July 2005

Mobile Google Maps with GPS.

I got on to a taxi at the station. As usual, I sat in the front. When the engine was turned on, it started making loud siren noises. “Oh, you have to put your seatbelts on, you see,” the driver said. So, I did. “It’s really annoying,” he continued. “You’d think it’d shout a few times and then shut up, but no, it just goes on and on.” “Well, good isn’t it,” I countered, “if it’s the law to have your seatbelts on if you’re sitting in the front?” ...

Screenshots of my website. From Browsershots.

RSS clustering is about doing what Gmail does on news sources, to RSS feeds of your choice. Comments Arun 28 Jul 2005 4:01 pm: How do you get to all these amazing links? S Anand 29 Jul 2005 6:01 am: Mainly using del.icio.us these days. Arun 29 Jul 2005 2:30 pm: Ah, okie… But there is so much crap there…You are darn good at filtering stuff then! :-) Arun 29 Jul 2005 2:36 pm: btw, dunno if it’s a bug, but there is a problem with the cursor in this text book. If I leave the page and return to the text box after i start typing, am not able to get the cursor to refocus on the text box. It just disappears. In firefox. RaM 29 Jul 2005 4:36 pm: Update the placement section also RaM 29 Jul 2005 4:44 pm: Your Placement Section is static. Pls Update it. Your search tactics are very good Dhar 30 Jul 2005 5:28 am: Arun, I too have had that problem with the cursor. Howie 30 Jul 2005 7:56 am: few links are dead in Placement section S Anand 31 Jul 2005 9:07 pm: Could you give me a step-by-step regarding the cursor problem? I couldn’t reproduce it. Dhar 2 Aug 2005 2:50 pm: http://digg.com/spy has an excellent collection of whacky/interesting links. And they use Ajax too. Another nice place to pick up good interesting posts.

Skype allows you to call toll-free numbers free. This, to me, completely removes the need to use a telephone line. With a cable internet connection and a calling card, you’re set.

The addressing system for Google Maps.

The Internet is shit.

Tagging is in full swing. del.icio.us, Furl, My Web 2.0, Spurl etc. tags URLs Yummy tags PDFs Rojo tags RSS feeds Tagcloud, 24 eyes, Feedmarker, etc. tag RSS posts Technorati tags blog posts Tagsurf tags discussions Job Bazaar tags job postings Gmail tags e-mails (but you can’t share tags) Connotea and CiteULike tag academic references Swik tags open-source projects Snippets tags source code 43 things tags things you want to do 43 places tags places you want to visit Diggs tags stories Library Thing tags books Reader 2 tags books Upcoming tags events Dinnerbuzz tags restaurants Flickr tags photos Tagzania tags locations Freesound tags sounds Podcast tags podcasts Upto 11 tags P2P music Music mobs and Genie Lab tag music You tube tags videos In fact, supr.c.ilio.us tags tagging sites! ...

Why’s Poignant Guide to Ruby

Amazon has a new feature called concordance that shows the frequently used words in a book like a tag list.

A list of 10 trends to keep an eye on over the next 10 years. Includes the Long tail, Ajax, PDAs, Tagging and RSS.

I listen to Podcasts on my 90-minute commute from work. Like Berkeley Groks Science Show for instance. Tamil comedies and dramas are another option I have. Sometimes, even movies.

I end up changing my office laptops every year or so, and hence reinstall lots of software. Here’s my inventory. I most certainly will install the following. ActivePerl. I still program. I know Perl. I love Perl. Acrobat Reader BitLord DivX player Dave’s quicksearch deskbar Microsoft Office 2003. Has some really good improvements over Office 2000. NoteTab Light. Multiple tabs notepad. But is there anything better? Nero Express Picasa 2 WinAmp (with Media Library import/export) WinRar WinZip I most likely will install the following, but not necessarily. Adobe Photoshop. Almost vital, but I can live with Microsoft Office Picture Manager. Goldwave. I often record interviews, or give commentary for home-made movies. Google Earth (with Fraps). To browse the world and make movies out of them. Google Toolbar Mozilla Firefox. For multi-tabbed browsing, mainly. Otherwise, IE is fine. MSN Messenger. Just for the interface. Somehow, it feels “smoother” than Yahoo. RealPlayer. Don’t listen to RealAudio that much. Still… UnixUtils. I use “grep” and “less” more often than “dir” VirtualDub. For the occasional movie editing that Microsoft Movie Maker can’t handle. WinHtTrack. To browse offline. Google Desktop Search. Helps remember my browsing history. ...

Laptop hacks. Includes extending battery life, cleaning the keyboard, and reading web pages offline.

Google Moon. At the highest magnification, the moon is made of cheese. At the lowest, the moon is rectangular. But it apparantly isn’t a prank. Comments jayant 21 Jul 2005 3:41 am: Interesting - Just drag the zoom to max and leave it there. The picture colour changes. Wonder why… Dhar 21 Jul 2005 8:16 am: The idea is to show that the moon is made of cheese… Kinda easter egg thingy.

Google Maps gets Edwin Soto out of a traffic violation. He was able to use his laptop and wi-fi connection at the court to show the judge that Cathedral Parkway, where he ran a red light, was a two-way street and not a one-way as the cop indicated.

It’s time to switch off and slow down.

I’m getting addicted to memory-lapse related / alternate reality-based movies, like: Total Recall, 12 Monkeys, The Bourne Identity, Memento, The Butterfly Effect, 50 First Dates, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Groundhog Day, The Matrix, Frequency, The Usual Suspects, and Donnie Darko. Twin Peaks too, I guess. But that was too extreme for me. Next on my list are: Being John Malkovich, Paycheck, Adaptation, The Cell, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Manchurian Candidate. Comments Dhar 20 Jul 2005 10:13 am: How about Mulholland Drive? I really dont know what category to put it into. Wierd Mind Fuck is certainly one possibility. In fact all David Lynch movies can come under this category. S Anand 20 Jul 2005 3:28 pm: Mulholland Drive, yes. What others, though? Dhar 21 Jul 2005 1:02 am: The other movies that you can try are Blue Velvet, The Elephant Man, Lost Highway, The Eraserhead etc. Dhar 21 Jul 2005 1:06 am: Of the Lynch movies mentioned, I have so far seen only Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet. The others are on the wishlist. :)

I went to Waterstones at Oxford Street to see the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. There was a party the previous night, with all the fanfare associated with a previous night. But things seemed fairly quiet when I was there. The usual crowd at Oxford Street, and the usual crowd at Waterstones. I already knew who dies in the sixth book. I couldn’t help spotting it as I was reading some blog. Since the suspense was already spoilt, I opened to the last few pages, and ended up learning who the Half-Blood Prince was. ...

I cross the prime meridien almost every day. I live 0 degrees 5 minutes east of the prime meridien. I travel to Liverpool Street usually, which is 0 degrees 5 minutes west of the prime meridien. The station closest to the meridien, on my route, is Stratford, which stretches from 7 seconds to 17 seconds west of the meridien. Of course, crossing the prime meridien has no time-zone related significance like the international date line. But it does mean that I travel to the western hemisphere and back every day. ...