Idle/Random/whatever Thoughts of a Demented/Idle/Whatever Mind

It was time again DCamp or Design Camp Bangalore.  Amit Pande, Sarit, Muthu , Anil Gupta among others worked hard to get this event going. I must tell you that I had an awesome time there. The presentations there were truly awesome. Let give a short summary of the things as they happened at the DCamp, though Vinodhn already has kind of everything on twitter . So heres how the event unfolded for me. I happily landed and Mekhri Circle expecting Aditi's office to be close by. So I begin walking from there towards Cauvery Circle. Cool I was looking for directions and I see someone looking at me from an auto. Oh ok I recognize this guy, hmmm....ok he is Gilberto from Thoughworks. Fine he is going to DCamp but is lost and does not know where is it happening. Ok fine I said, let walk to towards the Aditi Office and let so we walk. A few meters down the road, there is Muthu and Sudhindra at the gate of Aditi. So next thing we do is register and head for the terrace where the event was ha...

Well there has been a lot hoola hoo over the recent releases of Firefox and Opera. But here are certain things that still suck and would like them to be removed. 1. Better plugins and make them such that they dont hang that tab or window. 2. Download accelerator be integrated in the download manager of the browser itself. Hardly makes sense keeping them dumb. 3. Super fast start is not possible for various technical reasons but a preloader program would definitely be kind of must have. 4. Get more screen real estate to the page and make rest of the things like toolbar, menubar and optionally even status bar visible on a need basis like the playbar in video players in full screen mode. 5. Subscribing to an RSS feed to Google Reader or iGoogle is  a dumb two step process now. Google Reader or iGoogle be made two different options. 6. Tabs must have a 3D effect or something really cool. Switching like pages is so yesterday. 7. Make download dialog unobtrusive. Make it so...

Wow this was something I did not expect. But this surely did hit me hard the first time I got through it. It seems like I could access most Airtel Broadband users routers using simple telnet. Once I was connected, all that was required was username and password. Boy and I am in. I have access to the router now and I sure can do a lot of crazy stuff with it. Wait a minute, did I say you need username and password. How would I get the username and password. Well actually not very difficult. Is it. No one ever changes the username and password of their router. Actually no one expects anyone to be able to access the router without their knowledge. But the sad fact is, anyone on the internet can access their router. Most people do not even realize that their internet connection can be easily compromised. How? Well simple steps to follow 1. Press Window Key + R  to open the Run Command Dialog 2. Press cmd (Enter) 3. Enter 'telnet xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx' Where 'xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx...

I some time ago wrote about the amazing news stories covered by some Indian news channels . Now there is this amazing channel called IndiaTV, which will put any Indian to shame. An awesome story that it was running of late. I think a picture is worth a thousand words. So..            

Well as I had been following mobile phones. What I have found is that actually there are just two worthy competitors. Rest are just like that. One is iPhone and other is Openmoko. Well iPhone because it has the glory. It has the backing of Apple and support of Steve Jobs behind it. But there is none of that sort for Openmoko. But it has the guts. Its has probably what it takes to make a real revolution. Just making a phone with a bigger screen and touch sensitive does not make revolutions happen Mr Jobs. The best part of the Openmoko phone is that its open. And surprising its priced at $399 and in India its around Rs 20k. Not bad for the phone which has Assisted GPS, WiFi, touch screen, bluetooth, microSD Card support and powerful 500Mhz Processor. To top it all, a user replaceable battery.  Well the only blemish that I am able to spot is the internal memory. Its a mere 256 MB. Though I can carry all the data in my SDCard but then its not the most convenient way to do things. A...

I saw this amazing headlines from Economic Times, 70% Indians worry about outliving retirement funds . Well my first reaction was "Oh my God" . Most Indians would be unable to sustain themselves once they have retired. More likely they would kill themselves or die of hunger or may need government support. But then I read the fine print there. Well its a survey by MetLife. They sure do see a big market with 70% Indians not having retirement funds. But then another truth is that 50% Indians do not have funds for the next month too. Most of them survive on a daily basis. Mind it survive not live. Then again there is still a large majority who do not invest in retirement funds. Well that reminds me of people like my dad. He has no retirement funds. But then he does not need it either, just like my grand father. He did not need it. My dad is there after all to support him since he has retired long time back. Obviously same applies to my dad of course. The truth also is that yo...

Well that a provoking first line, but then thats exactly what I have to say about this company. Tata Elxsi should be blacklisted, but wait a minute by whom? Well the software developers fraternity. Its a blood sucking corporation which is right documented in the documentary The Corporation . Ok why am I telling this after almost one year of leaving it. Well when the fact is that I have nothing to do with it. I have already let out my personal experience here , here and here . Well it was not just me as its obvious from the comments but then it was general feeling of my friends there. Well all I can talk about is friends because I dont know how each and every employee of Tata Elxsi felt. Anyways heres one more story about the kind of harassment and employee of Tata Elxsi might have to suffer . Though I had read it earlier but am blogging now about solely because I wanted to confirm the news being true. And sadly it is true. An employee was indeed made to resign. And indeed its legally ...