Archive for February, 2007

at home and 1 year!

Magnet February 19th, 2007

* I was back home on Friday noon. I knew that lots of work is in TODO list in this short & sweet visit. Went to Office to fix some issues (webmail’s access and meeting people was main reason!).
* Paid two bills.
* Fixed FTBFS for LDTP. New version is also in incoming right now!
* And yes, Yesterday (18th) was my Marriage Anniversary! Thanks to K! I know that I should go to bed right now else I will miss my train today :)

Misc Tech Bits

nirav February 17th, 2007

Here are a few miscellaneous tech bits you may want to try out this weekend!

Yahoo! Pipes

Gina Trapani on Lifehacker says:

Yahoo! PipesAs a prolific netizen, you generate lots of web-based feeds: your Flickr photos, your del.icio.us bookmarks, your weblog posts and your Lifehacker comments, to name a few. Instead of going here, there and everywhere to see all the content you create on the web, combine it all into one master feed using with the newly-launched Yahoo! Pipes.

Vista’s Sideshow

Asus Laptop with SideshowImagine an LCD screen on the outer case of your laptop. Even when your computer is in the sleep mode, you can use this screen to quickly check up an email or find a phone number. Now think about doing this from a remote control. Or your phone. Now, stop imagining, since it’s real! Windows Vista has a Sideshow feature that allows you to do it, and Asus has built a laptop that uses it nicely! There are even things that support sideshow, including a remote control and laptop bag!

And by the way, you can download many other gadgets to run on this, or even create your own! Microsoft has taken the idea of Widgets a bit further pretty nicely this time!

Offline Zimbra with Firefox

Chris Double put up an example of using Zimbra (a web based email/calendar system with heavy AJAX use) offline. He says:

Zimbra is heavily ajax based and gives a good idea of how difficult or easy it is to convert an existing application to use the offline support. For this first cut I made Zimbra work when the browser is in offline mode and provide the ability to browse the email folders, and view messages while offline that are held in the Inbox and Drafts folders.

He used DOM Storage, Jar file protocol and Offline events to achieve the feat. He even has a nice screencast showing the stuff. This is quite neat, since occasionally connected model of computing is very much going to be mainstream in the next few years.

Apple TV - more than a media device, weapon of mass networking

nirav February 16th, 2007

Apple Stackable Trio

Read on Bob Cringely about what he thinks Apple’s plans may be with Apple TV - given the stackable designs of Apple TV, MacMini and the new Airport Extreme.

If Apple is planning what Bob thinks, we have a domination coming soon! I just love the way this company thinks ;-)

Designs and India

nirav February 14th, 2007

Just read on BusinessWeek about a new government policy on taking design as a national priority. The policy acknowledges the need to develop design skills in India, is planning to set up more National Institute of Designs. This whole thing is still at the policy level, but it’s a good step forward. Good design skills are really scarce in India. With Indian companies now catering global markets, it’s critical that we train ourselves into designing our products in a manner that’s delightful to all our customers.

Albert’s Design Master Class we had in Magnet a week ago was a superb training for design in software projects - he actually even discussed design in everyday life. That was one reason why the training was so interesting. I think we should train our knowledge workers about design, at the same time setting up institutes for more formal design education.

Two friends who come in mind when I think of great designers, are Pranav and Kaushal. I think we should get together and do something!

Brain teasers and puzzles

nirav February 13th, 2007

Braingle is a fabulous place to look for puzzles, brain teasers and trivia. There are also a lot of techniques on creativity, that I used when I did the creativity workshop in Magnet. It’s worth adding to your regular reading list - well they even have RSS feeds.

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