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I like Bruce Willis movies and I had been wanting to watch this movie but did it only today. The movie’s premise was very interesting, humans are living safe inside their houses and come out/do all their activities using a Robot which acts as their surrogates. Kind of like Avatar but this is all humans and in earth. So I had good expectation for this movie “Surrogates”.
It turns out the movie has wasted a great plot with poor imagination & execution, Bruce Willis is wasted too. First there is not much a suspense or rather it is not told correctly. Second lots of loopholes in the story, why should surrogates be doing sane things as humans & limited by Human capabilities – when they can jump as high as they want, why should they use a cell-phone to communicate, why use a computer monitor and mouse, why use the same cars as humans and the list goes on. The surrogates are supposed to be used worldwide including in China, Russia – how on earth will they let an American Private Corporation (VSI) control their lives, how the poor in the world who can’t even be reached to get safe water by their governments get a surrogate. How could all this have happened in just 14 years.
Overall, you can certainly live it through the movie.
For years whenever I wanted to do some screencasts or record what’s on the screen, I have been using Techsmith’s great Camtasia software or Windows Media Encoder. Today from a FaceBook wall post I learnt that the free & open source video player – VLC Media Player has this feature in every copy.
The steps to follow are just four, first is to select Convert/Save option from the Media Menu, then in the dialog box that appears select “Capture Device” tab, then select "Desktop” in the Capture Mode option, increase the frame rate (for smoother animation provided you have powerful graphic card) and then press “Convert/Save” button. That’s all.
With my office (Vishwak Solutions) being in Habibullah Road (T.Nagar) I was noticing a new restaurant that got opened few months back called “One MB”. Initially I didn’t the get the name at all, from a car the fonts were illegible and I thought it is some Tamilish name. Today in the evening I had a craving for a good snack and visited this place – One MB, a North Indian Chat restaurant. It is near Tirumalai Pillai Road/Habibullah Road Junction Opposite McRenett bakery. The place had a street/dhabha like appearance on the inside and was quite neat and in bright colours. I tried a Chinese Bhel and a Bhujia Sandwich both were nicely prepared, tasty and priced affordable. If you are in this side of the city, you can give it a try.
Doing a search I came to know the restaurant is owned by Tamil film actor Jeeva, best of luck to him & his team for the success of this restaurant.
After upgrading to iOS 5 in both my iPhone & iPad, one issue I have been struggling was with Photo Stream – the automatic sync service of photos across iOS devices & PC/Mac. The issue was how to get the sync done to Windows PC faster and how to delete photos in the stream. There is no feature available for editing or deleting the photos in the Photo stream. Then I saw this Apple support article that says how you can reset and get all the photos deleted in the stream.
The other day my mother showed me this article in 20.11.2011 issue of Kalki Tamil Magazine. The article talked about a former software engineer Mr.Venkatesan starting a business to sell Vegetables & Fruits through Web & Telephone ordering. His wife Mrs.Nirmala had given this idea for him when he was wondering what to do after he had a salary cut in his job at HP . Now the company they started Veggi Bazaar is doing several hundred transactions a day and they even deliver to employees working at large firms in their office lobby itself.
After reading about this, I ordered some vegetables (both cut and uncut) and some fruits yesterday through the web, the price seemed reasonable. They got delivered today in neatly packaged, sealed boxes for cut vegetables/fruits and they collected cash on delivery. The items were fresh and tasty, certified so by my mother herself!
My best wishes for great success for this entrepreneur couple.
After using DasBlog (.NET & Lucene.NET based Blog Engine) for over 7 years I decided to move to the most popular blogging software in the planet – WordPress. I like DasBlog for its simplicity – it was flat file based (just XML files for content and images stored in file system) so no Database configuration/maintenance, most of the common configurations are available from the Admin panel and more complex changes can be done by editing the ASP.NET source code, it supports AKISMET comment filtering, MetaWebBlog API for blogging from Windows Live Writer & above all just works out of the box. But in the recent months it was showing its age with no upgrade for nearly 3 years, comments pages were becoming slow to open, search was not powerful, no scalable tag cloud, categories can be managed once created and so on. So it was time I had to move and migrate data.
After Windows Live Spaces closed and migrated my blog backup which was in there to WordPress.com, I got familiar on customizing and using WordPress. In the recent years in my firm (Vishwak Solutions) our LAMP developers have been doing many WordPress projects for our clients so I had access to resources who knew about this well. All this made me comfortable to touch something that was working for 7 years, so I went with WordPress. After some searching I found these two blogs (Reeves, Vasanth) which gave step by step that has to be followed. Along with my PHP developer I followed the steps given there and it worked. Thanks to both of them.
WordPress opens up enormous choices and benefits just due to its huge community following & benefits of network effort. I love the power of the Plugins and the choices you get, you will find a plugin for anything you can imagine. The plugin for SEO Optimization, Sitemap.XML generation, Recaptcha, WordPress Stats (JetPack) are all gems. The sheer choice of plugins can also be confusing (just like App Store) as you have tens of choices for the same task and not sure which one to choose, but a bit of Bing! or Google will help you find the right one. The WordPress app for iOS makes it a breeze updating my blog from my iPad and its free!
After the migration we had to fix some rough edges around permissions, redirections & theme.
1.I wrote the following two redirections on top of what Reeves had recommended, which I have given below:
2. I had problems with all the URLs which had a Non-English (Tamil) text in them, I went to editorial console to change all of them to English text
3. WordPress gives more categorization options, including hierarchical categories and Tag clouds. I used those to reorder most of my 1000+ posts for better visibility and SEO benefits
4. I submitted the new SiteMap.XML to Google & Bing Webmaster site, then I am now monitoring the errors that are shown in Google Webmaster tools & Bing Webmaster tools and fixing those links (where possible doing regex redirections):
5. I had deleted the old ASPX/ASMX, XMLs and DLLs of DasBlog but retained the images in the same folder that were used by DasBlog & Windows Live Writer. This way all the image references (URIs) continues to work in WordPress. If I had tried to migrate them to WordPress then I suppose I would have had to write a custom program and do it, which I didn’t bother.
In the end all turned out well. For my blog of over 1000+ posts over 7 years it took less than 2 days of work. Performance is great & overall I am quite pleased with the move.
The other day I got an email from Microsoft Certified Learning reminding me to sign-in to the site. It has been over a decade since I last visited the site. When I logged-in I was pleasantly surprised to see they have data about my certifications done in 1996, 15 Years back. Now you know that I have programmed in Windows NT Server & VB 4.0 
என் பையன் இப்போதெல்லாம் சினிமா பார்க்கிறான், விஜய் படங்கள் பார்க்கப் பிடிக்கிறது, பள்ளியிலும் அதைப் பற்றிப் பேசுகிறார்கள் போல். இந்த வாரம் அவனை தீபாவளி வெளியீடான விஜய்யின் வேலாயுதம் படத்திற்கு அழைத்துச் சென்றேன்.
சத்தியம், ஐ-நாக்ஸில் சீட்டு இல்லாததால் விருகம்பாக்கத்தில் புதிதாக வந்துள்ள “சந்திரா மால்” ஃபேம் திரையரங்கிற்கு சென்றோம், இணையத்தில் பதிவு செய்திருந்தாலும் வரிசையில் நின்று டிக்கேட்டை மாற்றிக் கொண்டு தான் செல்ல வேண்டும். ஆற்காட் சாலையில் வழக்கத்திற்கும் அதிகமான நெரிசல், அதனால் பதினைந்து நிமிடம் தாமதமாகத்தான் செல்ல முடிந்தது. எனக்கு ஒரே எரிச்சல், தியேட்டரில் பார்த்தால் எனக்கு நீயுஸ் ரீலும், விளம்பரங்களும் தொடங்கி, வணக்கம் வரைப் பார்க்க வேண்டும். சந்திரா மாலில் ஒரேயிடத்தில் நான்கு கார்கள் (ஒன்றன் மேல் ஒன்றாக) நிறுத்த நவீன வசதி செய்துள்ளார்கள், அதனால் சுலபமாக காருக்கு இடம் கிடைத்தது. ஃபேம் திரையரங்கு நன்றாகவும், வசதியாகவும் (Screen 1) பெரிதாகவும் உள்ளது, இதை நான் எதிர்ப்பார்க்கவில்லை தான். இந்தப் பக்கம் இருக்கும் சென்னைவாசிகள் நவீன திரையரங்கிற்காக இனி மைலாப்பூர், அண்ணா சாலை செல்ல வேண்டாம் – இப்படியே பராமரிப்பார்கலாப் பார்க்கலாம்.
சரி படத்திற்கு வருவோம். காவலன் எனக்கு பிடித்திருந்தது, நல்ல காமெடி, அதனால் இதுவும் அப்படியிருக்கும் எனப் பார்த்தால் இது முழுக்க முழுக்க கமர்ஷியல் விஜய் படம். சந்தானம் தன் வேலையை இயல்பாக செய்து ரசிக்க வைக்கிறார் (மனுஷன் இன்னும் கொஞ்சம் அடக்கிவாசித்தால் அவருக்கு நல்லது) – கடைசியில் ஓட்டைப் பிரித்துக் குதிக்கும் இடம் நல்ல சிரிப்பு. ஆக்ஷனிற்கு விஜய்யும், கிளு கிளுப்பிற்கு ஹன்சிகாவும், இரண்டு குத்துப் பாட்டும் கிடைத்துவிட்டதால் இயக்குனர் ராஜா கதைக்கு ரொம்ப யோசிக்கவில்லை போல – விஜய்யின் முந்தைய சிவகாசியையும், விக்ரமின் கந்தசாமியையும், காஷ்மீர் திவரவாதிகளையும், ஒரு ரசாயன வெடிப்பையும், மகாநதி சீட்டு கம்பெனி போண்டியையும் சேர்த்து கலக்கி நல்ல சுத்தமான மசாலாப் பொடியைத்தூவி கதையை முடித்துவிட்டார். ஜெனிலியாவிற்கு படத்தில் அவ்வளவாக வேலையென்று ஒன்றுமில்லை, அவ்வப்பொது வந்துப் போகிறார். மொலச்சு மூணு இலையவிடலப் பாடல் தனியாகக் கேட்க அருமையாகயிருந்தாலும் படத்தில் வரும் காட்சிகளுக்கு ஒட்டவேயில்லை – வீண் செய்துவிட்டார் ராஜா; ஜில்லாக்ஸ் பாட்டு ஹன்சிகாவாலும், விஜய்யின் துள்ளலாலும் நம்மை கொஞ்சம் இருக்கையிலேயே ஆடவைக்ககிறது.
விஜய் பிடிக்கும் என்றால் பார்க்கலாம். மற்றப்படி சொல்ல எதுவுமில்லை.
During my school days in 1970s & 80s my family was living in Ranganathan Street in Chennai, you may be surprised to know that those days there were still some residences there. LIFCO, our publishing firm started by my grandfather in 1929 was having its shop in the Ground Floor and our house was in the first floor for many years. So I grew up in that street, getting to know many of shop keepers, the hawkers in the road & the problems of the street. Even then with all the problems the street had a charm and life unlike any other in Chennai.
I would go into known toy shops there, get in credit what I wanted and come home, only to get reprimanded by my mother and have it returned in next hour. Unable to have a residence in that busy commercial area, in early 1990s we sold and moved out of the street and my visits there have been rarer and rarer. Even though I grew up there, becoming an expert in navigating through that stream of people, over the years I avoid going there due to lack of parking & ever increasing crowd.
Today being a Sunday I decided to go there following the recent closure of about one-third of the shops there due to CMDA building construction guidelines violation. Though the violations have been there for ages, action has now been initiated thanks to public activist like “Traffic” Mr.Ramaswamy and a vigilant Madras High Court. In the past the shop keepers have bought time and escaped action all along by getting special ordinance/laws passed for their convenience and assisted by an indifferent Government machinery. It is hoped this time it will be different. I am not sure, but I hope something is done to ensure public safety and convenience considering this area is visited by thousands of people every day.
What was more appalling was the condition of the area especially on a rainy day like in this week. Seen from Mambalam Railway station stairs (see the picture below) you can get an idea on the poor sanitary conditions in the area, I pity the hawkers who have to earn their living in these conditions. About two decades Chennai Corporation changed the Bitumen surface of the roads in Ranganathan Street area to Concrete, that did help but change will not come unless the city-dwellers are educated on civic sense and realize the common goodness of keeping the surroundings clean.
In my weekly Yoga classes my Yoga master starts the class and ends the class with either of the following two Sanskrit Hymns.
asato ma satgamaya
tamaso ma jyotirgamaya
mrityorma amritam gamaya
(Brhadaranyaka Upanishad)
Meaning:
Lead me from the untruth/unreal (asat) to the truth/real (sat),
Lead me from darkness to light,
Lead me from death to immortality.
Om sahana vavatu sahana bhunattu
Saha viryam karawavahai
Tejasvinavaditamastu
Ma vidvishavahai
Om shanti shanti shanti
(Kato Upanishad)
Meaning:
Together may be be protected
Together may we be nourished
Together may we work with great energy
May our journey together be brilliant and effective
May there be no bad feelings between us
Peace, peace, peace
The first one is said to have come from Rig Veda and for a detailed explanation of it visit the page here. The reason I was reminded of this hymns was this column today in Economic Times by Devdutt Pattanaik (Chief Belief Officer of The Future Group) titled “Management mythos: Who according to Brahma takes credit for success of business?”. Devdutt writes “In the Rig Veda, the poet wonders what existed before everything else. And after much pondering he concludes, the first to exist, even before breath, is desire – kama. Without kama, there would no movement from formlessness (asat) to form (sat), from darkness (tamas) to light (jyoti), from hopelessness (mrityu) to hope (amrita). The entrepreneur is the seat of kama, without whom culture would not exist.”
Being an Entrepreneur myself I couldn’t agree more with what Devdutt on this.
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