My take on Technology

Google Spreadsheet tip: how to SUMIFS

2011-12-22T19:53:00.001+08:00

SUMIFS is probably the most useful feature, Microsoft rolled out in Excel 2007. It lets you SUM a range, using multiple criteria. For instance, in the situation below, if we wanted to find out how much John made in 2010 Q3, you could use this simple formula.

Now how do you do this in google spreadsheet? Unfortunately, it only has the older SUMIF formula, which lets you select a single criteria. Let's see how to make it work.

SUM can be chained with the FILTER formula, to achieve the same results. The syntax is very simple.
SUM (Filter ([Sum Range], [All the criteria Ranges separated with a ; ]))
e.g. =sum(filter(D2:D11,C2:C11= "John";B2:B11="Q3";A2:A11=2010))

Pretty easy right!... Enjoy!

How To: Test driving Windows 8 on Virtual Box

2011-09-17T13:43:00.001+08:00

Are you curious, what the next iteration of Windows has in store for you.
Windows 8 developer preview is now available for download. Head over to MSDN and give it a try. Virtual Box is a great free cross-platform Virtualization application which is easy to set up and lets you run different OS instances in parallel.

Below instructions are for Virtual Box on Windows 7, but should also work for Linux/MacOSX
1. Download and Install Virtual Box for your specific platform (Win/Linux/OSX)
2. Download the Windows 8 developer preview from MSDN. You can chose 32-bit/64-bit w/o Developer tools
3. Open Virtual Box, and click on New. You will be greeted with a VM set up screen. Give it a name and select Windows 7 (32/64bit) as OS

4. In the later screens, allocate 10-20GB (or lower) for the VM and chose dynamic expansion. This takes shorter time to set up and Virtual Box will dynamically increase the VM space as when needed to a maximum of the earlier chosen capacity.

5. Once the VM set up is done. From the Virtual Box home screen, select the VM and click Run. The first time, you would be greeted with a First Run Wizard. Select the Windows 8 Developer Preview file you just downloaded (*.iso file).

6. The VM would now boot with the iso, and Windows Installation process would begin. To switch controls back to your desktop OS, press Right Control in Windows.

7. Follow the instructions on-screen. Chose Custom (Advanced) as the type of installation.

8. That’s it. Wait patiently for 25-35 mins for the setup to complete. Once done, the VM will restart and you voila, you are right inside the new Metro UI. Do note, it’s a developer preview and could have loads of bugs and issues Enjoy!

9. Some helpful tips
1. Use windows key to switch to the start metro menu
2. Change windows 8 screen resolution (default on VM is 800x600)
3. Live tiles don’t work on a local Administrative account. Create a test user account to get the Metro Apps/Tiles working
4. Right Control-C to pass control back from the VM window

Still undecided on your next phone? The smartphone dilemma continues

2011-09-12T22:44:00.001+08:00

My last phone was an iPhone 3GS. I had queued over an hour at the Singtel office, alongside thousand others. This was July 2009.

Back then, the choice was almost too simple.

iPhone was the best touch phone money could buy. The first wave of Android devices were underwhelming (Remember HTC Hero and Magic!). Nokia was struggling to innovate. And Blackberries were (and still are) just dull and uninspiring.

Fast forward 2 years, my contract has ended, and I am on the lookout for a new phone. And the decision is not that simple anymore. As Techies like to quote, it's not just a phone you choose, it's a way of life.

I could take the Android route, after all the market is flooded with Gingerbread devices. The Samsung Galaxy S-II looks enticing. Or I could just wait for the rumored Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich.

My first computer was a 40MHz intel 386 with 8MB Ram. The newer Android phones are dual-cored 1200MHz Arm with 1 GB Ram!

But then, every now and then, titles like Contre Jour are released by publishers like Chillingo, which makes it so hard to leave the iOS universe. I can still hear the game's music buzzing in my ear. It's not just the svelte marketing that sells iPhones. It's also the top notch quality of the apps. What do I do with a dual-core super phone if I have nothing exciting to run on it?

The new iPhone is rumored to be unveiled in late September/Early October and should hit the shores of Singapore (hopefully) by November.

Now the last big twist. I had always hated the previous iteration of this OS. But Windows Phone 7 brings a fresh new perspective to the smartphone market. I had a chance to try out the new 7.5 mango release, and man does it seem polished. Mango should have been Microsoft's first release, and not a year and half late update.

Microsoft is all set to flood the market with new phone partners like Nokia, Fujitsu and Toshiba.

Don't discount the Redmond Giants. Not yet. They could be cooking something exciting in this week's Build Conference.

I hate the thought of being locked up for a year with an obscure phone (and an expensive plan) when exciting device launches are right around the corner. It's definitely a 3-headed race for the smartphone supremacy. And I guess I will just have to sit this one out for a few more months. Till then, my trusty ol' iPhone, don't die on me... just yet.

*All views expressed here are the author's own, and do not represent any company or an organization. All information shared are public.

HP gives up on webOS and exiting PC Business

2011-08-20T11:39:00.000+08:00

Tumultuous times at HP. Just 49 days after releasing the first webOS based tablet, HP announced it is discontinuing its webOS devices. The company now plans to "optimize" the value of webOS after spending nearly $1.2b on Palm, a year back. HP could either sell or license webOS off to other manufacturers or more likely salvage Palm's patent portfolio, in a time where mobile patents are a premium.

The news was part of a bigger announcement with HP openly declaring its intention to spin off its low margin PC business and focus more on enterprise, software and consulting. HP shares immediately fell 20% wiping 12b of market cap in a single day.

One third of HP's revenue comes from PCs with an operating margin a bit above 5% (2010) compared with 11.7% from its overall operations.

HP seems to be taking a page from rival enterprise giant IBM, which successfully sold its PC arm to Lenovo in 2005, after a period of dismal PC sales.

HP's exit from both PC and mobile segment will definitely hurt competition. With the US and EU heading for another recession, it will be interesting to see how HP rebounds after the spin off.

Can you predict American Idol Results by looking at the interwebs

2011-05-29T23:04:00.002+08:00

I must confess. I am a huge Idol fan. I have diligently followed the last 6 seasons. The show has consistently managed high TRPs, increasing user votes and some really creative product placements (remember the Coke glass on the judge's table and the Ford ad). The talent pool is sometimes underwhelming but the judges and the musical guests more than compensate.

Recently, another season of Idol ended with Scotty Mcreery and Lauren Alaina reaching the finals. We obviously know who won, but the question is can the results be predicted by looking at the opinions and the trends in the interwebs? So let's find out.

Obviously, a disclaimer first. There is no statistical tool involved, no complex number crunching and no opinion polls. Idea is to reveal a simple intuition on what can be achieved by simpler tools. In our case, using Google Insight.

According to world bank, 78% of population in US have access to internet. Google has about 60% of search share in US.

Google Insight (and Trends) lets you discover what are people searching for over a specified timeline. They don't give you absolute numbers but they do show you the relative popularity of search words, which is good enough when we are comparing two or more items.

I first looked at the relative popularity of the finalists and one Casey Abrams, my show favorite, over the last 90 days. As insight predicts, initially when the first gala rounds start, viewers are still firming on their favorites thus you wouldn't see clear distinctions in terms of relative search volume. But as the show proceeds, you start separating out the favorites from the rest.

As expected, Casey soon starts leading the pack, and peaks during one incident where he kisses judge Jeniffer Lopez in a stunning vocal performance. You also see him peak when he gets voted out of the contest.

Note, I am searching for their full names because it get's tricky if you just put "Scotty" or "Lauren", since they are common names and could refer to say one reality star Lauren Goodger and her recent bikini snaps.

Now zooming on to last 30 days, you obviously notice how Scotty always is a step ahead of Lauren in terms of search volume. The results for "Scotty idol" and "Scotty Mcreery" are quite correlated. The reason for choosing the former keyword is that not everyone who is looking for Scotty would type in his full name. Thus the idol suffix performs better in emulating the desired user behavior.

So, how did we perform? Well, no surprises, Scotty did win American Idol this year. Voila! Our method works. This is brilliant. Now we can predict anything. Right?

Well.. Not quite fast. There are certain issues. One, search volume may not always result in higher votes. Think of a popular camera. Imagine Millions are searching for a review of the new Canon 1100d. However, after reading the reviews, they discover the flimsy design, the below par build quality and the horrible paint job and thus reconsider their purchasing decision. What happens? Higher search volumes leading to the opposite results.

Similar issues arise when you are looking at twitter trends to predict data. You have to send the results through a Natural Language Processor (NLP), a machine learning tool to identify if the opinions are positive, negative or neutral, in order to decipher the end result.

Internet is a great source of data. Its pervasiveness in our lives can help social scientists, economists, marketeers and governments to understand our needs, wants and preferences better. Imagine the public housing body increases the supply of houses by correctly forecasting the housing needs, thus successfully keeping the housing prices in check. Possibilities are endless.

But we need more comprehensive tools. The area looks quite promising with new social analytics services being launched everyday, none of which I have tested yet. Maybe I will revisit it again one day. But for now, this is the best we've got and it works pretty well in some cases. What do you think? Leave your comments behind. Happy Surfing!

Removing IT Policy from your old office blackberry

2011-05-23T23:03:00.004+08:00

Note: The following instructions is for information purpose only. You could be violating your corporate security policies by applying it on your active blackberry

So you have an old decommissioned blackberry, and you would like to use it as a spare phone. Follow the below instructions to set your blackberry "free"

1. Ensure Blackberry Desktop Manager is installed. You can download it from the bb website or from here.

2. Select the Blackberry internet service option while installing the Desktop manager

3. Take a backup (if needed) and Wipe your blackberry device from Options > Security Options> SecurityWipe on the device. Or entering a wrong password 6 times.

4. Now Connect your device, Start the desktop manager and select Application Loader. In the background, some configuration and registry entries will be created.

5. Now close the desktop manager and eject your device. Download this policy.bin file and save it in your blackberry desktop manager installation folder. This is a bare minimum policy file with minimal restrictions.
In our example, we have installed it in D:\downloads\software\blackberry\install

6. Go to Run, and type "Regedit" to Open Registry editor. In the tree on the left side, Navigate to HKEY_Current_Users\Software\Research In Motion\BlackBerry\PolicyManager

7. Right-Click the Policy Manager Folder and select New/String Value. Name the value "Path". Now, Double-Click the Path Subkey and set Value Data to the location of the policy file.

eg. D:\downloads\software\blackberry\install\policy.bin

8. Now open the desktop manager and connect the device. The new policy settings will be applied automatically. Go back to your device and check if the IT policies have been cleared.

Congrats! Your blackberry has been officially restored. You can now install 3rd party apps, access data/voice which your company's policies might have blocked, and start using it as a normal smartphone.

Credit: Crackberry Forums

Microsoft's acquisition of Skype, an Analyst's puzzle

2011-05-18T00:48:00.005+08:00

Merger economics teaches us that the fair value of a target firm is its market value plus "Synergy". Last September when eBay sold 65% of its stake in Skype, the internet communication company was valued at $2.75 billion. Adding an additional $1 billion that Skype was planning to raise through an IPO, Skype should have been a $4 billion acquisition. Then why did Microsoft pay $8.5 billion? Is the post-acquisition synergy worth $4.5 billlion!

What's even more bewildering is the fact that last year Skype made a nett loss of $7 million on a total revenue of $860 million. In Microsoft's defence, Skype is a great company to own. Its user base grew 40% last year and the brand is now synonymous to internet telephony. Microsoft instantly gets access to a web property that's as popular as Google, twitter and Facebook. Integrating Skype into both its consumer and enterprise products should create synergy enhancing online collaboration. Along with its Enterprise communication suite Lync, Skype should also work well with their Xbox and Windows Phone platforms.

From a cashflow perspective, Microsoft has over $50 billion oversees, bringing it back would entail US taxes. And historically Microsoft's reinvestment in internal R&D hasn't had great returns. Thus investing in the Luxembourg based Skype is a smart move. But, only if the price was right.

Whatever be the reasons, a $8.5 billion for Skype still does not make sense. One wonders if Balmer got carried away with his vendetta over Google and their initial bid for Skype.What do you think. Do leave your comments.

What the Flock! Flock Browser finally Shuts down

2011-04-16T16:48:00.001+08:00

I was pleasantly surprised when I saw this email sitting in my inbox today. Flock was officially being shut down from April 26th 2011. The social interest in the niche browser had been dropping drastically and when Zynga acquired them for their developers in January, the end was almost sealed.

Personally, Flock was a neat idea. You got a firefox build (later chromium), which came with social features right out of the box. Sidebar access to twitter, facebook etc. Seamless access to your delicious bookmarks, email, blogging platforms..

Why did Flock fail?

Flock was way ahead of its time. As social media grew, there was a need to aggregate all your social graph, be it tweets, posts, votes, messaging into a seamless experience, right from your browser. In 2005, when the project launched, only the tech community, who understood the concept, helped create the initial hype and traction.

Fast forward 2010, entire world was talking about Rock Melt. People were scrambling for the invites. Honestly, Rock Melt had nothing new to offer. It was just pitched at the right time. Below is the google insight
view of the two competing browsers. Flock never took off but interestingly Rock Melt seems to be heading for a downward spiral as well.

In addition, the plugins which Flock relied on to fetch the social content had a slower update cycle. The full web experience of Twitter and Facebook had improved manifolds and mobile had took off faster than anything. Consumers became savvy enough to realize that they could selectively download plugins for firefox/chrome to get a similar, less bloated, most recent build of their favorite Browser.

Well, best of luck to the flock team. Hopefully they can achieve greater things at Zynga.

The e-Reader Shootout– Kindle3, Nook Color and the iPad

2011-04-04T15:31:00.006+08:00

As a student, I always missed having a digital reader to browse my notes, books and lecture recordings. I spent most of my time lugging my laptop to classes, seminars and library, and typing in notes on google docs or creating my mindmaps. When coupled with Evernote, iPhone became a great recording device. And I scraped my way out of grad school. I spent a lot of time researching on the perfect student companion, but there is none that satisfies all the requirements. The physical paper and pen are hard to substitute.

When it comes to plain simple reading, it's a lot more straightforward. At present, Kindle and lately iPad dominate in this area, followed by Barnes & Noble Nook and the plethora of cheap digital tables.

Now, everyone has a different preference when it comes to content consumption. Thus, let me state my desirable criteria. My ideal e-Reader should

Have a great display (after all, it’s an e-reader)
Be light and portable
Have access to a wide variety of reading content
Have a long battery life (especially when you are travelling)
Have an X-Factor!
Be Affordable

To state any self selection bias, I own both the kindle and the nook color, and have a borrowed iPad. Let’s begin.

1. Kindle 3 (Amazon $139)

Among the three, Kindle is the lightest. It has a 6-inch e-ink display and weights just over 8.7 ounces. The display is crisp and comparable to printed text, and doesn’t strain the eyes. It has amazing battery life and can last for a month (with wifi off). However, the small screen makes it harder to read magazines, A4/A3 sized text books with graphs and illustrations. It also needs a physical light source if you like reading in dark. Amazon probably has the biggest collection of e-books but the store is not available in all countries.

The new Kindle has native pdf reading capabilities but the books need to be trimmed to fit the screen better. Kindle also has dedicated page turn buttons but searching and jumping pages needs a bit of getting used to. If you are used to your touchscreen devices, you will inadvertently find yourself swiping the screen in frustration.

The lack of an App Ecosystem like the iPad has an advantage. I find myself frequently being distracted by tweets, email or rss updates on other devices. Kindle, however, is the serious book reader which does one thing best, being a great reader.

Personally, I love the kindle because of its form factor, screen and the long battery life. It’s an ideal travel companion.

Pros: Great display, Readable under Sun, Competitively priced
Cons: No backlight, small screen inapt, lacks touch screen
Comments: Ideal for reading “text” based books from start to finish

2. iPad 2 Wifi (Apple $499/$599/$699)

Everyone has seen or touched an iPad. It’s an engineering marvel with an industrial design, unparalleled 10hr battery life and an even sleeker design that its predecessor. Why did Apple sell 15Million iPads in its first year? There is no one answer. Beautiful 9.7” display to read full length books, magazines, responsive touch screen, long battery life, a lively AppStore with thousands of great titles and an X-Factor, that says I am Apple and I am cool.

As an e-Reader, it fares really well due to larger, touch screen.With all backlight displays, it can’t be used outside, under the sun without serious glare. Even if its own Book Store has limited content, you can always download Kindle or Nook Readers from the AppStore. It is the tablet that redefined this segment, and is quite frankly miles ahead of its competition, both in terms of price and feature. And there is always an App for everything.

Having evangelized the iPad, I do have some major issues with the device. I hate being tied down within the Apple Ecosystem. iTunes for windows is still buggy. It is hard to transfer content in and out without external apps. And it is pricey, for a device which replaces absolutely nothing (Except maybe a netbook you never bought). You still need your laptops, phones and desktops.And somehow, it feels heavy after prolonged use.

Pros: The best tablet, Large Screen, Lots of Apps and content, AppStore
Cons: Price, Closed EcoSystem

3. Nook Color (B&N $250)

I snatched the Nook Color for $200 bucks off e-bay on a special promotion and it continues to surprise me, ever since. It has a 7’ color touch display and weighs around 15.8 pounds. Underneath, it runs a 800MHZ Cortex A7 Processor and a stock derivative of Android 1.6. Though the stock version of the OS isn’t that exciting, curious developers have rooted it and it now runs all flavours of Android, including the latest Honeycomb, with varying degrees of success.
I run a CM7 variant called Phiremod, which overclocks to 1.2GHz and runs Gingerbread. Which also means, one-click access to Google Marketplace and the thousands of android mobile apps on your fingertips.

Now to the important question. Is it a good e-Reader. In short, no. It’s a versatile, quite frankly, an impressive tablet but the reading experience is quite fragmented. The Lcd display, though really vibrant, suffers the same issues as the iPad and the battery lasts less than 6 hours of just reading.

The B&N web store has a confusing interface. The prices in some cases are higher than Amazon. Pinch to Zoom lacks the fluidity of the iPad and flipping pages aren’t that responsive. Hopefully, these will be fixed in the upcoming firmware update, expected in April ‘11. In fact, you will be better off rooting your Nook and installing Amazon’s Kindle reader on it.You might also want to install adobe’s pdf reader to read color magazines and books.

Nook Color has great potential. Though it has sold millions due to it’s hackable nature, B&N is expected to fix these issues in the next update. For now, its my cheap gaming device to play Angry Birds and read the occasional comics.

Pros: Vibrant screen, Hackable yet cheap Android tablet, Android Marketplace, Angry Birds!
Cons: Buggy reading experience in the stock.

Conclusion:
I now own two of the above mentioned devices and maybe soon all. There is no one device that fits all purpose. There is always a trade-off between size, weight, content and price. Maybe the next ebook reader would be a touch-screen, colored, e-ink tablet with an insanely long battery life and an AppStore. But for now, hopefully, the below will help you pick the right device

The Student/Gamer/Web Addict/Gadget Enthusiast – iPad2
The Avid Book Reader/The Traveller/The Adventurist – Kindle3

The Hacker/Tech Addict on Budget – NookColor

Sending a mass email to your facebook friend list, the excel-lent way!

2011-03-14T02:29:00.001+08:00

Notes: Export contacts from facebook

Facebook is a great tool to connect with people. However, there are times when it get's really frustrating.

The other day, I wanted to drop a mass mail to all my friends in Singapore. So I went to the messaging system, tried to enter "Singapore", hoping facebook would be smart enough to populate the To-List with all my contacts with current city as Singapore.

Alas, it didn't happen. Perhaps I was expecting a lot. So the next thing I did was create a friend list, manually choosing all the people I knew who still lived in Singapore, into it. The exercise took ~5-10 mins with around 200+ friends.

I went back to facebook messaging tool, composed a message, and added "Friends in Singapore" in the to list. Facebook identified it as a friend list, but prompted that I couldn't send a message to more than 20 friends.

I don't know why fb would think putting a limit of 20 on a message is smart. Anyways, I was losing patience. I remembered facebook announcing a data export tool, to export all your information -contacts, pictures etc. You can find it under account settings

However, since it exports everything in one go, it takes a while. And I wonder how big the zip file would be, since it contains all my fb activity since I first opened my account.

I had heard of a chrome extension that helps you do the same, but it has the same issues. I can't selectively export out a list. When you have 500+ friends on facebook, it's a pain to sort through the list again to identify folks you want to send your message to.

So this is what I finally did. Yahoo, (once a great email system) has a nifty contact import tool, which can pull contacts from facebook directly. It is fast, since it restricts itself to email ids only.

Once imported, you can't use yahoo to send emails to 200+ people. It will also give you a "too many contacts selected" error. Export your contacts out into CSV. Now the Excel Magic begins.

I went to my "Friends in Singapore" list I had created, dragged my mouse, selected all the names in the page, and copied them into my notepad. Went to excel and copied them again. Opened the contacts from the CSV into the next tab. Did a vlookup of the list against the entire contacts and extracted the names and their email ids. Took another 5 mins.

Wrote a small formula that added quotes, brackets and semicolons to each, to make it email friendly.

Copied the entire column and pasted it directly into my gmail To list, and sent the message. Now after 15 mins of effort, which also included numerous failed attempts, I now have all my contacts in a small excel sheet, which can be used again for other purposes. I could have written a small script, but not this time.

People underestimate Microsoft Excel but it can do some really smart things, really quickly, if you only know how to use it :)

Do let me know if there are better ways to selectively export contacts in a list from facebook. Happy Surfing!

Enabling Remote Desktop server in Windows 7 Home Premium

2010-12-23T01:11:00.002+08:00

I recently got a new pc which came preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium. Microsoft has done some strange things to differentiate their suite of Windows 7 Offerings. One really frustrating feature that is disabled in the Home versions is the ability to run a remote desktop host. i.e, You can act as a client and connect to RDP hosts but you cannot let other RDP clients connect to you. To solve this, I stumbled across a really simple solution.

1. Download this script and run it as Administrator
2. Follow the steps, press "Y" to confirm and the script will patch the terminal server (termsrv.dll) enabling the remove server.
3. That's it. You are done. Now from a client machine you can login to your Windows 7 Home Premium box.

Credit:
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-enable-remote-desktop-connection-in-windows-7-home-premium-edition/

Linux Tip: Splitting and Merging multiple files

2010-09-19T22:32:00.006+08:00

Ever so often, when you download large files from internet, you find the file being split into smaller parts. It's easier to upload this way and most file upload sites - rapidshare, hotfile etc. have a max file size limit.

There are many ways to merge these files. Let me show you two popular ways

a) Using cat to merge

 cat file.1 file.2 file.3 > file

$ cat sitcom.avi.part1 sitcom.avi.part2 sitcom.avi.part3 > sitcom.avi

Using split to well, split
split [OPTION]... [INPUT [PREFIX]]
$ split -b 100M sitcom.avi sitcom.avi.

-b, stands for binary files

It's easy to write a shell script that takes in filename, chunk size, destination etc as parameters. But why not save the trouble and use the second alternative.

b) Using Gnome split

As the name suggests, you can merge, split files right from Gnome.

It also has some cool features like deleting the chunks after merge is completed etc.

Great. That was easy, wasn't it. I haven't found any KDE alternatives yet. Feel free to share them in the comments. Thanks.

How Apple sets Prices

2010-09-19T02:45:00.000+08:00

I was psyched to see an article on Apple being featured in my favorite blog - NYTimes Freakonomics.

This article originally featured in Bloomberg Business Week
which breaks down Apple’s pricing strategy and identifies its key components. “Next time you’re sitting at an airport bar and hear two business people debate whether Apple is a technology or design company, chime in: ‘Nope. What Steve Jobs sells is pricing,’” writes Ben Kunz. “Pricing? You bet. Jobs is a master of using pricing decoys, reference prices, bundling and obscurity to make you think his shiny aluminum toys are a good deal.”"

A Fresh new start

2010-09-19T02:17:00.001+08:00

I started writing this blog back in my undergraduate years at the National University of Singapore. I was then single, bored and jobless (perks of a scholarship stipend). And really passionate about technology, the Web and the OpenSource movement.

Life's changed a lot since then. I am currently juggling a full time job and a part-time grad school program. I haven't done serious coding in months and I am already an iteration of Ubuntu behind. Lots to catch up. Let's go.

Linux finally has a stable Chrome release

2010-05-28T23:23:00.000+08:00

Year and a half back, I wrote about Google's step behaviour to Linux. Meanwhile, We tried the experimental Chromium build to get a taste of Chrome on Linux. It was slow, buggy and unstable.

Now, the wait is finally over. Chrome for Linux can be downloaded from the Google Chrome website. On first glance, it looks really stable, extensions are working, flash (which used to crash Chromium) works smooth. I need more time to play around and write a complete review. Check back soon and enjoy surfing :)
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And here is the rest of it.

How smartphones can help you Lose weight and Stay healthy

2010-04-09T21:19:00.001+08:00

I have never needed to go on a diet, till now. It all started two weeks back when I stepped onto the new digital weighing machine placed near my squash court. My body weight has always hovered around the 75-77 kg mark, so I expected no different. Thus I was completely caught off-guard when it showed 82.5 kgs. I checked again for zero error, but that was the fact.

I have a desk job which requires me to stare at the monitor for 10 hours. The only exercise I get is some weekend sessions of badminton and squash, which gets cancelled more often these days since my mates are either too sleepy or have more social things to do.

I realized it was time to press the panic button and take action. Logically, all I had to do was eat healthy and work those extra calories out. Which meant occasional jogs and trips to the gym. Now like a lot of you people, I am lazy and single. Thus inherently there is no motivation to sustain any such routine to look good and charm the opposite sex. I had rather sleep an hour longer in the morning than go for a jog.

Now If you are in similar situation, where you want to lose weight and get fit, but are too lazy to chalk your own routine, I have the perfect solution for you. This involves getting a free account in a food and fitness tracking website, (myfitnesspal), a Smartphone (iPhone or any web-enabled device) and a spirit for adventure to try something new for no apparent reason. So let's start our journey to fitness.

First, I downloaded the myfitnesspal app from the iPhone app store. For non-iphone users, you can use your browser to visit myfitnesspal. There, I entered my current weight and height, work profile, target weight state and no. of weeks to achieve it. The app then suggested a daily diet plan with a fixed amount of daily calorie allowance and the fat, vitamins and protein. And thus my routine began trying to eat within the allocated calorie budget. Now interestingly, if you want to eat more, all you need is to exercise and increase your allowance.

Smart, right. For instance, a 30 mins of jog burns around 200cal, would entitle you few more of those delicious cheese fries. Luckily there are some really nice apps for iphone like runtastic and runkeeper which let your track your daily exercise. I bet you can find similar apps for other platforms.

Success of this entire process depends on how diligently you follow your diet plan. To help you further, you can search and add the food you take from their comprehensive over 160,000+ food database.
I was really impressed by the food list since it covered not only popular instant food brands but also local (indian, chinese and thai) cooked food. Again, calorie count depends on the way a particular food was cooked but this gives a roughly right composition.

A lot of skeptics might turn this down, saying it isn't rational or scientific but if you delve deeper it is plain common sense. If you calculate your Body Metabolism Rate (BMR), which is amount of calories your body burns just to stay alive. For me it's around 1,394/day. This means, as long as I eat less than this, I should progressively see a reduction in my weight. The real challenge is to have a healthy and balanced diet given this upper calorie limit. So no more fast food, more fruits and green vegetables.

So does it work? I managed to shed 3 kgs in 2 weeks. Now I weigh a good 79.5 kgs.
To sum up, losing weight is easy. Eat healthy but less than your BMR requirement and exercise more. You have all the tools in your arsenal. Stay motivated and be happy :)

Excel Quick Tips: Reactivating right-click context menu after Essbase Add-in installation

2010-04-07T18:35:00.001+08:00

If your company uses Hyperion cubes for all financial reporting, there is more a chance of you using an Essbase addin to pull financials from the Essbase cube into Excel. Interestingly, this plugin has notorious reputation of overriding your right click button with it’s own functionality. To disable this behaviour and get back your usual context menu, follow these steps:

1. Go to Essbase Addin Options

2. Browse to Global Settings and uncheck the “enable Secondary function..”

3. Voila, you have your context menu back. Easy!

Excel Quick Tips: Disable Privacy Warning

2010-04-07T18:34:00.001+08:00

If each time when you save your macro enable workbook, you receive an annoying popup "Privacy warning:This document contains macros, ActiveX controls, XLM expansion pack information, or web components. These may include personal information that cannot be removed by the Document Inspector", follow these steps

1. Go to Excel Options, navigate to Trust Center and click on “Trust Center Settings”

2. First, enable all macros in the Macro Settings (Note: Assuming all your macros are safe and tested)

3. Then go to Privacy Options and uncheck “Remove personal information…”

4. Save and close the file. Next time when you open it, no more annoying privacy warnings.

Apple's new iPad: A logical evolution or a marketing dud

2010-01-29T10:15:00.002+08:00

Apple finally unveiled its new tablet, the iPad, after months of feverish speculation and hype online, and as usual, without any official indication by Apple that the product even existed.
In the same typical style and exuberance, Mr Jobbs' unveiled the "next big thing" in consumer lifestyle computing but the initial response from Press and the tech community hasn't been as welcoming.

Unlike a lot of their earlier successes, Apple couldn't wow or amaze the audience. The iPad was exactly as everyone predicted with no surprises, never before seen features or a radical change in end-user consumer computing. For years, I have personally bashed the Mac for all it's glitter and no purpose, but the iPhone changed my perception. Undoubtedly, It is the most practical and purposeful phone till date. It has replaced my laptop for almost everything, keeps me organized, syncs my calendars and gives the best browsing experience through Safari, which is still the best out there. For more than 3 years, competitors have tried but failed miserably trying to emulate the user experience and the rich application store that the iPhone offers. And the new iPad is no different.

The iPad is definitely a logical progression from the iPhone. It is simply a bigger looking iPhone with which Apple plans to capture the e-book reader segment (with the likes of Kindle and Sony readers), the gamers, the designers (the wacom space) and the fast paced business executives who want to show off the latest sales figures and marketing presentations to clients on the move.

For those who currently use the iPhone to read books, watch movies, surf the net or to simply blog, will appreciate the generous 9.7" multi-touch screen and a quoted 10 hour battery life. The best part is, that it can run almost all the existing 140,000 App Store apps, making it easier for developers to port their applications to a new device painlessly. Given the feature set, the first iteration of the device looks highly promising. There are already talks of major newspaper and magazine publishers lining to get their content published over iTunes. Will this be the end of the print era? I hope it is. Trees all over the world rejoice, your savior is here :)

But obviously, I have the same complaints as the rest of the community. Firstly, who in marketing thought of naming the device "iPad". iSlate or iTab would have sounded fab. It could be that Apple was a bit late in acquiring the copyrights to these names but still, "iPad" is a strict no.

Though the native Apple built-in Apps support it, I still miss multi-tasking on my iPhone, and Apple had no reason of overlooking it in the iPad. It's definitely not an architectural challenge but could be a huge battery drain on these devices but the choice should be left to the end-user. I still believe the new iPhone 4.0 and later versions of the iPad OS would some day support multi-tasking.

This one is a no-brainer. How hard is it to include a file manager and a USB support to a full blown tablet. If the device has a fully functional OS and if the target consumer is a tech-savvy net junkie, who loves his photos and movies, then why skip a built-in USB port to import and export content from 3rd party devices. Apple's decision to have a closed ecosystem of their devices accessible only via iTunes doesn't really make sense. This will only encourage jailbreaks and hacks in the future. Even the cheapest netbook has a couple of USB ports and a linux/windows filesystem manager.

To end this long discussion, the iPad isn't revolutionary, it won't blow your minds off, it may not force you to queue up for long hours. But it is the most logical follow-up to the iPhone. Apple may have guaged the response after the keynote and sure enough there may be some last minute changes before it's official launch. For now, I guess I will have to wait for another year to replace my aging laptop, hoping Apple listens and gets their act together for the next generation iPad2.

Google Challenge1: Weekends!

2009-11-21T21:00:00.011+08:00

I have had some time issues in updating this blog. Till I re-prioritize my activities, I have thought of starting a new filler section called Google Challenge. It's about gathering the most feasible statistical inference using Google. Here is an interesting one.

I hate my weekends. My friends ridicule me when I share this sentiment. I believe there are lots more out there who think Weekends are an absolute waste of time :). In order to prove this, I need to figure out, statistically how many good folks out of 10, think likewise. My gut feel says it should be at least 3 out 10. Now let's find out.

There are couple of ways to do it. One, I could do a survey with a sample of people. The key challenge is, it's hard to get a random sample to survey. I would prefer a geographically and culturally diverse people, including single, married, men, women, kids. And obviously, I don't have the financial means to hire Gartner or BCG to help me here, so let's try to find a simple and cheap way to do this.

Attempt1# is to use 2 keywords "I hate weekends" and "I love weekends" and look out the no. of pages google returns. Note: the double quotes ensures the exact string match.

"I love weekends": 498,000 hits
"I hate weekends": 89,100 hits
Inference: For every 100 people who really enjoy their weekends, there are 18 of us who absolute hate it.

This Definitely doesn't help my case. The percentage is too small. Conceptually there are a lot of issues with this:
1. Results included lyrics of songs that had "I love weekends", youtube videos, reviews etc. which skewed the results.
2. If you change the keywords to "I love weekend" (remove 's' in the end) , "I love sundays", etc, each results in a wide spectrum of results. So for simplicity sake, I will stick to the earlier keywords.

Attempt 2# Rather than searching all results, let's focus on blogs. Blogs are personal accounts of people.

"I love weekends": 214,000 hits
"I hate weekends": 74,100 hits
Inference: For every 100 people who really enjoy their weekends, there are 35 of us who absolute hate it. This number is a lot nicer :)

Some issues with this method are:
1. Not all blog. And those who do, have lots of time to kill, and more prone to hate weekends :) like me
2. Demography that blog tends to be a more young generation

Attempt 3# Using twitter to find a more personalized result
"I love weekends" site:twitter.com : 27,400 hits"
"I hate weekends" site:twitter.com 4,970 hits

Inference: For every 100 people who really enjoy their weekends, there are 18 of us who absolute hate it. Interestingly, this result is quite similar to Method1, which I think is sheer co-incidence.
Some really obvious issues with this method are:
1. Not all twitter
2. Google doesn't index all tweets
Now, in all three cases, we are forgetting the group of people who are indifferent to the concept of "weekends". Assuming that's 10% of the population and assigning 20% significance to method1, 70% to method2 and 10% to method3. Below are the results.

i.e 7 out 10 love their weekends, 2 absolutely hate and 1 is indifferent. Great! That was fun. I still stick to my 3 in 10 gut feel. But I don't know if I can ever statistically prove it. Maybe some day we can analyse human behavior better.

Do comment if you have a better, easier and faster way to deduce the above challenge. Happy googling!

Back to writing, and the long Techspiring Filler

2009-07-07T21:39:00.001+08:00

It's been a long hiatus from blogging and a lot of things have happened around, which needs to be written about. So to start, as I ease myself back into writing, here are some of the interesting events in the past couple of months:

1. E3, the uninspiring Gaming Extravaganza:
The coveted E3 came and went past without much excitement. As expected, the theme was motion sensor controllers and Microsoft stole the show with Project Natal. Hardcore gamers may not be thrilled with the idea of using their body as the controller, but personally it creates a far more immersive and interactive experience. I was particularly fascinated by the "Milo" demo in which a virtual character (Milo) can react to human emotions, real world actions and expressions. It was a bit gimmicky but definitely the way for the future. Imagine a virtual therapist who you can talk to, right from the comforts of your home, or the perfect friend with whom you can discuss Sir Arthur Clarke's last novel and the secret recipe of Russian half-baked cupcakes while battling the evil forces of the Dark Side. Possibilities are endless. Before I drift away in my own imagination, Sony and Nintendo also had their share of "new" stuff to display. Sony's new motion sensor controller looked good but nothing out-of-the-world. The demo was a bit half-baked apart from the really cool archery show.
The message was clear. Nintendo would have to buck up and get serious soon else the big two will catch up soon.

Some great games were also announced but there is nothing I had like to play more than the new Ghostbusters game. A-ma-zing!!!
There is also a new show on my must-watch list now. It's Revision3s - Co-op. Imagine a bunch of dudes, who play games for a living. That would be my idea of a perfect job :)

2. The Billion Dollar gamble
The big corporate news was Oracle buying off SUN. We are yet to hear about Oracle's plans for Java, MySQL and OpenSolaris but opensource pundits can relax for now.

M$ is all set to release Windows7 RTM this July (release to manufactures/marketing) and will be hitting shelves in October. Consumers all over the world are already pissed at Microsoft's pricing model. Sometimes one wonders if they ever learnt anything from their "Vistaic" past. This release could make or break M$, and as our Cupertino buddies with their flashy new Snow Leopard also await with baited breath, us Linux folks will wait at the sidelines, cheering neither of them. Well Ok, I still have a soft spot for Mr Gates' legendary company and Windows 7 RC was really impressive but paying 320 bucks (USD) for the ultimate is ludicrous. Well, times like these one remembers the perks we had of being a student. Sigh, someone send me a free copy.

And yeah, did I mention Apple frickin sold a million of their 3GS over the first weekend, and Steve Jobs is back as Mac shares rise in joy.

3. Smartphones, smartphones everywhere!
June was an interesting month as both Palm and Apple launched their new handset. Pre which dazzled everyone at CES in January with it's unique card interface, was launched in US by Sprint. I think Palm and Sprint made a couple of mistakes. One, they launched it just a few days before Apple's WWDC (where iPhone 3GS was unveiled). The pre's launch buzz, fizzed out even before it could start, by the news of the new iPhone 3GS.
Either they should have done it a month earlier, thereby locking AT&T haters and tech-purists into a 2year contract with Sprint, or a few weeks after WWDC, giving them enough time to beef up their marketing campaign to combat iPhone's somewhat new features.
But their failure to grab the moment didn't really result in bad sales. Pre managed to sell 300,000 units in a month, which is not bad for Palm's latest outing. Pre will keep Palm alive and hopefully spawn more handsets which would run their revolutionary new WebOS.

Meanwhile, apple rewrote record books by selling a million iPhone units in a weekend. It's a bit hard to understand how Apple manages to sell such an overpriced device in times like these. And AT&T should really thank it's stars (and wallet) for managing to keep the Apple exclusivity for another year.
Btw, iPhone 3GS is launching in Singapore, this friday. Singtel seems to be a lot nicer than AT&T and I am going to find out, real soon.

4. The buzz in the linux World
Well nothing exciting has happened lately. After the hugely impressive Fedora 10, Red Hat's Fedora 11 (not technically the 11th version) was a bit disappointing.

On a personal front, my Jaunty Jackelope (Ubuntu 9.04) boots in 20 seconds, but freezes every time I delete big files. Can't blame the folks at canonical. It's an ext4 bug and these are perks of being a beta tester. It's lately getting a bit frustrating now, so soon I will either format my "\home" as ext3 or move on to try Fedora 11 or the new mandriva. Hopefully a new post will follow soon.

Phew! Not bad for a post, after such a long time. I have no idea how many of you would still be reading this blog. But thanks anyways for all the support. My commute to work has increased by another 30 mins, and I think I just found an interesting way to kill the 1.5 hour long journey. Happy surfing.

Ubuntu/Mint: Test driving Google Chrome for Linux

2009-03-25T23:33:00.006+08:00

Google Chrome for Linux does not officially exist yet, not as "Chrome" but as a pre-alpha project called "Chromium". It's a really early build so don't go filing bug reports for it. And definitely, it won't replace your firefox or Epiphany. Atleast not that soon. So let's get started. Let me remind you one last time, Try at your own risk :)

1. Edit your apt source list.
$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and append the following lines at the end

 deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

2. Update your sources and install Chromium
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

3. Time to test drive
$ chromium-browser

Chromium Alpha will launch with a warning message. You already know it's Chromium not Chrome. It's still a pre-alpha but is fast and renders reasonably well. Other common features such as the bookmark manager, javascript console etc. are missing but hopefully should be ready soon. Till the official Chrome Linux beta, enjoy Chromium and happy surfing!

Windows Tip: Flash on Firefox and Chrome without Admin rights

2009-03-15T23:50:00.007+08:00

We all hate it when administrators cripple your fully functional office PC by adding access controls and restrictions to it.
IE7 is the only certified browser at my workplace. It's a well known fact that the web experience on Chrome and Firefox is way better than IE but I don't have admin rights to my system and hence no 3rd party software installations are permitted.

But luckily, Chrome and Firefox portable install beautifully without admin rights.

Now the only issue is that Flash for Chrome and Firefox cannot be installed without admin privileges. Fret not, here is a smart hack to get Flash without really installing it.

1. Download this xpi file and rename it to .zip.

2. Now Extract it with Winzip or your Windows extractor.

3. Copy the flashplayer.xpt and NPSWF32.dll files from the extracted location and paste them to
C:\Users\"your user name"\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\plugins

(Similar location for Firefox)

4. Restart Chrome and check youtube.

Voila! We beat the administrator yet again. Enjoy surfing and youtube at work ;)

And here is the rest of it.

A quick and dirty guide to installing Windows7 on an old Linux laptop

2009-02-08T19:36:00.042+08:00

Before we get started, a quick overview of what we are about to do in the next few minutes (or hours depending on your luck).

Windows7 is the exciting new OS from Microsoft, which has garnered rave reviews from everywhere. It is touted as the best windows ever, and even the Linux community is keeping a close watch on its progress. The most interesting feature for me would definitely be the more optimized and fast experience, and the jump lists; Details of which I will cover in later sections.

My current rig:
Compaq nx7010 business laptop (2003)
Pentium Centrino 1.6GHz
1.5 Gigs of RAM
OSs installed: Linux Mint and Windows XP
Graphics adapter: ATI Mobility Radeon 9200
Critical Drivers: Intel wireless ipw2100 and..Connexant AC97

Key Objective:
To install windows7 keeping my Linux and XP intact. And atleast have wifi and sound working on the new OS. Aero will not function with the depricated graphics adapter so will give it a pass.

A Word of Warning:

1. Backup all your important stuff. Be careful, It's a beta we are dealing with here.2. Keep all your old windows drivers in a place, as we may need it later.
3. This is a long article, so be patient and don't jump steps.
4. And please, don't panic :)

Preparations:
As with any OS installation, there is some prep work needed
1. Prepare your partitions. We will start off with resizing our existing partition.I booted with my Linux Mint live cd and used gParted to resize my Linux partition and create a NTFS partition for windows7.

2. Download Widows7 beta iso and burn it onto a dvd.
3. Write down the activation key issued from the website on paper.
Great! We are ready.

Installation:

1. Pop in your Windows7 DVD and restart your pc.
2. Go slow. Click on start installation.
3. Chose Custom installation and select the newly created partition as the location where you wish to install Windows7.
4. Grab your ipod and go for a walk.
5. Come back after 45mins, select basic settings like your language and timezone. Enter your beta key and your new OS is ready

Realization:
Before you start jumping in joy, there is something we overlooked. You will observe that the windows bootloader seems to have replaced GRUB. It can smartly detect our XP and add into the boot list. But where is our Linux? Let's come back to it a bit later. There are still some challenges.

Your old drivers won't work. ATI stopped supporting my old gfx card years back. Same goes for intel. No more pro wireless 2100 drivers for Vista or above. My sound card Connexant AC97 also has no compatible soundcard drivers after XP. Here are a couple of things, you could do.
1. Install your old driver packages using compatibility mode.

2. Check Windows Updates if the drivers are available.
3.Google for newer drivers or solutions from folks with similar issues.
4.Manually install your old drivers from the "Device Manager" console.
Right Click on an unknown device, select "Update Driver Software" and choose "Browse my Computer.." to browse to the location of the extracted driver.

5. If all this doesn't help, get a new rig mate, or live without the unrecognized hardware.

Getting our GRUB back:
We have all the time in the world to play with our spanking new Win7 but let us fix our grub first and come back later. For this, load your favorite live bootable cd and open the terminal. Type the following commands to fix grub.

$ sudo grub

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,0)

grub> root (hd0,0)

grub> setup (hd0,0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0,0) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu
.lst "... succeeded
Done.

grub> quit

Now restart your pc and wait for grub to load. You would see your old grub boot screen with a line for WinXP. Select it and voila, you are taken to the familiar Windows7 boot manager. This was a big surprise to me as well :). If this doesn't work, edit grub and add an entry pointing to Windows7.

Boot into your installed linux instance and edit grub.lst
$ sudo gedit boot/grub/menu.lst

Add the following lines at the end

# on /dev/sda4 title windows 7 beta (Loader) root (hd0,3) savedefault makeactive chainloader +1

My windows 7 resides on /dev/sda4 hence it's (hd0, 3). Confirm this via fdisk or gparted.

Closing Remarks:
Yeah, we are done now. We now have 3 different OSs co-existing beautifully on our old laptop. It wasn't a smooth ride but we made it :) . Enjoy, experiment, benchmark and review the three great OSs and drop me comments on your experience. Thanks.

Connexant AC97 help

“How to” Dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7 (Ubuntu installed first)

Living with Linux, Windows7 and XP: The complete experience

2009-02-08T19:25:00.004+08:00

It was high time, I wrote something interesting on this blog. The upcoming articles will be more focussed on my experiences with Windows7. Here are some of them in the pipeline:

1. A quick Windows7 installation guide (when a Linux distro is already installed)
2. A multi-boot guide for Windows7 and Linux to co-exist together
3. A painful guide to installing some old drivers on your Windows7 box
4. The comparative experience: Linux (KDE/Gnome) vs Windows 7

Great! Let me get started in writing these, and check back soon later.