My Thoughts !

"ஒரு கல்லூரியின் கதை" படத்துல ரெண்டு மூணு பாட்டு நல்லா இருக்கும். எப்பவாச்சும் முனுமுனுத்துட்டு இருப்பேன். படம் பார்த்தது இல்ல. சமீபத்துல எதோ டீவீல போட்டாங்க. அம்மணி கூட உக்காந்து பார்த்துட்டு இருந்தேன். கதை என்னமோ கொஞ்சம் வித்தியாசமாத்தான் போச்சு. நடுவுல ஒரு இடத்துல, மனசுல காதல் இருக்கா இல்லையான்னு தெரிஞ்சுக்க, ஹீரோயின் சத்தமே வராம உதட்ட மட்டும் அசைச்சு கூப்பிடுவாங்களாம், கூப்பிட்ட ஒடனே ரொம்ப தூரத்துல இருக்கற ஹீரோவும் கரெக்டா திரும்பி பார்ப்பாரு. எங்க அம்மணி: "நீயும் தான் இருக்கியே. லேப்டாப்ல எதயாச்சும் நோண்டிகிட்டு இருந்தா, அடுத்த ரூம்ல இருந்து காட்டு கத்து கத்துனாலும் காது கேக்காது. ஹூம். அதுக்கெல்லாம் மனசுல சுத்தமான காதல் வரணும்."

யப்பா டைரக்டருங்களா, உங்களோட கற்பனை வளத்தை பாராட்டுறேன், ஆனா இதெல்லாம் கொஞ்சம் ஓவரு.

I know that I'm the only user in my system and no one else will have access to it. I don't see a point to have a login screen. With Windows, I know we can set to auto login using a userid. I was searching for similar thing in Ubuntu. Found one :-)

Go to terminal and type "sudo gdmsetup". You will get login window preferences. Select Security tab; check "Enable automatic Login" and select the user. You are done! Simple ha? But why there is no shortcut in the Preferences/Administration/Applications menu?

Related links:
Ubuntu Titbits
Eclipse in Ubuntu
Putty in Ubuntu
Screen resolution got struck in Ubuntu
Configure DSL in Ubuntu

I don't know what harm I did to Google. Its been targeting my blog for weird search terms. For the past one week, its sarees color. Check these search terms with Google:

sari color of 2006

orange color sarees

blue and purple shaded sarees

And another thing I don't understand is, why would anyone search in Google for a colorful saree? Shouldn't they go to The Chennai Silks/Pothy's/Nalli? hmmm. Gals!

[Update:15,Nov,2006]

After a week, I thought that saree stuff is over. And then someone landed in this blog for this query: "What color saree suits a dark woman". LOL!

With Firefox 2 and IE 7 released, the war is heating up. Now that both are equipped with tabbed browsing, phishing tools etc, its hard to say which one is better. But one area where Firefox is a clear winner is the unlimited extensions it has. The following are my top rated extensions:

(10) Splash! - What good is a software that doesn't show a "Loading" page? From Windows to Eclipse, almost every software I use has one (Even Gmail has!). Firefox didn't have a splash screen. This plugin fills the void.

(9) Tabbrowser Preferences - It gives you more control over tabs. eg. you can create new tab when using the search bar

(8) Foxy Tunes - The ability to control your favourite media player, without leaving Firefox.

(7) Performancing - There are many desktop tools for writing blogs, but not many extensions. This is one of the best Firefox extensions for blog writers.

(6) Cooliris - When you find a link, keep your mouse over it. This extension will give you a preview of what is available in that link. This is really helpful when are you are using some search engine and want to preview the links before loading the page in the window.

(5) Download Status Bar - If you are downloading something and want to know the status of it, don't have to switch to and look at the Download dialog box every now and then. The status of each download is available in the status bar. When there are no downloads to show, this bar automagically vanishes :-)
(4) DownThemAll - When you want to download multiple items in your page, this extension helps you. It comes handy when you have too many images in a page and you want to download all/few of them.

(3) Adblock Plus - Firefox does prevents the nasty popups. But what about the in-page ads? Use Adblock Plus. You can configure it to eliminate most of the ad s found in a page.

(2) TamilKey - Very useful when you are in net-cafe. You can't expect them to install ekalappai. Simply install this pluging and start blogging in Tamil.

(1) Google Browser Sync - This one is really helpful for those who use more than one computer everyday like me. No matter which computer I use, I can add a bookmark when I come across a nice site. This plugin will sync it to all the computers that I use.

One fine day you loose your ability to speak to your friends. The most troubling thing is you can't speak only to your friends and relatives, but you can address a crowd and speak in a conference. The worst part is you can sing to your friends, but not speak. How will you feel?

After 18 months of pain and struggle, Scott Adams, the man behind Dilbert comics, gets back his voice. And he is the first person to get back this. Check his blog for more info.

Even though I've never met him nor exchanged any mails, I'm happy that he is back to normal.

For the long weekend on Diwal, I had a bus ticket to Coimbatore on Friday night, but since Friday is a holiday, I was thinking of driving to Coimbatore. The previous Saturday when Raja and Ashok were also interested in joining, it was decided that we'll drive. On Tuesday, I was talking with my house owner and told him that I'm going home for Diwali in bike. He said, "ethuku sinna vandila, peria vandi thaan iruku illa, eduthutu poo" (Why small vehicle? Take my big vehicle and go). They had two Maruthi zens and one is very rarely used. I admitted that I can't drive cars. He smiled and pointed to the "big vehicle". Its a Thunderbird. Hmmm. When I bought my pulsar, one of my friends commented: "When you ride a bike, it should look like a prince on a horse. But with this bike you look like a mosquito on a buffallo". Thunderbird is twice powerful than my pulsar and its definitely a bulky beast. How will I look like? Mosquito on an elephant? Never mind, I thought of trying. Thursday I took it to office. It was like a test drive. I drove in the Koramangala traffic and in the inner ring road as well. I felt comfortable and thought I can handle it. So I decided to take the "big vehicle".

Friday morning, I left at 6.30 AM. Raja and Ashok joined me at Madiwala and we started. After Hosur, I lost them from my sight. I waited in the road side and then went back a km also. Cudn't find them. With no cell signal, I cudn't catch them. There is no point in looking for them and I proceeded alone.

I took the Thoppur, Bhavani, Tiruppur route. The four lane NH - 7; Thoppur forest; Mettur Dam; Tiruppur-Pollachi road, everything was perfect and the ride was enjoyable. Except for one small accident. I was having breakfast after Krishnagiri in a Punjabi Dhaba(Is it true that there are more Punjabi Dhabas in Tamil Nadu than in Punjab?) When I came out to the parking space, I saw the headlight was smashed and the mudguard was scratched. Someone in a car, which was parked near-by, told me that some lorry crashed into my bike when it was taking reverse. The driver of the lorry came down; saw the damage; went back to his seat; and went away from the scene. I was helpless. I've to repair it now :-/ Monday morning I started and took the Coimbatore-Salem route. Except for the 15 mins heavy rain after Salem, the ride was perfect. The total distance was around 800 kms. I've taken few pictures. The film roll is complete, I'll post them here.

Don't ask me what was the response at my home for driving. I better not write anything about it ;-)
My pulsar will be good till 100km/hr speed. Beyond that speed, you will slowly feel that you are loosing control. But Thunderbird is different. Most of the time I was driving at 80 km/hr and many times at 120 km/hr. The bike was solid. No wobbling at all. After a while, you won't even hear any sound from the engine. Its surprising quite at higher speeds.

Thunderbird is a nice bike. Initially I thought it might not be comfortable to drive in city traffic, but I was wrong. It is equally good for regular commuting. May be I'll sell this Pulsar and buy a Thunderbird. But first I should put on some weight. At least I should look like a bird on an elephant :-)

Happy Diwali to the readers of my blog. It includes the regular readers of this blog (yes, all the 5 of you) and those who were directed to this blog for unrelated search terms like "coimbatore aunty" and "mehandhi design".

There were rumours saying that Google is preparing portable datacenters. Even before those rumours are confirmed, Sun released one. Project Blackbox.

Project Blackbox is a datacenter that fits inside an ordinary shipping container. Usually the softwares from Sun sucks. They never made any profit by selling software. Thats one reason they give away their software free. From NetBeans to Sun One server, you get the entire stack free - including the Solaris OS. Hardware is their speciality and major revenue comes from selling & supporting Sun boxes. May be this project should help them to bring up their profits again.

Windows Live writer is one software which I'm definitely missing in Linux. Its a simple and cute tool to use. You can format your text in the editor; immediately switch to see a web preview; if it needs further tweaking, switch to the html mode and continue editing, etc. All this you can do it offline. This is especially helpful when are at home and there is a power cut. Can't connect to net, but still can write blogs offline in my laptop. I'm currently evaluating few blog editors for Linux, none of them seems to be fine. I'll post reviews of each editor and a final verdict on them later.

Related links:
Ubuntu Titbits
Eclipse in Ubuntu
Putty in Ubuntu
Auto Login in Ubuntu
Screen resolution got struck in Ubuntu
Configure DSL in Ubuntu

I installed Ubuntu 6.06 from a live CD. After I configured internet, lots of packages got updated. Not sure which one corrupted the settings, but my screen resolution changed to 640x480. I tried System->Preferences->Screen Resolution. But no higher resolution was listed there. I remember using xconfig or something similar in past. But no such commands were available. Google gave me the answer. We need to manually edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

Earlier the Screen section had

SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection

I changed it to:

SubSection "Display"
Depth 24
Modes "1024x768"
ViewPort 0 0
EndSubSection

Having only one resolution mode and only one Depth, makes it the default one. Additionaly I've to add the ViewPort (not sure why it was needed). Now the screen is back to normal resolution :-)

[Update 8-Nov-06] The ViewPort is not needed. Resolution is fine without it. But after upgrading to Edgy, the resolution went back to 640x480. Either simply adding an empty line at the end of the xorg.conf file or executing a "sudo touch /etc/X11/xorg.conf" and then restarting X (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace), will bring the resolution back to normal. Quirky Linux :-(

Related links:
Ubuntu Titbits
Eclipse in Ubuntu
Putty in Ubuntu
Auto Login in Ubuntu
Configure DSL in Ubuntu