Live Free. Live Happy.

Author: rahul

  • Website Gets Powweb Hosting

    If you had visited my site this week, you might have observed that it was down for the first three days of the week and for the next one day, it was acting weird. So here is the reason.

    All these days I had my site hosted on my home server. There were two big problems I constantly faced – 1. Power cut and 2. ISP (Internet Service Provider) downtime. So I had a Home UPS system setup. This solved the power cut problem but the ISP downtime problem was still there.

    Getting a highly reliable ISP here is quite costly. And all home ISPs (like the one I use) have frequent downtimes. This was the reason why my site was down for three days. Frustrated with this, I finally decided to move my site to Powweb hosting and that took me another day.

    So what it means to you, my site visitor – 1. 99.9% uptime is guaranteed by the hosting service which means my site would never go down unless some maintenance activity is being performed and 2. Higher Bandwidth and no slow speeds.

    I’ve still got to fix the feed and the gallery but apart from that everything should be working fine.

  • Long time dream to come true

    Those who know me know that I am not someone who has many goals/dreams in my life. But among the very few I have, one of them is to contribute to the development of a good open source software. And today I seem to have come closer to accomplishing it.

    Being a user of “open source” software for a very long period, I had always felt obligated to give back something to the open source community. When I had quit my job at Infosys, I did think of contributing to tvtime and also writing a software for accessing Gmail via IMAP. But that somehow did not materialize. But anyway I got lucky today and I have now joined a great team at Synovel as a resource hired through Spinaxys. I already know most of them as they have graduated from the same grad school as mine, IIIT. So that makes our pairing all the more fun. And to brief you about the product I am working on, it is essentially a collaboration suite for enterprises. More details can be found on their website.

    So today marks the beginning of my venture into the open source developer community 😀 !!!

  • Suicide, Accident or Homicide?

    Allegedly a true story …

    “On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building with the intent to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor level to protect some window washers and that the decedent would not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this.

    Ordinarily, a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might be not what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicide intent would not have been achieved under any circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands.

    Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an inter-spousal spat and became so upset that he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking the decedent.

    When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was the longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her; therefore, the killing of the decedent appeared then to be accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

    But *further* investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son’s financial support and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

    Further investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off the ten story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window.

    The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.”

  • Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture – Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

    Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

    Pausch, a professor of computer science, human computer interaction and design, is a co-founder of Carnegie Mellon’s Entertainment Technology Center and the creator of the Alice interactive computing program, which is being used by students worldwide.

    Full Lecture on Google Video

    Download the Video

    Download the transcript

    Randy Pausch’s Home Page

  • Men – The Last Frontier

    Men Are Just Happier People–

    What do you expect from such simple creatures?

    Your last name stays put. Thegarage is all yours.

    Wedding plans take care of themselves.

    Chocolate is just another snack.

    You can be President. You can never be pregnant.

    You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.

    You can wear NO shirt to a water park.

    Car mechanics tell you the truth.

    The world is your urinal. You never have to drive to another gas station restroom because this one is just too icky.

    You don’t have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.

    Same work, more pay.
    Wrinkles add character.

    Wedding dress $5000.

    Tux rental-$100.

    People never stare at your chest when you’re talking to them.

    The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.

    New shoes don’t cut, blister, or mangle your feet.

    One mood all the time.

    Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.

    You know stuff about tanks. A five-day vacation requires
    only one suitcase.

    You can open all your own jars.

    You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.

    If someone forgets to invite you, he or she can still be your friend.

    Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.

    Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.

    You almost never have strap problems in public.

    You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.

    Everything on your face stays its original color.

    The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.

    You only have to shave your face and neck.

    You can play with toys all your life.

    Your belly usually hides your big hips.

    One wallet and one color for all seasons.

    You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.

    You can ‘do’ your nails with a pocketknife.

    You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache..

    You can do Christmas shopping for 25 relatives on December 24 in 25 minutes.

    No wonder men (Unmarried !!!) are happier.

  • Blog Action Day

    Today is the Blog Action Day !!! The Day when Bloggers all over the world do their bit to contribute to the environment.

    Bloggers Unite - Blog Action Day

    Our environment is facing many problems because of the imbalance we are creating in it. These are some things which I have began to practice in the recent times.

    1. Save Water – Being in cities, we take it for granted that we have continuous supply of water. There are people out there dying without water. Use water conservatively.
    2. Save Electricity – Somewhat related to the above point. I used to have this habit of switching on the tube-light and fan in my room and go out of it for hours. Now I make it a point to switch them off when I leave my room.
    3. Don’t dispose waste wherever you like (especially plastic) – Dispose away wastes properly. Be very careful with plastics bags and bottles. Use dust-bins and stop spitting, pissing and disposing wastes on roads and footpaths. Only when we all make an effort more consciously will we have a cleaner city.

    Do add your suggestions as comments on how some small actions will help us protect our environment.

  • The Longest Wait

    Wonder what I am waiting for? Release of Mepis 7.0 and Nokia 1650. I’ve been waiting for more than 2 months and just have no clue when these two are expected to release :(. Both were supposed to release by end of September. May the Lord be merciful and release these two soon :D.

  • Very Witty

    A wealthy man decided to go on a safari in Africa. He took his faithful pet Dachshund dog along for company.

    One day, the dachshund starts chasing butterflies and before long the dachshund discovers that he is lost. Wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the obvious intention of having lunch. The dachshund thinks, “I’m in deep trouble now! Then he noticed some bones on the ground close by and immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat.

    Just as the leopard is about to leap, the dachshund exclaims loudly, “Boy, that was one delicious leopard. I wonder if there are any more around here.”

    Hearing this, the leopard halts his attack in mid-stride, as a look of terror comes over him, and slinks away into the trees. “Whew,” says the leopard. “That was close. That dachshund nearly had me.”

    Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard. So, off he goes. But the dachshund saw him heading after the leopard with great speed, and figured that something must be up. The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard. The leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, “Here monkey, hop on my back and see what’s going to happen to that conniving canine.”

    Now the dachshund sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks “What am I going to do now?”

    But instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hasn’t seen them yet… and just when they get close enough to hear, the dachshund says, “Where’s that damn monkey? I sent him off half an hour ago to bring me another leopard.”

    Moral: Life consists not in holding good cards, but in playing those you hold, well.

  • Increase Laptop Battery Life

    Hi,
    Below are a few links which has some useful tips on increasing laptop battery life.

    http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usingyourlaptop/tp/laptopbattmtc.htm
    http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usingyourlaptop/f/laptopbattery.htm
    http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usingyourlaptop/f/laptopbattery1.htm
    http://www.laptopmag.com/Features/Five-Tips-For-Better-Notebook-Battery-Life.htm
    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070925233811AACVHda

  • Hey You There … I’m still ALIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

    Oh yeah, I’m still alive and my site is still very much active. It is just that I am standing up to the title given to me “The busiest man on this earth” 😀 :D. As always, the past few months have been extremely hectic. In no particular order, here are a few things which I did during the past few months:

    – Prepared my company’s financial records.
    – Visited my friend’s wedding in Namakal (near Salem), Tamilnadu. She was my colleague during Bangalore training. The wedding went good except for that I almost missed the train on my return journey. But I somehow managed to catch it in time.
    – Kept visiting Global Technologies and IBM Service Center as my laptop kept hanging intermittently
    – Purchased a new laptop (yeah baby .. it is a T61 which I had got it for a really good deal)
    – Lost my mobile (the second one so far 🙁 ) and would be buying a new one soon
    – Last but not the least figuring out where my life is heading to (a never-ending activity 😉 )

    Anyway, our company is undergoing some changes of late and I need to think over it. Apart from that, here is one big advice for you all: ALWAYS GIVE LAPTOPS FOR REPAIR TO THE COMANY SERVICE CENTER ONLY. Because even big service companies like Global Technologies (in Parklane) can do foolish things like using a pencil rubber in your laptop.

    Have quite a few things lined up. But I do hope to be more regular w.r.t posting articles on my site … yeah yeah I know I always say the same thing :D.