Waves

Hi guys, just discovered that one of my blog posts is link #1 on a common Google search query regarding netbeans and S60 emulators.

View the query results. Here’s the screen shot.

I’m back after a long break 😀

Whoa! the proto.in team has come a long way. With just a day more to go for the event, I’m really so damn excited to see the 30 technology companies, who are going to be the next big wave, pitching on the D-day. As a personal interest, I’m very interested what the Indian mobile space has to offer.

For the professionals who are not going to attend, it will be a day they will regret. Watching the evolution of products and technology is a boon in itself :). The event is taking place at the ICSR Auditorium in Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai. By the way, this is not a free event. If you want to attend, head on to http://www.proto.in/register. I will be going there on sunday. Drop a line if you are attending too.

Hi friends, wishing you all a very happy and prosperous new year 😀

This year, there are lots of challenges that I have to face, which are ofcourse very interesting. Hoping to win all the challenges.

Hi guys, there is a famous plugin called “Sessionsaver” that lets you to save the current tabs open in firefox, so that, when you open firefox next time, all the previously tabs are preserved. I discovered a patch for Sessionsaver for firefox 2.0. Get it from http://wolcano.platon.sk/sessionsaver/.

By the way, I’m still bewildered as to why this basic feature is not implemented in firefox yet.

Buying a fair enough mobile at a decent rate was one of the best things that happened to me since “thayir sadham” (curd rice) and “avakai oorga” (a South Indian mango pickle) :-). Today I activated GPRS and BOOM!!, a world of beautiful internet connectivity opened up. It was like moving from a pre-telephonic era to a modern era. It was like inhaling the fragrance of fresh flowers. Being connected is a boon.

I downloaded Opera Mini and Gmail for mobiles. Both are excellent pieces of software. I had been using the desktop version of Opera since a long time. The mobile version is superb. Speed is very good. The pages are rendering very well. The best feature of opera mini is the status bar. You have to see it to believe why it’s so cool. It also has a feature for reading and subscribing to feeds. Overall, it’s been a very satisfying experience.

Gmail for mobiles is amazing as well. Just as the web client is satisfying, gmail for mobile even goes a step forward. It brings the same web interface to the small screen. Gmail on the web has keyboard shortcuts. Even the mobile version has this. You can press the various numbers to activate certain menu items. For e.g. pressing ‘4’ activates the reply screen. ‘*’ key is used to ‘star’ a message. What’s more, you can view attachments right from the app itself. Nearly every feature of the web version is available in the mobile version.

Getjar.com is a superb site that has a very good collection of mobile applications for almost all models of mobiles. Check it out. If the GPRS rates come down a little bit, I would definitely go for a regular connection and ofcourse a better mobile with a bigger and better screen.

The list seems endless…

Hey guys, after quite a long time, assume about 3 years, I have cleaned my small room over this weekend… much to the surprise of my mom ofcourse ;-). It took about 5 hours of day one and another 3 hours of day two to complete it in all glory. Next on line is my blog, which wasn’t touched except for doing new posts. Have to get a nice new template soon. Any suggestions?

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Java SE 6 is out. The whole Java community is gaga over it. Netbeans 5.5 now supports Java SE 6 also. Reading this yesterday, I feel Sun is committed to not making that mistake. The next Sun Tech Days event is happening at Hyderabad on 21-23 Feb 2007. The talks look promising and the topics they pick everytime are exciting. They have also added a Java ME day this time. If you are a java freek, DON’T miss this event. Register.

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Proto has been going on great. The website now sports a new dress skin. If you are a startup company willing to showcase your product at Proto, nominate yourself. The nomination closes on 20th Dec 2006. Registration for other participants will be open soon. So, hang on! Read the Proto blog for more information.

Wow!! exciting times ahead.

I was chatting with a few of my friends. They are placed in different companies and are doing different things. As usual with any chat after a long time, I happened to ask them, “Hi da.. long time no see, how’s your job? Like it?”. The replies were like, “Umm.. yeah sorta..”, “edho podhu da” (meaning – sort of fine). Some were frank enough to tell that they didn’t like what they were doing, which brings me to the question that why do people don’t do what they like?

The first answer to figuring out a good way is to first find out what you like. It’s possible that you may be in a deadlock situation with the Q and A but if you take enough steps to actually answer that Q, then you know what you want.

The second answer is to get some early hands-on experience on different areas of interest. That way you can always try and fail and find your true love. The best time to do this is when you are in college and parents are always available for support and money.

The third answer is better late than never. Always have the quest for knowledge and one day you have that enlightening.

The fourth answer is to be as practical as possible in your approach to your problems. For e.g. you may not like the work you do now. But you wouldn’t want to go and shout at your boss for the peanuts of silly work you are being given. Instead, be patient and tell them your strengths and why you would be able to do the other job better than the current one.

The fifth answer is to set your goals and work on it. This is actually difficult and takes a lot of mental muscle to do. This article, “How to get any project up and running” by Mark Forster is an excellent motivator.

Why this post? A major part of our life is going to be around the work we do and if we don’t like love the work we do, we are wasting a beautiful life. I have found what I love and since some days, I have been taking steps to do it the first thing every morning, otherwise it keeps getting postponed.

WOW!!! what a speech that was! it was a speech given by Steve Jobs to the new graduates of Stanford University last year. This speech is very very inspiring. I know what I love. All it takes is just that little brave decision. Read this.

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

At a time when its raining so heavily these days…. at a time when our shirts and trousers take days to dry away…. and at a time when we even have to press our underwears with hot iron to dry them up… and also at a time when roads are water logged, one must necessarily be covered from head to toe with the best of raincoats so that you don’t get soaked up.

So what happened today was that I was ambling my bike slowly through the traffic at a signal. The place was flooded and I had to move beyond the stop line. The signal fell green… me being pissed off at the very little road space available, accelerated the bike to the full possible speed and ran whooosh!! over the water. People next to me were completely drenched. Most notable was a lady, riding pillion, who had no kind of raincoat on her. She got wet from top to bottom. Her husband got angry on me and what followed was a bike race he he he… !!!

The main problem during rainy seasons is that, water gets logged at some places and driving over them creates some nuisanse. But what if the water doesn’t recede from the center of the road? There is no other option but to drive over them. There is no point in shouting at the riders driving over the water. For that point, even I got drenched yesterday and since I was wearing a rain coat, I escaped 😉

Moral of the Story: Buy a raincoat during rainy seasons.

😀

Hmm.. here is a lady, who seems to be in her mid 20s. She is seen wearing a torn green blouse along with a blue saree which is torn at various places. She is looking very dirty. Her hair is stuck in an inseparable mass and her face and hands have a dash of something black. At the outsight, she looks so dirty that you would never go near her. She picks rags with a stick from the neighbourhood dustbin, eats shit and drinks sewage.

Does that description sound familiar? How many of us have noticed such people? Have we ever cared for them? Oh! we never even took enough time to even think about them, leave alone care them. What is the fate of these people?

Fortunately, some of these people have a very good future. How? People at Anbalayam, located in the South Indian district of Tiruchirapalli (Trichy) have a dedicated set of persons whose daily job is to scout the areas in and around Trichy to find these wanderers. What’s worse is that most of these wanderers are mentally ill. Anbalayam finds them and brings them to their home, which is located near the Trichy airport. They bath them, cloth them, trim their hair and give them proper treatment for their disability. They even let these people stay with them FOREVER. Until now, they have more than 70 mentally ill people out of which many were found wandering the city. They have even reunited these people with their families after treating them.

This was one small and divine experience I got when I visited Anbalayam during Deepavali festival. The home is being run by Mr. Senthil. Though he is a lawyer by profession, he is taking care of the home he lovingly developed and ran successfully for 16 full years. One astonishing fact is that, one of the caretakers of the home was a mentally retarded man. Did you notice was in the previous line? That man was actually brought back to his good senses by the supportive doctors at Anbalayam and now, he takes care of more than 50 mentally retarded people.

Managing the mentally retarded
… is a damn tough job. Some of them are very violent that they will fight heavily among themselves and settle for a good joke. Managing these violent people is a tough task because they have enormous physical power. They urinate in their own places itself and through their sheer muscle power, they even beat up the cleaners, sometimes. People who do this cleaning job and serving them by bathing them and having lunch with them must be worshipped because of the sacrifice they are doing.

Besides housing mentally ill, Anbalayam also has a home for people affected with HIV positive. They also have an old age home.

Festival of Lights
This Deepavali has been enlightening for me because it showed me another world, with another set of people doing great service to humanity. I know many of us will not be able to dedicate ourselves with such service to humanity. But we can surely contribute what we can, either in cash or in kind, whichever is suitable. If you are interested, please get in touch with Mr.Senthil.

Anbalayam also has a website at http://www.wanderingmentallyill.org. Please take some time to go through the site and have a look at the amazing work they are doing. And if possible, contribute too.