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An another nostalgic post.  "MicroIndians - The Complete Software Solutions" was the venture that we tried bravely and proudly during 2001. Let me  narrate the complete sequence of events: River Vaigai bisects my home town Paramakudi. I was associated with a training institute on the other side of the river Vaigai. The place is called Emaneswaram. There I got the intro of Mr.B (We used to call him Ji). Ji was (is) a textile designer. My home town is full of hand-looms. It was the bread and butter for my family too. Hand loom is a right mixture of science (engineering) and art.  Weaving sarees was the primary business there. In order to create designs in the Saree, we used to have  Jacquard machine and punched cards (the ancestors of present day computers). Converting the designs in to the form of punched card involves these steps: Graph generation of design Card Punch Marking.   The above steps are very tedious, laborious and time consuming. It would take its toll on the

Yet another invited talk at our department. This time around the speaker was Prof. Rajkumar Buyya  from University of Melbourne,  a well known name in the computer science community.  The topic was "Cloud Computing" . It all started on Friday evening. A nice little introduction with Prof. Then on saturday, the talk was on cluster computing - the funda of cloud / utility computing. Yes it is true that you can find loads of books / materials on internet regarding any topic. But listening from the real experts is a pleasure. The way Prof. Buyya handled the sessions was awesome. Not loaded with indigestible, over-the-head info but it was with lots of real life examples. Coated with the sense of humor, the technical concepts that he imparted in to the audience was really smooth like a song. Today's morning session was on cloud computing. With the background of no rains in Pondicherry during last week, it was a good downpour here as we were discussing about clouds in side the

If i make a blog post saying "today we conducted an exam" then most of you would laugh and think whats the big deal of conducting an exam in an university department.  But the change that we did here is that the exam was "on-line". This time around, we have conducted Part -A of the end-semester examinations online. This consisted of 20 questions in each subject and today's exam was of 100 questions.  The "experiment with truth" was conducted with the I year M.Sc students. Let me narrate the background story as well. Many weeks ago we decided that the Part -A of the end semester would be an online exam, as a step towards utilization of technology, reduction in the usage of paper there by following the green energy principles.  Kudos to the thoughts of Prof. RS. Every time I talk with him, the glimpses of IIT-D would emanate which I have found as a source of inspiration.  The hardware / software stack responsiblity was given to me by him i.e. I have

The systemic exposes that has happened recently both at national and global levels reveals the mind-set of people.  What is the Root Cause of these problems? You simply say "Greediness".. I guess it is not 100%, that alone. There is a fundamental attitude problem amongst the cross section of the society which believes that "Money can buy anything". They see in front of their eyes that what are all the different Laural that money can bring to them. It starts right at the schools / colleges. Gone are the days where attitude was measured with few un-flaw-able metrics and tools.  But the case with today is totally the reverse. You can easily influence people, more importantly people at respectable positions whose single decision can change the fate of a person, can be made addicted to this M word. The reflection of this issue doesn't restricts itself to the society but infiltrates into the families as well. The word of a person getting respected only bcoz  of the

I can't resist myself making this post after "watching" the Endhiran movie. At the outset I want to make this clear that I am a big fan of  Charismatic Rajni on and off the screen.  In my humble opinion: - The first constraint to appreciate this movie is that you should not have seen the I,Robot Movie. I am an hard-core fan of that movie. You can see that in my profile too. Few scenes  ( Courrier delivering Robo, Drawing robo and may more) in this movie are simply the copy-cat of the earlier one. I don't understand what has prevented the makers from innovative thinking.  - Talking about the special effects - animations : Ofcourse they are better. But they are only the tools for what you want to convey. Even these days superstitious mega-serials too use them. So by CG you can't claim huge advantage. - I feel a lot for writer Sujatha. Even he would not have appreciated this kind of a final product. I guess the director has missed the expertise of magnanimous wri

It was a busy Saturday evening.  I was there in a shop for a purchase with my family. The idea of paying the bill with the card was turned down becoz of some restrictions both on the shop as well as from the bank. It was almost half past 8. So they said the shop would be closed in a short while. So Me & Jena had to rush to a near by ATM(s). The Search of ATM itself can be the content of a separate post. But the theme of this post is not that.  We were moving very fast in  a busy road. Eureka!!! We found a working :) ATM. I was waiting outside. Suddenly noted that there were few people carrying a big wooden box. A close observation revealed that it was a box of crackers. The reason behind the crackers on this un-seasonal time is a marriage party which was going on in the near by hall (kalyana mandapam).  As i mentioned in the beginning it was a busy road. Within a minute or two they lighted the crackers exactly in the same busy road. It was not one single item. There were at-leas

Today (06- 09 - 2010) our university celebrated  teachers' day in an unique way.  They have selected the best 25 teachers of the university (marking the silver jubilee). The selection has been done on the basis of students' feedback based on 20 different metrics. I feel very happy to share this information that I was also in that list of distinguished teachers. The award was presented by His excellency Lieutenant. Governor of puducherry Dr. Iqbal Singh, today morning. (Me Receiving the award; In the image: Our Vice Chancellor Padmashri Prof. JAK Tareen, His excellency Dr.Iqbal Singh, Ltn. Governor Puducherry )      More than me getting the award I felt proud to score a place for computer science department in that list. It was indeed a great honour.  With this event I was happy for one more thing: I realized that there are many happy souls around me who really cherish my success.  In my parents face i saw that caring & affectionate joy; With my friendly colleagues

QC : Quality Control. Do we have a quality control mechanism for our life? Ask this question to yourself  and QC the answer. These days Quality has become a rare element. Quality is not something which can be incorporated in to the system suddenly. Its an habit. It is very easy for any of us to loose the quality aspect by looking at peoples activities around you. But we should not do this.  Quality is something which you follow even when no one is watching.  Let you be a student / teacher / software engineer  / or any professional in-general if you miss the quality component you have lost everything.  At the initial stages focussing on quantity may look like giving you the success but actually it is not.  Quality is an habit which need to be inculcated in to the young minds.  There is a famous quote by Mahathma Gandhiji : " It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity ". So please don't do any task simply for the sake o

A small story: Long ago, (Not so long ago) there was a Guruji who had few students. He used to take his classes under a tree. One day when he was taking class there was a Cat roaming around that area disturbing the concentration of students.  So the Guruji decided to tie that cat to a near by tree and gave it some milk to drink so that it would keep quite. The next day Guruji had to visit some other place. So he asked one of his senior students to handle that day's classes. As per the words of Guruji, that senior student was ready to take the class. But he seemed to be disturbed and worried. His friends asked him the reasons. And he replied: " I am ready to take the class. But what to do? The cat is missing. Our Guruji used to  tie the cat to that tree while he was taking the classes. So i also need to follow the same thing. But to my worry the Cat is Missing". Most of our modern day activities are like this only. We have forgotten the soul of the concepts and simply stic

No.. No.. This is not yet another philosophical post.  I was in need of opening large text files. Large in order of 2+ GB for a single text file.  Tried with notepad. Result : Need to press Ctrl + Alt + Del to rescue my comp With Notepad++, my favourite text editor, it was struggling to open it.  Tried with Wordpad, Office 2007 Word etc.. Not satisfied with the performance. Then found Large Text File Viewer. A freeware. Sized only  367 KB .  http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Large-Text-File-Viewer.shtml To my surprise it was opening the large files without even a single second delay. An awesome tool esp. for my current need.  The features of this tool are: · It uses little memory and is able to open a gigabyte file instantly. · Background file indexing makes browsing even faster. · It allows the user to perform high-speed complex text search by means of plain text or regular expression. The regular expression syntax is slightly diff

I found the result rendering of Google broken as the logo and next previous buttons going for a toss... Is it a bug? Really dont know... I am not able to reproduce the same. However, look at the following screenshot: Btw, It happened in Chrome 5.0 / Win XP SP3. Have you experienced any such things??? 

Event I On a lazy sunday morning, I was watching a Test match between India Vs SriLanka. Indian bowlers were getting smashed all across the ground.. Btw, cricket is not the theme of this post. Commentators Tony Craig and Arun lal were talking about the number of crows in and around the stadium, which was more interesting than the game itself. Arun Lal was admiring about the birds and was mentioning about the importance of crows in the Hindu mythology. Event II  In the afternoon, same day, i was at the doorstep of a clinic in pondicherry town. Many vehicles were passing by. Among that a Tata Sumo, suddenly stopped at the cross link between two roads near by. A door was opened and a fellow was vomitting. Thanks to the specialty of pondicherry. :) that has gone into him. The place was looking very disgusting. Without worrying about all these things the road was busy. I was thinking about who will clean this???? With in 5 mins or so, there landed our hero - The crow. Started cleaning i

" < minutes / > " : A new component in my regular "Internet Programming and Web Technologies" Lecture session. In each session 10 mins will be allocated to one student. He/she has to utilize that time to present a recent innovation/happening/event in the field of Web Technology. The idea is to enrich both the communication and technological updates of the students in a participative manner. Thought of recording it through digi cam. Need to execute in a professional way, the recording. An another decision that I have taken is to utilize the "Google Moderator" for publishing the class room queries and discussions. Have allocated one enthusiastic student for that purpose as coordinator. Well... Need to wait and watch how these things would shape-up. PS: The naming credit " < minutes / > " goes to Jayarathna Madharasan, an another enthusiastic student of IPWT class.

"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho was my companion for last week. As it has been accepted by people all across the globe, it is one of the most interesting & "must read" novel. It was gifted to me at-least six months back.. I never tried reading the book,  though the gift was from person with real care. Hmmm, after all its about "Maktub"... ( Try googling to find out the meaning of the Arabic word "maktub" if you are very eager or wait until the end of the post) For those who have not heard about this book, it is a story about a boy - his journey - his mindset - expectations - struggles - success - which we can easily relate with our own experiences. One of the most interesting feature about the book is the "messages" that author coveys through the characters. Really Nice. The below given are my favourite "messages" from the book: "Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives,

I have made a post each on these two books right at the moment I got interest on them. Now having completed reading both , I thought why not to register my thoughts on them again. Result is this post. Moondru Viral: This book is about the sequence of events that happens in the life of a Software Engineer (Sudarsan). Specifically about his experiences at on-site. One at Britan and another at Thailand.  At the outset, this book is written in a smoother language which every one can understand. Reminds the legendary writer Mr.Sujatha  at many places if not in each page at least once. Nothing wrong. I feel that no modern day writer (in tamil) can write without the influence of him. Moreover the story base is also technology oriented. Author's knowledge about both these countries and their culture is transparent.  "Kun" Ira Murugan has (those who have read the book can understand this) detailed many things about Thai culture, their behaviour etc., etc.,  One thing which cou

One of the shows of my interest in Vijay TV is Neeya Nana. Last week-end the debate was on "Modern age spiritual Gurus (MSG)". I love the way Mr. Gopinath pilots the show. No wonder this time too it was very good. An important question that was raised during the show was "Why do people need (or go for) spiritual gurus?". - Relief from routine tensions. - To avoid the feel of guiltiness - A mystery element in the life. - Branding - People who lack self-confidence. Well said. Even if you are a believer what is the thing that you would get from the MSG which you don't get in a temple (or church or masjith). They are just the translators of the things that have been given in Vedas, Upanishads (holy texts in general). It is always good to refer the original source if you need. We cant escape by simply saying "No Time; Not able to understand". Even if you can not refer complex scripts, the Ithihasas (Ramayana and Mahabharatha) are always there which are ea

These are my summer vacation days. These days I feel scared to tune in to any of the news channels. I mean it. If you closely look at the recent news : - Fake / Expired medicines - Expired food products - Unprecedented corruption at Medical CI. - Dantewada : 70+ CRPF man killed - Yet another attack in the surrounding place in a Bus killing 30+ - Mangalore plane crash - 150+ killed - Attack / Sabotage on Train in WB - Killing 80+ (as I am keying this) All of these have happened within a short period. And they have all happened in our own country. And we are experts at playing the blame game.  And the above list is only a very small sample of whats happening all across the globe. All the religions unanimously declare that, "God is Love" - "Anbe Sivam" . With my limited understanding I am not able to find any love in the above mentioned events.  Every one of them killed would have a family. He/She might run a business. On that many families might be dependent on.

Hmm... I have Windows XP & 7 in my home PC. (Of course Ubuntu is also there).. Of late my XP had almost experienced the near-death scenario.  As usual initially system was becoming slow.. slower... slowest... Then it reached the next stage i.e. whenever I connected to net the system got rebooted automatically... System became totally un-responsive...  Then decided to go for an efficient(!!) anti virus.. Almost decided a brand to buy which costed ~Rs. 1600 for a three users license. Just before the purchase landed on to "Avast" anti virus site. They say it is free for "home users"... As said in the first line itself  the problem was on my home pc.. so I am a home user... ha ha ... Downloaded & Installed "avast" free edition.. Made the complete scan of my machine... it has 320 GB hard disk. To my surprise it completed scanning within 45 mins or so (more than 2.5 lakhs files) ... I expected much higher than this... It was the first good impression

Well... May 2010.. We all agree the theory of evolution, still. And we do believe that we have six senses and therefore we are the most advanced form of creature. I would like to differ at this point.  A sudden thought, giving birth to this post.. (Would try to translate my mind-map in to English.. Lets see how much I would succeed) Note the title which is the compressed form of Plant + Planet. -> Pla(ne)t. As we all know the mother earth is shared by both plants and animals. (ya.. we, humans being the social animal!!!.. Joke of the millennium)..  Most of us looks at the plants like they are simpler systems than animals/ us. But if you think deeply, look at the power these plants have. They have the ability to "manufacture" their own food (recall your school botany class photosynthesis, chlorophyll etc.). What a magical power it is!!!! Though it has been taken for granted, think of a scenario if humans / animals also  get this power of synthesizing their own food. No