https://mm.bbspals.org/Manish Malik's blog, 2004 to 2008 (archive)https://mm.bbspals.org/unconference/failcampchennai-opening-up/https://mm.bbspals.org/unconference/failcampchennai-opening-up/Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:10:44 GMT…. Few more minutes into the unconference, and people have started opening up — asking questions, sharing a giggle at a funny moment. Yep Yep. And twitter is on.https://mm.bbspals.org/unconference/failcamp-chennai/https://mm.bbspals.org/unconference/failcamp-chennai/Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:55:36 GMT…. FailCamp Chennai just started. Good turnout here, and insights just started pouring in. To hear the words of a successful businessman, *knowing* how she/he failed umpteen times and learned from those failures … of course, priceless. This should probably be a tweet.https://mm.bbspals.org/fun/its-not-polite-to/https://mm.bbspals.org/fun/its-not-polite-to/Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMTI can’t. I can’t stop the urge to post it. :) #931 is one of the most hilarious, by the time you read the last panel (for the slow ones, hint: Dora). Way to go, Jeph!https://mm.bbspals.org/general/toronto-comicon/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/toronto-comicon/Sat, 09 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMTTaking a stock of the first casualty of workload. :-) Toronto Comicon - I won’t call myself a comic addict (Dilbert and QC are the only regular ones I follow now), but this Comicon would have meant I get to meet Jeph - author of my favorite comic that I’ve been reading since late 2004 - QC . Too late when I noticed. Decided not to go now. Next time. :-)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/long-time/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/long-time/Sat, 26 May 2007 00:00:00 GMTI’ve been updating some other journals, so this one’s been neglected. I’ve posted lots of photos (not on flickr though), but 3 pics make me happy with what I got:https://mm.bbspals.org/general/it-feels-like-the-same/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/it-feels-like-the-same/Sat, 19 May 2007 00:00:00 GMTHabit: Using a wireless mouse Side Effect: Grabbing your phone lying on the desk and trying to move it as if it’s a mouse. Psycho Effect: For the first 2 seconds, you’re wondering wtf happened to the cursor.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/random-organized-notes-2/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/random-organized-notes-2/Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMTToronto No matter whether it’s Toronto or Delhi - slow moving traffic at peak hours still frustrates a lot, specially when you can’t even read something alongside. It’s easier to get things done in Banks than I thought. Books Now that I don’t have to worry about huge shipping costs (comparable to the cost of books) to India, or someone’s schedule of India trips, my Amazon.com wish-lists (long) arehttps://mm.bbspals.org/travel/random-organized-notes-1/https://mm.bbspals.org/travel/random-organized-notes-1/Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMTI typically post these on the travel blog - I haven’t updated it in a while and heck, who gives a damn about keeping separate blogs for these things - just use the category. :-) London London Walks are good. Specifically if you talk to people along the way amidst the guide’s loud voice. I don’t know how other people managed. Walking near Thames at night without a jacket / extra over shirt is a goohttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/armchair-rant-451/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/armchair-rant-451/Sun, 11 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMTThere are some topics that trigger off the Argumentative Indian, who still remains argumentative and doesn’t do anything else about it. Imagine you’re shopping in a store, and suddenly you see an AutoRickshaw stopping over and some guys in it trying to pull in a girl walking on the street. She’s resisting it. What do you do? Apparently, some people did one thing - nothing . This is in the latest phttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/confidence-and-cowardice/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/confidence-and-cowardice/Sun, 18 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMTSo…do you need both? …isn’t Cowardice the Confidence in your inability? …isn’t Confidence the Cowardice to accept your Corwardice?https://mm.bbspals.org/tech-notes/wp-cache-and-firestats-and-yikes/https://mm.bbspals.org/tech-notes/wp-cache-and-firestats-and-yikes/Sat, 10 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMTAdded Firestats to wordpress, and found that it won’t even be called to task if wp-cache is in action. It’s a queued request ( link ) for Firestats, but apparently there are more in the list . :( Eager to try Firestats for a few days, I ended up disabling wp-cache for now. The Firestats ajax interface looks nifty. Wordpress users - give it a try ! :)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/neat-books/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/neat-books/Sat, 27 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMTThe reason I don’t underline interesting sentences, phrases, paragraphs in books (owned, not borrowed)… isn’t that I want to keep books neat. I used to think about this, but later realized any such attempts served no useful purpose. isn’t that I don’t want to come back to the books. I usually flip pages of books I had read long ago. isn’t that it sounds too student-ish. I * am* educating self. IS https://mm.bbspals.org/general/useful-time-overridden/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/useful-time-overridden/Sun, 17 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMTNote to self: ‘ AllowOverride ‘ should be the first thing to check when mod_rewrite suddenly doesn’t seem to work after a conf update. Another note to self: A diff in time can save a lot of time. Yet another note to self: If you’ve spent more than 10 minutes in braindumb state trying to figure out what’s wrong, google it fast .https://mm.bbspals.org/general/flickr-camera-trends/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/flickr-camera-trends/Sat, 16 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMTI had never tried to find out how many others are using the same phone-camera on Flickr. Today I did. Apparently it’s been a downhill trend this year. And the new leader in Sony Ericsson phones used for Flickr photos is the K800i. Notice the sharp rise: I am still browsing - the photo sources trends can provide an interesting influence into future purchase decisions . ;)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/multiple-degrees-from-the-same-institution-university/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/multiple-degrees-from-the-same-institution-university/Sat, 09 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMTSomething crossed me today. I have seen it happening many times, but never thought about it in detail. (Warning: Too many generalizations coming up…) Imagine you are in recruiter’s seat, and are interviewing candidates for a position where their education background matters almost the same as their work experience and current skill set (let us keep attitude and other factors aside for the purpose https://mm.bbspals.org/general/stumbleupon-mypassword/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/stumbleupon-mypassword/Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMTGuess who’s the latest one in the list of sites wanting my gmail password to import my contacts? StumbleUpon! It says “ Login info is not stored in any way “. Feels like testing the limits of my paranoia…. While it’s a good idea (don’t really know - may be I’ll hate some of my friends after looking at the sites they stumbled upon … haha …), I can’t really see myself trusting individual website inthttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/skill-responsibility/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/skill-responsibility/Sun, 05 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMTExactly what I was trying to explain to a bunch of fresh graduates the other day, albeit in different terms: “ …in small companies, having a skill can mean having a responsibility ” true dat! (from this post).https://mm.bbspals.org/fun/how-a-gaim-feature-request-got-implemented/https://mm.bbspals.org/fun/how-a-gaim-feature-request-got-implemented/Sun, 05 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMTWhether you’re a gaim user or not, you’ll find this funny. The guy ‘lazlo’ might have acted weird, but if he did all this (acting scared on IRC isn’t tough, is it?) and got a feature request implemented, well, who’s the smart one here? Make sure you read the comment by ‘lol’ below the post.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/google-jot/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/google-jot/Tue, 31 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMTYeah, I still think that Jot Rocks . Among “everyone else” who thinks so, there’s Google now. Ken Norton wrote today that Google has acquired JotSpot . They’re fast, aren’t they? :-) Nice, and good luck, Google Jot / Google Spot / Google Wiki. ;-)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/demand-and-supply/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/demand-and-supply/Sun, 29 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMTSony TV commentator (Sonali) on the sale of flags in Stadium for today’s Cricket match… “… and the interesting thing is …. the Indian flag is selling for Rs. 60. And there’s the Australian flag on sale too … it’s selling for Rs. 100. Obviously a case of Demand and Supply here .. . “ Oooh. So do I view Demand and Supply as in salt, or as in gold?https://mm.bbspals.org/social/yasn-yet-another-social-network/https://mm.bbspals.org/social/yasn-yet-another-social-network/Wed, 25 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMTI’ve been getting many “invites” to join the social network Gazzag , even from friends whom I’ve not talked to in a while. How come? (Of course, I don’t mind old-forgotten friends sending me invites … but all of a sudden so many … I’m going to have time management issues.) So it turns out that Gazzag lures allows you to send invites to all your orkut contacts. You enter your Orkut username/passworhttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/arrghh/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/arrghh/Sun, 22 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMTI hate it when Firefox freezes for (more than) a few moments to load Acrobat Reader inside the browser window.https://mm.bbspals.org/linux/patience/https://mm.bbspals.org/linux/patience/Sun, 15 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMTPatience is a virtue well taught by “ emerge -u world” on a gentoo system you logged in after 270 days.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/live-again/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/live-again/Sun, 15 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMTThe Windows Live people revampled it a little. Again. Two screenshots of the revamped Live Mail. (The images have since been lost.) It’s not only the user interface; now search results seem to come up faster (something that * never * worked earlier). I would hope that they don’t stop at this point. The Live! people should continue trying ( at least ;-) ) to compete with Yahoo! Mail and GMail.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/indias-own/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/indias-own/Sat, 07 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT(Short Post / CopyPaste) From Guy Kawasaki’s blog : “ India has its own version of Amazon.com. At two intersections, kids came up to the car to sell us paperback versions of current business books. We bought a copy of The World Is Flat for $3. Not sure if I should be happy or depressed, but The Art of the Start was not available. “https://mm.bbspals.org/linux/skype-unbeta/https://mm.bbspals.org/linux/skype-unbeta/Thu, 05 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT(Short Post) Skype finally released 1.3.0.53 for Linux yesterday. Looking at the changelog , it seems they must have worked really hard in planting those bugs in the first place.https://mm.bbspals.org/web/cant-subscribe-bid/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/cant-subscribe-bid/Wed, 04 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMTI had mentioned recently that SmartEconomist is moving to a subscription-based model. Today’s mail says… “…you did not subscribe after paid access was introduced on September 21, 2006.” (what else did you expect?) “…What follows is a mechanism (loosely inspired by the ‘bookbuilding’ method used in IPOs) we designed…” hmm…okay “You let us know your no-commitment ‘bid price’ for an Annual Individualhttps://mm.bbspals.org/web/yahoo-passport/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/yahoo-passport/Sat, 30 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMTWait. They aren’t calling it Passport yet. It’s called BBAuth (Browser Based Authentication). Here is the official note . Instinctively, I see a better turnaround for this than what was for Microsoft’s Passport. YDN comes as a more inviting, friendly source of information than what other such similar attempts by others have been. Universal Wordpress Login with BBAuth suddenly started sounding betthttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/what-agile-google-agile/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/what-agile-google-agile/Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMTCouldn’t resist posting this. Most of this post is just copy-paste from a comment. :D In the Slashdot discussion thread for Steve Yegge’s Good Agile, Bad Agile post, I found this gem of a comment by rockmuelle . Here it goes (reproduced here as it is): Google is not a software development firm, but an ad sales firm (check their 10-K if you have any doubts). It uses software to attract viewers in thttps://mm.bbspals.org/web/finally-smarteconomist/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/finally-smarteconomist/Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMTJust when I was wondering exactly when it will happen, they did it. Recently, SmartEconomist moved to a subscription-based model. From the site, “ as Milton Friedman’s much-quoted adage goes, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”, and SmartEconomist.com, alas, is no exception: unrestricted access is now available to subscribers only. Many of the site’s features are still available free of chargehttps://mm.bbspals.org/adworld/idea-ad-beats-hutchs-but-not-as-good-as-airtels/https://mm.bbspals.org/adworld/idea-ad-beats-hutchs-but-not-as-good-as-airtels/Fri, 29 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMTThe ‘reach’ advertisements of cellular companies in India: Hutch: Started it all with the dog following the boy - “ Wherever you go, our network will follow “. The ad succeeded more in making the tune “You n I…” popular than in explaining the real context of ‘network following you’ to everybody. Airtel: It took them months, but Airtel folks finally countered the above ad with the recent girl-in- Lhttps://mm.bbspals.org/fun/todays-rotfl-moment/https://mm.bbspals.org/fun/todays-rotfl-moment/Mon, 25 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMTz00dax you must be either a genius or 14 years old.https://mm.bbspals.org/adworld/aamir-khan-is-no-match-against-rajiv-bakshi/https://mm.bbspals.org/adworld/aamir-khan-is-no-match-against-rajiv-bakshi/Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT…you will notice that when you watch the “ Coca Cola is safe ” TV commercial after having watched (and admired) Pepsi’s TV commercial stint with its India CEO, Rajiv Bakshi, endorsing the product. While the Pepsi commercial stood out as a well-thought, well-scripted, and well-executed ad, the Coca Cola one seems more like playing ‘ catch up ‘ this time. It also fails to deliver the message in a cohttps://mm.bbspals.org/web/jot-rocks/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/jot-rocks/Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMT(Short post) Did I mention how impressive this looks? (Hey, how do they maintain edit history?) Not just this, a lot of things on this page rock! You can see what it culminated in: here .https://mm.bbspals.org/general/what-worldspace-needs/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/what-worldspace-needs/Sun, 24 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMTI have been a WorldSpace listener for a couple of years now. Voyager is my favorite channel, and while I enjoy the music, there’s something missing from the experience. Here is what WorldSpace needs, according to me: Bring the community together: The WorldSpace Forums are vacuous at best. Why not announce on the channels, along with the hourly channel reminder blurb? Tell people, and many will joihttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/rip-rob-levin/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/rip-rob-levin/Sun, 17 Sep 2006 00:00:00 GMTRob Levin (lilo) is no more . ouch. RIP, Rob.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/newassignment/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/newassignment/Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMTI was there observing the initial discussions for wikinews . “ Does it make sense at all? ” “ What about reporter bias? ” “ Why would someone want to visit it when other sites are reporting to-the-minute? ” Some of these questions were answered, some were deferred (the voting page wasn’t exactly a mess). It has evolved since then. I found NewAssignment.net today. First glance, First thought - how https://mm.bbspals.org/web/bloglines-make-new-posts-stand-out/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/bloglines-make-new-posts-stand-out/Sun, 27 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMTMy new ‘Want This’ feature request for Bloglines : Mark existing feed posts (the ‘ keep new ‘ posts) with different color scheme. Right now it’s hard to find and view new posts when you have 25+ ‘kept new’ posts in a feed.https://mm.bbspals.org/adworld/recent-ad-impressions/https://mm.bbspals.org/adworld/recent-ad-impressions/Sat, 26 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT1. Reliance Communications - the recent ads have focussed (and have succeeded) in associating the brand with ‘ youth ‘ and ‘ enthusiasm ‘. Young people dancing on Reliance tunes, along side messages that convey Reliance Communications is the youngest, and fastest (in its industry) in India. 2. Hutch Fun Cards - the ‘ music factory ‘ approach fails to convey the ‘buy now’ message. The ad does not ehttps://mm.bbspals.org/web/how-would-bloglines-earn/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/how-would-bloglines-earn/Sat, 26 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMTI have been using Bloglines for the past couple of years. There have been regular updates , including some nifty ones I like (shortcut key - m ). It also featured in the “ Next Net 25 ” list by CNN. No ads, no subscriptions. I used to wonder how Bloglines will ever earn money - “ may be they’ll shift to a subscription model for extra features, while keeping the base services free “, “ may be they’https://mm.bbspals.org/general/even-an-mb/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/even-an-mb/Sat, 26 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMTJust watch this FedEx advert that … is …. hilarious. Started reading ‘ What The CEO Wants You to Know ‘ just before I crashed last night. It’s one of those books that explain obvious basics (that most people already know, but don’t consider in their daily musings) in a way you can (actually) understand……and forget the next day you wake up! (/ just kidding /). Will write more about it later.https://mm.bbspals.org/web/orkut-with-ads/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/orkut-with-ads/Thu, 29 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMTOrkut with advertisements … exactly what was missing from the bottom of this worldhttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/time-zone/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/time-zone/Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMTWhat it really means - you have friends in the wrong time zone.https://mm.bbspals.org/web/pxn8-online-photo-editor/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/pxn8-online-photo-editor/Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMTPxn8 (they pronounce it pix-en-ate ) is fun to play with… The price tag for running a copy off your own server seems targetted for serious businesses, not hobbyists.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/windows-live-mail-on-firefox/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/windows-live-mail-on-firefox/Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:00:00 GMTNiceness…It’s finally Firefox compatible.https://mm.bbspals.org/web/yahoo-is-tired-of-the-default-search-engine-entry-in-firefox/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/yahoo-is-tired-of-the-default-search-engine-entry-in-firefox/Sat, 13 May 2006 00:00:00 GMTSo, here’s what they suggest: Screenshot: Yahoo’s instructions for the Firefox search bar. (The image has since been lost.) Found it funny, especially because I saw this after reading the “ Yahoo! says ya boo to Microsoft ” story…https://mm.bbspals.org/general/slashdot-discussion2/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/slashdot-discussion2/Sat, 13 May 2006 00:00:00 GMTSlashdot discussions are going DHTML-ified. (Okay, read it from pudge’s journal yourself…) The official FAQ entry about Discussion2 is here . Here is how it looks: The whole ‘hidden comments’ thing looks crazy at first glance, but I haven’t yet tried to use it anyways. It will evolve, eventually.https://mm.bbspals.org/web/another-social-bookmarking-notebook-this-time-from-google/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/another-social-bookmarking-notebook-this-time-from-google/Sat, 13 May 2006 00:00:00 GMTAs Michael Arrington notes , Google Notebook is just around the corner. I was not impressed by the screenshots at the first glance; the interface does not seem sleek, something like Simpy or del.icio.us that I’ve gotten used to. :)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/books-in-books-out/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/books-in-books-out/Sun, 07 May 2006 00:00:00 GMTRead/Finished reading: The Alchemist Picked up again: The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy Started Reading: Bunker 13 Amazon has recently started placing the rating / I-own-it options on the same page; conveniently placed at last. In other-fantastic-mail-client-stories, Thunderbird’s extension Remember Mismatched Domains rawks!https://mm.bbspals.org/web/contentrewrite/https://mm.bbspals.org/web/contentrewrite/Sun, 30 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT“ This is a sentence and nothing more than a sentence, mind you. ” becomes “ This is a conviction and nothing much than a conviction, psyche you. ” at ContentRewrite.net . It’s fun to try out similar things.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/google-calendar/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/google-calendar/Sun, 16 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMTI have tried out the new Google Calendar . It’s AJAX neatly done, once again by Google. A nifty little thing: the ease by which you can create new shared calendars and assign your existing gmail contacts different privileges, impressed me. I’ve seen spongecell , and 30boxes , but Google Calendar comes out the winner in terms of how well they pack everything in that interface, and how intuitive thehttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/official-qc-rss/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/official-qc-rss/Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMTOfficial QC RSS is finally out! Add this to your RSS reader now! :)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/the-bb/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/the-bb/Fri, 24 Mar 2006 18:06:11 GMTI was reading some blog and saw ‘posted it on BB’ written somewhere. Hey! The person was talking about Infosys BB! That brought back memories of the fun, mazaa in the Infy BBs. For the uninitiated, Infosys has Bulletin Boards set-up where all employees can post/read messages; in other words, discuss almost any topic in the earth, and beyond. Most firms have ‘em these days. But the differentiating https://mm.bbspals.org/general/slurp-thy-comics/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/slurp-thy-comics/Sun, 26 Feb 2006 07:59:47 GMTDarkgate’s Comic Slurper is convenient, and has a lot of feeds to choose from. Just click on the button against the comics, and they’re instantly ready in the queue. There’s also a single-screen to pick all the feeds at once (but that brought up a wordpress error screen when I submitted the selection.) In other comic news, QC finally took that much-anticipated turn in last Friday’s comic.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/slashdot-with-tags/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/slashdot-with-tags/Sat, 18 Feb 2006 04:08:01 GMTSlashdot is experimenting with tags : Good thing. What’s more is that they haven’t yet boxed themselves into ‘just use tags somehow’. They’re hoping to incorporate more uses as the system evolves. The javascript (that changes the [+] to [-] and lets you enter new tags by making the text box visible) didn’t seem to do anything in Firefox 1.5 when I clicked on it. Seems unlikely that /. folks didn’thttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/backpack/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/backpack/Sat, 17 Dec 2005 11:54:30 GMTWhat happens when a personal wiki (that’s what I use) is combined with a reminder/alert system? BackPack is getting popular among people who have been looking for such tools, and don’t have the time to set up such a system (well, many people use text files ) themselves. Their ‘ free ‘ account’s limit is 5 pages - which doesn’t sound enough to be able to appreciate (or not) the system, for new userhttps://mm.bbspals.org/general/finally-faye/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/finally-faye/Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:00:00 GMTFinally, Faye’s background story was revealed recently. 502 , 503 , 504 , and 505 (do read Jeph’s sidenotes in 505.) In related news, the QC wikipedia article is nice.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/simpy-yahoolicious/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/simpy-yahoolicious/Sat, 10 Dec 2005 06:08:50 GMTAs always, as soon as a story about acquisition comes out, many users start seeking alternatives (for reasons not even known to most of them…) Simpy got the crowd this time . Yahoo! has added another good tagged feather to its cap, after flickr.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/rabbi/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/rabbi/Mon, 21 Nov 2005 19:41:05 GMTI was searching for Rabbi’s CD in the drawer today. Then realized the iPod would still have ‘em. And there they were. Rabbi Shergill has composed many gems (*yawn* … ‘ Bulla Ki Jaana.. ‘ has been overplayed…) Specially recommended: ‘ Ajj Nachna… ‘, ‘ Ek Geet Hijar… ‘, and ‘ Ishtihaar… ‘. Would help if you understand a bit of Punjabi. Otherwise, just enjoy the music. :)https://mm.bbspals.org/programming/overdebugging/https://mm.bbspals.org/programming/overdebugging/Sun, 20 Nov 2005 00:08:54 GMTLesson for the day: Never overdebug IRC clients without looking at what the server is trying to communicate .https://mm.bbspals.org/general/thunderbird-junk-mail/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/thunderbird-junk-mail/Thu, 10 Nov 2005 21:20:05 GMTFor some reason, ThunderBird 1.0.7 ’s (yeah, I’m still using that…) Junk Mail filter doesn’t seem to improve fast after regular training. It’s supposed to be bayesian implemented correctly (*shrug*). Will check out TB 1.5 RC1, and may get some time into looking at how it’s implemented. OTOH, X-Spam-Flag headers are working nicely.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/lj-book/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/lj-book/Sun, 06 Nov 2005 15:54:38 GMTSo finally someone brought out this too — LJBook - converting your LiveJournal entries to a PDF document. Nice idea, and while many others have written backup systems for LJ - they all churn out a lot of options like saving to CSV, HTML, and what not, to the user. This one doesn’t, and probably that’s why it’s gaining popularity fast.https://mm.bbspals.org/cryptography/godzilla-crypto-tutorial/https://mm.bbspals.org/cryptography/godzilla-crypto-tutorial/Wed, 02 Nov 2005 18:59:31 GMTIt’s been around for long, and people still seem to miss it. It’s here , very much on Peter Gutmann ’s website. Recommended for quick-reads: The Digital signature legislation tutorial .https://mm.bbspals.org/general/wordpress-default-pings/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/wordpress-default-pings/Tue, 01 Nov 2005 14:44:32 GMTWordpress automatically pings Ping-o-matic about any new posts on blog. (Ping-o-matic’s ping url is preset in the default install.) Apparently, someone who wanted to keep his blog away from spiders found this out later . At first glance, it looks like an option someone would miss in the first attempt at configuring WordPress. And possibly something that the unsuspecting new user should be notifiedhttps://mm.bbspals.org/linux/lost-var-lib-dpkg-on-debian/https://mm.bbspals.org/linux/lost-var-lib-dpkg-on-debian/Mon, 31 Oct 2005 05:44:49 GMT[Note: I had originally added this in September 2004. Re-added to the website on 31 Oct 2005.] What do you do if you accidently lost /var/lib/dpkg on your Debian installation? apt would be stranded if you’ve lost your package selection data, which resides in /var/lib/dpkg/status . This has information about which all packages have been installed on your system. If you only lost this file /var/lib/https://mm.bbspals.org/books/five-point-tcc/https://mm.bbspals.org/books/five-point-tcc/Sat, 29 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMTChetan Bhagat has a blog here . Specifically, read where he mentions the anti-CB lobby . Reminds of me of some recent online conversations. I did enjoy reading Five Point Someone . The writing style drives the reader through a movie-story, virtually. It’s interesting, and it’s often that I hear people finishing reading the book cover-to-cover without taking a break. ON@TCC has got mixed reviews. Whttps://mm.bbspals.org/fun/by-the-minute/https://mm.bbspals.org/fun/by-the-minute/Wed, 26 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMThttp://moviesbytheminute.blogspot.com/ Nothing like reading ( this ) while watching the movie for the N-th time.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/save-thy-demo/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/save-thy-demo/Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMTYou’ve heard of demo disasters, and demo disaster recoveries. Here’s another one: Sho Kuwamoto’s recent demo of Flex Builder . Don Box talked about demo disaster recovery ( video here ) couple of months back. For those who like to tangent out to related topics, here’s one for Flex Builder 2 . :)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/wheres-the-link/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/wheres-the-link/Sat, 15 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMTAgain, I spotted a newspaper article detailing how X/Y government ageny’s newly launched website will provide information / help users know about the department’s activities. And this article too didn’t publish the link for the website. Either the reporters don’t consider it an important piece in the pizza, or the department personnel releasing the press note are not enough clued in. Hint: Not evehttps://mm.bbspals.org/programming/debugging-thy-soap/https://mm.bbspals.org/programming/debugging-thy-soap/Sun, 09 Oct 2005 00:00:00 GMTSOAPScope is delightfully useful tool. Even that ‘View XML as pseudocode’ feature is nifty. Another interesting tool (open source, this one) is Xydra . It’s pretty raw, but with a little tweaking, may be made to deliver almost the same utility. I will probably be taking more than just a look at it, in days to come.https://mm.bbspals.org/general/in-bangalore-interested-in-foss-and-technology/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/in-bangalore-interested-in-foss-and-technology/Tue, 06 Sep 2005 00:00:00 GMTIn Bangalore? Interested in FOSS and Technology? Then join up with other enthusiasts in one of the BoF meets. A lot is discussed over food and books, and you get to meet other enthusiasts, developers, hackers, what not. Check out this blog entry about a recent BoF meet. There are some photographs of meets from last year too.https://mm.bbspals.org/programming/delight/https://mm.bbspals.org/programming/delight/Sun, 28 Aug 2005 00:00:00 GMTBook: Hacker’s Delight Page: Preface (yes…) quote ” The hacker’s work may be useful or may be just a game. As an example of the latter, more than one determined hacker has written a program which, when executed, writes out an exact copy of itself. ” “ The shortest such program written in C, known to the present author, is by Vlad Taeerov and Rashit Fakhreyev and is 64 characters in length: main(a)https://mm.bbspals.org/general/site-update/https://mm.bbspals.org/general/site-update/Sun, 17 Jul 2005 00:00:00 GMTI just put up WordPress for the backend again, and have started moving content to this. Shouldn’t take too much time; but if you encounter any broken links, blame it on the move. :) Update: August 21 - finally updated the long-lost comics page… Update: September 24 - dug out the old pages with xchat patches / eggdrop scripts, and linked them from the coding page. There’s a lot of stuff that’s waithttps://mm.bbspals.org/recovering-varlibdpkg/https://mm.bbspals.org/recovering-varlibdpkg/Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMTWhat do you do if you accidently lose /var/lib/dpkg on your Debian installation? Yes, the sin is grave. Try using apt after this and figure out yourself. ;-) /var/lib/dpkg/status file is important - as it stores the information about which packages are present on your system. apt would be stranded without this information. Fortunately, there are ways you can attempt to rebuild the structure. Debiahttps://mm.bbspals.org/slashdot/https://mm.bbspals.org/slashdot/Sun, 05 Sep 2004 00:00:00 GMTWe all know Slashdot and some of us actually manage to like it. ;-) This page lists some of the comments at Slashdot, that I found a bit more interesting than others… Things You Would Never Know Without Indian Movies (Reply) Programmers == Carpenters?? Don thy Tinfoil Hat (See context: Google’s Sergey Brin Talks on Gmail’s Future ) Keeping Programming Fun A word if I may (See context: The PHP Anth