One big advantage in having a unique name is that people can google and find you. Well, that’s what has happened now. One of my friends at school, (with whom I lost contact) found me after 7 long years through a Google search about Linux which let him to this blog post of mine. Thanks Google and Linux.
So I have found one more reason to blog, to help my old buddies find me through Google search 🙂
Posted in Google/Yahoo, Random/Personal Tagged Google, Linux 1 Comment
Windows XP gave me a crazy error message. My fingers automatically pressed the print screen button and here is the screenshot (Click on the thumbnail to open the full version) .
This message appeared after a brief period of inactivity and once I pressed ok my system back to action. 🙄
Well, I guess someone at Microsoft have forgotten to check a variable is null or not :). A simple Google search revealed that I am not the first one to get an error in an error message 🙂
Posted in Random/Personal Tagged Error, Fun, Windows/.NET, XP 4 Comments
If you are wondering why my site is lacking its original design then it’s because I am participating in the CSS Naked day 07 like last year.
Well, if you are going to ask me what is CSS Naked day then here is the extract from the official site.
The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good ‘ol play on words.
If even you want to participate then register your site in the official site and then strip the CSS from your site. If you are on WordPress then you can use this plugin.
Happy stripping 😉
Posted in Web Programming Tagged css, CSSNakedDay, WordPress 1 Comment
Well guys I need a recommendation from you.
I have been using WinSCP as my SFTP client for quite sometime and I am extremely happy about it. In particular I like the Keep Remote Directory up to date feature of WinSCP. But one problem with WinSCP is that it doesn’t support plain FTP.
So I started looking for a FTP program which supports plain FTP and has the Keep Remote Directory up to date feature. All my googling efforts became fruitless and I have decided to seek the help of thee. So recommend me some good alternatives for WinSCP.
Update (05 – May – 2007) : My plea was answered. Check out my updated article.
Posted in Web Programming Tagged ftp, winscp 8 Comments
Frequent readers of my blog would have noticed that I am not very active these days, especially for the past one month.
Many things have happened in the past one to two weeks which have made me to realize that nothing is permanent in this world and how powerless we are in controlling the things which happen around us. I have read the quote “The only thing that is constant in this world is change” so many times but it is only now that I have experienced and realized the exact meaning of this phase.
I don’t usually write about personal things which happen in my life so those who are close to me (in the physical world) would know what I am talking about. This past week (and the thing which happened) has changed the priorities in my life. The things which appeared to be of high priority have gone down the list and some have left the list all together. It is only when you pass through the phase of immense sadness; you realize the importance of life.
Well, what ever happened is happened and it’s time for me to realize that life has to go on. And I guess I am recovering and will be in a position to overcome it.
What ever happens, Life has to go on…
Posted in Random/Personal Tagged personal 14 Comments
I got this as an email forward from my friend the other day and I was not able to control my laugh for a couple of minutes. Hope even you enjoy it.
Long long ago, soo long ago, no one knows how long ago there was a classroom and the following is a dialogue between her and her students.
Ok so the stage is set and here it goes..
Teacher: What is 5 ^ 2? ( ^ stands for ‘raised to the power’ )
Windows said:
Linux: Huh! That’s too easy! Are you insulting me? Here’s the answer. Now ask more difficult ones.
Teacher: What is 123 ^ 123 ?
Windows said:
Teacher: Windows? What is this e+257 crap? Who asked you to express the result in an exponential form? I want the complete result, accurate up to the last unit’s place.
Windows: Sorry Madam! I don’t know how to calculate so accurately.
Teacher: Linux! Can you answer it the way I want?
Linux: Sure Ma’am! Have a look at my answer.
Teacher: Calculate 12345 ^ 12345 ?
Windows said:
Teacher: You are calling my question invalid? Ridiculous!! You should rather be saying, “Sorry! This is too much for me to calculate. I can’t do such huge computations.” Linux, I hope you won’t let me down.
Linux: Certainly not ma’am! You give me anything to do! I will always give you the answer and that too the way you want, correct up to the unit’s place. 🙂 Here’s my answer.
(The output was too big to capture in one screen shot! The output had to be redirected to a file. Then it was copied from there and pasted here. You can also get that file, if you want)
Ma’am the length of this result is seven hundred and forty lines (740 lines!!!) and I have calculated all the fifty thousand, five hundred ten digits (50510 digits!!!) accurately.
Teacher: Mind blowing Linux! Very well done! You’ll do great in your life. Windows, you might earn a lot of money in your life but you’ll never earn respect. You might find your way to every home and children might love to play games on you, but computer scientists and hackers would stay away from you. They would choose Linux instead. You’ll only manage to become an idiot-friendly operating system but never a useful operating system.
By the way, I tried to find out the original author but couldn’t find him. If you are the original author and if you have any license issue then do contact me.
Posted in Unix/Server Stuff Tagged Fun, Humor, Linux, Windows/.NET 16 Comments
Every now and then I used get a call from a new number in my mobile. When I pick it up the person on the other side of the line, usually greet me with my name and ask me whether I am interested in getting a credit card or personal loan. Only then I can realize that it is a telemarketing call from a bank. I usually say no and the person at the other end ends the call. But some guys get really creative and will start the conversation by saying that I have been chosen by there XXXX bank from a lucky draw (which I know about only now) and have been awarded a free credit card or a new account. Sometimes they even know my personal information like my full name, where I work, my full address, my mobile number, sometimes even my official desk number, my salary and sometimes even my age.
I usually stop them by saying that I am a student and don’t have a monthly salary and they will promptly say that the offer is only for a person who works and earns a decent salary. This can be an amusement if I am in a good mood or free at that time but can get really irritating if I am in a meeting with my clients or was in a very bad mood.
I do know that as per RBI regulation, every bank should have a mandatory ‘Do Not Disturb Me‘ page on their website. But I was too lazy to go to every bank’s site and find the page. But just now I found that Vadivel has done it and here are the links for the top banks. Thanks a ton Vadivel. At least now these banks will leave me alone.
Update (26-Feb-2007): Few more
Posted in Random/Personal Tagged Banks, Chennai, Telemarketing 9 Comments
Update: This blog post is outdated. Use TinyMCE Advanced WordPress Plugin instead.
Chris Kasten has found an Easter egg in WordPress 2.1 which enables many advanced buttons and options in your WYSIWYG editor. To get these advanced buttons you need to press alt-shift-v in Firefox or alt-v in IE. Pressing the same keys again hides it. Nice find right? But it will only work if you have enabled visual editor in your user profile.
After reading about it I was trying to find out whether it is possible to enable it by default. After some googling I found this thread in WordPress Support forum. To enable these advanced buttons by default, you need to fiddle with some files in the wp-includes folder. The tiny_mce_config.php file in the wp-includes\js\tinymce directory to be exact. You need to open the file directly and remove the ‘wp_adv_start‘ and ‘wp_adv_end‘ present on line 31. (Do this only if you are brave at heart 😉 ).
When I was testing the change I noticed that WordPress 2.1 also missed the ‘Edit HTML source’ button which was available in the previous versions. This made me to search the TinyMCE documentation and there I found that TinyMCE has lot of other formatting options too. And after some fiddling I have picked up all those buttons which I may use.
This is how my editor looks now. If you want all these options start editing your tiny_mce_config.php file or just grab my file and put it in the wp-includes\js\tinymce directory. (Be warned I am not responsible if something breaks 😉 and don’t forget to backup your original file). Also remember that next time you update your WordPress installation this file could be over written.
The new buttons which I like are
There are still some more buttons and options available and if you want to use them, then have a look at TinyMCE manual and change your config file accordingly. Meanwhile I will try to find out whether it is possible to have a WordPress plugin do it so that you don’t need to edit your file manually and till then happy hacking 😉
Posted in WordPress Tagged Editor, TinyMCE, WordPress, WYSIWYG 11 Comments
I found a strange behavior in my blog after my recent upgrade to WordPress 2.1. Every time some one posts a comment the technorati tags for that particular posts were disappearing. After some debugging I found that it was caused by a plugin which I was using and not by WordPress itself.
And a little bit of searching let me to a thread in WordPress support forum, where some other people also were facing the same problem. With a little more digging I found an excellent explanation by Mark, where he describes the exact problem and also the solution. I am not going to explain the problem here because, Mark has already explained it in a very simple and precise manner and I don’t think I can do anything better.
The plugin which I was using to store my technorati tags was Bunny’s Technorati tags (to which I migrated some time back from Simple tags). I incorporated Mark’s fix and re-deployed the plugin and everything is working fine now.
I am going to update the plugin’s page at wp-plugin.org and meanwhile you can also bunny-tags.zip. Please note that this plugin was developed by Stephanie Booth and the full credit goes to her and I have just updated it to work with WordPress 2.1.
Let me know if you still face any issue with it. Happy upgrading 😉
Posted in WordPress Tagged Bunny, Tags, Technorati, WordPress 21 Comments
Guys, I am going to update my WordPress installation to WordPress 2.1 codenamed Ella. (Yes, yes I know I am late by 5 days this time).
Unlike my older updates, I am going to completely delete the files in the core directory and then going to place the latest files. So you may notice a small turbulence and I will try to keep the downtime (if any) to the minimum.
I am planning to finish the whole process with in 30 minutes and will post an update once the process is over.
Update: Everything went smoothly and this blog is now proudly running on WordPress 2.1
Update (29 Jan 2007): Well guys, the update was not as smooth as I expected. There is a small issue with the Bunny’s Technorati Tags plug in which I am using. Will post an update once I fix it.
Posted in WordPress Tagged downtime, WordPress 4 Comments