Code

Amazing Comments In Source Code by Developers

As I was getting over Monday blues, Aditya Tripathi sent this funny-yet-realistic! I’m sure this will get every dev-devil laughing with delight; reminiscing the KLOC written with cryptic comments or nothing at all. Here you go, the best code comments seen in source code…!

//When I wrote this, only God and I understood what I was doing
//Now, God only knows

/*
* You may think you know what the following code does.
* But you dont. Trust me.
* Fiddle with it, and youll spend many a sleepless
* night cursing the moment you thought youd be clever
* enough to “optimize” the code below.
* Now close this file and go play with something else.
*/ Continue reading Amazing Comments In Source Code by Developers →

Gadgets, Innovation

Gazelle – Paying you for used gadgets

20 Feb, 10 Prasad Leave a comment

I sometimes spend a lot of my time and blog-space publicizing (often, through criticism) other products, websites, hotels, etc. But sometimes I just want to show respect for great ideas. And nothing excites me more than green initiatives! While going through Gopal Shenoy‘s blog on Product Management tips, I got to learn of this cool company called Gazelle he joined. Gazelle, based out of Boston, pays you for taking away used electronics which it recycles. So instead of going to landfills, you’re gadgets are erased and either re-used or sold in the secondary market. It takes a week after receiving the gadget to complete inspect it and issue the payment. What more could you be asking for with Money in one hand and carbon-credit in the other!

I got too excited and checked what I will get for my 4 year old Nokia 6600! Have a look at the disheartening result!

PS: No links on this page have referral commissions 🙂

Internet & Web-apps, Product Reviews, Tips & Tricks

Google Transliteration: Type Indic languages in any text-box

18 Feb, 10 Prasad Leave a comment

Last week I stumbled upon this amazing service called Google Transliteration that can be accessed through a bookmarklet (jargon explained at the bottom). You can use this to type in one of the Indic languages in any text input box on the internet! (whether it really gets saved depends on the website 🙂 ) Language currently supported: Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Persian, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu & Urdu.

Update (21-Feb-10):
After reading this post, one my valued readers questioned the utility of this service! And this is what I wrote back:
Few years back acquiring Indic fonts, and learning to use Indic keyboard layout was a challenge. Google eased that with a web service which takes away reluctance to reply in local languages.
With such a service, an application developer need not provide for transliteration as a feature (its a feature in Gmail). Creating a database with double-byte storage is enough to record input in any language.

Also, Transliteration can help people understand how words are pronounced when they are familiar with a different script. However, this may not work when the same word is spelled in multiple ways. eg. Mohammed [Read more]
With CJV languages, transliteration will often yield only an approximate result.

Continue reading Google Transliteration: Type Indic languages in any text-box →

Food

What a ‘gluttonous’ weekend I’ve had

15 Feb, 10 Prasad Leave a comment

This weekend has been quite different. With Valentine’s day falling on a Sunday, it should have been something for my heart, but instead it was great for my stomach. I had been eating out all the time. The food forced me too take long walks to make place for another meal, and I used it to compile 5 new foodie reviews at Burrp. Do check them out! By the way, did you know that I have a dedicated RSS feed for my food reviews? If not, please do subscribe through your favorite reader!

Sabkuchh Food Plaza, Malad (W): ‘Great paneer!!! Average chaat‘ [3/5]
Tangerine Restaurant, Andheri (E): ‘Nice place for buffet!‘ [4/5]
Chakra, Andheri (E): ‘My favorite place around Marol/Sakinaka‘ [4/5]
Wazwaan, Andheri (E): ‘Misled by Burrp; Silly/Cheap place‘ [2/5]
Garden Court Restaurant, Malad (W): ‘Great ambience; Good prepartion; OK service’ [4/5]

Gadgets

Jargon: Plug-and-Play

09 Feb, 10 Prasad Leave a comment

In computing, ‘plug and play’ describes the joint capability of plugging devices to a computer and getting them running without configuration effort. Its a feature that, both, the hardware (the device) & software (usually a driver or operating system) The software is capable of discovering & getting the hardware ready to use; and to do this the hardware provides necessary information. USB devices are a classic example, but the term was more popularized by Microsoft to market the ability of its Windows OS to configure devices.

This term is also used by sales teams to market software and emphasize its ease of installation/deployment, configuration/implementation and quicker Go Live! However, this is not always the case! My boss once told a vendor that not matter what sales calls it, to customers its usually ‘Plug-and-Pray’ 🙂

Internet & Web-apps, Product Reviews

Face Tagging in Picasa

05 Feb, 10 Prasad Leave a comment

After uploading a few pictures last week, I spotted the ‘Add Name Tags’ link on my Picasa page. I knew this had to do with mapping faces to people, but what I had wrongly assumed was the simplicity. It took me less than a couple of hours to map about 2500 faces. I thought of sharing the accuracy of the tool & conditions that baffled it.

Unlike Orkut, where you have to mark faces yourself, Picasa automatically extracts faces. It took less than 5 minutes to extract some 5500 faces from about 3800 pictures. Another differentiator in the approach is that instead of mapping many faces on a photo (like Facebook, Flickr, etc), faces from many photos are brought together to be mapped to a person. This is what really saves time & effort and retains interest. Statistically speaking, atleast 60% of all my photos (about 1800 Nos) feature one from my family of four. So in the ideal case, I will finish mapping 1800 photos in 4 clicks instead of 3600 clicks (assuming 2 faces per photo). That makes Google what it is: not just an applications company, but a technology company.

I don’t know if people tagged by me will be suggested a priori to others in their photos.

The tool started off with my photos, possible because the count was the highest. I showed me about 12 full sets (x16) of my pictures. A couple of photos in the first set were quite old – about 12 years back. Soon, it started suggesting my name for all my photos.

Continue reading Face Tagging in Picasa →

Travel

Gateway-Mandwa-Alibag Ferry Schedule

31 Jan, 10 Prasad 15 Comments

Ferries (catamarans) are operated by a couple of companies from Gateway of India (Bhau-cha Dhakka) Mumbai to Mandwa jetty near Alibag. The fare is usually inclusive of the bus ride from Mandwa to Alibag city-centre/bus stand. This is perhaps the fastest way to reach Alibag, and then Murud – especially if you are in South Mumbai. Got a picture of PNP’s schedule – thought it could be of use! Continue reading Gateway-Mandwa-Alibag Ferry Schedule →

In the News, Reviews, Videos

Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara

26 Jan, 10 Prasad Leave a comment

Wishing fellow Indians a happy Republic day! Just checked out the new version of Mile Sur Mera Tumhara today: 2 x 8 min videos… huh! And not that exciting! Check out the new ‘Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’: Part 1 | Part 2. Some immediate comments:

All pure instrumental portions are fantastic: Rahman, Anousha Shankar, tabla, Sivamani, Jazz, …
Great focus on renewable energy: Solar water heaters and aggregators in the background a couple of times
S-E-L (Shankar-Eshan-Loy) are great towards the end of their part
The old-age home (supposedly) & Kashmir parts are very sweet
Old is Gold: Original music has been tampered too much. Preferred the older Punjabi & Bengali parts (Is Shaan saying send me ‘SMS’?)
There seems to be no one besides movie stars in this…
Amitabh Bachchan has been made to sound wierd; he should’ve only been asked to read out the lines
A bit of over-acting from actors down-under
No Value Add: The Lux couple, Sonu Nigam, Shahid, Ranbir (in pajamas), Karan Johar
Salman, Deepika short of clothes
First 14 mins were great, and then SRK arrives with his silly hand gestures 🙁 as if he’s going to jerk of the whole world by closing his fist 😉 Just compare it to Aamir’s part
Thanks for paying homage to the military at the end

Notable comments from elsewhere:

why to ruin the good memories with bad bollywood experimentation. It is like comparing SHOLAY with RGV KI AAG
This “SUR” has become “BESUR” because of bollywood
Seriously, half of the people in this video didn’t deserve to be there

Continue reading Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara →

Food

Coffee with Prasad

17 Jan, 10 Prasad 1 Comment

I never spent more than 2 mins on making my coffee: 1 minute to mix coffee, sugar & milk and another to heat it in the microwave. But then I came across a great way of making coffee – by spending 10 mins. Not that I suddenly have more time, but once in a while its good to take interest in something that makes you feel so good. Especially when you want to spend some time talking to your honey 😉

Continue reading Coffee with Prasad →

Internet & Web-apps, Tips & Tricks

Gmail lets you use dot (.) & plus (+) in your email

10 Jan, 10 Prasad Leave a comment

Gmail confirms this fact — Gmail confirms this in a cute way

Did you know that Gmail lets you add any number of dots (.) and plus (+) signs in your email address? I didn’t. This was recently brought to my notice by a colleague, Narendra Wagh. The best part was the way Gmail conveys the fact. Continue reading Gmail lets you use dot (.) & plus (+) in your email →