Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Visit to Nazareth
The weekend before last, I was in Nazareth, my native place. Nazareth is a small town, around 45 kms from Tirunelveli. Here are some of the snaps I took during that trip.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Today's Attraction on GST Road
Today morning, around 10:15 AM, I was driving near Saidapet, and something unusual caught my attention and made my head turn to the left. So did the hundreds of motorists on two wheelers. It was a blonde white guy on a bicycle! He must have certainly looked different to people in this part of the world.
Whoever you are, welcome to Chennai!, and be safe - this isn't like the bicycle tour you can take in Paris. If you happen to see this blog, share your Tour de Chennai experience :)
Whoever you are, welcome to Chennai!, and be safe - this isn't like the bicycle tour you can take in Paris. If you happen to see this blog, share your Tour de Chennai experience :)
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Tamilnadu
Just wanted to test tamil fonts..
செந்தமிழ் நாடெனும் போதினிலே
இன்பத்தேன் வந்துப்பாயுது காதினிலே!
செந்தமிழ் நாடெனும் போதினிலே
இன்பத்தேன் வந்துப்பாயுது காதினிலே!
Sivaji - The Movie
Today is the day after the over-hyped, much anticipated movie Sivaji was released. And to the delight of our dear colleagues and friends, we (Impiger) had booked an entire 700 seater theatre, Rohini, for a private screening at 11 AM. I'm not even a casual movie goer, and my last experience with the Rajini movie, Baba on the opening day in San Jose, was not a very enjoyable one. Hence, I didn't know what to expect, but certainly thought it would be fun to watch this with my friends and colleagues.
My verdict, until the half time was a thumbs up, but my interest kind of faded during the second half. Some of the messages the movie tried to send were good. Here is my summarisation:
1. The central theme of the movie is to eradicate black economy, the huge sums of money amassed by wealthy businessmen evading taxes. Though the message itself is good, it is ironic that Shankar, the producer of the movie himself was raided by authorities.
2. Though Chennai has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade, not much have been done to improve the pitiable living conditions of the poor. This was highlighted in a couple of scenes.
3. The idea of someone living in the US, working for sometime and coming back to seek his roots and culture resonated with me. Some of my friends have done the same. Countless others have such desire, but being caught up in the rat race of American living, are not able to make a decision. I pity them.
Coming to the entertainment factor, all of the songs, save the first one were crap. The movie had no plot, and was too predictable. The fight scenes were Tom and Jerry'sque and the stunts were absolutely ridiculous! Whatever romance they tried to incorporate in the film, peppered by songs which were done on magnificent sets and nice locations throughout the world, such as the Guggenheim, was totally a joke. One saving grace in this regard, is the highlighting of how horoscopes are irrelevant today.
Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, being seated next to Riyaz, who has a great timing for jokes. We were making lots of comments and laughing! Ashok was trying to out-shout the wretched audio system, and succeeded most of the time.
My verdict, until the half time was a thumbs up, but my interest kind of faded during the second half. Some of the messages the movie tried to send were good. Here is my summarisation:
1. The central theme of the movie is to eradicate black economy, the huge sums of money amassed by wealthy businessmen evading taxes. Though the message itself is good, it is ironic that Shankar, the producer of the movie himself was raided by authorities.
2. Though Chennai has grown by leaps and bounds in the past decade, not much have been done to improve the pitiable living conditions of the poor. This was highlighted in a couple of scenes.
3. The idea of someone living in the US, working for sometime and coming back to seek his roots and culture resonated with me. Some of my friends have done the same. Countless others have such desire, but being caught up in the rat race of American living, are not able to make a decision. I pity them.
Coming to the entertainment factor, all of the songs, save the first one were crap. The movie had no plot, and was too predictable. The fight scenes were Tom and Jerry'sque and the stunts were absolutely ridiculous! Whatever romance they tried to incorporate in the film, peppered by songs which were done on magnificent sets and nice locations throughout the world, such as the Guggenheim, was totally a joke. One saving grace in this regard, is the highlighting of how horoscopes are irrelevant today.
Overall, it was an enjoyable experience, being seated next to Riyaz, who has a great timing for jokes. We were making lots of comments and laughing! Ashok was trying to out-shout the wretched audio system, and succeeded most of the time.
Friday, June 8, 2007
At JAX India 2007
We were at JAX India 2007 conference last week. It was a great experience to meet many like minded people under one roof! We had a booth representing our company, Impiger Technologies. The guys with me, Sai, Mahesh, Ashok, Umaima & Kamlesh were an enthusiatic bunch. We were busy throughout (well, for most part :)) and presented cool demos of the technologies and products we have created. I also gave a talk on Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF).
The weather was great in Bangalore. It was even raining during late afternoons! We stayed at the Capitol hotel. The room was pretty decent, but the bathroom was not clean for the kind of money they charge. The massage chair was great. Got a 20 minute back massage once. However, the internet connection sucked big time. They charge Rs. 600 (around US $15) for a day for a connection that barely makes it to 100kbps. And on the day of my presentation, the Murphy's law took effect. I thought I could do some final touchups in the morning and woke up to find that the internet connection that I had subscribed for is broken! Called up the lobby to find out that it will be only back by 11 AM. Duh!
Anyway, I gave the talk with whatever I had and it turned out pretty well. I gave a demo of how we can start with a domain model (of a state diagram) and construct a full fledged graphical editor using GMF, with minimal effort.
Finally, as always, our Air Deccan flight to Chennai got cancelled and we were put on a late night flight and got back home at around 1:00 AM!
The weather was great in Bangalore. It was even raining during late afternoons! We stayed at the Capitol hotel. The room was pretty decent, but the bathroom was not clean for the kind of money they charge. The massage chair was great. Got a 20 minute back massage once. However, the internet connection sucked big time. They charge Rs. 600 (around US $15) for a day for a connection that barely makes it to 100kbps. And on the day of my presentation, the Murphy's law took effect. I thought I could do some final touchups in the morning and woke up to find that the internet connection that I had subscribed for is broken! Called up the lobby to find out that it will be only back by 11 AM. Duh!
Anyway, I gave the talk with whatever I had and it turned out pretty well. I gave a demo of how we can start with a domain model (of a state diagram) and construct a full fledged graphical editor using GMF, with minimal effort.
Finally, as always, our Air Deccan flight to Chennai got cancelled and we were put on a late night flight and got back home at around 1:00 AM!
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Moving to Blogger...
After being on JRoller for a while (my first post was dated Jul 24, 2004), I decided to switch to Blogger, primarily because of the tools that are available and the neat templates. I have named this blog in honor of the first computer I owned in 1989 (thanks Dad!), called the Color Genie CG 2000. This cute little computer had 32KB RAM, and 16KB ROM (yes, Kilobytes). I had to connect it to a television set for viewing. The data storage medium was cassette tapes. I had a special Phillips tape recorder that had a counter. I would carefully note down on the flap of the cassette cover, the count position for each file. That was the filesystem!.
It came with some exciting games like Donkey Kong, Eagles, Blitz etc. I was totally addicted to my Color Genie and started my programming career with it. The only software I bought was a Z-80 assembler, as converting to opcodes manually was a pain. It booted with Basic language. It was a lot of fun writing programs for the Color Genie. Recently I found it in the attic and dusted it off. The wires have been gnawed by rats and it sure is not in a working condition. However, it is currently sitting proudly in my office! Drop in some time if you want to see it. I will be glad to open it up and show the various components of this amazing machine.
It came with some exciting games like Donkey Kong, Eagles, Blitz etc. I was totally addicted to my Color Genie and started my programming career with it. The only software I bought was a Z-80 assembler, as converting to opcodes manually was a pain. It booted with Basic language. It was a lot of fun writing programs for the Color Genie. Recently I found it in the attic and dusted it off. The wires have been gnawed by rats and it sure is not in a working condition. However, it is currently sitting proudly in my office! Drop in some time if you want to see it. I will be glad to open it up and show the various components of this amazing machine.
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