Me, Myself and Mein

Working with external monitor using Macbook

2009-08-30T23:30:00.000-07:00

I have an external 24'' monitor which I use with my macbook pro (aluminium). Usually I need only one display to work on. However in Mac OS, there is no easy way to turn off one monitor other than to manually disconnect it. But if I am connected to the external monitor, and I want to turn off the display of laptop screen itself, there is no simple way in the Mac OS Leopard. That is irritating.

Today I found one way to solve this problem. To make the laptop screen close, connect USB mouse or keyboard to the laptop (which is connected in my case). Then close the lid of the laptop screen to make the macbook go to sleep. The monitor will go dark. After that, click a key or a button with the connected mouse. The laptop will wake up but the laptop screen won't!

For this to happen, the external monitor display may have to be the default one. That is, the dock should be in the external monitor. This can be done by changing the arrangement in the display settings in the system preferences. But again, it may not be required.

Another cool trick I learned, is how to put the laptop to sleep when its screen is turned off. This trick is a direct consequence of the first trick. Once we have put the laptop screen to sleep, how to put the laptop to sleep? Simply closing the lid of the laptop will not work.

So, for putting a macbook to sleep, press

Ctl + Command + Eject.

That is neat!

Blogging application

2009-08-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

I was looking for a good blogging application that can be used while writing offline. I am surprised to find that there is no free application that provides a simple editor like notepad for blogging. Even Mac Pages does not seem to provide a hookup to common blogging websites. Is anyone aware of any plugin to Mac pages or TextEdit that can be used to publish?

I am hoping that Google Gears provide this feature of working offline on blogger.

Mac Quick Look tips

2009-07-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

Some cool tips for mac I learned today. Mac has a cool quick look utility which is used for quickly looking at any file. This saves the time to open an application. For example, to quickly look at pdf file, I could go over the file in the Finder and press 'Space', and the file shows in a very fast viewer.

What makes it more interesting is that there is a command line utility 'qlmanage' which can be used for viewing files from command line in Terminal. This is very useful when modifying pdf files from command line and then viewing them. Interestingly, writers of Quick Look feature wrote the qlmanage utility to debug their program.

I use a small alias to open this program quickly.

alias ql='qlmanage -p "$@" >& /dev/null'

See this link for more information.

Mac terminal

2009-07-04T19:59:00.001-07:00

I recently got my new Macbook Pro and have become a mac fan. The interface and the hardware are just amazing. Switching from windows and linux which I used for more than 12 years.

I am currently setting up my mac and installing lots of software. Here is the list of software that I have installed so far:

1. Xcode: A must for any non-dumb user.

2. Gimp: Took a lot of time

3. Gnuplot

4. Tetex: For paper writing stuff

5. Picasa: Can't escape the familiarity with this cool software.

6. VLC media player: For all those .wma files

7. Skype

8. Gvim: My favorite text editing app

I have this problem with the mac terminal that it would not load .bashrc at the startup. I would have to manually type 'source ~/.bashrc'. I found the solution to this problem today.

Basically, Mac OS uses bashrc from /etc/profile. So it has to be told to also include things

from ~/.bashrc. For this, the command did the job:

[ -r $HOME/.bashrc ] && source $HOME/.bashrc

I found this info on:

http://linuxtomacbook.com/?p=22

First BLog from iPhone - unintelligible.. Blogspot does not allow modifying the text box

2009-01-17T18:30:00.000-08:00

FFFSGZSGGEFZHCBDKFBXBAB

New Improved Firefox 3

2008-07-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

Firefox 3 has broken a Guinness record. This article is not for that reason. The record was broken for the maximum number of downloads in a single day.
I am talking about the improved performance and features of Firefox.

Firefox 3 is very fast compared to any other browser. Previously, Opera was the fastest browser and Firefox was second. Safari and IE are nowhere in the race. Firefox 3 has also removed the memory leak and is quite stable (although I think the memory leaks were already removed in some previous version).
Plus, Firefox has now some very cool add-on extensions. These extensions in fact help in improving the speed of browsing.

1. Adblock Extension: This is one great extension which is used for blocking all kinds of ads on a webpage. Not just irritating banners, flash ads, and popups, but also the text-based ads. As a result, the webpage looks extremely clean. No ads just content. It is almost like a dream-come-true!

2. Flashblock Extension: This is another very useful extension used for blocking all kinds of flash on a webpage. Sometimes, a webpage itself has irritating flash (rather than in the ads). Flashblock disables all the flash present on a page. Moreover, just by clicking on the flash, that flash can be enabled. So, youtube videos can be watched while other kind of flash is blocked.

3. Firegestures: I also like fire gestures, which is used for using mouse gestures to operate the browser. The mouse gestures feature comes by default in Opera browser. Fire-gestures has built on that feature and have many more kind of options and gestures than Opera browser.

Funny Quotes by Warren Buffet this year

2008-02-29T23:18:00.000-08:00

Warren Buffet came out with his annual letter to shareholders yesterday. Like all the previous years, this letter is also simply great. I tried to compile some of the funny quotes in this letter.
Here is my list.

Buffet on Acquisitions:
.... To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I’ve made. But I’ll make more mistakes in the future – you can bet on that. A line from Bobby Bare’s country song explains what too often happens with acquisitions:
“I’ve never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I’ve sure woke up with a few.”

Buffet on profitability of See's:
.... Just as Adam and Eve kick-started an activity that led to six billion humans, See’s has given birth to multiple new streams of cash for us.
"The biblical command to “be fruitful and multiply” is one we take seriously at Berkshire."

Buffet on Housing crisis:
... As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed.
"You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out – and what we are witnessing at some of our largest financial institutions is an ugly sight."
.... John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, aptly dissected the recent behavior of many lenders:
“It is interesting that the industry has invented new ways to lose money when the old ways seemed to work just fine.”

Democrats must be foolish to loose Hillary

2008-02-29T21:39:00.000-08:00

I will first make this clear that I am a Republican who favors free market policies, and many other right economic policies (pun intended) of Republicans. However, for this election, I have been hoping from the start for a Democratic win. More so, I have been hoping for Hillary Clinton's win. The reason for this contrary hope is something I will explain later. I know its now too late and I will be too optimistic to hope for Hillary Clinton's win in Democratic primary, leave alone the general elections. But I will still write this blog.

First, I want to talk about the people's attitude towards Hillary Clinton from the start of the election season. From the start of the primary elections, most of the people, including Hillary Clinton herself, had accepted that Hillary will be the next US president. Hillary Clinton is the perfect candidate. She is a woman who has been to White House and knows everything about governing a nation. Her personal qualities are immaculate. She has shown enough courage and enthusiasm to be a public leader. She has always been a no-nonsense woman who is always careful to never make mistakes. Even in the extremely hard time of Bill Clinton's scandal, a scenario which is the worst nightmare of every married woman, she showed the whole world that she can think from her mind and her heart, and not let her emotions take over her.

Politically also, she is the perfect candidate. Now I will come to the reasons I support her. Hillary is a Democrat who is never too left. She has shown good policies in my opinion which put her right in the middle. Through the years of Bush policies, US has come across as a big bully to the rest of the world. And nobody likes a bully. This image can do significant damage to a nation as no nation can live alone how powerful it is. You can not live like Sawyer in Lost the whole time you are on an island. Hence the perfect person to undo this damage would be a woman President, someone who can give a more acceptable image than a bully to the rest of the world. Even most of the Republicans know that they cant get a Republican president this time due to failing policies of the last President. And I think due to her middle-ground bipartisan policies, both the Democrats and Republicans had almost accepted her as the next president.

If Hillary is such a perfect candidate, then what made her loose so badly now? I think that Americas reluctance to support Hillary can be compared with the cold feet a man gets a day before his marriage with a perfect homegrown girl. He has always seen that girl grow since high school and knows that she is the perfect girl for him who can make his life better. All his life he knew that he will marry her. But then when he is just about to marry her, he begins to think whether he is making a mistake, whether he should wait more before settling down, whether there is something in her that he does not like, or like the movie Last Kiss, whether there exists a young Rachel Bilson for him out there. Fortunately or unfortunately, Democrats found the young sexy Bilson in Barack Obama.

I will now come to conclusion of this blog. I think that the current Democrats fancy with Barack Obama will come out to be a huge mistake for them. This election is the only chance Democrats have got to improve the corrupted system created by years of Republican rule. I am not blaming Republican party only for being corrupted. Anyone who is in power for too long can get corrupted. And that is why we should keep changing the governments. But if the Democrats think that they should change this system, then they still have a chance to elect Hillary as their nominee. If Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee, then most probably, like him, most Democrats will feel during the general elections, what happens when you are suddenly woken up from your sweet dreams. They would find that he has nothing to counter against any Republican attack on him. His ideas will be proved to be highly impractical. All he could do is to say something nice in debates about hope and change. And these words will sound very funny in any debate on policies. And whatever policies he do wish to propose, he will find that they are shown to be so much to the extreme left (which they are), that any Republican in his/her right mind will not support them; and all his talks of bipartisanship will not stand. And just like Al Gore and John Kerry, Democrats might loose their most well-deserved opportunity of having a Democratic president in those debates. Its still not too late.

Burying Mainframe

2007-12-19T04:46:00.000-08:00

University of Manitoba disposed of its 47 year old IBM 650 mainframe, named Betelgeuse (courtesy HitchHikers Guide To Galaxy), by holding a New Orleans style jazz funeral. The total memory of system is 2000 words (2KB) and the mainframe weighs 1966 pounds. The card reader weighs another 1295 pounds.
The interesting eulogy to the mainframe available on their website:

"For forty-seven years you've served us well, you cast us in your green spell. You processed transactions without complaint, we've asked the Pope to make you a saint.

"The users you were always able to please, with a little training theycould enter with ease, all the data they needed in 2 or 3 screens instead of the 57 in VIP. And getting data was easy in IMS, there were six hundred reports in the RS. And Finance was easy with FRGLA, in the time when the mainframe held sway. And the programmers they had all the tools they need, Easytrieve and COBOL made programming a breeze. And Mantes were there to manage the files, and to help with debugging if it wouldn't compile.

"Now gone are the punch cards and card readers of yore, andmainframe computers that used up the whole floor. With tape drive controllers and large stacks of tapes, that kept operators scrambling all over the place.

"Farewell IMS, we'll remember you well. After forty-seven years,there are many stories to tell. Like when Tel Reg nearly shut down MTS, and when the Y2K bug put us under duress. You helped us achieve our academic objectives, and gave our admin processes a proper perspective.

"But now we must lay you under the flora, because we have to go deal with this bloody Aurora. So we commit your parts to be recycled.Earth to Earth Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust To the god of computers, please bless it and keep it And give it grace and peace But please do not resurrect it.

Funny Quote of the day

2007-09-29T10:59:00.000-07:00

"This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind".
-- Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel.

Mr. Gabriel made this statement after President Bush speech on Global Warming in U.N. in which he prescribed a global fund to promote research in clean-energy projects. President Bush is against mandating cuts in greenhouse gases on developed countries (Kyoto Protocol) which most European countries favor and follow.

वाह Google वाह!

2007-08-20T17:47:00.000-07:00

लव सिंघल का यह पहला हिंदी ब्लोग है!
Google का नया हिंदी टूल (मुझे टूल कि हिंदी नही आती) बहुत कूल है।
यह इतनी जल्दी अंग्रेजी से हिंदी को बदल रहा है कि मुझे टाईप करने में मज़ा आ रह है।
मुझे आशा है कि यह टूल Google talk में भी जल्दी आ जाएगा।
हिंदी में chatting करने में बहुत मज़ा आएगा।
गो Google!!

Google - AT&T battle

2007-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today, FCC will decide the rules of their new auction of 700 MHz wireless spectrum. This spectrum has the ability to provide broadband access on cellphone to everyone and is able to transmit through walls and houses.
In short, watching online videos/movies on cellphone will be a reality soon. Or will it? Many of us (who do not own an Apple iPhone!), never feel like going online through cellphone
and watching a video on YouTube. Not only because it is so expensive to do anything online on a cellphone,
but also because our phones do not support it. And my phone is just an year old.
It sounds ridiculous because internet is now more than 10 years old
and phones have been talking about providing internet access since then.
Hopefully, things could change!
Google is asking FCC for providing open access to this new spectrum. This open access means 1) Users can use any mobile device on the spectrum
(so no worries about switching to AT&T for an iPhone!)
2) User can download and install any applications on their mobile devices
(real messenger support could be a reality) 3) Users can visit any websites. Another important aspect of open access that Google is bargaining is that the winners have to sell the part of their spectrum to other players at only wholesale rate. This means that other new players can also buy small chunks of wireless spectrum later and introduce their services. This means that we will no longer be limited to only a few service providers who charge
anything from an arm to a leg to provide limited internet access.
Hopefully, FCC members will see the light. If they accept Google conditions for open access,
we will have another internet revolution on cellphone.

Apocalypto Moview

2006-12-08T22:25:00.000-08:00

Mel Gibson's Apocalypto is released today.
As I was reading its reviews at various websites, I decided to write about it.
I watched Apocalypto about a week ago during a special screening of the movie at our university. This is the movie that shook me well for a week.

The movie has got mixed reviews from various important websites. Some of the reviews are downright mean, the reviewers decided to just use the movie to talk about Mel Gibson's drinking habits and racial ideologies. Other reviews have
talked about the good things of the movie that I will talk now.

Basically, Apocalypto is a very simple movie. In fact, the story is so simple that
considering Mel Gibson's standards, I would say that the movie has no story at all.
But I do not mean it in a negative way. And during the whole movie, one always keeps wondering what will happen next.

What hits you in the movie as you see it is its brutal honesty.
The director shows every gruesome act of the civilization in minute details.
Suddenly, one is taken into their completely different world and one starts living their lives. This out of world experience is amazingly refreshing. Apocalypto is a step further
than any action movie ever created and this movie will set the benchmark for the new movies to come.
Mel Gibson has broken his own benchmark that he created in Passion of the Christ.

The Apocalypto movie also has a simple message. A civilization blinded by violence and insanity is just waiting for its own destruction.
There is one negative aspect of such movies though. They show large amount of violence themselves. As quoted in one of the reviews of the movie about its message, "Mel Gibson's movie is not a solution, but a part of the problem itself". Next generation of movie makers have to show more and more violence to shock the audiences.

However, I think that this trend of violence in the movies is not a bad thing. As one sees more violence in movies, he/she becomes more soft in real life. This is however true provided one does not see these movies to such an extent that his/her reality is merged with those movies. Everyone has an animal instinct for violence.
So, if this instinct is satisfied by watching movies, it will not manifest itself in real life.

Oh! How do you like my new word - Moview - which stands for movie review?

The Pepsi CEO

2006-08-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

The appointment of Ms. Indra K. Nooyi as the CEO of Pepsi shows how the argument of 'imperialism by big multinationals' has fallen flat on its back. Instead of these multinationals taking over India, we Indians are now leading these companies. This news should make every Indian proud and is a nice compliment for every Indian on the Independence day.

NedStat gone from my website

2006-07-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

I have finally removed bothersome Nedstat from all the pages of my website. This statistics tool has been responsible for opening up nasty popups sometimes when my webpage is loaded. Its colored flashing popups look very cheap. Its more shocking because Nedstat never mentions about opening up advertisement popups ever on its website.

I have switched to Google Analytics completely. It is a silent and invisible analytics tool. It is silent as it does not open popups. It is invisible as it does not require a picture to appear on the webpage. Neat, isnt it.

Google Analytics gives a very complete and informative analysis of the website hits. Moreover, while any person who loads my webpage can see the statistics of my page using Nedstat, only I can access Google Analytics analysis. However, sometimes it is hard to find a simple hits analysis in Google Analytics due to the large number of reports. Google should make simple analysis readily available on the Analytics page like Nedstat. Hopefully, Google Analytics will remain free and won't add advertisements to the webpage.

India's Incredulous Foreign Policy

2006-01-29T21:47:00.000-08:00

Even after months of the first vote against Iran, India has not come out with a clear and reasonable foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran.

Its true that Indian government faced immense domestic pressure and criticism after it first voted in IAEA meeting in September 2005. But the pressure mostly came from Left coalition partners who have a tendency to criticize every move of the government. The demands made by Left are not clear to anyone (I suppose even the people in communist party of India do not know the reason behind their own demands). The communist party of India would criticize every move to get foreign investment in India while their counterparts in China are making hay with the investment from all over the world. Since the Left parties are supporting the current government from outside without holding any official position for themselves, they seem to believe that they acquire a righteous, do-good-er stand over the government and like a big (nagging) brother, they should keep the younger brother on tabs. The Manmohan Singh government should have and, to some extent, has acquired an ignoring, complacent attitude towards the demands of Left.

With that in mind, it is not clear why India has not spelled its policy towards Iran as yet. India considers people of Iran as its traditional friends. However, as India should know from the experience of Pakistan, the policies of government of a country do not entirely represent/help the cause of the people of that country. The governments may act/have acted on the whims of few important religious leaders without listening to moderate common man. The current rule in Iran is of a hardliner who knows politics and diplomacy as much as he would know theory of relativity and rocket science. It is difficult to trust Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, who give speeches of wiping of Israel and shifting all the Jews to Alaska. India should understand that supporting the government of a country does not mean supporting its people unless the country is a full democracy and not an oppressive regime like Iran.

If India considers Iran its traditional 'ally', it should have engaged Iran, like Russia, in a separate discussion front so as to keep Iran within framework of IAEA and not let it destroy the seals of IAEA in Iran's nuclear plants and start the enrichment of uranium. India should have tried to bail out its old friend from this world crisis. This would have shown India as a pro-active responsible nuclear power who is ready to assume responsibilities capable of solving a world crisis. However, India chooses to keep quiet and watch the crisis from an assumed hypothetical (shall I say, non-aligned) distance and then take a decision depending on the 'consensus' of the crowd. Much like a weak coward person who watches two man fighting from a distance and only enters the fight to beat the person who the crowd starts beating up. If India had requested for a dialogue and Iran had shunned any meaningful dialogue with India, it would have clarified the nature of alliance with current Iranian government.

With the seals of IAEA broken by Iran itself, the crisis of Iran has definitely gone beyond the realms of IAEA, within which India has wanted the crisis to be solved.

If India thinks that US is getting paranoid about the fears of Iran developing nuclear weapons (which will take about 10 years) and then distributing them to terrorists, then India should have explained that position to US and others. India should have considered US as an equal partner and talk openly with it rather than just listening to demands of US and taking them as a form of pressure. It is too early to fear about assumed Iranian nuclear weapons getting in hands of terrorists
or being used in a war with Israel (which has a nuclear cover of US anyways). And this point of view should have been conveyed to US as a friend.

In the end, I would say that shying away from taking a stand in a crisis of friends is not something a man or a responsible country should do.

Man and the Sea (Img)

2005-11-24T10:05:00.000-08:00

These photos are taken from the Laguna beach using Canon 85mm 1.8 lens and Rebel XT.

Free Opera Browser

2005-09-20T23:04:00.000-07:00

One interesting news that caught my attention today was that Opera browser turned free. I have been wanting to use Opera for some time. Only things that stop me are the flashy advertisements that it shows on the right side of window. I take it as a major distraction and a very primitive way to earn money for a browser.

I think Firefox has turned old (I dont consider IE to be anything). Firefox seems to slog in its own weight and is not any more innovative lately. My biggest gripe with Firefox is its memory issues. The thing sucks memory even when lying idle. I have complained about memory leaks to the Mozilla forum but so far no version has handled it. I have even tried the current beta version of Firefox which is even more buggy.

I was initially suspicious after reading about free Opera browser. I thought it was a marketing plot, those one-time special offers kind, and that after some time, the advertisements will start again. It is absolutely useless to switch to a browser for some time when you have to stop using it after few months. A browser stores a lot of things - bookmarks, history, cache, and passwords. And you do not want to import-export these things from one browser to other all the time.

However, as it seems, Opera has signed a deal with Google where every sponsored link clicked in Google search page through Opera browser will give a cut to the Opera-dot-com. This could mean a lot for Opera if many people starts using Opera browser, especially when the premise that those users use Google could be assumed to be invariably true. Google has earned millions with these sponsored links, and it is amusing to see that Google is ready to share the profits with Opera. At the moment, Google does not need to promote its search engine through any browser. The fact that Google is still doing it shows that it is careful about not losing its market share. I still feel, though, that Google could pull the plug at this deal in the near future. Google is said to be working on its own browser. If that is true, Google will not support a competitive browser and be a source of its sales.

Now about Opera, the browser. I downloaded and installed the browser. My first impression. It installed fast. It opened fast. It browsed fast. It closed fast. Yes, the browser is fast and is faster than anything I have seen before - Firefox, IE, and Netscape(@$#$). Its UI is more slick than the Firefox. It has interesting features too like trash can (opens a deleted window), sessions storing (similar to bookmarks with slight difference), and RSS feed support (very interesting - RSS feeds from websites like news.google.com can be read as mails in Outlook like interface). I have not looked at yet whether it suffers from memory leaks but the way it opens and closes does not suggest any large memory footprint.

I think I will keep this browser for some time.

Enola Gay

2005-08-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

A tribute to the people who died this day sixty years ago by a bomb dropped on Hiroshima by a B29 bomber named Enola Gay. The bomber was named after the mother of a pilot of the plane.
More than 110,000 people died instantly. Thousands died later.
May this world never see those horrors again.

Half Blood Prince

2005-07-23T23:24:00.000-07:00

I completed reading of the Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince book today. I liked the book a lot. The plot was very strong and gripping. I read the 827 pages book in 3 days, when 2 of those days I attended my lab too. After finishing, I wanted to read more of the Harry Potter story and wished I have the seventh part. The suspense of the charater Half Blood Prince was not that good though. I was expecting a new character. It would be quite interesting a see some new interesting child character, just like Luna Lovegood in fifth book. I deeply wonder what the last book will be like. With major bad characters still alive, and one very important character dead, how will the school dropout Harry Potter fight all these people. JK Rowling will need some real ingenuity and a real lengthy book to show the win of Harry Potter.

Half Blood Prince, Kaal and Chinese Yuan

2005-07-22T00:32:00.000-07:00

My advisor went out of the town so I took a break from my studies in the evening.
I received Harry Potter's Half Blood Prince today as an ebook. I read about 100 pages of it today. It contains 827 pages. Not a kid stuff anymore. My initial impression of the book is that it is almost like a thriller of the intensity of John Grisham or Jeffery Archer (the Eleventh Commandment - if you know what I mean). The characterstic humor of Harry Potter series - the fun part of being a wizard - comes only in the third chapter. The characters are more refined, no doubt. Albus Dumbledore is quite refreshing no matter how old he is or his hand had got sucked. My only gripe against the newer novels is that JK Rowling is trying hard to make new stories out of the events in the old novels and sometimes it looks that she is tying too hard. Snape is again back being a Death Eater and a whole chapter is spent on explaining his positions in all the previous years.

During dinner, I started watching Kaal online. The movie is not so good. In fact, sometimes it was funny, not in a good sense but in a ridiculous sense. I must admit, though, at times I found it very gripping. The movie could be a good timepass if you are watching it in a theatre with your girlfriend who gets scared easily. I do not like good-looking girls being killed and this movie let go off Esha Deol and then showed her dancing in the end castings. Does the film-making sense decays exponentially with the length of the movie?

Now I come to the best news that I saw today. China is freeing up its currency, chinese yuan. The currency increased by 2.1% over US dollar. Though the increase is not significant, the step is. USA Today has a good detailed article on the implications of this significant change. I will give a brief overview. The communist government of China has always made the value of chinese yuan fixed with respect to US dollar. This ensures that the price of any chinese item purchased in US will always remain same to the US consumer (provided the item's price in yuan does not increase). Such a policy has been a major factor in the huge growth in Chinese exports to US over the past few years. The trade deficit between China and US ran over $162 billion to the Chinese advantage. Cheap Chinese goods have flooded the US markets and are also spreading to South east Asia. While the countries, like US, Japan, allow their currency to freely float in the market, other countries like India, maintains partial control. It means that when the demand of their currency goes higher (which may lead to higher value of that currency), the central bank of that country purchases some other reference currency, thereby, increasing the demand of that reference currency and thus offsetting the increase in its own currency. A higher value of the currency makes export costlier and imports cheaper.

I think I can write pages on the mechanics of the forex trading. Here, I will just mention that if the chinese currency is allowed to trade freely, then due to the huge exports of the country (a single company Walmart purchases $18b goods every year from China while India's top IT companies total turnover is around $24b), the chinese currency will shot up like anything. This is because all the companies buying Chinese goods have to pay in Chinese Yuan which increases the demand of Chinese yuan. Chinese government has been offsetting this demand by buying huge amount of US dollars from US Treasuries. The Chinese central bank has a reserve of 243 billion dollars through this way. If Chinese central bank stops doing this practice or atleast gradually reduce it, the Yuan will rise. So, my advice to you is if you have suplus cash, you should buy Chinese Yuan and keep it for five years. To get a feel of what it is like, imagine a closed coke bottle which is generating CO2 from inside over many years. Another advantage of this change, is that it will also make exports from countries like India more competitve. Indian currency is relatively free so it is not expected to increase over next few years (unless exports from India shoots up very fast). Hence, its export prices will not increase much, which could, in turn, make India a favorable manufacturing destination. More than anything else, I think this move will benefit Chinese people living in mainland. An average Chinese person, due to fixed currency, finds the cost of items produced elsewhere like electronics, etc very expensive. With more freedom in the currency, an average Chinese Jo(e) will find it easier to purchase things and thus lead a better life.

Packet Sent: "I'm Alive"

2005-07-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

This blog had been almost extinct. My apologies to that. I took a very long break from writing blogs regularly. I was busy with my courses and then research and then camera, and then a party. Well, a lot of stuff has happened between my last post and this one. Here is the short summary:

Very Interesting stuffs - my paper got accepted in ICCAD (a really good conference) and I purchased a new digital SLR camera (Canon Rebel XT); Interesting Stuffs - I went to San Diego, I rode Jet Ski (man, it was FUN!!) and a bayliner (interesting ride).

Alright Guys, the "I'm Alive" packet has now been sent and don't take this packet as one stand-alone packet of our communication. This packet, instead, is an header of much longer posts to follow.

I will end this post with a quote that I saw today.
"There are only 10 types of people in this world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't."

China, Taiwan, and America, Japan

2005-05-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

China and Taiwan is one of the most controversial issue in the world politics today. I have been thinking of writing about China and Taiwan for quite a long time. I was also doing some research on the various aspects of this issue. Recently, both the countries were in news for holding peace talks, with the Taiwanese premier's historic visit to the mainland (yes, I will call Taiwan a country; not to offend Chinese people but just to maintain a fair comparison and because I learned it, as a child, to be that). I was waiting for something tangible to happen due to these measures but since the reconciliation period is now more or less over with Taiwan refusing to hold any further talks, I will just write off this article.

Historically, before 1949, Taiwan was a part of China, both being governed as a Republic. When communism took over in China in 1949, the republican party fled the mainland to escape communists and established itself in Taiwan. Both the countries have since then prospered and have grown as major industrial, manufacturing and technological hubs. Taiwan was one of those 'East Asian Tiger' economies that have played significant part in 1980s till 1995 when the region came under economic depression.

Since 1949, China has always tried to increase its border and expand its control over the region. It has border issues with India over Arunachal Pradesh, controls a part of Kashmir, and assumed control of Tibet, Hong Kong (in 1997) and Macau (a small island south of Hong Kong in 1999). It went over a war with India in 1965 over the control of some region to its west. Characterstic of its policies, China has never recognized Taiwan as a separate state and always considers it as its own part.

Taiwan, of course, resists any such claim. For one, to be frank, no sane democracy today would like to become or join a communist state. Secondly, the government of Taiwan fears that communist leaders will execute them once they join the mainland on the charges of treason to the state. Thirdly, in general, no independent state would like to become a part of another state.

So, where do America and Japan come to the picture? America has been playing a vanguard for spread of democracy for a very long time now and is still very active in that. Japan, though, not much pro-active for democracy has another reason to support Taiwan. The presence of an independent country in the east really cuts off the naval region of control of China in the Pacific which in turn gives advantage to Japan. Japan sees China as a major threat to itself. Chinese policies of always increasing its borders and an isolationist attitude towards its neighbors have not helped in assuaging those fears either. Both America and Japan have signed treaties to help Taiwan in case China attacks the small island, just 200 km away from the mainland. However, interesting enough and ironic enough, both America and Japan, under the influence of ever increasing Chinese economy, have recognized Taiwan as a part of China. You can now say, WHAT! It doesn't make any sense! I would then say that Politics is an art, and, just like a modern art, it is not for foolishly sane people, like most of us, to understand.

Now, I come to the real core part of this article. WHY AM I favoring Taiwan and not considering China's point of view at all? I am filled with anger for some militants who using Pakistan army-provided machine guns try to claim Kashmir as their own and kill innocent children, women and men. Ain't I biased against China, when I disregard any claims by Pakistan for independent Kashmir, whereas consider claims by America and Japan for an independent Taiwan as legitimate?

The answer is No. There are many differences. For one, Taiwan is already a separated part. It has an independent government as old as the government of China. The communist governement of China had never had any role in the governing and development of Taiwan. This comes to the second difference. Taiwan is a well developed, self built economy. If a small state like Kashmir becomes independent, it will have to protect itself always from Pakistan (who is obviously supporting Kashmir for no altruistic reasons), and play the discouraging role that other small neighboring countries of India play - they can never be close enough to India and they can never live without India. China's claim for Taiwan is not like India's claim for Kashmir. But it is like India claiming for whole of Pakistan as its own state, if there had been such a claim.

Taiwanese people have proved themselves to be capable of successfully managing themselves and to take anything like that away from them against their wishes would be to go back to the imperialism era.

Word of the day - paraskevidekatriaphobe

2005-05-13T11:38:00.000-07:00

I am starting a practice of writing any new word that I learn during the day.

Todays word - paraskevidekatriaphobe
Meriam Webster failed to have the meaning of this word.
WordSpy (www.wordspy.com) has it.
paraskevidekatriaphobia is fear of Friday 13th.

It is a Greek word. Paraskevi is the greek word for Friday. Dekatria is greek for 13th.

My Camera Search

2005-04-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days, I was involved in searching for a right digital camera for me.
I like California very much and I feel that I should capture it just as it is and put it online for others to like it as well. Plus, I really begin to feel now that this life is beautiful and should be treasured that way. I am not going into why and how of it. I will just say that I start looking for a camera that could capture great images and that too very easily. I do not want to put in a lot of effort in capturing one picture but want to put a lot of effort to capture lot of pictures.

I know that any photo enthusiast could easily tell me now what type of camera I want. A camera that has enough auto modes to allow point and shoot in every situation and still could capture excellent images if I put in a little more effort. Luckily, there are cameras in the market for exactly this requirement and they are called SLR-like cameras. They are not SLR as they have point and shoot features with a whole lot of digital processing and auto-mation - auto focus, auto exposure, auto modes, and many more. They are SLR like because they allow manual controls, focus control, exposure fill control, bigger lenses, metering, and bracketing. I still have to figure out what the last two terms mean.

Initially, while going through all the digital camera models at Amazon, I was skeptical to buy a SLR like camera. I must say that all the terms of an SLR camera (including SLR) used to scare me away from them. The camera community, as it looked to me, has devised their own terms which no one outside could understand without spending a couple of thousand bucks (dollars/rupees) and even then you are not sure whether you could actually learn them.

Then, I drew a parallel of camera industry with the computer industry. I felt that, unlike me, many people find everything about computer confusing and ahead of them. Just the way, I felt about pro-cameras. I, of course being a computer engineer, knows everything about the computer industry, all its terms and features, inside out. So, I thought that if I could know about computer so well, I could as well learn about the cameras. For one, camera research, however old it is, has not grown fast over these years (otherwise I would have heard). There was not a camera engineering branch at IITs to do research in the field. Secondly, ultimately these digital cameras use processors (aha!) inside them and I am familiar with every capability of the processors. So, it should not be that hard for me to learn all the features and abilities of an SLR digital camera.

So, I started my research on SLR cameras. For starters, SLR stands for Single-lens reflex camera. While single lens is not something special about these cameras, the fact that they use reflex (reflection from a mirror inside) is. Wikipedia defines SLR as "The single-lens reflex camera, more commonly known by the abbreviation SLR, uses a mirror placed between the lens and the film to project the image seen through the lens to a matte focusing screen." The other original type of camera is (used to be) range-finder camera. The auto-focus point and shoot cameras came very late.

I have learned about effects of focusing, exposure, aperture, shutter speed, night modes, and portrait modes. I will keep writing about these things as I learn about them.

The camera that finally clicked for me is Canon S2 IS, to be released in US in June 05. Its love it or hate it looks (which I love) and huge power (full manual controls, 12x zoom, Digic II processor, Canon MyColors) impressed me a lot.