Why communism is the farce of Kerala

Mallu--yeah !!!
Proud to be one --- Nah.. Why?? here's an interesting reason.

Thanks to Silverine for posting this on her blog.

Internship fun !!!!

2008's coming to an end. My 4 month romance (i.e. internship) is over. During this short romantic interlude, ahem.. I mean my internship, I got to meet a lot of people. Everyone had their own specialization and was fun talking to. Thanks to Neal for reintroducing me to the life of Fedora9. Thanks to the internship, I was able to follow a disciplined lifetyle, i.e. eating at the right time, hitting the gym, sleeping (nah...). C-SPAN radio station served as my morning newspaper while driving to office and I had a lot of things to listen to - Elections, Economic depression, Foreign policy, History, etc. I enjoyed the mandatory walk from cubicle/desk to the cafeteria with CJ to get my morning dose of caffeine (Starbucks and complimentary). The shortwalk was peperred with discussions about latest technology, cellphones, daily hacks for devices, etc. Lunch was equally entertaining with Sheel and Vincent. Vincent buys all the latest tech gizmos in multiples and both me and Sheel had a great time teasing him about his collection of laptops, netbooks, cellphones, hard disks, music players.
One of the most important things you learn from an internship is scheduling and managing your work in a professional way. In Grad school, I can always stay up late and finish my work, catch up on sleep and then present my results/presentations. Office life is more challenging, work for a specified amount of time and finish it in that time. Technically, you do not want your office life to take your time with family. Overall an interesting and rewarding internship !!!

After the smoke cleared in Mumbai

My heart goes out for all the victims of the Mumbai tragedy. Here's a look at Mumbai after the attacks. Thanks to MT for the link.

SC08..wow !!!

This year again I got an opportunity to go to SC08: the most happening conference in SuperComputing. Came on Saturday to Austin, Texas and was busy with all the assignments, workshops, tutorials, speaker sessions in the morning and the excellent parties in the evening hosted by different companies. As a student volunteer, I got to attend some really interesting sessions (nVIDIA's GPU tutorial, Patterson's invited talk, etc.) Whoever thinks that iPhone cannot find a market should come to SC, majority of the people had iPhones (students, professors, professionals, etc).

India has 8 supercomputers in the TOP500 list:

In November 2008, 8 systems appeared in the TOP500 list.

Rank	System	Procs	Memory(GB)	Rmax (GFlops)	Rpeak (GFlops)	Vendor
13	EKA Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c, Xeon 53xx 3GHz, Infiniband	14384	N/A	132800	172608	HP
69	PARAMcluster, Xeon 73xx 2.93 Ghz, Infiniband	4608	N/A	37804	54005.8	HP
214	eServer Blue Gene Solution	8192	N/A	18665	22937.6	IBM
335	BL460c, Xeon 54xx 3 GHz, Infiniband	1728	N/A	15966.7	20736	HP
429	BL460c, Xeon E54xx 2.83 GHz, GigEthernet	2208	N/A	14002.3	24994.6	HP
437	Cluster Platform 3000 DL160, Xeon 54xx 3.0 GHz, GigE	2048	N/A	13917	24576	HP
479	BL460c, Xeon 54xx 3.0GHz, GigEthernet	1920	N/A	13159.1	23040	HP
482	BladeCenter HS21 Cluster, Xeon quad core 2.66 GHz, GigEthernet	2400	N/A	13080.1	25603.2	IBM

Virginia Tech's System X is out of the TOP500, but we have a new Apple cluster System G (System Green) ranked 280. System X was ranked 4 in 2005 and was the only man-made self-assembled MacOS cluster in the rankings then.

280

Center for High-End Computer Systems, Virginia Tech United States

SystemG - Apple Mac Pro Cluster, E54xx 2.8 Ghz, Infiniband / 2008 Self-made

2048

16.87

22.94

Today's the last day of the conference, I haven't won anything in the raffles. But it's been an interesting conference meeting with lots and lots of people, making friends, all a part of networking. And tomorrow I get back to work, which is very interesting as well (Ahem .....)

Elections in USA

It's Election day today in USA. Finally everyone HOPES to see a change in the Government. More importantly, it's so refreshing to see huge turnouts for the election. I wish this happens in India during the next elections. Here's an interesting story !!!
May the Best Leader win !!!

Best profession in Kerala

I called up my parents during the weekend, which is a customary three-way conference call that includes sis in Kuwait, parents in India and me in US of A. My parents are in Kerala at my grandma's place. My mom's school is closed for Diwali vacations as is the norm with all schools in India. After the customary enquiries between everyone and my mom's extended summary about trips to various temples in Kerala. Vini (my sis) then asked mom to convert the summaries into full-fledged short stories. I am not complaining about mom's storytelling capabilities, but all the stories weave around some flash strike in Kerala for some ungodly demand accompanied with unexpected rains or floods. It's as if 'God's own Country' is always at God's receiving end. LOL !!!
But that's not what shocked me. Apparently my parents decided to visit the local astrologer and show our horoscopes. Now 'astrologers' are the true parasites in Kerala. Their profession is always in boom. When people are happy, they visit the astrologer to know what their future looks like. During sad times, people visit the astrologer to know what they must do to avoid more obstacles. No matter whether it's an economic boom or an economic slump, astrologers make a lot of money. Again it's the fault of the people who believe in them and foster their trade. My sis is married and living happily with her family. I don't understand what more can an astrologer foresee for her and what more should be known. It's best if some things are left unknown. How can your life be fun, when you know what to expect from it? It seems that the astrologer predicted that I would be studying more. That was a very stupid prediction. I am sure I would have wrung his neck, because here I am trying to finish my PhD and graduate asap. I wish the astrologer foresaw that I am happy with MG and contented to be surrounded with my friends. I wish he could put sense into my parents by using reverse psychology and tell them to accept MG as their ideal DIL. But then that would make the astrologer lose his bread and butter. Instead he told some crap about the doom/destruction that would befall if I married someone whose horoscope did not match. If I only knew who made horoscopes in the first place ..grrrrrrrrrr !!!

In any case, that's the sorry state of affairs in Kerala. I don't think my PhD in these economic times makes sense. Probably I should go to Kerala and join as an apprentice under some famous astrologer and learn the trade. The first thing I would predict then would be about the finicky stock markets !!!

Shubh Diwali !!!

Wishing everyone a very happy and prosperous Diwali !!!

eventful day

India won the second test at Mohali today against Australia with a margin of 320 runs. excellent work !!! ALso a certain political leader was arrested in Mumbai today for indulging in regional politics. I think that the government should have arrested him long time back. Imagine what would happen, if every state in India gave preferential treatment to people from that state. I wonder if Bengaluru would be so popular as the Silicon Valley of Asia, if Chennai would be synonymous as the Detroit of India, etc. What hurts RT, if a Bihari writes the Civil Services examination in Mumbai?? In this case, I wonder what RT would say if a non-Marathi married a Marathi mulgi? Missus's threat to RT: "Tujha Nanachi Taang !!!"

Peace: Listening to Rahman's heavenly compositions from Yuvvraaj specially this one.

Open source goodness for FIL

So dear Missus decided to gift a laptop to her Papa on his 60th birthday. Ok it's his 62nd birthday and Madam decided to gift a laptop now. In all earnestness, I suggested that we gift a laptop loaded with Linux. After 3-4 weeks (actually months) of procrastinations and looking over Best Buy ads, we bought a Dell Inspiron 1525. I was surprised when the BestBuy guy mentioned that they would remove all the adware that came with Dell laptops and that would cost a cool $125. This is one of the reasons, I desist Windoze. So I installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04LTS). Installation was easy and I followed the guide here. I installed Google repos for Picasa. The webcam was fixed by installing ekiga and cheese. Skype was chosen as the medium for communicating with 10-month old grand daughter. [:P] BTW Skype worked out of the box. I had some problems with the microphone/speaker and that was fixed using the instructions given here. Last but not least I also got the S-video to work by reading this instruction/post on ubuntuforums.org
I also made a small presentation/manual on how to use the essential features. I hope that this experiment pays off. At least they won't be bothered with viruses, spyware, ad ware, etc. and can use their laptop to chat with their grand daughter here. I deserve a pat on the back for 1. making Linux OS an alternative to Windoze for them, so that they won't miss having Windoze, 2. making Open Source software flourish.

Soldiers deserve better !

This is a very though provoking article, that appeared in Rediff. I agree with the author's point of view. After all, defense personnel should be provided with better pay packages. In today's scenario, nobody would opt to go for the Defense services. A new movie trailer of Heroes (hindi movie no connection to the series on TV) tells the viewers about seeing why the defense services are not good. This alone makes me want to watch the movie.

nostalgia...

I was surprised to find an invitation on LinkedIn from a friend. Apparently another friend/acquaintance/student wanted to send me a message after seeing my profile. Now he works with a very reputed company and his group has positions for a fresh PhD graduate and wanted to contact me wrt that position. Now what's the common link? So this friend was my student or the other way around I was the TA for a VLSI design class he had taken. 6 years back, I dealt with 150 students in the class. Honestly, I cannot remember his face, but it feels nice to be remembered.

Thankfully, this week looks bright atleast due to my Genius playlist featuring songs from Fashion, Welcome to Sajjanpur, Drona, Vaaranam Aayiram..!!! Mundhiram Parthe is my current favourite...!!!!

Dow(n)

Monday morning: What's the financial scenario today? OMG !!! Wachovia got bought by Citigroup. and then again my favourite Apple stocks fell again. The financial market is in a BIG mess !!!

Mile sur mera tumhara..!!!

Why this title? It's a sarcastic take on the song that preaches national integration. I hitched a ride on Friday with a colleague/friend to another friend's place. My colleague was on his way to meet his girl friend, still studying in school. He mentioned that though both of them speak Hindi, they were not sure about their future in terms of what their parents would say. I bolstered his confidence by making the point that in any case, they spoke the same language, moreover Punjabi is an offshoot of Hindi. (No offense Punjus). It's disappointing to see parents not accept inter-caste marriages because of the Indian society. Who defines society? It's 'WE' as a collective individual defining the norms of 'SOCIETY'. I have been at the receiving end of this. Lot of my friends have gone through inter-caste/regional marriages and are living happily. Parents teach their children to live a good life, but I don't know why they cannot see that if they agree with their children on such a small issue, they are at least seeing their children happy. I know that it's every parent's dream to choose a prospective bride or groom for their children. But there's no fixed path for everyone. You may end up liking someone and would like to marry that certain individual. The only obstacle then is the mutual acceptance of the prospective bride or groom by the parents. Some cases are easy, because the parents are not so orthodox. I don't know what to say when I hear parents saying that they want you to come to India, see a girl, get married and go back. Is this horse-trading?? or cattle-trading??
I have heard this "what will your children be ?? what culture will they follow??" My answer: They will be good human beings and they will have the best of both worlds. Why marry someone to keep the society happy?? It's this hypocrite society that is responsible for this mess. The media goes crazy when AB marries Ash..and it's this same media/society that ridicules an inter-caste marriage. So what does the common man lack?? I wish parents were open-minded about the marriage stuff, after all we have been seeing 'Mile Sur' for the past so many years. Haven't we become mature enough to learn something about national integration from it?

Week of acquisitions

I was jolted on Monday morning, when I read that Lehman brothers had filed for bankruptcy, Merill Lynch was bought by Bank of America. Two big financial firms and now nothing. Somewhere, I did see this as well: Napster acquired by BestBuy.
I guess what's in store for this week?? more acquisitions?? Eventually are we going to see everything controlled by a single entity ??

I hope the economic crisis improves. I am not interested in seeing the economic slump similar to 2001-2004, just when I am about to graduate. It's as if the slumps have aligned perfectly with my graduation time line.

A Wednesday

My condolences for the victims of the Delhi Bomb Blast. I am saddened again by the srial bomb blasts rocking India. It's as if the government does not care for the "common man". in this context, I saw "A Wednesday". I wonder if every common man decided t implement this model/code of conduct.

Onamashamsakal !!!

Wish you all a very Happy Onam !!!
It's Onam, and I am confused this Onam. Technically we are not celebrating Onam due to the year long mourning for my dear GrandMa/Amma. I am at a loss in refreshing my last memory of Onam celebrated in Pune eight years ago. Onam celebrated in Kerala with pookalam and all was some eons ago. It's a small thing, but my eyes are moist thinking about the last sadya I had with my Amma in 2000. The sight of rice, sambar, uperi, kalan, elisseri, achar, papadam-everything on a banana leaf, hmm..it all seems so far away now.
Thankfully, the Mallu Hokies have decided to celebrate Onam next week in a potluck kinda way and that should break the monotonous and solitary kind of life here.

Marriages are made in Heaven?? Who knows?

I have always wondered if marriages are made in heaven as the saying goes. Who knows if God thought about caste, religion, color, and what not before deciding if two people could marry on earth. Now this thought would not appeal to an atheist, because according to an atheist marriage is a ritual/custom that binds two people in a union of love. I know that this sentence is tacky. On numerous occasions, some south indian guy has called my maharashtrian friend "Ghati", which may or may not be an insult. I find offense in regional segregation of people based on location and I have been quick to point out to that person that I am married to a Maharashtrian as well. It is interesting to see the flustered look on the guy's face and then the muttering 'Love Marriage??' I plead why love marriage?? By rule, all marriages are love marriages, because two people like each other and have consented for their marriage. Who cares as along as you have found your soulmate. I came across Chirag's excellent blog that captured this thought.
I can sum up the whole idea by again reiterating that marriages are made in Heaven, but you need to arrange it on Earth LOL !!! Rock ON !!!

Rock on !!!!

I saw Rock On today. excellent movie !!! reminded me about my college days, etc. I saw DCH in 2001 and now this movie after 8 years is a more mature look at friendships. I guess I have grown older and that kind of changes the outlook towards life. I especially liked Farhan's dialogue "Zindagi main compromises karna padta hai aur compromises kaun nahi karta !!". Who talks about compromises fresh out of college? People talk about compromises only after some stage of their life and that's why this movie makes sense now. Also compromises need not be attributed to failures, I correlate compromises to adjustments. Adjusting to a new job, new country, new school, new car, new house, new wife (strike the last one out, just kidding !!! ). I am listening to this song and this song now, so watch the movie and Rock On !!!

Singh is Kinng-excellent

nice movie and definitely worth a watch !!! AK and Katrina look good together.
Here's something I found online wrt this movie. Enjoy !!!

Unforgettable Tour

After shifting on Friday, we (it's a collective noun now onwards) drove to Atlantic City, NJ for AB's Unforgettable Tour. The show was too good. It started with Ritesih's performance, followed by Preity, Abhishek and Ash. The best performances were by Madhuri Dixit and Amitabh Bachchan. All of us enjoyed dancing to the numbers belted out by Vishal-Shekhar and Amitabh. Everyone gave a standing ovation when BigB mouthed his famous dialogues from Kabhie Kabhie, Agneepath and a heart-wrenching monologue from Deewar. Overall, the show was really UNFORGETTABLE, now only if I could manage to get their autographs, LOL !!!
After the show, some of us sauntered into the casino and made a small killing in Roulette. I knew Lady Luck would smile after witnessing Madhuri's and Preity's billion dollar smile (Missus does not approve of my compliments regarding the smile).

New place...[:( or :)]

Today I have finally shifted to MD. This is because of my new foray into the corporate domain after slogging in the education sector for 7 long years. These 7 long years have given me almost 2 degrees (why almost..coz i don't have the second yet). I spent the past 4 years in a wonderful place, (Blacksburg,VA) mainly due to the pursuit of my second degree. Blacksburg will eventually give me my second degree, but more than the education, it's given me much much more. I have worked with very intelligent people (CDP and KevS), made a lot of friends, met my Missus (Virginia is for lovers, so that was bound to happen). I was awash with lot of emotions, while driving to MD. I fast forwarded through all the good times and the bad times of Blacksburg and sometimes words are just not good enough to express emotions.
So 8-8-8 will be very memorable, I have shifted to MD, it's my BIL's wedding anniversary, and the Olympics began today. Now I am looking forward to a new experience in MD !!!

Where am I from ??

Someone recently mentioned that I don't look like a South Indian !!! How inconsequential !!! Today I came across this article that sums up my thoughts.
Can I still call myself an 'Indian' after I have been in India for just 10 years ?

How many national interest political parties do we have ??

Just after the nuclear deal, we witnessed a series of bomb blasts in and around Bangalore and Ahmedabad. The Israeli government has stepped in with their support on training IPS in handling terrorists. In this context, I was drawn to this stupid article by Sitaram Yechury. (Disclaimer: IMHO I believe that Israelis are best equipped to handle terrorism at all levels. Also I admire Israel for being able to survive in the midst of all the Arab nations. When I studied in the Middle East, the ministry officials used to blacken out Israel from our Atlases.)

In this context, we have 3-4 main parties, Congress-Mandal commission revisited, BJP-Godhra, Left-Bandhs + zero development and a host of small parties SP, BSP (Imagine having Mayawati as the PM, puhleeze). With regard to Sitaram's article, why would we play along with Iran or China and for what part of national interest ?

(Another disclaimer: I don't support any party. I don't have a high regard for the Left party, because I am from Kerala)
In any case: I can not contribute to a change in this scenario as I am never going to get into politics or leave my NRI status, but I will still keep commenting about the political situation in India. Hah !!!

Meeting Classmates-think twice when ur better half is with you !!!

NJ's home to a classmate of mine -TJ. I met TJ on Orkut and thought of visiting her family. To top it off, her mom-my Tenth class teacher was also there. So it was a triple treat- meeting teacher, classmate and yes TJ's daughter. I thought that this would be a better way to normalize/familiarize my Missus with my classmates and my high school life. But that was not to be !!!

TJ mentions that I was unbearable when I was in high school, very naughty. and irritating. ..puhleeze!!! She also mentions that at that time I used to stand in the front of the assembly line as I was the shortest in the class. Thanks to TJ, now Missus knows about that and cribs me. I keep telling Missus, that I only have/had face value, as I was podgy in school. Anyways, the best part of the conversation was when TJ remarked that I poked her with my compass when she strayed into the imaginary boundary set up on our bench. BOOM !!! Out goes all the credit saved up for my gentlemanly behavior !!! I was embarrassed and my face turned into a deep shade of red and purple. Missus was obviously ROTFL.
One of my classmates PM helped me with a favor and I thanked her and myself that I did not end up poking her with a compass or irritate her. So PM mails me and my wife that I was a very pleasant classmate with weird bouts of craziness. PM- you have redeemed me and I owe you !!!

Moral of the story: Think twice before you meet your classmates with your better half in tow. If possible avoid embarrassments and ostrich-hole scenarios (when you feel like putting your head in a hole and hide yourself) by going ALONE !!!

Multi-protocol IM on iphone

So the iphone was lacking a Jabber client, through which one can login to all the different IM services such as AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk, (Office IM server). Finally I found about Palringo for the iphone. Palringo is available from the App Store and is a swell application. I think that this app should show up on the Top 50 list soon !! Have fun chatting using Palringo !!!

July 25th

Happy Birthday MG !!!! So it's Missus B'day and I am here celebrating it. I have done a good job today, took the CRV for an oil change, fixed the wireless router. I am done with all the chores at this place. Two things sadden me: 1. Bangalore was witness to terror attacks and 2. CMU prof Randy Pausch passed away, who was very famous for his 'Last Lecture' video seen by millions on YouTube. Dr. Pausch's speech is very influential and has been a source of inspiration for lot of people. Watch it if you haven't seen it yet.

Pappu Pass Ho gaya

I know that it's a weird title but then this is inspired from one of the most popular soundtracks from Jaane Tu. So yeah, I kinda know When it's Love, that's the tagline of Jaane Tu. And I don't want to talk about the movie, because that's another blog topic in itself. So on today July 24th, I successfully defended my Research Proposal to my committee, in short they approve of me putting my valuable 4 years for this research. Inspite of all this, I had hiccups when my Prelim card did not arrive at my advisor's mailbox. Thanks to the fumble by Grad school. After my defense, I got my Prelim card which had appeared in my advisor's mailbox and I ran everywhere to get signatures. I was getting late for my scheduled NJ trip and delegated some work to my roomie MT. Thanks to Manas for submitting all the paperwork to Grad School. And yeah I am traveling empty-handed to Nj for Missus's birthday. I hope the Missus forgives me for that cos girls are known to forgiving. And I have prepared myself for the situation that I am going to hear that I came empty-handed all my life cos Missus has an elephantine memory and will keep reminding me/use it as EBM. Ahh the ways of life...5 more hours to reach destination !!!!

Nuclear Deal implications

The Government won the trust vote regarding the Nuclear Deal. Before leaving for a dress rehearsal of my PhD Proposal defense, I was following the trust vote like a mad man. Finally I managed to see some encouraging scenes on Star News (thanks to idesitv.com) and finally the news flashed: UPA 275, Against 256 plus a count for the abstainees. In this mood, I left for my Prelims defense, which was a washout cos my committee member decided to attend my scheduled defense tomorrow and then bigger the firing squad, the better.
I called up my sis, who stays in Kuwait and wished her a very Happy Birthday. We talk abt everything and I mentioned about the Nuclear deal finally going through the motions in the Parliament. I was surprised when she said that she did not like that the deal got passed because it was tabled by the Congress. I proceeded to explain the intricacies of the nuclear deal, etc. to her and then I started thinking about it and here's my take. One glance on today's newspapers had all the NRIs applauding the deal. the surprising part is no one in India is bothered about the deal, the youth is not bothered about it and that's where the government has failed. Instead of projecting the Nuclear Deal as an acheivement of the Congress party, theis could have been projected as an achievement for India. Congress could have run ads on DD, other satellite channels exhorting the virtues of the ND simply put more civilian reactors to take care of basic electricity requirements in the country. But then I am not a politician. I am just another guy who can only express his two words of wisdom on this inconsequential blog!! Cheers to the Nuclear Deal !!!

Are you ideal or practical?

Yesterday, I was involved in a very interesting discussion about "how one can stick to their ideals and principles and not scrifice it". My roomie BR sticks to his conviction that though society asks you to do lot of things, it's you who finally should draw the line. I beg to differ from this point of view. As a very normal human being, I have made some choices in Life that dictate my future course. I have stuck to some ideals and have also made some practical decisions. Moreover, Life can never be a straight path, it's all about adjustments. I am surprised that BR's biggest support is his mom-I am in awe of her. I wish my parents were more understanding like Aunty !!! I have promised to meet Aunty whenever I go to India next. Having a discussion based on the simple aspects of life is very eye-opening. You get to know a different perspective to the whole situation. Thanks to BR and MT and also PKG, who was my sounding board during some very difficult phases.

July 4th weekend@Detroit..Woohooo

This year me and missus travelled to Detroit to meet my in-laws and our cute 6 month-old niece. In addition to my eight languages, I have learnt baby language. I say "gjjugilluggguuuggggujugee" and Meher smiles at me. That itself is a treat to watch. She's started to crawl, it's similar to a car revving up and then she accelerates from 0 to 100 mph and crawls all the way from the living room to the kitchen. Give her anything and she tastes it. [:D] She is such a cutey pie and I am now back in Blacksburg already missing her. It's so nice to be a baby-- eat and sleep at the right time. Ahh..the wonders of childhood !!!

Are you leading a Planned Life?

I had a longish chat with my buddy VS, who's in US for a short visit. We caught up with lot of things and discussed everything under the sun (college life, professional life and family life, etc). The finale touching point to this conversation was his revelation about his elevation as a soon-to-be parent. Though we discussed about other things, some sentences lingered in my mind and I could not help but post all those thoughts on this blog. The common thread to my conversation with VS was all about "planning".

Planning is a commonly used term, an intention or decision to do something/achieve something in the future. Everyone leads a planned life. Why? You are planned (pun intended) by your parents. Your nursery/school/college/tuition classes--all these things are planned to last minute. Well, nowadays with the tacky admission process, some plans of getting admitted to the planned institution (nursery, school, college) may go haywire. But then your parents have a second choice plan as well. I personally think that I have gone to some second choice/ tenth choice places due to my lack of achieving the standard my parents had planned for me. Luckily you plan to go to xyz country to do your higher studies, you plan to work with so and so advisor, and then again you always have a "Plan of Study" (something required in Universities). You plan to graduate soon and have a job asap. The girl you marry is selected by your parents (in most cases), because that's what they have planned for you depending on caste/religion, etc. Once you get married, you become the "man with the plan". I listen to online radio at City1016 and liked RJ Abhijeet's tagline: "Listen to spindoctor RJ Abhijeet, the man with the plan". The tag has been used by yours truly in this blog.

After marriage, you have a co-planner (might be your advantage or your disadvantage, depends on how you look at it). You plan to buy a new car, new house, new furniture,etc. You plan to give x% of your salary to your wife for blowing on unwanted purchases (read shopping). Eventually you end up with family planning (pun intended). The planning cycle goes on and on. What I realized from this is: "don't get upset when some plans don't work out". Your life should be like that presentation, where you always have backup slides. Having backup slides creates a good impression: 1. You have anticipated what questions the audience is likely to ask, 2. You impress everyone because you have "outplanned" them. I correlate the presentation with my Life, where you have life events going on as slides and then when something unexpected happens (read fate), you have your backup slides/options to fall back on. This post may also be because I am planning to work efficiently on my PhD proposal presentation with the same style. In any case, if you read this post and like it, I am planning to read your comments. Enough of planning, have to go meet Wifey/in-laws for long weekend, then again that was planned months ago.. LOL

PS: By my standards, the best planners I have met are my relations on the wife's side. That's another post LOL

Apple adda

Don't be mistaken by the title: I am not selling fruits and I am neither inclined in selling apples. This weekend we (meaning my roomies) have decided to extend their love for Apple products and so we have two new shiny Apple MacBooks. So I decided to count the number of electronic gadgets we have in our house:
1. MT's Apple Mac mini
2. MT's 12" Apple PowerBook (extinct now--and planning to upgrade to a shiny MacBook Air(MBA))
3. My Apple MacBook
4. My Dell Dimension 5150 desktop (Windoze now, may install a Linux distro)
5. BRP's IBM Thinkpad (Windoze)
6. HN's Apple Mac mini
7. HN's Dell Inspiron(or something) Laptop (Windoze)
8. HN's new and shiny 1 day old Apple MacBook
9. NG's Dell Inspiron(or something) Laptop (windoze + Ubuntu)
10. NG's new and shiny 1 day old Apple MacBook
In addition to these 10 computers, we have a seldom used IBM laptop with Ubuntu for displaying movies on TV thru S-video (thanks to RM)
OOh, we also have 3 iphones, 2 ipods, 2 ipod touches, 1 ipod nano, 5 printers..!!!
Though some of these will appear as ads on the local groups as items for sale, I can't help noticing the fact the amount of computing power available at my place..(no mention of the actual computing potential due to 5 intelligent and brainy roomies--self praise) LOL..Hahaha...!!!

Deja-vu

It's different when you are so far away from kith and kin and feel like celebrating birthdays. The mandatory NRI custom includes calling up parents and siblings, etc (add "in-laws" for married folk) and then everyone wishes you, etc. The tedious part is you have to cook everything and then call your friends over. I am not complaining, but that's life away from parents and relatives. BTW I have invited friends over for dinner sadya: rice, sambar, pappaddam, father-six(achar) and semiya payasam. Someone please send me a fruit cake !!! When I was a kid (till 8th..no kidding) my star birthday would be celebrated in India because of the summer vacations (July & August) in Dubai. Eventually I was sad that I never had a chance to take chocolates to school, not to mention that I never had birthday parties due to the vacations and in the process saving my parents the trouble of setting up elaborate parties, getting chocolate boxes, etc. After shifting to Pune (8th-till I came to USA), I can only remember a birthday party in my ninth standard with a small fruit cake (no icing..mind it) and with a couple of friends over, watched TV, etc. College birthday parties involved a small lunch/snack party at the local college canteen--commonly known as "birthday treat". I celebrated my birthday once in Kerala (just before I left for USA) with a mandatory visit to a nearby temple followed by a sumptous feast and two payasams. In USA the scenario was different, friends came from all over and bombarded me with the choicest ingredients that included ketchup, eggs, beer, carpet shampoo (ugh--I have a snap to prove it). Thankfully all birthdays after that have been very peaceful involving simple cakes and better gifts, (thanks to the missus for last year's 30GB iPoD plus this year's advance b'day gift 8GB iPhone). But I feel this sense of deja-vu: I used to look forward to celebrate my birthday in India, when I was a kid, and it's no different even when I am all grown up (kid at heart-missus will agree) and in the USA. I miss simple things-going to the temple, mummy's sadya and yummy payasam...hmmm.. Ok as usual missus has sweetly reminded me that I haven't attended her birthday yet...Deja vu again.

A good weekend

Hmmm...so it's been an exciting week. First on Monday, honourable Steve Jobs releases the much much awaited 3G iphone and he reduces the price on it plus makes fun of the EDGE speeds on the existing 1st gen iphone. There he squashed all my chances of selling my 3 month old iphone..!!! Neeraj on the other hand is impatient to lay his hands on the new phone set to debut in US on July 11th.

I was busy doing N.O.s the remaining week. N.O. means night outs..[:P]. Neways writing is a tough task especially when I am wracking my brains to maintain the correct thought flow for my research proposal. If only we could get PhDs by working or passing exams. or as Manas mentions.."it's an utter waste of time just writing up things when all that time can be devoted for pure research." I agree with him, I could have put two weeks for my research paper/poster due by the end of July. Anyways it's no use complaining about a system and it's rules. Sometimes when i am cornered, I think about the dialogue in Matrix: "Bend the rules as the rules restrict you".

Anyways after submitting my white hardcover to my advisor, who I am sure will paint it red with his comments; I left for NJ. First of all driving 8 hours is tough and add to it KC 2.0 alpha in existence for me. Thanks to Silverine for putting that on her blog.
So this time around I lazed around at NJ had wine and asked Madam to watch "A Good Year"; DVD courtesy Blockbuster. Excellent movie to watch to top off a relaxing weekend. I suggest that you watch it as well..!!!

Woohoo Summer tasks

So Summer has officially kicked in and I am already busy getting my small chores done. I finally decided to upgrade my Dell workstation and ordered a 2GB memory transplant from Newegg. I am surprised that the price of memory has gone so low. Anyways after procrastinating a lot, I decided to reinstall Windows XP on my machine. I think Microsoft does not like reinstallation of their OS, because the installation procedure is very tedious as compared to my fav OSX (hint: I love bashing Windoze).
Also after installing see this window to understand the number of updates available for Windows XP SP2.

Chicago Trippppp..Yey

After one of those moments of reckoning, when I got up at 7 am to check the status of my paper, I was happy and relieved to find my paper accepted. I know that this does not count among the most widely accepted moments of reckoning, but yeah this was mine. So finally I packed my bags to attend the conference at NCSA .
However, the joys of a solitary trip cannot be reaped due to the unwritten rule by Missus, "Missus accompanies hubby on all official trips". So the first part of the trip was a roller coaster ride with delayed flights to O'Hare, extended family stay at SIL's atya's place, getting to meet roly poly, chubby, cutie pie niece after 5 months, trip to the Field Museum, Sears towers. So this small motley of 14 people had all age groups right from 85 years to 5 months and kudos to Mandar and Mahesh Kaka for managing most of the group.

I arrived at Champaign, IL courtesy Amtrak. The conference was excellent, and presented me an opportunity to interact with the actual cluster users, the scientists behind all the weather modeling, astrophysical simulations, molecule visualizations. It's always interesting when you are on the other side just accelerating code on clusters with no idea of how you are contributing to science and then these conferences let you meet those scientists who benefit from application acceleration. So anyways, I presented my paper and benefited from a tour of the NCSA computers plus the awesome machine room that houses the world's 8th fastest supercomputer. Also most of the talks were beneficial and centered over the development of the petascale and exoscale computers. Only disappointing aspect was that inspite of being a Linux conference, the conference proceedings was given on a( Windows executable file system) flash drive.

I stayed with Pari & fly before flying out to BB and be struck by pollen allergies...waaah:(

Tasting other blogs..LOL

In between some very important things, my mind kind of wandered off online in search of some authentic mallu blogs...(no discrimination)..It's only because I wanted to see the prevalence of blogging among the Keralite Next-Gen folks.
Surprisingly, I found some very hilarious and interesting blogs. (note: I have not asked their permission for blogroll). Warning: Reading these blogs can invoke a mixed feelings of laughter, nostalgia and sarcasm.
1. Silverine & MyThinkpad: extremely funny and typical mallu view on ordinary situations.
2. Nariyalchutney: again funny and interesting piece by a "Fraud-Mallu"
3. Save-Kerala: Ohhhh..Man I liked MindCurry's blog on typical Fat Mallu Weddings..worth a read anytime..[:P]
4. BinnyVA: ROFL after reading about feline Toxoplasmosis
Enjoy reading these blogs.
PS: I have not yet asked permission for blogrolling them.

Wow...Excellent stuff for iphone

I am working on the evaluation perspective of my proposal due in a long time. This has driven me to do some more MPI parallel programming to produce my benchmark values that can be compared with my final values later (after about 6 months). So I take a 10 min break between 1-2 hours and read up on the Mac sites such as TUAW, hints, rumors, etc. I know, I know..what a fanatic...heard that before too...
Today's news caught my eye, VOIP over iphone brought to you by Fring. What is Fring? So Fring is an app that can be installed on jailbroken iphones and this allows you to voice chat on Skype, Gtalk, AIM, wow. Surprisingly this is a pre-release version and is kind of slow. Erica from TUAW had these problems as per her LiveBlog. I waited till the end of the day to test this app. My guinea pig..oops test case was Neeraj (he regularly uses a bluetooth headset to chat with folks on Gtalk, and therefore he qualifies as the perfect test case. No harm Neeraj [:P]). I did talk to him on Gtalk and Skype. I have to mention that the voice quality was perfect. Only the thing that needs to be rectified is : if you click on Communities and click on any of the services with a tick, you get unsubscribed and then you have to enter your id and password all over again.
Overall an excellent application...Cheers to Fring and iPhone.

Converted one more from Windoze to Mac

So yeah...as the title suggests, I converted one more person in the family from the dark side a.k.a Windows to the good side a.k.a Mac OSX. Apparently it all started with my SIL's emails asking me for an opinion about the HP laptop selections made by her brother.

Now that's one of the perks for being the "in house-techie" (that's better than being called a nerdie). Pros: you get to wag your tongue on all the pros and cons and then conveniently force your selection on the unsuspecting audience. Cons: If the gadget goes bad, you get flak for suggesting the product, everyone loses trust in your reviews and also stand a chance of losing your coveted position as the "Mr./Ms. Tech-Reviewer". OK that's a nightmare and I don't want to go that path.

So I looked at the not so attractive bulky HP laptops and then told my SIL's bro abt my perspective on the sleek and efficient MacBook. Apparently Mac users qualify among 10% of OSes used worldwide. Getting people over is a huge task but then the crossover is alluring due to programs such as Parallels, VMWare, etc.

All the MS Office programs are available on Macs excluding Visio and MS Project. Alternatives include OmniGraffle and OmniPlan (I use both and like their excellent User Interface). Quick note: I installed Office 2008 on my Macs and I was prompted for updates and security fixes the next minute. Typical Windows Application behavior.

Climax scene: SIL's bro has successfully migrated to the good side. My faltu ka prediction: He will become more efficient and his productivity will increase exponentially.

Moral of story: I am the official Mac/Apple preacher/Minister. LOL

Online radio stations--iTunes

Hmmm..belonging to the software profesion is not bad unless you have some sort of escapism in the form of online music/radio stations. There have been many countless ocassions when my mood has been buoyed (read code/program started working after countless hours of debugging) by some good song playing on some online music channel.
As a service to the other folks out there, I decided to post info about some of the online radio stations:

1. City 1016 is a radio station broadcast from Dubai, UAE and features the latest hindi, pop songs. It's fun listening to their most famous RJs Abhijeet and Gaurav.

2. Pulse 95.3 is another radio station from Dubai, UAE and features old classics and ghazals.

3. For the Malayalam and Tamil aficionados, listen to Hit 96.7

All the above three stations require Windows Media Player as they are encoded WMV streams.

The next few stations can be played from iTunes.

4. RadioTeenTaal --Station from Paris

5. RadioNimbooda --Station from Paris again. Plays both latest hindi and tamil songs.

6. Bollywoodradio -- Station broadcast from Deutschland a.k.a Germany

7. Mastradio -- Listen to devotional songs plus hindustani classical music plus the regular hindi masala songs.

8. Bollywoodmusicradio -- entertaining playlists...

So usually, I surf between the iTunes stations and enjoy working on my code.

As a sidethought, some more info on Malayalam radio online stations can be found at Malluradio. But I was not able to play any of these streams on my Mac..[:(]

Enjoy....!!!

Cooking experiences

I am not bragging, but men do make better food than women. I think it's only because "Men excel in everything they take on as compared to Women". For example, most of the famous shows on TV have male chefs.[:P] Anyways this is all light hearted banter, I am doomed when arguing with the Missus.

So yeah wrt cooking, I have a pact with my Missus now. I make the curries and she prepares Chapati/Roti. This weekend Missus and Neeraj came to Blacksburg. It was a fun-filled weekend. On Friday, we had BW3 chicken and Bacardi Apple Rum. Wah wah...!!! Saturday morning was spent lazing round and watching some part of the movie "Sunday". After Manas's Pina Colada concotions, everyone kind of slumped down. In the evening, Neeraj, Manas, Amar & family, Satish, Missus and myself went for bowling to Breakzone/VT Recsports. I stuck to my agreement and prepared Creamy Tomato with French Fries Curry on public demand. We had a potluck with Amar & family. Arati prepared delicious Puran-Poli.
Sunday was time to leave and we rounded off with Lunch @ Panera Bread....!!!
In all an excellent refreshing weekend...Yipppee yay...!!!

Filing Taxes

So yeah, I have finally filed my taxes. Doing taxes on your own is a pain and then truly "no gains without pains" --bad PJ. I have migrated from doing my taxes using pen and paper to online software programs. The not too obvious reason is 1040 NREZ cannot be e-filed and hence you have to do taxes using pen and paper or Adobe writer.
Some free online federal e-file options can be found at turbotax, taxact and H&R
I personally prefer taxact due to its simplicity and ease of use. Warning: I am not employed by any of these firms for tax filing purposes and these are completely my opinions. This year I did have a doubt wrt my filing status and had to check the proper documentation. Apparently, some states require same filing status as Federal, while some allow you to use a different status as deemed fit. This is very confusing to an ordinary user and I can understand why it's an easier alternative to just go meet a tax consultant. Just for the count, I think it's a lucrative business to just learn the tax laws and help people file their taxes. Though this business will peak only in Jan-April, I guess it's worth the effort to learn the laws and pass the license exam to earn few bucks..LOL Anyone out there interested in setting up a tax consultancy as a part-time Spring business??

Modding my iphone

So finally I decided to go one more step and completely unlocked my iphone. First of all, AT&T does not have a clue about the iphone and secondly if you are smart, you can find lot of loopholes with the iphone contract liability. This gives rise to the following case:
1. You can insert your old AT&T SIM in you iphone and go on with your life. AT the same time benefit from having all the previous discounts and to top off a cool phone..!!!!
assumptions: You have unlocked your iphone completely and your SIM is locked to your old phone. This also implies that your SIM has the old instrument's IMEI locked. You may or may not choose to take the $20 Data plan. No 2 year contract as well. No visual voicemail in any case.
consequences: I don't know. My investigation on forums revealed that no one had a clue about what would happen. IMHO it is a high risk situation.
2. You can only unlock the filesystem and use the iphone with your official carrier. This way you have all the cool apps on your iphone.
assumptions: You have accepted a two year agreement with AT&T and at the same time lost any discounts on your account...duh!!! wat a bummer..!!!!
consequences: you are within AT&T liability and no one can harm a hair on your body.
And be careful before upgrading to Apple's new firmwares.

I guess I have used a very nice reasoning style for my choices. If I cud only translate this in my proposal as well...!!!
this is how my iphone screen looks like now...I have used the 'summerboard package' and installed the Leopard theme.

iphone club--Yippppeeeeyayyyyyyyyyy

so after a very very busy Feb, I am back to blogging again...It's Spring break and I decided to visit MG@NJ. my I scheduled an appointment at the Apple store (Bridgewater location) to repair Macbook (MB). Apparently, there's an inherent flaw with the MB design, if you close the lid with some force you can crack the case near the touch pad due to the protrusions on the inner side of the lid(near the screen). Remember that there's a magnet on the lid, so next time apply less force while closing your MB. Neways, my trip to the Apple store resulted in another hole in my pocket. I think Apple has to stop making expensive stuff...duh. I ended up buying a 8GB iphone. Got it home activated it. Initial observations: Awesome UI..Apple rocks...!!! the software is completely blended into the hardware and that's so good. I think this is something BREW-enabled phones have not achieved. I am for Linux-enabled phones as well for eg. Nokia N810 --has Skype running on Wi-Fi.
My car had a breakdown on I-81 while traveling to DC and the iphone was of great help. I was able to pinpoint my location using Maps and give that info to the towing agency. I was also able to locate car repair places and was able to ask the towing guy to tow my car to a better place.

I also kinda jumped the loop and did a 'Jailbreak' on my iphone. I followed the instructions @iphoneatlas Also some more tweaks: do install the repo from Navizon to enable it. The IM clients are not very robust. Remove the Conceited apps software from your 'sources' and then reinstall the 'Community sources' again. This enables the installation of the 'Terminal'.
Also install the 'SUID Lib Fix' and 'BSD Subsystem 2.0 Termfix' from the 'tweaks' section. This enables you to login as root with pswd alpine and gives you backspace functionality respectively.
In a nutshell the price you pay is for the 'World' in your pocket--a very seamless integration of phone & internet.

OMG tomorrow is V-Day

It's Valentine's day tomorrow and I don't have a clue about what to get for my better half. I don't know if V-day should be followed once you tie the knot. It's fun as long as you are seeing someone. Dunno whether V-day still holds its charm once you have fallen hook, line and sinker...
I am supposed to surprise her and I am hoping to surprise myself by coming up with a decent gift....

Mithya

I read some very ordinary reviews and decided to watch 'Mithya'- latest release from the famed Bollywood factory. The decision to watch Mithya was based on my admiration of the director Rajat kapoor's previous movie 'Bheja Fry'. I was not disappointed by Mithya. Mithya stars Ranvir Sheorey, Vinay Pathak, Neha Dhupia, Naseeruddin Shah, Iravati Harshe, etc. (no superstars, only actors). Ranvir stars as a struggling method actor who replaces a real-life don as they look identical. For the first half an hour, you don't know what to expect next and kinda sympathize with Ranvir aks VK. Everything goes fine until he replaces the don aka Raja Bhai. I liked the twist in the tale and was mindblown by Ranvir's performance. Iravati is stunning and fresh as the don's wife and somehow brings life to the role. Neha plays the gangster's moll who develops a liking to the struggling Ranvir. Though the movie does not have a conventional Bollywood ending, you kind of feel sad for the turmoil Ranvir has gone through. I liked Rajat's second outing as a director and I hope this kind of movies will continue to be churned out from Bollywood. Hats off to the director and Sourabh Shukla(dialogues).
I rate an unbiased 4.5/5 for this movie. It could have done with a better background score. Watch it @ your nearest theatre.

Problems installing MS Office 2004 on Mac OSX

I had a very harrowing time trying to install MS Office 2004 on my Mac. MS Office is not a necessary app but cannot compare to Neo because of formatting differences. I am not a proponent of MS Office apps but I need to use them when someone sends an Excel sheet/PPT file/.doc file. Google has still given us some choices such as Google Docs
I think I am going to advocate usage of LaTeX over any word processing app. LaTeX is not actually WYSIWYG in the literal sense, but in all practicality my LaTeX-ed document is WYSIWYW(What You See Is What You Write). No more headaches over formatting figures and filling up spaces.
On top of all this, I had to install more than 6 updates for Office 2004 to protect against vulnerabilities against hackers.

Red Lobster Friday..yey....

Sauntered over to Red Lobster (RL) on Friday finally. I have been planning to eat from RL for some time, but somehow nothing seemed to work out. So Manas asked me to come along with his CS group for dinner @ RL. Dinner was awesome, I had stuffed flounder...too good.
During random discussions with Manas's friend Pardha, he asked me how it felt moving from a 'democracy' to 'dictatorship'. I am not going to say what my answer was as that will land me in trouble with the concerned authorities. It seems that Pardha wants to wear a T-shirt to a wedding that blatantly says "Game Over". Now that gives rise to so many controversial thoughts; (i) Are girls comparable to the game found in forests and guys comparable to hunters? (ii) Once a guy gets married is there any rule that prevents him from admiring other girls?? I believe that you tend to appreciate the fairer sex only after marriage (iii) Did someone mentions the misses and hits..?? LOL I guess I stretched that too much.
I met one of Manas's frnds who studied @ WSU. It is always fun talking abt your previous schools (both in the Indian and US sense), colleges, etc. For some time we were comparing WSU and VT, both good schools in their own right. WSU is a small campus as compared to the humongous VT campus. Then a small campus also means that you know everyone personally as compared to the 'get-lost-in-the-crowd' feeling in large campuses. IMHO, nothing can be classified as good or bad, everything falls in the grey areas. This philosophy can be applied to everything and everyone in general and believe me this can also make a very nice tag line. Now you know why I have a grey car !!!
With a very nice feeling of deja vu, the dinner came to and but not without the surprise birthday cake for Manas. It was a 6 layer chocolate cake and nobody could eat a single slice completely, so we ended up sharing a slice. I could not help correlating the cake slice to the amount of fat that would show up on my belly and also to the amount of time I would have to spend in the gym burning those tons of calories. Nevertheless, awesome cake to top off an excellent dinner..[:D]

Aussies and their bullshit

India lost the Test series to Australia 1-2. Lot of things happened on the field and off the field too. This is the second time the invincible Aussies were stopped from bidding for their 17th consecutive Test win. IMHO, I did not even give a 10% of chance of winning anything to the Indian team in Australia. India is not a team that can prosper on bouncy pitches, but the unexpected happened. Over the years, the Indian team has been able to recruit fast bowlers such as Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, L Balaji, Munaf Patel, Nehra, etc and that has helped the team a lot. We could have won the 4th match @ Adelaide and drawn the series, but I think we won the battle even if Aussies won the series. The 2nd test at Sydney should be considered the worst match to be played in a long time. First of all, the Indian team were at the receiving end due to umpiring decisions and on top of that Harbhajan was slapped with a racial charge. Imagine the country where the father of the nation is Mahatma Gandhi who fought against racism and oppression in South Africa and our own player is charged with racial slur against an ethnic Australian. What the F@#% and top of that the BCCI is accused of letting off Bhaji with a light penalty.
Two of the best articles about this are:
1. Mukul Kesavan's article in Cricinfo
2. Sriram Ranganathan's article in Rediff

In light of these incidents, I hope the next time the Aussie players are reported by other teams against racial slurs which they indulge in so often. I can still remember the incident when McGrath walked up to Chanderpaul/some West Indian cricketer and gave him an earful because he thought that the player said something about his wife. The Aussies are technically supreme and invincible but they are the wrong people playing a "Gentleman's game".
My message to the likes of Ponting, Clarke :
"We know that you won the ODI World Cup, etc and are a good team technically on the field, etc. But the next time you berate any player on the field, just remember that you are showing us that you are nothing more than petty thugs and after all your ancestors were hard core criminals right??"
Secondly to all the cricketers turned journos who shouted and booed the BCCI when ICC replaced the West Indies umpire: "F#$k OFF"
Cricket Australia: "You need to ask your team to stop sledging on the field. The day is not far when some other team can accuse an Australian player of racial abuse. BTW players like Ponting and Clarke are big time losers and next time change the name of the series from Border-Gavaskar to something else, if you don't have the decency to call Gavaskar on the podium to give away the trophy. This just shows that Cricket Australia is racist too."

Front row on Apple

I upgraded to Leopard last week and while playing with the remote on my Macbook, I was introduced to the Apple TV interface on the Front Row. The upgraded interface allows the user to directly see new movie trailers, view TV shows. I was impressed with the very less buffering time and the excellent quality of the trailers. No more Yahoo! movie trailers for me when I can easily access the latest trailers on my Mac without browsing on a website.

TZP-reminding you about childhood

So I watched Taare Zameen Par (TZP), current blockbuster made by Aamir Khan(AK). Initially previewed as a movie for children, it comes as a surprise when the movie tackles a variety of emotions between parents and children. It's nice to see AK's honest effort in making a movie outside the regular masala fare dished out by Bollywood. I wish that this movie had come out a long time back and that would have resulted in less parent pressure and stress on children. The performances in this movie are outstanding (Darsheel, AK, Darsheel's parents, the school teachers) and some scenes linger in your memory for a longer time. My favorite scene is when Ishaan sees Nikumb Sir's painting and it kinda chokes you and makes you cry. The music is mind blowing and my favorite track is "Maa" and "Kholo Kholo".
Excellent movie and I was surprised to see that TZP already figures in the top 250 movies list on IMDB. Way to go...Aamir...!!! Read his blog here

Migrating to the Big Cat

Yup...I finally migrated to Leopard. I haven't been a Mac user for a long time and I did not know how the upgrade process would work out. I am more proficient with Linux distros and Windoze. Neways after reading about the numerous blogs abt backing up using SuperDuper! and iBackup, I was very confused. Manas suggested a very simple technique:
1. Back up all your data. (I used an external hard disk)
2. Back up the ~/User/Library and the ~/Library.
3. Copy all the Applications from the ~/Applications folder

Format your precious Mac and after the 30 minute installation just drag all your applications and their respective folders from your archived copy on the hard disk.

That's it and you are back to working from where you left off. In fact all the Firefox tabs opened up the way it was before I had quitted. Anyways, I did a separate installation of iWork and iLife. Caution: make sure have 20GB of free space on your external disk for your libraries and apps before attempting this.

At night, I had to help out a frnd with Windoze installation on his Dell laptop. The user interface is so bad that you don't know if a check mark indicates an installed driver or device status. Deteriorating status of Windoze installations continues as usual.

Mixed Fruit Jam

Hmmmm..I had Mixed Fruit Jam after a very very long time. This small instance evoked a lot of memories from my childhood. As a child, we used to have different jams for breakfast: orange marmalade, cherry and pineapple. Pineapple was more common and I got bored with pineapple jams. Mango jam was more common in Pune and was a welcome change. Jackfruit jam was the highlight of the occasional Kerala trip. The saving grace in India was the ready availability of mixed fruit jam. I used to have jam sandwich in the middle of the day, practically anytime. Preparing for exams, study leave...the sudden rush of the different flavors such as strawberry, mango, blueberry, pineapple(well) gives you a high akin to alcohol.
Neways thanks to the Patel stores in NJ, I finally bought a bottle of Kissan's Mixed fruit jam and here I am writing this piece abt jam sandwiches. Oh yaa...Jammy is my fav cricketer as well...i had roomie called Jammy as well... and now it's time for me to have a jam sandwich.

A year gone by

A year has gone by...I have the feeling of deja vu when I think about the year gone by. It is similar to looking out of a car traveling at abt 70mph. For some time you notice the trees going by and suddenly you just lose count.. A year gone by is just like that with the trees akin to the days. Some trees/days stand out and linger on for some more time.

The last month has been very hectic and erratic. I lost someone very very special. As fate would have it, I barely had time to grieve over it. I also reached another milestone in my life--can't blog abt that here. I also saw the arrival of two Sagis--Tara and Meher Natasha. Met both the darlings in CT and MI respectively. Lost the Toyota Corolla in a very bad accident. MG went ahead and bought her first SUV-2008 Honda CRV. the previous blog abt the Hertz deal was never utilized. We drove to CT, MI in our sparkling new CRV and logged abt 2K miles on it within 10 days. An average person in the US logs abt 20K miles on his car. I can gladly vouch that we are going to surpass that number by +5K easily.

New Year celebrations were very subdued..saw a couple of movies and then toasted champagne with everyone. I drove back to NJ on 1st, spent abt one hour removing the 1 feet thick blanket of snow on the car, cleaning the driveway. The drive back was very tiring with continuous snow for most of the time.

I hope that this Leap year bring good luck to everyone(specially me)...LOL

Wishing one and all a very Happy New Year...!!!