blog @ anarchius.org

Connectivity - Part I

2009-06-27T11:22:00.000-04:00

My first phone was bought back in late 2003. It was a Sony Ericsson T610. I remember this clearly, because I was among the last of my friends to purchase a phone. By the time we joined the productive workforce, mobile phones were no longer a luxury. Handset prices had been relentlessly pushed down by the glut of companies in the market, which was almost matched by the competition among the

Cable indescretion

2009-06-09T19:46:00.003-04:00

I normally am not much of a pointing-out-mistakes kind of guy. But I figure, it is not that bad if it includes a bit of humor.So this other day I was looking up cable companies in Wisconsin. This site helpfully popped up claiming to tell me why cable was better, by pointing out the differences between cable and the dish. Which it did, helpfully pointing out that the cable is quite indiscreet.I am

Google Wave

2009-06-03T00:14:00.007-04:00

WOW. If you have an hour and 20 minutes at some point, this is a must see. The Wave is Google's ambitious replacement of the email, instant message, tweet, blog and pretty much every other means of communication and collaboration currently available. But Google's approach to do this is not by providing yet another replacement, but by linking to these means of communication and extending them

But Its Not Google - more Search News

2009-06-01T21:04:00.001-04:00

BING is the new name for Microsoft's search, formerly part of their LIVE suite of services. This seems to be a good few months for search. Just a few weeks ago we had the inauguration of Wolfram Alpha, and now the Bing.Microsoft purportedly was very focused on verb-ifying their new offering and therefore had to go with the 'ing' ending. But Bing? As Chandler would say, Bing is Gaelic for 'Thy

Wolfram Alpha live

2009-05-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

It has been a while since there has been something new on the search scene. There was one highly publicized, incomplete junk that came out a few months ago called cuil (pronounced cool). As the name portends, it was not. At all.Anyway - a new site called Wolfram|Alpha (name rather unfortunate) - is the new kid on the block bringing forth a really different approach to search. Instead of searching

Talking to myself

2009-05-08T10:37:00.001-04:00

When I re-started the blog a few days ago, one thing that played on my mind was the audience or lack of it. Over the last few years, I had been indoctrinated incessantly over the need to line up messages to an audience. Writing without an audience, as with this blog, seemed to be a hark to the old days and the old ways.It took a bit of an effort to shake that feeling. What helped was the time I

Nokia 5800 Free Applications

2009-05-04T18:28:00.000-04:00

I discovered this new awesome javascript library called the jQuery. And that helped me put together something I had wanted to do for a long time. Check out the list of ~43 applications all of which are free for the Nokia 5800.What did jQuery do? Well, check out the neat plugin for jQuery, that allows you to sort tables on the fly.

My 5800 - Top 10 faults

2009-05-03T20:49:00.000-04:00

Nokia has done a very good job with the hardware requirements of the 5800. As noted in my earlier posts here and here, there are a number of things to love about the phone. But, as with anything else, there are always room for improvement, and here are some key opportunities. You will see that a number of examples are more interface and software related that could be modified in the future with

My 5800 - 12 reasons it's awesome

2009-05-01T19:07:00.000-04:00

I have had my new Nokia 5800 for about 3 months now, having bought it in January 2009. During the period, it has gone through two firmware upgrades - first from v11.0.08 to v20.0.012, and the second one from v20.0.012 to v21.0.025. The first updated clocked in at about 133 MB and was available only via their NSU (Nokia Software Update) service the second one weighed in at only 4 MB and was

My Nokia 5800

2009-05-01T10:58:00.000-04:00

The Nokia 5800 has been my primary phone for the last three months or so. My earlier phone, the Sony Ericsson T610, was getting old and was in need of a massive update (retirement). Being a Sony Ericsson user, the idea of switching to Nokia seemed pretty unimaginable to me at the time. But try as I might, there wasn't a SE phone that seemed to fit the bill. Having delayed my purchase of a

Phoenix

2009-04-04T11:32:00.000-04:00

It has been almost three years since the last post. There is a reason for it, three years long. The bottom line is that for the last three years I had opted to let work take over all my time, choosing to put the rest of my life on hold. Virtually, pressing a super-pause buttonThat is all over now. Now it is time to move on, revive some of the old and start some more of the new. The world has

The Office of the future

2005-11-01T12:45:00.000-05:00

I have been just checking out some of the AJAX stuff. Needless to say, the techie junkie that I am, I am pretty much blown away.What is more impressive is not just that ability of the browser to act really like an application container than a markup display module. The movement of the web towards righer media looks more possible from the AJAX point of view rather than the world where everyone

Article on Security

2005-09-12T09:25:00.000-04:00

I hate to make this a blog where I drop in links from around the world and feel happy at having put something on it. I definitely wouldnt want to do that. Anyways, came across this link on email today.If you are reading it, dont read it as the six dumbest ideas in Computer Security. Rather read it as the One reason why Computer Security is all screwed up. The first one. Most of the others are a

The Brand Name

2005-09-11T10:45:00.000-04:00

For those of us who have been bought up on a diet of management jargon or clothing catalogues, the word 'brand' invokes images of name labels, glitzy ramps and press conferences. We believe that branding is a third party activity, which we then use to show off to our friends.Many of us miss the universal meaning of the word brand. A brand is the sum total of images and feelings that a word or

Google: My Search

2005-04-22T13:25:00.000-04:00

It is about time google put together this. Everything that Google produces has me responding in one of two ways - Can they really do that? or Damn! Why did they take so long to get this out.And this is an example of the latter. Google already does our searches for us. It already has all the strings with it. All it has to do is dump them in a database of some sort and allow us poor mortals some

Haiku

2005-04-04T17:07:00.000-04:00

Have been trying to understand haiku and never really thought I would have haiku 'moments'. A couple of moments.This came to me as I was watching my first snowfallsilent whispersfalling winter snow on mewet cotton candyInspired by the modern Corporate workplacespring winter summerfall, carpet halls unnoticedvacuum cleaners scream

iMusic

2005-02-25T14:41:00.000-05:00

The ability to share and enjoy music is inherent the music itself. No matter what the MPAAs and RIAAs of this world want us to believe, music is not just another merchandise. It is not like a scoop of ice-cream that you enjoy more if you have the whole thing yourself. Music is meant to be exchanged, loved, discussed and sometimes cherished.Notwithstanding the lawsuits, the advertisements, and

Freedom to Share

2005-02-16T02:33:00.000-05:00

The thing about thought process for me, is that it does not go forward unless there is a IO port attached to it. In other words, if I ever had to think a thread through, I need to either be talking or typing or wriggling toes in the language of the three toed sloth.So, as it happenned, I knew deep down that I felt quite strongly about music, piracy, sharing etc. However, never got to put down

Books et al

2005-01-28T08:23:00.000-05:00

I have kind of caught the reading bug again. Have been reading a bit recently. Well, nothing to the levels I used to as a kid, but decent neverthless. The current one is called In Search of Schrodinger's Cat by a guy called John Gribbin. I think I really want to read the book twice. If not anything it will be something I can talk to unsuspecting friends about quantum physics. <evil grin>Also

The Alternative Desktop

2005-01-28T03:18:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest selling points for Open Source and/or Free software has been the alternative desktop -- an alternative to the Microsoft desktop. There has been a great gig and dance about how Open Source can replace Microsoft on the desktop. However it is something that has not materialized and might not in the near future too.The problem with the statement "replacing the desktop" is that it

New Blog templates

2004-11-19T06:26:00.000-05:00

It is wonderful how a company makes a difference to a product. For all that dilbert says about companies, which I am sure I almost always agree with, it its own way the company is an indespensable part of getting something done. Yeah, it will always be slower than a motivated individual, but it will always be better than the majority of us randomly spending time who might effectively cancel each

GMail: A First Look

2004-05-11T06:30:00.000-04:00

I am sure that it would be very different for someone like me, who has been desperately looking forward to have a dekko at GMail to give anything other than a positive first view of GMail. So I sat over it a full weekend, and I still feel the same about it. So here is my review of GMail. This in fact is one of my first full fledged reviews.gee mailing away,- GMail <> Gnu Mail?

GMail

2004-05-07T05:00:00.000-04:00

This is todally wonderful. They actually said that I was an active user of blogger. Wonder how they found that out. Read news that this beta was now being opened for blogger users. Was disappointed when I came here the last time and did not figure out how to do it. Anyways, now that I am in, feels totally wonderful.I dont know what it is about technology that gives me the shivers. Have been

Data Integrity Certification Service

2004-04-26T11:01:00.000-04:00

There has been a big hullabaloo around EVMs and electronic voting. And one of the main requirements that has been consistently missing is what is called a "paper-trail".Many detractors of electronic voting have cited lack of a paper trail is the main reason why electronic voting is being called unreliable. What is it about paper that makes a paper-trail that is more dependable than an electronic

Metacomm Pollution

2004-02-10T05:14:00.000-05:00

I was sitting having a sandwich and cold coffee, reading BBCi over my T610, when this idea struck me. It started with someone making some sort of wearable computer which is intended for a human, but a robot can also use it. Somehow building a robot that used stuff made for humans seemed very funny to me. I thought about it. The reason I thought it was funny was that it seemed to be very dumb to