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Hunting for new words

2012-03-05T19:41:00.003+05:30

When writing a unit test, final examination, dwarf article, gigantic essay, email, Facebook comment; it is not unusual to grope for words.

In such situations, when in hurry, words should flow quickly. If words should flow quickly, you must have many words inside your head. This write-up explains three methods that anyone can use to get new and useful words into his/her head.

My golden rule on learning is that it should be fun. But learning new words is a case where one does not get much entertainment -- unlike a story or a poem -- and some believe it is hard. Even if you find it hard or dull, my aim here is to make it not boring; and if possible, make it fun!

One way to explore new words is to read. Try to get your hands on quality content written by good writers. How do you know whether someone is a good writer? You cannot know because "good" is subjective! While some folk look for grammatical correctness in writing, others are on a constant look out for brilliant ideas. Writing can be valued on the basis of elegance, organization, voice of expression, simplicity, surprise element... to name a few.

But, you can decide whether a writer is good enough for your purpose -- to learn new words . Whenever you get a book, skim (quickly go through) a paragraph or two of it. If you find words such as Erinaceous or Lamprophony or floccinaucinihilipilification then you can certainly decide that he/she is too good for you and the rest of the general human beings -- so do not read. If you come across an overly simplistic writer, then you should not read his/her writing for the purpose of learning new words; because you won't get any new ones. So, select a good writer whose work is challenging enough, but not brain wrecking.

Although the reading method won't provide quick results, it is a lot of fun to do. Books will feed you with words, ideas, fun moments, thoughts, morals etc. You absorb both words and knowledge at the same time, which is a plus.

Even though I agree that reading is the profound method to explore new words, everyone is in a hurry and long reads are not possible in this busy world. We want focused and concise solutions.

In my quest, I stumbled upon a new method which works best with a printed dictionary, but can be used with on-line dictionaries as well. I call it the stare method, because you stare at the dictionary to find the word you like.

The dictionary that you use must have a lot of words, clear definitions, lots of cross references and many nifty features; all which sounds like Compact Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus (TheFreeDictionary works as well. But it's not as flexible as dead wood books). The thing that I liked in this method is that you do not force yourselves to remember new words. I ask you to set aside only fifteen minutes per day to mix this method with your routine.

So here is how it works. Open a random page of the dictionary. Stare at the page for a few seconds, see if you find any word funny, cute, angry or attractive. No? Turn over the page. Again look at the words. Soon you would naturally like a word. Read the whole entry for that word. Since you are using a very good dictionary, it is very likely that there would be a "related words" section. Check it out! Create a web of words of similar meanings, in your mind. Explore as long as you like. In the end, you would have a connected set of words that'll flow when required.

Another great strategy is to start with a word that you are very familiar with. As an example, I select the word, "explore". Here's the definition from thefreedictionary (online). Just go through it, learning the different senses of the word:
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ex·plore (k-splôr, -splr)

v. ex·plored, ex·plor·ing, ex·plores

v.tr.

1. To investigate systematically; examine: explore every possibility.

2. To search into or travel in for the purpose of discovery: exploring outer space.

3. Medicine To examine for diagnostic purposes.

v.intr.

To make a careful examination or search: scientists who have been known to explore in this region of the earth.

ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Verb	1.	explore - inquire into; "the students had to research the history of the Second World War for their history project"; "He searched for information on his relatives on the web"; "Scientists are exploring the nature of consciousness" research, search prospect - explore for useful or valuable things or substances, such as minerals google - search the internet (for information) using the Google search engine; "He googled the woman he had met at the party"; "My children are googling all day" mapquest - search for a location and directions by means of the MapQuest program; "you can just mapquest the restaurant" re-explore - explore anew; "We need to re-explore Colonialism" beat about, cast about, cast around - search anxiously investigate, look into - investigate scientifically; "Let's investigate the syntax of Chinese"
	2.	explore - travel to or penetrate into; "explore unknown territory in biology" pioneer - open up and explore a new area; "pioneer space" spelunk, cave - explore natural caves map - explore or survey for the purpose of making a map; "We haven't even begun to map the many galaxies that we know exist" investigate, look into - investigate scientifically; "Let's investigate the syntax of Chinese"
	3.	explore - examine minutely diagnose, name - determine or distinguish the nature of a problem or an illness through a diagnostic analysis explore - examine (organs) for diagnostic purposes plumb - examine thoroughly and in great depth
	4.	explore - examine (organs) for diagnostic purposes practice of medicine, medicine - the learned profession that is mastered by graduate training in a medical school and that is devoted to preventing or alleviating or curing diseases and injuries; "he studied medicine at Harvard" diagnose - subject to a medical analysis put out feelers - make some preliminary investigations or test the waters explore - examine minutely

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After you have read the definitions, you should find the thesaurus section. Select an interesting word in there and look it up. I went on to look up the word "prospect"; you may select the one that interested you. Read, analyse and then find another related word. Do this for fifteen minutes, but make sure you do not force yourselves to remember them. Think about their usage. How can I use it? Where? etc. You may not get definite answers for such questions but they will help you remember the words.

In no time, you would've collected a few new words -- even without knowing it! I recommend the stare method because you build your word set on top of your existing words. Hence you can remember them and use them.

Obviously, you knew what "explore" meant; but using that word as a starting point, we learned that we can discover new words. The idea is to create a web of closely related words. These web of words are really practical -- you can remember without special effort.

The typical A word a day services come to my mind, as the third method. I do not recommend it much, but it is popular, so it should work for many. How does it work? Subscribe to their mailing list or visit their page daily. You get to read a single word every day and learn it. I tried many but they didn't work out for me and I suspect they won't work for you as well. But you can try.

Usually, the words are selected by simple scripts from a database. Chances are high that those words are not really good for general writing. And, it becomes very hard to remember words this way because there is no connection between today's word and yesterday's word. Another negative to this method is that you do not get the chance to choose the word that you want to study. It is highly unlikely that these words will come to use, when in need.

Still, there is no harm in subscribing to a service and having a peak sometimes. It is always good to shuffle methods so that there exists a variety.

A path to explore

I intentionally made the first line of this writing a bit wordy. Even if you know all those words well, look some of them up (See below). Explore and enjoy.

Online English dictionaries

English is such a big language. It has more words than any other language. So, in-spite of using it for years, it becomes necessary for even the experts to refer to a dictionary while writing. We are in the digital age, so we use digital dictionaries. I like the following online dictionaries.

Comprehensive dictionaries:

A Slang dictionary written by the community. So funny, it is!

The urban dictionary

A very fast dictionary:

Ninja words

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Apparent weight

2012-02-17T18:30:00.002+05:30

The word "apparent" roughly means "how we experience (or see) something". What we experience may or may not be the reality. Say your neighbour's kid screams every now and then. Sitting in your house, you do not think he is an annoyingly loud kid. Only, after paying a visit to the neighbour do you realize that the kid is insanely loud! You could not experience the real intensity of the kid's voice sitting in your house, because of the distance. So, this idea -- that we experience a phenomenon differently in different situations-- is what the word apparent represents.

What's weight? It is the total gravitational force acting on an object. Note that gravitational force is a force that exists between all the particles of this universe -- not necessarily the force exerted by earth alone.

All of us have measured our weights, and have found it like: 60kg, 70kg, 80kg etc. Even though we refer to these figures as "weight", they are not. What we call "weight" is in reality "mass".^[1][2]

Now we are ready to know what apparent weight is. I'll tell it simply:

You weigh 80kg. But when moving down in a lift, you feel like you are only 70kg. When you move up, you feel like 90kg!

The change in weight that we experience when we stand on an accelerated platform is called apparent weight. What would be the reason?

As I already said, the weight that we experience is nothing but the total gravitational force acting on us. When we are standing on a play ground, bus stand, or office room and similar steady platforms, only gravitational force acts on us. On a lift, a new force come into play!

This new force appears because of the motion of the lift (Or any platform in which you stand). When different forces act on you, your weight changes.

We'll look into the case of lifts, because we can relate to it easily.

Moving up in a lift!

Figure A: Moving up in a lift

Two forces act on you at the same time. One, the force of the lift, which lifts you upward. Another, gravitation, which pulls you downward. Here, the upward force should be larger than the gravitational force, so that the lift can overpower the gravitational force and move up.

The red arrow mark represents your actual weight (The weight you measure by standing on that device). It is measured as the product of mass and acceleration due to gravity (mass X acceleration due to gravity, or mass X 9.8m/s²)
The upward force is represented by the blue arrow, which is exerted by the lift. It is the product of your mass and the acceleration of the lift (mass X acceleration).

Graphically, the distance between the arrow heads of blue and red lines gives us your apparent weight. That is represented by the long black line in the left of the diagram A. So, when you go up, your apparent weight is greater than your actual weight, which is clear by that long arrow.

Expressing the same thing in maths:

Apparent weight = mg + ma;
where m = mass of the object, g = acceleration due to gravity, a = acceleration of the lift

Moving down in a lift!

Figure B: Moving down in a lift

In this scenario, both the gravitational force and the force due to the lift are in the same direction. We assume that the downwards force is smaller than the gravitational force.

The red arrow mark represents your actual weight (The weight you measure by standing on that device). It is measured as the product of mass and acceleration due to gravity (mass X acceleration due to gravity, or mass X 9.8m/s²)
The downward force is represented by the blue arrow, which is exerted by the lift. It is the product of your mass and the acceleration of the lift (mass X acceleration).

Graphically, the distance between the arrow heads of blue and red lines gives us your apparent weight. That is represented by the short black line in the left of the diagram B. So, when you go down, your apparent weight is smaller than your actual weight, which is clear by that shorter arrow.

Expressing the same thing in maths:

Apparent weight = mg - ma;
where m = mass of the object, g = acceleration due to gravity, a = acceleration of the lift

Notes

Mass is the amount of matter present in a substance. It does not change. What we generally refer to as "weight" is actually mass. The mechanical weighing device that shop keepers use, measure mass and NOT weight. The mass of an object will remain constant, wherever you measure it -- moon, Mars or anywhere in the whole universe.
Weight is the "force" with which any object is attracted by gravity. Gravity is the force exerted by all bodies of this universe on other objects, not only by earth. We give importance to the force exerted by earth because its relative size and mass is large and hence it exerts a great force. Weight of something will be different in different places. Weight can be measured using spring balance.

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Facebookers say: India sucks

2012-02-16T09:52:00.003+05:30

Facebook. It is nothing serious... Thousands of people at a single site, say whatever they want to say. Right or wrong they get "Like"d. It's really interesting. A popular facebooker tells something random and without a single stream of sane thought in their heads, two hundred people click "like" on his update. Suppose the same guy talks disgracefully about our mother land, India in a matter of minutes four thousand people like his update and two thousand people re-share it.

The objective of this write-up is to:

test whether any truth lives within such updates by exploring an example
find the main reason for sharing such updates
provide suggestions regarding this matter

Whatever may be the subject of a share, it surely has impact on people's thinking. For instance, read the following lines shared by a Facebooker:

What's India? A nation where pizza reaches home faster than an ambulance or the police, where you get car loan at five per cent interest but education loan at 12 per cent, where a kilo of rice costs Rs 40, but mobile sim card is free, where people worship goddess Durga but want to kill their girl child.

Striking. It's so powerful that even I was tempted to hit the "like" button. But I deliberately stalled. Seems true at first read. All of us Indians have many things that we do not like about our country. In fact, every citizen of every country has something negative to say about their country. At first, I thought this was also something similar -- a complaint box. But this piece of text, accompanied with flashy graphics can steal anyone's sanity. When one does not analyse, it is just the damn truth.

Digging deeper
Let us look into these statements, and decide whether we should like, share, believe, and trust them or do the very opposite.

A nation where pizza reaches home faster than an ambulance or the police

How could this be true? There may have been such rare incidents, but it is not always the case. I have seen many ambulances trying hard to save lives. Often than not, many cunning Indians just take advantage of a racing ambulance. They just drive behind its tail so that they can avoid the traffic. People are not ready to make way for an ambulance, because allowing it to go forward will make them wait or it'll cost a few minutes of film to a director. On an unfortunate day an ambulance might arrive a little late, then it is just because of the complaining and selfish group of Indians. But I rejoice because India also has many people who are kind-hearted, and they would always allow a rushing ambulance pass ahead of them. According to my observation, when there is an accident, ambulance arrives as fast as possible. This guy is complaining when there is no real problem.

Let us do a comparison. In a class of 90 students, one student arrives a little late. So the teacher starts to complain with the other 89 innocent students that they do not have time sense. Does the teacher's arguments make any sense? The facebooker has the same character of that of this teacher. But the only difference is: students disliked the teacher's behavior, Indians with Facebook accounts heartily "liked" the whiner's behavior.

A nation where you get car loan at five per cent interest but education loan at 12 per cent

Before googling your claim, I thought you were really pointing towards a real problem of India, dear Facebooker. See the following images:

Car Loan rates:

(http://www.apnapaisa.com/loan/car-loan-india/rates.html)

Education loan rates:

(http://www.apnapaisa.com/loan/education-loan-india/rates.html)

As you can see, both the car and education loan rates are almost equal. Then what is this guy talking about?

A nation where a kilo of rice costs Rs 40, but mobile sim card is free

Oh! Is it? My dear Facebook junkie, mobile sim card and rice are completely different things. Technology is cheap (You can get Microsoft office alternative or Microsoft office itself for free, and use it for lifetime.) Once you produce a new technology, it can be copied. Similarly, you can get a sim-card for free and use it for your whole lifetime, but not for free. You pay for it, every day, more than they deserve. Every caller-tune you install costs money (installation is just playing the same music file, friend), you get back-stabbing offers, so called 50 paisa messages, etc. Where exactly does that money go? To the company itself.

But what about rice? It is not possible to "copy" or "play" rice. It takes hard work and patience to produce rice. It also depends on many factors like rain, weather etc. Because of people like you, whining in Facebook, there is no one in the Indian paddies to grow rice. Hence, you have to pay Rs 40 per Kg. Be thankful that some people do farming even in this age of Facebook, so that people like you can live (and complain). I guess you haven't heard about the suicide cases of Indian farmers --you would not complain if you had.

A nation where people worship goddess Durga but want to kill their girl child

Remember world war? Christians were worshiping Jesus, the messenger of god, who spread peace all around the world. But the same Christians killed myriad number of humans, while talking about peace. Similarly, Indians have some of their own problems, as well. It is not a fact that has to be established negatively in Facebook by downgrading India. Actually, according to wikipedia, Infanticide (Killing of human infant) is illegal in India. To add to that, we, Indians are evolving, adapting to the better. Indians had almost abandoned "sati sahagamana" (The ritual of a wife sacrificing her life on the death of her husband) long before(1829) independence. Similarly, I believe the above issue will also lessen in the future and one day it'll vanish. It just takes time for the people to ditch ancient practices and get accustomed to new ideas. But this was a valid point, but sad -- the other three points were as bad as they could get.

So what's the point?
We analysed a Facebook message and found out that three out of four arguments were totally senseless. It was written to get some "likes" in Facebook, but they did not know that it could affect how people think. For example, a Bollywood star, Salman Khan, tweeted this same message! He said that the message was "SMSes he received and thought were worth sharing." That means he liked the message. See how these brain-less arguments make sense to people? If Salman Khan shares it again, hundreds of thousands of people will believe it and hold dissatisfaction about India. Soon, they will start to hate India --without any real reasons.

The reason?
Why do people behave so? "Like" is an addiction. It's a great feeling to be accepted by friends. When unknown people start to like one's status updates, it gives extra satisfaction. Make the number of unknown people two thousand plus and you get a perfect addict. The man will say anything to earn "like"s. Since Facebook does not offer a "dislike" button like YouTube, no one gets a chance to express his/her dissatisfaction. One cannot comment because more than five hundred people would've already left "great man!" comments on the same thing. How can one say the very opposite? Even if one says so, who cares!

What to do?

You got the point. Now, here are a few things that I would like to share with you. Follow these and you would not hold false beliefs.

Read Twice: If a message or status update tempts you to hit "like" directly, read it again, think again. Ask yourselves: "Am I becoming a victim of 'impulse reaction', a sudden reaction without thought?" For example, when I was almost near hitting the "like" button, I was really astonished by the statement about the bank loans. How could that be true, I thought. That made me analyse the message.
Google: Always remember that Facebookers who are addicted will do anything to get "likes". They will tell whatever comes to their minds and share it. So if you find something really doubtful, Google and you'll get your doubt cleared.
Look on the bright side: Especially, if it is about our mother land, then you should always see the bright side too. Rude complaining always appeals at first read. But instead of only grasping the negatives it, look at the positives. Usually, the people who complain only complain. They never seem to observe what is good here.
Stop whining, do what you can do: This is for everyone. Stop complaining and do something that improves the situation. If you cannot do anything, do not hit the "like" button blindly, that's a thing that you can do. Because every "like" you give to a false statement, makes it seem a true statement. Remember: If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it. ~Anthony J. D'Angelo, The College Blue Book

Be smart and do not let people hack into your thoughts.
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What is time?

2012-02-10T12:25:00.000+05:30

Someone said, "Time is precious". And many others said many things to convince their buddy humans that time matters. Throughout this article, I'll stick to that first sentence while trying to outline an answer to our question, posed in the title itself.

Before worrying about something complex like time, let us think about something obvious - Gold. It is precious, not without reasons. It is a shiny metal, does not mingle much with the other particles of this universe, is not as abundant in nature as the other metals, women go after it (which also promotes its reputation as one of the most precious metals). All these characteristics make gold precious. We know too much about gold, so trying to compress it inside a paragraph would be unwise, unless the paragraph itself is as large as a thousand-page novel.

But, someone said "Time is precious". I know how to see what time it is by looking at my fast-track watch. It is simple: First, you look at the hour hand, then the minute hand. You combine the reading of the hour hand and the minute hand to know what time it is. Other than that, like gold, neither can I list the characteristics of time right from the top of my head, nor can I say that time is precious! In order to announce something precious, we should at least know what it is.

If I have to agree with the first statement, I must know, "What is time?" So do you.

Most of us know these things about time:

Clocks measure time.
I think from my physics class, I remember this formula: velocity = distance/time => time = distance/velocity
Time does not stop, even when Bin Laden was shot directly into the hell.

Considering these three points, now, I don't think time is as precious as gold. There are mad theories on the idea of time. Brain giants like Einstein, Aristotle and the like have explained what time is, but not for people like us! Honestly, it's quite hard to imagine that time does not exist, as some of the scientists advocate.

Whatever others say, we want to know more about time. How did time come into existence?

Once, when our earth was in its baby stage, a man lived in the amazon forest. To look at, he was a little better than a gibbon. Since the (human) population was quite low then, he had no problems finding his food. So the only thing that he was supposed to do was: sleep. Of course, another thing: eat!

Sleeping can be a curse if it is the only thing that there is to do. So he started to think about various things. He had experienced the magic of light. When the sun came up, light followed -- then he could see all the things around him. When the sun went down, he could see nothing. That was a discovery!

I don't know, but he might have been a little afraid of sun's regularity. What if the sun didn't rise? What if the sun cheated? It would be very dark. Even I am afraid of dark sometimes -- everyone is! But we know, Mr. sun is the most faithful thing in this whole universe (We should learn from the sun, shan't we?)

With unfailing regularity, the sun rose in the morning, set in evening. Soon our wise man realized the difference between day and night. He even observed many stages of a day: dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night.

The man had his family. He would tell his children to get up and eat in the "morning", play in the "evening", go to sleep at "night", and so on. His routine was cyclic.

He started to feel Time!

There was a flow in his life now. He knew "when" to do something. By the time he had discovered all these things, he was quite old. But he had taught all that he had learnt in the span of his entire life to his children. These children were sharp, very sharp. They followed their dad's path, revealing the secrets of nature.

A particularly intelligent son of the man found out that there is a relation between the weather and the time his dad had discovered. After a specific number days, the rainy season arrived. Then waiting for some days, the winter season came along. This was also periodic. He found it difficult to refer to to a large amount of time. So he began using days, weeks, months, years to refer to a huge amount of time.

Similarly, he split a single day into smaller fragments, so that he can refer to different time instants of a day. He observed that the roof of his hut drew a shadow down on the grounds and it varied all day, according to the movement of the sun. He studied the variation and could know what time of the day it was. He taught his discovery to his family. All of them now knew the way of finding out the time. They were measuring time!

Wise people understood that time is a hungry beast. It ate like a horse, all the past actions they had done. If they had eaten a rabbit the last day, they cannot get the same rabbit the following day for their dinner. Time swallowed everything (Even though they swallowed the poor rabbit!). They also came to know that they get older, with every fragment of time. Hence a wise man said, "Time is precious!" (But many women did not understand, they were after the gold!)

In the coming days, science was getting larger attention. Population raced infinitely at an average speed of that of an F1 car. Hence, there were more people using their brains, revealing the traits of nature. This led to the invention of sun-dials, tik-tik clocks and the like. Big and beautiful -- that were the clocks of the olden days.

As people got modern and sane, they realized that they need small watches, instead of huge clocks. It was child's play for the modern man. Some brilliant scientist came up with a small but working design and some business child got it manufactured. Tada! Now it was easier to measure time.

Soon clocks got the shape of digital watches, wrist bands. Even I learnt to measure time with my fast-track! Now I know how to talk about an incident of the past: "Hey, he kicked me yesterday at 2.39PM"; about the present:"Hey, it is 10'o clock!"; about the future:"I think Osama's men will assassinate Obama at 7.30AM, next Sunday"

So, what is time? It is something we measure, with which we get older, with the help of which we refer to our actions (past, present, future), and something about which scientists can say almost anything, something which even the great scholars cannot define.

But for the rest of us, it is simply "time". We are happy that we know how to measure time. We know how precious time is, because we can see ourselves getting older with every nano second! My answer to our original question is, "Time is a very funny thing!"

Images from wikimedia commons

Feeling lazy?

2012-01-21T20:10:00.003+05:30

Laziness: Many consider it a curse, from which they cannot escape. Every motivational speaker likes to say, laziness kills productivity, drowns large companies, makes people fat et-cetera. Is laziness so bad? We will find out.

Whenever we want an answer, we should dive deep into the subject. Let us learn more about laziness and how it lies within people.

Lazy means: unwilling to work; not being enthusiastic in work. For example, a sportsman should perform his daily run to remain fit. If he stops doing so without any real reason, then we may call him lazy. If a student is unwilling to do his homework, then he may be attributed a lazy student.

Laziness is human nature. It is crucial to study its extent of existence in us, humans. When we classify people in terms of their intensity of laziness, three categories are evident:

Always lazy: People who have acquired elite laziness belong to this group. The only thing these people are good at is… being lazy!
Scarcely lazy (Almost never lazy): A better word would be workaholic. They think ‘work’; they talk ‘work; and when they sleep, they dream ‘work’.
Sometimes lazy: People who sway either way. If they are diligent this second they may switch to lazy mode the very next second.

We can describe the general characteristics of these people by means of a law.

The law of laziness:

“A person executing “always lazy” or “scarcely lazy” mode continues his/her state of execution unless he/she is compelled by an external force to change his/her state”

In other words, people who work hard continue their attitude. Those who are always lazy remain the same. Still, both have a narrow chance of changing (When some kind of force inspires them to do so).

We all know that ‘Scarcely lazy’ and ‘always lazy’ people are quite firm. While ‘Scarcely lazy’ people only want to ‘work’, the ‘always lazy’ people act as if they have never heard of it (Neither do they want to hear about it). People who belong to these categories have no problem whatsoever. They live their lives as cool as ice, with their own firm decisions.

But you might have observed something interesting. ‘Sometimes lazy’ people are excluded from our definition. Why?

These people do not show consistent behavior, so it is not very easy to describe their behavior. Usually, they are not very firm in their decisions. Even if their decisions are firm (like deciding not to be lazy) sometimes their actions render the very opposite. In other words they do not act as their mind commands. As they graduate in their lives, ‘Sometimes lazy’ people have to commit to one of the three possibilities:

They may become “always lazy”
They may join “scarcely lazy”
They may become well controlled workaholics. In simpler words, they may enjoy beautiful dreams, lay lazy, and have fun together with working hard.

But ‘Sometimes lazy’ people have to make a decision. Here is a sample thought stream of a ‘sometimes lazy’ guy, in the process of making a decision:

Option no.1 looks scary because choosing that path is the same as living a miserable life. At least, now I work a little. If I turn out that lazy, I would…

Option no.2 looks innocent. Hey! It is just damn good! But… being a hard-worker is not anything easy. I would have to think “work”, talk “work”, and dream “work”. And the saddest part: I won’t even have a good night’s sleep. That is no fun.

Option no.3 seems quite good… Because both the above options are not for me L

Since our ‘sometimes lazy’ guy did not understand option no.3 clearly, it requires a little elaboration.

They may become well controlled workaholics. In simpler words, they may enjoy beautiful dreams, lay lazy, and have fun together with working hard.

They become well controlled workaholics. Here, ‘well controlled’ means having a sound mind, knowing one’s own limits, and living a practical life. Well controlled workaholics never become ‘always lazy’. Because being always lazy means leading a meaningless life consisting of these actions: eat, drink, and sleep. That is bad. Also, they never become the extreme workaholic. Being a workaholic makes one obsessed with work and spoils one’s own health. Workaholic people spend a substantial part of their lives pursuing a single goal and miss out lots of fun.

Selecting option no.3 ensures that you get the best of both worlds. How do we implement it in life?

When you are supposed to work, concentrate and work hard.
When you are supposed to rest, take rest (without worrying about work).
Understand that laziness is an important part of your life. Allow yourselves to be lazy once in a while. These lazy moments would refresh your mind and prepare you for the next day’s fierce workout.
Laziness is not bad if you enjoy it side by side with work.
Feel great satisfaction in the end.

Even if you are too lazy or too workaholic, try these ideas. Because either you have not enjoyed “working hard” or you have not enjoyed the sweetness of “being lazy”. Both life experiences are a must have for any human being. I can understand how hard it is to change habits. But I hope this writing supplies the sufficient force to break the spell.

Laziness is essential to life, but only when it is within the limits. You know what? Laziness is like sugar in coffee. Adding too less or too much of sugar will not produce the best tasting coffee. Only a judicious blend of sugar and coffee would give us a tasty cup of coffee. Likewise, bring out the best of you, by mixing the right amount of laziness in your life!

So called "education"

2012-01-08T09:12:00.000+05:30

Before I begin, I am not writing this to blame anyone. But to put out my opinion on the way we are “educated”.

Education: Once it was a sacred process; now it has become business to many. Once it was “learning for a better life”; now it has become “learning to top in CET and IIT examinations”. Once it was the process of developing one’s wisdom; now it is just a process of transforming oneself into a walking and talking replica of textbooks. Period.

I am a first year pre university student. I am not a memorization machine that can somehow “save” every word written in the text books. I am not the extra ordinary genius who solves quadratic equations in one half of a second and cubic equations in two seconds.

“Then what is your qualification to talk about education?” you may be tempted to ask. My only qualification to write on this subject is my curiosity, keen observation and a small desire to simply talk. Take it if you like or just leave it, it does not matter.

Throughout this essay, I have sprinkled real life incidents, very short stories, quotes and the like. If by chance one of the real life incidents bothers you badly, I am sorry. Forgive a youth.

Start

If you are yet to enter Pre University, let me tell you how you are going to be taught. If you have gone past this state, let me make you remember it.

Read the following story and answer the questions set on it:

MAKING DIFFERENCE

By unknown

There was a man taking a morning walk on the beach. He saw that along with the morning tide came hundreds of starfish and when the tide receded, they were left behind and with the morning sun rays, they would die. The tide was fresh and the starfish were alive. The man took a few steps, picked one and threw it into the water. He did that repeatedly. Right behind him there was another person who couldn’t understand what this man was doing. He caught up with him and asked, “What are you doing? There are hundreds of starfish. How many can you help? What difference does it make?” This man did not reply, took two more steps, picked up another one, threw it into the water, and said, “It makes a difference to this one.”

Comprehension

1. Where was the man taking his morning walk?

2. What was the man doing on the beach?

3. What did the man see?

4. How would the starfish die?

5. What was the man doing?

6. Where was the another person?

7. What did the another person did not understand?

8. What did the another person ask to the man?

9. What did the man answer?

10. Who is the author of the short story “MAKING DIFFERENCE”?

Now, were you able to answer every question without looking back at the story? In other words, were you able to “comprehend”? I assume ninety percent of us would say a “no”. So, the next question I would like to ask:

Would the original author be able to answer the same questions, if asked?

I think, NO. Why? Because he just did not want to! He wanted to send a great message to his fellow men. Through this story he tried to achieve his goal. His intention was not to emphasize the beach, the “man”, the “another man” or the “starfish” or the “sea”! There is something great hidden, a treasure! Anyone who is worthy can steal that treasure. Every story has similar treasures, but it seems like our education board is not that good at finding treasures. Then how could it help its students to do so?

Let us imagine that this story was included in the Pre university syllabus. How would it be taught? As they proceed through the story, at line number 3, the instructor would say, “Students, underline this line. This is very important for one mark question.” Then, in the exams, the board would ask the same question and every “machine” would answer the question promptly and say, “Oh! MAKING DIFFERENCE is the easiest lesson on the earth, man. You just have to by heart one answer!”

Whenever I hear such exclamations, I just feel laughing. To add to that, one who is dreaming about the story, one who is trying to dive deep, one who is trying to decipher the code to find the hidden treasure, is for sure, going to fail miserably in the examinations. There is no place for insights and true meanings. Here are the proven steps followed by many of the successful students to excel in these exams:

1. Get a deadly “guide”, which has all the answers! (The costlier, the better)

2. Read it twice, and remember five or six keywords per paragraph. (Often misspelled)

3. Memorize all the dates and places.

4. By heart all of the “very important” questions

5. Write the exam

6. Celebrate.

7. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

I repeat. These are the steps that will guide you to success. Really, I say it from my heart; this is the only thing that works. You follow it, you are smart. You do not follow, you are dumb.

Split

We have just come across a word: “comprehension”. What does it stand for actually?

An ability to understand the meaning or importance of something (or the knowledge acquired as a result)

Yes, it is the ability to understand the meaning, not the ability to remember the words.

The questions asked in the comprehension section of our story were not at all comprehensive, I believe. I am afraid to say, even if you were able to smash all the questions easily, I cannot say you have understood the real meaning of the story. At least, through these questions, your understanding is not tested, but only your memory.

Everyone is not gifted with memory power and the education board must understand that sole memorization is not the holy gateway to education. Examinations have become “memory tests” for normal students. We feel unconfident when reading a lesson for the first time, because we have to answer weird questions at the end of the lesson. We end up trying to remember the details, when we should have been focused in the process of enjoying and absorbing the story. We see questions and… more questions, even when we are staring towards empty walls. I agree that some “memory questions” are essential, but they ask hundreds of comprehension questions which are of no substantial value. Let us look into an incident from one of the classics, The Mahabharata. We want insights, not words:

Once, guru Dronacharya gave homework to his students, the pandavas. He ordered them to learn two hundred verses by the next day. The next day when pandavas arrived, Dronacharya asked how many of them had learned the verses and could answer questions similar to the questions asked by our education board. Everyone raised their hands, except Yudhishtir.

Drona knew that it was impossible for the children to learn two hundred verses in that short span of time, and they were lying in a confidence that he won’t ask all the two hundred verses. Only Yudhishtir had told the truth that he had not learnt the verses. But still, Drona proceeded to ask Yudhishtir, “Yudhishtir, why didn’t you learn the verses?” Yudhishtir answered, “I did my best, but all that I could learn and implement in my life was a single verse. It said ‘Always tell the truth’”

Drona was just shocked by Yudhishtir’s wisdom and mindset. He had learnt only a single verse, but had implemented it in his life! He told the truth, when no one else dared to do so. We lack his mindset. Unfortunately, our education board, which should’ve been the light, also lacks his mindset. How miserable!

Every child is a Yudhishtir when it is born. When it sees others walk, it also tries to walk. When it learns that others smile to show happiness, it learns to smile too. Everyone talks, it also tries to talk. Taking it one step farther, it implements what it has learnt in its life. One day, it is admitted to a formal education institute. All of a sudden, its natural curiosity, its hunger to acquire real knowledge starts to diminish. Why? Gradually, the renowned education institute kills the kid’s natural curiosity and replaces it with their so called discipline.

Then this kid grows up and becomes an adult. Then he realizes that even after his continuous education for all those years, he has not created anything original. He had been only copying all these days, because he was only taught to copy, not to produce something new. Now it is too late, there is nothing he can do. He continues to live his life unhappily thereafter. There you have it! A kid who was equivalent to Yudhishtir is converted to one unhappy Joe. Leave it aside.

Now let us go back to our first story. We want to learn from it like Yudhishtir did. No, you need not memorize all the details. You just need to ask questions, but not the typical education board questions. “How is it related to my life? How can this story improve my life? Is the story about generosity? Or is it about making the move for the better, even if it is a small one? Are there any other quotes, essays, stories on similar topics? Can I discuss about this with someone? If I were in his place, what would’ve I done? If I had written a diary entry that day, how would it look like? “ and so on and on. You can build a wonderland for yourselves around that story.

Another note about memorization: If by your natural talent, you are able to save the details, then good! But together with that, it is important to learn the message. Or else you will become the parrot who screamed with every other bird, “Don’t go towards the seeds!” and ran into the net by itself while screaming the same thing again!

End

Einstein said, “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.” I see truth in that sentence. I bet you, you won’t remember when Shyam was born in the lesson “Shyam’s incredible dreams” or when Ram was killed in “Ballad of madhurai”, after you leave the college. But you can infer the message from “Shyam’s incredible dreams” and blend it in your life. You can do the same with “Ballad of madhurai” and improve your life a whole lot. Again, Einstein said, “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education”. You need not believe this a truth, but to me, the only thing that interferes with my learning is the wrong type of education.

In my High School, in Kerala, I never lost interest in the education process. I remember almost everything that is written in those textbooks. No, I did not remember it intentionally but it came naturally-- I loved those text books. If you ask me to, I would even draw the physics diagrams from that text book, this very second. It was not only informative but also interactive.

It will give you half the story and you would develop its ending. My friend would end it in his own way and I would develop its ending in my own way. After that we would compare our stories and see which ending is beautiful, which is entertaining, which is humorous. We would learn to converse, write plays, and recite our own poems. Remember when was the last time you thought, “Learning is fun!”?

We would do experiments in science and write our own observations. Even here, observations of every student would be unique. Finally we would compare and create a final version which would have all the best points and conclusions. The text books were always thought provoking. Our teachers would act as a facilitator in the learning process. That education system never forces you, but encourages you to think creatively. Finally the details that you remember are the byproducts of the enjoyment you get from the learning process, and you will remember it for a long time.

I agree that mathematics and the sciences can be made “human readable”, but it will also cost extra pages in the text books and it would be hard for the instructors to cover the whole syllabus within the required time limit. But it is my belief that these small factors should not affect the students. Many of the people who teach science and mathematics do not see through the “words”. They just repeat the “same words” in the text books and we memorize the “same words” and write the “same words” in the answer sheet. It is really a pain to learn that way. Many of the real life examples given by the students during a seminar are not valued much, only because it is not in the text books. This type of attitude will break many students’ heart, because most of them put their strength and heart into their work. They should be allowed to express their opinion, may it be correct or wrong. At least it would be something original. Even in this dull environment, where student intelligence is only measured in terms of paper marks, some teachers break this barrier and become a true inspiration. I really appreciate their efforts!

Is there any harm to the education board if it becomes a little more “well” educated, in this matter? I am sure that if the board changes, the instructors would readily change. We need happy and thoughtful students, not machines.

In case you are convinced by this essay, then great! If you are not, my fault.

Would your brave mind join this thought stream of mine? If yes, you are really MAKING DIFFERENCE.

Written in 10 minutes: "My Way Of Learning Electronics"

2011-12-02T11:54:00.001+05:30

Electronics is an interesting subject because you can create working things using it. Every gadget you use in your daily life(T.V, Radio, Computer, Telephone, cellphone, etc) depends on electronics for its working. What can you do with electronics? Plenty!

According to experts, basic electronics is not hard to master. In fact, it is almost very easy to master for anyone.

Let me introduce you a simple component for you, so that you can have a feel for the subject.
***
Let us learn about "resistors". What do they do? They limit flow of electrons, or simply they block electrical current.

There are two types of resistors:
1. Fixed type
2. Variable type

Fixed resistors limit the flow of current(i.e flow of electrons) to a definite extent. But variable resistors can resist/limit current to the extent the operator chooses it to.

There are many types of fixed resistors. 1. Carbon composition, they are very cheap and have a wide range of values 2. Wire wound- They are not very cheap but can take a lot of heat(i.e power rating is high and hence usable for high frequency application) 3. Metal film - Nothing important, its just another type.

Similarly, there are many types of variable resistors. They are also called potentiometers or "POT" in short.
***
Was that hard? Not at all.

Here are some of the ways that I have found effective in order to get a jump start:

You can subscribe to electronics magazines to learn practical electronics. Practical electronics, according to me, means the creation of circuits. The circuits usually perform useful operations. You can create your own Burglar alarms, timers, etc. Usually public libraries have these books and magazines that you can read and make good use of. "Electronics For You" is a magazine that I liked, because it has good descriptions and various kinds of projects that range from very simple to quite hard ones. There is something for everyone and it will help as you've grown your knowledge.

There are theoritical books that teach electronics deeply. They do not appeal to everyone, but there are people who love them. "Art of electronics" seems to be the most popular one out there. I haven't gone through it already but there is a huge amount of positive feedback on this book all across the internet. We can consider it as an "academic" approach, but remember that this academic approach is what gives us the real knowledge.

Similarly, people who have already learned electronics can give you tips, cautions on the subject. It always helps to listen to their experiences, joys, advice. If you have someone who knows the subject well, then go on and ask! The person maybe passionate, and passionate people are always on their toe to share their knowledge. These type of guys are really fun to work with.

Reading, doing and interacting with experienced people will help you pick up basic electronics pretty quickly. Be hungry and enjoy the meal!

My mind and my problems

2011-10-24T15:52:00.000+05:30

You know, I don't like my mind very much. Sometimes it's really irritating. Why?

I can't stop myself from thinking too much -- that too in an irritating way. I've often felt it having no stability at all(Looks like it's in the beta stage :D ) If I think about art this second, the next second it would be about math. And the next second it will be about sport. It loses focus very fast and I can't restrict it within a domain that I want it to stay in.

Organizing thoughts is a very important thing for a brain, I guess. The more you study, more the need for organization of thoughts. In my opinion my brain fails here by a large margin. In case one lacks the skill of organizing thoughts, his thoughts will interfere each other and the person will have difficulty reaching his goal. For example, when I study physics, math comes in sometimes. Although I continue the study of physics, my mind wanders through the math. Sometimes my mind tends to build an algorithm for the same problem. Finally, after doing all these things, most of the times I'm left with nothing. Only, if I had stayed with physics I would've learnt a lot. Only if I had stayed with math, I would've done something. Only if I had stayed with drawing, I would've been a painter. Only if had continued playing my piano daily, I would've been great at it. Only if I had continued learning web designing well, I would've..... :(

The day I'm focused, the day my mind is well controlled, when it obeys me obediently I've seen myself achieving many good things. I've done well in many fields even if I had no hope at all-- that makes me appreciate my mind sometimes :) One day, when I was focused, I learned about matrices and created Matrix Calculator. That day, I worked so well that without any algorithms or flow charts I created the app straight away directly from my mind. Even I was amazed. I wanted to develop the app more by adding functions along with learning more about the subject. But the very next day when I got up, I was not in "that" mood. Leave about adding functions to the app, because I refused myself from learning more about them! Is it laziness? No, I think. I did not find myself lazy that day, but I was not in that mood. I'm sure that if had tried to learn, I would not have done well. That just wasn't the day.

Isn't this the game of my mind? Yes, I believe. In the olden times, people could achieve a lot because they had a very organized environment. Now-that the Internet, Desktop have become more and more search oriented(myself being an avid supporter of search as you type) than organized, the organizational skill of the users is also naturally decreasing, I guess. See, If Nikola Tesla lived today, would he memorize whole text books like he did in his age? No! He would just use some computer based technology to find information quickly. The memorization trend comes into play when it is laborious to find the information one needs. But remember that with practice, that becomes second nature as it had happened with Tesla.

With Internet, it becomes very hard to focus on a single subject. Because of the reason that the Internet offers a lot of inspiration, one may choose different path to work with(like art, science math) every time he finds a new piece of information. It's like a boat floating on a tide! But for people with stable mind, it is very easy. For a scientist, to whom science is the only thing and everything, Internet is his science source. For a musician, who has devoted whole of his life to music, Internet is just a music island. They seem to have no distractions.

But for people with multiple interests that are of less intensity than that of the masters of particular subjects, Internet is a curse which gives inspiration from all the sides and leaves them with a big zero. I guess I fall in this category-- one who is interested in many things, is not a master of anything, still loves to learn many things... is hungry of new knowledge...

I hope my mind passes this beta stage soon so that I can work and live with peace.

TryitEditor Live, create websites faster

2011-06-05T01:51:00.000+05:30

TryitEditor Live is my new application which helps you create websites faster. An instant preview is showed as you type for HTML and CSS. You can incorporate Javascript too! I've created a video(In a hurry, so it's a little inferior), but watch it for a simple demonstration.

Web browser engines and related problems

2011-06-03T02:38:00.000+05:30

Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Internet Explorer, Maxthon, Rockmeit, Wyzo, Flock and thousands of other browsers are available via the internet. How the heck did they create so many browsers? The simplest answer is "They used web browser engines" All those wyzo, rockmeit flock browsers are not written from scratch. Actually they are just a different and/or modified Graphical User Interface(GUI) for the popular browser engines created by Mozilla or Google.

Browser engines work in the background, just like a car engine which works in the background of all the passengers. The interface of a browser can be compared to the interior of a car. Some cars will have power steering, advanced braking system, comfortable seats, bright lights and a cool Television while some others will only have the bare basics! Likewise, In advanced browser interfaces, there will be additional features like add-ons, themes, search boxes etc, while the basic ones will only have the minimum set of options. But in their core, there will be a browser engine.

Browser engines take html, css, image files as their input and paint the website accordingly. This is not an easy task. In old browsers, the engine and the interface were a single component. But as the formatting and markup options grew , developers had to split the browser program into a formatting/layout engine and a GUI. This separation caused the creation many GUIs using opensource browser engines.

Mozilla Firefox uses the opensource Gecko engine

Google Chrome and Apple Safari uses the opensource WebKit engine

Opera uses a proprietary engine called Presto

Internet Explorer uses it's own proprietary(obviously!) engine Trident

Gecko and WebKit, both being opensource, are gaining popularity recently by the usage of Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. Many interfaces have been built on top of these two engines.

In my opinion proprietary engines are creating lots of head aches for web developers and also is slowing down the evolution of the web. When a web developer/designer has to design a page, it needs to be compatible with at least a dozen of browsers. Every layout engine displays every element in it's own way and the developer has to invent "hacks" in order to make it look okay in every browser(IE hacks are very infamous in this case)

Problems:

Formatting is not the same in every browser

Lots of human resource is wasted for finding the hacks and maintaining it

New standards are not implemented in different browsers at the same time

Makes the web a mess with with useless code

Confuses new users

Companies have hold on the open web

Every company coding almost the same thing again and again -- total waste

Gecko and WebKit engines are updated frequently because they are opensource software. Usually, they are very standards compliant and do not give much trouble. But proprietary browser engines are only updated by the company/creator's desire which leads to total chaos. Usually Microsoft's browser is against W3C which is trying very hardly in order to standardize web technologies. A lion's share of internet users use IE, which will also stop the wonderful HTML5 to be used.

Instead of creating their own custom engines and ridiculing web devs, why not these companies create a better browser by a combined effort? If not, let us take the first step and use a WebKit or Gecko based browser, which'll send those proprietary engines to the ruins while helping the web developers. The web needs this from YOU.

Using a Gecko or WebKit browser allows you to use your favourite GUI with better support for latest technologies(eg: HTML5) And most of them are completely free and secure(Isn't that right, IE?)

I recommend you to use Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome

- shrijith sv / shrsv

Filmstar's photo as facebook's profile picture. Isn't it lame?

2011-06-02T02:49:00.000+05:30

A gracious photo of some movie star as their profile picture, below their own name. That's how many people like to setup their favorite social networking site's page. Yes! I've been asking this again and again from the day I was introduced to Orkut. At first Orkut, then Facebook and in all those unexplored social networking sites which I won't visit anyway-- people use a crappy image downloaded from the internet where their photo ought to stay. These same people send friend requests to thousands of people with messages like "Hi!", "How are you?", "Where are you studying?" They do not take the time to think that, the person receiving the request would have many friends with the same name and that would leave them scratching their head to figure out who the person actually is. I find it really lame.

If the person has no good image of himself, then it is okay. But people who have time to wander in these sites will surely have some snaps of themselves. If they think they are so ugly, then let them put any original photo taken by themselves. Why steal copyrighted photos and use them as their own? And I would suggest not thinking themselves ugly. No one will laugh at them if they put up a normal photo of theirs as their picture. That'll just show that they are open to others and aren't afraid of themselves .

"My photo will reveal my identity!" --Those who consider themselves smart will argue like that. So, are they concerned about privacy? Nah! If they really were worried about their privacy, then why would they sign up for a social networking site? If privacy is the preference, then follow Richard Stallman and stay away from all those nasty social networking monsters. That's the best possible way to stay safe. Signing up for Facebook and clicking "Like" buttons a couple of times in nasty sites is enough to get an account hacked(I dare you do not oppose this fact ;) ) Additionally, thousands of apps that Facebook leads to, is also very dangerous(I wont explain, but a Google search will help in case you want more information). If privacy is the priority, then social networking is certainly not recommended!

It is really good to use screen names, interesting graphics as profile pictures in forums. But, when using social networking sites, please use something of your own, if not your own photo. Ultimately, It'll help you Stay connected without being cursed from others.

The bottom line is:

Try to use your own photo

If you do not like showing off your face, then at-least make sure to use your own, unique picture. Do not break copyright :)

If privacy is your concern, then stop using social networking sites

Do you find this trait ridiculous? Do you have any other thoughts? Share it here!

- shrijith sv / shrsv

Karaneeyam-my to-do manager

2011-06-01T16:39:00.000+05:30

What is a to-do list?

To-do list is just a plain and simple list used for scheduling your day. The important things you want to achieve in a day is usually written in a to-do list. I recently got started with to-do lists and found it really amazing. If you are ready to follow a to-do list sincerely (which you can create as you wish) then it will improve productivity. Here is a sample to-do list:

Read the first 2 chapters of ______________ book

Write an article

Take rest

Go hunting? :D

Watch a movie

You go on finishing from the top to bottom. When everything is finished, you'll learn that you've achieved something! This not only gives satisfaction but also actually helps to get things done.

I see, so what were you saying?

I created an app that will help you manage your to-do lists in a simple and straight forward way. It has some cool features:

3 sections. TODO list, Completed List, Trash

You can move items to the completed list and also move it back to the to-do list

Delete items dynamically (sent to trash)

Restore those items again to the to-do list

Move items up and down

Edit things to add details or to correct typos

Intelligent interface. The program only displays the necessary sections when needed.

Expandable and collapsible sections

Sessions saved using cookies

No information is processed by a server. Once loaded, everything is done dynamically.

Helpful tips on mouse over

And last but not least, random one liners on every refresh/reload to cheer you up provided by out friendly mascot the panda!(This is my favourite feature)

The list I showed previously would look somewhat like this. See that you can manage those tasks pretty easily. Also the interface is simple to use and is pretty basic. So no confusions.

Take a test drive here: http://unoriginal.tk/karaneeyam/

Cool, but what's that name?

Karaneeyam means to-do in Sanskrit. Since I am a sanskrit student, I named the app in Sanskrit (I've seen many apps being named in Japanese, French etc :) So, let some apps have a Sanskrit name!). The name just scans better than the boring to-do List. Actually Karanaaya is the exact word for To-Do, but I settled with the current one because it is fancier!

Tell me more!

First of all, I successfully implemented gmail like selection of items-- through checking and unchecking. I had admitted before that I was unable to implement gmail like selection of items when I created billingMachine , but now, the same thing is implemented in Karaneeyam.

The hardest challenge in this app was to save the created table in cookies, so that the data could be accessed even after the app is closed/refreshed. As you might know, tables and arrays cannot be saved in cookies. So I had to find a solution. At last I decided to spider the contents of the todo, completed and trash tables' contents into an array. I wrote a function which combined the array into a string, seperating each item with a seperator. Finally I made the cookie to be saved with the generated string in it.

When the page is refreshed, the app checks if any cookies are available. If yes, then it scans the string and again splits it to it's previous state and creates an array. Then the array is transformed into the old table! This function was the hardest, but I solved it pretty fast compared to the delays caused by those small never ending typos!!

The code of this app is pretty optimized compared to my older apps. I successfully created all the functions I had planned in my notebook. I planned well, and that lead to the creation of a much better app. I'm happy! :)

I hope you find it useful and be sure to schedule well and use every second advantageously.

- shrijith sv / shrsv

Top 10 ways to be unhappy

2011-05-25T22:30:00.000+05:30

There are many articles out there describing how to be happy. But I will point out the top 10 ways to be unhappy. How you use it, is obviously up to you!

#1 Good start

When you get up, find something very negative. Complain the weather, complain about the sunlight, moan about the old fan of yours; anything negative would do the job perfectly. If you've done that correctly, a solid foundation has been built for the day

#2 Build on the foundation

Now-that you have had a solid start for the day, try to get cluttered as much as possible. Throw random items on to your desk and make it a complete mess. Bury things under other things so that you cannot find what you want, when you want.. With this, your mind will also get cluttered, which offers free unhappiness.

#3 Try to schedule, but fail

Act as if you are trying to schedule the whole day with very useful things and also pretend yourself to be organized. You can write the schedule down in your notebook also. After scheduling, turn on your TV or computer and start watching a B grade movies. Forget about the schedule completely. When the movie is finished, start another movie. Cancel the schedule altogether.

#4 Never thank

This step won't give instant results, but trust me, after some months it will really turn out rewarding. Even if someone has helped you a lot, never thank him/her. Better yet, ignore them completely using point #7. Claim the work that had been done with the help of that "someone" as your own work. The next time when you are in need of help, there won't be anyone. Then comes the big reward, unhappiness!

#5 Believe in your motto

Caution! Happiness might enter your life somehow. Would you allow it? No! Agree with the fact that hard work is the only way to stay unhappy. Stick to your principle firmly. Never change your mind. Do not allow happiness to settle in.

#6 Stay away from pets, children and nature

This is really important. You really want to stay away from cats, dogs, children and beautiful landscapes. Because if you come close to these, they will probably make you happy and that'll break your principle. So, focus well to ignore them!

#7 Have a big ego

This is known to be one of the best ways to be unhappy. If you are really serious with your principle, then you should definitely have a big ego. Consider yourself superior than others and show off your ego skills often. Act as if you are the master of everything. Admire yourself but no one else. An even better way is to criticize good people through conversations. This is pretty easy to learn and usually, gives good results quickly.

#8 Books and media

Horror and negative books should be your close companion always. Watch low level movies and start to like them. Recommend those movies to your friends to get extra reputation.

#9 Be rude, leave hope

Be rude to people. Behave rudely with children too(In case you happen to meet them. Note that it breaks rule #6) Everyday, tell yourself that "There is nothing good in this world. There's no hope". Never have a willingness to learn and be pessimistic.

#10 Do not read

Try not to read motivating articles. In case you happen to read, then misunderstand everything (especially articles like the very one you are reading now :D ), so that you can continue with your principle.

#11 Bonus tip: Find new ways

Well, It was very hard to find 10 ways to be unhappy and I suspect that they won't be enough to stay with your principle. So find new ways by yourself which will increase your unhappiness or else you won't be accomplishing your mission.

People, you have any brilliant ideas to share? If yes then comment!

- shrijith sv / shrsv

An outline to help you learn touch typing

2011-05-23T20:17:00.000+05:30

Touch typing is a typing technique where the person typing, types with all the 10 fingers his and never has to look at the keyboard in order to verify a letter. I learned to touch type by myself when I got my computer and I know how useful it is. If you ask me why should I learn touch typing, then I have many points to establish before you :)

Why should I learn touch typing?

#1 Touch typing makes you productive

Let us say you type text 3 hours a day. If we calculate that you type 30 words per minute(You might have lesser than 30 wpm!), all you can type in a day is 5400 words. Instead, if you are a learned touch typist, you would probably have a speed of 75 words per minute which will result you typing 12600 words per day which increases your productivity more than 130%! Even if you are unable to gain 75wpm, you'll improve a lot, which will increase your productivity at least by 100%. You'll be getting things done faster than ever.

#2 Touch typing is fun

Finding every letter by lowering head is not good for your neck :D Actually it makes you lazy to learn new things. It also makes you learn all those not so good shortcuts like "gr8" instead of the real "great", "u" instead of "you" and so on and on. You'll start shortening everything to the extent that your words aren't quite recognizable. It's totally uncool. Touch typing won't hurt your neck, and won't ruin your language. It will make using computers fun. Maybe you'll start to like neo from the matrix!! ;)

#3 People who type fast are considered ace

Be ready to get recognized for your typing! Some might even consider you as a professional. In case you are an actual professional in the field of computers, touch typing is a must or else you might have to face disgrace. If you take the time to learn, people will understand that you have had the patience and quality to learn touch typing, it's surely impressive. It's a sign of dedication(Or even obsession :D )

How do I get started?

There are many ways to learn touch typing. But before you get things complicated by opening new tabs and searching for software, tutorials and the like, I would suggest you to stop now. It's not very easy to learn and if you start searching you'll end up searching and not learning. It is also common to get distracted if you do not take the correct steps.

#1 Be motivated

This is the number one point to be followed. "I WANT TO LEARN THIS", say it by yourself. You really want to! When you get started at first, you'll be progressing slowly. It's very easy to get to the usual habit of typing in 2 or 3 finger style. So be firm with your decision to learn. Say to yourself that when you finish learning you'll be faster. Promise yourself that whatever happens you'll finish learning touch typing. Set your wallpaper to something motivating.

#2 Schedule

Set a regular time to practice. 1 to 1.5 hours a day would be sufficient. But whatever time you select, be sure to utilize the whole time for the sole purpose of touch typing. Close all your random apps, sign out of email, facebook and start concentrating on the task in your hand.

#3 Get an app

There are many free typing tutors out there(Both online and offline) Stamina typing tutor is good because it's a little funny. But be sure to check out it's help file. A list of many typing tutors can be found at the same site. There is a wonderful online site here in case you want to learn it online with help. At first, get the fingers on the right letters(The apps will help you) Focus on using the correct fingers for the particular letters. Do not try to type too fast, but instead, try to be accurate even if you are slow. This will help immensely in the future.

#4 Practice everywhere

Use the techniques you learned from the apps or the online sites in your daily work. Type email, status updates, code, and the like in touch typing style. It might seem hard at first, but it's necessary. Day after day you'll improve for sure. You'll be happy then! If you frequently forget where the letters are, then open up the On-screen Keyboard where you can see all the keys. Looking at the on-screen keyboard you can assume where character you want to type lies.

#5 Have a race!

After you've got a reasonable speed, it's time to race. There is a site called typeracer which hosts typing races. It's just a fun way to improve your typing speed. Go, create an account in order to get details about your performance. Sometimes it becomes an addiction for new typists(I was one of them :) )[BTW, I won a race. Here's screenshot]

#6 Digitize some books

Open up your library and find a book. Look at it and start typing. Finish it and race again in typeracer. Now you would surely win some of the races there. Typing story books is a great way to increase your typing speed. With that you'll gain some knowledge as well.

So, that's that. I hope you start learning touch typing right away and succeed in your big adventure. In case you have something to tell(which you probably will have!) use the comment form below.

vimrc generator for the wonderful vim editor

2011-05-23T02:35:00.000+05:30

I'm a die hard vim editor fan. If you aren't familiar with the name, then it refers to an ultimate text editor, which is one of the best of the best editors. Even if you are ready to spend money for a text editor, you won't get something that can compete with this opensource pearl. This legendary and awesome editor is so customizable that new users get drowned in confusion. When you've grasped the basic usage of vim(which is very hard to learn at first) you'll then move on to the .vimrc file. It's just a text file. You are able to add arguments and options inside that file. At the time of vim's startup the file is being read, which will define the behavior of the editor(That gives a personalized, your version of the editor) That's good of course, but the options are unending when you start a .vimrc from scratch and it could be a pain to write every obvious and basic options line by line(That might be by visiting your good friend google ;) )

The time when I finished this task of creating a basic vimrc, I was tired, very tired. I thought, Why don't I create an app to simplify this task? I knew it was not ardous to code the thing, for it's just printing out some specific strings on clicking a button. But it was a matter of choosing the very necessary options that vim offers. I did a lot of search for finding useful snippets of code. Vim tips wiki had a very good vimrc file. I haven't yet included many advanced options, obviously for not confusing the already confused user!(I might add some hidden options someday)

The styling of the site turned out quite better than I expected. The above screenshot can't do the justice to the program. Even if you aren't a vim user, please take a look at the app by visiting http://unoriginal.tk/vimrc or in case you actually are a vim enthusiast and want an offline version, I've uploaded it to Google Code where it could be downloaded in zip format.(Joining the development would be wonderful)

It features 20+ options, a generate button and an output textbox. After hitting generate, the generated code can be copied and pasted inside your .vimrc. (C:\Program Files\Vim\_vimrc or ~/.vimrc)

This app is certainly useful for people who want a super start in creating their dream .vimrc file. Happy vimming :D

PS: I'm sure you didn't read it till here(you are just scrolling) Isn't that right? :)

- shrijith sv / shrsv

Truetype, Opentype and Postscript fonts

2011-05-19T15:01:00.000+05:30

Have you ever wondered how all these different formats of fonts vary? In case you want to know, then this post will help.

If you haven't downloaded and installed any extra fonts from the internet ever, then head over to dafont, 1001freefonts, urbanfonts or acidfonts and download some you like. You just have to right click and select install and font will be added to your system's font directory(Not only in windows but also in ubuntu. In windows font directory is loacated at C:\windows\fonts and in linux /usr/share/fonts, /usr/local/share/fonts, and /home/<username>/.)

Read on for learning the differences between TrueType, OpenType and PostScript fonts.

The links I've given out before are free sites, hence they will offer only truetype(ttf) fonts, but there are sites which supply opentype and even postscript fonts. So let's see how they differ from each other.

TrueType fonts

The TrueType format was developed by Apple Computer in the late 80s

TrueType fonts have the extension of .ttf or .tte

Most fonts included in windows and mac operating systems are of TrueType

TrueType fonts contain both the screen and printer font data in a single component. This makes the fonts easier to install.

OpenType fonts

OpenType font format was created by a joint effort from Adobe and Microsoft. It is the latest font format to be introduced.

These fonts have the extension of .otf or .ttf

Like TrueType, OpenType fonts contain both the screen and printer font data in a single component.

Support for multiple platforms and expanded character sets.

OpenType fonts can be used on either Macintosh or Windows operating systems.

The OpenType format permits the storage of up to 65,000 characters. (This extra space provides designers to add small-caps, dingbats and the like to the font itself.)

Some OpenType fonts might be converted from PostScript or TrueType formats which will not be taking the additional space OpenType format allows.

PostScript Fonts

The PostScript or 'Type 1' font format was developed by Adobe in the 1980s

These fonts have the extension .pfb, .pfm, .afm, .pfa, .ofm

The format is based on Adobe's PostScript printing technology - a programming language that allows for high-resolution output of resizable graphics.

PostScript has long been viewed as a reliable choice, particularly for professional designers, publishers and printers.

PostScript fonts consist of two parts, which are both necessary for the font to be properly printed and displayed on screen.

With most operating systems, PostScript fonts can be installed simply by being placed in the system's font folder. However, PC users working on operating systems that predate Windows 2000, need to install the free ATM (Adobe Type Manager) utility in order to use PostScript fonts.

Now you know which font format to select at the time you encounter these different formats at a single place. If you are a designer and want all the characters available, OpenType is better.(But beware of converted fonts) For general usage TrueType is the best. PostScript, as stated above is for experienced publishers and designers and "we" need not worry about it much :)

- shrijith sv / shrsv

billingMachine - A silly app of mine

2011-05-17T01:32:00.000+05:30

I have always liked to create things, the things which do something useful. I like things that make our lives easier. Well, probably that is the reason behind my likeness towards computers. As my vacation is going on and on and is nearing the end, I started to ask myself, "Why don't you create something useful? Something fun ?" and after a little thinking, I answered myself: "Yeah! That would be cool. Let's start right away!"

So I set out to create something useful. What would I do? A billing application came the answer from mind. I obeyed my mind promptly and decided to create a billing app. Then came the big hazard! I didn't know what to name my app. As I'm not the one who thinks a lot to set a name, I just settled with the name billingMachine(LOL :D)I wanted the app to be able to run on every platform. That made me choose XHTML + JavaScript to accomplish the task.

Without further delay I started to work. I got started with a simple design with some text-boxes and a couple of buttons. I started coding things with googling in between for fixing some errors and the like. My elder brother Shreeda helped a lot(Thanks brother! :) ), giving suggestions, spotting bugs etc. He even helped in his office times, which was truly awesome. After 2 more days, I have a simple app! It is not finished, but surely it IS something and does what it is supposed to do and that gives me happiness.

Some of the features which I was able to implement are as follows:

Word suggestion

Dynamic table update(Show a preview as you add items)

Custom style for print, which removes all the other elements and keeps only the real bill with the specified header.

Remove row option to delete unwanted rows.

Dynamic status bar to show the total, total number of items dynamically

Custom header: That means you can set shop details to be used when printing. Details are remembered through cookies for a week

Insert the current date when printing

Friendly guidance. Buttons are disabled when they must not be used. Messages are dynamically generated so the user can work easily.

And finally, Nice keyboard shortcuts for super fast billing. There are keyboard shortcuts for most of the important tasks and that will allow you to use the application most of the time without touching the mouse!

Here is a screenshot of the app when it's loaded:

When Items are added, it looks as follows:

The print version of the bill would be something like the below one(The header could be anything. The program just asks for the details if the they are not saved, before printing):

The app is nowhere near finished. A lot can be done. I would like to admit that I haven't implemented a good delete rows feature(Like in gmail where you select and delete many mails), but the current one is functional(It could also be accessed through keyboard shortcuts, without ever leaving your keyboard!)

You guys could tell me where to improve, what to add, what to remove, where are the errors and so on and on. You could drop in just about anything that comes to your mind in the comments section. Comments and Criticism welcome, as always!

Play with billingMachine!

- shrijith sv / shrsv

Add an open in terminal right click menu to Nautilus

2011-05-08T14:38:00.000+05:30

Nautilus is a comfortable file manager. It supports drag and drop, tabs, easy bookmarking etc. Opening a specific folder in terminal can be made easy by adding a right click menu to Nautilus. You'll be able to to do so by reading this tutorial.

We are going to add a plugin which will enable the right click menu item. So open up a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal

It will ask for your password. Enter it and the plugin will get installed. Nautilus will need a restart in order to reflect the changes. Type in the command:

pgrep nautilus

Make sure note down the number displayed there.

Nowthat you know the job ID of nautilus, you can kill that process by the following command. Note that you shall replace the number with your own.

kill 18025

Nautilus will quit now. Restart it with this command. (Remember to include '&')

nautilus&

Everything must be fine now. Open up a folder and right click. There it is, the Open In Terminal option. It's really convenient when you get used to.

In case you are having trouble with restarting Nautilus, just restart your system. It will do the job.

Using the vim tabs effectively

2011-05-08T14:37:00.000+05:30

Vim is a powerful tool. If you are a Vim user and don't know how to use tabs in it, then you are missing a whole lot.

Use the tabnew command to open a new tab

:tabnew

Opening files from deep folder structes in commandline is really a hindrace. So here is a workaround. Type the follwing command in vim(do not Enter yet)

Then, drag and drop the file into vim. The path should appear in the command bar. Just delete the ' characters from the start and the end and hit enter. Your file is opened!

You can switch to the left tab by using the meta hotkey Control+Page up or you can switch to the right tab by pressing Control+Page down. Usual commands will work just the way they had worked before. The tabs feature will lessen your head ache of managing multiple commandline windows for Vim.

NOTE:This feature is only available in VIM. Not in the Vi editor

Remap Keys in Ubuntu

2011-05-08T14:36:00.000+05:30

Usually the Windows key is of no use in Linux. So remapping it to something useful makes sense. In this article I have described how to remap the Windows key to act like a Escape Key.

Tools Needed

Xmodmap

Xkeycap (Optional)

So let's get started. Open the terminal.

Run Xev.

A new window appears. Whenever you hover your mouse over that window or you press a key over that window , every information about the event is printed on the terminal.

Make sure Xev is on top and active. Press the Windows Key. Check out the output in the terminal. Note down the keycode in a text editor or a paper. Then you can close Xev.

Back in the terminal, type

xmodmap -e "keycode 133=Escape"

Note that you should replace the keycode with yours which you have previously noted in a text editor or paper. The statement means that the key with keycode 133 should be replaced with Escape.

In case you want to replace your windows key with another key(other than Escape), then you must install xkeycaps. It shows the whole keyboard layout with their respective names. To install xkeycaps in ubuntu, type:

sudo apt-get install xkeycaps

You can run the program by entering the following command:

xkeycaps

Observe the Keysym area. when I clicked the Esc key in xkeycaps, the Keysym stated Escape. So if you want the Keysym of Caps Lock, just click the Caps Lock key in xkeycaps. Then you can note down the keysym and replace the Escape with the keysym of caps lock in the previous command. It would look like:

xmodmap -e "keycode 133=caps_lock"

Now you know how to remap your Keyboard. You can become more productive by changing keys. For example, by changing the windows key to the Escape key I became faster in the VI/VIM editors. Approaching the Windows key is faster than the Escape key. So you can make your life easier by keyboard remapping.

Become a desktop search ninja - A guide

2011-05-08T00:39:00.000+05:30

Do you struggle to find files and folders in your PC? Isn't it frustrating to stare at the start menu just to find an application? If you think you are lightning fast with your mouse, chances are that you are quite right. But, you can get even faster. I assure you that after you've finished this tutorial, you'll be much faster and much productive.

In this tutorial you will learn how to search for files quickly(Not the windows search), launch applications instantly(Not in the hazardous start menu), Searching for text inside a document, searching by time, filesize, etc in case you do not remember the filename.

So let's get started. You need 3 softwares for the job. All are free to use or opensource software, and are relatively lightweight which ensures that they won't hog your system memory.

Everything

Launchy

SearchMyFiles

Install these software. We will proceed in the same order.

Everything

The name might seem boring, but the application is rock solid. Open it up to get started. So, the program looks quite straight forward. There is a text box, which is obviously used for searching, and a list of files and folders in the middle part, and statistic of the files indexed at the bottom status bar. There is a normal menu bar for other options.

The program indexes your whole hard drive at once(Only NTFS partitions allowed). It won't take much time. You can start searching for your files. Notice that the results get filtered as you type. It also monitors any file changes, so dont worry when you delete or rename files. They will be reflected in Everything in fraction of a second!

You can even search for file types. For example you can list all the mp3 files in your system by entering the search term *.mp3 in the search field.

Let's say you have a file named "Linkin Park Numb.mp3" in your PC. You want to open it in your audio player. So search for "Linkin Park numb". The result will appear with the file you intend to open. Just drag that into your audio player's window.

In case your audio player uses a browse window, that's okay too! Just right click on the file in Everything and Select Copy Full Name to Clipboard.

Then paste it in the browse window and click Open

So now you have a basic idea of the program. There is another thing I highly recommend you to do. Navigate to Tools > Options > General Tab (Shortcut Ctrl+P)

Set New window hotkey modifier to : Alt

Set New window Hotkey key to : VK_ESCAPE

Click OK

Now whenever you need to search for a filename, press Alt+Escape and Everything appears!

Launchy

Launchy is a keystroke launcher. After you've installed and started it, a small icon appears in your taskbar. But you are not supposed to launch it by clicking the icon. There is a special hotkey: Alt+Space

Pressing that hotkey will probably bring up this window:

That's pretty neat. But what does launchy do? It indexes all of your start menu shortcuts. Say, you want to launch Paint. Just start typing paint and the icon of paint appears on the program. Hit enter. Now paint is launched, and Launchy is hidden away. That's what launchy does, it launches programs.

Let's check some options out. Right click on launchy and select Options, or click the wheel at the top right, or just press Ctrl + , and a options window appears. You can change the hotkey, if you wish. I have changed it to Shift+Escape. Usually the default option set is enough. If you really want to tweak, sure, go on!

Various skins could be applied to change Launchy's appearance.

I like the blackglass skin. Look at the following screenshot, it's the blackglass skin

And the quicksilver skin:

There is a catalog tab, which allows you to add other folders to the index. Even folders, mp3s can be added. But Everything, as reviewed above is much much better at this. I have seen Launchy struggling to index large amount of files, where Everything performs as if there is no load at all! So I recommend not to add other folders to the index. If you have portable apps directory, or any scripts directory that you want to launch from Launchy, then of course, use this catalog feature.

Launchy has some plugins. They are quite useful. You can activate and deactivate plugins in the plugins tab.

For example the Calcy plugin allows us to do a little math in launchy. Here is an example where I divided 900 by 60, and the answer was instantly displayed by launchy:

That's pretty handy!

Remember, to launch a program, press Alt+Space and type a few starting letters and hit enter-- It's that easy! Another thing to note is that Launchy is really good at this. If you constantly open Microsoft Word through Launchy, gradually Launchy will suggest word by just typing the starting letter "W". If you run a program often, then it gets the top priority. So you'll get the full advantage of Launchy after spending some sessions with it.

SearchMyFiles

This tool is needed only in complex situations where both Launchy and Everything can't help. Such scenarios include:

You created a file an hour ago, but do not remember where it is.

You have a text file that you want to find urgently. You know what's inside the text file. So you need to search inside files.

You want to search by extension, date, folder, file attributes etc

In all these, and many other situations, SearchMyFiles comes to help. It helps to search by wildcard, by last modified/created/last accessed time, by fileattributes, by file content (text or binary search), and by the filesize.

Understand that it does not indexes your files, so the search may not be very fast. So use it only when Everything is not enough. The download is a zip file. Extract it to somewhere and add it to Launchy's Catalog if you wish. Then you can launch it directly with some keystrokes.

There are two windows in SearchMyFiles. The main window is shown below:

The interface might seem daunting at first. But don't worry, the key in using SearchMyFiles is to focus only on the things you need. To illustrate it's usage, I've created a test.txt file in D:\ partition. It conatains the text:"i want to find this". Let's say I forgot the file name. But I do remember that I saved it in D:\

So, I started setting my options. I selected the Base Folder to D:\ since we do remember that it's located in there. It's also possible to add many partitions too. Just seperate different folder by using a delimeter. For example, D:\; E:\

I changed the file wild card to *.*, that means it searches every file extension. If I wanted to search in only text files, I could change it to *.txt* But I set it to search everything because I'm used to linux a lot where I create text files without extensions and that habit might have found it's way into windows as well! Subfolder wildcard is also set to search every subfolder. The main thing I remember in the file is the keyword "find this". So I changed the File Contains... dropdown to Text and entered "find this" in the text field. I didn't tick Case Sensitive because I do not know in which case the text is written.

The next thing I remember about the file is the time I saved it. It was about 10 minutes ago, then. So I changed the Created: dropdown to Last XX minutes and entered 10 in the text box.

I hit Start Search. In the other window, the search result appeared with the correct file! I got my file! Was that hard? No, of course. So, you can use SearchMyFiles to locate virtually any file, in case the other search programs fail to do so.

I hope this article helped you to become a search ninja(!!). Maybe now, you would've realised how poor is the search facility windows provides. With these tools you never have to move your hand from your keyboard. Everything happens fast, and that's what we want in a fast moving world, right?

What is screen refresh rate?

2011-05-06T23:07:00.000+05:30

Screen refresh rate or Monitor refresh rate, this is the word you often see in your Desktop properties. Have you ever known what does that mean? It's a technical term that is used to describe the ability and configuration of display devices. If you want to know more about this, then read on this article.

Imagine that you are in your Desktop, that is, your main home of your Operating system. You move your mouse in your hand, and a mouse point moves similarly in the monitor also! That happens without any delay, as if the mouse and the pointer were attached. If the monitor has to show that your mouse has moved, then it has to re-image the picture of the desktop, right? That's exactly what we call Screen Refresh Rate.

The screen updates it's images continuously, in same intervals(frequency). The unit used for measuring Screen Refresh rate is Hertz(Hz). Your monitor's refresh rate depends on your Graphics Card. Modern PCs usually support at least 60Hz. Some can even range upto 120Hz.

When the number of refresh rate increases, updates of the screen images increases, as well. That decreases the screen filckers. Very high refresh rate on a low quality monitor will create a fuzzy image and also could cause damage to the device. A monitor of reasonable quality would have about 70Hz refresh rate, which is sufficient.

It could be seen that, as the screen resolution gets higher, the refresh rate dips down. Also it is better to use higher refresh rate when you are painting, browsing, reading etc, because it's better for your eyes. If you are gaming or working with a 3d application, then set the refresh rate low(To the lowest rate your OS provides) so that the computer has less load to process.(Lowering of refresh rate also decreases the work for the computer because it has to re-image the pictures less times) This will help the game work faster.

A note on Microsoft's website:

The default refresh rate setting is 60 Hertz (HZ); however, your monitor may support a higher setting. Check your manufacturer's documentation for information about the settings that your monitor supports.

If you use a higher refresh rate, you can reduce the rate that your screen flickers; however, if you specify a refresh rate that is too high for your monitor, your screen may become unusable and your hardware may be damaged.

Changes to the refresh rate affect all users that log on to the computer.

How to Change the Screen Refresh Rate of Your Monitor (Windows XP)

Click Start, click Control Panel, click Appearance and Themes, and then click Display.

Alternatively, right-click the desktop, and then click Properties.

Click the Settings tab, and then click Advanced.

Click the Monitor tab, and then click the screen refresh rate that you want to use.

How to Change the Screen Refresh Rate of Your Monitor (Windows 7)

Right Click in a bare space on the Desktop

Select Screen Resolution

Click Advanced Settings

Select Monitor tab

Change the refresh rate to the one that you want.

So, hopefully this article clears your doubts on Screen Refresh rate, if any.

Everything you need to know about Notepad++

2011-05-06T10:20:00.000+05:30

Application name: Notepad++

Website:http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Download:http://notepad-plus-plus.org/download

Operating System: Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux(Under Wine)

Licence: GNU GPL / Free

Whenever I install windows in a computer, almost every time what I do at first is shown in the following image.

I get Notepad++ installed on my system. Notepad++ is a feature rich text editor, just like the legendary(!!) Notepad in windows. UnlikeNotepad(which never gets an update!), Notepad++ is up to date and highly useful. It almost loads as fast as Notepad but gives a plethora of features at your fingertips. Even with all those features, it's never confusing to use. The experience is always streamlined.
If you want to get rid of Notepad and use a better free/open source alternative then read on. It costs nothing but a small download.

Set it as the default

After you've downloaded and installed Notepad++, open it up. If you want Notepad++ to be the default editor(To open every text file inNotepad++) Select Preferences under the Settings menu. Navigate to the File association tab.
Select Notepad. It lists the file types handled by Notepad. Select each entry and press the -> button. That will move the extensions to the third column. Click Close. Now Notepad++ will open your text files. You can also associate other programming languages to Notepad++ if you prefer.

Tabs

Tabs help working with multiple files easy. You would have used tabs in Mozilla firefox, or in the latest versions of Internet explorer. They help equally well in text editing.This is how different tabs are arranged when multiple files are opened in Notepad++

Ctrl+Tab takes you to the next tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab takes you to the previous. While holding Ctrl tap the tab button to cycle between all the files. When Ctrl key is released the highlighted file is presented as shown in the image below.

Split Screen

Split screen allows to edit two files in a single screen. You can get view of both the files in a single screen, side by side. They are especially useful when there is a lot cut, copy and paste to do.

To do a split screen, you have to open at least two files. Right click on one of the tabs and select Clone another view. It displays a copy of the current tab in a split screen. If you just want to move it instead of copying, then select Move to other view You can synchronise the scrolling of both parts of the screen. Find and click on the left button shown in this image: to sync vertical scrolling, and the right one to sync the horizontal scrolling.

The toolbar

Notepad++'s toolbar is a gem. The icons are small but very neat. Toolbar is categorised by a particular task. For example New, Save, Open, Save all, Close all etc are in a single block. The same goes for cut, copy paste. I've created a small graphic that explainsNotepad++'s toolbar. Click on the following image for a better image.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Notepad++ can be controlled from the keyboard as well. Here is the whole list of shortcuts supported.

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl-C	Copy
Ctrl-X	Cut
Ctrl-V	Paste
Ctrl-Z	Undo
Ctrl-Y	Redo
Ctrl-A	Select All
Ctrl-F	Launch Find Dialog
Ctrl-H	Launch Find / Replace Dialog
Ctrl-D	Duplicate Current Line

[expand title=Show all shortcuts(again to hide)]

Ctrl-L	Delete Current Line
Ctrl-T	Switch the current line position with the previous line position
F3	Find Next
Shft-F3	Find Previous
Ctrl-Shft-F	Find in Files
Ctrl-F3	Find (volatil) Next
Ctrl-Shft-F3	Find (volatil) Previous
Ctrl-Shft-I	Incremental Search
Ctrl-S	Save File
Ctrl-Alt-S	Save As
Ctrl-Shft-S	Save All
Ctrl-O	Open File
Ctrl-N	New Tab
Ctrl-F2	Toggle Bookmark
F2	Go To Next Bookmark
Shft-F2	Go To Previous Bookmark
Ctrl-G	Launch GoToLine Dialog
Ctrl-W	Close Current Document
Alt-Shft-Arrow key	Column Mode Select
F5	Launch Run Dialog
Ctrl-Space	Launch CallTip ListBox
Alt-Space	Launch Word Completion ListBox
Tab (selection of se	Insert Tabulation or Space (Indent)
Shft-Tab (selection	Remove Tabulation or Space (outdent)
Ctrl-(Keypad-/Keyp	Zoom in (+ or up) and Zoom out (- or down)
Ctrl-Keypad/	Restore the original size from zoom
F11	Toggle Full Screen Mode
Ctrl-Tab	Next Document
Ctrl-Shft-Tab	Previous Document
Ctrl-Shft-Up	Move Current Line Up
Ctrl-Shft-Down	Move Current Line Down
Ctrl-Alt-F	Collapse the Current Level
Ctrl-Alt-Shft-F	Uncollapse the Current Level
Alt-0	Fold All
Alt-(1~8)	Collapse the Level (1~8)
Alt-Shft-0	Unfold All
Alt-Shft-(1~8)	Uncollapse the Level (1~8)
Ctrl-BackSpace	Delete to start of word
Ctrl-Delete	Delete to end of word
Ctrl-Shft-BackSpace	Delete to start of line
Ctrl-Shft-Delete	Delete to end of line
Ctrl-U	Convert to lower case
Ctrl-Shft-U	Convert to UPPER CASE
Ctrl-B	Go to matching brace
Ctrl-Shft-R	Start to record /Stop recording the macro
Ctrl-Shft-P	Play recorded macro
Ctrl-Q	Block comment/uncomment
Ctrl-Shft-Q	Stream comment
Ctrl-Shft-T	Copy current line to clipboard
Ctrl-P	Print
Alt-F4	Exit
Ctrl-I	Split Lines
Ctrl-J	Join Lines
Ctrl-Alt-R	Text Direction RTL
Ctrl-Alt-L	Text Direction LTR

F1	About
F2	Go To Next Bookmark
F3	Find Next
F4
F5	Launch Run Dialog
F6	Execute Command Dialog
F7
F8
F9
F10
F11	Toggle Full Screen Mode
F12	Post-it (Remove all menus)

Alt-F1	Get PHP Help From us2.php.net/manual
Alt-F2	Launch Google Search
Alt-F3	Launch Wikipedia Search
Alt-F4	Exit Application
Alt-F5	Open file
Alt-F6	Opens a new window (Ctrl-N opens new Tab)

Menu Options of note:
Right click on a Tab and Send the Tab to “The other View” this splits the window Virtually in two.
Under the Run Tab there is the option to Open the Containing Folder, and open a Command Prompt to the containing folder

[/expand]
If you want a custom shortcut, say, for Close all files, then Select Shortcut Mapper under Settings.

Find Close All and Double click the relevant blank cell in the second column. A new mini window appears. I ticked Ctrl and selected Escfrom the dropdown menu. And our new shortcut is ready to work. It's that easy to create a custom shortcut. I really recommend setting some good shortcuts before working. At least learn some default Notepad++ shortcuts. You'll realise later, how much it helps!

Information on documents

You can get some information on the file which you are currently working on by selecting Summary under the View menu.

Syntax Folding, Indentation, Highlighting

There is an option for code folding, which, for eg: allows you to fold and unfold a div in a html document. If you have a really large html table, then folding it to a single line is cool, isn't it? That's what Notepad++ exactly provides!

Another feature which is very handy is Indent guide. See the picture below. Notepad++ makes it easy to make sure that we've inserted the closing tags, and have created our indentation perfectly(Highlighted in yellow)

This feature is usually enabled. But to make sure it's enabled go to View > Show Symbol > Show Indent Guide or click this
button in the toolbar.

Notepad++ has syntax highlighting which is activated automatically according to your filename extensions.(You can customise it using Style Configurator under Settings menu.)

Special Selections

As with any text editor, Notepad++ allows selection with your keyboard and mouse. But there is another selection method calledRectangular Selection. You hold Alt key and select with your mouse. But the selection is captured in a rectangular way. It's really helpful in particular situations.

Searching

What I like in Notepad++ is it's search options. There are unlimited options to do just about anything (Regexp guru's, sorry [:D]) Just look at the menu below. There are so many options. I'll only explain this briefly. Use Ctrl+F to normal search and Ctrl+H to fire the Search and Replace window. There is an excellent documentation for it's search features.

Conclusion

What we have seen now is only the tip of the iceberg. There is a whole lot more that Notepad++ is capable of doing. That includes Macros, commands, User defined dialogs, Shortcuts for programs, FTP, Plugins(This category needs another long page). So if you need to dig more, you can. Maybe I'll research more and publish an article on the advanced topics. But this should get you started. If all these options seem very basic to you, then you may have to take a look at VIM, which is one of the oldest and one of the most powerful text editors. If you made it through to this very end, then thanks!

Is Sehwag Nervous 90?

2011-05-06T08:11:00.000+05:30

: Is Veeru Nervous 90?

Is Virender Sehwag nervous 90? Yesterday Sehwag muscled away for a ton which lead Delhi to a smashing win. I observed one thing in Sehwag -- he gets nervous when he nears the big marks, like 90, 190, 290(for tests). If not nervous he really likes to get out of the particular situation as soon as possible.

Yesterday, after he reached his 90, he hit a six, which lead him to 96. Then he made his ton with a couple of 2s. You would ask me, "He hit a six, do you call it nervous?" I would answer "Yes, exactly. When Sehwag is nervous he hits sixes!"

That's our Veeru. Whenever he gets in a pressure situation, he releases all the pressure in a over or two. Do you remember the pressure match versus Pakistan in the world cup semi final of 2011? Umar Gul was told to be the strike bowler of Pakistan and Sehwag smashed 5 boundaries in a single over. And Umar Gul was switched off soon by his captain!

Even in the tests, Sehwag is the same. When he passed 290 in Multan(The 309 run innings) vs Pakistan, he wanted to get out of that situation fast. So he hit a six. Imagine his will power to hit a six in such a situation. Only Veeru could do that! There are many other pressure situations where he has done the same.

So, the bottomline is even Sehwag feels pressure. But that doesn't effects is gameplay negatively, but fuels him to be more aggressive. That's good for us who watch, right? Anyway Hats off to Veeru. No one other than himself cannot play that fiercely!

What do you say? Does the great Virender Sehwag feels pressure?

Search and Replace over multiple files

2011-05-05T21:15:00.000+05:30

[caption id="attachment_24" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Search and replace"][/caption]

Sometimes this happens to me. I have 10 text files in a folder. All those files contain the word foo and I want it changed to bar. Should I open every single file and change every occurence of foo into bar? No! Here's an easier way.

Open a terminal window and navigate to the folder where your text files are located. Note that usually htm, html, css, txt are all considered as text files. So you could search and replace with them as well.

$ perl -pi -w -e 's/foo/bar/g;' *.txt

In the above statement:

-e means execute the following line of code.

-i means edit in-place

-w means write warnings

-p means loop

's/foo/bar/g;' : Here s means substitute.

's/foo/bar/g;' : Here g means global or search and replace in the whole file.

*.txt means every file with a txt extension. In case you want to search and replace in html files then just use html instead.

That's it. Short and sweet.

(Update)

As stated by shreeda in the comment there is another shorter option, which uses sed to search and replace over multiple files(Works only in GNU Linux. Not for Solaris). Thanks!

The syntax is as follows:

$sed -i ‘s/foo/bar/g’ *.txt

This one a little easier to remember.