Opening the Source

These days I'm becoming a fan of open source software. Not because of the big reasons of "no one owns the code" and all, but for the simple reason that I want to avoid piracy and at the same time have the best of the utilities and software on my laptop. In other words, because its free.

And after some research, I've found various open source equivalents of software that otherwise would be hard on your wallet. Here are some website for the benefit of others.

http://www.osalt.com/: Open Source Alternative is what this site's name stands for. Here you can find almost all software that you're looking for.

www.downloadpedia.org/Open_Source_Alternative_to_Commercial_Software: This website (actually, only one page) is similar to the above and gives you more options. Downside is that it's not as organized as the above.

www.sourceforge.net: The mother of all open source. This website hosts numerous projects on open source platform. Fully searchable.

Whenever open source comes to mind, Linux is the next word. I tried it on my mom's laptop once, but well, am too used to the Windows UI.

Nevertheless, few other software that I like in open source are as follows:

GIMP: Image and graphics editing

Strokeit: for mouse gestures. (e.g.: right click and hold your mouse -> drag to make a 'C' -> the selection (if any) is copied). Okay not that descriptive, you'll have to use it to understand its utility (trust me, after sometime, you can't live without it).

Infrarecorder: CD and DVD writing

Clamwin: anti-virus for your PC

Winpooch: anti-spyware for your PC (many websites brag a lot of using clamwin and winpooch together for "excellent" protection; but I didn't find winpooch that friendly. It consumes 99% of my system's resources)

SumatraPDF: This one's a darling. Many people (myself included till sometime back) don't use any other PDF viewer as Adobe's Acrobat Reader is anyway free. But if you need to open as many huge size PDF's as I do, try Sumatra. Amazingly fast. Acrobat is way behind in speed.

Why, in the hell, didn't I write for so long?

You might have already noticed after reading the title that I haven't written anything on my blog for almost 6 months. So I thought, let me rationalize and write few points why I didn't.

1. Reading through the many case studies, I see myself at loss of words without charts and tables. Unless there's a growth of x%, loss of market share of y%, cannibalization of z% and so on, there doesn't seem to be anything logical in writing. Then there are those data tables which I'm so fond of exporting to Excel and playing with. Writing without Excel is suddenly so damn difficult.
2. A similar reason the point 1 above, I don't have any "learnings to share" or recommendations to give when it comes to the readers of this blog. I'm sure none of the readers want to "advertise aggressively", "educate and train their employees", "explore a new business model such as...", or "implement IT solutions across the entire supply chain". And especially not, when they are reading such things through a petty blog for free. Apparently, people accept the advice when they pay money, but not for free. I guess, that's why consultants are highly desired around the world.
3. Have you ever had that feeling, when you don't have anything to do, you don't feel like doing anything else as well? In the recent times, I was so bored having too much time to myself. In fact, I haven't even touched my guitar since last few weeks (probably touched is the wrong word because I lifted it once to clean the floor beneath; but you get the point).
4. I'm sure reading the 4th point, Gera would be disappointed. Apparently, it's the Mckinsey standard to keep things limited to 3 points. Even if it is the theory of relativity that you're explaining. But anyway, I'm not interested in Mckinsey (which is my joker's cry for the more realistic reason that they'll never take me in), so let me write the 4th point. To add on to the 3rd point (this is a new thing that I've learned from few classes; if you don't have anything to say, you can start with "to add on to his/her point..." and simply repeat the same crap), the few interesting things that have happened during the reprieve of last month have been overshadowed by my boredom of doing nothing for the most part. So, when I think of writing about the things, I always see the long periods of doing nothing.

Now, I need to get back to the charts, graphs, and tables and writing recommendations for some of the giants. Guess, what's my favourite recommendation - get out of the business :).

About getting chords

And also, people are led to this blog while searching for chords of various songs.

So you may want to visit my website for:

• Chords & tabs of Hindi songs (movies, oldies, pop)
  
• Chords & tabs of English songs (few songs of all genres)
  

To download, find the "Download the zip file" link on the above pages and enjoy all the chords :). Do comment back on this post/send an email for any correction that you find.

About the 5th chords and how to play them

I was analyzing the StatCounter statistics just now. Interestingly, one of the search phrases that lead people to my blog is "how to play the 5th chord" :-). I'm sure, those poor surfers are disappointed big time seeing the title above.

So, here I write, how to play the 5th chords (also called power chords).

Theory
Normally the chords follow the I-III-V theory (1-3-5). That is when you write any scale (say C-scale):
C D E F G A B C
the C root chord plays the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the C-scale (C, E and G; remember the basic C chord [0 3 2 0 1 0] => [E C E G C E]). So any X-root chord, plays 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the X-scale. And how to write the scale, well, post a comment here (leaving your mail id) and I'll let you know (a bit of brand loyalty ;-))).

Now, the 5th chord like X5 (e.g. C5, G5 etc.) is played by taking the 1st & 5th notes of the scale only. And therefore, in the above example of C-scale:
C D E F G A B C
only C and G notes are played.

Practice
Okay, enough of theory. Now how to play them. Here is the dictionary for all the 5th chords (and alternatives of the same chord; just choose whichever you're most comfortable with).

BTW, power chords are generally played on electric guitar for the "metal" effect in the generally-perceived "rock" songs (whatever be the level of hardness of rock ;-)).

Before playing any 5th chord, please see that you're comfortable with the barre chords. Now, when you play any barre chord, just mute the strings as mentioned in the dictionary below.

It's not quite difficult to play A5 [5 7 7 x x 5]. Note that you can mute the first string (E thinnest) as well. So in effect, you hold an A-barre and strum only the last three strings (E thickest, A and D).
In the above shape, you can see F5, F#5, G5, G#5, A5, A#5, B5.

For C, D, their sharps and E chords, the shape changes slightly (you may continue forwards as above on electric guitar as it gives you enough room; but in case you want other shapes, please read on).

Hold the C-barre chord, and play the 3rd, 4th and 5th strings (G, D and A). And that's it. Happy guitaring!

5th chord Dictionary
A5 or A(no 3rd) [5 7 7 x x 5] (E A): root and 5th (power chord)
A5 or A(no 3rd) [x 0 2 2 x 0] (E A) : root and 5th (power chord)
A5 or A(no 3rd) [5 7 7 x x 0] (E A) : root and 5th (power chord)
B5 or B(no 3rd) [7 9 9 x x 2] (Gb B): root and 5th (power chord)
B5 or B(no 3rd) [x 2 4 4 x 2] (Gb B): root and 5th (power chord)
C5 or C(no 3rd) [x 3 5 5 x 3] (C G): root and 5th (power chord)
D5 or D(no 3rd) [5 5 7 7 x 5] (D A): root and 5th (power chord)
D5 or D(no 3rd) [x 0 0 2 3 5] (D A): root and 5th (power chord)
E5 or E(no 3rd) [0 2 x x x 0] (E B) : root and 5th (power chord)
E5 or E(no 3rd) [x 7 9 9 x 0] (E B) : root and 5th (power chord)
F5 or F(no 3rd) [1 3 3 x x 1] (C F): root and 5th (power chord)
F5 or F(no 3rd) [x 8 10 x x 1] (C F): root and 5th (power chord)
G5 or G(no 3rd) [3 5 5 x x 3] (D G): root and 5th (power chord)
G5 or G(no 3rd) [3 x 0 0 3 3] (D G) : root and 5th (power chord)

Ab5 or Ab(no 3rd)[4 6 6 x x 4] (Eb Ab): root and 5th (power chord)
Bb5 or Bb(no 3rd)[6 8 8 x x 6] (F Bb): root and 5th (power chord)
Bb5 or Bb(no 3rd)[x 1 3 3 x 6] (F Bb): root and 5th (power chord)
Db5 or Db(no 3rd)[x 4 6 6 x 4] (Db Ab): root and 5th (power chord)
Eb5 or Eb(no 3rd)[x 6 8 8 x 6] (Eb Bb): root and 5th (power chord)

Some helpful links

• 5th chords: http://guitar.about.com/library/weekly/aa092600c.htm
• Circle of the 5ths: http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/circle.html
• Power Chord tutorial I: http://www.acousticguitar.com/lessons/Power_Chords/1.html
• Another Power Chord tutorial: http://www.guitaralliance.com/guitar_lessons/power_chords/index.htm
• Basic Music theory: http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/

Google search keywords (to be used without quotes):

• "how to play the 5th chords"
• "power chord theory"
• "playing the power chords"

Ethics, values and the MBA gas

Disclaimer:
This article is purely an outcome of my frustration and should not be taken as an evidence to evaluate my values or ethics or even thought process. This is just an exaggerated account to mock certain people and experiences.

Certain incidences have happened recently in our college questioning the integrity of individuals. Including the racist bantering (forgive me for the understatement) that had happened following that, the entire thing was pathetic.

You know what, everyone here is an MBA already. Ask them one thing and they'll go on and on about everything else on the planet except answering the question. Nothing but pure gas. I dread to think how they'll be (I'll be mortified if I think about myself and so won't) after two years of practicing farting.

And that's what we were asked to do in the group discussion as part of recruitment drive of one company. And isn't it the same everywhere. After cracking one of the toughest exams history has known - CAT, you go and discuss gas on something as stupid as "pink elephants flying in the sky" (courtesy: Vineet). Sometimes I feel, if this is all what managers do, do I really need an MBA for that?

To all of my engineer friends, so long. I'll soon be the kind you hate the most. A manager.

Diwali the NUS style

Wrote a post on the NUS blog.

http://nusmbabuzz.blogspot.com

Enjoy

About Tests, Projects and Presentations

I still remember the orientation day, 7th August 2006, when we were handed over the time table for this semester. That was the day when I stuck the time table in front of my study table, looked at it and smiled. Wow! Only 5 lectures a week.

I still remember people talking in the MBA lounge, "I'm not going to send this time table back home; they're going to laugh at me. It's so light!!!"

Talking at the macro-level (please forgive my business jargon), the first two weeks were continuous visits to Ikea, Mustufa, Little India and China Town, to buy all sorts of stuff to "settle down". The next two weeks went by finding friends in whose house we can have dinner and finding places where we can party this Saturday.

Then CSO showed it's existence, which is the Career Service Office. The next two weeks were how to dress, how to talk, how to get a job, and all the how-to's which we thought we were experts at, and various company talks and the scolding that followed after that for not dressing properly, for asking stupid questions and so on.

And then started the academic things. Every prof started telling the dates of their mid-term tests, presentations and project proposal submission. Top it all with no knowledge of what has happened in the class.

I've been cribbing a lot. On almost all replies to "kya chal raha hai" on orkut, I've said, "padh padh ke pak gaya hoon". And on one such reply, I decided come'on man! what's up with all this cribbing! And so I've been watching movies since then :-).

So have a test tomorrow, but writing this blog. Easy one though. Group study has helped. And then another one next week. Will have to study a lot more for that. Hope things turn out well.

Sunday, 1:59 am - Can't study any more

Some days, you surpass your expectations. Today (well, yesterday actually), is one such day. I had a study marathon. Started at around 11 in the morning. And have been studying since then. Except the few meal and tea breaks in between and the two hours when I dozed off over my book. I think 2.5, but you get the point. Seriously, got bored now.

Have two tests on Tuesday. 8 chapters for each. Around 300 pages for each. And given that most of it is just pointless fart about the so-called geniuses of the fields, it's all the more "interesting". Well, if Nike saved a billion dollars by partnering with one of it's suppliers, how do I care. But then again, I guess I better start.

The tests will be MCQs. I'm not surprised when you say, "now what the heck is that!". "Multiple-choice questions, duh!!!!", that's what I was told when I asked the same thing. It's sounds more like MC Quotient, if you know what I mean. How big of an MC you can be when you don't know anything! (assuming you can quantify the MC factor. Well, many people are bigger MCs than others so I guess you can.)

Gera made his patented dhabawaali chai. Read the Maxim with some sexy models and sleazy jokes. But the tension continues.

Recipie

I had written the following article for Xpressions (e-mag at HTSL). Earlier I was a bit concerned putting the same thing here, but then I read the disclaimer ;-).

Disclaimer: Like I care...

Well, I do not agree with most of the viewpoints mentioned in the Peek-a-boo about "Guys'n'cooking", which I'm sure was written by a hard-core feminist female.

Guys are experts in whatever they do. And when it comes to cooking, they are no different. Here is one example. I call it by numerous names - besan bread, tawa bread, "bread" sandwich (a "vegetable" sandwich has bread slices sandwiching the vegetables; here it's the other way round) - so call it whatever you want. A real quick thing (well, not so quick considering boys have much less time to cook than girls who can cook 5 dishes in 20 minutes but take 5 hours to get ready for a 20 minute coffee).

Anyway, so considering the format of the recipes listed till date in Xpressions, I should mention ingredients with each measure correct to the milligram (must be girls writing them, isn't it). But in the true manly style, I just put however much of whatever is listed below (mostly depending on my mood).

Ingredients:
Bread, Besan (gram flour), Onions, Tomatoes, Cucumber, Capsicum, Spinach (essentially any vegetable that you can eat semi-cooked);
Water, Oil, Salt, Green chilies, red chili powder (and other "obvious" - as claimed by most females - stuff like that).

Method:
Mix besan with salt, red chili powder, and water to make a semi-liquid of viscosity approximately 14.971 Pascal seconds (never mind, just see if it is sticky yet flowing). Add all the chopped vegetables (you have to chop it, "of course!" - again a female statement).

On a pan (tawa; preferably non-stick), put some oil (for girls - few table spoons; for guys - never mind) and let it heat up (for guys only - come on!!! you had to light the gas!!!).
Now take a slice of bread (obviously, you won't be using the whole loaf), dip it the mix, make sure you carry along some vegetables on one side of the bread slice and put that side down (for guys - carefully) on the pan. May add a little more oil (for guys - 1.5 table spoons). Now on the other side, add some of the mix so that it's kinda uniform on both sides. After sometime (for guys - you have to be a little psychic to know when the other side, which is not visible, is cooked and not burning; girls are psychic anyways) turn it over so that the other side gets cooked as well.

And it's done.

By the way, my "female" friend told me that the first time you put the tawa on the gas, whatever you're cooking on it sticks anyway (whether it is non-stick or not). The next time, it gets heated and so it doesn't. Silly isn't it, irrespective of what temperature the gas is on; must be some girl-thing.

Tips for a better taste:
- make sure that you're drinking beer while cooking it and that you spill it unknowingly into the besan mix instead of water. Smoking as well - cigarette ash adds a good flavor to it.
- make sure that you eat it while you're cooking with ketchup and beer.
- make sure that you enter the kitchen when it is in its cleanest state and you leave it in its still cleaner state (I know all the guys get the meaning)
- make sure that you waste enough gas (my "female" friend will not agree with that, she has to cook the entire thing on a "sim" flame; and while we're at it, what the heck is sim, why can't they just write low flame, high flame and off flame uhhhhh)
- burping while you're eating triples the taste
- make sure you... well; the guys are smart enough to do anything anyway.

If you're a guy, and you've reached till here, you're probably a great cook already. So you don't need this recipe.
If you're a guy, and have jumped to the end after reading the title/first Para, please click the "Info desk" to know the numbers of pizza guys and order some.
If you're a girl, apart from that the spam-mail cliche that girls don't listen applies to you, you now also suffer from an unprecedented hatred for me. So please read the disclaimer again.
Others pick any one of the above conditions.

Aftermath of the inverted smile

I don't usually write the ekam songs on my blog for reasons relating to copy-right act of 20xx (when the songs will actually be released). But I wrote this one. I don't plan to compose this song probably because it's too true. I've written enough of true-to-life songs which are usually damn sad.

In fact, I was once involved in a discussion that how sadness appeals to people much more easily than does happiness or laughter. In other words, it's pretty easy to make anyone sad, but very difficult to make them laugh.

That's all I have to say for now.

The Inverted Smile

Living in a cage, dreaming for a run
Happy that they laugh, I'm but a pun
The insensitive humans, parasites of mine
God I wish I could pray with bread crumbs and wine

Strangled on a leash, I hide all my tears
I smile for them, wary of their fears
My friends laugh at me, call me asinine
God I wish I could pray, with bread crumbs and wine

Food and fun you give me free
But a cage for me you bind
God I wish I could pray, with bread crumbs and wine

Kick me when you want to
Wagging my tail, I come back to you
And even when I find some happiness
"Heed", you say and I come back to you

Stay away from them you say,
They are not your kind
I'm but a puppet, in hands without a mind
God I wish I could pray, with bread crumbs and wine

Majulah Singapura - Getting used to the Lah!!!

A break from the lecture and someone says, "your website is so outdated" (or something like that). That really made me realize, boy it's been some ages. And now that I am in this new country, I have many things to write about as well. So here I am typing my way through the same break. Thanks dude :-)

So, Singapore. Let me crib a little before I actually get down to write the good part. I'm sure, Namit will be nodding his head with the I-told-you-so look on his face throughout the first part ;-).

Weather - damn it's humid. Thanks to the AC buses though. But one advantage of this is that girls wear really skimpy dresses allowing some comfort to the eys.

Nowhere to go - if you're not partying, you're getting bored. There's hardly any place where you can go to "ghoomofy" unless you like the lights. Tried Sentosa, which is a beach (well, it's a lot of things actually). The beach is so artificial that it looks artificial...errr... whatever. There are few other things in Sentosa like under-water aquarium, dolphin shows (basically the things that a Singpore Tourism guy will tell you). But they are too expensive for poor students like myself and hence out of reach.
So only way out is party with your friends and that's what we've been doing at least for the last two week-ends. Let's see how we countinue here after.

Lectures and assignments - no comment. Of course, they are boring. The only classes I've enjoyed till date are my guitar classes. Think, should do BMus or something.

Food - who the f*ck said that SG is the food capital of the world. Well, he was right, it is; you get a lot of variety but hardly any taste. More so, because I'm a vegetarian. I know you'd go - man, you're missing something in life - but whatever it is, for me SG is not a great place to eat. But, it's better than US (though my favourite Pizza Hut is too damn expensive here) as you get a lot of Indian restaurants (note quantity only, not quality).

What remains is the good part - college campus which is WiFi, MBA lounge which is ACed (heaven in SG), and - repeating myself - partying (that includes guitaring by the way). And that reminds me that I haven't joined any group/band here. There's a group called GENUS - Guitar Ensemble of NUS. Have to join that. And I'm also playing on the International Day on Sept 8. There are few singers as well in the batch.

As for my other frustrations. Gillman Heights, where the real unlucky ones of NUS get an apartment, is pathetic. Someone uploaded the pics of Gillman and they were really awesome, or so we assumed. But the moment I entered with the 30 KG suitcase in the room, I was so damn disappointed. It sucks here. Namit did warn me about not taking Gillman, but per him, it was good as per Indian standards. But no, I disagree. I lived much more luxuriously in Bangalore than in Gillman (in terms of apartment quality only, forget other comforts). Probably I was expecting a little too much after seeing the apartments in Phoenix.

And what else, lecturers are funny, trying their best to make the course interesting but no one has succeeded in getting my attention. I'm studying only because I have to.

Classmates are good, some really knowledgeable, many posers, some transparent. Nice diversity, lah!!! (That's Singlish BTW, "ok la", "sit la", "there is no class today lah!"). But it's nice to have such people around. And it's really funny when you know the truth :-). You enjoy like crazy.

And that's about it la! Will keep writing more as and when I get commens like the above one ;-)

1 Singapore dollar = 29.115148 Indian rupees

This is what has been open in my Firefox since last week or so.

On Tuesday 23rd, sometime in the afternoon, when I was fully convinced of cherishing C++ for the rest of my life, my phone rang with an international number on the display. Is it Santosh (my colleague), no, why would he call me at this hour? (human nature - negatives come to the mind first) Oh shit! Did I do some major mistake while fixing 8354? Someone in Embraer is really unhappy with me? Did a plane crash or something?

"Hello"
"Hello, is this Mr. Singhai?"
"Yes"
"Hi Mr. Singhai. I'm calling from National University of Singapore. I'm pleased to grant you admission in NUS for MBA full-time program. So would you take the offer?"

When I said that I was fully convinced of cherishing C++, I meant that. And that's when I got into thinking should I say yes or no. (If you aren't aware of my confusions, trust me, you're better off not knowing about them. You need to search for some other blog to read.) On expressing my errr...s and ummm...s, she offered to call me the next day. But then, I decided what the heck! "Yes, I'll accept."

Was just browsing for new messages in the NUS Admits group for 2006. Got this one really nice quote! I think it's also a song called "Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrmann. So apt for my confusion ;-)

From a very famous speech by Mary Schmich, later popularized by Baz Luhrmann.. I quite like this extract:
"Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life.
The most interesting people I know, didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives.
Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know, still don't."

Anyway, so coming back, I resigned yesterday from Honeywell. Will be relieved by mid July. Manager's happy, so going out won't be as troublesome as some might expect. As of now the plan to stay in Bhopal for around 15 days before flying to Singapore on 3/4th Aug. Orientation from 7th. Classes from 14th.

Bought Lonely Planet for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. (I thought Brunei is somewhere in the mid-west. So kinda happy that I bought the book. At least, I won't be as illiterate as I was till now.)

Enough is enough!

Today, I've decided. No more of "helpless, not hopeless" crap. No more of hanging my head in shame in front of my own arguments. No more of useless blog posting and email chain-forwarding against government's acts.

I'm applying for a voter's card.

And those of you who want to know about it, here are few links that will help.

1. Voter's Guide [PDF] - This document is a small 8-page PDF (with large font) and gives a gist in case you've forgotten your Civics subject from 8 Standard.
   
2. ECI Website - Website of the Election Commission of India
3. Election FAQ
   

Hope this helps at least few of you.

Helpless, not hopeless!

Just saw it in the news. Laathi charge on medical students in Mumbai. (Rediff News 1, Rediff News 2, Rediff News 3, Times Of India).

I had a written the two lines above, and just found the links when Nidhi called. And, I had a long discussion with her about reservation. I was pretending to be "for" reservation while she was being herself - "against" reservation.

I was pretty angry when the discussion began (thanks to the news I saw just before the call), but am pretty cooled off now. And that proves my indifference. Selfish me!!!

So bogged down by my self, I don't want to write anything else!

Hoping to see a rainbow

I'm sitting at home, browsing the net, having a cup of sweet adrak ki chai, and coughing and sneezing my way through today. Yes, I'm down with cold.

Mom said, "you've got to do some exercise, sitting in that chair all day long in office. Why not join swimming, you like it so much." So I said okay; I had forgotten that I liked swimming but I did have some reservations. I knew I wouldn't continue it long enough. So went there only twice and started eating more cheesy pizzas (well, I started exercising you see ;-)). And here I am sitting in my almost broken chair with Benedryl and Vicks beside me.

And it's raining. A very heavy shower after scorching heat which was caused using some really advanced technology by the Bangalore IT firms. Why, simply because they wanted their engineers to sit in an AC office, hoping that they'll work.

Bangalore is heaven when it rains for the first few days. But then it becomes really messy and tragic photos start coming into the newspaper. Enough is said about Bangalore's infrastructural problems so I'm not going to comment about them here. It's been so since last few days. Sweltering heat during the day, speedy winds at around 5 in the evening, and heavy rain post that. I was hoping to see rainbow today as it started raining while it was sunny, but alas, I didn't.

Here's another photo I clicked a few minutes past. A stray dog trying to find some shelter from the cold shower. Sometimes, I get the feeling that life is unfair.

Last week, Pranky was here. Was so good to see him after such a long time. We think it was over 2 years. All we did during the 3 days he was here was talk and breeze (that's a new verb I invented for drinking breezer).

A bit of discussion on ekam and Pakistani bands was also on. As for ekam, one of the songs as Pranky pointed out, sounded like "one o'clock, in the night" from Sharaabi :D. I admit, I only try to be a good musician, but am not. Darn, at least I try (not that it satisfies me, but a nice argument, eh!!!).

But the most important part was the why MBA question. Damn, I'm glad that I got the rejection letter from all places. One admit, and I would've committed a big mistake (though I'm still not 100% convinced that it would've been a mistake). I hope you've understood how confused I am through the millions of brackets I've been using in this post.

Tea is over. The rain has stopped. Coughing goes on.

RSS/Atom feed

eer kahein chalo chidi maar aaye
beer kahein chalo chidi maar aaye
phatte kahein chalo chidi maar aaye
hum kahein chaloa hamau chidi maar aaye

There are numerous tutorials on the web about RSS feed. Almost every website that provides a feed, has a tutorial. So I thought, why not write myself one. And also, I'm using RSS on my new website and thought, I should. The disclaimer here is that this tutorial is for infants, newbees, laymen, laywomen (feminists behold), and people like my dad and not for hard-core web developers.

Let's say you are of the kind who doesn't like to read the newspaper on the shit-pot simply because it becomes too bunglesome during that crucial moment. So what you want is only the headlines and probably a few starting lines.

RSS feed is exactly that. It consists of a list of titles, descriptions, and links. To cut the crap short, it's stuff-that-you-find-on-a-website formatted in simple title-description-link format. What the stuff essentially is depends on the website whose RSS feed you're taking. For example, you can get rss feed for rediff.com's latest news or rss feed for one liner jokes from office-humour.co.uk, or even rss feed for guitar chords from chordie.com.

How to read an RSS feed?
When you ask for an RSS feed from any website (say rediff.com), you get something like "http://www.rediff.com/rss/inrss.xml". Yes, that's it. No fanfare or dough-nuts. Now, it's up to you to parse this file and display it as per your wish. But if you're like my dad, you'd be horrified to know this. So search for RSS feed reader on Google and you'll get about 118,000,000 results in about 0.96 seconds.

What is an RSS reader?
It is a software (duh!). A small utility for your desktop (for those lucky ones who have always on internet connection). But there are certain websites (Google reader) where you can choose (or give your own) RSS feeds and they'll display them in a well structured manner. Something like a personalized page of Yahoo or MSN.

How do they make the RSS feed for their website?
Well, that's for them to understand and you not to care about. But if you're really interested, read on. They publicly give a link like "http://www.rediff.com/rss/inrss.xml". So whenever they'll update their website, they'll update this file as well. What if they don't? Well, it's automated. If it isn't, then you better google for another website. The feed, by rule, ensures that you'll always get the latest content.

Is it free? If yes, why are the providing it?
I knew you'd ask this question. Yes, it's free. And the answer to why is same as why they're having their website at all? Simply put, advertisement. If I'm providing an RSS feed, people start using my RSS feed. Other people read my site's feed into another site and click to get details and eventually come back to my site. So traffic increases on my site.
And obviously you want traffic on your site, otherwise why have the site public at all?

Why is the title of this post named RSS/Atom feed, when you're talking about RSS feeds only?
You never stop asking questions now, do you? This is because to know what is an Atom feed, you need to do the following:
Copy the post and paste it into a text editor. Using Find-Replace dialog, replace "RSS" by "Atom", and you'll get an Atom feed tutorial.
Only difference is that the format of an RSS feed and an Atom feed is different. So, a pure RSS reader cannot read Atom feed and vice-versa.

And why in the world do they have two formats for the same thing?
Atom guys say it's an improvement over RSS. RSS supporters claim that Atom is bull and adding confusion to public.
Just as I like to read paper on my shit-pot and you don't.

eer maare teen chidi
beer maare teen chidi
phatte maare teen chidi
hum giraaaa bareili

Insensitive to the core

An incident happened in Armenia (a country in Southwestern Asia, east of Turkey; I admit, I did not know where or what is Armenia untill I googled it.). An Indian medical student fell down from sixth floor and had serious injuries. He died due to "medical negligence". The Indian student community is protesting for justice.

Negligence would not be the right word here. Probably, gross mutilation or intentional dispatching is more suited. A medical college is a hospital in itself, fully equipped where stone thrown in any direction would hit a doctor with stethoscope. (I'm assuming a doctor can cure any type of ijury. Being a computer engineer I cannot repair the car just because it has a computer for fuel flow control. But I hope doctors are a different story.)

My heart-felt condolences to everyone close to the deceased. And to help spreading the message through blogs, my humble little 2 cents are here.

The worst mail I ever got

It's been some time since I wrote anything for the blog. And when I was just thinking about it, I get this mail. I would surely categorize it as the most pathetic forwarded mail I ever got. Read for yourself.

Complan
Boy - "I am a PB boy"
Girl - "I am a PB gal"
"Badte bacho ke liye complete software - Powerbuilder"

Coca cola
"Eat bugs, Sleep bugs.....Do only debugs"

Visa Card
Internet Programmer - "I got the ASP power , now u go get it!!!"
"Microsoft office - Nothing official about it !!!"

Lifebuoy
"Software ki raksha karta hein Norton Anti virus Norton anti virus hai jaha,
Software hein vahan...NORTON!"

Maggi
Project Manager - I want the code today....
Programmer - 2 minutes
"Programmer ka kam kare asaan,
Duniya bhar me hai iski shaan...
VB....VB.....VB"

Raymonds
"The complete software ....since 1802" - COBOL

Boost
Project Manager - "Power objects is secret of my program"
Programmers - " Our programmes"

Husband - 'Thak gaya hoon mein"
Wife give's him instant cofee and says
" To create instant miracle....Use Oracle

It is an insult to blogs to put this above. So you better read and get irritated as soon as possible, 'cause I can't really hold on to this shit on my blog for long.

AJAX & Picsquare

On Tuesday, I met few friends and came to know about two really cool things.

AJAX - I was looking for ideas to implement search on my website (and I don't want to pay for it). So I wanted to load a page in background and have a Javascript search into that page and display the search results. But, I didn't know how to get the page in background. Alternate option for what I wished to do was to have an invisible frame but it wasn't again working for me because I was already using frames and some other scripts which were conflicting with this method.

So from those friends, I came to know about this technology called AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), which does precisely the same thing. This is used by Google extensively. [Google: ajax, Wikipedia, AJAX: Getting Started]

Picsquare - Another thing I needed was online printing of Digital photos. Numerous on websites but all ask in dollars. So this is the first website that I know of and that is Bangalore based which allows [as of now] unlimited online storage for photos and also sends you by post the digital prints of photographs. Of course, they have things like greeting cards, mugs, calendars and stuff like that. Really cool!!!

Socializing I guess, has it's own benefits :-)