All posts by Utkarsh

Solution designer with Firstsource solutions. A post grad in Networks and IT Infrastructure. Technology enthusiast, blogger, webdesigner, Network security aspirant and in love with electronics and gadgets. This blog is an attempt to share what I find interesting... almost anything @Mtaram on twitter and Google+

Apple’s iPad was, it’s fair to say, awaited with the kind of breathless anticipation usually reserved by nubile nymphets for rakish rockers.
But even as consumers rave about it, the technoscenti are already looking ahead ─ to a product that could make the iPad seem outdated, and, what’s more, is completely Made in India.

India is, of course, regarded as a software superpower but hasn’t really made waves in IT hardware so far. That could soon change, thanks to the Adam tablet PC of Hyderabad-based Notion Ink. Adam has generated enormous buzz on tech websites and gadget blogs ever since an early prototype was first demonstrated at the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), the world’s largest consumer tech trade show in January this year… Continue reading on Time of India

FUN n TP

You know you are at SCIT when… by Jassi

February 15, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

You know you are in when…

1. Classes start at 7 in the morning, you skip bath and more importantly you skip your breakfast, rush full swing, forget to carry your notebook along and somehow manage to reach at 7:25 only to find that the class has been cancelled / postponed.
You sigh for a moment and then mutter BC.

2. Once in a blue moon you make a visit to the notice-board with the hope of finding a note saying something about holidays, what you find instead is the time-table fluffing you with the horrible timing of the classes 7-10, 12-2, 5-7.
Makes you wonder if that’s their optimum time-utilization algorithm or a conspiracy to keep students’ asses stuck to the campus.

3. You have more batch-meets than the lectures. And the same old Gyaan (read: shit) is repeated in all of them.
Peculiarly, all batch-meets set-out with a scary notion of mandatory attendance.

4. Class is going on, you peep-out from the window to see pretty ladies playing basket-ball. You feel the urge to jump out of the window but couldn’t gather the balls. You start fantasizing, and the teacher asks you to explain what he had just explicated.

5. You find no time to eat or to sleep; but there’s always enough time to watch an episode of “Prison Break” or “F.R.I.E.N.D.S” or to catch-up a movie.

6. Every pretty girl you see on the campus turns out to be either from SIIB or from SCMHRD.

7. Dinner menu at the mess may flash Chicken Masala or Chicken Tawa or Chicken Hariyali or Chicken Whatever; the taste is ditto.

8. 90% of the teachers that teach you are the alumni of SCIT itself. The rest 10% couldn’t find a job elsewhere.

9. You find more committees than the committee-members.

10. The only time pupils are seen in formals is either when there’s a GL or a company is visiting for interns / placement.
No wonder why this phenomenon is rare.

11. The one who copied the assignment gets more marks than the one who devised it.

12. SCIT conceives in the idea of “No books”. SCITians believes (have to) that “Google is God and Googling is worship”.

13. You see Romeos and Juliets cuddling around cozily in the college buses.
Their motto: Tel lagaye duniya, hum bajayenge harmuniya :X

14. The answer sheet in the exams compels you to answer a 10 marks question in barely half a page, and a 5 marks question to answer in 2 full length pages.

15. Sachin hits a century and you hear screams all around “Mighty Mighty SCIT”.

by Jaswinder

Events

Rapid fast presentation – Pecha Kucha 20×20

February 14, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Pecha Kucha Night was devised in 2003 by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham of Tokyo’s Klein-Dytham Architecture (KDa), as a way to attract people to Super Deluxe, their experimental event space in Roppongi. Pecha Kucha Night events consist of around a dozen presentations, each presenter having 20 slides, each shown for 20 seconds. Each presenter has just 6 minutes 40 seconds to explain their ideas before the next presenter takes the stage. Conceived as a venue through which young designers could meet, show their work, exchange ideas, and network, the format keeps presentations concise, fast-paced and entertaining.

In 2004 PKN began running in a few cities in Europe, and has since spread virally since has become a worldwide phenomenon, now running in more than 260 cities in almost every corner of the globe.

A typical Pecha Kucha Night includes eight to fourteen presentations. The presenters (and much of the audience) are usually from the design, architecture, photography, art and creative fields, but also often includes those from academia and the business world.

One of the attractions of Pecha Kucha Nights is the wide range of the presentations. Most consist of design professionals showing their creative work, but presenters often speak about such topics as their travels, research projects, student projects, hobbies, collections, or other interests. Organizers is some cities have added their own variations to the format. Variants include Pecha Kucha mash-ups with other Japanese pop-culture contributions: Pecha Kucha karaoke (creating a narrative of someone else’s slide show) and Pecha Kucha Iron Chef (dueling presenters competing for audience appreciation).

In Pune, the first PKN was held on October 23’09 and had 90 people in attendance.

Twelve individuals from the fields of dance, journalism, architecture, fine arts, poetry and literature met at well-known architect Christopher Charles Benninger’s office. The presentations included a slide show on the evolution of a chair by senior architect Shrikant Nivasarkar, Falguni Gokhale’s journey as an artist; Varsha Gavandi’s interesting facts on Chinese gardens and demonstrations on the finer nuances of classical dance by Kathak dancers Kaveri Agashe and Sheetal Kolwalkar.

General

Valentine Bid

February 13, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

BID for a valentine

Background: Since the days of Adam and Eve there has always been an effort to rejoice on V-day, however there has always been a strong objection from either party involved and more often the clients here after referred as people from Venus.

Objective

To help the people from Mars identify a suitable association/alliance with one of the person from Venus for maintaining a long term strategic partnership in the future.

Scope

This involved the procedure only for the preliminary steps of the process and in no way is associated with the after effects or any unsuitable consequences resulting in a full time strategic merger or off springing of a new entity.

Budget/Costing

The costing and the methodology will depend entirely on the client’s strategy and exposure due to inherent dynamic nature of the sector. Approximately a four figure number.

The bidder has the exclusive rights to terminate the contract in case the performance of the client fails to meet the negotiated matrix.

inspiration from Mommy, crafted by Utk and RR

Wordpress

Add Prev Next post link to wordpress blog

February 11, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Some of the themes of wordpress dont come with previous/next post links when viewed in single post mode. This can be quite frustrating for the readers [it sure was for me]. My theme is “Magazine Basic” and it doesnt have previous/next post links.

To add these links to my theme I tried Bobs simple navigation plugin. But the issue with this plugin is that, It just displays the post title as a link confusing the users what that link is about. There is a hover feature that tell the link details but it take more than 2-3 seconds to be visible.

I tried a lot and ultimately found the solution here. I did a little customizations. Following are the steps how to go about it along with my customizations.

First you need to have access to the directory which holds your wordpress files.

Navigate to <blog dir>/wp-content/themes/<your theme>/single.php

and edit it. Add the follwing code where you want it to be visible. I added it twice to make it appear at top and bottom of the post.

<?php if($single) { ?>
<div>
<span><?php previous_post('&lsaquo;&lsaquo;&lsaquo; %', 'Previous Post', 'no', 'no'); ?></span>
<span><?php next_post('% &rsaquo;&rsaquo;&rsaquo;', 'Next Post', 'no', 'no'); ?></span>
</div>
<?php } ?>

This would just show the text you want to display for the links.

<?php if($single) { ?>
 <div>
 <span><?php previous_post('&lsaquo;&lsaquo;&lsaquo;  %', 'Previous Post', 'yes', 'no'); ?></span>
 <span><?php next_post('% &rsaquo;&rsaquo;&rsaquo;',  'Next Post', 'yes', 'no'); ?></span>
 </div>
 <?php } ?>

This would show the name of the post too along with the text.

As you can see both links are differently styled… It depends upon the style defined for that region in the css.

One last step.

The above code wont show any results unless you define the details in the css file located at Navigate to

<blog dir>/wp-content/themes/<your theme>/styles.css

Edit this file and add

.nextprev {
 height: 1.5em;
}
.nextprev .prev {
 float: left;
}
.nextprev .next {
 float: right;
}

General

Alienware M11x – Next on my wish list!

February 10, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

Alienware laptops are powerful, but they’re not exactly known for being ultraportable or affordable. In a form approaching Netbook size, the 11.6-inch laptop comes packed with switchable graphics, including an Nvidia GT335M GPU as its main powerhouse, and will sell this spring for less than $1,000.
According to Dell representatives, the M11x will achieve over six hours of battery life in its lower-graphics function mode, and with a hot switch to the faster Nvidia GPU that will take under 2 seconds and not require logging out, will attain around two hours of “intense gaming.”
Dell claims that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will run at over 30fps in full-HD mode and settings set to high, which would certainly be a feat.
Compared to other Alienware laptops, the M11x is surprisingly slim. In fact, its overall dimensions weren’t far off from the Asus EeePC 12.1-inch Atom Netbook we were carrying along with us. It’s a bit angular and blocky, but the M11x represents a massive move to true portability for the Alienware brand.

General

Fir Mile Sur… – A tribute to India or Bollywood?

February 9, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

It was India’s 60th republic day and the stage was perfectly set for the re-launch of one of the India’s most popular anthem on national Integration; yes it was “Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”. In it’s 61st year The Republic of India stepped up its quest for becoming a superpower by 2020, just 10 more years before it reaches there.
The album too was aptly titled “Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara” coming to re-establish the fact that the diversity in which we live is the key strength to our nation’s success. The original score had come at a time when India was reeling under IMF sanctions and zero foreign exchange reserves.
Today the challenges have taken a different face. Recovering from recession, we are growing at constant pace but the economic divide is widening as well,giving rise to internal extremism in various forms. India is bugged by regionalism and its politics. India’s immediate neighborhood is no better; with couple of failed states and unstable economies they project a truly grim picture of the future. Sudden rise of middle class of two huge consumerist economies (China & India), pose an uphill task for agriculturist to increase food grain production by leaps & bounds. The global warming and climate change predictions give no respite.

So it was a right time to “Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara”, but unfortunately the album fails to match the charm of original one. The “Common Man”, itself is missing from the prolonged video. It is bollywood overdose of a kind. The words from Amitabh Bachan set amongst renovated background(renovated after 26/11) of Gateway of India and Taj Hotel give a perfect beginning to a song to become an epitome of strengthened India. However Bhart Bala’s recreation of eternal song loses track immediately. The original Mile Sur too had several actors representing various regions of country. But they were shot in such a way that actors were looking as good as any common man of that region. Take for instance Om puri sitting with a farmer family & singing the “mile sur” in native language gives a completely different impact than Deepika Padukone in western attire singing similar lyrics. It is unfortunate that several national icons like Vishwanathan Anand and Sachin Tendulkar have not been shown. The video fails to project the real picture of India. It is highly bollywood centric and projects as if India is all about bollywood artists and nothing more. I do appreciate the greatness and talent of all the artists in the video, but then they are just a small drop in huge ocean of talents & traditions that India is really made of.
Leaving me little disappointed about Phir Mile Sur, I went back to the old & original version of Mile Sur Mera tumhara…..to Sur bane hamara!!! And relived the memories again…
Jai Hind..!!

by Manohar Gadre

General

Catch 22

February 9, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

One day while having a Chat with my friend I was amused when he said he was caught in a Catch- 22 situation. I exclaimed “Whats that?”.
He was referring to a situation in which he had two choices: But both the choices lead to a lost cause. He was caught in a double bind or a no win situation.
I wondered why call it a Catch-22 situation. So, I decided to explore.

On googling I found good amount of info on this. Catch-22 a term coined by satirical novelist Joseph Keller, in his influential novel “Catch-22”. Now question arises as why to call something as Catch-22? So I decided to get hand on the Novel itself.
The novel follows Yossarian, a US air-force bombardier and number of other characters. Most events occur while the airmen of fictional Fighting 256th squadron are based on island of Pinosa, in Mediterranean Sea west of Italy.

The Catch-22 as it occurs in novel can described in words of Heller as “There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr (One of the characters: a fighter pilot) was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more combat missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane (Of sound mind; mentally healthy) if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to.”
Now what to do in such a situation?

Developing further, Catch-22 is a false dilemma in a rule, regulation or procedure where no real choice exists. Consider one more example. In order to get excused from flying combat missions in enemy territory one must submit an official diagnosis from his squadron’s flight surgeon demonstrating that he is unfit to fly because he is Insane. For this he must approach the surgeon to ask for one. However the catch-22 (twenty second of the guidelines) used by military surgeons suggest that “An insane person should not believe or suspect that he is insane. Thus, to be recognized as insane, a person must not ask for an evaluation, because doing so implicitly shows that he suspects him selves to be insane. But, if a person does not ask for an evaluation, he cannot be recognized as insane because the evaluation is the method by which such recognition would occur. Thus, nobody can ever classify themselves as insane (even if they genuinely are), and thus nobody may ever use an insanity diagnosis to escape flying combat missions.

Quite confusing? Read one more time, it is definitely going to interest you.

So have you even been caught in Catch-22? Think…you probably would have been caught.

by Manohar Gadre

….. continue reading >>more from Manohar Gadre

News, Technology

Is 2010 going to be the year of e-reading?

February 3, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

With Apple launching its iPad it has become clear that ereading is going to be a serious business in coming years. To me iPad currently is nothing more than a GIANT iPhone which Apple would use to sell Books on the same lines as that of iPod, remember the iTunes store? iPad has a new application called iBooks which includes iBookstore, which allows users to purchase content that will be displayed on their virtual bookshelf. Apple announced deals with five major book partners, including Macmillan and HarperCollins.

Apple iPad Touch Tablet Concept Amazon on the other hand wants to bring the iPads multi touch to the Kindle. To do so they have bought Touchco, a startup of around six employees and Amazon plans on incorporating both the new personnel and technology into its Kindle hardware division, named Lab126, which is located in Cupertino, Calif. – also home to Apple.

Amazons purchase of Touchco can be thought of as a direct response to Apple’s iPad, and the technology acquired could be included in the next iteration of its Kindle e-reader. Amazon has been looking to compete with Apple on other fronts as well. Last month, it announced plans for a Kindle applications store and an effort to get developers to create the same breadth of programs for the Kindle that they have created for the iPhone and, soon, the iPad.
Amazon has also decided to charge less for e-books in part to make the purchase of its Kindle e-book reader more palatable and create reader interest in a new format.

There has been a new entrant in the battel filed the “Pi”. A homegrown company has introduced its own e-book reader that, at least by the looks of it, has what it needs to take on the biggies in the business.This is by far India’s first attempt at making an e-book reader of our own that has actually materialized and the product is ready for “consumption”. The Pi is made by shopping portal Infibeam which currently offers over one lakh books for Indian readers via its portal http://infibeam.com. The Pi gives its users a cool option to upload their own content via a USB. In future, you can also expect a lot of newspaper and publications to the list of reading materials. The Pi, apart from being just an e-book reader, also happens to be a music player. It has 512MB of ROM and supports upto 4GB of memory with SD cards.

Amidst all this hassle there has been no major update from sony who were the first to come up with digital ink and epaper format and the very first to launch a ebook reader based on the same technology. One thing has always been clear about Sony’s line of e-readers: they’re arguably the sleekest and most elegant dedicated electronic-reading devices out there today (in a pre-Apple Tablet world, at least).

Sony launched Reader Daily Edition PRS-900, Sony’s first e-reader to include built-in 3G wireless service for accessing e-books wirelessly from Sony’s Reader Store. The move to wireless is a big deal for Sony, because it allows the company to compete directly, from a features standpoint, with the Kindle and other e-readers like the Barnes & Noble Nook, which bundle in “free” cellular connectivity.

We would like to know about our readers’ opinions, what do you all think about it? Please leave your comments.

Coming soon: a comparison of all four.

Twitter

Twitoaster | Easier way to manage @plies on Twitter.

February 3, 2010 Utkarsh Leave a comment

I have been on Twitter for more than a year now [I guess so, let me check ! yea its been 424 days. Check when you did here]. There have been so many features coming up and getting lost and there are alot many that I would like to have. The major issue I faced was of tracking the replies untill I got to know about twitoaster.com.

What is Twitoaster?

Twitoaster threads and archives your twitter conversations, bringing you all the background, context and statistics you need. It’s all about improving & optimizing the way you communicate with your followers.


	Conversation threading Twitoaster groups replies and retweets with the tweets that inspired them, displaying threaded discussions.

	Analytics charts and statistics Twitoaster provides analytics and statistics, helping you to tweet at the right time.

	Conversational search engine Twitoaster archives and indexes all your conversations in a conversational search engine.

How can I use Twitoaster?

Twitoaster uses the OAuth twitter authentication system, so you don’t have to give away your account credentials. Simply log in with twitter and you’re all set!
Who is using Twitoaster?

The service is often used by journalists, bloggers or companies who need to collect, organize and keep a track of their Twitter mentions. But anyone interested in his followers reactions and replies is a Twitoaster potential users.
Most of them use Twitoaster to manage their replies and be sure they won’t miss anything. Some of them are also using it to know what day of the week, or time of day, produce the most replies. Others use it as a CRM, a survey / poll tool, or directly as their main twitter client…

Mtaram's Daze

All posts by Utkarsh

Adam – The Indian iPad killer

You know you are at SCIT when… by Jassi

You know you are in when…

Rapid fast presentation – Pecha Kucha 20×20

Valentine Bid

Alienware M11x – Next on my wish list!

Fir Mile Sur… – A tribute to India or Bollywood?

Catch 22

….. continue reading >>more from Manohar Gadre

Is 2010 going to be the year of e-reading?

Twitoaster | Easier way to manage @plies on Twitter.

What is Twitoaster?

Twitoaster threads and archives your twitter conversations, bringing you all the background, context and statistics you need. It’s all about improving & optimizing the way you communicate with your followers.

How can I use Twitoaster?

Twitoaster uses the OAuth twitter authentication system, so you don’t have to give away your account credentials. Simply log in with twitter and you’re all set!
Who is using Twitoaster?

My Experiences… My Life… My Hacks…

You know you are in when…

….. continue reading >>more from Manohar Gadre

What is Twitoaster?

Twitoaster threads and archives your twitter conversations, bringing you all the background, context and statistics you need. It’s all about improving & optimizing the way you communicate with your followers.

How can I use Twitoaster?

Twitoaster uses the OAuth twitter authentication system, so you don’t have to give away your account credentials. Simply log in with twitter and you’re all set!Who is using Twitoaster?

My Experiences… My Life… My Hacks…

Twitoaster uses the OAuth twitter authentication system, so you don’t have to give away your account credentials. Simply log in with twitter and you’re all set!
Who is using Twitoaster?