Yet another Redesign...

Well, well, My Previous blog design quite sortof didn't work out as I expected it, and so I'm abandoning it and getting a new one today. But, this is just a default one from Blogger. I'll suppose I'll do some heavy customization tomorrow, since I've already overshot my 1 GB limit by more than a 150 MB:(( So, till then, put up with this one...

Blog Redesign....

Well, just redesigned my Blog once again. So, it looks a bit 1998-ish, with the Sidebar gone. But, it's now replaced by a new Javascript Menu. How does it look ? Haven't finished with it though. So, even If you are reading this from an Aggregator, just hover back here for a look...

Moving to GMail...

Well, I'm abandoning Yahoo Mail and moving to GMail Today. I've unsubscribed from All my Newsletters[Which I never read anyway], changed my Topcoder Profile and my .NET Passport. And, it looks like, I've made neccessary arrangements, and I've also set up Auto-Forwarding from the Yahoo Account to my GMail Account. So, even though Sudar gave me a GMail Invite quite a long time ago, I'm starting to use it only now. So, If you wanna mail me, you can either mail me at yuvipanda@yahoo.co.in, or yuvipanda@gmail.com. But, You'll recieve the response only from yuvipanda@gmail.com. Spammers Welcome:D The main reason I switched was Yahoo Mail's Pathetic SPAM Filtering and Pathetic Response Times. Well, at last count, my SPAM box contained 42 pieces of Mail, of which only 12 were actual Spam, but, the Rest were False Positives! Pathetic, isn't it ? Well, Yahoo!, so, pretty much get your act together and improve it. Ramesh said that he's got Beta version of Next Gen Yahoo Mail, and it rocks. So, let's wait for it... Till Then.............GMail! Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

[Math]Proving 2+2 = 0 and other incredible stuff

Update: Well, hawkeye posted a comment, spotting my grave Mistake. Silly me : I've lost more than one Mark in more than one Maths Paper more than once, and yet I make the same mistake. Stupid me:D Thanks hawkeye, for correcting me before I gave that to my Maths Teacher and get spanked:D

No Joke. I got this during a boring Morning before Second Revision English II Exams. So, I've got proof that 2+2 = 0. After trying to find a mistake in this for some 2 hours yesterday night, I'm posting this here. I'm probably wrong, but I can't find out where I am wrong. So, here we go :

(a) 1² = 1
(b) (-1)² = 1

(c) From (a) and (b), 1² = (-1)²

(d)Therefore, 1 = -1
Reason : If Powers are equal, bases can be equated

(e) Assume 2+2 = x
(f) (2 x 1) + (2 x 1) = x
Reason : Since 2 = 2 x 1

(g) (2 x 1) + (2 x -1) = x
Reason : Since 1 = -1 [From (d)]
(h) 2 + (-2) = x
(i) 2 - 2 = x
(j) 0 = x

(k) Substituting x = 0 in (e),
2 + 2 = 0

So, this is for a specific case. It can be easily Generalized into a generic form :

x + x = 0

Also, from this, you get :
x = -x

Well, the proof also gives a really interesting Corrollary : Every Number is Equal to any other Number!

Assume any Number1 = x

Then, according to Proof above :

x + x = 0
2x = 0 - (1)

Assume any Number2 = y

Then,

y+y = 0
2y = 0 - (2)

So, from (1) and (2),
2x = 2y

Dividing both sides by 2, we get :
x = y

So, any Number is equal to any other Number! Cool, isn't it ? It also has quite nice implications. Like, I owe someone Rs. 1000. Since, according to the proof, I take x = Rs. 1000 and y = Rs. 1. So, since x = y, I can just pay Rs. 1, since It is equal to Rs. 1000! And, if someone owes me Rs. 1, I can just invert the process, and get Rs. 1000, while ofcourse it can backfire and they can pay me Rs.(-)1000, since obviously, Rs.(-)1000 = Rs. 1000 = Rs. 1.

Well, heard of the word Paradox ? I'm feeling it....

Well, it's got more : All Fractions and Divisons equal 1, since the Numerator and the Denominator will be equal! And, they will also equal any number, without constraint, since 1 can be equal to any number!

Man, Maths will be sooooooooooooo much Easier : I can give any value as answer to any questions, and it will be correct! You'll get 100 out of 100 every time! But wait, 100 out of 100 might as well be equal to 0 out of 100, because 0 = 100. Paradox:D

So, where am I wrong ? What part of the proof is wrong ? I sincerely really Don't know, so you've really gotta help me find the fault with this.....

If you're Still with me after this long post, I want your comments...

Crack at a Spammer...

I did this quite some time ago, but the thought of Posting this here came only today.... Well, Sudar knows of some funny spam. Well, after I read that post originally on November 2005, I decided to read some of the Spam in my Yahoo Spam Box and see what's there. So, first up, I came across this :

Dear Friend,

I cannot imagine the surprise this will bring to you, but please be 
rest 
assured it is with good faith and intentions from a friend in dare need 
of 
your assistance.This is to help us transfer the inheritance sum of 
US$7,700,000 (Seven Million Seven Hundred U.S Dollars) into your 
account or 
company's account, in which God will bless you for rendering a helping 
Hand 
to others.

My name is Mr. kwame Jacobs, and I work with First Atlanta Company in 
Ghana 
and i am writing in respect of Mr.Choi Soohyun a customer who perished 
in a 
plane crash [Korean Air Flight 801] with the whole passengers on board 
on 
August 6, 1997.

I personally have watched with Keen interest Since the demise of this 
our 
customer to see the next of kin but all has proved abortive as no One 
has 
come to claim his funds of US$7,700,000, which has been with my company 
for 
a very long time. On this note, I decided to seek for whom his name 
shall be 
used as the next of kin as no one has come up to be the next of kin. 
Below 
is the website of the plane crash,

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/06/guam.passenger.list/

For your efforts, I am prepared to offer you 30% of the total sum while 
5% 
will be set aside for expenses incurred during the course of this 
Transaction, 5% for the less Privileged in the society and the 
Remaining 60% 
is for me and my Partners.

Please note that this transaction is risk-free and the major thing I 
ask of 
you is to assure me the safety of the money when transferred to your 
account. Further Information and arrangement will commence as soon as 
trust, 
Confidence and good relationship is established.

I shall be most grateful if you maintain the confidentiality required 
In 
this transaction. Do not hesitate to contact me for further Directives 
to 
enable us commence towards the conclusion of this transaction.

Please respond to this mail using my email address :

I wait for your prompt response.

Thanks and God bless,

kwame Jacobs.

Well, a typical, classical African Spam. So, instead of just keeping it in my Spam Box, I just decided to give my feedback to the spammer :

Hi Dr. Patrick Allain, I think I am good enough to
detect a Phishing attack like this. Spelling Mistakes,
Wrong Capitalization and a great eye for Details mark
a really good spammer. And, I saw all these here : 
You got the name of a Plane which Crashed, saw the list of 
the passengers who died, found the name of the man whose
Country couldn't be determined, Harvested my eMail
from somewher(probably my Blog), and sent me this
Mail...

Kudos to you man, but I'm not falling for this...

On the Other Hand, I do have respect for your
abilities, and I think you could put them to good use

And, I actually got a reply for this from that spammer! :

thank you alot mr yuri.well i do not have much to write 
since you are convience inside you that it is a game.
thats ok .but for accepting me as a friend,i appreciate it 
and will keep intouch with you.
 
kwame jacobs 

Not to be outdone, I replied to this as well :

More spelling mistakes.. Dude, you've gotta get a
Spell Checker if you wanna convince people that you're
serious:P

Well, maybe that guy's abandoned that email ID, but I'm still to get a Reply for this.... Spam is so much fun, isn't it ?:D

Mission Accomplished!

Well, some 3 Months back, Dad bought me an 80 CD Capacity CD Pouch. And, I vowed to fill it with Linux CDs. Fully. To the Brim. Only Linux. All 80 CDs. And, today morning, I have accomplished it! Man, doesn't it feel wonderful, having so many distros, most of which you'd never use!:D

Anyway, here's the boring list of Distros I have :

1. Gnoppix
   
2. SimplyMEPIS
   
3. Knoppix 3.9
   
4. Ubuntu 5.1 LiveCD
   
5. aLinux 12.6 LiveCD
   
6. GNUStep 0.9.4.2 LiveCD
   
7. Fedora Core 4
8. FSBIE - Variant of FreeBSD LiveCD
9. PC-BSD 1.0 RC2
10. Ubuntu Linux 5.1
11. SuSE 9.1
12. Mandriva 2006
13. Mono-Live CD
14. FreeBSD
15. PCLinux 0.9.2
16. Looking Glass 3D LiveCD 2.30
17. Slackware
18. Edubuntu 5.10
19. Knoppix 4.0
20. SuSE 10
21. Gentoo 2005.1
22. Gentoo 2006.1 Live+Install CD
23. Fedora Core 5
24. Damn Small Linux
25. WinLinux

Well, If you're still with me, know that I lied : I filled all 80 of them only because I have two copies of SimplyMEPIS. So, I actually have 1 Slot still left, but can't seem to find any Single CD Distro to fill it up. Any Ideas guys ? Only significant distro I'm missing is Debian, but, I really don't want it.... And, KUbuntu, but I've already got Ubuntu and KDE Seperately, so it won't count, right ?

Welcome to Chennai...

Well, Wikipedia is turning out quite a few Gems. One of them which I found today, and which made me laugh for almost half an hour while reading through this, is this Article on Madras Bashai Vocabulary and Madras Bashai. The First Article has an almost complete list of Words used in this Innovative connotation by the Chennaiites. I've heard most of them, though not used any:D And, the second one has a bit of history, and has some common Sentences, which are absolutely hilarious to Read, yet so commonplace to hear.

Man, I love Wikipedia:D

P.S. I think the first Article was written by a Passionate College Student. Read it, and you'll feel it:D

Why don't they get it ?

I mean, why don't these DD people get it ? When Sahara ONE was transmitting thes India-England Series, I always watched them, even though DD was also transmitting. Why ? Because, every other half hour, they'll get two people to replace the normal English Commentary with a Hindhi one. Problem is, the English Commentators are located on the spot, so they can easily see that a ball is heading towards a Fielder and don't get excited about it. But, these Hindhi Commentators get the same view as the viewers, and so get Overly Excited mistaking a single for a four, and vice versa.

And, on top of wasting your Adrenaline, they are actually pretty bad Commentators : When in Yesterday's match, when Irfan was given not out to a catch since it actually hit his helmet, the Commentator casually remarked that Irfan was lucky that he was caught off a No-Ball! When that catch was taken, it was English commentary, and the English Commentators had it clear that it hit the helmet. And, When this guy comes up and says he was caught off a no-ball, that's pretty stupid...

And, need I mention that a good Majority of People in India ACTUALLY DON'T UNDERSTAND HINDI ? Maybe, they don't know that many languages beside Hindi exist. Atleast, localize it, like they do for the Regional Servie. Or, use English. Heck, they won't be doing both, and use only Hindi. Bad.....

Bottom Line: Would a Linuxie like it if Linux was available only in Finnish, because that was Linus Trovald's native Language ? No. Would a Cricket Fan be happy when commentary is available only in Hindi because some braindead Moron in Government Middle-Management decided all people in India speak only Hindi ? No...

P.S. I don't mean to offend Hindi or Hindi Speaking People. I only mean to offend those DD Officials[sic].

Firefox Bus!

Man, I never knew Firefox was that Popular:D And, that too in India, where most people think they're using GMail, not Email[Yes, a guy said that to me when I asked his EMail Address:D]. I've seen Microsoft Buses, but seriously, a Firefox Bus is Awesome:D

[Tech]Seemingly Memory Optimization Trick for Class B people....

Well, let me explain the title a bit. According to me, there are 4 kinds of computer Users :

• Class A, who don't know anything, and know that they don't know anything
• Class B, who know something, and think they know everything
• Class C, who know something, and know that they know only something
• Class D, who know more than something, and know that they know more than something

Well, Class A would be my Dad : He knows that he doesn't know anything, about computers, that is.[Note to Self : There's a Sneaky Creature behind my back, so be careful] Class B would be me about a year ago : I had no idea of the internet, infact, I thought that .NET = the Web;) Thankfully, due to the Internet, Wikipedia, MSDN, CodeProject, Blogs and my Cousin Sudar, I'm now in Class C. OK. If you've been reading a lot, you'dve come across this before, but if you haven't hear. Now, a Class B guy opens up a .NET app, goes to task manager, and finds rocket-high Memory consumption. So, he thinks, "Ooh! This app is *bloated* and takes up soooo much memory. No wonder it was made by Microsoft". #Region "Feel Free To Ignore This If You Don't Like Theory" What he doesn't know is that what Task Manager calls as "Mem Usage", is really "Working Set Memory Usage". Well, to understand Working Set, we have to understand the concept of "Paged Virtual Memory Management", which is used by Windows. Now, let me get a nice analogy here. The Working Set is like a Scratch Page for your Maths : It's fast, it's on your RAM, and it's the place where you do most of your calculations. In Single-tasking Environments like DOS, you had only one Page do do everything on. So far, so good... Now, in a Multi-Tasking Environment like Windows, Each Process gets it's Own Scratch Page. It can see only it's own Scratch Page, not another Process's Scratch Page. If you're allocating so much memory that this Scratch Page is full, then Windows writes that to disk, and you get a New Page. If you want to access anything in your older Page, Windows just loads that Page back, and reads that value for you. So, you can never run out of Memory, even if you're allocating 257 MB of Memory with a System that has only 256 MB of RAM, Windows uses Paging to allocate that much Memory. And, all this is transparent to you. You can just pretend that the System had Unlimited Memory, and allocate as much as you want. This system is known as a Virtual Paging Memory System. Hope I'm clear till now. If I am not, then just read this article on Wikipedia on Virtual Memory. So, the Working Set is just the amount of stuff you've stored in Your Current Scratch Page. This, is what Task Manager reports, and it does not count all those Previous Scratch Pages. It's like, you're writing a Maths Exam, and just submit the last page you worked on. So, inorder to get an actual Value of how much Memory your app is using, you need to get the size of all your Pages. And, this Value, confusingly called VM Size by the Task Manager, is almost always higher than than the Working Set, since pages which are old and not frequently accessed are not loaded by Windows untill they are called. You can view this in the Task Manager itself by going to View - Select Columns and checking the Virtual Memory Size checkbox. This gives a realistic View of how much Memory your App is using. Now, also, when an App is minimized, windows unloads all the Pages of the app into Disk. So, the Working Set appears drastically Reduced, but the VM Size remains the same. #End Region Still with me ? Good. Now, I'll show you a neat Trick that satisfies Class B Users by reducing the apparent Memory Usage of your app reported by Task Manager in just 2 Lines of Code. So, if one of your Boss/PM/Teacher/Departmenal Head keeps saying how much memory a .NET app is taking, just use this trick to convince them. So, you first declare this Declare statement, declaring a Win32 API call. It's called SetProcessWorkingSetSize :

Private Declare Function SetProcessWorkingSetSize _ 
	Lib "kernel32.dll" _ 
	(ByVal hProcess As IntPtr, _ 
	ByVal dwMinimumWorkingSetSize As Int32, _
	ByVal dwMaximumWorkingSetSize As Int32) _ 
	As Int32

And, somewhere in your app, prefereably in the end of the Load Event or somewhere else, just keep this piece of code :

        SetProcessWorkingSetSize _
	(System.Diagnostics.Process.GetCurrentProcess.Handle _
	,-1,-1)

So, we are passing the SetProcessWorkingSetSize Function the handle of our Process, and setting the minSize and maxSize to -1, meaning that Windows will Trim them to lowest possible Value. As soon as this line of code executes, you'll find that Task Manager Reports a Mem Usage of below 1 MB. But, VM Size would be normal for a .NET app... This actually doesn't Optimize Memory Usage, but just makes it look like your app is consuming less memory than it really is. Most useful in situations to convince people who don't understand that Windows gives Memory to people as they need it, so Memory Usage isn't actually that Importand for stability of other Apps.... Bottom Line: If you don't understand any of the Crap I wrote above, just remember this : If someone is asking you to reduce their .NET Memory Consumption, just fake it to them with the Above code. P.S. Man,this took a whole hour! I just can't believe time flies sooo fast when you are doing something you love... If you're still with me, I'd want to hear a comment....:D

Peak of Usability...

Well, I'm a big fan of Joel Spolsky. His Forums on JoelonSoftware.com are quite simple and functional. And, they've also got the most Signal-to-Noise Ratio i've seen. And, Joel's clearly documented the process of why The Forum is so simple like that. And, I consider it to be a success when a Guy like this can make a post.

Why am I targeted ?

Like, I don't know why. You know, ask me to type out a 150 page English Technical Document, I'd do that with pleasure. But, ask me to write a Presentation for 3rd Graders in Tamil, Introducing them to Tamil, and all I can do is get extreeeeeeeeeeeeemelllllllly frustrated and pissed off and write a blog post. And, that's exactly what I am doing. Maybe, I shouldn'tve admitted that there is a way to use the Insert -> Symbols in Word to, sort of click type Words. And, now, aaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.................... I'm stuck doing something I know is stupid while I could've much better been preparing my next tech Post on making Memory Optimization of Class B people... aaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

[Tech]Creating thumbnails of an Image in just a single Line...

Well, Thumbnails were all the rage during the dot-com era, during which I had no idea of the Internet. And, they were all useful in the good ol' [though for me non-existent] Dialup Days. Though they're of less importance now due to the explosion of Broadband, thumbnails are still useful. So, here's a simple one line of code that would convert any Image of practically any widely used Format into a Thumbnail of a given size into many widely used Image Formats.

        System.Drawing.Image.FromFile _
             ("c:\MyPicture.png").GetThumbnailImage _
             (150, 150, Nothing, System.IntPtr.Zero).Save _
             ("C:\Thumbnail.gif", System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Gif)

OK, that's not one Physical Line, but it is one Logical Line, so that 1 Line Claim still holds:D OK, let's see what we're doing here... First up, we are using the FromFile static Method of the System.Drawing.Image class to load an Image from disk and return an Image Object, with which we immediately call GetThumbnailImage, with the width and height of the Thumbnail, along with a dubious Nothing [Null for C#ers] and a Zero Pointer. I donno why they are there, but the docs said that though they weren't used, they had to be there. Donno why. Poor Framework Design:P Anyway, the GetThumbnailImage call returns yet another Image object, on which we call the Save Method with the File Name and the Image Format of the Thumbnail file. Intristically, .NET supports 10 Image Formats. List of them found here BTW, I made the Code a bit Unreadable using line continuation, inorder for that 1 line Title:D Sorry about that. And, Where are the comments ?

CSC....

Well, CSC is one of those Computer shops that turn out masses of semi-programmers who strive hard to contribute much to the DailyWTF. Yes, there'll be a Gem hidden somewhere from there, but it mostly turns out the kind of people who write the code that comes up in the DailyWTF. So, why am I writing about them now ?

Well, last Tuesday, we had a game of Cricket, and after that, one of my friends, Bala, had fallen prey to hype, and thought that the only way he could survive his life is to learn Java. So, a CSC Scholarship exam was to be held on Wednesday, and he wanted about 6 of us to come with him for the exam, since we were atleast partially interested in that.

So, we went there. Pleasant place. But, something was a bit ominous though. No computers on the outside. But, lots of posters. And, point was, Posters with Spelling Mistakes. Like, this one:

Scholarships available on First come, First Served Basic

Well, not just that. There was another full colour, Professionaly done, A3 Poster proudly saying :

To Get a Job, you don't have to be an expert in Technology. You have to answer Question in Interview Properly to get Job.

Well, that blew it, and I'd know that an Institution with such a stupid marketing won't be fit. And, after I saw the PII Machines with 14" Microtek Monitors, I knew they weren't going to use Eclipse or IntelliJ or anything else modern, and are going to stick with stupid EDIT and the command line. So, I quit. I advised my friend to Quit, but he was convinced that the only way for him to survive is to learn Java.

Well, let's watch this Experiment unfold....

[Tech]When a Tradeoff doesn't pay....

Well, I was just browsing around, and came across this blog post comparing Java performance to C# Performance.Though the post looks a bit old, It got some really funny and unfair Results. And, ofcourse, some People have already pointed out that and several other mistakes in the program. And then, there was a really, uhm, fun conclusion, concluding that Java was 7.733x faster than C#! Hmm... And, he also got an Out of Memory Exception. Since this kinda thing hasn't happened to me before, I just sorta looked at the code, and surprise surprise, something leaped out at me : He was instantiating a Regex class to be used only once, inside a Loop that repeated 1000000 times. Well, that's not the problem, since the Java version is doing the same thing, and getting pretty acceptable results[atleast so I think]. But the real Problem was, he was using the RegexOptions.Compiled option to compile the Regex to MSIL at Runtime.So, Basically, he's involving Reflection, Dynamic Code Generation and tons of other stuff without intending to do so. And, the result, as expected, will be Pathetic. So, I just removed that, compiled, and got a Performance boost of 7.331.3x, so now the C# version takes 18 secs to Complete, while the Java Version takes 9 to complete. Moral of the Story : Don't use RegexOptions.Compiled if you're not going to use the same Regex object more than a 100 or even 1000 times. Though compiling decreases the matching time, It increases the object instantiation time considerably. So, don't blame C# if you're writing code like that. P.S. I tried to compile the Java Version given there, and I even went out of my way to hunt up my languages CD and install JDK. Yeah, but then, I compile it using javac, and tried to run the .class file using java. Yeah, but all I got was an Exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError : rbench

Sigh! So, can somebody who knows Java better than seeing 11th guys compile hello world apps using EDIT compile that code and tell me the results ? Thanks.... P.P.S: But, looks like I can't really blame that guy : He's a Java Guy, and maybe can write great Java apps, but not really good C# code. If you ask me to churn out some Java Code, I'd be just as[or more] crappy. P.P.P.S. : I just changed the Title again, because The RegexOptions.Compiled parameter tradesoff Initialization Time for faster Matching. In this case, the Tradeoff simply doesn't pay off...

Real Innovation...

Now, those PlusMinus People are really innovative. After that uff-up USB Disk, now they've got TV Remote Control beads named remobeads, so I can just engage on my channel-surfing in true Sanyasi style. And, they've got even customized versions, so it looks like I can put up Vijay TV, Sun Music and SS Music nearby, so I don't have to press often. Well, and looks like they've got some more cool stuff, so checking their site out.

An USB Drive that shows

Yeah. I mean, If you ask me what's the unit of size, I'd say that although the Byte is the Unit of Size, the practical units are Kilobyte, Megabyte and even Gigabyte sometime. And we forget about the humble old metre. So, plusminus, an unkown company from russia, remembered meters and Physical Size, so now, you've this Flashbag. So, if you have full 2 GB of Data full, it's inflated like a helium baloon, while deleting all the stuff inside puffs it down like a pinprick on the baloon. So, I don't have to plug my USB disk into a Computer just to see how much space I have left inside. Cool Idea, huh ?

WOW! I'm a Generous Leader!

Gee, I never knew that:D But PersonalDNA knows, it seems. So, it says I'm a Generous Leader. Maybe, quite right. The Description seems right. It also explains my frequent fights with my brother. And, since Blogger doesn't allow the Script Tag in Posts, find my DNA Map when you visit my blog on the sidebar.. Take your own PersonalDNA test here, and link to me with the results. I mean, this thing's quite accurate dude... And, the suggestions are quite helpful as well....

[Tech]Virtual Drives in Windows XP

Well, how often do you access a folder that's sooo deeply seated that the path goes over more than half the screen ? And, how often do you have to access it from the command line ? Pretty much often, if you've got the habit of Compiling from the Command line.

Enter the command in in Windows XP. It allows you to associate an unused Drive Letter with a File Path. So, Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005\v2.0.1.345 becomes simply Infact, it shows up even in Windows Explorer, and can be used just as any other drive. Now, here's how you do it.

Start Use the like this : o: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005\v2.0.1.345 This associates the drive letter with the path Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005\v2.0.1.345 So, Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005\v2.0.1.345\vbc.exe now becomes just Pretty neat, huh ? If you specify a Drive Letter already in use, you get an Invalid Parameter message.

Incase you want to de-associate the Drive Letter from the path, use the command with the parameter. So, to de-associate the Drive Letter o:, you just issue : /d o: So, the Drive o: just ceases to exist. Kinda Neat, huh ?

Find this useful ? Just leave a comment here...

Back from hell...

Why hell ? Because there's no internet connectivity in hell:D No, not even dialup. How do I know ? I've been there many times:D

Anyway, seems like Mom decided our house needs to be "washed"[what else do you call it ?] due to the Tamil New Year tomorrow. And so, it was the turn of the copper wire in our splitter to turn green and prevent internet access to me for a dreadful 6 hour period...

Anyway, I just don't know how the hell I was able to live before I got Internet connectivity. Anyway, just fixed some more bugs in Smilidon in that time. And, gave me some more time to have a look at my Apps to do list. Maybe, I might start yet another will-never-be-finished app again... Who knows...

Thanks and Keep the Comments coming...

The Pangs of working without Source Control.

Well, maybe I'm reading too much Eric Sink, but I'm feeling the pangs of working without any Source Control. Smilidon 0.0.1.2 was loading all plugins fine. Then, I tried to implement ondemand loading, and then everything started going wrong. Now, It won't even start off to the Prompt properly. Added to that, eSnips is too lousy and my Smilidon releases there are not exactly downloadable : They're all corrupted. Anyway, searched around and found the ZIP I created before the upload, and now working from that.

Well, any Idea what kinda Source Control I could use ? Client-Server solutions are out, since I don't think I can run a Server here. Anything else ?

This, is how a Program should be...

Well, watching Lollu Sabha on Vijay TV. Laughing my a** off. I mean, man, this is a program. A real watchable one. Not like that unwatchable one. The Chandramukhi edition is just plain awesome. Those guys behind that have got some real creative stuff. I mean, It was really great when Sandhanam was doing it, but then he left, and the quality went down a little, and now a new guy's come in, and things are going up in quality again. If you know Tamil, you should watch them...

[Tech]Finding Size of a HTTP Resource in 4 Lines of VB.NET Code..

Well, my First coding Tech Post. And, Here are the four lines of code that get you just the size of a HTTP Resource, without the content. A HTTP Resource is just any file which is available over HTTP.

Dim wr As Net.HTTPWebRequest = _
 Net.HTTPWebRequest.Create("http://yuvipanda.blogspot.com")
 wr.Method = "HEAD"
 Dim wresp As Net.HTTPWebResponse = wr.GetResponse
 MsgBox(wresp.ContentLength / 1024)
 

That's it! Running it would give you the size of my Blog Home Page in Kilobytes. Here's a rundown of each line of code:

Line 1: I create a HTTPWebRequest object that points to the http://yuvipanda.blogspot.com page.

Line 2: Most important line. HTTP methods instruct the HTTP server to perform certain actions on the specified Resource. For example, the most common method, GET, just retrieves the given Resource, while the HEAD methods retrieves only the Headers of the response. Headers contain important information about the content of the response being sent back, such as it's length, type, last modified date, etc.. Also, you can also access all the Headers through the Headers collection of the Headers property of Response.

Line 3: We just send the Request and get the Response for it.

Line 4: We get the ContentLength property of the Response object, which gives the Length of the Resource in Bytes. We divide by 1024 to convert it to Kilobytes. And, use msgbox to display it to the user!

So, It's simple as that! Learnt it from the HTTP 1.1 Specs, which are quite well written. Get them here. If a worthless 1 5 year old like me can understand them, you too can:D

P.S. I asked Aswin if he knew how to do it, and he gave me a roundabout way of opening a socket, sending a GET request and aborting the socket after you get the Content-Length header. Not the way a VB.NET developer does it:D I'm such a Weasel:D I'm so proud, I beat a great VB.NET Developer....

First Thing I should get...

Looks like the first thing I should get is a good pair of headphones : The moronity of TV Programs that Mom insists on watching is sky rocketing...

30 mins of pure Horror...

No, it's not some estatic and esoteric Horror Movie[I never watch Horror Movies]. It's the mind-dumbing-moronic-stupid-useless-dumb-stupid-and-whatever-words-you-could -think-of Program, no I can't call it a Program, maybe an exercise at inducing depression-frustration-schizoperania for people who actually have Brains. No, no points for guessing : It's that Thanga Vettai. Stupid Moronic Program. 30 Minutes of Pure mindless horror. And yet, Mom insists on watching it, so does my mom's sister, so does my cousin sister, so does every other girl I've known says it's fantastic. ndklgfasdklfnklasdnfklnasldknfklsndkfnasldkf. Soooooooo Frustrating.al;fjpsdjfkajsdokn dkfaklsdfi,g. dojpdfad. Moronic. Dumb. alsdfjasr.


Frustration people. If you have any womenfolks at home, if you're lucky enough, just make sure that they never watch it, even once. Well, the people who participate must have negative IQ Levels. And, those who applied and were weded out, well thank goodness I have to deal with only 2 of those kinda people at School. Their IQ levels must be Negative to such an extent that even System.Int64 can't accomodate them.


Frustration can do a lot of things to you, such as writing a blog-post just to show out your frustration and frustrate the people who read it:D


And, for the record, I saw a guy who answered that Zimbabwe's capital was South Africa, and Mom's still watching it[faints...]

Update : And, to add to that Frustration, I get some even more dumber and frustrating Ads in it. Looks like Television people have become Mindless Marketing Snobs[no generalization], much like our Politicians. What happened to those Ad agencies ? There are some good Ads there, but there are also some really really stupid ads that would want you to kick the brains out of the people who designed/approved/telecasted it

Update: Still me here. Not yet fainted. Just came across this thing is from SunTV. Now, see that, and you won't wonder why these people don't want Wiki's in there. If it were a Wiki, I'dve given people the true facts. They call it a family program, but obviously, Family doesn't count Men as Family. I mean, Dad calls it a Comedy Show, so does my brother. But, for Mom, it's quite serious. For me, it's pure hell... And, no, I'm not being anti-feminist or machoist here[because I donno what they mean:D]. Just wanted to put out my Frustration somewhere, and since Mom won't let me shout[She Doesn't want to be disturbed. Aargh!], and I can't find anything to break, all I could do is stop reading SQL Server Bible and post in my Blog.... Update 3: Yep, one more Update to this one: Here are some reviews. Most have same view as mine, and even more. Someone needs to sue those people for lowering the standards of Intelligence in our Country. I mean, those dumb people who go over there and actually get selected must be thinking they're some GK gods or something, right ?... Reviews on mouthshut.com: 1 2 3 4 5 Update 4: One more! Came across this Gem in Reddif Boards. Some Excerts:

Subject: I want to work with you I am nice looking man I am interested in working in movies of any job so please kindly reply me as soon as possible. Your's Lovingly Mukesh Agarwal.

Dear Sir / Madam,

ROTFL=)) And, most looked like Scanned Formal Letters, rather than Forum Posts. Most had full Address and 70% had Phone Numbers even! What do these people think ?[Do they even Think?]

To Do...

This is a Note-To-Self kinda post, telling me what I've gotta do....

• Write atleast 1 article for Code Project
• Learn French
• Consume lots of Wikipedia and Wikispecies
• Build atleast one, good Production Quality app.
  
• Practice to type/write with proper capitalization
• Learn Linux as a Server OS
• Learn PHP
• Learn Ruby
• Learn Python
• Learn MSIL
• Learn Java
• Write an Extension for Firefox
• Take more active part in CNUG and other Groups.
• Read lots, lots, lots of Books....
• Learn CSS/XHTML Fully, without Intellisense support
• Read more Blogs....
• Try Mono.
• Learn more Administration and IT Stuff.
  

That's all which come to my Mind right now. I'll post away as I go on these things... After all, I have two entire months at my disposal....

Thanks, and Keep the Comments coming....

Yippe! Over!

Ah! Free at last... Now, I can get to do some real learning and real work:D

Anyway, finished up Geography today. And, was a really adventurous day, to say the least....

First, Yesterday, I started studying at 10. I was through about 2 lessons of 13, and the next thing I knew was that the time was 6:45! I donno what happened, I must've fallen asleep sitting! How strange.... Well, not so strange considering that this is the first time I've been sleeping daily at 2 every day and getting up at 8....

Anyway, somehow I managed to pull through the rest of the 11 lessons within 9, and was at School at 9:10, without a Bath, with just a Brush and a bit of Food.[OK, but I bathe d after I came back from School:D].

Piece of Cake Paper, un-confirming my worst fears. Did well, though not as well as I'dve liked to since, I wasted time : One second earlier, the time was 10:40, and a second later, the time was 11:05 ! I'd swear that someone's discovered a Temporal device or something...

Anyway, that's all : And, I'm going to play the second Cricket match of my life[If all goes well] with my Buddies at School. I'll be leaving at 4, and I've got quite a lot of stuff to learn...

Thanks, and Keep the Comments coming....

6 out, 3 more to go...

Finished Science I[Physics/Chemistry] today. Physics had some shocks for us, since, questions that usually came for 3 marks were there for 5 marks.. Anyway, finished it all up, checked them twice, and handed them over... Once I came out, something hit me like an asteroid : I'd written that scum is a salt of Soap! How could I do that ? I donno how I did it. Sopas don't have salts, bummer! I mean, I'dve much sooner tried to compile ASP code with vbc.exe. I mean, I just donno how the hell on earth could I have committed such a horrendus horrible mistake. It's like saying 2+23 = 232. Soooo stupidd of me... Well, 6 exams out, 3 more to go. And, I've decided not to go for Barcamp this year because I don't have much time to prepare, and also, I don't think I'm good enough to actually speak to those people. I'll improve myself over the holidays, and then I can... But as of now, no, and I'm sorry for myself..:(

What do you say ?

Well, would you spend 800$ on an MP3 Player that's the size of a briefcase, has 4 TerraByte Storage, has a 7 inch LCD touch control panel, Plays all kind of Audio ever known, including even those old type Vinyl! All this in a really cool looking gadget that'd beat iPod down the drain! If so, have a look at this, iZilla from ThinkGeek. Well, I'd be amazed if it's not a April Fool's Joke. But, Apple wasn't..... Source : Kelly Morrison, Download.com Blogger. Thanks, and Keep the comments coming....

Well, today, I was just slogging around, thinking of how to keep calm during my exams, Shiva, our last year's 10th Public School Hero, who got State third, called up to ask how I was doing my exams and offerred some much needed advice on how not to panick during my Exams[Well, I lost some marks in English II because I Panicked:(]. Thanks Shiva! And, I got the Mail I sent to myself some, 3 or 4 months back, via FutureMe.org. I thought I would've finished all my exams by today then, but no such luck yet:D 5 more to go before I can get to do some real work done:D P.S. I'm back in Firefox after some time using Opera for some time because Firefox kept crashing even after reinstalling. Disabling some of my Extensions in safe mode removed the Problem, and I'm glad to be back in Firefox, mainly for the Performancing and Flashgot extensions. If only Opera supported plugins....... P.P.S : Flock sucks when you have more than 6 or 7 tabs open, consuming more memory than VS Express, and even keeps up CPU Cycles even while doing nothing. So, if you want to have a good, secure, fast Browser, go with Opera. But, if you want a feature rich, secure, fast Browser, go for Firefox [Yes, Firefox.com does exist...] with Performancing and Flashgot. And, yes I know Flock's just a Developer Preview now, not even a Beta, so I know I've to give Flock more time before comparing it to Opera and Firefox. Thanks, and Keep the Comments coming...