You are here: Home » Blog

Add Google Scribe to your WordPress blog

Published Sep 9, 2010 | In Plugin Releases

As you all know, Google recently released an interesting tool called Google Scribe, which offers suggestion as you type. You can enable it on any webpage by clicking a bookmarklet.

I wanted to add Google Scribe to the comment box in my blog and guess what; I created a WordPress Plugin to do that 😉

Features

The Plugin will activate Google Scribe on your WordPress blog post when the user clicks the comment textarea.

Screenshot

You can see it in action in my blog. All you have to do is to try to post a comment on any of my blog posts. Check out the below screenshot, If you are reading this post in a feed reader.

Google Scribe WordPress Plugin

Download

You can download the Plugin from the Plugin’s home page.

Feedback

As usual try out the Plugin and do let me know if you have any feedback, queries or comments.

Posted in Plugin Releases | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

WordPress Plugin to add Github ribbon

Published Sep 7, 2010 | In Plugin Releases

After releasing the latest version of RoloPress, we wanted to add Github ribbons to the RoloPress site, but I didn’t wanted to change the theme, which resulted in Github Ribbon WordPress Plugin. 🙂

Features

The following are some of the features of the Plugin

  • You can choose whether to show the ribbon on the right side or on the left side.
  • You can choose any one of the 6 different colours that are available.
  • Configuration can be set either globally or on a post by post basic.

Screenshot

You can see the Plugin in action in my blog. In case you are viewing this post in a feed reader, then this is how it looks on my blog.

github-ribbon-wordpress-plugin

This is how the configuration box looks in the Write page/post admin page

Github Ribbon WordPress Plugin

Download

You can download the Plugin from the Plugin’s home page.

Feedback

As usual try out the Plugin and do let me know if you have any feedback, queries or comments.

Posted in Plugin Releases | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

RoloPress 1.4 with drag-n-drop menu support

Published Sep 3, 2010 | In WordPress

Just released an update to RoloPress, a WordPress-based contact manager which is one of my pet projects.

The main enhancement that went into this release is that, we have changed the default menu with the super cool drag-n-drop menu which was introduced in WordPress 3.0. Try it out and you will surely like it.

In addition to this, there are also other enhancements and bug fixes which went into this release. You can read the full list in the official announcement page.

You can download the latest version from the homepage and if you are interested, you can check out the source code at github.

Try it out and if you have any feedback, please post it here or in the forums.

PS: While you are at it also checkout the excellent review of RoloPress by John Hawkins.

Posted in WordPress | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Smart ways to rule the streets ;)

Published Aug 26, 2010 | In Gadgets, Random/Personal

I have been pretty quiet on this blog for quite some time. It’s mainly because of my new addictions. First addiction is physical computing (more about it later). The other one is that, I have started roaming around the city with my new bike 🙂

New Bike

Ever since I moved to Bangalore, I was planning to get a new bike, instead of bringing my old bike from Chennai. As with anything I buy, I started my research and finally settled on two. Bajaj Pulsar 220 and Yamaha FZ-S. I test drive both and both were pretty good, but in the end Yamaha FZ-S won on the basics of exclusivity.

If you go to any parking lot, you can see hundreds of Pulsars, but only a few FZ-S and I liked my bike to be unique. 🙂

Yamaha FZ-S

Specs

You can check out the full specs of the bike from the manufactures site.

From my experiences so far

Pros

  • The bike is designed for being exclusive and to attract people – and it does it very well.
  • Complete digital display
  • Awesome road grip
  • Has an excellent self-starter. I have not faced any problem with it in the last 20+ days.

Cons

  • Mileage – If you want a bike which gives good mileage, then this bike is not for you. I am hardly getting around 35 Km/Litre of petrol. 🙁
  • Because of the shape of the tank, if you try to push the bike forward while sitting on it with your legs, you might hurt yourself.

Apart from it, I really like the bike and it has so far held up to its tagline – Smart way to rule the streets 🙂

Posted in Gadgets, Random/Personal | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

Updating HTC Hero (GSM) to Android 2.1

Published Jul 11, 2010 | In Android/Java, Gadgets

After waiting for more than a couple of months, HTC finally released the much waited Android 2.1 update for HTC Hero GSM Mobiles in India.

I waited for this update for long time and updated my mobile last week. Thought of sharing the process here so that it is useful for others.

Preparing for the update

The Android 2.1 update consists of two updates. First update prepares your phone and the second update is the actual OS update. Both are OTA (over the air) updates and so you don’t need to download anything to your computer.

When you connect to the internet (either through wifi or through gprs/edge) you will get a prompt which will ask you whether you want to download the upload. If you for some reason clicked later, there is a nice trick to get the prompt again. The trick is to change the data and you will get the prompt immediately.

The first update is around 5 MB. Once the update is done, your firmware build number would be updated. If you have the same build and kernel numbers like the screenshot below then your update has just went fine.

htc-hero-firmware-version

Actual update

As I said before, the first update will prepare your phone for the OS update. In addition to the preparation part, it will update your Youtube player and will also add a new update menu to your phone settings menu, through which you can download the second update.

You can access this menu item by going to Settings->About phone->System Software Updates

htc-hero-check-for-update

Click the check button and it will show the below prompt.

htc-hero-ota-firmware-update

Click Ok, to download the update.

htc-hero-ota-update

This update is around 80 MB. If you don’t have a decent GPRS/Edge plan, then it would good if you could update when you are connected through wifi. Otherwise your phone data bill might go over your roof.

Once you click okay, phone will download the update and will install it. Your phone might restart a couple of times and once everything is done, you HTC Hero mobile will be running the new shinny Android 2.1

Precautions

Since it is an update to the base OS, it is recommended that you follow these precautions

  • Even though the update will not erase your application and data, it is highly recommended that you backup your applications and data before proceeding
  • As I said before, the downloads are more than 80 MB in size and if you don’t have a decent GPRS/Edge connection, it is better to use wifi
  • It might take around an hour for the entire process to get over. So make sure that your phone’s battery is full.
  • Also disable the unlock patters when the update is going on, since the phone might need to restart a couple of times.

I am off to play with the new update in my HTC Hero mobile, meanwhile do let me know how your updating went. Happy updating 😉

Posted in Android/Java, Gadgets | Tagged , | 4 Comments

RoloPress 1.3

Published Jul 1, 2010 | In WordPress

Just released an update to RoloPress, a WordPress-based contact manager which is one of my pet projects.

The new release has compatibility fixes for WordPress 3.0, in addition to some bug fixes. If you are using WordPress 3.0, then it is a mandatory update.

You can download the latest version from the homepage and if you are interested, you can check out the source code at github.

Try it out and if you have any feedback, please post it here or in the forums.

Posted in WordPress | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Interacting with XMPP using PHP

Published Jun 27, 2010 | In Events/Conferences

Yesterday, I talked about using XMPP with PHP in the Bangalore PHP meetup.

I have uploaded the slides which I used for the talk to my Slideshare account. I have embedded it below for easy viewing.

Continue reading »

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

One year at Yahoo

Published Jun 27, 2010 | In Google/Yahoo, Random/Personal

On June 15th I completed one year at Yahoo and Bangalore.

I sat around to write about my life in the past one year and then I read about Derek’s experience.

Now, all you need to do is to replace *Sunnyvale* with *Bangalore, *Yahoo Hack Day 2008* with *Yahoo Hack Day 2009* and *Kansas City* with *Chennai* in this post and you will get my story 😉

Thanks to everyone at Yahoo for making this past one year as one of my best years and also for Derek for saving a couple of keystrokes for me. 🙂

Posted in Google/Yahoo, Random/Personal | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Excellent videos to get you started with CouchDB

Published Jun 17, 2010 | In Database Programming, JavaScript/jQuery

Okay, I got to admit. My latest crush is CouchDB. 🙂

I found lot of people referring to CouchDB when they were talking about node.js which made to find out more about CouchDB. I read a couple of articles and then came to know that O’Reilly was having a webcast (in fact two), in which Chris Anderson, one of the core committers of CouchDB explains about it. I thought of posting the videos here, so that even you could get hooked up to CouchDB 😉

Introduction to Apache CouchDB

This is part one of the webcast. In this webcast, Chris gives a technical overview. He also describes some of CouchDB’s existing users. This webcast also had a question and answer session where Chris answered user’s questions.

You can either view them as an Adobe Connect Pro archived recording or in youtube. I have embedded the youtube video below for quick viewing

Writing jQuery CouchApps

This is part two of the webcast. In this webcast, Chris shows how to hack JQuery CouchApps, which is a p2p web applications that can be deployed anywhere there’s a couch DB.

You can either view them as an Adobe Connect Pro archived recording or in youtube. I have embedded the youtube video below for quick viewing.

CouchDB to the edge (JSConf)

This is a talk which Chris Anderson and Jan Lehnardt gave in JSConf 2009 titled “CouchDB to the edge”. They give a nice introduction to CouchDB and also explain about how to write offline web apps that can synchronize the data once they are online.

You can view the video in blip.tv. I have embedded it below for easy viewing.

What’s new in CouchDB 0.11 and 1.0

This is an upcoming webcast (again by O’Reilly) which will happen on June 22, 2010.

In this webcast, Jan Lehnardt will be talking about the new features that will be coming up in the latest version of CouchDB like Views, Replication, Authentication, Virtual Hosts and the Rewriter etc.

You can register for the webcast at the webcast’s homepage.

I will also try to embed the video of this webcast once it is published till then happy couching 😉

Update

Videos from the latest O’Reilly are up now.

You can either view them as an Adobe Connect Pro archived recording or in youtube. I have embedded the youtube video below for quick viewing.

Posted in Database Programming, JavaScript/jQuery | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Using Memcache to improve PHP performance

Published May 30, 2010 | In Events/Conferences

Yesterday, I talked about using memcache in PHP in the Bangalore PHP meetup.

There were lot of good questions and the discussion which followed after the presentation was very good. Thanks for the organizers for putting together a great event.

I have uploaded the slides which I used for the talk to my slideshare account.

Continue reading »

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