Coping with Vista

   Windows Vista - Yet another jargon which created ripples, made people to wait for long and currently causing considerable perturbation among s/w community.

I didn't get to work with any of the beta versions for I have no personal system where I can take the risk of changing the OS, but my current project gave me a chance to work with that.

The UI was so cool that I immediately liked it. Itz like this beautiful babe whom u c in high end malls or at ur gym who will sweep u instantly with her hot and sweet face, but in a long run she turns out to be a problem due to high maintenance and the level of individuality u need to shed in order to be with her.

That’s what my experience with vista is after I started working on my current project which is to port our application so that it can be supported in vista!!!

Vista has brought in a sea of changes like earlier microsoft’s products but the readiness with which knowledge up gradation is happening in not swift. Let it be in .Net Framework, or about CLR or about different foundations or in UAC and IC, things are not very clear.

I am not gonna talk about vista. If wanted, u can visit itz wiki or home page. I just want to put my experiences with vista.

As expected, in order to check whether ur product is compatible with vista, microsoft gives u two great tools with which u can find the areas ur product gonna suck in vista and things u need to do to improve it. But I may not recommend them for I don’t have any positive experiences with them. I struggled for three days to get the thing installed and up and the end was not worth the means! The tools are application verifier and Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit. It tried retracing the error that app verifier log file threw, but failed ...

For some strange reasons, some of the addins were not getting enabled on our product.After
some head breaking we found out that some of them are due the fact that the dlls are not getting registered during installation. Also I needed to break my head while trying to install visual studio on vista and banged it faster when I came to know that Visual studio 6.0 is not supported but visual basic 6.0 is supported !!.

A couple of changes were needed to be made in our code (remember I said about losing urself to the girl ??)
1. Opening handle to HKLM with all access mode.
2. If u had relied on location of documents and settings folder then u r in for surprise.
3. can’t write any thing into c:\program files, incase u have installed ur product and wanted to generate some files there .

But these were minor ones. The big challenge I am facing is that one of our COM components is not getting raised when called from program.
But if I run this VB component from development environment, it works fine..
Still working on that ...

Hu Ha India, Aaja India

But eventually it is a game of cricket. - Sachin Tendulkar

Itz easy for him to say and ago ahead to throw a sunfeast biscuit at u in ur television. But what about the real billions who are in blue now ?

We all love cricket, won’t we. When the intensity fades in us, then there is media which rekindles the josh in you. We remember the few match dates like we remember our loved ones birthday. Literally the roads of Bangalore were choking at 5.00 pm when people were rushing out of their offices with only one mission, not to miss a single ball or run. Ironically Ganguly wasted more balls than the fans would have missed watching. The whole India was elevated when jayasuriya was dismissed cheaply but they feel deeply within few hours.

Yep. its just a game. We should not get disturbed. But if it just a game, then the players should not be given a demi-god status. they should not be hyped, worshipped, and elevated. they should not be in every other advertisements and every who -is who should not come and encourage the team to win the cup while they are not out there encouraging jaspal rana or anju bobby. Why the hell we didn’t bother about not winning much gold in commonwealth games or not winning at all in Olympics but cried in our pillows when india lost to srilanka. Two guys didn't die because anand lost a chess game on the same day. they died because india lost, not few individuals ....

Indian cricket fell to new low now and has to rise. Apart from blame games and sacking few who are remotely responsible, a serious thought should be given about the importance of the game itself in our lives.

Did u regret today ?

How many Ads are u thrown at every day?

I can't say a figure, but a minimum of 50 will be my guess. Say, In home - Newspaper, magazine, TV - On Road - the bill boards on either side of the road, RJ's of radio-city and In office - every website I visit have a pop-up and to top it all Google ads are there everywhere. This doesn’t include the covert advertising in the movies and the serials which we watch.

Point is not that. The point is how many bill board ads led u to open their webpage?

Till recently - none. Most often I forget them as soon as I cross the board except for real catchy ones like Fitness one which filled the city with boards having two good looking couple and lines with 'in-depth' meaning like - ”After a hard day's work, we can't wait to do it”. I was waiting to find out what those ads were for and was bit disappointed after knowing it is for a gym. But still, I didn't enroll myself to fitness - one though the ads made me smile whenever I look at them.

I hear to Radio City or Radio Indigo while riding to my office. Sadly from Jan end onwards these folks were just filling u with what u can do on every minute on ur valentine day with ur valentine. Buy this… buy that to her .. crap crap crap. They fill u too much to make u feel guilty for being alone. And then, on Feb. 13th, I saw a board on Marathahalli bridge which read, “Did u ever regret for not saying those three words?"

I was surprised to see this. The ad had that line with a link www.myregret.in below. Entire travel time to my office I was pondering over the purpose of this ad. I went to an extend of assuming it to be a Yet another Virtual social networking site for those who don't have it in real life.

The website repeated the same but this time it generalized the regretting factors and asked me to enter my regret reason and asked me to come back on 15^th for a surprise. I too entered my regret and entered my mail-id to register. Since the whole concept of valentine, partner, love vanished from radio city after feb 14^th , I forgot about this.

I remembered recently when I was regretting for some real thing. Since the site name is chosen such a way that its easy to remember, I opened and BANG, found out that it is actually an ad of kotak mutual fund!!!

Bit surprised but I liked the idea. Rightly timed with right words and made people (at least me) to visit the website. Good thinking. These ads make u smile when u remember them. One more such ad is ads based on munna and circuit. Lots of ads were created after lage raho munna bhai became a super hit. I probably enjoy them just because they remind me of the characters of the movie. But at the same time, not ads with celebrities are creative and appealing. Now-a- days I really hate ads in which multiple cricketers appear. For instance the recent Pepsi ad in which a boy runs away with a Pepsi bottle from sachin. Not sure why I hate it, but I do.

More and more innovative types of advertising need to come into existence as the advertising world matures. That leaves me with the questions. What if all of fifty ads are innovative? How many in those fifty ads have an affect/effect on you?

Not sure. But I know one thing. At least a catchy subject line (borrowed from yahoo) brought u till the end of this post!!!

Happy Valentine’s day.

A very happy Valentine’s Day for all those folks who are celebrating today.

It’s a yet another day for me. Actually these are the few days in a year I regret being single. And it is made worse thanks to radio city and television which floods you with ads on V day and makes you feel terrible. Buy this for ur valentine, buy that for ur heart, this offer, mega offer.. total crap#$#. The best of this is the ad for Mantri Home, Give ur valentine that will never go out of fashion - A Mantri Home. What the hell. Here I am struggling almost two months to get a flat in my range, people are thinking of gifting a Mantri home for Vday!!!. Grrr.

Whatever it is I am happy as of now, except for days like this where I feel little odd! mm that’s ok.Ok Guys. Happy Vday for my married friends, Engaged chaps, Guys who are in love, and those who send their photos yesterday for Pellichupulu!!!

And for Guys, who are single like me, Get back to work and apply for mindtree IPO!!!
 

17 ways to kill a sentence

Actually this is an fwd from chax. I kinda liked it .
So bringing out to an broader audience ;)

Jack and Jill climbed up the hill to fetch a pail of water.

Use weak verbs:
Jack and Jill went up the hill to get a pail of water.

Use unfamiliar words:
Jack and Jill climbed up the hill to fetch a ewer of water.

Put introductory phrases at the beginning to push the subject back:
To fetch a pail of water, Jack and Jill climbed up the hill.

Keep the subject and the verb as far apart as possible:
Jack and Jill, to fetch a pail of water, climbed up the hill.

Put the action at the end of the sentence:
Jack and Jill, to fetch a pail of water, climbed up the hill.

Keep modifiers as far as possible from the words they modify:
Jack and Jill climbed to fetch a pail of water up the hill.

Use passive voice:
The hill was climbed by Jack and Jill so that a pail of water could be fetched.

Put the doer at the end of the sentence:
To fetch a pail of water, the hill was climbed by Jack and Jill.

Introduce false subjects:
It was Jack and Jill that climbed up the hill to fetch a pail of water.

Pile on the gobbledygook:
Jack and Jill ascended the acclivity to retrieve a vessel of Adam's ale.

Turn verbs into nouns:
Jack and Jill did the hill climb for the purpose of water retrieval.

Use unnecessary technical jargon:
Jack and Jill traversed the gradient to fetch an alembic of H2O.

Feature inappropriate precision:
John Q. Wembley and Jillian Fitzgerald climbed 1.6093 kilometers to fetch 3.785 liters of water.
Add wordy phrases:
Jack in the company of Jill climbed their way up the hill for the purpose of fetching water in the approximate amount of a pail's full.

Multiply redundant words:
Both Jack and Jill climbed all the way up to the top of the hill's summit to fetch a pail filled to its capacity with water.

Throw in clichés indiscriminately:
Jack and Jill, who need no introduction, climbed up the hill by leaps and bounds to fetch through their good offices a pail of water by hook or by crook

String lots of nouns together to form the subject:
The Jack and Jill water retrieval hill climb was achieved.

Put all 17 together:
It was the Jack and Jill H2O retrieval in an alembic vessel that was achieved via the ascent of the acclivity up to its summit in leaps and bounds through the good offices of John Q. Wembley and Jillian Fitzgerald who need no introduction.

Dinner @ Bob's

Last Saturday we met bond. No no . Not J.Bond, this was my friend - bond. He came down from Mumbai to spend his spare time which he is getting between job shifts. (How lucky?) It was nice meeting him. Actually it was nice meeting lot of guys, some of them whom I met after a year or so even though we are living in the same city.

We went for dinner at 10.30 to a place called Bob's near indira nagar. It is a small one but quite well lit. More an eat-out than a restaurant. But the greatest part was quality. The roti and parattas were really good and so were the curry. It was almost as good as Lalita's parota in Dickenson rd, but the prices were decent enough. It is not just your main course that satisfies you but the side items too should be good. In that way Bobs was really satisfactory because of buttermilk. I never had one like that before. Even the guys who usually never have buttermilk had two glasses of them.

Not sure what is the specialty there as we went at 10.30 and not much option we had, but with that limited exp, I am very satisfied with Bobs'. Do drop there to check out yourself. It is off Indranagar 80 feet road, you need to take left from the road which leads to jeevan bhima nagar.
 

My Hyd Trip

Last weekend I was in Hyderabad for my friend's wedding. It was on thursday night so i was forced to go by air so that i can save one day of leave. Not sure why these andhra people keep marriages in night! . Nevertheless we started on Thursday evening spicejet to Hyd. Met my old buddies in the marriage. It is really nice to meet ur old friends. And my friend had arranged a qualis and guest room for two of us. Otherwise we would have struggled that night.



Actually when I boarded that flight I was not sure of two things. 1. What gift our group will be able to giving to our friend. 2. What will I be doing in hyd for next two days? This was my most unplanned trip as till the last moment I was busy with work and got free only on the last day.

But it turned out to be the most happening / fun filled trip thanx to my friends Sco P , vishnu, rp and babai who took care of my stay in Hyd.

We went to snowworld, had Hyderabad darsan at midnight which included charminar to IT corridor of Hyd, first day - first show of salame-e-ishq in prasad's IMax, XBOX Gaming and loads of fun. All in two days. I was real fun .



Hyderabad was nice in some sense. First, roads are wider in the IT corridor. That means, the roads which are newly constructed are 3 to 6 lanes on either side which means even in future, the traffic flow is taken care. But Bangalore outer ring road already sucks.

Second : the way airport is organized and amenities. It was a mess when i boarded spicejet from blr and I felt very happy to see some space for myself in hyd airport .

third: we went to chai shop in charminar and had irani chai, roti – curry at 2.00 AM. Wow! amazing chai. Actually hyd has lot of good chai shops. I miss that life in bangalore. May be i am unaware of such places in bangalore.

But there is one thing we must know. Bangalore roads may be bad but Bangalore traffic is more sensible and more organized than Hyds :)

When the flight took off I was a bit heavy hearted that the vacation and the fun was over, but when I landed I was feeling fine to be back to home.