enginerd

Just came across Clickie, a neat little utility that adds two wonderful features to the context menu (right-click menu) of Windows Explorer. Copy Path Name: Copies the path of the selected folder or file to the clipboard (as text). You can then paste it wherever you need it. Open MS-DOS Prompt: Opens a DOS window in the selected directory. Using Clickie, you don't need to crawl to the directory you want to work in. Technorati Tags: Clickie

It's been a while since I last posted anything here. In fact, its not just a zero-blogging phase, but I have been on a complete web-hiatus all these days, barring a couple of occasions where I had to log on to my University Mail account. I'm in New Delhi, the capital city, for close to a week now and I must say it is really really cold. The first couple of nights I was here, the mercury mark was hovering about a chilly 3 degrees Celsius. Honestly speaking, these are the lowest temperatures I have encountered for a while! On a sunnier note, the results for the last semester are out and it couldn't have been any better. Just another semester to go now and there's another 20 days to go before it begins. Nothing else to write here for the moment. I am not too sure if I'll be updating very frequently here for the next fortnight. But then, I just might. Till then...

First flickr ! and now del.icio.us ! Yahoo! just acquired the hottest "tagging thing" on the web. I wonder what would Scoble be thinking now. I remember Pete Cashmore, who blogs at Mashable , and who came up with this logo too, actually suggesting del.icio.us when Scoble wanted to make an acquisition . With Yahoo! acquiring del.icio.us, things get all the more exciting. I only hope that they don't go about changing the log-in procedure the way they did with flickr. From the del.icio.us Blog : We're proud to announce that del.icio.us has joined the Yahoo! family. Together we'll continue to improve how people discover, remember and share on the Internet, with a big emphasis on the power of community. We're excited to be working with the Yahoo! Search team - they definitely get social systems and their potential to change the web. (We're also excited to be joining our fraternal twin Flickr!) We want to thank everyone who has helped us along the way - our e

If you aren't in Bangalore or haven't managed to coax an invitation to the event (I am told the entry is by Invitation pass only), do not miss the webcast. Register NOW! for the Bill Gates LIVE webcast

The semester has officially come to a close and its time now to move on to things that I have been procrastinating for quite sometime on the pretext of examinations and project submissions. Some pretty interesting things are lined up and probably I'll be posting about them here too. If you're wondering why I have been so lax in updating this blog, it's only because of the end-semester-torment that I was subjected to. With the final exams getting over just last Saturday and a project submission due today, most of the time was spent in front of a stupid computer terminal that in my opinion has seen better days. Somehow, we managed to get the Project completed by this morning. However, the project demo didn't go all that well. Its amazing just how your system crashes at the most crucial of times. The GridFTP service that I and my friend had developed working for the most of the previous night simply couldn't be demonstrated as the system on which we had it running simp

Yesterday I received a mail from Protopage which informed me of the release of Protopage Version 2.0 I had been using Protopage as my web Desktop until I switched over to Windows Live and had found it really easy to use and pretty exciting even with its then limited options for sticky notes, to-dolists, favorite links and quick searches. The best part about it was that it allowed me to create panels that could be understood as HTML. So I could easily add forms, for example, to log into my University Mail Account, something which I found extremely useful As expected, version 2.0 has now more features that make it even better. There is support for multiple pages, with individual page sharing options along with more customizations, more colour schemes and rich text editing for sticky notes. All the new features are explained in detail at the Protopage News Blog . However, the only place they lose out is extensibility and add-ons. Protopage has no option for third party developers built

Charlene Li on Microsoft's new classified service 'Fremont' and why it will be better than Google Base: "First, a quick description of Fremont. It looks and acts like a classic online classifieds site. A list of linked categories is on the front page and users can browse or search through the listings. A key difference though is that the listings are turbo-charged – as the poster, you can control who can see them, from everyone to just a select group of people on your MSN Messenger buddy list. If you choose the latter, the next time one of your privileged buddies signs into Messenger, they’ll see a little alert that says you have a set of golf clubs for sale. The categories include the usual suspects – jobs, homes, apartments, cars, and one thing that caught my eye, tickets. ...So I look at Fremont and I see a really nice service shaping up. The classifieds interface is familiar – each category has the expected search fields (number of bedrooms in housing, make and ye

Another semester ends.

XML : Syntax :: RDF : Semantics ??? Just three hours to go...

Firefox 1.5 is finally out! Get it here now! In case you are wondering why you need to upgrade, Firefox 1.5 comes with significant performance & usability upgrades, greater customization options and supports Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), JavaScript 1.6 and new versions of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

I just came across this on Spread Firefox . Looks like we'll see Firefox 1.5 anytime now! It’s 5AM here in the UK and me any my small team of engineers are off home to bed after helping to get SFx ready for tomorrows big event:)In about twelve hours time “it is very likely” that Firefox 1.5 will be officially with us, and to mark this occasion Spread Firefox isgoing to be launching a very special campaign; That I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you about now… But I’d recommend you stay as close to the site as you can over the next 24 hours! (hint get some campaign buttons for your blogs & sites as they award points too!) Technorati Tags: Firefox Firefox 1.5

Paint.NET v2.5, about which I had written earlier this year , is out of beta and is available for download now. Started as a CS undergraduate design project at Washington State University, Paint.net is an image and photo manipulation software supporting layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. Paint.NET Screenshot Paint.NET can be installed on computers that run Windows XP (SP1 or later), Windows 2000 (SP3 or later), Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista and requires .NET Framework 1.1.installed. Download: Paint.NET v2.5 Technorati Tags: Microsoft Paint

With so many options for remote data backup available today, FREE online data storage never had so much excitement going around. Here are some of the new services I came across recently. Mozy is a remote backup and archiving service that requires you to create a mozy user account and install a software on your computer, It is a small download available at their site with which you get 1 GB of backup storage. But if you fill out their survey, they give you 2 GB of space. Mozy provides Open File support, 128-bit SSL Support (to secure your data during transport) and 448-bit Blowfish Encryption (to secure your data on our server) In return for the free Mozy data backup service, Mozy will be sending emails to its users with advertisements for products and services useful for the users in its opinion. Not really a great ask for all the storage space they are offering. Mashable has written a quick introduction of the next two online storage solutions": AllMyData and Openomy . Of thes

InternetRetailer has a story on how "Google is heading toward capturing the next e-commerce paradigm using search to buy anything from anyone, anywhere." From InternetRetailer: Now that it has taken the Internet search market by storm, Google is heading toward capturing the next e-commerce paradigm—using search to buy anything from anyone, anywhere, Safa Rashtchy, senior research analyst at investment firm Piper Jaffray & Co., tells InternetRetailer.com. “Google will be a Craigslist on steroids—a very potent and dangerous challenge to where eBay wants to go,” Rashtchy says. While eBay has brought millions into online commerce, it is still too complicated for sellers who balk at the listing process and for buyers who don’t want purchase from someone located far away, he adds. Craigslist Inc.’s CraigsList.com has pioneered a new form of e-commerce, which Rashtchy and others call “e-commerce 3.0,” that connects consumers with sellers of products and services in local commun

I might be the last person left on the planet who doesn't know that http://calendar.google.com is LIVE for more than two months! However, if you follow the link, you won't find any Google Calendar on it as it is currently only showing the Google Search Homepage. More confirmation that Google has plans for a Calendar about which I wrote in February . However, if you can't wait till there actually is a Google calendar, there's another dynamic web based calendar that you could try out. Monket supports "drag and drop events to change dates, drag the start/end of an event to create multi-day events, create and edit events without refreshing the page, all with an iCal style interface." Technorati Tags: Google Calendar Calendar Monket

Slashdigg and Diggdot.us are two sites I came across recently that combine news from the three most popular sources out there: Slashdot , Digg and del.icio.us Diggdot.us combines news from Digg , Slash dot and del.icio .us into a unified format Also it claims to eliminate dupes and add some extra niceities. The other site Slashdigg aggregates news form Slashdot and Digg and provides various viewing options such as side by side, frames, and combined and also has a 'Super Nerd News' section that combines news from sources such as news.com, wired, cnet. From what I see of their interface, I think Slashdigg makes use of the Lilina Aggregator. Technorati Tags: Diggdot.us Slashdigg Lilina

Too much of procrastination throughout the semester ensured that I was busy the whole past week loaded with tons of project work and presentations. Hence no updates here. OpenGL is really cool. I just finished a Project yesterday with my friend coding a basketball game in OpenGL and it was fun. del.icio.us looks like it has had a revamp of sorts. It looks neat with recent and popular bookmarks arranged in columns. Gaming in Universities has the Profs concerned . An IIT student commits suicide. The reason: He had failed in three courses because of poor attendance. Could gaming be the only reason for poor attendance? I have known people who are as ignorant about gaming as I am(and that is as ignorant as one could get) and yet have seriously poor attendance. Also, Niall Kennedy 's blog has instructions on adding your blog to Google Base. Another avenue for Splogs? And finally, updates here would be sporadic over the next few days as I will be busy with the end-sem examinations.

Pallab had this entry on The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) opening its India Office at Noida, India hosted by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC Noida). Seen as as "the national contact point for W3C activities in India," this India Office of W3C will be instrumental in promoting efforts in local languages, broaden W3C's geographical base, and encourage international participation in W3C Activities. The site has a listing of W3C Prospectus W3C related events in India , Indian members of the W3C , Latest News & Newsletters , and Mailing List At the top of Indian Members List of the W3C is Department of Information Technology, Government of India, ( http://mit.gov.in ) Just out of curiosity I checked for its conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards with W3C Markup Validation Service. Here is the result : Failed validation, 80 errors . The website of CDAC India, second on the list, was down. But I am sure we'll find e

Microsoft's Chief Technology Officer, Ray Ozzie has started a new Spaces blog. Here is what RayOzzie wrote on his new Spaces Blog : ...A couple of weeks ago, Bill and I brought life to a new initiative that, over the course of the months and years ahead, will catalyze and deliver a number of things that I'm very excited about. At that event, I said that unlike many other stealth projects I've/we've done, in this case many of our plans and offerings will evolve progressively and in the open, shaped in good measure by a dialog with you. This is not just feel-good marketing speak: the conversation related to Microsoft - its reputation, its intent and its offerings - is occurring and will continue to vigorously occur on the 'net with or without us. I'd rather it be "with", and I hope to add value in becoming another of the varied Microsoft voices conversing on the 'net. And yes, Spaces has a new theme only for its most prized Microsoft Blogger with a

Yahoo! has put up a real long survey about Yahoo! Mail and other Y! Products. Normally, I am not that keen on taking online surveys but when Y! Mail asked for it, I just couldn't deny! See, my first ever email account was with Yahoo! ;) Technorati Tags: Mail Online Surveys Surveys

Neowin writes that Firefox 1.5 is going live today (11/15/05). On November 9th 2004, Neowin was one of the first to announce the official release of Mozilla Firefox 1.0. We get word from resident Firefox aficionado supernova_00, that Firefox 1.5 is slated to be released sometime today. Technorati tags: Firefox 1.5 read more | digg story

When we look at the Agile Manifesto , we realize that Agile Programming is a completely new way of developing Software, emphasizing the importance of User participation throughout the development process, and understanding requirements through both interactions and ad hoc less formal documents. Manifesto for Agile Software Development We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more. Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland

I have spent the past few hours looking for a CMS. The problem is that the project I am working on requires the content to be divided into certain sections with different users having their roles restricted to specific sections. This is something that Mambo , otherwise my favoured option for a CMS, doesn't provide. I was suggested by Ara to take a look at Magnolia as a possible option. It certainly looks good at first sight. I find it quite intersting for its drag-n-drop options for reordering pages and pagecontent directly in the browser. And it isn't too heavy on the requirements list too! It only requires JDK 1.4.1 and Tomcat 5 or later and no external database. I have downloaded the binary installer and will get down to configuring it sometime this week. The last time I had tried another CMS, Apache Lenya , I had some issues with templating and all. Just hope that this time around, there aren't many glitches. Update: I just realized that the Authoring section of the l

The idea of hyperlinks has driven the Internet for a very long time now. Hyperlinks have actually done a wonderful job in bringing together information from all realms of life and integrating it in one place, the World Wide Web as we call it. However, what we see with the web today is structured text with multimedia objects such as images and interactive forms- what we can call information, but unstructured information. The reason I am talking about all this web, structured information, and hyperlinks here today is because of the last few classes spent by my Professor disussing Semantic Web. Now, as my Prof puts it, today's web is primarily documenting almost everything that is available. What it is not capable of doing is the automation of data and information processing. So, in other words, with the World Wide Web today, people really know what the hyperlink means, but a machine cannot understand what the link means and how is it actually "linked" to the other document.

Windows Live now supports Firefox! And so for a few days, I will be trying it as my startpage instead of My Protopage homepage. Here's how my Windows Live page with 3 columm layout is organized: Column 1 has my most read feeds Column 2 has weather, BBC and Boing Boing etc. Column 3 has Windows Live Mail, and Live Favourites The other blogs, other stuff I read, and the Gadgets are in the Sidebar under My Web. For now, I have installed the Windows Live Favourites , Pacman and flickr Viewer Gadgets for my Windows Live. Lets see how it goes. Technorati Tags: Windows Live Firefox Gadgets

Google Desktop is out of beta with "several powerful new features under its belt." There are a few new cool features such as Google Maps integration in the sidebar panels, and some additions to the Sidebar Plugins. From Google Blog : Fans of Google Maps will want to check out Sidebar's new maps panel, which lets you do all the usual cool maps stuff -- local business info, directions, sightseeing -- plus a new one: finding new locations relevant to the web pages and emails you're reading and showing them in your maps panel. Also, check out the new Google Desktop Blog . Technorati Tags: Desktop Google Google Maps

Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion has published a list of Ten Technorati Hacks . These include blog search, tracking blog posts by tag, including backlinks to posts in your blog, putting Technorati Into your RSS Aggregator, and pinging Technorati on site update. Technorati Tags: Technorati Hacks

The other day, Ara Pehlivanian had put up the question "What feedreader do you use?" Of the many feed readers that I have tried so far, only Bloglines and Newsburst were two that I really liked. I have been using Newsburst now for quite sometime and though it lacks the feature of seeing the number of subscribers there are to a blog, it makes up for it with a much better layout, quicker updates and a super cool response team. Not a bad time to write about Windows Live . Is it? Windows Live actually incorporates most of the functionalities that start.com, basically a feed aggregator, offered. I tried start.com when it was still in Sandbox and was really impressed by it. However, there was one thing that prevented me from switching completely to it- categorization of feeds. But now with a whole lot of features like IM client and email integration added to it , in its new avatar as Windows Live, it looks really good. Using Windows Live meant that I had to switch to IE, as

Scott Adams now has a blog. The blog is titled Dilbert Blog , but actually it is Scott blogging on a lot of things. Technorati Tags: Dilbert Dilbert Blog

Advertising billboards are put to use as Pakistani refugees, left homeless after the October 8 earthquake, set up their tents in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan. [via SFGate ] Technorati Tags: Pakistan Earthquake

I am heading off to home for a week where I will be celebrating the festival of Diwali with my parents and friends. I'll be back on the 5th of November and so, in this period any updates on this blog would only be sporadic, if not completely non-existent. Wishing you all a very Happy Diwali! Technorati Tags: Diwali Deepavali

Just read on Netanel Jacobsson's blog about Yoono , a collaborative searching, exchanging and information sharing service. The service is employing a unique approach by indexing "web users' bookmarks to overcome problems of language, synonyms and other syntaq quirks." Yoono is a free software application you can download which combines for the first time the management and sharing of information. Based on pooling user knowledge, yoono is a collaborative search engine and an innovative communication tool. With yoono, don’t search alone, share with those that know... Technorati Tags: Yoono

If one Scoble wasn't enough to 'rule' the blogosphere, now we have the whole Scoble family Blogging. Robert's wife Maryam already blogs at MSN Spaces and the blogosphere now witnesses the arrival of Robert's son Patrick . Guess what the title of his blog reads. MiniScoblizer . And the tag line: "I'm the son of a 40 year old blogger you can check his blog at scobleizer.wordpress.com." Here's what Scoble had to say about MiniScoble using Blogger : I sense he’s just trying to be rebellious. First an iPod. Now he’s using a Google blog tool. I gotta straighten him out. He’s only 11. Imagine how rebellious he’ll be when he’s 14!! And just in case you didn't know, Robert's brother Alex blogs too! Technorati Tags: Scoble Mini Scoblizer Scobleizer

I have never owned a mobile phone that had the habit of going into a "hang" mode every other moment and that had to be hit with the palm or tapped not-so-gently at the table to get it up running again and do what it is supposed to do. Tales of such a mobile phone: In the middle of a call, the phone "hangs". The conversation isn't possible but the call is still being charged for. And no matter what he tries, the phone refuses to respond. Furious, my friend pulls out the battery. Order restored. The poor chap is discussing his project with the the Professor. Suddenly there is a beep. Followed by another one. And another. And then the discreet beeps turn into a constant "beepbeepbeep... "putting the powerful Nokia vibration mode into hyperactivity. Chaos as the Professor watched him hitting the phone at the table. All without any success.

The Guardian has an article by Jonathan Freedland on the "multi-million-pound industry intent on turning teenagers and toddlers alike into avaricious consumers." According to the article, an average British child is familiar with up to 400 brand names by the time he has reached the age of 10! "Researchers report that our children are more likely to recognize Ronald McDonald and the Nike swoosh than Jesus. One study found that 69% of all three-year-olds could identify the McDonald's golden arches - while half of all four-year-olds did not know their own name." There is, in other words, an enormous children's marketplace, and it is lucrative terrain. The under-16s spend an estimated £30bn a year, including £6bn on clothes and £2bn on toys. Eight in 10 kids have their own TV in their room; half have a DVD player or a video. A million children under nine own a mobile phone. One in five have internet access. With more pocket money than ever before - over £6 a w

Google Base is the latest from Google! While the word was floating around the web about the subdomain base.google.com, I wasn't able to have a look at it as Google had pulled it down showing a 403 Forbidden Error. However, just trying randomly, I could get a peek when the site went live momentarily. The moment I keyed in the URL http://base.google.com , I was greeted by a weird looking screen that asked me to sign in with a Google Account. The screen however was restored to normality with me signing into my Gmail account. What Google Base does is however not amply clear from what is there on the homepage. The FAQ page is still not up showing an "Oops...We didn't understand that. You have tried to access a non-existent page.” " message. The desciption from the Google Base homepage reads: Post your items on Google. Google Base is Google's database into which you can add all types of content. We'll host your content and make it searchable online for free. Exampl

The last weekend I headed off to attend an entrepreneurship seminar, accompanied by two of my friends. The place was buzzing with activity, with an abundant supply of ideas on just about any topic. I met a bunch of really wonderful people, both management and engineering undergrads like me. Quite a lot of companies, some what you would call the top guns in the Fortune 500 list, and some Indian startups, were present at the place and it was simply wonderful to be listening to some of these guys who had made successful entrepreneurs. Back at campus now, I see myself buried neck deep in assignments, pending projects, presentations, and what not! Almost all projects I am working on currently are approaching their deadline dates at a pace too close for comfort! But then, there is the advantage of working in a team packed with smart guys: They always get the work done with you!

You see statistics like these and begin to wonder what really is happening to the web? Is the dominance of the big guns such as Google, Microsoft, and others coming to an end? Here are the six web properties with the most pages viewed (remember ads run is mostly equal to pages viewed on the web): Yahoo! - 43,700MM Time Warner - 31,600MM (AOL is roughly 70% of this) Microsoft - 21,800MM (MSN is part of this) eBay - 10,900MM MySpace - 9,600MM Google - 6,300MM Notwithstanding the somewhat interesting fact that Google is a relatively small page view generator, which makes sense given their reliance on search, the shocking fact is how fast MySpace is catching up to the big guys . And what's even more amazing is that MySpace's page views have grown 50% in the past three months. My first experience of MySpace was quite some time ago, as we were browsing through (actually studying them inside out) all the social-networking sites, like Orkut , Friendster , and Wallop for the next k

When the whole web is abuzz with keywords such as Ajax, Web 2.0, Meebo and all, there is some uncertainity about how this new Internet Bubble will shape up. Mike at Techdirt writes that some of these new startups may be only to actually stand out for the crowd and act as a strong resume. While the complaint is that so many of these companies are built to flip rather than to be sustainable businesses, some are noticing that this process is really just a better way for some to stand out and get a job. You build a company quickly and cheaply that gets some attention, and a bigger company comes along to scoop up your company, giving you a nice "signing bonus." In effect, the purpose of these companies is to act as a strong resume to stand out from the crowd. Technorati Tags: Ajax Web 2.0

Here is another AJAXy to-do list manager, not very unlike Ta-da Lists , with a very unusual title - Remember the Milk. I gave it a try and it looks wonderful, especially the interface. What fascinated me the most was their sign-up form which is incredibly user-friendly. Remember The Milk is the easiest and best way to manage your to-do lists online. Here are just a few of the reasons why it's so cool: Features galore. Sharing, publishing, notes... we've got it all. Get reminded. Receive reminders via email, instant messenger, and SMS. It's free. Hard to believe, we know, but it's true. Try it out here! Technorati Tags: Remember the Milk Ajax

India's rebel tennis star now makes it to the list of the the ten people capable of changing the world by London's intellectual weekly New Statesman . This comes days after she was declared by Time Asia as one of the Asian Heroes for 2005 . In his article on Sania Mirza, Jason Cowley writes: It is difficult to believe that a slender, 18-year-old Muslim tennis player from India has the potential to change the world, but it is equally difficult to overestimate the effect Sania Mirza is having on millions of young men and women, and especially women, in the world's second most populous country. She is the first female Indian tennis player to be ranked in the world's top 40; indeed, she is the first significant female athlete of any kind, in a country where women have been typically discouraged from taking up sport. Mirza has the discipline, the tenacity, the flamboyance... Technorati Tags: Sania Mirza Tennis

And finally, after tons and tons of procrastination, if tons could be a better measure of procrastination than silly units of time, "enginerd" has a new template. For sometime now, I was planning on making a three-column layout, for the unbounding list of items I think should be placed in the 'enginerd sidebar.' The colour scheme, as you would have observed isn't entirely different from what we had in v0.9 and v1.0. The white background stays with the ususal orange thrown around. I have tried a different shade of blue for the links this time. I am not too sure, if it needs more whitespace, but we'll figure it out soon with the feedback ;) Meanwhile, the F1 season is over. Ferrari and Schumacher didn't really have it their way, and Karthikeyan, who made all the hype being the first F1 driver from India, didn't really do anything out of the ordinary leaving the only chance of him racing next season with Ecclestone suddenly deciding that F1 could do with

Kiruba created this tee at Cafepress for all us bloggers!

I wrote the other day about UNICEF choosing Smurf cartoons to convey the impact of war on children. So while the idea of bombing the Smurfs out of existence seemed outrageous to many, it still hit home. I have always believed that comics/cartoons are a wonderful way of putting your message across. They have this zing attached to them, an uncanny knack of attracting attention of all, across all ages. Rustle the Leaf is another such endeavour to sensitize the citizens of the world about the environment where Rustle and his friends communicate the essential environment themes and truths through a comic strip. The objective of this environmental comic is to " encourage environmentalists, to facilitate the sharing of environmental views in an engaging, nonconfrontational manner, and to introduce and reinforce environmental education with people ages 6 to 106. " Visit: Rustle the leaf Rustlemania Blog Site Technorati Tags: Environment Rustle UNICEF Smurf Comic

Apparently, Scoble is synonymous to Blogging. No wonder, James Torio mentions Robert Scoble in his Masters Thesis on "Social Phenomenon of Blogs" ... [Scoble] seems sane, reasonable, trustworthy, human and somebody who knows what heÂ’s talking about. Which to me helps make Microsoft seem likewise. One guy and his Blog, doing more real good for his company than any multi-million dollar ad agency campaign could ever hope to achieve. James Torio's thesis is available as pdf . via Scobelizer , Doc Searl's Weblog Technorati Tags: James Torio Thesis Blog Thesis

Zhi Yang 's school, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, sent him some " very important info " to protect him and many others like him! ...While you Blog, please stay on the right side of the Law and stay sensitive to other people around you. Do not blog on things that promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore (Section 4 of the Sedition Act). Students should use the blog appropriately and not to misuse it to arouse social disorder or 'flame' a person online. In a multi-racial society like in Singapore, every citizen or resident should respect other races and religions. As all Bloggers are personally responsible for what they blog, please be careful. Regards Computer Centre Ngee Ann Polytechnic I'd say this is sensible on the part of Ngee Ann. With so many controversies raging up recently because of Blogging, it is better to have the students already cautioned. No denying the fact that majority of Bloggers are

Last year we had Steve Jobs with the following response to the question on what was next for the iPod users, full color video, color screen? "It's the music, stupid." We have to stay focused on the fact that people are buying these devices to listen to music. People love music. They love listening to music as a background activity when they're doing..when they're exercising, when they are commuting and when they are just hanging out, and music is a wonderful thing because: A, it's music; and B, because it can be listened to as a background activity. And a lot of these other things that people are talking about building in such as video and things like that are foreground activities. So, we really are very focused on music because that's what we think, that's where we think the revolution is here. Certainly Video iPod looked like a pretty bad idea at the moment. Not anymore. The new iPod Video is here! Technorati Tags: iPod Video iPod Video Vi

A 25 second film, being screened in Belgium as a public service announcement shows the Smurf village, obliterated by an air raid. The final frame of this short video put together by UNICEF reads: " Don't let war affect the lives of children. " According to the advertising agency behind the campaign, Smurf was chosen as it was felt that "the best way to convey the impact of war on children was to tap into the earliest, happiest memories of Belgian television viewers." Just wondering, what cartoon strip would they choose, if they were to similarly tap into the earliest, happiest memories of American President and convey the impact of war? In case you are interested in watching the carpet bombing of Smurf Village, get the video here . Technorati Tags: Smurf Film Smurf UNICEF

Beyond Web 2.0 has this article on What Web 2.0 isn't : Web 2.0 is not “an AJAX” application; although it may use AJAX. Web 2.0 is not a desktop application ported to the web; although it could be a new Web Application that renders an existing desktop application outdated, or creates a completely new type of application (Flick’R). Web 2.0 is not “Social Networking”; although I do believe Social Networking is a cornerstone of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is only Web 2.0 when it accomplishes all of the above, and keeps in mind that, “I cannot be trusted with my data”. An AJAX site that doesn’t manage my data, and backups of that data, is not Web 2.0. A Web Application that does not solve my data management problems is not Web 2.0. A Social Networking application that doesn’t provide for management of my data and selective sharing of my data is not a Web 2.0 application. What is really surprising is that n

Blogger now provides Backlinks, just like Trackbacks, to keep track of all the webpages that link to your Blogger post. Backlinks basically is based on the link: operator of Blog Search . This imposes a restiction: All sites linking to your blog will need to be indexed by Blog Search. Here's how you can enable Blogger Backlinks: On your Blogger Dashboard, under Settings>Comments , you'll find an option to turn Backlinks ON/OFF. Now, if you are using a standard Blogger template, you need nothing else to turn Backlinks on. But if you have your own template, then you'll have to make changes to your template code. This is what you'll be required to do in this case: 1. Place the following code between <Blogger> and </Blogger> <BlogItemBacklinksEnabled> <a class="comment-link" href="<$BlogItemPermalinkUrl$>#links"> Links to this post</a> </BlogItemBacklinksEnabled> 2. Now within the <ItemPage> and &l

The death toll continues to mount in Saturday's earthquake that hit the Kashmir region. According to some reports, the toll in Indian administered Kashmir itself has touched 1000. Let us all take a moment to pray for those who are suffering, and for those who couldn't survive this terrible disaster. Technorati Tags: News Earthquake Pakistan Kashmir

Back after a three-day break and I am shocked to see this controversy that has broken out in the Indian Blogosphere. It feels terrible to have missed out on truckloads of action! :( Technorati Tags: IIPM

Google just launched their RSS Reader, Google Reader . It looks real cool and certainly a competition killer. It is running too slowly now, with lots of people taking their first look at it. I was trying to import my OPML file but it just wouldn't let me do that. Too slow at the moment. But then, as things cool off, it certainly looks like an easy way to read all my feeds online. Update: After a long long wait, The OPML subscriptions have been imported and this is how my Google Reader looks like. Looking forward to playing around with it, but on first looks, it makes fantastic use of AJAX lending ability to sort and organize content very efficiently. And Gmail's "star" thingy is over here too. Technorati Tags: GoogleReader RSS

Its a story about two young people meeting on an airplane, and an on- off kind of a relationship that follows over a course of seven long years. A Lot Like Love is not just your another romantic comedy, but it is about something more, something really deeper, more heartfelt. Emily, played by Amanda Peet (The Whole Ten Yards) and Oliver, played by Ashton Kutcher have this fling on board an aircraft; spend a day together, only to meet after years. Their paths cross occasionally; situations draw them to each other, and then keep them apart. Somehow the sparks never really occur, either due to his career ambitions or her mates. But there's always the chemistry between them! The best part is that the story feels refreshingly real. The casting works wonderfully well too. The two characters Oliver and Emily have a wonderful chemistry going and while Amanda Pete looks great, carefree, and idiotic all at the same time, Ashton Kutcher is his usual good. He is not your usual super-successf

"India's rebel tennis star ," as Sania Mirza is referred to in the latest issue of the Time Asia, becomes the second Indian sports person after Virender Sehwag to feature in the list of Time Magazine's Asia's Heroes 2005. From Time Asia : When tennis' latest star made the third round of the U.S. Open last month, she showed up at a post-match press conference in a T-shirt that read: "I'm cute? No shit." That—and her court play—certainly got her noticed. Suddenly, India's Sania Mirza was the tournament's "most popular player" (Reuters), whose "racket bag was sagging with the weight of a country's expectations" (New York Times). "Her diamond-studded nose ring" was one clue Mirza was not "your typical teenage prodigy," wrote USA Today, which also spotlighted her "smashmouth ground strokes and go-for-broke style." And, just in case you haven't yet noticed, this blog finally features a p

Here's one of the better visualizations of Web 2.0: [Source: Kelly Franklins Web Enablers ]

Yesterday night, the enginerd and the moron were discussing about some interesting new professions that have come to demand serious attention due to the way the web is being redefined. The ones that came to our minds immediately were SEO and Blogging. Where my friend was completely gungho about blogging, I remain skeptical to plain Blogging as a profession. I do realize that there are people like Scoble and Jason , but still, there aren't all that many who are 'only' Bloggers. Plus, there is always the chance to be dooced ! By the way, here's Dilbert on how to get fired for blogging !

OK. This is a title lifted straight of a blog that I stumbled upon while clicking on the Blogger Next Blog button. And, in a way, the title actually paves way for this post, but it may be misleading as I intend to write only about what I did this evening. And please do not worry, for this post should not be an indicator that the enginerd weblog is turning into a crappy I slept... I woke up... I ate ... kind of a blog. 'Web Services' has been the talk around the campus for quite sometime, atleast in my circle of people. For some, it is only because of the assignment (of which they unjustifiably make heavy weather of,) and for some others, it is only because of their quest to impress our Professor who called this big shot from IBM Research wing to deliver a lecture on Selection of 3rd Party Web Services and all. Somehow, it was a stark contrast to some of the earlier invited lectures, this one was really impressive and with our knowledge in the field, very informative. I cant rec

When a company responds the way Apple has done to its iPod Nano fragility issue, it is bound to do some serious damage to its reputation. “This is a real but minor issue involving a vendor quality problem in a small number of units,” said Schiller. “In fact, this issue has affected less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the total iPod nano units that we’ve shipped. It is not a design issue.” This is certainly one time Microsoft guys would be cheering for Apple, only hoping for them to just mess it all up.

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Usually I and the act of smoking do not get along very well. But for the past few days, as I suddenly realize, it is not very hard to find a smoke not too far from me. And it is not that I crave for it or anything like that, but with a cigarette ever so ubiquitous in the residence hall, plus surrounded by hard core smokers always keen on lighting up, you just can't help it!!! I ought to do something about it, though. Too much of passive smoking ain't good.

From Boston News : The makers of Japan's favorite instant ramen noodles will soon be airing a commercial that's truly out of this world. Starting next month, Nissin Food Products Co. will film a promotional spot on the International Space Station for Cup Noodle, featuring a sales pitch by a hungry Russian cosmonaut. The commercial will air in Japan in November as part of Nissin's "Cup Noodle No Border" campaign, according to a statement Wednesday by Japan's space program, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. Space Films, a venture business set up by JAXA that specializes in space images, will send a high-definition camera to the space station aboard a Russian rocket launch Oct. 1 and direct the filming from Russia's Mission Control Center outside Moscow, JAXA said.

Three (almost four now) straight all-nighters, with only a few hours of sleep thrown in between the days, and yet I am unable to sleep. If someone was really keen on looking out for 'signs', I wonder what would this count as? But with assignments taking their toll on me and with my procratinatinating streak, in this supposedly "easy-going" semester, I couldn't blame anybody. Perhaps what I need is a time capture device to store away this wasted time that I could release anytime later and put it to some good use, say sleeping. The past week, the only thing that I had done remotely close to my academics was a Graphics assignment with OpenGL and stuff. And I was shocked to see a note from the Teaching Assistant which stated his inability to execute the 'C' Code. Apparently, I have to mail him the entire workspace, something that I find absolutely ridiculous. Just how difficult is it to set up a workspace and execute the code. To make things real bad, I have a

I cant believe you are all still here. I have been way too busy the past week and now with things cooling off a bit, I surely will be blogging more regularly.For now, I need to catch some sleep...

Not often do I post two entries here in quick succession that completely stump me. The earlier one about Mozilla Browsers being more vulnerable than IE and now this whole thing about the email address being case sensitive. New York Times says: The domain-name portion of the e-mail address - the part after the @ sign - is not case -sensitive, but the first part of the address may need to be typed in exactly as given. This rule is explained in RFC 2821, the document laying out Internet e-mail standards, found at faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2821.html . This certainly is news to me. I never had thought that my username was case sensitive. Apparently, in most cases they aren't. The RFC2821 states: The local-part of a mailbox MUST BE treated as case sensitive. Therefore, SMTP implementations MUST take care to preserve the case of mailbox local-parts. Mailbox domains are not case sensitive. In particular, for some hosts the user "smith" is different from the user "Smith". But

According to a Symantec Report , Mozilla Browsers are MORE vulnerable than Internet Explorer. Well...

[Redefining] software engineering professionalism with the following objectives: a professional programmer picks a worthwhile problem to attack ; we are engineers, not scientists, and therefore should attempt solutions that will solve real user problems a professional programmer has a dedication to the end-user experience ; most computer applications built these days are Web applications built by small teams and hence it is now possible for an individual programmer to ensure that end users aren't confused or frustrated (in the case of a programmer working on a tool for other programmers, the goal is defined to be "dedication to ease of use by the recipient programmer") a professional programmer does high quality work ; we preserve the dedication to good system design, maintainability, and documentation, that constituted pride of craftsmanship a professional programmer innovates ; information systems are not good enough, the users are entitled to better, and it is our j

As I read this , I'll have to say that it cannot get any more innovative(weird?) than a rent-a-guest agent.

And just as this hiatus comes to an end, I'd like to let all know that this was not a result of mundanity. Things were moving at quite a pace and yet, somehow didn't fall into the category of weblog content. India finally managed to win something at Cricket. Defeating Zimbabwe by an innings and 90 runs may not be the achievement one would be envied for, but with the way our royalty (read star cricketers) have been performing, I'd say it does classify a bit into something worth getting deliriously happy for. More Cricket. England finally finally claimed the Ashes. The whole Aussie outfit surrendered to the Flintoff-Pieterson duo in a manner none would have predicted at the beginning of the series. And while this made some ecstatic, one cant simply admire the way the Aussies threatened to turn it all around, all on the last day. I have officially reached the conclusion that there cannot be made a movie that actually bores me. Gates on Google : [Google] have this slogan that

I have been doodling during classes all through my high school and the habit has hardly betrayed me in the University. And yet, ever so cruelly, none of my doodles seem to have made ANY impact at all, especially when you compare them with the ones by Gates at Davos or by Ofir at Israel ! And, MSN Search rocks! I had to dig out this link about Gates and Davos Doodles which I had posted way back in the beginning of the year. Apparently, the BloggerBar (powered by Google) at the top of this blog is supposed to search this Blog. But it yielded NOTHING. Google search for the keywords "Gates doodles enginerd" returned exactly Two (2) results which were way off target. And then I tried MSN Search. The same keywords. Four results : The first: Link to the exact Post. The second: Link to the-enginerd's February archives. MSN Search just found a new fan!

September 1, 2005. Thousands of Bloggers yesterday could be seen linking to their blogkins celebrating the BlogDay 2005. Prasoon , an avid Blogger told our correspondent about how the date 3108 (August 31st) reads like the word "Blog". Our correspondent traced the history of Blog Dayback to June 21, 2005 when Nir Ofir posted about it on his blog on the same date. It has been learnt from reliable sources that Mr. Ofir had, in fact, noticed the resemblance between "3108" and "Blog" while doodling at the first Blog conference that was held in Israel. -TheEnginerd News Service

Vanessa Tan has this link to a wonderful new experiment in User Interface Design promising click-free navigation. The Institute for Interactive Research is apparently trying to study the "change in the behaviour of navigation" and whether the missing click has any "influence on our perception of the interface." The website has three new buttons for you to experiment. The replacement of the traditional 'click' in the three buttons is as follows: Button 1: Activating the button by wiping the mouse from left to right or right to left over it. Button 2: The button is activated by moving the mouse pointer in a circular motion around it. Button 3: The button has a self activating timer. To activate, keep your mouse pointer over it for a few seconds. I find the second idea of moving the mouse pointer in a circular manner over the button extremely appealing. The other two have obvious disadvantages. The 'wipe' that activates the first button requires th

By the way, if you haven't yet observed, Blogger word verification is still disabled here on the comments. You are all too precious to be bothered.

My friend remarked about living on Earth Beta. Apparently every software that he was using at the moment was Beta: Be it the Messenger1 or Messenger2 , or the latest Visual Studio Beta 2 . As if that was not enough, I came across this MSN Homepage Beta http://beta.msn.com First look and you'll get the feeling that you've stumbled upon the Yahoo! Homepage . I dont like the fact that they are doing away with the sidebar and the blue theme!!!