Why Wolfram Alpha is no Google ...

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Weekend Trip

Its been a while since we went out. Last month I decided to go out somewhere for a weekend in May. At first thought I called up some places in Coonoor, as my mom is currently working there, but couldn't find any good place. Since its summer vacation all of them were full. The next option was the default option where I went last year. My daughter loved that place more than me and it was luckily available. For a change, from the Bungalow, we went out to visit a Dam. Otherwise it was a perfect laze away.

Photos:

A view of Aliyar Dam:


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The Waterfalls Estate Bungalow:
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It Rains!
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Flower after the Shower:
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Walk in the Tea Gardens:
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Bored? What to do?
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Lets try some magic:

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Ka! Boom! ...
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 ... and I've a banana
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One more time, Ka! Boom! ...
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 ... and I'm invisible now
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How cool is that trick?
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Lets pose for a picture:
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And one more:
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Enough of this, I'm going to pose for some ads.
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 First is for a deodorant:
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then for a tooth paste ...
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then the backpain reliever Moov cream
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and then for the dress ...
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Enough of your photographic experiments. One last snap, I'll be going out for playing
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So the last snap:
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Green, Green, Green all over:
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And some flowers also:
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ICICI and Adsense

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How to identify the kid of a Software Engineer?

Teacher: Can you count till 10?
Kid: Zero, One, Two, Three, ...

Just a test post from ScribeFire :-)

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Back to Mac :-)

When I got the offer from IBM, I asked whether I can get a Mac as my official laptop. My manager said ThinkPads are the defacto ones and thats what I would get. But after joining IBM, I searched intranet and found a way to get Mac as an official laptop. First my team needs adequate funding and then I've convince my manager with *real* business reasons, and he has to convince his manager, and he in turn has to convince his manager and he inturn ... The chain goes all the way up to the heaven and ultimately He say 'Go on' and the approval comes down. The entire process took months, but then its worth of it.

Now I got a shiny new 2.4 GHz MacBook. I managed to have all my apps running native, so I didn't even install any Virtualization software or use BootCamp. Good bye Windows and Hello Mac - again :-)

I should say the new ones are absolutely gorgeous. Light weight, better battery backup, multi-touch trackpad etc. Few things I noticed is that the apps are not compatible to 10.4. So when I try to connect to my older personal Mac, I can't load the photos here, unless, they are converted to the new format. But converting to the new format means that I can't use them on the older one. So the solution is to upgrade the OS in my older Mac or don't use official laptop to view/edit the photos. I prefer to the second option. Another annoying thing is that the screen is glossy and the reflection is very high. I haven't noticed it in my MacBook or the earlier MacBook Pro. I had to change the direction of my office table to cope up with this. Very minor annoyances and I can definitely live with that for the Mac :-)

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Truth about The Smarttechie Magazine-25 Emerging Technology companies

Two days back, I got an email from someone called Shakuntala ([email protected]) for the details about their Top 25 Emerging Technology Companies program. The mail said:


Dear Sir.,

Greetings from TheSmarttechie - Silicon India.

Hope your doing good.

The May 2009 edition of The SmartTechie will be on the Top 25 Emerging technology companies. We are looking at what exciting technologies companies are working for and prodigy of leadership team and investors of private companies. A few of these companies will be profiled in the magazine. We are talking to several startups to see who are the Best 25 we can feature in the magazine. A panel of analysts, Venture Capitalists and our editorial team will select the companies.

It will be good idea to be part of this issue along with the 25 Emerging Companies.  We are offering you to advertise in this Special issue and will be part of great branding and visibility among the  95000 readers and subscribers.

Option 1 : Only Advertisement.

Amount : 20,000/-.

   1. One Page Advertisment in the issue of Top 25 Emerging Technology Companies.
   2. Online banner ad on :  www.thesmarttechie.com/magazine

Option 2 : To be listed Among Top 25 StartUps.

Amount : Rs.30,000/-

        1.     Inclusion in the Top 25 Emerging Technology Companies list.
        2.     One page of Company Profile along with the pic of the concern person
        3.     One full page ad in the SmartTechie.
       4.     The company Profile will be displayed on the online magazine page too:  www.thesmarttechie.com/magazine

Please do let me know how we can take this forward. It will be nice to close this loop asap so that we get things rolling.

We can look at a mutual relationship so that your company gets more visibility. Let me know what you think.

If you have anything else on your mind, I shall be open for ideas.

Thanks

Shakuntala
______________________________

Shakuntala
Manager-Marketing
siliconindia
The Smart Techie
Ph: 91.80. 43402004
C: 9916972235

http://www.siliconindia.com
http://www.thesmarttechie.com/
________________________________

siliconindia is a business and technology magazine published from Fremont, California, which covers business, technology and entrepreneurship. Our current circulation exceeds 70,000 and our readership builds from CIOs, CTOs, CEOs and market influencers like fund capitalists, technology  adopters and analysts.

The Smart Techie empowers technology leaders for tomorrow. Its mission is to update its readers on the latest developments in technology and how these developments will impact them. The magazine aims to capture insights from the experiences of senior technology professionals and experts from across the globe. The Smart Techie magazine reaches out to 95000 experienced IT professionals.

________________________________


I was surprised. First I didn't get what they meant by Option 2. Is it that if I pay 30k, my company will be in the Top 25 list? Or is it an entry fees for the program? I sent my questions and the answer was clear:
Its only 25 participants & only 25 rankings not more than that currently we
have 19 clinets confirmed clients till now.
 Ah! Great. But isn't 30k too much for getting awarded as the Top 25 Emerging Technology Companies in the country? I know I also get a full page age, interview, website ad etc, but still, my company is so small you see?
Sure We shall offer you 25k for the same.
Excellent. So looks like the entire event is just a bullshit. Last year there were hoardings all over Bangalore about this. I thought it was a genuine program and the companies were "awarded" through the program and not "bought" that. Now I know the truth. So if you see the list of companies this year, you should be knowing that they are not really the Top 25 emerging companies, but the 25 companies that opted to pay 30k (minus whatever discount they got) Considering it would be the average monthly salary of a developer, its a good thing for a company to pay for it. And these guys get more than 6 Lakhs. So its a win-win situation for both the companies and the magazine. Only we think its all genuine and get fooled :-)

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My baby is out in the wild ...

Back at Fiorano, I started as the lead of the IDE team. The IDE was on Netbeans platform and my task was to design and develop an Eclipse based IDE. Months after, I got assigned with additional responsibility of leading the Server team as well. Managing both the team had one advantage. If I want anything to be done for the IDE, it was much easier :-) In that way, I've pushed in new features (with fancy names like EPLCM) coupled with a nice interface. Features like Dynamic Message Injection from an IDE to a server running in production is not something that you can achieve with other ESBs.  If that is not enough, I threw away the old webconsole and revamped it using ExtGWT. The result was a totally new looking product - a new Eclipse based IDE, Ajax Console and feature rich server. Now after months of beta, the product is released to the public. Kudos to my guys there for their really hard work. Hope the customers like it :-)

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WTF?

Google for Airtel India

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IBM to acquire Sun !

Its been in the news all over. While the primary motive might be in the server space, I'm thinking of what it means to Eclipse and Java as a whole. Thinking of the possibilities:

  • Netbeans platform to be deprecated (read: gone)
  • Eclipse is bundled with JDK
  • JDK uses Eclipse Compiler. Only downside I see is that the Eclipse Compiler is a pure Java application and needs a JRE, but hey a JDK ships with the JRE right?
  • Every JRE ships with a latest version of SWT
  • No more worries for interoperability of JSR 277 with OSGi - as OSGi will be pushed into Java Platform as a standard

Wow! The possibilities are promising. Let me see how many of these come true

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PiT February 09 Contest Review

For those who don't know what PiT means, its a blog in Tamil for Photography.. Every month there is contest and you can send your photos. I'm thinking of reviewing some of the photos, every month. Let me see how far that is feasible.
This month's topic was "Action Shots" there are more than 50 entries. The ones I like the most are:
Anand:
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Comments:

Action is captured at the right moment. Keeping the picture in the center could have been avoided and a little more zoom out would have been nice. Also if panning was tried in this one, it would have been fantastic picture.


Venkatnarayanan:
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Comments:
Nice lighting and perfect shot. The contrast of shadow on the right and lighting on the left adds beauty to the picture. Again, if the subject is not in the middle it would have turned even better.

MQN:
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Comments:
Wow! Perfect shot - Timing, expressions, panning and selective coloring - everything is great and the combination makes it a winning entry :-)




Kayalvizhi Muthulethumi
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Comments:
Another perfect shot and another winning entry!






image Wow Kalakkal! The color correction looks a little HDRish, but nice

Opparee:

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Nice picture, but IMHO, doesn't fit much in the theme - action shot. The much of the action is in the bus thats behind the main subject.




Nathas:
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Wonderful sharpness and contrast. Again like the previous one, the major attraction is the static flower rather than the flying bee.





And my entry:
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Here is the link to view all the pictures.

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