Waves

Menu Bar is such a waste of screen real estate in web browsers. There was no inbuilt preference in opera that would enable me to hide or show menu bar with a single key toggle. Opera allows the users to customize its keyboard shortcuts to a great extent. So, here’s how you go about toggling the menu bar in opera.

1. Go to Tools -> Preferences.
2. Click the “Advanced” tab.
3. Select “Shortcuts” from the left side menu.
4. Select “Opera Standard” under “Keyboard Setup” and click on “Edit” button.
5. From the “Edit Keyboard Window” popup, select “Application” and then on “New” button.
6. Now type “F10” without quotes, press Tab key & then type “Enable menu bar | Disable menu bar” without quotes.
7. Now click “OK” button on both the windows.

Enjoy!

For the first time ever, twitter proved amazingly useful. It proved how useful, as a tool, it is for marketing purposes & connecting with customers. I was writing a simple blogging client to post to various blogs. I have never tried TypePad until now & visited their website to sign up to open an account. To my surprise their sign up required me to link a credit card with my account even for the 14 day trial, which put me off.

So, I logged in to twitter and posted this tweet. Within a few hours, Ms. Ginevra Whalen (I even had a doubt whether it was Mr. Whalen or Ms. Whalen and successfully addressed her as Mr. Whalen at first) responded & said that they would give me a free trial if I wasn’t up to anything nefarious 😀 . I was really so damn impressed and surprised to find that a company took my 140 characters seriously & emailed me.

Today morning, I got an invite code which gave me free trial for 30 days & signed up.

Thank you Twitter. Thank you Six Apart.

Update: Check out the conversations that were generated using this tool 🙂

Have you had a tough time following a conversation on twitter? Only to find that a frustrated you had to wait until the last tweet in the thread was done and then you navigated through the replies backwards. Not anymore 😀

Visit http://www.aswinanand.com/twitter.html and give the last twitter ID in the whole conversation list & watch as the page gets populated with tweets in the order in which they were posted.

This was quickly hacked up in an hour & hence its kinda very rough. Kindly use this and give me feedback.

Enjoy!

Whoa! never expected that this feature would come so soon. Now orkut is deeply integrated with Google Talk and you can chat with your gtalk friends and orkut friends (with google account) from within the orkut interface itself. Considering the fact that lot of my friends are on orkut, this is a very good feature that they have now. Good for India in general because everyone I know is on Orkut rather than Facebook or MySpace.

Here’s a screenshot for you:

Clickfor a larger image.

Today morning I logged in to Gmail and was pleasently surprised to see a yellow information announcing Themes in Gmail. Looks like Google is enabling themes on a step by step basis for everyone. If themes have been enabled in your account, go to this link.

This is how the themes UI looks like. Click on the image for a bigger view. Has it been enabled for you?

 

Update: My friend Sriram, who accompanied us during the trip has written a very good post. Please check it out here.

East Coast Road is an amazing stretch of road from Chennai to Cuddalore. The road is very smooth and long with plenty of instructions along the way on how to drive (with redundant bright boards). So much that you just can’t miss any of them.

So, on Sunday (02-Nov-2008), Nagarajan, Siddharth, Sriram and yours truly decided to drive to Pondy by bike along the ECR. Its about 150 kms from Chennai. If you drive non-stop, you can reach Pondy in two and half hours. I will blog about the Pondy trip in another post ‘cos I’m waiting for the photos to get ready.

This post is about the driving lessons I learnt when we were driving along the ECR for the first time. This post would be useful to you if you are driving along the ECR.

Day Time Driving – Until Mahabalipuram

Though many consider day time driving to be fairly easy, it is not. Until Mahabalipuram, you will encounter lots of villages where dogs’ favourite playground is the middle of the road (or) one crazy dog would have seen a calf or rat on the other side of the road & they would form small packs to hunt them down. I witnessed a medium sized dog being brutally run over by a bus. But then, nothing can be done. If it were a biker who ran over, he would have surely fallen down and broken his bones.

Please follow the instructions along the road. There are many places where there are sign posts with “speed limits”. That’s an amazing guidance. There are also lots of sign posts which announce “accident zones” and more importantly “cattle zones” where livestock is bound to cross the road and tend to become deadstock. So, drive carefully. Until Mahabalipuram, driving through villages is very risky if you overspeed.

Day Time Driving - After Mahabalipuram

After Mahabalipuram, there are back waters of the sea on both sides of the road for most part. Hence, there are not much villages. So there are no cattle/humans/fighting-dogs waiting to be hit by you. Actually in most places, you have to drive at a minimum of 80 kmph 😀 . That’s a boon for racing freaks. But be careful ‘cos the 100km stretch after Mahabalipuram is full of wild twists, turns and bridges. Most medium and heavy vehicles such as cars and busses turn without even honking. So, the safest bet is to travel at 60kmph on the left side of the road. But if you are a bit adventurous like me, you may want to experiment carefully and do turns at 85 kmph 😉 with a Toyota Innova overtaking you at an even greater speed.

There are quite a few places where there are 4-5 km straight stretches without no villages in between. The road is clearly visible. You can go at full speed your bike allows. I touched 100 kmph along such stretches & its pretty much safe.

Oh! You must bring down your helmet’s visor. Otherwise, your eyes can’t stand direct dragon fly hits.

Night Driving

I loved it. Driving during the nights on highways like ECR is a superb experience.

Nothing can be more wrong if you say night driving is dangerous along ECR. Its actually safe. For all its bend and curves, if a vehicle is turning along from the opposite direction, its headlight gives away that something is coming. That will give you enough time to adjust your speed and balance. All along the curves, the sign boards illuminate beautifully when light is showered on them. Even the road’s medians light up very well along the drive way. So you always know where you are driving.

Always dip-dim-dip your headlights when you see a vehicle coming in the opposite direction. When you are overtaking another vehicle from its right side, switch on your left side indicator before completing the overtake.

Night Driving – Good, Fair and Ugly

On the way to Chennai during night travel, you will encounter lot of insects which will hit you. Putting on the helmet visor is a problem because light from the opposite direction will disperse and will make it tough for you to see. So, follow a big vehicle from a safe distance.

Siddharth did just that. For nearly 30 kilometers, he followed a Chennai bound bus at a safe 10m distance. The bus took all of the glare of the vehicles from the opposite direction, all insects don’t reach you and most importantly, you are shielded from dangerous overtakes. Wherever the bus overtakes, you also do the same. Wherever the bus stops, you also stop and the wherever the bus goes fast, you also go fast. It will be safe, fast and secure.

Second best thing is to follow another medium sized vehicle. I did this. Most cars travel at not less than 90 kmph. So, you can actually wear your helmet visor, shielding yourself from insects and you can also drive very fast. Chill wind kissing your body is a superb feeling 🙂

All the villages along the ECR after Mahabalipuram (towards Chennai) sleeps early. So, no cattle/dog torture in nights. This enabled us to cover the 55 km stretch from Mahabalipuram to Chennai in 30 minutes flat 🙂

Hope these instructions will be useful when you drive along the ECR. If so, do let me know. Definitely give importance & follow all of the sign boards along the road. That will ensure a very safe dirve. All in all, it was an awesome driving experience. Pics of Pondy coming in the next blog post.

Hello friends! Barcamp Chennai 2 was superb! It was 2 days of fun. What was surprising this time is the sheer number of new faces in the crowd and the number of non-tech sessions. The non-tech sessions were high this time, though the tech sessions were pretty basic ones. Lots of networking happened this time and I came across a really cool bunch of people with whom I will be in touch.

Day 1

Yesterday morning, I attended a session on Git, by Sreeni from ThoughtWorks. Its a source control system which was developed by Linus Torvalds. I recently signed up at GitHub to host the SMS Web Service program & this session was really very helpful in getting me started. Next session was intro to Ruby on Rails by Prakash from ThoughtWorks (this was in a different track). Most of the hall roared with laughter when one of the campers asked what the difference between Rails and Javascript. Hmm! With this question I came out of the hall and met Kausik, Bharadwaj, Moyeen, KAPP, Shyam and a few more guys. We were discussing about programming languages, mainly about python and various IDEs. I also struck a deal with Shyam to collaborate on an open source mobile project. More details about it will be available soon.

By the time we finished our discussion on the hallways, it was lunch time and we headed to Tiffanys. We ragged Moyeen 😀 about his GF and stuff. Moyeen is a good sport you see 🙂 so we had a nice time. Post lunch, there was a session on linux kernel basics and then came the best session of the day.

It was on Open Street Maps by a final year engineering student named Arun Ganesh. Open Street Maps is a community effort to map out the whole world. A wikipedia of sort for mapping. Arun had done some seriously good tasks of mapping out Teynampet & sharing it with the post offices in his area to get it validated. He also pointed out that, where Google or Yahoo maps take a few years to map changes in locality, those changes are reflected relatively immediately on OSM. That’s mainly because of the volunteers who edit the maps on a day-to-day basis. Unlike Google or Yahoo maps, OSM allows you to change the underlying mapping data itself, which is pretty cool. When Arun showed the OSM website on his browser, someone asked what the software was 🙂 The audience brought the ceiling down by laughing. I was pondering about building a mobile software for displaying OSM on Symbian mobiles. Interested anyone? I may start this in a couple of month’s time.

My session on the recent “Assign Categories” wordpress plugin was next. Response was good 🙂 and I’m happy. After this, there was a session on web 2.0 (old stuff?) but then, myself and a few others used the law of two feet and discussed various other topics between cups of coffee. I also answered a few questions on my wordpress plugin during this time. Day 1 came to an end with this.

Day 2

Today was superb I should say. The first session was from Viru [viru {at} physicssociety {dot} com] about “Indian Education System Sucks”. The word ‘s**ks’ provoked the audience very much and what followed was very hot debate with a few solutions to the current problems. Solutions being that students should be allowed to ask questions and teachers should encourage that. Also, more amount of practicals should be introduced in the curriculum for understanding the subjects better rather than mugging up. I believe CBSE has solved part of the problem here. By making the syllabus huge, they have effectively discouraged students from mugging up & vomiting. So, to answer questions in the exams, they have to understand the subject well; else they flunk. There are lots of side effects to this. But we will discuss it some other time.

Second session was on “Global Financial Meltdown” by Syed, Sukumar and Ganesh (of Rupya). It was superb. Though I did follow the news on the financial meltdown, I learnt a lot from the discussion. One specific portion that still stays fresh is the news that India Inc. is spending Rupees 1 Lakh Crore to help the failing banks. They are buying stock at a discounted rate and imagine the returns when the meltdown ends! 🙂 . There was also a small discussion on how it affects the IT industry. Software service companies have to be on watch was a view that was shared by everyone.

Post lunch, the talk was on “Disaster Management”. Since Mr. Mani, DSP of Police couldn’t turn up, it turned into a fun group discussion. The hall applauded when Sukumar advised the campers to take “good care” of our lives. Point well taken.

After this it was time for our discussion using the law of 2 feet & then it was time for Thomas’ session on “How to become an innovator”. Crux of the talk is that, you have to condition your mind in to thinking out of the box and he recommends the books written by Edward De Bono. Siddhi‘s session on creating a really good office space was enlightening as well. On the whole, Day 2 rocked and I learnt plenty of things today.

Wifi

Wifi sucked 🙁 Most of the time, it didn’t connect. Wifi Gurus are most welcome to share gyan on how to setup a reliable wifi for (un)conferences. May be this would have been a great session at Barcamp.

Photos

Please search for BCC2 or BarcampChennai on Flickr and other places.

Crowd size was optimum this time, which made the sessions all the more interactive. Were you there and I missed talking to you? If so, please drop a comment and I will get back in touch with you. Thanks!

Yay! barcamp chennai second edition is happening today and tomorrow at IIT Madras in the IC & SR auditorium. The previous barcamp was truly awesome and I sincerely hope, this one will also meet the expectations. There are lots of interesting talks lined up and whats even more interesting is that, there are lots of new faces this time :D 

We are also planning for an all-night code camp for tonight. If its happening, I will post more details about it here. If you are attending, do let me know. I will be around. For more details about barcamp, check out http://barcampchennai.org/.

If you are taking pics/videos/tweeting about the event, use the tag “BCC2”. That would make it easier to search and find the relevant pics, blog posts and videos.

See you there!

 

About 4 weeks ago, a cat had given birth to 2 kittens. Since then, those kittens are playing around with everybody they seem to cross. They look very cute. A big face when compared to their overall body size, especially their eyes! LOL.

Anyhoo… it was a sleepy saturday afternoon when I went to the bike stand to go out somewhere. Two guys were playing. One was aged 7 and the other was aged 12. They were moving very quickly between the bikes on the stand. I got curious when the older kid held a bike tightly with this hand, while the other one climbed on top to try and reach the asbestos roof. Perched atop the roof was one of the kittens.

Fearing that he may slip, I wanted him to come down & the following discussion ensued.

Me: Dai, keezha vizhundhuda pora. Erangu da. (Translates to, “Dude, you may fall down and get hurt. Climb down”).
Him: Illa anna. Naa andha poonaya pidikanum. (Translates to, “No brother. I want to catch the kitten”).
Me: Dai, adha yen da nondra? (Translates to, “Why mess with the kitten unnecessarily?”).

Saying this, he deftly placed his hand on one of the cracks on the asbestos roof and tried to pull the kitten down by its tail. But it got a bit wild and puts in head down to push him off. But that didn’t deter him. I was a bit afraid now. Here was a small guy who was standing on the edge of a bike & he may slip & break his jaws. But at any cost, he wanted the kitten down and be with him.

Me: Edhukku da unakku andha poonai ippo venum? (Translates to, “Why do you want that kitten now?”)
Him: Anna, na adhukku rendu naala saapadu pottu valathukuttu varen. Adhu konjam kooda nandri illama, mela yeri okandhirukku. Adhan erakka poren (Translates to, “Brother, I have fed it food for the last 2 days. But without showing any gratitude, it has climbed up beyond reach and sitting there. That’s why I’m going to bring it down now.”) ….

THAT ZAPPED ME! seriously! What the 7 year old spoke just now weren’t small words 🙂 Kids are powerful.

It’s been quite a long time since I visited a good place and had fun for a full day. I hadn’t even gone for a long ride on my bike until now. So, it was five of us. Arvindh, Karthik, Paramesh, Siva and myself. Arvindh is my friend from the Kalari class, a cool talkative guy. Karthik doesn’t talk much but likes adventures. Paramesh was the very practical guy among us and Siva was the paranoid. You know about yours truly. Hence, no “about me” here.

Kone falls is also called “konai falls” or “kona falls” or the “kailashnatha kona”.

The Drive

Kone Falls comes 10 kms before Puthur (Andhra Pradesh). Its a couple of 100 Kms from Chennai and takes about 2 hours if you drive at 60 kmph. The first one hour journey through the national highways was simply awesome! Roads are superb and there were no potholes at all. Driving speed was consistently between 80 kmph and 100 kmph. I was even able to touch the magical 100 kmph a couple of times. Once we reached the toll plaza, we took a left turn to reach Periyapalayam and then the road straight to Uthukottai. From Uthukottai, it was a 34 km ride on a perfect road. The weather was awesome! It was drizzling slightly for a few minutes in the morning. But apart from that, there was nothing much.

Paramesh, being the crazy biker among us, tried to do a few dangerous bends on his pulsar 180cc. But the turns on the road weren’t turning deep enough. I was even caught meditating on the middle on the road during the last 34kmph stretch 😀 The roads were free with an occassional lorry or two to disturb the silence.

The Falls

The entrance to the falls looks like this.

This entrance is tucked away from the main road. You need to watch for the milestone (on the right side of the road) that reads “Puthur 10”.  This entrance comes immediately after that milestone on the left side of the road. From here its a 2km drive along the single road. Be careful when you drive along this road. There are a few really sharp bends & cars come dashing through without any warning.

The Temple

The end of the road takes us to the base of a small hill, on which there’s a temple of Lord Shiva. To the left of the temple, there is the actual “waterfall”. The flow is not huge. But its sufficient for a few people to bath. We, being the more adventurous, didn’t want to bath here. There was a way up the hill which led to us small pools on top of the hill. We decided to trek to that place.

The Trek

This was the part of the trip that I loved the most. Armed with a couple of water bottles and a few cameras, we set out to explore the hillock from where the waterfalls’ started its downward journey. A quarter way up the hill, we were confronted by a gang of rowdy monkeys. They threatened to rip our bags apart from us to check its mysterious contents. Earlier, I would have just thrown my hands up and surrendered. But hey, what for am I learning Kalari if I can’t even handle a bunch of silly monkeys?

Just as I was about to get into position, they all jumped in fear and ran away. As I turned around to see what happened, our beloved Karthik, remembering that our forefathers were monkeys, bent down and made mock faces at them. He also tried to pounce on them. Seeing this in action, we broke into peals of laughter. To celebrate the victory, with the monkeys out of the way, we stood on the edge of the rock and took a couple of daring photos.

That’s me and Arvindh standing on the edge. Its a steep fall from this place 🙂 We continued our trek. We found a few interesting grasses along the way. One such grass was that, if you crush its leaves, it gives a nice lemony smell. Local folks said that, this smell keeps them away from suffocation if they keep climbing too far.

After an hour of trekking, we reached the place 😀

The Waterfall and The Pool

We all beamed when we heard the sound of water rushing. It was like salvation. A goal that you had reached after some hardwork. But we were yet to see the place from where the water was falling through. Making our way through the trees, we found that the waterfall had formed a small pool which was overflowing and filling another pool about 15 feet below. We climbed down the waterfall and reached the pool in a couple of minutes. The water was amazingly clear and cool !

We bathed here for about an hour and a half. This pool overflowed and filled another pool about 15 feet below, which is where the adventure began.

The Adventure

I got out of the pool and was sitting on the rocks through which the water was flowing to fill the pool below. I was sitting with my legs folded and suddenly I slipped. The slope was steep and slippery and I couldn’t hold on anywhere. In the same sitting position, I fell through 15 feet with my a** bumping the rocks along the way and whooosh! … I just plunged into the pool below. With the force with which I fell, I touched the base of the pool and came up again. Thank Goodness, the pool deep enough.

I swam back to the rocks, held to a tree root, climbed it up, stepped on yet another rock and then made my way to the place where we were sitting. Phew! it was nothing like I had encountered before. This experience threw out a lot of imaginary fears from me. I escaped without a scratch.

I was almost like a caveman. Dressed only in an underwear, with a few leaves stuck around my hips, and climbing the rocks to our place, the sight was quite hilarious. Only Karthik saw me fall through very clearly. Others just heard the splash.

The Trek Down

We bathed for some more time and then made our way down. No rowdy monkeys this time. We were able to make out the route now and reached the base of the hill in under 30 minutes.  We visited the Lord Shiva temple, ate some prasadam and then made our way back to home sweet home.

It was a superb trip/trek, that I enjoyed thoroughly 😀 after a long time.