Back to PEC !

It seems like yesterday when I stood on the same building, waiting, expecting...the longest wait that lasted only for a few minutes when finally my name was announced by my placement officer on behalf of Vanenburg Business IT Solutions. I went to the same college again, this time to stand on the other side of the dais, for the same company (now called Cordys). I am feeling nostalgic for my college days now and the only cure for this is a trip down my memory lane.
My fruitful, funny, adventurous and energetic 7 years in Cordys melted right in front of me when I visited PEC (Pondicherry Engineering College), as one of the panel members for the recruitment drive.

As I gave a short speech to share my experiences with Cordys, I was no more an “industry guy sharing my experiences to students”, I almost became the student myself, the old days passing my mind, days which were truly wonderful though they did not seem the same at that time...

The hall at admin block where we conducted the exam brought back fond memories in which I saw myself sweating, bent-headed, doing engineering drawing, the same hall which I now supervised the exams we conducted - believe me, I felt horns sprouting from my head making me feel that the world is round.

That’s the beauty of looking back – it turns the ordinary into memorable, the mundane into magical...

I visited the computer lab that I so stealthily visited during the brief stint of my college life. Remember there is a reason to be in college...the next 30 to 40 years of your life will shape up on the basis of how your spend your time in college.

The final day of our campus visit from which we picked 4 students into Cordys family is memorable in many ways. This is when I visited the classrooms and professors from my Department of Civil Engineering. Oh, its nice to feel the classrooms occupied by me, the sounds of slamming books and dropping bags, the thrills of bunking classes, the fun of movie-going, the joys and embarrassments of facing the person you were talking about, when the same person come standing behind you, everything came rushing to me.

These were the classrooms we sat, letting our minds wander, thinking about canteen or someone ‘special’...

I was never the brilliant student of my department; I sat the 2nd row merely because of my height...but even after these 7 years of my neglecting to visit the college, my Professors still remembered me...!

I promised a sure visit sometime in November again for a quality time spending with my gurus who are still an inspiration to many of us including me...

I looked back just once when I started to leave from campus and smiled to myself. It doesn’t matter so much that I never trekked Himalayas, never scored a single run for the country, never even got married till now.

What's Happening?

And it just happened...the Hyderabad Twin Blasts; it really shook the city...!

Both the blasts happened at the crowded places of the city:

· An open air theatre in Lumbini Park, and

· Gokul Chat - the only branch of the famous chat center

Initially, all fingers pointed to terrorist group(s). As of now, some suspects were identified. You can Google and find this. And this one too.

There has been no denying that the terrorist activities are now shaping up to new forms and possibilities, but it really shocks you when it happens in your city - the place where you live. While we communicate from/to our nears-and-dears to confirm nothing worse happened, you can't stop feeling sad for what really happened for others.

Just like the ones that rocked Mumbai in 1993, some more in Coimbatore, the attack on Benaras temples, and then one near Charminar, Hyderabad (barely 5 months ago), we forget incidents. Some of them surface after years which create a different interest, now that the incidents are past.

But, there are some things we can really do help in such situations:

1) When the securities on our office gates try to check us, our cars, our bags, don't deny. Using our power at that time thinking "How dare he check me" or thinking naively as "How come he checks me, he sees me daily!" will surely not help.

2) Note down helpline numbers, message friends; call the ones we know for confirmation. We may not be able to stop the incident, but can at least help in minimizing the damaging after-effects.

Oh, and there are new ones, recent one...this is the collapse of a new bridge (under construction). Life goes on.

The Incredible Music Machine

I got this video from a relative in Canada. This music machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa.

97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft Iowa. Yes, it’s farm equipment!

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video, but as you can see, it is WELL worth the effort.

It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

A note - Youtube’s upload facility is amazingly faster than any Mail box I ever had (next only to Outlook) :-)

Some logos, ads and their meanings!

A collection of some nice, creative, stunning and catchy logos can be seen here in this PPT. I've aggregated these from the forwards mails I receive.

I used slideshare to prepare the presentation. More than publishing these logos and ads, I liked to demonstrate how easy and simple it has become nowadays to collect your content, prepare PPT and share them to the world. A rather easier way than adding images on your post making it long and boring :-)

The search for an online feed reader

Long ago when I asked my colleague to suggest a news aggregator just for my academic knowledge, he suggested using WizzRSS. My first impression after using it was - why would anyone like to open an RSS reader in a browser and track?

Then of course, I had necessities for an RSS reader.

I need an RSS reader to manage my limited feed links and read/track them effectively.

Soon, my feed links started growing, and so did my accessibility options. With a computer at home, the limited feed links became “ever-so-growing” feed links, and I got tired exporting feeds as OPML from my home machine, send it as a mail, and then import them in my office to track. And vice versa!!!

You see the problem?

To be always in touch with my feeds from any point of time is nearly impossible with client based RSS feed readers. It means tying my feeds to a single computer.

But client-based readers are powerful and dead fast, and it was difficult to get a web based one which satisfied my requirements.

But, what’s my requirement, anyway?

I need a feed reader that helps tracking my feeds online, so I can access them wherever I go.

A good article on TechCrunch caught my attention, which covered exactly what I wanted! After trying out some of them from this article, and some more, I got a fairly good idea of what is expected out of a web-based RSS reader:

1. Feeds to be track-able online. It’s good to access them using a user-id (or mail-id) wherever I go and whatever machine I use.
2. A good UI which requires lesser learning curve to understand the functionality. Most people know their requirements, but the tool should help them map into functionalities.
3. Sorting the feeds, preferably by date. This helps “tracking” feeds based on a specific period.
4. A bunch of simple, basic, shortcut keys that help handling feeds faster and easier.
5. Rating and sharing posts with friends / network. Not a big requirement, but still popular among users.
6. Miscellaneous – social networking, searching, tagging, and recommendation engines etc. that are more popular with web 2.0 invention, but have little to do with frequent feed readers.

We have a lot of them that gives these functionalities, but some of the key differentiators mentioned below make the web-based feed readers unique:

1. Read/Unread posts – I have as much a necessity to make an item “unread”, as I make them “read”. This is indeed a special feature in client-based web readers. Currently, very few readers provide “unread” functionality. Try NewsAlloy.

2. Preferences management – It’s great to even remember my read and unread posts every time when I log-out and log-in. Sounds pretty obvious to do if you have a Read/Unread isn’t it? But it’s rare to find one with this functionality. Nevertheless, this is an extremely useful key feature noticeable on all client-based RSS readers.

3. UI rich – The learning curve for using any online application should be as shorter as possible. Provide a “desktop” like UI on a web browser with multiple scrolling panes and panels, and you are the best! Also, nowadays with AJAX / JavaScript / Flex tools, it’s so easy :-) GritWire with its client-like UI is developed in Flex, and it’s nice to use.

4. Performance – Performance should not be sacrificed when having such a great look and feel. Loading time must be faster. You wouldn’t like to click on “Import OPML”, and go for a coffee break till it is loaded :-) Google Reader is the fastest I’ve seen in terms of loading content.

5. Documentation – Needless to have a competitive documentation covering all the features, but its helpful if at least proper tool tips are provided for every button, and the headings are bold enough to notice :-)

I have a fairly good list of feed readers to try and feel (Google Reader, BlogLines, GritWire, Rojo, Goowy, Feeds2, Attensa, NewsGator, Pluck, NetVibes...), but I would recommend:

1. NewsAlloy, for it covers 4/5 differentiators I mentioned above. The tool tips are yet to function.
2. GritWire which resembles a thick client and so nice to work with, except for its import OPML, which is currently throwing errors while trying to import any OPML.
3. NetVibes which gives a portal look-and-feel, and is pretty easy for any kind of customization / configuration.

While I am now in a process of converting (and tagging) all my feeds from my favorite client based feed reader (it’s FeedReader) to my online web reader, a true RIA feed reader would be surely the one which would provide the best breed of features from the two camps (client and server), and that’s yet to come :-)

Harry Potter and the...

Like most kids in the world (he he :-)), I am a great fan of the boy wizard, and now since the title for the new book is announced, I feel tempted to mention it in my blog...

Yes, the title was announced, and with more than 1,00,000 search results already for the title, the writers and bloggers are now in a beeline making predictions on whether the book might become the best seller of all times!

More than the title, I liked the way it was announced. If you go to Rowling’s web site, have a look at the rose eraser in the middle of her desk. Click on it, and it takes you to a room. There is a door, a window, a mirror and a table over there. The same eraser is placed back in this room on the table for exit. (For some strange reason, the Access Enabled version never worked for me!).

In the mirror, you'll see a passage. Click on the farthest door knob, and you get a Christmas there. Click the center of the main door on the screen, and a garland appears. Click then on top of the mirror (on the ceiling seen through the mirror) and you'll see a decoration over the ceiling. Click on the cobwebs, any one which is on both the sides of the door (One on the top of the door next to the switch, and the other near the table). They disappear. Noticed the chimes on the window? Click the second one from right, keep it pressed. It turns to a key, and taking it to the keyhole, opens the door. There will be a wrapped gift there, clicking on which opens a hangman game!

(Now as I write this, I see the hangman journey does not work anymore, there is a sign saying not to disturb. Only the light switch next to the door works).

But as they say “there is more thrill on the journey than the destination itself”, there was not much thrill in playing the hangman (as I read the title already); partly also because the title seems a little off-color.

Well, really, the title is not that appealing as her earlier titles, which sounded "adventure" and some thrilling plot to wait for, though there really IS lots to expect!

The title “Deathly Hallows” is already in debate too, by the way!

For a truthful reader, the ending does not matter. The journey was adventurous, and interesting. But the title really disturbs me. The thing is, it might kill off my expectations (like it did, for many faithful readers) I have about the journey I am about to travel. But, maybe, the title is just to create hype about the plot, who knows? :-)

But, Irrespective of whether Voldemort kills Harry or not, I feel bad when the author mentions she might kill him just to kill off the merchandising. Or perhaps, marketing dynamics, huh?

Let’s see. Till then, keep pondering about the title :-)