Category Archives: Events/Conferences

The events which I have attended or helped to organize. Like pipesCamp, WebCamp etc.

Using WordPress as a platform

Published Jan 30, 2010 | In Events/Conferences, WordPress

I just gave a talk in Bangalore PHP Meetup about ways in which we can use WordPress as a platform. The following is the slide I used and a little write up about the talk.

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Posted in Events/Conferences, WordPress | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

RoloPress – WordPress based contact manager

Published Nov 19, 2009 | In Events/Conferences, WordPress

I have been dropping hints about a secret project which I have been working on for quite some time and now it’s time to reveal it.

RoloPress

The secret project was RoloPress, a WordPress based, open source contact manager, which I was developing with my friend Steve Bruner. The main distinction of RoloPress is that it is an application build on top of WordPress and is not a separate application with is tied up with WordPress.

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Posted in Events/Conferences, WordPress | Tagged , , , | 17 Comments

Protect your phpMyAdmin folder, or …

Published Aug 12, 2009 | In Events/Conferences, Security

… you are asking for trouble. I learned this valuable lesson past weekend. You need to protect your phpMyAdmin folder from outside world or you are asking for trouble.

I went to a conference about security called Hackintosh, where we had a competitive event called ‘Capture the Flag’. The event was structured like a game and consisted of 10 different levels. At each level, you have to solve a problem by hacking into a sample application using some vulnerability. Each level had problems in increasing order of complexity and most of them were very interesting.

After about 4 levels, I found out that the phpMyAdmin folder of the server, in which the event site was hosted, was public. I logged into the database (it didn’t asked me for the password) and updated the level column corresponding to my username row to 10. That’s it, I conquered the flag. In the end, I ended up hacking the Hackintosh 😉

Jokes apart, the valuable lesson I learned from this event is that you should never leave the phpMyAdmin folder (if installed) open. You can do the following instead.

  • Totally get away with phpMyAdmin and connect to the database using port forwarding in PuTTY.
  • If you cannot get away with phpMyAdmin, then at least password protect the folder and database access.
  • If you cannot password protect the folder at least rename it. (Not recommended at all)

So do you still have your phpMyAdmin folder open? 🙂

Posted in Events/Conferences, Security | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Facebook Developer Contest – India

Published Jul 10, 2009 | In Events/Conferences

In its quest to get more Indians to use Facebook, they has announced the first ever developer contest, targeted for Indian programmers.

The contest is open only for Indian residents and you have to either develop a Facebook App or integrate Facebook connect to your site.

Dates

The contest runs from July 2, 2009 till September 11, 2009. You have to submit your entries before September 10, 2009 at the contest website.

Prizes

There are going to be cash prizes for top 3 entries in each category – Facebook Apps and Facebook Connect Integrations.

Rules

  • You have to be a resident of India
  • You should have completed 16 years

So, budding India Facebook developers, it’s time to roll your sleeves. Since I am busy with the WordPress Plugin Competition, I don’t think I will be able to compete, but let’s see. 🙂 Is any of you taking part in this contest?

Additional useful links

Posted in Events/Conferences | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Android Developer Challenge – ADC2

Published May 30, 2009 | In Android/Java, Events/Conferences

Mobile Application developers, get ready, Google has announced the second edition of Android Developer Challenge to award the best mobile apps build on the Android platform.

The first edition of Android Developer Challenge which took place last year had more than 1,700 entries. With the recent release of Android 1.5 Google is expecting more entries this time. This challenge was announced in the recent developer conference Google I/O along with other Google Wave and Google web Elements (more about them later 🙂 )

Rules

The following are some of the important rules to take part in the contest

  • Should be in English
  • Should run on Android 1.5
  • Open only for applications which are not published before.
  • Should be submitted to one of the following 10 specially-designated ADC 2 categories.

Categories

  • Education/Reference
  • Games: Casual/Puzzle
  • Games: Arcade/Action
  • Social Networking
  • Lifestyle
  • Productivity/Tools
  • Media
  • Entertainment
  • Travel
  • Misc

Prizes

For each of the 10 categories:

  • 1st prize: $100,000
  • 2nd prize: $50,000
  • 3rd prize: $25,000

Overall (across all categories)

  • 1st prize: $150,000 (meaning the overall winner will receive $250,000)
  • 2nd prize: $50,000 (meaning the 2nd prize winner will receive up to $150,000)
  • 3rd prize: $25,000 (meaning the 3rd prize winner will receive up to $125,000)

Timeline

The dates are not yet finalized but the submission will close somewhere in August and the results will be available by November.

Important Links

PS: (for Yuvi) Since you have lost your mobile, try to get a new one which supports Android so that you can take part in the contest. 🙂

Posted in Android/Java, Events/Conferences | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Yahoo Open Hack day 2009

Published Feb 5, 2009 | In Events/Conferences

The annual Yahoo Open Hack day is back and this year it is happening in Bangalore on Feb 14th and 15th (What a way to spend the Valentines weekend 😉 )openhack2009web

There are two different tracks, Info Geek and Hacker Gurus. Both are free, but you need to register at the official site. You also need to support your application with some information about you (like a link to your blog etc). Hurry up, only limited seats available.

I signed up for Hacker Guru and have got my application approved. I am waiting for the clear chit from my doctor (due to my recent weight loss 😉 ) and if I get it, I will be attending. 🙂

Where

The Taj Residency
Bangalore
India

When

14th and 15th Feb 2009

More information

Official website
Facebook Group
Twitter

Let me know if any of you are attending, we can meet and also probably collaboratively hack:)

Posted in Events/Conferences | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Celebrating Failures – FailCamp

Published Nov 1, 2008 | In Events/Conferences

The guys behind BarCamp Chennai, are putting together another event titled FailCamp.  If you are wondering what a FailCamp is, here is the quote from the official wiki.

FailCamp

We all make mistakes and learn from it to become a better person. Won’t it be great to learn from other’s mistakes so that we don’t make the same ones!

The focus is really not about the failure. It’s about why we failed and what lessons we learnt from it. Let’s not be ashamed about failing. Let’s celebrate failure. Let’s look straight into its eyes.

If it sounds interesting, head over to FailCamp wiki and register yourself. Here are the details about the event.

Date

November 16 2008 – Sunday

Place

Tenth Planet Technologies Pvt., Ltd.,

#807, P.T.Lee Building, 6th Floor, Anna Salai, (Opposite LIC building)

Chennai-600 002

Driving directions and parking information are available in the wiki. You can also find some pictures of the venue here.

Unconference

Failcamp is also an unconference like BarCamp and everyone will be participating rather than just attending. Even you can help in organizing the event. In the wiki, you can find the list of items that needs to be done and you can pick any one of them that interest you.

I will be attending the event and if possible will talk about the lessons which I learned from one of my pet project King Ping. 

Let me know if you are coming and we can meet up and celebrate failures.

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Links to BarCamp Chennai 2 presentations

Published Oct 22, 2008 | In Events/Conferences

Someone in the BarCamp Chennai group asked for links to photos and presentations, since he was not able to attend. I composed the links and sent an email to the group. I thought of posting it here, so that even people who are not subscribed to that group can benefit.

Photos

Photos tagged bcc2 in Flickr

Videos

Awesome video to explain what is Web 2.0

Presentations/Demos

AWS by Varun Balaji

Design of Programmer Spaces by Siddharta

OpenStreetMap

Twitter tweets

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=bcc2+OR+”barcamp+chennai”

Blogs

Barcamp Chennai 2 – Interesting By Aswin

BarCamp Chennai 2 By me

If I have missed any links, let me know and I will add them.

Posted in Events/Conferences | Tagged , | 2 Comments

BarCamp Chennai 2

Published Oct 21, 2008 | In Events/Conferences

As planned, I attended the second edition of BarCamp Chennai and it was very good. I missed the fun on the first day but made up for it on the second day. We had some very nice sessions and above all I really enjoyed the discussions which we had during the sessions.

Dream Moment

I experienced a dream-come-true moment when I shook hands with Kiruba. I have been following him in the cyber space for nearly 2-3 years, but it was only now, I got a chance to talk to him in the physical world. 

Sessions

There were lot of talks which took place on day two. Almost all of them were very interesting and lively.  I will try to brief on some of them which I attended and found interesting.

First was the session titled “Indian Education System Sucks” by Viru. The session was very interactive, partly because of the title and partly because of how Viru handled it. There were lot of points which were discussed and towards the end almost everyone agreed that there are some major flaws in the system. Once the problem was identified and accepted the discussion shifted towards finding out the possible solutions to make it better.

Next was the session titled “Global Financial Meltdown and IT Industry” by Sukumar, Ganesh, Raj and Syed. Out of all the other sessions this was very informative and I personally learned a lot out of it.  Sukumar gave an insight about the core reasons behind the meltdown and how it might affect India. The following are some of the quotes which I noted during that talk.

 

The world nearly came to an end in 2008

 

 

If you borrow 5 lakhs, you will be afraid of the bank, but if you borrow 500 cores, the bank will be afraid of you.

 

 

There is one more time bomb which is waiting. US has around 1.6 trillion dollars in credit card balance.

 

 

The western press is misleading. They talk only about ideology and not about common man.

 

Aswin anand has a nice write-up about the other sessions, so I am not going to repeat them here. Thanks Aswin, you saved a couple of key strokes for me. 🙂

Wifi

If you ask me, one thing which really sucked was wifi. It was very slow and most of the time it timed out. I was planning to do live tweeting during the event, but because of wifi and my laptop battery, I only managed a few.

Photos

I took a couple of photos during the event with my amazing Powershot S5 and you can view them in Flickr. You can also do a search in Flickr with the term bcc2 to get other photos.

Verdict

Overall, it was a very nice event, well planned and executed. Without any doubt I could say that it was a huge success. The credit goes to the organizers for taking extra effort to make the event a success. Thanks guys and eagerly waiting for BarCamp Chennai 3 🙂

Posted in Events/Conferences | Tagged , | 1 Comment

BarCamp Chennai 2nd Edition

Published Oct 17, 2008 | In Events/Conferences

The second edition of BarCamp Chennai will happen this weekend (Oct-17 and 18) at IIT Madras. 

BarCamp Chennai

The first edition which happened in April 2006 and was a great success and I hope it will the same this year too. It has already started to get some press coverage and you can find the article from Decaan Chronicle here, kudos to the organizing team.

I will be attending the sessions scheduled for the second day and let me know if you are coming and we can meet up.

More details about the BarCamp can you found at the official BarCamp Chennai Website.

Posted in Events/Conferences | Tagged , | 2 Comments