Category: Journal

Had a gr888 24 bday. Snaps can be accessed at 24 bday snaps :).

Have just come back from a trip to Ooty-Kodaikanal-Madurai-Palani. The photos can be accessed at Kodai Trip Photos. Kindly note that the last three slides (151, 152 and 153) are actually 30 seconds videos of size 15-20 MB. Unless, you are very enthusiastic about viewing them, I suggest you do not visit these last three slides :).

An internal search engine, A “Best of the Site” bar, discussion feature for Customize Linux page – ideas, ideas, ideas – that is what I am swamped with. But unfortunately there are only 24 hours in a day and not just a website to work upon. Agreed working on my website is a passion, but now I have to start giving priorites to other things in life :-). So even though I may not want to, I will have to work less upon my website for the time-being. The Customize Linux page which is probably going to be the best attraction of my site may be delayed. I do plan to complete the article on Windows Security though. There are going to be additions regularly in the Archive section but there may be no major updates anytime soon!

Have spent about 3-4 days on my website. Alright I know you won’t agree with me … because the output of my work will be visible mainly to Opera and Firefox users. Any idea on what I had been working on ? Yup u guessed it right … I have been working on compatibility. Compatilitly with IE, Firefox and Opera and not only on Windows but also Linux platform. Some major changes are:

• Borders did not appear in Firefox. This I figured out was because Firefox somehow falied to recognise the CSS “border” style which is a shorthand for mentioning the width, style and color of the border in one line. So as a solution I had to remove it and use border-width, border-style and border-color separately.
• Positioning of “div” tag within a table cell isn’t proper in Firefox i.e. it is slightly shifted. So I had to use a new table to which I applied the border and within which I used the “div” tag with its border removed.
• On similar lines, Opera had problem with displaying data within a “div” tag which has “overflow: auto” style set. To overcome this problem, I used another table inside the “div” tag within which I moved the data.
• One major change which I have done was to change font size from pixels to percentage. This would help for furthur compatibility. Of course as I was arleady using stylesheets, it was only about half-an-hour work :-).
• Understood that most elements like “p” and “a” tags inherit style properties from their parent elements. This proved to be a boon.

Alright coming back to IE users, you may ask – “That’s fine. But what do you have for me???”. Well right now nothing new other a few additions in the archive section. But very soon this site is going to receive some major updates which include an article on “Windows Security”, “Customize Linux” page for intermediate users of Linux and an internal search engine. So keep visiting and keep checking.

From: Rahul Amaram
Subject: Happppppyyyyyyyyy Birthdaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy !!!
Date: Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:57:30 +0530

Sunday, Feb 13th:
5 days left for her bday .. what do I do ? what do I do ?
I know .. I’ll bake her an eggless cake and gift it to her :-).
That will be different and special.

Let me see what all do I need for a cake – a recipe, the items and an oven.

I google for a recipe and find some sites. The items could be purchased from
the stores. And oven ? Do we have an oven.

I immediately ask my grandma and I get the expected response – ‘Paaddu
ayipoyindi, exchange offer kosam wait chestinanu’. I think to myself – ‘Shit!
what a time for it to get spoilt’. But not to forget all those wonderful
aunts I have. And so I start calling up all known and unknown aunts – mom’s
sis, dad’s sis, dad’s cousin, dad’s sis-in-law. And the responses are not
very surprising – ‘Oven, why would I have one?’, ‘Sorry … its spolit’,
‘Nope, sold it long back’. But I’m not one among those who lose hope. I
decide to get the one at home repaired.

Monday, Feb 14th:
In the course of my inquiry about the oven with one of my aunts, I get to know
that there are eggless cake mix available. I come home early from office and
get an eggless cake mix from Food World. As the oven had gone for repair
(after me continuously pestering daddy to send it for repair in the morn), we
decide to bake it in a pressure cooker. After a couple of hours and with help
from my mom, the cake is ready. Excited I taste it, but only to my
disappointment. I think to myself – ‘The cake is not bad, but certainly it is
not worth to be cut in front of 10 persons’. So I drop the cake plan. A big
FLOP story!

Tuesday, Feb 15th:
Oh my God! 3 days left. I’ve got to do something. I know. So what if I can’t
bake a cake, I’ll order one next day.

Wednesday, Feb 16th:
Time for ordering. Someone told me VACS Bakery (Kharkana) is good. Decide to
catch ‘C’ route bus as it goes to Kharkana. Unfortunately, business wanted me
to stay back till 8.00 PM. So had to ask mummy to do the job.

Thursday, Feb 17th:
Gr8 ! One day, left. And there is nothing you have done for her. Ok … if not
anything, atleast a card from Walden is a good idea. Decide to catch the bus
to Somajiguda but end up catching the bus to Ameerpet. Somehow reach Walden
and start browsing through the cards. Hmm … after 10 mins of search I don’t
find anything interesting. Catch the auto to my home.

And now, here I am mailing you all the flop stories. I guess sometimes nothing
just works out.

When I said ‘You make my every day brighter’, you laughed thinking that it was
a joke. But I meant every word I said. I am out of words to describe the
difference you have made in my stay in Infosys. Infosys would never have been
the same without you 🙂 !

I’ve heard this somehwere – ‘People walk into our lives and people walk out of
our our lives but only few leave their footprints’. And I do not hesitate
telling you that are among those whom I will remember all my life. Tomorrow
we may not be the way we are today, but I shall always remember you. Thanks
for being such a good friend.

Have a fun filled bday Minna 🙂 !

Luv,
Rahul.

P.S.: Edo bday ani koncham eko pogarutinanu. mari egraku. Kindiki digu 😀 !

And the child turns ???

Hush !!!! I caution Hash
As he is about to dash
For this is not the usual nap
The child has put on the spiritual cap

The child!!! I must be crazy
For things are never static
and the child is no longer hazy
Now,he is systematic( or system-attic??)

Early to bed and early to rise
The child has turned wise
Neither I bang nor I scream
For he is no longer in a dream

He is awake but deep in meditation
Which is a part of the modification
But remember it’s only a part
For he has always been – a class apart

With new specs giving the professional look
He spends more time with the book
But then I put all this aside
To me Rahul is always a charming child

-luv forever
-friend forever
-ricky forever
Now, I guess the title should be “child forever”
—————————————————————-

The Child in ‘Rahul’

It was almost an year and half ago,
that I met this guy who doesn’t have any ego.
I found that he was from Hyderabad
but he insisted he was from Secunderabad.

He often spoke in a childish way
Little did I realise that he would come my way.
His speech was very sluggish
as he mixed Telugu and English.

He was a child at heart,
But that is only a part.
For he has an unique art,
with which I shall never part
That’s something associated with a rare greatness
And that’s his frankness.

Honest and sincere,
He always speaks without any fear
(and may be that’s the reason why he is so dear).

But let me tell you the fact
The fact that he is still a brat.

It may or may not fog
But he always sleeps like a log
I bang the door and scream
Yet he continues to dream.

Finally he picks up his brush
But what a pity he doesn’t care for his crush
He comes to the class without combing his hair
And to me that doesn’t appear fair.

The brat that he is, he has the cheek
To sit in the first row, with the lecturer at his peak.
As Kaul explains about the Karnaugh map,
he puts his head on the bench and has a nap.

The brat also has some interesting hobbies,
those related to softwares,CD’s and floppies.
He goes to the lab in search of a software
and the child gets delighted when he finds a freeware.

When he gets a query from his crush,
he answers with a gentle blush.
Crush apart,boys or girls,do not seem to make any difference
For he does’nt show any special preference.

He downloads and uploads files ,
even as the assignment load piles.
He is busy with the bloody installation,
although it is time for exam preparation.

But there is a quality in this child
To be calm when things get wild.
He has in the cool stuff ,
to weather and conquer the rough.

After the exams ,when he is fast asleep,
I open the door and have a peep.
Although the time continues to bide,
I still find Rahul a charming child.

There have been some major updates of late.

• Purged the Open Diary page in Personal section as I didn’t seem to find time to add content it and hence it seemed useless
• Added Mail page to make my mails accessible from anywhere.
• Renamed the “Entertainment” section to Archive owing to some changse in the content of this section.
• Added a new section Articles containing two very interesting articles currently – “Choosing a Broadband ISP” and “Net Telephony”
• Added new entries to the Blog page.