to forget that it is more of a supportive job. Why, the entire industry is a supportive industry.
The reasons why the educational sector for these areas are still gray are obvious. Can you really justify that you are taught only programming. I accept that we have had labs only for programming. But we were in the science stream, you and me. Ask Ranjini about the labs she had. She can tell you lots. We had a paper called Computer System Architecture. If you had really got hooked onto the subject, you would have been a system administrator by now. There was a paper called Computer Graphics. If I had been interested, I could've become a Multimedia artist by now. The truth is that there were opportunities galore in front of us. The truth is that we never acknowledged them.
You had started your points on there being two kinds of people. You said that the 2nd type was focussed. But you ended somewhere on the lines of them being losers. Can you enlighten me on the above.BTW, which type do you consider yourself? the first or the second. Ii can tell you I am somewhat of a fifty-fifty.
I had determined not to take up a programming job, reasons being already mentioned. I was also passionate about writing, as you all know. When an opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it with both hands (writing and technology). I never rue it at all. But some think otherwise. Even last week, my friend's mom told me I was not utilising my talents. I asked her what my talents were. She said knowledge and writing. I said I am utilising it through my work. She didn't agree with me.
Really, I would like to know your views on going abroad.
Bye,
Jax.
Ram: This blog is for discussion alone. So feel free to post your thoughts about the matter. I am eager to know what you feel about this. Anyway discussions help us a lot to understand others better. Remember "empathy", "putting oneself in other's shoes" etc. So I will be waitng for yours and Ranjini's comments.
Kicha: I had given all of us admin privileges. So you can add them yourself. Anyway, don't take the trouble. I have send them the invitations. If possible, try helping them out to join the blog. If I have the time, I'll try to prepare a user manual sort of thing to help those joining us. But if any of you have the time, prepare one yourself and send it across to me for finetuning. I'll be busy for the next two days.
BTW, can anyone suggest me a good, informational site. I need it for my monthly newsletter. It should be helpful for lay persons. Because most of the people who get to read the newsletter are not always techno savvy. This is urgent. It would really be great if I get it by 1600 hrs IST.
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
A very happy birthday to Ranjini!!I wanted to send you a greeting card but I didn't know your address. Ok I thought I'll send you an e-card. But what to do, my system was being upgraded to Win2k. So I had no access to the Internet. All this was yesterday. I thought of going to a browsing centre to do the same. Alas, being a lazy guy had its privileges. On my way home, I ran into a couple of neighbours who wanted to play cricket. That's all, my plans of the going to an Internet cafe vanished like my last ball six into the nearby bushes. I thought well I have time till today morning. My system doesn't seem to like Win2k at all. It took an immediate dislike to the OS and started to restart (What an irony!). Well it is almost 3 in the afternoon when things have been going on smoothly between the OS and the system. So, here are my wishes to you, "You are always my friend; When I am happy or when I am sad, When I am along or when I am with people. You are always my friend, If I see you today Or if I see you a year from now, If I talk to you today Or if I talk to you a year from now. You are always my friend, And though through the years we will change, It does not matter what you do. Throughout our lifetime You are always my friend. " Bye, Jax. P.S. Ram & Kicha , Get my treat also from Ranjini.
Monday, April 21, 2003
Friday, April 18, 2003
Thursday, April 17, 2003
Atleast Ranjini got a chance to go to a music concert, that too a classical music concert.Here I am at Coimbatore longing for a chance to listen to any music, while at Bangalore, Ranjini is having a whale of a time in music.
It is good to see that classical music is being appreciated by people still. But the following I think has dwindled over the years. You don't find people arriving in droves to classical music concerts.
I understand that young people nowadays find it very hard to relate to classical music, whether it is Indian or western. I am at times tearing my hair in frustration about the terms used in the music. Those alaapanas, keerthanas in Indian music, the adagios, the da capos in western classical music make my head spin at times.
Somehow Indian classical music has been brought to the common people by the movies. People can now realize that a song is in Bhairavi or kalyani ragam. But modern film music has become unhearable. Personnaly I feel that about 10 or 12 good songs are released every year out of a possible 500-600 film songs.
Ignorant people may say that this is mainly due to western influence. That is total crap. Anyone who knows his keerthanas from the alaapanas will disagree. Western Classical music has been a great inspiration to many of our modern musicians. Notice I say Western Classical music, not westernised music. The modern music has no connection with the original classical music per se.
Music as everyone will agree has no languages or boundaries. If you are able to listen and appreciate music, you will be able to listen and appreciate music in its various forms, whether it is in sanskrit, urdu or swahili.
I think I have been talking a lot about music. I love music.period.
Coming to my weekend, It is too early I know but what else to do.
Thursday:
Evening: Got to go to the church. Today is Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday. For Christianity, the next three days form the crux of the religion. The coming Thursday, Friday & Saturday are called as "Triduum" meaning the three great days.
I will be again back at the church for a prayer late night.
Friday: Good Friday. Will be on leave. Have to go to the church around 11 am.
Saturday: My leave has not been sanctioned. So will have to come to office on Saturday. I am planning to ask for half a day's leave.
Evening: Got to go to the church in the evening and again later at midnight for Easter Mass.
Sunday: Easter Sunday. Morning mass @10 am. Heavy lunch at home. Visit friends and relatives.
These are my expected lines for the weekend.
See you on Saturday morn or Monday morn,
Jax.
Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Just kidding Ram, Found this bit of "interesting" news. Thought I would share it with you. Tell me do all of you get the time to visit a lot of websites everyday. I certainly have a few must-visit web sites everyday.
Ok, we'll have a poll. Each one of us will have to post the first 5 websites they visit everyday.
Well, here is my list:
- Yahoo Groups
- Google News (major source - I keep visiting links from here)
- MSN Joke of the Day
Websites I used to visit regularly, but have stopped now:
Websites I visit on and off again:
I visit these sites only when i feel a need to visit the site. mostly this list contains only sports sites
1. FIA
2. Wisden
3. BBC
4. Sify
5. Indiatimes
Bye,
Jax.
So, Rini has started on the greatest adventure - house hunting. You can learn a lot of things when you go on a search for a house. You find that there are things which you have taken for granted in the past are now hard to come by. The most interesting thing about house hunting is meeting people, all types of people (interesting and dull).
Ranjini, visit these links for info:
- http://www.onlinebangalore.com/hous/reupdate/thumbrul.html
- http://www.koramangala.com/korabuz/rentals.htm
One week left for your birthday and diid you get my points on your comments?
Yesterday was a holiday, one of the 9 official holidays in my company. Here is my weekend.
Sat: just working - evening choir practice
Sun: Every year, we have a "samapandhi" at our church (Sunday preceding Easter). WE used to help in setting up of the tables and chairs and serve food, first to the poor and after that to other people in the church. This is not like the annadhanam given in temples, but more of a communal lunch. Had a good time. Got tired by the time I sat down for lunch. As one of the member in the 'serving' committee, got a lt of vadais than others. Went back home at 3 pm. and watched the Ind-SA match.
Around 6 pm, went to leave my suister at Namakkal, The buses I got into were one of the slowest of the lot. Finally reached Namakkal at 10:30. Went to my uncle's house. After dinner, watched the highlights of the Brazilian Grand Prix. It was interesting to watch people just crash out. Luckily no one got hurt.
Mon: Tamil New Year day - Got up early, got ready to leave to Coimbatore. I usually don't have breakfast on holidays. Did the same and later realized what a fool I was. Got down at Erode for breakfast. On checking my pockets, found that I had practically no money other than for the bus ticket. After rummaging through my pockets, found that I had over 30 Rs. of change alone. Had a orange juice and bought an Aquafina and got into the bus. My sister had told me about this bus. very fast and no stopping on the way. Got into the front row seat, just behind the gear shaft. Wonderful view of the road. made it to Coimbatore in no time.
Coming home, found my house locked. After some time, my brother came. Took rest the entire evening playing Age of Empires. Also watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark" - interesting film.
Tue: back at office - reading three day's mails and -- typing this...
Ciao,
Jax.
BTW: anybody seen Saddam Hussein and his Weapns of Mass Destruction?? If yes, please inforn Bush and Blair. poor guys, been searching for him for the past one month.
Monday, April 14, 2003
Saturday, April 12, 2003
Finally, I am able to view the blog page once again. Found out a easy way to post to the blog, "Remote editing". Just trying the feature out. This feature will allow you to edit posted messages directly from the blog. No need to visit blogger.com. This is very useful , if you find you had made some typo or not linked an url.
Ranj, did you receive my reply about your comments on the story?
Ram, what happened to Manny?
I feel that we should promote the blog more. Anyway, Kavitha would be joining us. If any of our friends are on the net most of their time, we can ask them to join also. your thoughts?? I wanted to put a message to the group about this, but first wanted to know your thoughts on the matter.
BTW, if any of you visit a big bookshop like higginbothams or landmark, please ask if they have audio books for sale. Audio books are books recorded as audio cassettes or audio cds, sometimes even as mp3s. If they have any, could you inform me about the average prices?
Just hoping this weekend goes as per expected lines.
Bye,
Jax.
Friday, April 11, 2003
Yesterday was an interesting day. It went on as interestingly as it started. Infy's results were announced. Even though it had achieved company projections... the market analysts expectation was not reached.
Furthermore, the forecast for next year that infy gave was 12-14% while the market expected it to be around 20-25%... and the resultant...
market shattered... infy lost more than 1000 bucks in a single day, ie., over 25% lost... and ended at Rs. 3049
for ramgopal's query, Hughes s/w lost over 11% and ended at Rs.179
Not just that... almost every tech company lost more then 10-15% and Mastek led the way by losing 49% and ended at Rs.285
yesterday that was the talk of everyone... now I really understand the worth of our MS(IT&M) course. Even though all around me were discussing shares and businesses I was atleast able to figure out what all the fuss was about and could chip in with some sensible inputs to them.
I usually keep a slender track of the markets ever since the day I started reading BusinessWorld (to be more precise, from March 2002). Now my interest is only increasing...
and am going home today. heard that vijay babu is coming to mdu to collect his cert. Hope to meet him. and jax, will call u saturday night or sunday morning... and be back here on monday morning...
Kicha
Thursday, April 10, 2003
Yesterday, had nothing to do except sit around waiting for something or someone to call me. Nothing turned up. My sister wanted to watch a movie. So while waiting for dinner, I went out to the video shop. On the way back, bought a Digit magazine (100 Rs. gone down the drain).
Watched "Manasellam". Ordinary story with illness, flashback. Tamil cinema has nowadays become very predictable. I can predict the start of a song, a fight sequence, or why even the next dialogue to a second (maybe plus or minute a couple of milliseconds).
One thing I liked about this movie was its ending, albeit on expected lines, something that I have always believed in. Over the past couple of years, these type of climaxes have become commonplace. Trisha was more or less a leaner Jothika (same voice dubbing, gestures and body language). Srikant, better than previous films, but same old beard style. Most of the film, he seems to be wearing the same dresses. Our stunt master have gotten over the Matrix effect. The slo-mo and the instant action scenes have now become irritating.
Ranjini, what happened to Hariharan? Forgot him?
I have almost stopped listening to music. My cassette player has gone kaput. I don't get CDs (expensive). Most of all, no time at all to listen to music. At work, not much of music aficionados here. At times, can hear a few English songs wafting in the air.
As I am composing this, Richard Marx's version of "I can't help falling in love with you" was running in one of the multimedia systems. Elvis Presley had originally sung this song. With his wonderful voice, it brought to mind emotions of beaches and walking along it with your loved one. One of my favourite songs, this song has appeared in the movie "Speed 2: Cruise Control". That song was by a British pop group, UB40.
Now, the original version of Alaipayuthey has taken over the air, not the song in the movie, but the original version by..... I don't know who.
Bye,
Jax.
Wednesday, April 09, 2003
Friday is too soon. I was expecting it to be ready by Monday. Then the only option is let Manny prepare a rough draft of the paper. Ask him to mail it to my personal id. I'll go through, make necessary corrections, changes etc and mail it back to him.
For your mozilla query, open the blog in Mozilla and bookmark it. Then go the Bookmarks menu and click on Manage Bookmarks... Right click on the newly created bookmark and click on Properties. Go to the Schedule tab and set it according to your preferences. The Notify tab can be used to alert you whenever the page has been modified. Though this feature is very useful, it gets a little annoying at times, whenever an alert pops up.
Everyone, check out the new Members link at the left hand side. Your comments and suggestion for utliizing the space effectively are welcome.
The small subscription box on the right is for those who want to receive updates made to the blog through email. If anyone, say Ganesh, wants to know whether there are any new posts to the blog, he can subscribe using the form. He will then be receiving mails about the updates to the blog through emails.
As I had mentioned earlier, please use the <br> tag to seperate sentences. As you all can see all the posts appear as a single para. Use the HTML knowledge we learnt at MS(IT&M) atleast now.
Bye,
Jax.
Dear Ram,
Regarding your query for Manny, I would like to have some info before proceeding. What the hell is dynamic binding and how is it related to C, C++, and Java. I am not that much technically sound. Maybe if you or manny could help me by suggesting a few pointers (not the one in C & C++) on the topic, maybe some sites where you can get information.
Since I need some time to prepare it, it would be really helpful if you or Manny collect just the rough information and mail me (to my personal id). I'll try my best. Don't reply to my office. Any urgent message, blog it, I'll read it and reply asap.
Kicha, the answer to your question " The man was a very short man. He could reach only upto the button for fifth floor. On rainy days, he would be having his umbrella. Using it, he can press the button for the tenth floor." I feel that we can use the blog for these type of interactions instead of mailing. We have got the technology, so I feel that we should make use of it more often.
Ram: Sorry for not replying earlier to your query, which version of mozilla did you download? I know you are using Win2k OS.
Bye,
Jax.
Tuesday, April 08, 2003
I think that the problem is that the line breaks were not converted into <br> tags. I feel the best option is to insert the line breaks manually. So as you have got admin rights, you can edit your posts and insert the tags manually. If it is a problem from Blogger's end, then we will have to wait for them to rectify it.
Ranjini, I guess you have taken to reading a lot nowadays. Why, having a lot of free time? As you had said, the Greek mythology is one of the most interesting and also the most intriguing mythologies. No offense meant, but I feel that that it is better than the Indian ones. The entire greek mythology is available online. Bartleby is a very good source. Personally I really love the Odyssey by Homer the most.
BTW what was Kicha meaning by Ranjini being cruel to her friends. What is Ranjini going home to Madurai or spending the entire day with Srini, which of these two scenarios will it be?
To view images, it is important the image be referenced by an url, a file path would not suffice.
That's all folks, bye,
Jax.
Monday, April 07, 2003
Uploading images:
You cannot insert images that are present in your hard disk or internal network. The image has to be online. I repeat it has to be a image that can be referenced as an url (i.e. www.somedomain.com/images/image.gif). If you find a image that you really like and want to share, right click on it to locate its location and insert that path as the source in the image tag. If you are accessing sites that require authentication, there are chances that the image might not get displayed in the blog. But you can check that out by copying the image's url and pasting it in the browser. If the image gets displayed, fine. If not, forget it.
Editing blogs:
All of you have been given admin rights by me. You can log in and check it. Please use this facility only when you have made some mistakes like wrong links or something like that. I am using it only to delete multiple blogs that you might have created by pressing post or publish twice. As I have made a facility to be updated by Mozilla every time the blog changes, I can immediately get the changes done. The blog gets checked by the browser every 15 minutes.
More news and info later,
Jax.
I found a way by which images can be posted. Remember, Images can be inserted only, not uploaded. To insert images into the blog post, you need to know a little bit of basic HTML.
Say, I want to insert a image into the post say a Blogger logo. All I have to do is write the post as a HTML code.
--------
<p>
This is a <b>sample test post>/b><br>
This shows how you can insert images into the post<br>
<img src="aaa" width="xxx" height="yyy">
eg.
Note:
'aaa'=source image, the actual path of the image. You can find this out by rightclicking the image you want to be posted to the blog.
'xxx'=the width of the image to be displayed.
'yyy'=the height of the image to be displayed.
--------------------------
Try it out...
Bye,
Jax.
Ranjini seems to be making efficient use of the blog. Good going, keep it up. Ranjini, another thing, if you come across any interesting websites or articles on the web, just blog it. Just like the article of the week that you had been sending.
Kicha, what a co-incidence, I saw "Lord of the Rings - Two Towers" on CD for the second time Saturday night. I wanted to watch it in a theatre. But they took the movie off from the theatre this Friday.
Ram and Kicha, don't get left behind. Keep blogging. Last week, when there was a flurry of mails being sent to the groups, Ganesh had spoken to me. He did not believe that this blog was actually ours. He thought that we had ^C and ^V'ed the entries from somewhere. He said that only when he had noticewd the names at the bottom, he believed that it was us. He said that he also wanted to join. I had told him the rules: 1) Atleast more than two blogs in a week (one per day or more would be really great) 2) He would not be able to upload images( thank god, or else this blog would have become a photo gallery of Jothika).
Your comments on the above matter expected???
My weekend went as per expected lines. Saturday evening singing practice, Sunday morning church, Sunday evening practice. The only thing different this week was that Cecilia Ohrwall had come to give us a few pointers on singing. The practice sessions were totally fun and interesting. Actually today (Monday), we will be giving a small performance in the evening.
We will be singing three African songs. One song is titled "Ashikatale". You find the lyrics to this song here at the bottom of the page.One song is "Bele Mama". This song is a lively foot-tapping song. Another song is titled "Mwanga Ni Mwema". This song is in Swahili.
Well, I forgot to tell you all something. If this small music group takes off, we might be coming over to Bangalore to give a small performance. A similar group located at Bangalore will be coming over to Coimbatore to give a performance. We might be reciprocating thier visit here. So expect in Bangalore sometime in the future, but definitely within the end of 2003.
The second Gulf War is in its third week. Keeping a close watch on the developments, I found out several things. It is interesting to note that there are different versions of the same news, on by the western media and one by the eatern media. I get both versions though the western media is more prominient, CNN, BBC, NY Times... For the Iraqi version, you have Al-Jazeera only. Reading both versions gives one the thought that they are covering two different wars. On one, the Anglo-American forces all have but won the war. on the other, they are getting beaten black and blue.
That's all for now, keep in touch,
Jax.
Note: As I may be experimenting with the look and feel of the blog, you might get some errors accessing it. Kindly adjust. I will give prior intimation if I plan to modify it.
Friday, April 04, 2003
Wednesday, April 02, 2003
Tuesday, April 01, 2003
I guess you all must be using mostly Internet Explorer for your browsing. But there are alternatives to IE. I am not against Microsoft products. But after using Mozilla, I have become a fan of that browser. I wouldn't say that Mozilla is the best browser, but it has a few features that I really have come to like like tabbed browsing. Though Netscape is built using the Mozilla base, I feel that Netscape is resource hungry.
Mozilla has some really wonderful tools to help in blogging. A few of my earlier posts were made through those tools. The irony is that I am composing this blog using IE, not Mozilla.
In case you need any more information on Mozilla or any other browser, try googling!
BTW, R.Sinduja's birthday is tomorrow. Right? Jax.