wondering what is wrong?

Hi, I had an sudden impulse to redesign QSS. Tell me how the new design looks. Also I find some funny behaviour by the site. Once the page is loaded, you might find that the right side bar has a lot of padding. Just move you mouse over any link on the page. The extra padding disappears. When I checked, this particular behaviour appears only in Internet Explorer. In Firefox, the website appears normal. Anyone else having such problem, send me a screenshot and the browser version you are using. If possible, send the screen resolution also. Bye, P.S. Bala, you left out Russia. There are more millionaires in Russia than Hong Kong, when compared to to ecomoic scenario prevailing in the country. (Compare thier GDPs)

Whats cookin doc

-- In the mid of the hottest discussion.... Hottest..??? Ain't I missing anything...?? Whats hot in the discussion.. was there a discussion in the first place...?? just strings of yarn that feather the sweat amid some work and etching between the words an "I'm still alive" kind of an awful trub... and u call this "the hottest discussion"...?? Uh..!!

On RSS

All of us might have been visiting the blog on a regular basis, maybe once or twice a day to see if there are any new posts. Probably you might be opening up your favorite web browser and typing the url to visit the blog. Similarly there might be quite lot of things you might be accessing regularly everyday like news headlines, site updates, blogs etc. Let me explain with my own experiences.

I visit almost thirty-odd websites every day. The list contain websites, magazines, news headlines, and web logs. It is difficult to remember each site. So I bookmark these sites and visit them. Most of the time, I find that not all sites are updated regularly. A couple of sites are updated more than once in a day and some sites once in two days. There is no way of knowing which sites are updated and which are not. Imagine opening up nearly forty websites and finding that only four or five of them have been updated. Consider the costs involved in terms of time and bandwidth. It is huge.

News Aggregators:

This is where aggregators step in. My news aggregator helps me keep up with all my favorite sites by checking if they are updated and displaying the new items from each of them. Now I find that my news aggregator can find and classify them so that I get to read the latest items. I thereby get to save my time and bandwidth.

There are several type of aggregators available. Web based aggregators like my Yahoo! and myFeedster collect information and display them in a webpage. Aggregators are also available as standalone applications. They are also integrated into e-mail clients and web browsers.

A search on Google reveals numerous aggregators. You can choose one that suits you. I use "RSS Reader Panel" with Mozilla FireFox 0.8. Since the aggregator integrates into the web browser, I find it very easy to find sites that have been updated using it.

How do aggregators know which and when sites have been updated?

The answer is through an XML-based format known as RSS.

What is RSS?

RSS is an XML-based format that is used for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like BBC, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs.

But it is not limited to news alone. Mark Pilgrim says that "anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS". He cites examples like the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program (read aggregator) can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

RSS feeds:

An RSS feed is an XML file that is available on the webserver just like a HTML page. Once a feed is available for a website, and aggregator can visit the file and perform the required action. A feed contains a list of items, each of which is identified by a link. Each item can have any amount of metadata associated with it. Metadata usually consists of a title and a description about it. It can also have infomation like the publisher of the feed, the date it was updated and other metadata items.

Versions of RSS:

There are several formats of RSS currently available. Lots of heated discussions have been going on about which format is the better format. Even the expansion of RSS is a bone of contention among various people.

Atom, the new kid on the block:

Recently, several people have been pushing forward for a better and enhanced RSS format called Atom. This project has gained acceptance among major CMS and blogging clients, including Blogger and Movable Type. Several RSS aggregators have begun supporting Atom and the list is expanding regularly.

In case you have more doubts, this tutorial will help you to understand the basics of RSS. Several real-life examples of RSS are given in this website.

In case you want me to choose a RSS aggregator for you, I can help you out. Your comments and feedback are welcome.

feeds and RSS

Rini, can you enable the Atom feed in all the blogs you post? Just like I did for 'All in a day's work!' You can find it in the blog setting under feeds. Since you don't mention that you have posted in them, I have to visit each one in sequence. If you enable the feeds, I'll know whenever you update them. And I can visit them. What do you say? Ram, I'll reply to your query on RSS soon. I am collecting info on them.

Ever wondered...

Though chefs in most hotels are men, household men seldom take to cooking.. Why is it so...?? I got an answer... may be, its because of E.G.O. after all, how can the man - the head of the family, the god of small and big things of his family - take up something as measly as cooking... ----------------- sometimes I wonder, why I wonder… the more I wonder why I wonder, the more I wonder… I again wonder but this time I wonder not why I wonder… But how much I wonder why I wonder…

B R E A K I N G N E W S

Chennai to have Infy's largest development centre The campus, being pegged as the world’s largest development centre by official sources, will be built on a sprawling 129 acres of land within Mahindra City. A press release from Mahindra City said that Infosys will invest Rs 1,250 crore in phases and ultimately build the facility which will occupy 25,000 employees. Read full-story.

Corporate view of IIM fee-cut

Fee-cut will weaken IIMs: Narayana Murthy, Banga Murthy was speaking to the press along with Hindustan Lever Chairman M S 'Vindi' Banga. The two corporate stalwarts, along with marketing consultant Rama Bijapurkar, said that IIMs are not elitist. Banga said: "Nearly 18 per cent of the IIM students are from the families whose annual income is below Rs 150,000. Another 60 per cent have a household income of below Rs 500,000. Only 22 per cent of the students come from families whose annual income is above Rs 500,000. So to say that IIM is catering to only the elite is wrong." "The government should not spend more on students who would be earning much more," Murthy said, adding that the average salary of an IIM-Ahmedabad graduate was about Rs 825,000 and the loan for fees could be repaid by the student easily in a couple of years. Describing the Union HRD ministry's decision as unilateral, Banga said there were a number of stakeholders who should be involved in the process. He noted that IIM-A was promoted by the central government, Gujarat government and corporates. "There are 45 million children in India who don't go to school. There are 350 million illiterate people and in every rural school of our country there is just one teacher for two classes. So instead of reducing IIM fees, we should pay more attention to those things in our country. I mean we should not rob the poor and pay the rich," Murthy added. Read full-story.

see-saw'ing past...

How often have u thought of times in your past when u had a habit.. a trait... that drew a lot of attention from ur peers... things that used to be so natural for u but very unseen for most others and that had even become a mark of identification for u... sometimes you were known more by those acts rather than yourself... Years hence, it would look as funny for ourselves as it was for the others in those days... How often have u tried re-enacting some acts... that blows an inexplicable air of nostalgia taking us back to our "good old days" for a few moments... and at times becomes a revelation to us about ourselves as to how we have changed over the years... and may be teach us a lesson or two... Sometimes.. it pays to ponder the past...

Capability models...

Good to see Rini involving in a lot of non-technical aspects of work.. these "paper-work" are so much important in the paperless offices of these days... there's really so much to gain in defining a proper methodology and standards and sticking to it during the various phases of a project execution... It sometimes feels a nuisance to do a lot of homework for a seemingly trivial task.. but in the long run when XYZ needs to work on something that was done a few years back.. such standardization is going to be a boon to that guy... Such models do not just provide an organized way of working but also a sustainably efficient process that aid in optimized usage of time and reduction in cost...

Nothing much to post...

It has been some time since I had posted anything here. I had been caught up in work, both at office and at home. Somehow I managed to get some time to try and structure QSS. One thing I have done is to remove the movie and book information from the main page. So now visitors will not see posts that are about the movies I had watched and the books I have read. They will instead be listed under 'Recent Reads' and 'Recently Watched'. But even this might change soon. It is really a pain in the neck trying to fit all information in a single page. Maybe this might help. Rini, Your post was a refresher course in CMM. So when do you plan for CMM? Till the next post,

Yesterday...

Yesterday was one of those days you wished would never end at all. Vijay, thanks da for awaking me at 12:05 am. Read more about how I spent the day here. I wanted to post this earlier. But I had some network problems and an urgent work to do.

i say to god...

Who says to who... - I dont know.... but after saw this, i thought abt it... what i say to god.... it is something like, I know he's good... He knows everything I know... and he knows everything still I need to know... He's up.. he's my god... I need his blessings... I do my duty... for that is my only happiness... I removed the nots, downs...from the original content. i personally feel that, if i really believe in god, then first i shld believe in myself and shld not use those words... ---------- sriprasath - machan unakku ennada achu... yeen da ippadi yellam post panra... ennamo podaaa... --------- Belated birthday wishes to our blog...

Who says to who...

I know I'm not good.. I know he's good... He knows everything I know... and he knows everything I don't know... He's up.. I'm down... he's my god... I need his blessings... I need his orders... I shall not fail in my duty to obey him... for that is my only happiness...

In search of peace...

Meditation is just a process that leads to a state of consciousness that brings serenity, clarity, and bliss... And just that and nothing more than that...!! It has got no direct correlation with God or divinity, but only that the meditater could use his new-found bliss for any good things that he may ascertain to take up... and in his views "good things" may encompass spirituality... The reason why meditation finds links to Godliness is more because the "teachers" of meditation find no other better way to attract people to this amazing art... after all, in the name of God, people are even ready to do things non-sensical to the common sense... this stems from the homegrown "fear" of God... and the attitude of bargain - get me passed in the exam and I would break 108 coconuts (as though God asked for it)... Often, meditation also finds links with religiousness rather than spirituality... and these days the former takes root at the expense of the latter... A reason for the Srirangam tragedy (where 40 people, mostly women and children, were burnt in a marriage hall) was given that "the temple failed to perform a vital ritual and such a tragedy was always on the cards"... Rubbish..!! Would the "holy" person dare utter this line if he was a victim's kin...!! He would rather be better off trying to help the victims if he can or else keep his mouth shut...!!!! Another classic example of spirituality lost in splendour is the ISKCON temple in Bangalore... that seems to be growing into a market place rather than a spiritual avenue... The contemporary "teachers" of meditation are no different... they use this "fear" of God to inculcate this practice... except a few organizations, quite a few are more interested in the business of teaching meditation rather than the service of helping people find peace...

What was it like?

A year of blogging. One year! I cannot believe it. Exactly 12 months ago, I came across this new phenomenon that was spreading across the web. The phenomenon was called blogging. Actually, I was searching for something else. The concept of blogging seemed wonderful. Posting one's thoughts to the web immediately. It was a kind of a diary/journal. Online, accessible from anywhere by anyone. Then I took some time to understand what it was all about. I came across several wonderful blogs. The concept had been taken to great heights by several of those I had come across. Then came an idea of having a team blog. But before that I needed to have a sandbox to play around. 'All in a day's work!' became that sandbox. For a couple of weeks, I made myself comfortable with the concepts of blogging. Soon by the end of last February, 'All in a day's work!' was let loose with the help of three more members. Soon others joined, the ranks swelled. Overall, it has been a tremendous year with lots of things learnt and discussed. What was your experience? Tell me what was it like?

Mailer Demon...

jax, mails are not being delivered to ur postmark ID.. pls have a check on that...

Excellent move Mr.Joshi...

Now that the fee cut for the elitist IIMs has been announced... after careful thought and consideration the following steps need to be urgently announced.. 1. Do away with the CAT, GD and Personal interviews... After all higher education cannot be the choice of just the intellectual few... Every Tom, Dick and Harry has an equal say to it... And since CAT, GD, and the Personal interviews were separating the elitist from the non-elitist, they have to be discarded... 2. Introduce a new quota for the kith and kin of Government employees... they are the most underprivileged of the lot... 3. Decide the curriculum... Mr.Joshi being a Ph.D. himself... who better a person to decide the curriculum than the erudite Dr.Joshi… 4. Day-1 companies during campus interviews should be the PSUs... and there need to be a rule that the top 50 brains in the IIMs should necessarily stay in PSUs... after all, isn't the country losing the best brains to the MNCs..

the laws

Ok Ram, I guess that shows how the laws work. Ha ha ha... Since you had asked for it, here are the five basic laws of stupidity.

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

Confused, read a more detailed explanation here. When I had siad, i'm looking out for designs, I meant something like this list.

India Shining, is it?

What do you think of the latest "India Shining" ads by the Government or now the caretaker government? Is this an election ploy or is it the truth? Interestingly, there has been a lot of criticism over the ads from various sources. This week's Hindu had an thought provoking article. What do you think about it?

Could this also happen?????????!!!!!!!!

Hi all, A blog from kavi and that too saying that she is free from work... Wonder but true... Could this also happen...immm...

stupidity and movies

I read an interesting article on human stupidity. It is a pretty much long article, but it is kind of interesting. Read "The Basic Laws of Stupidity". It is been a couple of weeks since I posted some laws. So consider this as a continuation from where I left off. So Friday the Thirteenth. And Tomorrow is Saturday the Fourteenth. Valentine's day. Wonderful. I am looking out for new designs for this blog and QSS. Anyone having any good color schemes, send them to me. BTW, does anyone else use a RSS reader?

Today is...

Friday the 13th...!! Any takers..??

Lord of the rings:

Return of the King... !!!!

archives

Sorry Ram, I thought about and also looked. Blogger does not have an option. It can be worked around. But that means I would have to dirty my hands with Javascript, which I don't want to. There are already too many scripts running in the blog. One for the blogroll (which I have plans of replacing), a couple for the "recent posts" section, another couple for the website visitors and referrers. I think everyone should visit the logs. Click on the image. You'll get to know find amazing information from it. If you want, I can sort and put the archives listing in the descending order, I'll add it to my to-do list. No posts on your "Thoughts", Have you forgotten it? BTW, if anyone is still linking to my Quod scripsi scripsi blog hosted on blogspot (http://jaxsays.blogspot.com), please update it to the new one (http://jaxsays.weblogs.us) and I have deleted the blog hosted on blogspot.

(k)not if u know...

Valli - Cyprus Semiconductors Sinduja K - Wipro Ramya R - don't know Vinitha - healthcare company Ranjini - Wipro Ramya P - Deutsche s/w No prizes for guessing what they are... But if this is any indication, there seems to be a minor inclination on part of the parents to getting their daughters married to someone who has had a similar education as her... Irrespective of the girl working after marriage or not, there seems to be a mindset that there might be a better understanding if the two have learnt similar things in their "student" life.. or is it..?? I'm saying "similar learning in student life" because in quite a few cases the girl may not work post-marriage or after some period after marriage... So, the case of having relatively "similar job nature" and "similar work pressure" and "similar timings" cannot be made generic... So, what could be the big idea... does learning similar things as students got to do anything with better understanding in marital life... If so, which kinda parents would get their daughters married to the umpteen marketing professionals, does a financial consulant necessarily need a wife who did something sort of MBA Finance, so that they understand better in their life... or is it all only confined to the big fella called "Information Technology"... ??? PS: Only arranged marriages are in the purview...!!

Gotcha..!!

Right jax.. thats the one...

maybe

it is this song? BTW, Download the new FireFox browser. Highly recommended.

Jax.. HELP...

I've been humming these lines since morning.. but I forgot which song it comes in... I dont remember the further lines.. Must have been love.. but its over now... I have this song in my terminal here in office.. But I forgot which song it is.. and can't find out among the 100 odd english songs... Try to find it for me...

Soft Drinks & Hard Truths...Contd

Hi all, Continuing my previous post on "Soft Drinks & Hard Truths"... Hope you all would have heard about the JPC's report and the aftermath... Now its time to act... take from nature than from coke and pepsi.

Is India IT superpower..??

After two decades of being in the information technology business, India is still a 'toddler' with only 2 per cent of global market share, according to N R Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies Ltd. Read full-story

a few links...

Do you think you are smart? If yes, give your boss this article. Here are the top ten brands of 2003. Outsourcing - the word makes a few US citizens' blood boil. Here is a different take on the issue of outsourcing,"The New Face of the Silicon Age".

Hope it Reached...

...Jax...I sent that FrameMaket Tutorial to u da. Bye then.

Wonder Ponder

Here's another silly wonder that we could ponder on.. just like the 'hotel' thing that bala sent... "Why do (generally) women grow long hair.. while men prefer to keep it short." I put that 'generally' in bracket because these days women also tend to keep their hair short.. at times as short as men, if not shorter... and while there are men too who like to keep their's as long as women, if not longer... But having said that, its been a norm down the generations that as we utter the word "girl", "woman" and any of its sibling synonyms we visualize a homo sapien with a longer hair... When would this ever have begun..?? Stone-Age humans would never have thought of cutting their hair... in fact, they started dressing with leaves and twigs only after quite a while as their 6th sense of civilization began gradually to take root... But this case happened for both men and women of stone-age.. but how did the "cutting the hair short" thing held on only with the male species... I do have my explanation for this.. but would like to hear from u too...

B R E A K I N G N E W S . . .

Ctrl+Alt+Del Inventor Retires Today The engineer who invented the Ctrl+Alt+Del keystroke combination is retiring today from IBM, leaving behind his legacy as an inexorable part of the PC experience. David Bradley developed the key combination while working on prototypes of IBM's first PC. He needed a way to quickly reboot the buggy machine because a hard reset--which involved flicking off the power switch and waiting a few moments before retoggling it--took too much time. "The intention was to be cryptic," he said. "It was a key combination that was the moral equivalent of turning the power off and back on again, so it was not an action to be taken lightly. It wasn't something you wanted to happen accidentally." Today, many people use the keystroke combination on a regular basis and not always because the machine has become unresponsive. Microsoft adopted the keystroke combination for use in Windows; today's Windows versions use the combination to let people log on to the system and to bring up a diagnostic screen. "I might have invented Ctrl+Alt+Del but, as I like to say, Bill Gates made it famous," Bradley joked.

the past week

Nice links on various types of personalities. It was interesting too. I have added more book reviews and a movie review at QSS. BTW, I have not enabled comments on many of my recent posts. What is your opinion, should they be enabled or disabled? I would like to enable them, provided they are used. No use in enabling comments and no comments are present. Rajesh had come home last evening. Vijay had called. Watched a lot of movies, (reviews soon) and books (reviews here). Other than that the last week has been spent deleting hundreds of virii infected mails. Still deleting them... That's why I could not mail/reply to anyone. On the work front, a coupe of days absence has precipitated a lot of pending tasks. I am striving hard to complete them asap. Rini, the colors were nice, but the best thing I liked was the use of asterisks in the title. It was fabulous. Hope to see a lot more posts in the future on flowers. BTW, any snaps of your garden available. Manny, the link you gave didn't work. Send it to my postmark id. Any luck with FrameMaker tutorials???

Interpersonal Distancing...

Its human psychology that we prefer to maintain a distance from a stranger... Here's the actual theory behind it from a psychology source... People surround themselves with a "bubble" of personal space that they claim as their own, and they tend to become stressed when other people invade their "bubble." Ashton and colleagues found that when they asked pairs of friends and strangers to stand at various distances from each other, both men and women felt more comfortable when an opposite-sex friend stood close (about 1.5 feet) than when a stranger of either sex stood at that distance.