Vaccum kills us, space kills javascript

I was exporting certain attributes viz roadname, ids, ways etc which were of alphanumeric type by appending them with a '+' charachter from my server side perl program to the javascript program at the client. The firebug popped up, unterminated string literal, lets see whats that .... Googling did not turned out to be of much help. I tried making the string short, taking into an array etc. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Amazed, I came to a stupid conclusion on the size of the arguments that need to be passed. Perhaps, that was not the cause.On of my appended field was having a space, and string thereafter was considered as a different argument by javascript. Due to mismatch in the number of arguments for that js function, it was breaking. Such a silly mistake !!! :).

Hence, Vaccum kills us, space kills javascript or rather any function in any damn
language.

Firebug, turned out to be a real bug

Firebug, an addon for the popular web browser firefox became a pain in the a** once at work. It helps you to monitor HTTP request - response, Web Design layout etc. We were trying to make certain changes in our javascript file and review the changes. Clear the private data ( Ctrl-Shift-Delete), restart the browser, we tried almost everything . Later on after breaking head for sometime, we found out that firebug maintains its own cache of all the images, js and other component files being loaded that needs to be cleared in the console and the net tabs.
So folks, if you use firebug with firefox , better be watchful else keep scratching your head. :)

IITs today do more harm than good

My response to the news IITs today do more harm than good ( click to read )

I strongly contradict the whole scenario. Coaching institutes drill your brain and enhance your logical and analytical capabilities. I felt my learning and analytical capability enhanced after joining a coaching institute in Kota. IITs are lacking in faculty and unable to impart proper education . Consequently, they are blaming coaching institutes to hide their fallacies. They are most elegant institutes of the country, can't they conduct an examination to extract the raw intelligence from whole bunch of students appearing.

There is no such magical formula or key which coaching institutes give. They just boost you way of learning and approaching problem. Which I feel is far better than normal schooling and makes a student sharper. Which is larger, 1-2 year at a coaching institute or 4 years at IIT. The IITs have lost charm and ambiance to instigate a successful engineer and are transferring blame on others. It's ridiculous.

Also you would like to read ( click to read )

Corporate Etiquette

Peter and Adam happen to be colleagues of a well esteemed organization on the globe. After having a wonderful lunch both were going to their cubicles.

Peter : Hey man, rush, press the button, the lift is about to close
( The lift door was about to close. Two middle aged people were having serious conversation in the lift, lets call them Mr. Sam and Mr. Duke )

Peter : Cool. We are in
( Adam managed to press the button, just a second before the doors were going to be an inch apart)

Mr. Sam : So whats up with that guy ...

Mr Duke : Seems his mother has some health issues ... he needs to be posted in that city

Mr Sam ( shouted to his peak) : Bullshit !!! .
Peter and Adam astonished .....

Adam : I thought that company stresses a lot on corporate etiquette. What about the management lessons.

Peter : Leave that dude. What if the case is authentic ...

A sweet infatuation .....

It all started in the Biotech labs. Where you are supposed to keep those biological stuffs, measuring nano in sizes in small tubes called eppondorfs for high speed circular motions, they call it centrifugation . This is a very time consuming activity and you get a lot of leisure time to chill out. She used to hit me with her notebook, and I used to chase her with a feeling of sweet vengeance.This notoriety gained pace and I started developing a liking for her. I was getting captivated.

The semester was on the verge of the end and as a requirement of the course, we had to do an industrial training to get industrial exposure. Me and gang got hold of a Research company offering this industrial training stuff with a deal of money. The company was situated in the nearby happening city of Bangalore.The girl had her abode in the same city. Unfortunately, she was not in our gang list. Quite predictable, I wanted her to be in the gang. I played a trick. She was hunting for training stuff in the same city, but couldn't manage to find a good one.

I told her about our Research company, and welcomed her to join us. As it was an easy game, pay and get the certificate. She decided to explore all options, keeping this one open. My pal convinced her about the advantages and ease of doing there. Fortune rocked and she popped up in the gang.

Jackpot was hit when I realized that her residence in the city was at a walk away distance from where we stayed . It came to my delight. Opportunities to hang out and spend more time with her, know each other enhanced. Had wonderful excursions an outings with her and the gang in the city of gardens, Bangalore. I started developing a love for the city, probably because of this reason.

Three years have passed. We have moved our own ways.And as I blog, the rain drops splash the window of the bus, crawling and struggling hard across the water logged Hosur road. After a hectic day of mundane work this rain and melodious song of James Blunt (1973), brought a nostalgic feeling.

Determining IP address for eth0 failed

I had a tough time configuring wired internet connection on UBUNTU (7.10 Gusty Gibbon) and FEDORA Core 8 boxes. However after few amendments, I was able to fix and start internet in both. The Network Adapter (eth0) was not able to take IP address from the DHCP servers of my ISP ( Reliance, the case here) because the Linux distros support the future i.e. IPv6. Hence, the task at hand was to disable IPv6 and enable IPv4.

Let us discuss both of them in detail.

Ubuntu

There is process avahi-demon running which is responsible for IPv6 assignment. It can be disabled by removing from the following location
/etc/init.d/avahi-demon. Please not that all these should be done as sudo.
This should be able to fix the problem. You can restart the network and network interfaces by

/etc/init.d/networking restart
ifdown eth0
ifup eth0

Also, the interfaces file specifies starting of Network adapter and assigning address.
cd /etc/Network/interface

It should have following entry to take IP from dhcp server for eth0.

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Forcibly , IP address can be assigned by dhclient eth0.

Fedora Core

Disabling IPv6 in Fedora core 8 can also be done in similar fashion.

Now here is how you can do this with FC8 to disable IPv6:

1. Append the following line to /etc/modprobe.conf:
   install ipv6 /bin/true
alias net-pf-10 off
   alias ipv6 off

2. Append the following line to /etc/sysconfig/network:
   NETWORKING_IPV6=no

3. Ensure your network adapter is configured not to use IPv6. This is an easy edit in the system-config-network gui, or do it manually in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 (ammend for name of your adapter) by appending IPV6INIT=no

To restart the Network Adapter and assign address using DHCP.
ifconfig eth0 down
ifconfig eth0 up
dhclient eth0

After all these changes are made the network adapter takes an IPv4 IP address and works fine.

Save Resources, Save the planet !!

These gigantic malls attract everyone's eyes. And one loves to hang out in these malls. But have your ever thought the amount of power being consumed in keeping it so flashy and attractive. With power resources deteriorating, CO2 emissions shooting up and depleting ozone layer, a thought has become essential. Nobody wants to see earth die before he/she dies. How many of us are aware that CO2 is also emitted from the monitors ( be it traditional or LCD). And we never care to keep those monitor turned off or rather shutdown the PCs when not in use. Watching more black colors on monitors, black backgrounds reduces the watts of power being consumed. An initiative with thought can be seen at www.blackle.com. Go green, save resources, save the planet and eventually save yourself.

the 'EXTINCTION' effect ! A hilarious one .....

I happen to be a regular watcher of the resident evil movie series. Recently, I decided to download and see the latest one, 'Extinction'. As a precautionary mesaure, I ran the download from a direct link on two different systems in two separate labs, say lab1 and lab2.

The lab1 download was started earlier than lab2. I locked both the accounts and went out. After I came back in night the movie was downloaded on lab1's PC and decided to watch. People in lab2 usually play Counter Strike on LAN with mute mode to avoid any problem.

Fully excited, I started the movie in lab1 and counter strike was started in lab2. After some time I get a message from a guy in lab2, unlock your system Resident Evil has started on that. Ha ha ha. I ran the download in play mode. The speaker wasnt muted either. The sound effects of counter strike matches to that of Resident Evil.

Hilarious Outburst :-D

We had a birthday party in one of the popular restaurants of the city. We were around 16 people. One of the girls, was excited to the cloud nine and wanted to pose for a snap wiith a gold flake ciggarette in her hand.Obviously, most of the girls do not fag. And she too belonged to the same category.


The restaurant waiters were too quick and smart in the services. Guess what happened ???

The girl was posing with the ciggarette in hand for the photo.A waiter popped in and kept an ash tray in front of her, before the snap could be taken. The whole party folks bursted into laughter and waiter received a special pat for that.

Relations ' how long they last '

Relations here I am going to talk are friendly relations and not the love relations. What i have learnt from my experiences is that "more higher and deeper a particular relation goes , more badly it collapses".

Mild and moderate relations are found to run smooth and for a comaparatvely longer duration of time.

Highly intense relations at time have a selfish motive or a misunderstanding associated with it.There can be many stupid reasons also associated with a deep relation like sexual attraction as a simple case.

Blood relations are an exception, they are defined by destiny and a binding force leads to their sustenance by default for a longer duration. Creed, caste, proximity also governs relations to a great extent.

Sleep Tight

I literally scared the shit out of my roommate yestserday night while I shouted all of a sudden in my sleep. Although, I dont remember anything about this, unless he told me today morning. :) :) :)

Some theories suggest that such phenomena are outcome of depression and anxiety that revolves around your mind during sleep. It is believed to be associated with the daily routine life. I dont know what was hovering on mind that night . he he

Beware of me !!!!! he he he ......

The "TRIO"

The trio on their mundane life were returning back to home. The work schedule was tring as usual and thought of having Gobi Manchurian in dinner was making the wait for cab restless.
After a little wait they managed to get a shared cab. The trio barged in with intense energy.
A (on cloud nine) : " Maine kaha tha na .. Aaj cab se jayenge , bus se nahin " .
B(bursts into laughter): yup rite.
C:I am thinking about Gobi yaar.

The conversation was at its peak and the journey of 15 minutes passed in a flash of minute. They got down and started moving. the cab moved away.

A ( anxiously): Shit ! where is my celphone.

Before A could utter another word, B started running in the direction of the cab. C calls up A's number. Fortunately, the call was lifted by the cab's driver and the guy turned out to be honest enough and asked them to move and collect the celphone. He had stopped the cab and was waiting. B managed to catch up with the cab and retrieve the celphone.

COMMUTE WITH COMPOSURE

The flyover is under construction. Owing to a busy Chennai - Bangalore railway crossing, construction of a flyover became imperative. The road is dug around 1.5 feet and hence the starting trip of first 300m or so from the Kadugodi (an area in Bangalore) bus stop is highly jerky. Due to this the luxurious local volvo buses have stopped coming inside the bus stop and stand on the main road itself around 500m away. That fine evening, he was waiting for the volvo to reach the central railway station. Finally, after a meager wait of around 20 minutes the bus arrived. Happily, he jumped inside and grabbed a seat. But he had failed to realize that it is going to be damn crowded. It is the peak time, when all the giant corporate employees get released from their offices and make a move to their houses. Consequently, the traffic was so intense and what could be seen around were only vehicles stuck on those huge roads without any motion. At every stop people were pouring in huge amounts. The scene inside the bus was ridiculous. Some are reading novels with their Ipods/mp3 players plugged inside the ear. At one moment he suspected whether he is in the right bus, as the ambience seemed like a long distance bus. His eyes constantly stared the wall clock hanging behind the driver's chamber, with a thought when I am going to reach? The only thing that kept his temper and patience in the limits was the cozy environment, the pleasant music of Radio Mirchi on the air and the freezing a.c. channel right above the head. It took around three hours to complete a small distance of 30 km instead of the normal one hour and ten minutes.

The unexplored village of Bangalore "Kadugodi"

24 K.M east of the main city central , this section of Bangalore is unexplored. For an instance checkout the food menu charges at the restauarants in Kadugodi .

Chilli Chicken Rs 20
Paneer Masala Rs 15
Gobi Manchurian Rs 12
Roti Rs 2.5

Surprising huh ? and people say Bangalore is too expensive

BIOINFORMATICS = BIO + INFO + What else do you want ? The hidden reality.

What is this MASALA MIX about ? Well dude , perhaps new jargon of hot spot for education .So what its actually about ? Here you are expected to know everything and i really mean everything . The domains of its definition range from IMMUNOLOGY to DATA MINING ........ RECOMBINANT DNA TECHNOLOGY to CHEMICAL THERMODYNAMICS ......
And ultimately where do you land up .... " Jack of all trades and master of none". It may seem really fascinating field as it claims to " decipher the code of life " . But finally what you do is some garbage in and garbage out .... CONCLUSION - TOTAL NON SENSE.

Of late many universities and collges have started offering courses ranging from BSc. to MTech . But beware as this chimera branch can lead you nowhere . There are lot of myths and hoax associated with bioinformatics being the next hot spot of education but the real face of reality is exactly reverse. What actually is kind of work expected is more like a DATABASE ENTRY OPERATOR. And if you contradict with other aspects of Bioinformatics like moleular modelling etc , then you need to have solid foundations in Chemistry which a HYBRID bioinformatician fails to acquire .
The worst part of it is the extreme mix nature of accomodating people from two diiferent backgrounds of BIOLOGY and MATHS are mingled and taught . Hence , the maths guy gets frustrated as well as the BIOLOGY one. It can be called as BPO of life sciences where you are expected to input the data in already build software and generate the output without actaully analysing the data and knowing the ultimate essence of it.

However a deeper aspect of the subject would require you to have an exhaustive knowledge in one of the fields like Maths , Algorithm or Molecular Biology .

The blog is written with contributions from Mr Bhaskar Mangal .

engineers of tomorrow

START

There are huge chunk of engineers graduating from the colleges across the nation.The number of colleges has mushroomed to a huge extent . Targeting particularly the deemed universities and the educational standards prevailing over there . The government has given them green signal to flourish and begin any courses of their own . But what is the actual scenario ?? In terms of engineering norms , infrastructure , curriculum etc. B.Tech or so called engineering now just seems to be a label without actually imparting something to you. And anyone who has deeper pockets or slight brain can get this done.

DEEPER INSIGHT

These deemed universities dont even possess basic amenities in terms of human potential . However they may have good infrastructure like tangible components computers and labs but no well defined curriculum and faculty. Many students everywhere get trapped in the cobwebs of these private deemed universites and pay huge really huge ( upto a lac per anum for B.Tech ) and end up as popularly called "jack of all trades and master of none ". With rampant IT boom all the engineering field graduates are getting job and it seems satisfactory . But whats the point in studying Biotech or Chemical or else for four years of life and finally whacking your hands on the keyboards of an IT comapny .

ADMISSIONS

These universities create a chimera of students , that is a blend of students . Meritorious , direct admissions and management quota . A student can seek admission by paying huge amount ( eg 12 lac fo Biotechnology ) . Accordingly course contents are revamped and definitely can not suit the extremes , the meritorious and the donation student . Thus it seems to be more like a money making business where u pay cash and get this label put on your head and there are no restrictions or boundations on who is elegible to get this label.

CONSEQUENCES
Definitely it brings huge amount of frustration to the meritorious students who seek admission after clearing nationwide competitive exams and securing a handsome rank. With huge expectations the student enrolls for the course and later on realizes the pathetic scenario existing . Low standards of engineering , no educational environment and inexperienced faculty are a few to be mentioned.