Himanshu Garg blog

Weekend special

2012-02-13T22:48:00.003+05:30

It's been almost 1 month since I landed in Pune for my job at Infosys.
So I decided to do something special, but unfortunetely couldn't find anything that can amuse me. So my friend and I decided to explore the local nearby market of Pimpli Saudagar. But please don't laugh at the name :P

We walk for 10 min to reach there. Because of this ever lasting long walk, rats were playing wrestling in our stomach. So we first stop a joint Burger King, there we ordered 2 min noodles Maggi and by the way which took nearly 20 min to get cooked.
After a long wait, we got our Maggi but to no surprise it was pathetic keeping in mind that we ordered a Maggi in a Burger joint. But with no disappointment and full of optimism we move forward looking for another joint to eat.

After taking a few steps we found a shop selling the famous Momos(dumpling). So we ordered a plate of that. They served momos with 3 types of chatneys one spicy, one tomato and other green. To my amuse people there, were eating there dumplings with spoon like they were eating some sort of halwa. I look everywhere and found none that was like me eating with their hands instead of spoons.
In my opinion there are something when eaten with hands tastes better.

Then we move forward with our journey of eating and stumble upon a joint named Balaji. It was so crowed in there that we couldn't go inside to look for the menu.
But looking at the crowd it definetely felt a food paradise to me. So we just had kulfi from a vender in front of that joint and then we head back to our place.

It was a very nice experience for me exploring different options in a new city.
And I hope to do more next time.

Infosys Training

2012-02-11T23:32:00.004+05:30

It's been almost 5 months since I had started working for Infosys Limited, India's 2nd largest private IT firm. Out of these 5 months, 4 months I had undergone training at the famous Infosys Mysore campus, specially designed to train new recruits like me under different technologies.

4 months in Mysore campus is like a 4 month vacation with all the best possible facilities that you can imagine. But that's not the best part, the best part is, this whole training cum vacation is fully paid.

Ya, this means for using their world class infrastructure we got money as well.

Here is the pic of mind blowing GEC2 building of Mysore campus specially build for training purposes.

In my next blog I will share some more photos of Mysore campus and tell you little bit more about this place.

2009-02-04T20:23:00.005+05:30

You heard it right... Mozilla is coming to Delhi for a friendly unconference where people get together to share, learn and talk about anything and everything related to Mozilla Firefox.

It will be a great opportunity for all those fans of open source to meet the real people in person. Mozilla people coming to Delhi are -

Seth Bindernagel, Director Of Localization

Seth is Director of Mozilla’s localization efforts. He is a member of Mozilla’s Evangelism team and also helps the product marketing team with projects directed at open source community building and marketing. Before becoming Director of Localization, he launched the Community Giving and Empowerment programs at Mozilla.[From his Linked In Profile: http://linkedin.com/in/sethbindernagel] Official Blog - http://blog.mozilla.com/seth/

Arun Ranganathan, Standards Evangelist

As a Standards Evangelist at Mozilla, Arun works on Web API issues, ECMAScript issues, and general web platform issues. His vision revolves around the openness of the web platform and harnessing its true potential. [From his Linked In Profile: http://linkedin.com/in/arunranga] Website - http://arunranga.com

Come, Join and be a part of it. For more details visit Mozilla camp

My Sunday

2008-10-05T22:49:00.004+05:30

Sunday, a day with no college and nothing to do, sitting in front of LCD screen all time and annoying my parents.
While surfing, I discover a lot of unusual but amazing things and I want to share them with all you.

1. Here's a video i found on the youtube and couldn't stop laughing after seen it.

Being a student of IT field I really know how engineers think.

Animation Vs. Animator

2. Here's a game, which also considently a bit technical in itself but everyone can enjoy it and pass their Sundays playing it. Fantastic Contraption

3. Some funny pictures

4. And no Sunday can end with a joke - IBM employees

How many IBM employees does it take to screw in a light bulb?
10,000: one to hold up the light bulb, and 9,999 to turn the building around.

in.com is out for me

2008-10-05T19:09:00.004+05:30

Today it's been third time when I denied access to my in.com account. It says incorrect username or password and asks if i forgot the password. When it happened to me first time I thought I really forgot my password this time and clicked on the forgot password option. It asked me about my alternate email id and after some time my new password mailed to me to the mentioned id. I logged on to in.com using this password and immediately changed it acc. to my convenience. Now when I tried to login next time the story just repeated itself and I denied access. Again I logged in with their sent password and again changed the password to my convenience.
Well that's not the end of the story, today I denied access for the 3rd time in a row. But this time I am not opting for their forgot ur password scheme rather trying to access my account with my own choosen password. I cannot login like these more, it's frustrating and annoying. I mean what the use of password if one has to do like this.
If anybody has a similar experience please do tell and others can also post their reviews about in.com .

India introduces public smoking ban

2008-10-02T22:47:00.013+05:30

On Thursday, India issued a world’s biggest public smoking ban and this came on the birthday of India's independence leader, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who did not smoke or drink. The ban applies to all public places, including restaurants, bars, offices, airports and even bus stops.

India is the third largest market for cigarettes, with up to 120 million smokers and this would definitely forced them to stub their cigarettes. The ban carries a fine of 200 rupees and is expected to rise up in future to 1000 rupees.

Most Indians supports the ban on smoking in public places, according to results of a survey. Some 92 percent of the 1,030 people who answered the survey in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata, strongly favoured curbs on lighting up in public places.
But on the other hand India’s largest cigarette manufacturer ITC Ltd and Indian Hotels Association have moved the Delhi high court challenging the Union government's notification that bans smoking in "public places". They have argued that the notification makes no distinction between private space and public space.

The govt has issued the ban (second try in four years), but I think forgot to consider how they would watch 1.2 billion people 24x7. The real challenge for the govt has just started.

The local vendors are maintaining that the govt. should ban the manufactures instead of the ban as no cigarettes no smoking no deaths or even set up smoking zones first. I think if the law even managed to reduce some amount, this would make a lot of difference in the society.

SSS

2008-10-01T23:00:00.004+05:30

Thinking what the hell on earth that means !!! well don't bother your brain horses to much as I am going to tell you just that.
It's Sony's Smile Shutter tecnology, which I recently became aware of through Tv commercial. In India, this feature was first appeared in HDR-CX12 camcorder which was launched in August for about $900.

Smile shutter is built around the intriguing notion that the camera will automatically snap a picture the instant your main subject cracks a smile or grin without having to press the photo button. Now no need to wait for your subject to smile. But there is still a problem which this technology don't take care of is how to make your subject laugh. Well jokes apart.... this concept certainly faced a lot of problems and had received a cold response from the industry. The camera is more likely to detect a broad smile when your teeth are showing. Wonder how the camera tackles the babies smile with no teeths. Smile-detection accuracy also rises, if your subject narrows his or her eyes.
The one big drawback is that one can't take picture manually if the camera goes into this smile mode.

But whatever they say I think the concept is appealing and just needed to look in a more practical way.

Foodiebay

2008-09-29T20:41:00.003+05:30

It's feels great to be back on blogging again. Last seven days was been a hell to me with exams going on and nothing seemed to remain in my tiny brain for more than 1 hour. But I somehow managed to deal with them quite nicely and hoping this will reflect in my results too.

Now back to business, here is a food site which I found interesting and helpful.
Foodiebay is a food guide type of site created by some IIT-D students. It has around 1200(and still counting) listings of restaurants in and around Delhi and NCR. It has every details of the restaurants which every foodie wish for. From the nukkad wala dhaba to the swankiest restaurants they have everything. They also show rate list along with items which I liked the most. Now can plan a restaurant according to the budget ....online.

Poooool

2008-09-04T23:53:00.005+05:30

Recently I am experiencing deep carvation for the pool. So me along with my friends have been going twice or thrice in a week to a nearby pool center to satisfy our souls. Till now I had learnt how to hold the stick called cue, and surprisingly today I managed to won 1 out of 4 games. Now you can imagine how lame is my opponent is.
They say Cricket is a gentleman's game but I think pool is a more gentleman game. Pool is superb in this kind of hot and humid weather in which one has to think thrice before playing in open. But I still play cricket or football whenever I get opportunity.
And I am sure I will win 4 out of 4 and with some other opponent in near future.

Olympic Games Of India

2008-09-03T23:15:00.002+05:30

Olympics might be over but the spirit is still alive. I wonder how the Olympics look, if ever happened in India. And I got my answer in this video and wanted to share with you all.

I think the cow race is very challenging and fun side by side and should get a place in some games and the perfect place for it is in our India.

Google Chrome

2008-09-02T21:18:00.005+05:30

Today Google, owner of most powerful search engine on earth launched it's Web browser Crome, challenging the dominance over internet of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. They launched the beta version of Google Chrome in more than 100 countries. . They have released this beta for Windows, strange isn't it and working on the versions for Mac and Linux too.

Here is the first screenshot of the google's chrome.

I think the main advantage for Chrome must be that it has been made open source. But for me it just a web browser for now but might change my mind when combined with google O.S. in near future. I do not seen it yet cause i haven't been able to find a link to download it.

You can read the full story at Google Official blog.

Personalized tag suggestion for flickr

2008-09-01T23:03:00.003+05:30

This blog is an extension to my previous image tagging blog. While surfing on internet my eyes got jammed on this research paper "Personalized tag suggestion for flickr", and I found it informative along with interesting. The paper was published in 17th International World Wide Web Conference (Beijing, China April 21 - 25, 2008) by Nikhil Garg and Ingmar Weber.

Here is a sneak peak - When the user is entering/selecting new tags for a particular picture, the system suggests related tags to her, based on the tags that she or other people have used in the past along with (some of) the tags already entered.

All those who are aroused by the name image tagging must read this. Just go to the site and download the research paper.

2008-08-31T21:28:00.007+05:30

Today while searching for images using Yahoo's search, I noticed that most of the results found are from flickr. Flickr is a photo sharing site own by yahoo just like Picasa by google.

Here is a preview of the result when I searched for Jantar Mantar. (a monument situated in New Delhi, India) I am surprised to see that 15 out of 18 images on the first page are from flickr and only 3 are from other sites.

Then I decided to do it again, but this time I searched for Lotus Temple. And here is the result.

This time again 15 out of 18 are from flickr. I know yahoo owns this but that doesn't means that the world end there. I don't know whether this is b'coz of their too liking for flickr or inability to search elsewhere.
I am not saying that the results found were not good. They are good but better if there are variety to look from.

Reddit it !!

2008-08-30T22:37:00.007+05:30

Recently I got to know this site Reddit , found quite interesting and here I am sharing a piece with you.

Reddit is a kind of infomation sharing site. Reddit members share all kinds of news, article, blog, video, picture, jokes...from round the world. The whole idea is very simple. People post the links of the news they like and others rate it with their comments. The comments posted here are very precocious, civilized and not cheap like you see on the you tube. Honestly I liked the comments more than reading the news itself. And you can spent hours reading that.

What I also liked about this site is it's simplicity. All the features are arranged in an proper place, and quite easy to understand. You can also even subscribe to the kind of news you want. So when you have nothing to do, log on to this site and read some of the excellent comments of the earth.

Image Tagging

2008-08-26T18:59:00.002+05:30

For all those who are not familier with the term Image tagging, it is a mechanism of associating tags with the pictures, which help when we google images. Let us take an example.

It's a simple picture of a car. We can attach tags like "blue, blue car, future car" and like that to this image. Search engines also take into consideration these tags while searching. So higher the relevant tags, better is the result.

On August 31, 2006 Google launched the "Google Image Labeler". It's a type of game that requires the users to label the images shown to them.

Luis von Ahn of Carnegie Mellon University developed this kind of ESP Game (game that uses the computational power of humans to perform a task that computers cannot yet do).
The rules for the game is very simple.

* Google pairs you with a randomly selected online partner. Then you and your partner both shown with a same set of images.

* You come up with as many labels you can and your partner will do the same. When both of you come up with the same label you will be awarded points according to the specificness of the image.
Eg if there is a photo of blue car, the label "blue car" will fetch you more points than the label "car" or "blue".

* You will be given 2 min. of time and can also pass the image if nothing comes to your mind.

At the end you will be awarded with your points and can also see your partner's suggested tags for each image. Your score will keep on adding if you play with same id. Google also displays the top pairs for the day. There is no reward for them but a satisfaction of doing something better for image searching.

I spend around 10 min daily on this lovely concept. It's a good timepass and sometimes improve your thinking ability.

Delhi Metro ( दिल्ली मेट्रो )

2008-08-25T23:36:00.006+05:30

Today Metro has become an indispensable part of everybody life. Started on December 24, 2002 with only 6 stations, now has a total network length of 68 km, with 62 stations on 3 separate lines. People are reaching their destinations much quickly and easily. I myself enrolled in my college which is very far from my residence because of this only. It saves around 3 hours of my travelling time daily. Mr E. Sreedharan, the Managing Director of the Metro, was declared "Indian of the Year for 2007" by CNN-IBN news channel. And the govt. is keep extending his retirement because of his egregious work.

Now waiting for the rackety and timetableless buses and fatiguing journey is not part of my life. Thanks to Delhi Metro (DMRC) from lots of smiling faces.
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :):) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

You can enjoy the full Metro's photo gallery on their official site.

79% - not bad

2008-08-24T19:58:00.004+05:30

Finally the wait is over and today morning comes my 2nd semester result. Actually I was awoken by my friend's call and after that I was in no position to sleep again. And to add to my anxiousness the college site was not loading. Again after some time I got a call from my friend and this time the suspence was over. He broke the news to me and automatically I start jumping over my entire place.

Here is my result and I guess you should figure it out which one is it.

It's a big relief, after waiting for almost 3 months, but not for long coz my next exam is scheduled for semptember.
Earlier I thought it ruined my Sunday morning but actually made my day.

£165 to get stolen scooter back

2008-08-23T20:19:00.004+05:30

England - Today I came upon a jaw dropping news, said a teenager girl has to pay a sinewy amount of £165 to get her stolen scooter back.

Faye Bradley’s scooter was found abandoned about 200 yards from her home and was towed all the way to the other side of the city by the police. She was charged with £105, and guess what after being unable to afford the same she has had another £60 bill added to the amount – £12 a day for storage.

I wonder what was police thinking..... if thinking, when they was towing away the vehicle without even informing the girl. I pray this may never happen to somebody and specially students like me or her, who have to manage with their little pocket money.
I also hope she come up with the solution really soon.

Olympics - Day 14

2008-08-22T23:13:00.002+05:30

Today, when going through the olympics news I halted at the name Usian Bolt, and really got impressed with what he is done.
The world’s fastest man (that's what he's called nowadays) stashed away his third Olympic gold medal when he smashed the world record to win the men’s 4x100 metres relay final on Friday. He teamed up with Nesta Carter, Michael Frater and Asafa Powell and finish the race in 37.10 sec, 0.30 earlier than the Carl Lewis and his American teammates back in 1993. He is playing the role of Michael Phelps for Jamaica winning 3 golds.

“You can’t explain the feeling that you are feeling at the greatest Olympics ever…it’s won-der-ful,” Bolt told reporters.

Michael Phelps back at home, now it's him stealing the show. These Olympics surely witnessing greats of the greats.

India's Vijendra kumar had to settled with the bronze after he lost to Emilio Correa Bayeaux 5-8 in the semis. Although he do not win gold, but still makes every Indian proud by showing what he is made of. He held his nerves not letting his inexperience in Olympics come his way. Now India's medal tally goes to 3 which include one gold and two bronze.

Olympics - Day 13

2008-08-21T22:18:00.004+05:30

Tommorrow will be a important day for India as his new boxing hero Vijendra Kumar steps in the semifinal ring. He already booked his bronze spot, now only he has to change the color to silver and if he can manage to do that then gold is no longer ahead. Earlier he beat the Carlos Gongora in the quarterfinals to enter in the semis.
I hope he can manage to maintain the smile on the Indian faces brought earlier by the performances of Akhil kumar (bronze) and Abhinav Bindra (gold).

Now the Olympics almost reached his final stage, China holds the no 1 spot with 46 gold, trailing behind US with 29. But Overall in the medal tally US leads with 95 medals. I guess something to cheer about for Americans.

Olympics - Second for India

2008-08-20T18:43:00.004+05:30

Today, India won its second medal(bronze) in wrestling. This time it's Sushil Kumar who made his country proud. He beat Leonid Spiridonov of Kazakhstan in men’s 66kg freestyle wrestling event. Kumar became the first Indian to win a wrestling medal at the Olympics since 1952. It's a cheerful day for Indians after Akhil kumar fails to sweep a medal. Back in India different State Govts. and organizations have announced cash reward for his achievement. In a cricket crazy country like India Wrestling has never given its justified position in society, though has a lot of potential and skill. Now I hope situation may change and Govt starts to look, and also invests in this sport.

I congratulate him on behalf of billions of people of India. And hope he win gold next time.

Olympics - India eyes Gold

2008-08-19T22:47:00.003+05:30

Nothing is happening unusual after the departure of Michael Phelps. I quite used to his record breaking marathon every next day. He should participated in some more events and help USA to win the race against China. But nevertheless he done his job quite eventfully and made his country proud.

So as I am saying there is nothing special to tell, but there something that might cheers the Indians. India's new Boxing sensations Vijender Kumar and Jitender Kumar are still holding the India's hope for another medal, but sadly Akhil Kumar is out of the competition losing to a young, inexperienced Moldovan opponent. Both these players have their matches tommorrow morning. Let's hope they bring laurels for their country and help India to achieve it's first Boxing medal in Olympics.
There is also a setback for Indian fans, Anju Bobby George failed to qualify for her event.

It's seems that Olympics is between China and USA. Both fighting for the pride for highest gold getter. China is maintaining its lead with 43 gold, US is catching up with 26 and Great Britain with 16 golds.

Olympics - Day 9

2008-08-17T20:25:00.007+05:30

The day seems incomplete without the name of Michael Phelps. The 23 year old swimming legend won his 8th gold medal in the Men's 4 x 100m Medley Relay on Sunday morning. He made the word impossible i-m-possible. This is Phelps' 14th career Olympic gold, five more than any other athlete in Olympic history. He also surpassed the record set by Mark Spitz in Munich 1972 for the most gold medals won at a single Olympic Games. The US team of Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, Phelps and Jason Lezak finished in a world record time of 3:29.34. Today is the last day for swimming, and one can't ask for better finish.

“The first thing I’d like to do to my mum is just hug her", said Phelps. I am sure this day must be celebrated as the "Phelps Day" from now on.

The 22 year Spanish star Rafael Nadal won his first gold in the Olympics today afternoon. He is now certain to take world no.1 spot in WTA rankings. Today also ended the long 237 weeks dominance over tennis of Roger Federer. The second-seeded Spaniard claimed the top prize in the Olympics by defeating 12th-seeded Chilean Fernando Gonzalez, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3. Nadal has lost just once in his past 39 matches.
"Not in my best dreams can I have imagined this," Nadal said after being crowned the Olympic champion.

Williams sisters clinched the gold in Women's doubles beating Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain 6-2, 6-0.

Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland defeated Swedish veterans Simon Aspelin and Thomas Johansson 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 (4), 6-3 in the final to win the gold medal in the Men's Doubles at the Olympic Green Tennis Center on Saturday, August 16.
This must a little relief for Federer after crashing out of Singles. He has to enjoy the no. 2 spot from now on after Nadal's win, but let's see for how long.

My wishes to all the players who are winning and also who are not.
Till the 9th day, China dominance still pesists, leading with 35 gold. United States and Great Britain enjoy 2nd and 3rd positions with 19 and 11 golds respectively.

Independence Day

2008-08-15T22:47:00.005+05:30

First of all I wish all Indians Happy Independence Day.
15th Aug,1947 India got it's independence from long British rule. India changed and have come very far from then. Today this day celebrated as Independence Day all over the country like it had been since 61 years. In the morning I watched Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh addressing the nation from the New Delhi's Red Fort, telling about India's prosperity, problems and their solutions on TV. Later in the day I do nothing except lazing around. In the evening I went to my cousin's place to flew some kites. There's been a tradition in India to fly kites on this day. Initially there were not many kites in the sky, it felt we are the only one remembered the day. But it doesn't take a while to fill the entire sky with kites. We flew from our terraces ..... kites ofcourse. The atmosphere is just great kites in sky, music in sky and infact some rain also. But that rain doesn't kill our spirits. Around at the time of 7 we ran out of our kites, so we decided to call the day off.

This been a great evening for me and I am sure to all my fellow Indians.

Once again I wish Happy Independence Day
" Jai Hind" .

Olmpics - Day 7

2008-08-15T22:14:00.003+05:30

Indian boxer Akhil Kumar gave the country the best Independence Day gift by stunning world champion Sergey Vodapoyanov of Russia to enter in the quarterfinals of the men's 54 kg category at the Olympics on Day 7. The interesting thing is that after the fourth round, the boxers were locked 9-9, but the judges gave the bout to Akhil for landing more punches than the Russian. It seems India's Independence Day proved lucky for this Indian. This has generated some hope for India's next Olympic medal. Way to go Akhil ......

I should start calling him a Sailfish due to his recent activities. On Friday morning he won his sixth gold medal with his sixth world record, this time in the 200-meter individual medley. He is now only one gold away from levelling Mark Spitz’s record. I must say this guy knows how to swim and how to remain in the headlines. My best wishes for him for the two upcoming races.

On the day end China leading with 26 golds, trailing behind USA and germany with 14 and 8 gold respectively.

Olympics - Day 5,6

2008-08-14T23:28:00.004+05:30

Swimming sensation Michael Phelps bagged 2 more golds on Wednesday, bringing his gold count to five. He breaks the record for the highest number of gold medals won in Olympic history by an athlete. He's is running for 3 more, and if he does that, he breaks another world record. He advanced in the 100 butterfly preliminaries to stay on track to win his sixth gold medal.
He rested today, giving a golden opportunities to other swimmers to win something. The whole world's eyes will be on him when he will arrive in the water cube on Friday. Let's pray that this 23 year old remain unbeatable on Friday.

Thursday been a shocking day for tennis fans. Roger federer and Williams sisters crashed out of quarter finals, and opened the gates of success for others. Federer lost to American James Blake, a player he had beaten eight times in a row.“I’d lost to him eight, nine, 10, 50 times, I don’t know how many, but I had the feeling it could be my day today when Roger played a poor first game” blake said after victory.

Serena Williams became the second victim when she lost to Russian fifth seed Elena Dementieva 3-6 6-4 6-3. Then home favourite Li Na stole the show, out-hitting double Olympic champion Venus Williams in a sensational 7-5 7-5 victory.

Another twist in the tale, Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian throws down his bronze medal after his bid for gold was ended after a decision called as 'Politics' by Swedish coach.

Abrahamian took the bronze from around his neck during the medal ceremony, stepped from the podium and dropped it in the middle of the wrestling mat then walked off.
“I don’t care about this medal. I wanted gold,” he said. I think he shouldn't had done this. If had any issues with the decision, then he should have brought the matter properly and not like that. He should be happy that he even got a medal.

Well in the end, it's China again who is stealing the show with 22 golds, behind him is United States with 10 golds. It seems that it been a change in the 3rd place Germany outscored South Korea with 7 golds leaving Korea on 4th with 6 gold.

Olympics - Michael Phelps Day 4

2008-08-12T21:48:00.004+05:30

Tuesday can be called as the "Swimming Day" for USA.
The swimming sensation that is Michael Phelps steered through the 200 metres freestyle to win his third successive gold medal on Tuesday morning of the Beijing Olympics. He joined the elite group of Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis of nine career golds. His words after winning -- "That's great. I just wanted to be out on my own which I had done by the 100m mark, that was my goal,"
He has to play two more finals on Wednesday, let's hope for another miracle.

USA Natalie Coughlin won his second medal, this time gold in 100m backstroke, eliminating doubts of many. This is just the trailer from the entire Natalie's film. She has to go a long way from here.

The day also witnessed 3 victories for Williams sisters. They won their singles and doubles paired as a team. Serena beat Samantha Stosur of Australia 6-2, 6-0, and Venus beat Benesova 6-1, 6-4. In doubles the duo beat Iveta Benesova and Nicole Vaidisova of the Czech Republic 4-6, 7-5, 6-1. Both sisters are storming towards Saturday's singles final. The stakes are high for sisters to clash at the finals. It would be a another match to look forward to. But whoever wins medal goes to USA's never ending kitty.

Till the day end China is leading with 13 golds. USA, South korea trailing behind with 7 and 5 golds resp.

Olympics - Day 3

2008-08-11T20:27:00.007+05:30

The swimming record is at stakes, thanks to Michael Phelps. He come one step closer to break Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals in a single games by winning 2 golds today.“I just went out—I don’t want to say I cruised it—but I just swam it,” Phelps said. “I just wanted to get into the finals, and that’s all I did. It doesn’t matter until the finals.”

Today is also a very happy moment for India. Abhinav Bindra won the gold medal in the 10-meter air rifle, giving India its first medal of the Olympics. It's been 28 years since India had won the gold medal. I am sure it's just the beginning for India, and has to go a long way ahead.
There is also a sad news for India, Sania Mirza retired with a wrist injury against Czech Iveta Benesova in the first round of the Olympic tennis event. But she may still try and play doubles with Sunitha Rao.

On the days end, China is still leading with 9 golds, trailing behind South Korea with 4 and USA with 3 golds respectively.

Keep checking the blog for more updates...

Olympics - Day 2

2008-08-10T23:38:00.008+05:30

Today Beijing Olympic entered in its third day. As the time is passing , the excitement is getting bigger and bigger. China is still leading with 8 golds, it seems that US is pushed towards south by South korea. S Korea ranks 2nd with 3 golds and US ranks 3rd with 2.

I don't know what Chinese govt. prepare for their athlete's breakfast, but one things sure, whatever it is, its working for them.

As these countries fight with each other for the first place, India is still waiting for it's first gold or even a bronze might work. India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi has kept India's medal hopes by put asiding their differences. I hope they shine again this time and bring home something.
Keep checking for more updates ...

Czech shines :)

2008-08-09T23:11:00.014+05:30

Today, 09 Aug, is the first day of Beijing Olympics.
Czech Republic shooter Katerina Emmons had won the first gold medal of the Beijing Olympics by winning the 10metre air rifle competition. Czech shooter washed away China's dream of winning the first gold medal. Lioubov Galkina of Russia won the silver and Snjezana Pejcic of Croatia won the bronze.

On the first day, China is leading with 2 gold while US stands second with 1 gold.
India had not opened his account after some disappointing stuff from their eminent athletes. But mine hopes are still there for India and hope they show the world their talent.

Here are some of the pics from opening ceremony, hope you enjoy !!

2008-08-08T22:36:00.000+05:30

China blazed the world's stage on Friday, celebrating the first time role as Olympics host with a marvelous display of colorful performances on one hand and breath taking stunts on the other. The ceremony held in very very high security fearing the earlier controversies about the Tibet.

Around 91,000 people, along with US President George W. Bush attended the ceremony in the National stadium known as Bird's Nest(for its crisscross framework that includes 45,000 tons of steel). 10,500 athletes from 205 countries are expected to compete in 302 events in 28 sports, just one event more than was on the schedule of the 2004 games.

The event started with a stuning diaplay of fireworks followed by the song "Friends have come from afar, how happy we are", sang by 2,008 performers. Then there was the parade of athletes of 205 nations. Rathore was the Indian flag bearer, well applauded by Indian Congressmen Sonia Gandhi. Taiji performance, painting scroll performance, movable-type printing performance kept everybody on their toes.

First day was smoothly passed without any problems, now let's see what lie ahead in the upcoming days.

The Dark Knight

2008-08-07T22:42:00.001+05:30

Recently I saw the latest Batman movie Dark Knight and I must say the movie is worth to my Rs120 movie ticket.

Earlier I had a pretty bad impression about the movie. I thought it is just another superhero who likes to wear tight costumes and romances sexy ladies.
My friends literally drag me to the movie theatre and bet if I hadn’t like the movie they pay for me. I thought this a sure shot win-win. But fortunately I lost the bet and saved my friend's pocket money.

The Batman, I don’t know his name my apologies for that, was OK.
But I liked that Joker guy. I never saw this species of villain in my life.
I liked the dialogue of joker “ Why So Serious “ and loved the way he said it.

Honestly I enjoyed all the acting of his. But in the end they didn’t showed him dead, so eagerly waiting for him in the 3rd part.
Overall thumbs up to all the Batman team and 10 out of 10.

Mystery of .rm files

2008-06-19T21:16:00.000+05:30

I really have no words how to explain this but here how it goes.

When I played my .rm file in movie player, it said there is no necessary codecs to play this file and displayed a message like this.

So I just clicked on the search option and look what, I got 'another' message.

Then it played only the sound and not the video. Thought it is ok, feeling that a software can't support every file.
Then I checked on the net, and to be specific Ubuntu forum and came to know about Mplayer, they said it can play all rm files but required some codecs. So I followed what they said, I tried again to play my files and look what I got this time.

I again searched for support and this time got an answer “ install the real player “.

I can't believe Mplayer can't play the files eventhough suggested by many.
But at last, I installed real player and finally met with half-hearted success.

Today I feel like a beginner, which is infact true. I don't know whether it is a bad day or anything else. But one thing I am sure is that I am not going to this leave this battle in the middle.

Reset Root Password

2008-06-16T23:29:00.000+05:30

Forgetting password is not a new thing. People forget the password but they don't know how to recover it. They simply format their system and run away with it. Here I am telling you how to solve the problem if you ever face this situation. But this solution is for GRUB users only.

At the start of the booting, open the grub screen.
Press 'e' when the menu appears to edit the boot parameters.
Just select the kernel line for the kernel you want to boot. Go to the end of that line and type "single" as a separate word, then press ENTER to exit the edit mode.
Once back at the GRUB screen, press "b" to boot into single user mode.
This will make you the "root" user without asking for a password. Once the system has booted, you can change the root password using the password command. (passwd)

I hope this will serve as a ladder when you fall in this pit.

Terminal for Beginners

2008-06-15T22:30:00.000+05:30

When we listen to the word linux, the first thing that come to our mind is the terminal and the so called “not understandable commands”. Thinking of this only, we generally lose the interest and we remained devoid from the privileges of the operating system 'LINUX'. In this blog I have tried to break the myth about terminal and introduce to you to not so difficult commands of terminal.

The commands that are followed are very simple and you could do wonders with that.

For this I assume that LINUX is installed to your desktop or notebook and you know how to open the terminal. But if you still find it difficult, try this Application>>Accessories>>Terminal.

A window like this pops out and hey you guessed it right, it is the 'terminal'

// it displays the contents of folder which you are in

ls -l

// it displays the contents with their details

cd FOLDERNAME

// to move up one directory

cd ..

// to drop down to one directory

cd ~

// takes you to home directory

cd /

// takes you to the root directory

mkdir FOLDERNAME

// to make a folder

rmdir FOLDERNAME

// to remove a folder (but make sure the folder is empty)

touch FILENAME

// creates a file

gedit FILENAME

// creates a file and opens in gedit (text editor)

cp ORIGINALFILE NEWFILE

// copy the contents of the file

mv SOURCE DESTINATION

// to change the location of file

sudo

// to give normal user privilege to run a command as super user

apt-get

// to install,remove,update softwares

clear

// clears the terminal screen

pwd

// displays the full of directory you currently in

chmod

// change the permission on files that are in the subdirectories of directory you are currently in

reboot

// reboots the system

exit

// to exit from terminal

these are the basic commands and could be combined together to perform more efficiently. Hope this lesson removes some fear out of your mind.

What is Advanced SEO ?

2008-06-13T21:20:00.000+05:30

Search engine optimization is about providing good content, building links and social networking to the world wide internet users. What then is advanced search engine optimization?
If content and link building form the basis for search engine optimization, then what else is left to do? In fact there is so much more than can be done. Advanced search engine optimization concentrates on many of the following:

Good, clean code – make sure that your site’s code is error free. Any error in the code prevent search engines to move through webpage successfully.

Content matters – search engines read the pages, so make sure that you have good quality content. Also write your content keeping web searchers in mind. Think about the words someone uses to access your webpage and mention these words regularly in your content.

Link popularity – it is not only important that your site is good, but it is also matters how good are the sites that link to you. Hosting links to the sites that are not related to you(in terms of content) is a no-no. Also it is important that the linked sites should maintain quality content and they are not using any unethical methods to top in the ranking. Be careful while giving or hosting a link.

Advanced keyword research – this looks beyond the usual, expected keywords and deals with variations, spelling mistakes in the keywords. So be careful while your content and try not to deviate from your targeted keyword and also make sure that you have no spelling mistakes.

Analytics – analytics plays a very important role in advanced search engine optimization. Every aspect of the people visiting your site matters. This includes which page of your site they visited, how long they stayed, which page they arrived initially and left through and which words they used in getting to your website.

Page design – it means that every component or part of your page matters in the search engine ranking. From the top to the bottom everything like header, footer, tables contributes in ranking directly or indirectly.

Analyzing competitors – competitors in the rankings can be researched to find their weaknesses and use it to step ahead of them. This aims to copy exactly what they are doing by eliminating their weak poles and by doing in a better way.

Here is some of the aspects of the advanced SEO. Later in my blog I will try to bring out some other facts that will come in handy for a web developer. How you like it, please do write and let me know.

Yahoo, Google announce online ad alliance

2008-06-13T16:57:00.001+05:30

Yahoo announced on Thursday afternoon that it had turned down an offer from Microsoft to buy its search business and entered in a 10-year advertising deal with Google, thereby ending a high-stakes takeover drama that has stretched nearly more than four months.

The investors are less confident about the deal and immediately after the announcement yahoo stock prices fall to 10 percent. But this is only a one side of the coin. On the other side this deal gives a much awaited relief to the Microsoft’s investors, saying that the firm has saved from giving a amount of 44.6 billion dollars in stock and cash to yahoo. This move clearly reflected on the NASDAQ also rising the Microsoft shares by 5 percent.

The deal lets yahoo to run ads supplied by Google alongside Yahoo Internet search results and on other some of its web properties in the United States and Canada. Yahoo CEO Yang emphasized that the deal with Google was not exclusive. It means Yahoo still can display paid search ad lists from any third party apart from Yahoo, Google.

But the deal with Google also includes a penalty to the firm. It means Yahoo has to pay a hefty amount of 250 million dollar to Microsoft. Microsoft is definitely enraged by this deal and warned that a Yahoo-Google partnership raises anti-trust concerns because it would cover some 90 percent of online advertising.

Here are the exact comments of some of the renowned people of this field.

Barak Orbach, a law professor at the University of Arizona, said there are reasons to be concerned from an antitrust perspective. And if Yahoo becomes dependent on revenue from Google, he warned, "Google can kill you and why would Google be interested in keeping you alive?"

But Glen Manishin, a partner with Duane Morris, said he thought the deal would increase competition because advertisers would be able to get roughly the same service from Yahoo or Google.

Bert Foer, president of the American Antitrust Institute, said he would be concerned that any Yahoo-Google alliance could reduce the number of "independent platforms" in the advertising market.

Whatever these guys say about the deal but in my opinion the online ad industry definitely suffer from it. In every search whether it is Google or Yahoo, there will be same advertisers and public will be left with very less choices. And let me know how you feel about that through the comments box.

How to write and compile C++ programme in Linux

2008-06-12T23:57:00.000+05:30

This is a very common problem for the new users of linux. People know the coding in C++ but don’t know how to run in linux. I noticed, because of this only people lose the interest in linux. It’s simple and here is how it's done.

· First start the terminal. Application>Accessories>Terminal

· Write the command sudo apt-get install gedit and sudo apt-get install g++

gedit is a text editor in Linux like notepad in windows and g++ is the compiler like c++. These statements install the gedit and g++ if not present or upgrade if present.

· Make a folder which contains your executable file. Write

sudo mkdir test

cd test

sudo gedit dummy.cpp

mkdir test - creates a folder named test.

cd test – opens the test folder

gedit dummy.cpp – creates a file dummy in gedit

· With this command gedit opens. Write the c++ code and save it. File>Save

· Now in the terminal write sudo g++ dummy.cpp. It compiles your code

· ./a.out . This command executes the code and the result is displayed on the terminal itself.

I have tried to make it understandable by keeping it simple. If you still have any doubts please feel free to write.

Don'ts of SEO

2008-06-11T22:59:00.000+05:30

Hidden text

Hidden text are the text that you can’t see on the webpage. Web developers use the background of the page for this text. They use this as to increase the number of their primary keyword and also to mention a whole lot of secondary keywords.
By this they increase their chances of getting a higher rank without interfering with the actual content of their site.
Suppose a website has a white background and the text written in the background is also is in white color. The readers can’t see this text but the search engines can. This not only increases their chance of getting the higher rank but also getting banned by the search engines.

Alt image tag

Alt image tag is the text that appears when you move the cursor over the image. The purpose of using the text is same, to cram more and more keywords into the webpage without compromising on the reader’s content. The main purpose of this text come into play when the image is not loaded while browsing but only text appears and the readers can have a idea about the image from the text itself. Don't try to add more and more no. of keywords into this. This gives a bad impression to the readers and the search engines. So keep the alt image tag very sweet and very simple.

Title tag overloading

Title tag is the text that appears on the top left corner of the webpage. Mention your keyword only once and do not think that higher the amount of your keyword higher the rank. You just have to mention it once.

All these techniques is simply a waste of time and energy and try to ignore it. Infact don’t even do it.

MY FIRST DAY AT THE OFFICE

2008-06-10T22:36:00.002+05:30

Hi folks !!! Today had been a very special day to me, it’s my first day at my office. It feels great to be a part of such a large organization. Initially I was very nervous about the same and this can be predicted also for a 1^st year student like me. But after meeting my fellow co-workers and the staff I feel a lot relieved. My mentor Anuj Pathania is a great guy, he helped throughout my first day. But that doesn’t mean that we reserved the day only for knowing each other well or roaming around trying to get a feel of the office. It naturally comes when everyone is sincere about their work. Mentor gave us some simple yet effective tips at the start and made us aware of the future plans of our firm and how we have to proceed for the same. Finally the most awaiting moment came for me when he taken me to my desk and my personal desktop where I have to work. Nothing like this had ever come to my life where I felt that I really mean for someone so much. After, the whole day passed just like a flash. I don’t stick to my desktop all the time, I joked with my teammates at intervals also.

On the whole it’s been a great experience for me to actually work in an office and got to know the office culture well before my actual time. This definitely helps me in future in dealing with different possibilities in life. This day will definitely get a place in my most prestigious moments of life.

Alternate for Google Submission Form

2008-06-08T20:21:00.000+05:30

Here is another important technique which I found pretty helpful while starting a website. Generally people fill the submission form to get indexed in search engines. Here is a preview of google website submission form.

It can take around 4-6 weeks to get listed in google index after the submission of form.
And they charge a substantial amount also. I don’t know why people wait for so long to get indexed by giving money also.

This technique I am telling you does not require any filling of submission form.
We have a website for online ticket reservation. Now go to google search bar and enter a related keyword for the website which is online reservation. Now see the results found.

Before moving on there are some terms you need to understand.
Page Rank- It is the number of websites that link to your website. More the number of websites that link to you more is your page rank.

Look for the websites which has a page rank of 6 or more. Now look for the contact information of these sites. Once you found their contact address, contact them asking if they would like to link to your website in return for you linking back to theirs. If you can manage to get 1 website of higher rank you will automatically indexed by google. And this may take 3-4 days only.
I think it is better to wait for 3 days than 1 month for listing. I hope this information will help you in future prospects.

What is SEO ..??

2008-06-08T20:16:00.000+05:30

SEO is a simple, yet very competitive field. It requires a lot of patience and hard work. Results take a lot of time to appear, as a result of which people generally tend to get attracted towards short cuts.There is always a great perils associated with short cuts, when It comes to SEO. Most Internet traffic is currently brokered by search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. To do well in business on the Internet, you must also do well in the search engines.

A difference of about 1-5 thousand in the rank of a website can be easily done by using SEO.
But it should be made very clear that no matter if you are a champ in SEO but the content of your site is supreme.
Suppose, somehow you gain a rank within 10. But now you are in direct competition with 9 other sites which are leader in that field. B'coz your content is not upto the mark to compete with them, so people starts to ignore your site & ultimately your rank will automatically falls .
So work on your website a little bit first & then think of SEO....

The first basic step is to select a relevant keyword

For this let us now take a example.. Suppose we have a site that deals with online ticket reservation or basically a travel guide..

Select some relevant words as your keyword like travel,online reservation,eticket . Let us first search for the online reservation.

There are around 4,700,000 links found. Look you have that much amount of competitors to deal with.

Basic rule - Start with a keyword that is less targeted.

The first rank website is booking.com .

It uses its keyword at the very top left corner of the page. Remember search engine start reading a page from this position only, so the chance of higher rank is more. And in the content also it uses its keyword at regular intervals. But do not overdoze your content with it.
Apart from your primary keyword try to pay attention to your secondary keyword also. You can mention along with your primary keyword and side by side try to minimize the no. of words. You can do like this -
Travel|Reservation|ETickets

Now the question arises if keywords are so much of importance then -how to decide these words ..??

At the start never choose a keyword that put you in direct competition with the leading sites of that field.
Suppose our site deals with Indian railways tickets. Never choose a keyword like indian railways as that put you in competition with the official site of indian railways which is a hard nut to crack..

You can study the 1st rank websites for different related keywords that you shortlisted for your site. See how these sites exploited their keywords and try to extract some tips from there.

You can also decide your keyword according to no. of links a search engine finds for a keyword. For that purpose you can try this http://www.goodkeywords.com/
It gives to detailed study of every keyword.

But again I consider my duty to remind you that no matter how wisely you apply these tricks, but in the end it is the content that really matters and SEO can only assist the good content...