YuviSense: Codin Kid

[Note: Personal Rant ahead. Seriously personal. So personal that the FBI/CBI want access to it. If you are from either organization, you immediately owe me $50,000 to buy me a trip to MIX’07]

If you are one of the very good 194 people who care about me, then you might have noticed the lack of posts from me for the past few days. Also, I might not have been available via IM as I used to be.

So, first, Sorry.

Next, this is because, I am Sick. Very Sick infact. Been having Fever for 3 days now. My days went like this: Fever -> Very Cold -> Fever. Repeat that some 25 times.

When I got to my last Very Cold state, I started searching online for the probably cause of this. [Warning:IANAD(Means I Am Not A Doctor, folks)]

I found Malaria. Reading the Symptoms section made me cringe, because it was a bit confusing at first, then a little bit more confusing, and finally, all hell broke loose when they said that the “survival rate of severe malaria is 20%”

I was wondering what to write in my will. Then I guessed that I’ll just post the will and have some kind lawyer around enforce it. Blogosphereukku oru ‘O’ podungo! (If you din’t understand that, it was in my native language, Tamil, and meant the same as “Hip Hip Hurray!”)

As I was about to collapse on myself, my Dad arrived with the blood report saying that I was not suffering from any *known* disease, which consisted entirely of Typhoid, Malaria, Jaundice and Dengu. Yeah, Freak! Atleast, that calmed me down a bit in that I don’t have a chance of 20% of survival.

Because, a 20% survival rate means an 80% death rate. Read that again. An 80% death rate. I was almost totally crashed(crashed as in a BSOD sortof way, not as in a “Crashed on the Couch” way).

I knew that only a very small percentage of Malarias turn out to be Severe. But, it was a percentage none the least. And, when looking towards death, the Intellectual centers of the brain cease to function.

I felt that happen, when my aunt died. I was like, speechless, wordless, not even worrying about my looming Chemistry exam. She was sane. Sane as in, being able to think on her feet. Sane as in, if  I were to choose advice(which is free and non-taxable here), I’d certainly choose her’s. Really.

But I got over it, after a few days of sleeping.

But, I know one person who might not be able to: My cousin Sudar. Because, she was his Mom.

I don’t know how it’ll feel to lose a Mom, and I certainly wish I were dead before that ever happened to me. I can’t even say what it feels to be like, because I don’t know, and don’t want to know.

Also, Sudar has done more to develop me as a Geek than anyone else, maybe except my Dad.

What should I say? I don’t know what to say, so I just shut up. If you have anything better to say, head over to his blog and say it to him. Now.

P.S. Some parts of this post might seem to not get across the point, which isn’t the point, since I didn’t have a point for this post except telling it out to someone. So, since that point is taken care, I got to the point, right?]

P.P.S. Also, if I offended anyone in this post, please forgive me and flame me, since I’m just:

1. Delerious (Is that correct?(I am sure to get a comment for this one!))
2. Running a 103F temperature, which is slightly lower than room temperature here
3. But feeling so cold that an Arctic Underwater ride with an angry Polar Bear might be less cold
4. Stupid

So, if you made it through this far, thanks.

[Dead]

If you’re reading this via an RSS reader, click through and vote on which Distro and Desktop Environment I should use. I’ll use the highest rated one, unless something terrible happens…

Am also contemplating on how to backup the 35 gigs of photos I have accumulated over a short period of 2 months. Any ideas people?

If you don’t know what a LinuxDash is, it is just a trial when you use only Open Source software on your computer for a period of time. My LinuxDash starts April 1st.

Posting might be light now, due to some personal and connectivity problems.

Found this quite funny, even though the domain name looks quite spammy(http://www.email-marketing-reports.com)

I started writing an article about how it would be if ancient India had the internet, but all I could get to was “They banned it because it was against our culture”

Update: Digg this story here. I didn’t submit it, so thanks to Micheal for submitting that!

[If you find me, or my picture, or my assumptions wrong, please comment or flame me]

I’m taking the plunge. This April 2007, I’ll be running only Open Source software on  my dear computer Saki, unless something goes horribly wrong(like, say, a meteor hitting the hard drive which stores all my photos(without any backup(for 4 years))(or the install mucking up my hard drive(like it did the last time I tried))).

Also, I’ll be publicly documenting all my efforts, right from the installation through text, audio, and if something extraordinary happens, through video. And also, we’ll test the claims that “Linux is ready for the mainstream” which has been going around for quite some years now.

Update: Just to clarify things a bit, by mainstream, I meant mainstream for me. If I can’t work with it, then I can’t expect my friends to.

But, there is a problem: I know next to nothing about Linux. Honestly. I do have 25 distros at home, but most are already outdated, even though they’re just about 3 months old. So, could some of the helpful people from the OpenSource/Linux/GNU people kindly help me choose the right set of software for my system?

Update: I’d like a fully GPL system, but if it’ll be a royal pain in the posterior (as my friend, fellow 16 year old and Linux Zealot Collin said), I don’t want it.

Here is my system’s hardware configuration:

• Intel Pentium 4 Single Core 2.4 Processor
• Asus P4GE motherboard.
• 1.25 Gigs of DDR RAM
• nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card
• Dual IDE Seagate Harddisks, with most space formatted as NTFS drives. However, I recently cleaned up and some 20 Gigs of unallocated contiguous space is available for Linux.
• A BenQ CD Writer
• A Canon PowerShot S3 Camera

And, here’s what I require the base distro to do:

• Must work with all my Hardware. No exceptions, no headaches. The most I’ll do is a Google Search.
• Must work with my Digital Camera.
• Must have automounted Read-Write support for NTFS drives.
• Must have built in support for multimedia files, especially MP3, WMA, WMV and MPEG. All my music is ripped, so no DRM to worry about.
• Must be compatible with Windows written CDs.
• Must have a cleartype equivalent. Means antialiased, easy on the eyes text everywhere.
• Must be able to connect via my ADSL Internet connection without much trouble. It worked in Knoppix.
• Must not hang. Period.

Also, since I’m a developer, I need a freakin awesome Development Environment, and have decided on using Python, simply because I know the syntax(a bit(a tiny bit(but a bit’s still a bit))). But no, I won’t be going the Text Editor way, because Visual Studio has spoiled me to no small extent. While nothing can replace Visual Studio, I’ll go with an IDE that’s got syntax coloring, auto indent, and most importantly, autocomplete and intellisense.

So, here are my current Windows software which needs to be replaced:

• IE7 and Firefox
• Windows Live Writer (Blogging Client), with a WYSIWYG editor and picture uploading.
• Visual Studio. It’s very hard to replace, but I’m looking only for a IDE for Python, with Intellisense and Autocomplete support.
• Windows Media Player 11. Note that it should index my music library and allow me to search and sort my library, rather than just play files.
• Skype. Yahoo IM. Google Talk. Live Messenger
• uTorrent
• Windows Movie Maker
• Free Download Manager
• IE7 for RSS
• ScITE, for lightweight text editing.
• Microsoft Office ‘07
• FileZilla
• PowerShell
• BSOD(OK, that was a joke, ‘coz I haven’t hit a BSOD since I started using XP(If you don’t know what a BSOD is, consider yourself lucky))

Some of the stuff is already available for Linux(ScITE, uTorrent, Firefox, FileZilla), but I listed them here because there might be a better one that I don’t know about.

So, could the Linux people out there please help me out with this? I’ll publicly acknowledge all those who’ve helped me, and if I am really bloddy impressed by it, then I might actually consider switching to Linux(But that’s very hard to do(For Linux))

And, I’m christening this as my own personal LinuxDash. This is my one month LinuxDash, and yes, I did invent that word. But, you can use it, just link back to me, and we’ll share our sad/happy stories.

Also, blog about this if you’re interested. I’ll be blogging about the software I’ll be using as soon as I decide on them, which has to be before April 1st…

[Full Disclosure: Unlike Apple, this is no April Fool’s joke. That is, unless my actual experience makes it a joke]

Just when you think you’ve got it all under control, life comes up and throws a golden brick wrapped with a lemon slice six feet down your ears. No?

[That was a tribute to Douglas Adams and someone else who also changed my life. Thanks]

Yesterday, I recieved this piece of spam, which GMail let through

(lilianlovedabah@yahoo.com)
Hello
Hello dear one,How are you doing in life, I Want to introduce my self to you before i could go further, I am a lady lilian by name From the Continent of africa presently in Senegal dakar west africa , i came accross your profile which really sound so interesting as well spoke fine of you so i decided to drop a note to let you know that i am intrested in you for serious long term relationship . Please i will like you to email me back in my email address so that i can send you my photos and tell you more about myself .
This is my email lilianlovedabah@yahoo.com i am waiting to get a reply from you.
THANKS.
lilian .

Typical SPAM, you say. I recieve thousands a day, you say. Yeah, I know. But, check this out:

So, GMail let this through ‘coz this came in via Channel9. Spammers are getting more intelligenter and web savvier, with spam coming through Channel9 and even MyBlogLog.

This means that SPAM filters gotta work harder, since the normal Bayesian Filter (Which I presume Google uses) gives this email a pretty big positive score since it has a word which appears in many of my HAM email (Channel 9 or MyBlogLog). Let’s see how the powers that be tackle this problem…

BusinessWeek: How to hire Bloggers.

To which, Zoli Erdos replies in two sharp sentences:

They shouldn’t. Find them within.

I was gearing up to write a really big post about how those two sentences applied to Schools and Marks, but then I remembered that I had an insanely stupid and big Chemistry Exam tomorrow. I’m takin it easy, basically because my parents won’t be informed about my “Marks” However, I’m still reeling from the whole percieved uselessness of schooling, because I realized I’ve learnt more from talking two very experienced people than from the past five years of schooling.

On a tangent (a secant, really), I know, I should be posting photos and audio recordings of the fantastic ADC which happened four days ago, but I’m in a work-avoidance mode, and just browsing around, so will get around to posting them soon. But believe me, the event was a fantastica eventica(yeah, I just invented it(But it’s really a dialect of Tamil(I guess))), and I’ve got a ton of photos photocommuting to and from the place (thanks to my friend Vickram: I suck at geography). So, some uploading frenzy coming up soon.

Also, some articles and announcements coming up, so keep looking(How’s that for PR Speak? :D)

The ADC, if you didn’t know, is the Academic Developer Conference. Think PDC, but on a smaller scale and targeted at students. I’ll be taking (dragging) half a dozen friends with me tomorrow, and the XNA and Robotics Studio presentations promise to be fun…

I’ll be taking my camera with me, and hope to take a load of shots, and also hope that Zooomr will be up by the time I return.

We’ll be the only School students around there, so that certainly rocks!

(Besides, did anyone notice the size of the phrase “The Wow starts now”? It certainly looks out of context)

[Note: This post does have a lot to do with a dream about Steve Jobs and MacBook Pros. Hold on tight]

I completely redesigned my blog yesterday. In this context, completely redesigned involves downloading a popular theme and making so many adjustments that it still looks like the said popular theme. But, this redesign involves two very major super-exciting improvements which I would’ve not even thought of three days ago:

1. It promeniently features this picture of me!
   The White blowout on the left ear (or is it the right?) is to give the appearance of a strong light source behind me, despite the reality that it’s there simply because I’m a crappy photographer who can’t choose his lighting source.
   Update: This really isn’t an update, but how do I look in that photograph? Dad says I look like a drunkard, so I need to convince him that I am not. So, would you please come out and comment on how I look and feed my ego in the process? Thank you.
2. It promeniently features another photograph of me, this one a smaller version near every post’s title: Please note that it’s a very original idea, and I swear that I did not steal this idea from anybody. I swear. Update: In the course of writing this post, I changed my mind and this second highly original idea of mine would not make it to the complete redesign.

How do I look?

Note that both photographs make me look like I just finished reading through all the comments on Slashdot about Windows Vista without any filter, but that’s just because reading our textbooks is almost an equivalent to that torture. Also, another reason might be that my camera is not that good at photographing the person holding it, because of some personality problems which Sano (my camera) asked me to keep secret. And, it might also be because I’m just a (gasp) teenager! kid, with hormonal changes!

Note that my face usually does not look like the one pictured abouve, and the expression was concoted specially for the occassion to make sure that I won’t scare away any people who might dare visit this blog, ‘coz seeing my other photographs would have been the pictorial equivalent of someone coming next to you and repeating Blood. Blood. Blood. Bloo… It would be that scary.

Steve Jobs

About two days back, I had a dream while sleeping. No, I mean, real sleeping on the bed, with a pillow and all, mainly ‘coz I don’t have Chemistry classes now because I’m having exams. It starts off with me into a very heated technical argument about something I can’t remember right now. And, it’s in a store. The argument might be with an employee, but I’m not so sure. Right in the middle of the flame war, in walks Steve Jobs. I’m sortof silenced for a moment, but something makes me continue the argument with Steve Jobs. And somewhere, I say something along the lines of “But hey, I don’t have any app that does that”, to which he responds by asking one of the shop attendants to give me that app, whatever that is. But, I respond with something like, “But hey, I don’t have a Mac to run that on! I don’t even have a laptop!”, to which Steve replies something like, “OK, give him a Laptop!” And then, I woke up, and my first thought was, “I look nice”

Okay, most of the details are a bit fuzzy, but hey, it’s just a dream, not an XBox 360. Infact, the only words that I can remember having heard very clearly are the “OK, give him a Laptop!”. He said Laptop, rather than Mac Book Pro, maybe hinting that they might preload Windows into their Laptops sometime in the yet undetermined future. Infact, I said it’s a MacBook pro simply because that’s what I felt when I woke up. And, it might also have been an Apple store, but since I have never seen an Apple Store’s inside (heck, not even an outside), I’m not sure.

I was pretty perplexed after this dream, considering that

1. I have never seen Steve Jobs. Never. Not even a photo or video. Seriously.
2. I have never seen a Mac of any shape, provided the ancient mac at the school(which is used as a paperweight(for around 8 years now)).
3. I’ve touched a 3 year old laptop some 2 years ago, and haven’t seen one since.

So, I’m not completely sure why I had that dream. Still, it was quite cool.

Looks?

If you know me, and know me really well, you’ll know that I had an inferiority complex about my looks. But, after that dream, that inferiority complex vanished as if it was never there! That rocks, ‘coz I think that Steve Jobs’ RDF(Reality Distortion Field) can actually cure phsychological diseases! Yikes!

So, thanks to the cure, you’ll find a very badly photographed photograph of me both in the first part of this post as well as my Blog Header. This is different from how I was before that dream, when I uploaded my photo to Zooomr only because Timo bugged me into it.

(Also, note that my writing style(if I ever had one) might have changed, slightly because this is 1 am and my first pseudo-all nighter to watch a cricket match (and also maybe because I spent too much time reading through Rory Blyth’s Archives and watched his videos(He deserves a place in my history book though))(did I close all the braces?)

I love Zooomr. It’s the only Web 2.0 service I regularly use, beside Meebo. And, Thomas Hawk is a fantastic photographer(and my photographic mentor) and they do fantastic PR.

And, they’re launching a new and much anticipated version, which should be live in a few hours…

I wrote about it here on TechZi.

Rock on.

[Full Disclosure: I wanted to write about my latest visit to a hospital like place which involved needles, but I wanted to drive traffic to TechZi, simply because I like David. I’ll write about the Hospital later]

My Workspace Hosted on Zooomr

This is the place where I do most of useful and productive work.

The best thing about the place where I spend most of my useful and productive time is that I barely notice the surroundings untill something extraordinary happens, like, say an angry mom shouting at you to go eat ‘coz she’s got to do the dishes…

From left to right, in no particular significance, are my 7 year old almost-dead speakers, my cool-yet-noisy-as-Rory CPU case, the Red-Light Lamp and the boxes for my Cam and it’s Bag, my 8-years-yet-rockin-but-gettin-dull 14″ Monitor, some junk food that’s consumed as a side-dish, the TV with it’s crappy programs, a toilet cleaner in a blue bottle, a partial stack of my books on top of the TV, and the table cloth which ocassionaly doubles up as a blanket.

Did I miss anything?

Dictionary.com has this interesting definition for the word Dash:

So, you can use the word dash as in, say, dash that, and it would mean damn that.

In our school, we use the word Dash in a similiar context, but I came to know of the Dictionary.com reference only today, and we’ve been using that for quite some time. Wanna say “F**k”? Just say “Dash”. Wanna say “Fk that”? Just say “Dash That”. It’s the Universal Expletive around our place.It’s got a couple of advantages:

1. You can say that out loud.
2. You can say that out loud, infront of teachers.
3. You can say that out loud, infront of teachers, at the teachers.
4. You can say that out loud, infront of teachers, at the teachers, and you don’t have to worry about getting fried.

So, don’t finch if I use the word dash around here, and also some other places I might be writing(wink, wink[Smilies are getting out of fashion, aren’t they?])

I never knew Kris and Thomas had expertise in Crossbreeding rats…

[Full Disclosure: This is an attempted joke]

Kris, I wanna go around and explore Zooomr more, but it’s slow now. I know it’s ‘coz you’re waiting to roll out Mark III, BUT FOR DASHIN GOD’S SAKE DO IT SOON! I have holidays waiting to be taken advantage of…

BTW, Kristopher Kate needs a blog. I spent about 20 mins looking for the proper url to link to, and then had to decide wether to link to his profile page or photos page.

Trying to find some way to put off re-orging my Hard Disk and feed reader, I found that Microsoft has launched the wonderful BDLC, which I’ll call THE site to turn the computers-r-4-games freak into the programmer. I read some of the stuff there, and you don’t wanna read it if you already know any programming language(HTML doesn’t count). On the otherhand, if you’re someone who won’t know a programming language if it bit ‘em in the back(like Scoble, Arrington or my classmate Manoj), this site is definitely the way to go. Couple that with Coding4Fun, and you’ve got yourself a new cool kid!

BDLC stands for the Beginner’s Development Learning Centre, and the name sucks. Really. When I start working there(I will, trust me), I’ll do my best so that we have better names. Really.

Update: There’s a really cool Kids Corner there as well. Check that out! There’re even free ebooks with sucky funny looking cartoon characters on the cover. Shows that Programmers can’t just not write, they can’t draw as well.

Geez! I wish someone has given me the book on the right when I was 10. That would’ve helped me not waste about 3 years with just Turbo C writing Console Programs and believing they were the end of all things. Thankfully, a fluke put VB6 just for a single year in 8th Grade, and it just happened to be the year I was in 8th Grade. That, and a copy of Hardcore Visual Basic from a canned 3-CD copy of MSDN 97 from my cousin Sudar showed me the light. I learnt of .NET only in 9th Grade, and my first experience was an early Beta of VS 2005. Thankfully, I haven’t had to look back, and if I were able to talk to my younger self now, I’ll probably give him that book and a computer powerful enough to run VS 05.

But then again, I might’ve turned out to be one of those guys who can’t write a FizzBuzz to save their lives. Alternate History versions are best left to Hollywood.