Oh what a year this has been.

• Smooth elections for two world's biggest democracies (India & USA), Peace between India & Pakistan;
• Worsening of Iraq Situation, Rise of Oil Prices;

But the year has ended with a sad note - with the terrible South Asian Tsunami claiming thousands of lives.

If you wish to help for the Tsunami victims you may contribute to Tamil Nadu Chief Ministers Public Relief Fund or India Prime Minister Relief Fund.

Anyways, let us all join in welcoming 2005 with open arms - hoping that will bring peace and prosperity to all.

Happy New Year 2005.

Many times I was left scrambling to figure out, on what a particular DLL file does, its purpose or for god's sake why does it even exist?. It will be good if we can have a central database of all DLL files (atleast the popular one's).

And this is precisely what Microsoft's DLL Help Database does. It is a database of all DLL files released with various products of Microsoft. Give it a search like 'MSO9.DL' and it comes back with this result page. Very useful, especially when you are debugging a fault or a bug.

As a related site, there is this 3rd Party site , which has a collection of hundreds of DLL files that you can download. Useful when a file is missing and you are not able to find the original source (CD). Since the site is not recognized by any of the leading software vendors, apply care before use.

My years of waiting for a good Smartphone running Microsoft Windows OS is finally over. Till now MS Smartphones were lacking behind Nokia Phones in terms of ease of handling and convenience; they were mediocre port of Desktop Windows.

In the last two years, after trying many of the new phones launched in India by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, PocketPCs, I was more than convinced that as a Nokia user, it will be impossible for me to move to any other phone, other than a Nokia.  All this became thing of the past, with the launch of O2 XPhone II. Last week, I bought my own from Funan IT Mall, Singapore for SG$789 (INR 21300).

As you can see above the XPhone II is a black beauty. It is small, compact, weighs light and fits in your hand conveniently. It comes with a cute little belt holder that makes carrying the phone a breeze. The phone responds swiftly to all the commands thanks to TI's powerful OMAP730 single chip that powers it. The XPhoneII features Bluetooth, USB, Infrared, HTML/WAP browsing, MSN Messenger, Pocket Outlook, VGA Camera, Polyphonic Ringtones, Speakerphone, Conference, MMS, Windows Media and more...

What I personally like about the phone is the brilliant colour display, its excellent reception and voice quality (after all a phone should work the best for speaking and hearing, isn't it?)

Today I presented in Tamil Internet 2004 conference held at Singapore, on counting the number of letters/alphabets in an Unicode String. The problem is that if we use the string length functions included in major programming platforms we get only number of characters based on storage sizes. They don't understand the language and so don’t return letter (எழுத்து) count, instead they return only count based on character storage. You can read my earlier post for more on this.

To come up with a reusable solution to this problem, I presented today a paper in TI2004 with implementations in major programming platforms like Microsoft .NET, JavaScript and PERL.  My full paper (PDF) can be downloaded from here, the presentation (PPT) from here and the generic implementation with full source code for all the 3 platforms here (ZIP) .

Tamil Unicode has always been a issue of heavy discussion, today Badri Seshadri chaired the session well; gave oppurtunities to everyone to express their views without allowing the core focus to be lost or the time to exceed. Thanks Badri. If you want to read more about TI 2004, don't forget to visit Badri's Blog and the TI 2004 Photo Gallery.

இந்த வாரம் புதன் கிழமை நானும் நண்பன் இ.ரவியும், காரில் காஞ்சிபுரம் சென்றோம். சென்னையில் இருந்து காஞ்சி, சுமார் 75கி.மி., ஒன்றரை/இரண்டு மணி நேரமாகும். நாங்கள் காலை 9:30 மணிக்கு வீட்டைவிட்டு கிளம்பி, மதியம் 3:00 மணிக்கு திரும்பினோம். காஞ்சி செல்லும் சாலை, பிரதமரின் தங்க நாற்கர திட்டத்தின் கீழ் வருவதால், பல வழி (சில இடத்தில் ஆறு வழி, சில இடத்தில் எட்டு வழி) சாலையாக மாற்றும் பணி நடைப்பெறுகிறது. இதனால் பல இடங்களில் இடஞ்சல்கள் இருந்தும், வேலை முடிந்த சில இடங்களில் 100 கி.மி.க்கு மேல் செல்லமுடிகிறது. முழுப்பணி முடிந்தால் நாட்டிலுள்ள சிறந்த  சாலையாக இது வரலாம்.

திடிரென்று நாங்கள் காஞ்சிக்கு போன காரணம், இந்த வாரம் சக்தி விகடனில் காஞ்சி கைலாசநாதர் திருக்கோயிலின் சிறப்பைப் படித்து, கைலாசநாதரை தரிசனம் செய்யவே. திருக்கோயிலின் சிறப்பைப் படிக்க சக்தி விகடனின் இந்த வலைப்பக்கதிற்கு செல்லவும்.

காஞ்சி மடத்திலிருந்து 2 கி.மி.க்கு குறைவான தொலைவில் கோயிலுள்ளது (மடத்தையொட்டிய சாலையில் சென்று வலது திரும்பி நேர் செல்ல வேண்டும்). கோயில் மிக அழகாக இருக்கிறது, மிகச்சுத்தமாகவும் பரமரிக்கப்படுகிறது - நன்றி இந்திய அரசின் தொல்பொருள் துறை (ASI). கோயில் சுமார் 1600 ஆண்டுகள் பழமையானது. இன்றும் சில இடங்களில் அந்த பழைய வர்ணங்களை நாங்கள் பார்த்தோம் (கீழ் படம்).

நாங்கள் சென்ற சமயம் கோயிலில் வெளிநாட்டினர்களைத் தான் அதிகம் பார்க்க முடிந்தது (ஏன் நம் இந்தியர்கள் இங்கே வருவதில்லை?).  

கைலாசநாதரின் மூலச்சந்நிதி மற்றும் தினப்படி பூஜைக்கள், 1600  ஆண்டுகளாக ஒரே குடும்பத்தினர்களால் செய்யப்படுக்கிறதென்று எங்களுக்காக அர்ச்சனைச் செய்து, அழகான பிழையில்லாத பிரிட்டிஷ் ஆங்கிலத்தில் விளக்கிய கோயில் குருக்கள் சொன்னார் (1600 ஆண்டுகள், ஆச்சரியம் தானே?).

ஒரு விடுமுறை நாளில்,  சென்னையில் இருப்போர் சுற்றிவிட்டு வர காஞ்சி ஒரு அருமையான இடம். சென்றுவிட்டு வந்து, உங்கள் அனுபவத்தை கீழேயுள்ள கருத்து தொடுப்பில் எழுதவும். 

Internet Search can be Interesting and result in Unexpected findings.

AOL has announced beta of a new Netscape Browser version for beta testers. I actually tried to find news/download of this and searched “netscape beta”. Interestingly I came across this page instead.

It is of “Origin of a Browser”, a website by an individual web developer who has painstakingly worked on web archaeology. The site shows Screenshots of various Netscape Browsers (even before it was called Netscape), links to download old versions and other tit-bits on Netscape history.

A good nostalgic site to check out. Post your early experiences with web on the comments section below.

After the beta search, MSN has introduced beta MSN Spaces. Spaces is blogs on steriods. It supports Music List, Photo List, Customizable Themes, movable Modules and more.

I am yet to customize my space with any serious content, but anyways, check it MSN Spaces, it seems to be good fun.

Though not related, these are some useful URLs I came across recently

1. Information on when to “Using CLR Integration in SQL Server 2005” by SQL Server team in Microsoft

2. Roadmap on “Windows Forms and Avalon” by Avalon team in Microsoft

3. “TechNet Script Center” gives tons of ready to use Scripts that can automate several system administrators tasks in Windows, by Microsoft TechNet Team.

On Security

4. “Aaron Margosis' WebLog” that talks about running with least privilege on the desktop, by Aaron who works in Microsoft MCS 
A great resource to protect your Windows PC against attacks.

5. “Browsing the Web and Reading E-mail Safely as an Administrator” by Michael Howard from Microsoft Security Engineering

6. Links on “Microsoft Security Education” by Michael Howard from Microsoft Security Engineering

Most of the time I am in front of my Laptop with little physical exercise or relaxation, so I decided to try Yoga. That was 4 years back, when I first met Mr.Shyam. Since then I am learning/practising Yoga under the guidance of Shyam Master, who also trains many of my colleagues at Vishwak in the weekly twice programs we have in the office.

Yoga (if you do it regularly) certainly helps you to feel more enegetic and healthy.

This month Mr.Shyam's NewYogaLife had organized a 10-day 'Introduction course on Ayurveda and Yoga' for a batch of students from Singapore. Last Friday (26th) I was invited as one of Chief Guests for the Awards function where certificates where distributed to all the students who completed the course. I was joined on stage by well-known businessman Mr.Aboo Bucker A., Managing Director of Hotel President-Chennai and President Group.

That's where I received this beautiful metal horse as a gift from Mr.Shyam. I am happy to receive it for two reasons, one it was an honour to be getting a gift from my 'Master', second the “white horse” symbolises my family deity Lord Sri Lakshmi Hayagreeva.

The function also had other notable things. It was scheduled at 5PM and started exactly at 5PM (unlike many such programs in India). The guests on stage (Mr. Bucker, Mr.Raman, Mr.Shyam and myself) spoke briefly and to the point; The whole event got over at 5:25PM - short and sweet.

Last week, while searching on the Internet, I came across the site for “Minix”. Minix is a free Unix Clone, that Mr.Andrew S. Tanenbaum wrote in 1987, as an example to his accompanying Operating System book. Since then his book has become the “Bible” for anyone working OS/Kernel design and Minix has hence inspired several Unix clones to emerge, including now popular “Linux”.