Recently, I have ended up giving bits of advice to people recruiting at start-ups, and a few patterns have emerged that are worth sharing. Before I go ahead, I should warn you that I have no qualifications whatsoever. (All consulting advice should come with this caveat, perhaps!) You might be better off reading Joel Spolsky’s Smart and Get Things Done (read). I haven’t read it myself, but from what little I see of it, the thoughts seem similar. ...
I wrote about SSH Tunneling through web filters using Amazon’s EC2 at 8 cents/hr. With Rackspacecloud, you can get that down to 1.5 cents/hr. This turns out to be a lot simpler than EC2 as well! Ingredients Rackspacecloud account (sign up for free – you won’t be charged until you use it) Putty (which may be available on your Intranet, if you’re lucky) Directions On the Rackspacecloud console, click on wordpress website hosting– Cloud Servers – Add Server and select Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala). Actually, you can pick any other instance. I’m going to talk through this using Ubuntu 9.10 as the example. Type any server name, pick a 256MB RAM instance, and click on Create Server. Once the server has started, you’ll get the screen below. Click on the Console to open a session. Your password would have been e-mailed to the account you registered with. Log in as root with that password. Now type the following: sed –i “s/^Port 22/Port 443/” /etc/ssh/sshd_config /etc/init.d/ssh restart ...
I just got a digital wattmeter. Had no idea about these until Google PowerMeter, but now, they’re all the rage. Mine’s a pretty simple model and all I plan to do with it is play around with a few household gadgets. My first target, obviously, was my Dell Latitude E5400. The statistics are interesting: Power … when… 0.3W Laptop is switched off. The adapter must be consuming the power 1.3W Laptop is on standby. 12W The lid is closed, and no applications are running. 18.5W The laptop is on, the lid is open, and no applications are running 25W The laptop is writing to the hard disk 34W One CPU is fully utilised 41W Both CPUs are fully utilised Looks like the display and hard disk each consume about 6.5 watts each, while the CPU consumes a whopping 15 + 7 = 22 watts. ...
Comments Laptop power usage | s-anand.net 7 Feb 2010 6:13 pm (pingback): […] lesson was that turning off the wireless had no effect whatsoever. (It worked quite well for my Blackberry, though. Increased the battery life quite a bit. I thought the same might apply for laptops, but […] Anil 16 Feb 2010 7:34 am: Can you see browse Hindi websites on Blackberry Bold 9700. Can you see Hindi/Devanagari fonts being rendered on Blackberry Bold 9700 (Blackberry OS 5.0). The old Blackberry Bold (Blackberry OS 4.6) does not render Hindi. pradip 2 Sep 2010 12:26 pm: I have also same problem do u have any idea how to read hindi on blackberry bold 9700 .which I am useing now. Pls reply Thanks Pradip
When I’m in front of my laptop, I usually forget the world around. Sadly, the world around has important things that need to get done on time. Like eating medicines, turning off the washing machine or the hob, etc. The one thing I’ve been lacking on my machine was a simple alarm system. I’d like to set an alarm to remind me to do something in 5 minutes, for example. And it should be dead simple to set up. ...
You can defeat most web filters by spending around 8 cents/hr 0 cents/hr on Amazon EC2. (It’s usually worth the money. It’s a fraction of the cost a phone call or a sandwich. And I usually end up wasting that money anyway on calling someone or eating my way out of the misery of corporate proxies.) Most web filters and proxies block all ports except the HTTP port (80) and the HTTPS port (443). But it’s used to carry encrypted traffic, and, as Mark explains: ...
The Dilbert search index now carries 15 years worth of Dilbert comics — over 5,500 strips typed out. This is mainly due to the contributions of BFMartin (over 6 years worth of strips) and Paul Dorman (over 3 years worth of strips), myself (over 3 years worth of strips) and a long tail of contributors. You can search the strips here. While you can find strips as far back as 1989, you won’t see the images earlier than 2002 because geek.nl (whose images I’m shamelessly hotlinking without permission) only holds images that far back. But once you know the date of the comic (say 1991-02-03), you can visit the Dilbert official site at dilbert.com/1991-02-03/ and see the strip. ...
I don’t have any copyright declaration on this website. The problem with that is: content is copyrighted by default. As Jeff Atwood indicates, this means that people with experience in such matters won’t copy the content because they have no legal right to use it. Let me clarify: I don’t care what you do with my content. Feel free. You don’t have to ask. You don’t have to attribute it to me. You can change it. You can misquote me. Whatever. ...
It’s been a good movie month for me, and I’ve managed to nudge closer to my target of watching the IMDb Top 250. But one tool I had in the past, that I sorely miss, is twofifty.org. It’s a now-defunct site that kept track of the IMDb Top 250, and let you strike off the movies that you had watched. You could see which movies you hadn’t seen, keep score, and discuss the movies. Since it’s demise, my movie watching slowed down as well. Earlier this month, I set up a similar site at 250.s-anand.net. It has the same basic function. You can log in, strike out movies that you’ve seen, and keep track of what’s left to see. For the more technically minded, the source-code is at two-fifty.googlecode.com. ...
Here’s the fastest way I’ve found to install Ubuntu on a USB flash drive, for my Dell Latitude D420. (Pendrivelinux.com is a great resource for this sort of thing.) Ingredients One large USB flash drive like this one. Not less than 4GB. I’d suggest 8GB or more One CD (not a DVD) Ubuntu 8.10 desktop CD ISO IMGBurn or any other CD burning software Direct Internet via LAN cable (without proxy, without wireless) Installation ...
This vacation, I took a session each for class XI and XII at my school, Vidya Mandir. The subject was Computer Science (the only one I can teach with some confidence), and the topic was networks. It was an experiment, in two parts. The first was to understand how students of this generation interact with the Internet. (I'm twice as old as them, so I guess they qualify as the next generation.) The second was to see whether I'd leave them far behind, or they'd leave me far behind. ...
I hadn’t jumped on to the Twitter bandwagon for a while. I’m not much of a conversationalist, nor am I a very sociable. I also tend to stay away from social networks. But I figured I would try Twitter out for a while, mostly because it’s an outlet for short comments. For long articles, I have my blog. For sharing links, I have Google Reader and del.icio.us. I don’t quite have anything for that occasional moment when I want to say, “Hey! A great way to shred mint leaves is to freeze them!” ...
It’s been three weeks since I initiated the effort to type in the Dilbert strips and the results are encouraging. About 2 years worth of strips have been typed out. So this Dilbert viewer now has a reasonably sized index for searching. Many thanks are in order here. The first is due to geek.nl, whose images I have taken the liberty of hotlinking. Thanks also to those who’ve taken the time out to type strips: ...
In the 1980s, we rarely used to buy audio cassettes. It was a lot cheaper to record songs from the radio. It’s amazing that in the 2000s, this technique seems to be less used than before. If you wanted to record a song that was streamed online, you could go through the complex procedures I’d mentioned earlier to download online songs, or you could use the 1980s technologies. Get a tape recorder, connect the headphones of your PC to the tape recorder’s microphone using a stereo cable, and record to your heart’s content. ...
Wouldn’t it be cool to be able to search through the Dilbert archives using text? This used to be possible at Dilbert.com some years ago, as a paid service. In late 2003, I needed to find some Dilbert strips for a client, so I’d subscribed for a year. I could then search for the quotes (I happened to be looking for “outsourcing”, so you can guess the context). But I can’t seem to find the feature any more, even as a paid service. The site looks a lot better, of course. But I can’t find strips. ...
Some gadgets I've bought / got over the last few years. SDHC Card Reader on 17 March 2009 16GB USB Flash Drive on 8 Jan 2009 16GB SD Card on 14 March 2009 USB MIDI cable on 30 Dec 2008 Creative Labs EP-630/A Earphones on 30 Dec 2008 Recta Micro Compass Accessory on 30 Dec 2008 Strand iPod Cassette adapter on 30 Dec 2008 Keysonic Compact Notebook Layout Wireless 2.4Ghz Radio Frequency Keyboard With Integrated Touch Pad on 6 Sep 2008 TomTom ONE v3 Great Britain on 31 Aug 2008 BlackBerry Curve 8320 on 10 Aug 2008 Acer Aspire 5715Z Notebook Laptop, Intel Pentium Dual Core T2330 1.6GHz, 15.4" TFT, 2GB RAM, 80GB Hard-drive, DVD±RW, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100, WiFi, Vista Home Premium on 29 Jul 2008 BlueNEXT BN-909 GPS Receiver SiRF Star III on 6 Jul 2008 TDK Recordable Blank 16x DVD+R Discs 25pack Cakebox on 6 Jul 2008 Sandisk MicroSDHC 4GB Card in 6 Jul 2008 HTC S620 (Excalibur) on 1 Jul 2008 Masterplug 4 Gang Switched Extension Lead 2m 13 Amp Fused on 31 Mar 2008 TRUST HU-4440P 4 PORT USB2 MINI HUB on 31 Mar 2008 Hama Compact USB 2.0 Hub 1:4 on 31 Mar 2008 Nintendo Wii Remote on 1 Mar 2008 Sandisk 2GB Secure Digital Card on 29 Feb 2008 Canon IXUS 70 Digital Camera - Silver (7.1MP, 3x Optical Zoom) 2.5" LCD on 29 Feb 2008 Verbatim DVD+R 25Pk 16x Spindle on 15 Feb 2008 Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive on 15 Feb 2008 LUPO DIGITAL TV DVB-T USB ADAPTER/DONGLE/STICK FREEVIEW RECEIVER & AERIAL FOR PC AND LAPTOP on 6 Jan 2008 Bontempi Keyboard - 61 Full Key GM, Midi, Stereo (AD177.12) on 4 Jan 2008 Mini-Headphone Splitter (Stereo) on 1 Jan 2008 Microsoft LifeCam VX-6000 on 26 Dec 2007 Kenwood FP580 Food Processor 2 Speed White on 26 Dec 2007 SanDisk Sansa m240 1Gb MP3 Player on 24 Jul 2007 Sennheiser CX300 Eco Ear Canal Headphones Black on 24 Jul 2007 Uniross AAA 1000mAh (4)Rechargeable Battery Ni-Mh on 24 Jul 2007 Logitech EX110 Wireless Desktop on 5 Mar 2007 Cordless Skype Phone Kit NON VISTA on 5 Mar 2007 LG 42PC1D 42" Plasma TV on 20 Jan 2007 Sony Ericsson Standard Travel Charger (UK) CST-13 on 12 Jan 2007 Uniross Sprint 1 Hour Battery Charger inc 4 x AA 2700 mAh Rechargeable Batteries - batteries upgraded from 2500 mAh on 11 Jan 2007 Fuji FinePix S5600 Zoom Digital Camera [5.0MP,10xOptical Zoom] on 17 Nov 2006 Fuji 1GB XD Type M Picture Card on 17 Nov 2006 DIGIHOME DVB915 FREEVIEW Digital Terrestrial Receiver with SCART Lead on 17 Nov 2006 Sony 80min/700MB Thermo printable CD-R spin 50pk on 28 Jul 2006 CyberHome DVD 401/0 Multi-region Capable DVD Player with DIVX on 28 Jul 2006 Rivision DVD+R 8x 4.7Gb 100 Cake Box on 15 Jun 2006 Dynamode 3.5" IDE Interface Disk Enclosure on 1 May 2006 SANDISK CRUZER MICRO 1GB on 3 Jan 2006 BenQ 16x External Dual Format, Double Layer DVD Writer - EW162I, Beige on 3 Jan 2006 Emtec DVD+R Cake Box 100pk on 3 Jan 2006 Panasonic NV-GS17B MiniDV Digital Camcorder [24x Optical, 2.5" LCD, DV out] on 9 Nov 2005 Comments Saurabh 14 Sep 2008 6:23 am: Small tip - If you are not a member of Amazon prime, then do check out their free trial..Cancel it just before expiry or better still, remove the tick for auto renew in your account! S Anand 15 Sep 2008 12:41 am: Is there any benefit other than free next day delivery? I usually end up ordering the free 2-4 day delivery, and end up collecting it from the post office during the weekend! So unless I’m ordering on a Friday or Saturday, next day delivery probably doesn’t help me much.
When I analysed my HTTP log last week, I had another motive: are there enough people accessing my site on a mobile device? Or is it too small at this stage for me to care about? Well, have a look at the numbers. Windows98.4% Mobile0.6% Linux0.5% OS X0.5% Yes, there are more people accessing my site through a mobile device than there are using Linux or OS X. That's shocking! ...
I went to the Google Chrome site. Clicking on the “Accept and Install” button… … automatically launched the downloader in Firefox… … and (after a fairly short while) started installing the application directly. This may be the most painless install I’ve done in a while. I clicked on “Customise the settings” This is what it looks like. And that’s it! It installs, and launches in just a few seconds. First impressions: the startup and rendering are really fast. ...
One out of every 5 hits to my site is from a bot. I spent a fair bit of time this weekend analysing my log file for last month (which runs to gigabytes, and I ended up learning a few things about file system optimisation, but more on that later). 80% of the hits were from regular browsers. 20% were from robots. Here's a sample of the user-agents: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Yahoo! Slurp; <a href="http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)">http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/slurp)</a> Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +<a href="http://www.google.com/bot.html)">http://www.google.com/bot.html)</a> Mediapartners-Google DotBot/1.0.1 (<a href="http://www.dotnetdotcom.org/#info">http://www.dotnetdotcom.org/#info</a>, [email protected]) Mozilla/5.0 (Twiceler-0.9 <a href="http://www.cuill.com/twiceler/robot.html)">http://www.cuill.com/twiceler/robot.html)</a> msnbot/1.1 (+<a href="http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)">http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm)</a> FeedBurner/1.0 (<a href="http://www.FeedBurner.com)">http://www.FeedBurner.com)</a> Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; attributor/1.13.2 +<a href="http://www.attributor.com)">http://www.attributor.com)</a> WebAlta Crawler/2.0 (<a href="http://www.webalta.net/ru/about_webmaster.html)">http://www.webalta.net/ru/about_webmaster.html)</a> (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; ru-RU) Yandex/1.01.001 (compatible; Win16; I) ... You get the idea. The bulk of these are search engines. Over two-thirds of the bot requests were from Yahoo Slurp. Now, this struck me as weird. If I take the top 3 search engines that are sending traffic my way, ...
If you look at the number of entries I’ve written every month since 2005, there has been a clear decline. While I was averaging almost an entry a day in 2005 and 2006, that dropped to 2-3 entries a month since mid-2007. This doesn’t bother me. I’ve been lucky to never have lost sight of the purpose of this website. This website is meant for me. Not for you, the reader. For me, the author. ...