Perfomancing

Came upon this new plugin for Firefox. It allows blogging right from the browser window. Well, you do not have to browse to the blogger page and create a new post etc., etc. It splits the browser window into two and one can blog a page instantly. Cool!

powered by performancing firefox

MacFUSE

Have been reading for a while about MacFUSE. This is a port of the FUSE filesystem api on Linux by Google's Amit Singh. FUSE is Filesystem in USErland. It lets the operating system see everything as a filesystem. So you can connect to GMail and see it a mount with all mails in it, or you can ssh to a remote box and see it as a mount and browse to it. There is a driver to mount NTFS filesystem on a Mac. This should be reason enough to try it out.

The Mac port is still in beta though and can be had from the above link. It has a wiki which provides all the info. One more link with a simple howto.

You can mount ssh connections as a filesystem without going through MacFUSE. You will need to visit sshfs for Darwin.


Looking forward to trying this out. :)

BPO to the Villages

Came upon this story during my periodic browsing of BusinessWeek Online.

"If work can shift from the U.S. to a city in India, why can't work from cities in India shift to villages in India?" says Ramalinga Raju, chairman of tech services provider Satyam Computer Services Ltd. and founder of the Byrraju Foundation.

This is an interesting use of IT to spread the economic benefits to the people of real India (70% of the population lives in villages). If this all works out, in say 10 years, it will help in increasing the IT literacy among the people leading to increase in government IT spending (since the government will be a major spender on such projects, a new vote-bank maybe(?)) a domino effect of sorts.

Entry-level GramIT employees, all with at least three-year college degrees, earn $800 a year, compared with $2,000 to $5,000 annually for an employee at an urban outsourcing shop. And because there are few other good jobs in these communities, GramIT's centers see just 5% annual turnover—dramatically better than the 60% rate in places such as Bangalore.

One other good side-effect would be that the next or next to next generation would be more and more IT savvy creating a talent pool for the tech industry.

It still has to pick up steam and hope it really does well.

If the internet connectivity is really good, I wouldn't mind shifting to my native village, grow my own stuff, enjoy life.

Picking Locks and Cracking Safes

Haven't we all seen Amitabh crack open safes in Natwarlal. Always wondering what is that they do when turn the dials, listening with stethoscopes etc. etc. etc. Well, I came upon this wonderful article by Tim Hunkin when searching for the smell of plastic explosives (I had read in a Frederick Forsyth novel that it smells like marzipan).

I agree with Tim Hunkin that cracking safes and picking locks is an art and most of the cracking and picking is done out of intellectual curiosity rather than crime.

Let me see if I can recollect any other Bollywood movies with safe cracker as a lead :)

Go through it here.

Blood Money, Blood Diamond

Today read an article in LA Times (read it here), about the Gates Foundations investment practices harming the very people they are trying to help. From the article:

The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe.

Gates has screwed up the computer world with Microsoft practices looks like he wants to branch out to the real one.

New look Blogger

Did a bit of an update to the template to give a simple look. Upgraded to the new Blogger.

Have to check out the features yet.

Tips for the Standalong Programmer

Chanced upon this article. I used to work in a very small company long time back. We were a small team and as all of us were relatively fresh out of college, we were on our own when it came to using technology, architecture etc.

Lot of the stuff in the article (setting goals, keeping oneself updated etc) are common sense but it really does not strike you when any work you take up is priority and has a hard deadline.

Although I learnt a lot of stuff (mainly fire-fighting :)) which has helped me a lot, I wish I had chanced upon this article or followed the basic premise to become a better software professional.

But as they say, learning never ends in this field :) so its never too late.

Gone a long time

Its been a long time since I have posted online.

Pakistan's "New" reactor

Was reading this article on The Independent online edition:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1195243.ece

A small snippet:

"Satellite photographs of what appears to be a nuclear reactor under construction in Pakistan are the latest evidence that President George Bush's foreign policy is fuelling a nuclear arms race in south Asia.

The photographs show a heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium to make 40-50 nuclear weapons a year, more than 20 times Pakistan's existing capacity, according to the US-based Institute for Science and International Security.

The new pictures come just weeks after a former head of Indian intelligence said that a controversial civilian nuclear fuel deal with the US will allow India to produce 50 warheads a year, by freeing up its existing fuel for military use."

What kind of suckers sit on the panel in "Institute for Science and International Security"?

Rome was not built in a day and neither is a nuclear reactor.

Its a well known fact, at least in India, the reactor is being built with Chinese help and is in the making since the 90s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khushab_Reactor)

"Last month, JK Sinha, a retired head of India's RAW intelligence service, came out publicly with what observers have long suspected(sic): that the nuclear fuel deal with the US will allow India to increase massively its stock of nuclear weapons."

Like you need the IQ of a Hawking to come to this conclusion.

Rahul Mahajan and Fardeen Khan

I read this article on Fardeen Khan and his misadventure with drugs in limelight again due to Rahul Mahajan's antics. Maybe Rahul can take a sniff.. er.. leaf out of Fardeen's book (if you can call a film magazine a book):
"Fardeen, currently, happens to be enjoying the best phase of his life after the huge success of No Entry and critical appreciation for his last film Pyaare Mohan. His marriage to yesteryear actress Mumtaz’ daughter Natasha has sobered him down completely. One can notice a marked change in him since his marriage. The playboy image has been taken over by a more domesticated approach to generalities."

For all his sobering down, he does have to pay for past sins.

One more comment from the article "Fardeen, currently, happens to be enjoying the best phase of his life after the huge success of No Entry and critical appreciation for his last film Pyaare Mohan.", I wonder who's the critic, any guesses? Maybe Mohan reviewed it for Pyaare!

Mystery Spot and 17 Mile Drive

Its long weekend time. Memorial Day on Monday.

Paid a visit to the Mystery Spot. The American Way of making a C out of you. Thank my stars it was only $ 5.

17-Mile drive was better. Cold winds but really liked Pebble Beach and of course, the symbol of the 17 Mile Drive road, The Lone Cypress.

Went to the Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

Mixed dal

Today prepared dal. Different kind. Recipe here. Thanks Priya.

Relish

Sweet Relish
A dozen small pickling cucumbers
2 green peppers
1 red pepper
1 cup finely chopped celery
2 tablespoons pickling salt

Directions: Grind the above in a meat grinder with a coarse blade. Add 1 cup finely chopped celery. Sprinkle mixture with 2 tablespoons pickling salt. Add cold water to cover and let sit for three to four hours. Drain thoroughly.

2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vinegar
1 tablespoon mustard seed
1 tablespoon celery seed

Put above items in a large pot and bring to a boil. Add drained vegetables and simmer for 10 minutes. Pack hot mixture in clean, warm jars. Seal and process in boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Makes about six half-pint jars.

From here

Hog Plums in USA

Wonder where I can get hog plums in the Bay Area.

Pre-approved credit card offer junk mails.. and how to stop it!

Been getting a whole log of junk mails from CapitalOne. Pre-approved credit card offers? Who wants it?

The FTC has a new law on this http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2005/07/prescreenoptout.htm. The companies sending out these mails have to let the user opt out of these offers for ever or for 5 years at least. There's this number 1-888-5-OPTOUT or a website https://www.optoutprescreen.com from the 4 credit reporting companies.

More information can be got from http://www.fraudguides.com/consumer_optoutprescreen.asp.

But I am not sure still if this will stop it once and for all.

NYT closing the doors

TimesSelect

Following the above link, NYT has decided to move its top op-ed writers to a subscription service. How long before the site itself becomes a paid one?

First Blog

Hi Everybody,

This is my first time in the blog world. Not sure how this will work out.
Looking forward to great postings :)