Dhiraj Gupta's blog

Unboxing and setting up the Raspberry Pi 2

2015-05-01T15:32:11Z

Recently, I had the opportunity to set up a brand new computer for my Dad. The male parental unit was quite frustrated (understandably) with his really old computer and wanted a new one that would most importantly work stably and be simple and straight forward to use.

He didn’t like the idea of learning to use a tablet, he can’t handle touch devices too well, he still uses a candy-bar feature phone, for example. His main usage was web browsing and he wanted a good PC on a low budget.

I’d been hearing good things about the Raspberry Pi’s latest released model, so I decided to plunge into it and assemble one “desktop” computer, have fun with it and then hand it over to Dad when done. The parts procurement and assembly went decently smoothly, check out the unboxing and setup video to see how the new Raspberry Pi 2 works.

On usage, the web browser is quite decent, the major gripe with it is of course, that there is just about no straightforward way to get Youtube working in the web browser because none of the 4 major browsers have gotten ARM versions that can support all the requirements of Youtube, yet even with their new HTML 5 player.

In the video, we unbox and set up the Raspberry Pi 2 kit. All the separate components are shown including: The raspberry pi 2 board, the enclosure, a USB power adapter and USB cable, Samsung Evo 16Gb SD card, HDMI to VGA converter, and mouse and keyboard. We also go through the basic setup and how the components are to be connected, and then walk through NOOBs setup for Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi 2.

You can get the full starter kit from Amazon. Alternatively, Flipkart has the Raspberry Pi 2 board as well.

For me, the total assembly cost Rs. 5,245/- which works out to about US $82.

The post Unboxing and setting up the Raspberry Pi 2 appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

picTrove 2 is now on Android

2015-04-17T08:15:47Z

For the first time, picTrove 2 is now available on Android.

Through all these years of having worked on picTrove, we’ve been consistently getting requests for porting it’s awesomeness to other platforms, everything from Microsoft Windows (both mobile and desktop), to Mac, and of course to Android.

We’ve finally been able to work on at least one of these requests and made picTrove 2 available on Android.

We’ve also decided to make picTrove 2 available using the “freemium” model, the app is free to download from the Google Play store, and is fully free to use, as long as your use is constricted to being within Google Images, which is just one of the twelve services that picTrove 2 will find photo results from. All the other services are unlocked with a single, one-time, “Pro Unlock” in-app purchase that forever unlocks all features and services that are present in the app for now as well as in the future.

For now, all features are available to use with Google Images, without any advertising whatsoever, and we hope that we won’t be forced to change this.

This is our first venture into the Android market, and if things work out well, I hope to have all our future offerings be cross-platform, at least where applicable.

The post picTrove 2 is now on Android appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Moto G2 Unboxing

2014-09-07T19:02:47Z

We unbox the Motorola Moto G (2nd generation) received from Flipkart.com. The phone was ordered right at the start of the midnight sale, but delivery took 36+ hours because of the midnight order, even with next day delivery. Still, it did arrive safe and sound, and the screen is amazingly bright. The stereo sound is also nice and loud. The Android KitKat 4.4.4 is snappy and responsive. Overall it’s an interesting change. I’m continuing to explore but on immediate use, I like it!

The post Moto G2 Unboxing appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

On the importance of Proofreading

2016-09-13T16:31:45Z

…And as if as an ode to happenstance, I came upon this delightfully deliberate poetic rendition of the English language’s most inopportune meeting with it’s arch nemesis, the word processor, and it’s evil, evil henchman, the spell checker.

“The The Impotence of Proofreading,” by Taylor Mali

One can only wonder how many times Mr. Mali must have practiced reciting the misspellings before he got to the point where he could do it so flaw… fully.

The video that got me started down that meandering stroll through a whole bunch of videos was this typographical animation overlaying another one of Mr. Mali’s performances.

The post On the importance of Proofreading appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Follow up: The Social Media revolution

2016-09-13T16:32:54Z

When one of my favorite Cyn.in sites posted what felt like a follow-up / updated video to my earlier post on the “Did you know?” / “Shift happens” videos, I couldn’t resist cross-posting it on to my blog after all this while. This one has updated facts, more cinematic appeal, and well it’s just better!

Have a look. Looks great in full screen!

From this Cyn.in site. They make / do some really cool stuff with Cyn.in. Always makes me happy, and even a bit proud to see how useful our collaboration software is being, in education and learning for everyone from kids to grownups.

The post Follow up: The Social Media revolution appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Human hand-eye co-ordination

2016-09-13T16:33:34Z

If you’ve not ever played N+ (Or even it’s original free pre-cursor N), then you’ve been missing something.

It’s probably one of, if not the best arcade / scroller games out there. The game play is simply astounding, what it lets you accomplish with the tapping of simply 3 keys.

I kid you not. Watch this insane video – be aware though that this dude has pretty much achieved the pinnacle of human hand-eye co-ordination, and you could spend a major portion of your forthcoming days (if you manage to get yourself hooked into this game) just trying to get to be able to hope to do what this guy shows off so perfectly.

The post Human hand-eye co-ordination appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Cartoon renditions of Hungarian Rhapsody No 2

2016-09-13T16:47:43Z

I’ve been a long time fan of this particular piece of music by composer Franz Liszt – and just out of the blue I looked it up today – on YouTube. Turns out, that I’m not the only one who can’t get the tune out of his head. Several hollywood productions, games and what not have adopted the piece to their background score and I (as usual) couldn’t resist posting the videos.

The Cat Concerto

Probably the most well known adaptation is “The Cat Concerto”, the 29th Tom and Jerry short that was released in April 1947, by MGM. This is where I first heard the tune as well and is one of my favorite Tom and Jerry cartoons. The execution and the intermingling of cartoon with real music score has the undeniable finesse and touch of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera that so enchants every one.

Rhapsody Rabbit

This is a Bugs Bunny cartoon that caused some controversy when it was released by Warner Bros. in the same year as the Tom and Jerry one. Both MGM and Warner Bros. accused each other of plagiarism, after all both shorts have the same overall theme and the same musical score. I love this one too.

Daffy Duck Rhapsody

These two videos are user contributed, they are not real cartoons by studios but instead user compilations based on hundreds of clips of different cartoons. That doesn’t detract from the fact that they’re based upon the same music piece, and have a hilarious daffy duck singing in them. I was enjoying laughing out loud on both of these, I really love Daffy. The second video, at it’s end lists all the Daffy Duck cartoons that it was compiled from.

Convict Concerto

The one, featuring Woody Woodpecker has him playing a Piano Tuner, who gets accosted by a bank robber who forces him to play the Piano, “Or Else!”. Not so funny, and at moments downright irritating. But it’s meant for kids and I suppose it was good in it’s time.

The Opry House

This is the one that started it all. This short clip of one of the earliest Mickey Mouse cartoons called “The Opry House” features a black and white Mickey banging Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 away on a piano (ok, I know it sounds nothing like the above, but it is, trust me). This is typical of the early Disney animation – there are no rules. Everything is a cartoon. The stools, and yes, even the piano can get up and whack Mickey around. I really never liked these, I find the tobacco spitting MickeyMouse portrayed in these to be ugly, almost grotesque and definitely not funny or even appealing in any way. But I had to include it in the list – history is history, Walt Disney pretty much started the whole cartoon thing.

What about you?

Which one of these do you like the most? I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts about this one, haven’t been able to get this tune out of my head for years and years, now.

WordPress Easter Egg

2016-09-13T16:48:32Z

This wordpress easter egg is pretty much the coolest easter egg I’ve seen yet. Works on the latest 2.7 version too, just verified. And yes, I’ve been in the software industry for a long enough time to be a good judge of coolness – most easter eggs are just a glorified way for the team to roll credits – this one reaches out to the ubercool detector in the geek in me pretty effectively.

Anyone remember the Windows 3.1 easter egg where you could Ctrl + Shift + Alt + click on the image in the Help -> About dialog of progman to see the windows mascot bear? That’s pretty much the earliest easter egg that I remember. Or at least I can’t think of an older one right now. Suggest older ones, I dare ya! 😉

The post WordPress Easter Egg appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Did you know ?

2016-09-13T16:49:33Z

Shift happens. That’s the answer to the did-you-know question. Found this video on youtube in my web journey today, but it was too low quality for my liking. So some more googling, and browsing later, found the blog of Karl Fisch, he created the original presentation for teaching staff how to cope with changing times that inspired so many remixes and views.

The blog post that talked about Sony / BMG approaching him for permission to create the video (that, in the end, I found on youtube) also linked to a higher quality .mp4 version of it, so I couldn’t resist downloading it and re-uploading it to blip.tv, which I find churns out much higher quality video than most of the other video sites. Wanted to do a review on that too, but that will have to wait for a later date – reviews take up a lot of time.

The Did you Know? / Shift Happens video presents unique facts about trends that can be seen about geographically distributed individuals and the Internet in general as well as astounding facts that I, at least, had no idea of.

Going through Karl Fisch’s blog also led me to watch this video, titled “Rise of the Rest” which is supposedly inspired by the Did you Know video, which is quite amazing as well. This is available in higher quality on google video (as a download) – found that link on the futuregroup wordpress blog.

The post Did you know ? appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Movies to watch out for in 2009

2016-09-13T16:50:24Z

Ah well, it looks like this year 2008 is finally coming to an end, and what better way to sum it all up than to see the trailers of movies that have been long anticipated to release in 2009!?

Star Trek

First up of course, is Star Trek. I blogged about this one way, way back in July 2006, and at least we finally have a trailer to watch, if not the movie.

Watchmen

Then, it’s another biggie, Watchmen.

Wolverine

And finally, Wolverine. Finally Gambit makes an appearance! Gambit is my second most favorite XMen, the first being Wolverine of course.

All trailers are courtesy of Trailer Addict, they really know their trailers (and more so, their movies, of course).

The post Movies to watch out for in 2009 appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Quotes from Andromeda

2008-12-30T21:01:30Z

I’ve always been a bit of a fan of quotes. A quote collecter, even. Watching through Andromeda episodes, I’ve always paused and stared at the opening quote that is always shown. Couldn’t help but google for a quotes repository for the Andromeda opening quotes, and after quite some searching, and wading through weird-ed out tripod pages (people still do animated GIFs on their pages !?), and 404 pages and what not, I finally landed on the wikiquotes page for Andromeda quotes. And was quite amazed to find that not only is each episode opening quote present, but also that each episode’s key / notable dialogues are present as well! Amazing collection, this.

My (current) favorite quote out of the lot is still:

You might say reality is the result of complex negotiations between the observer and the observed.

But that is simply a point of view.

— Michio von Kerr, “The Apotheosis of Reason”, CY

Other fine examples (crowd favorites?) include:

We say atoms are bound by
Weak Attractions.
Why not admit the Truth:
The Universe is held together by Love.

Michio Von Kerr,
Wayist physicist,
CY 9942

and

“Those who fail to learn history
are doomed to repeat it;
those who fail to learn history correctly—
why they are simply doomed.”

Achem Dro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— CY 4971

The wikiquotes site also houses a page full of another of my favorite quote laden works: Fight Club. I have blogged about Fight Club before, but this wiki quote page for fight club quotes really does take the cake – there are enough quotes here to fully satisfy your apetite. And then, some more after that.

Bon appétit and, happy quoting!

The post Quotes from Andromeda appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

The Trouble with Tribbles!

2016-09-13T16:51:53Z

The trouble with tribbles is one of my most favorite episodes of the original Startrek Series. And when I found thinkgeek on twitter and also the fact that they’ve actually gone ahead and made tribbles of their own, I couldn’t resist posting.

These tribbles are of course sterilized (according to thinkgeek at least! ) so they won’t multiply and over-populate the apartment like they did the Enterprise. They’re just too cute to not have. At least one. Or two. Or several.

CBS seems to have put up the full, original The Trouble with Tribbles episode on their site and then pulled it down for reasons unknown. So I found 2 parts of it on youtube – for those of you who haven’t seen the video – you MUST see this! It’s also truly funny apart from being the cutest episode in the original series. And then go and get the full original episode and watch that of course!

Part 1:

Part 2:

Other parts are missing, as far as I can see. Do comment if you find them and I’ll update this post.

The post The Trouble with Tribbles! appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

cyn.in v2.1 – the microblogging release

2008-12-05T22:04:58Z

At Cynapse, we recently released the latest version of cyn.in 2.1 (last week) and the response has been nothing short of amazing!

One of the (among many) cool things that we did in cyn.in was to put in microblogging collaboration. What’s that you ask?

Here’s the quote from Wikipedia:

Micro-blogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates (say, 140 characters or fewer) or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web.

What’s different in cyn.in, of course, is that you can actually discuss each individual “Status message” (what we call each microblog post instance). I think that this is one of the key problems plaguing the world of microblogging as we know it.

While various ways have developed to solve this problem (You can @dhiraj on twitter, for example), there’s not many systems that support commenting like we do – off hand, I do not know of a single one. In cyn.in each status mesasge is a full-blown cyn.in item. Not being a second cousin to the rest of the applications means that you can actually go ahead and have fully threaded discussions on Status messages, among the many other things (like having them show up in Smart Views, for example).

If you use the cyn.in desktop (made in Adobe AIR) as much as I do, then you quickly realize that discussions are the norm, and not the surprising thing that it sounds. Yes, cyn.in desktop lets you type in a reply, or add a new message to a discussion so quickly that it leaves you amazed with that distinct feeling: “That’s all? There must be something else I have to do to get my message across.” Well no, there isn’t. It’s already popped on everyone’s desktop.

Take my word. Or have a look at the cyn.in screenshots. Either way, you should buy it – now that it has a reduced starting price of just $99/mo. You’ll be happier. Your day will be filled with bright sunshine, and you will go around smiling at everything / everyone.

Or am I just overpitching?

You tell me. I never know.

The post cyn.in v2.1 – the microblogging release appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Adobe InContext Editing: A whole new editable web?

2008-09-23T23:38:36Z

InContext Editing: A whole new editable web. All over again.

Adobe has just announced the preview of their upcoming technology, InContext Editing which purportedly allows Dreamweaver designers / developers to create static web pages and let their customers edit just parts of the web pages themselves.

The technology seems to be based around a public web based editing service (that’s run by Adobe) to allow people to use (surprise, surprise ) just their browsers to edit the page’s content. The designer is free to use locked zones where (Dreamweaver’s template features will no-doubt hook in) to create their designs and to pre-designate editable zones that the end customers can directly modify at will. All they need is their web browser with the Flash Player installed (9.0.124+) and Local Storage enabled (for the InContext service to store temporary data, probably).

Will this usher in a whole new wave of pre-designed, (and thus, much better looking) web pages that can be cheaply designed by graphics and web developers to look great and yet be editable by the end users themselves? Sounds logical:

Web designers can concentrate on what they’re good at, designing graphical, good looking web pages. They can completely ignore the nitty gritty details where the “developer” needs to get involved, data persistance, and dynamic UI, which they’re not good at.

End-users can get much more direct access to their websites without being forced to pay the web designers an arm-and-a-leg to create all the dynamic infrastructure that is needed to allow them to manage their own content.

The developers can concentrate more on where they’re really needed (building Rich Internet Apps ? 😉 ) and like being anyway – I mean who really likes to code “basic” dynamic web pages, anyway, right?

Looks like a win-win-win situation to me.

InContext Editing is currently free, at least in this preview stage.

The Dark Knight

2008-08-06T15:58:17Z

Batman: The Dark Knight is the best darn movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. Top notch acting, direction, action, gadgetry, effects, storyline, everything just works!

And as expected, in Batman movies that have The Joker in them, the overshadowing of Batman’s character is almost inevitable. Christian Bale does manage to hold his own, but Heath Ledger’s Joker is the performance of a lifetime, sadly also his last.

Update: I just noticed that The Dark Knight has managed to top the IMDB Top 250 movies of all time, beating even The Shawshank Redemption. And it’s been what …. 3 weeks since it released? Amazing!

The post The Dark Knight appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

HowTo: RSS Owl 2.0 rendering problem

2008-07-14T23:31:15Z

After the recent move to Ubuntu

…for my primary computer’s operating system, I’ve mostly been happy, but as always there are a few gripes.

I finally managed to eliminate yet another one: RSS reading. I’ve always been an avid RSS consumer, and while I retain GreatNews as my RSS reader on my now secondary Windows computer, I was unable to find one to suit my advanced needs for Ubuntu.

The one RSS reader that I knew would probably work out for my tastes, simply refused to do it’s job. I’m talking about the RSS Owl 2.0 reader of course, (known as boreal, to some). The main problem I was facing with this one was that it would simply would not show the posts in the main view!

RSS Owl looked like it was working fine – i.e. it was displaying the standard Eclipse RCP UI, progress bars, everything but it simply would… not… render.. posts. Nothing would happen when I would click an RSS feed. I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what the problem was, but there was absolutely no symptoms as to why this was happening, so I gave up on it, (incorrectly) assuming it to be a bug with the (afterall preview milestone 8a) release and decided to wait for the next version.

Then, on a repeat round of surfing some blogs, and missing subscribing to them by an RSS reader, I re-visited the boreal, in hopes of a new release. Didn’t find a new release, but I did find an interesting post in the boreal FAQ, and I quote:

What are the steps to use Mozilla as Browser in RSSOwl?

Note that you can only use the rendering engine of Mozilla inside RSSOwl. Any other feature of Mozilla or Firefox can not be used from within RSSOwl. Download XULRunner for your operating system:

Windows: xulrunner-1.8.1.3.en-US.win32.zip

Linux: xulrunner-1.8.1.3.en-US.linux-i686.tar.gz

Mac: xulrunner-1.8.1.3.en-US.mac-cocoa-pkg.dmg

Then follow these short instructions on how to complete the installation after the download. Make sure to restart RSSOwl. It will use XULRunner from now on automatically until you uninstall it again.

On a hunch, I did some checking, and found that while I did have a xulrunner installed, it was version 1.9.x and it looked like RSS Owl was expecting 1.8.x! Fired up synaptic manager and yup, found a xulrunner 1.8 that was not installed – installed that and…. voila! RSS Owl was showing up the feeds just fine!

My Point?

The fact that I solved my RSS reading problem is not really what I wanted to talk about here. I just wanted to put down, and this is especially true for open source projects depending upon support from the community:

NEVER assume that your users are all knowing. I did not realize that I’d be needing a separate component just for reading, and that too just on linux. And mind you, this is not a secondary function in a software that is meant to perform other duties, it’s called an RSS READER for crying out loud! If there is a dependency, it should be ideally packaged, or at least stated!

NEVER assume that when people have problems with your software, they will immediately stand up or raise their hands and tell you about it. At least 95% of people who face problems in “getting it to work” or even have questions will simply move on, and only if they really, really liked what they saw (or have a compelling enough reason – like no better alternative) will they ever even come back.

The post HowTo: RSS Owl 2.0 rendering problem appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

A new beginning?

2008-07-13T21:46:35Z

All this has happened before, and will happen again.

– Various Cylons, Battlestar Galactica.

Ah well, another engine move, dhirajgupta.com is now on WordPress. Seeing how cyn.in v2 is doing great as an Intranet collaboration and knowledge management software, (as opposed to being re-purposed for my personal blog) I thought I’d take the time over this weekend to move my site over to a minimally customized WordPress.

Hopefully this will mean I’ll blog more as well.

Stay tuned,
Dhiraj.

The post A new beginning? appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

All along the watchtower

2016-09-13T16:53:14Z

Watching Battlestar Galactica in DVD quality video has been a cinematic trip by itself, for me. To imagine the kind of triumph in visual effects, story telling and sheer drama on TV is insufficient, one must watch to know what it feels like – the budgets of the Battlestar Galactica franchise must truly be astounding.

Presented here is the much favorited season 3 finale of BSG (as it’s popularly known) and I simply cannot get the theme song out of my mind. This is a rendition by composer Bear McCreary of the much covered Bob Dylan original. Do go here to listen to the CD version on youtube as well – I recommend it. You could buy the original soundtrack from Amazon, as well (much recommended).

Waiting till the season 4 start (mid 2008!?) of Battlestar Galactica is too much torture – that too, the whole franchise has yet to show up on Indian television, I doubt that it ever will, as well. The content of the show is for a bit more mature audience than what is targeted currently, at any rate.

Lyrics
“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief,
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth,
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke,
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate,
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.”

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.

— All along the watchtower
Bob Dylan (1967)

The post All along the watchtower appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Not an addict

2016-09-13T16:53:46Z

Had to include this youtube video on my site when I found the live/unplugged version. This is a song by K’s Choice, a Belgium brother-sister band that features eclectic vocals backed by a mild rock sound. You might also be interested in watching the original “plugged-in” version.

It’s not a habit, it’s cool
I feel alive
If you don’t have it your on
the other side

The deeper you stick it in your vein
The deeper the thoughts there’s no more pain
I’m in heaven, I’m a god
I’m everywhere, I feel so hot

It’s not a habit, it’s cool
I feel alive
If you don’t have it your on
the other side
I’m not an addict (maybe that’s a lie)

It’s over now, I’m cold, alone
I’m just a person on my own
Nothing means a thing to me
Oh, nothing means a thing to me

It’s not a habit, it’s cool
I feel alive
If you don’t have it your on
the other side
I’m not an addict (maybe that’s a lie)

Free me, leave me
Watch me as I’m going down
Free me, see me

Look at me I’m falling
And I’m falling………

It is not a habit, it is cool
I feel alive I feel…….
It is not a habit, it is cool
I feel alive

It’s not a habit, it’s cool
I feel alive
If you don’t have it your on
the other side
I’m not an addict (maybe that’s a lie)

I’m not an addict, I’m not an addict, I’m not an addict.

– K’s Choice
“Not an Addict”

The post Not an addict appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

QR Codes

2008-07-13T20:24:35Z

Jpsykes has a nice piece running on their blog about QR Codes. This looks to be much better than standard bar codes, and I’m sure I’ve seen these sort of codes on the back and insides of a lot of hardware (GSM phones and batteries especially).
Stumbling across an explanative tech for something that had aroused your curiosity a long time ago, is so typical when you’re looking around on the web.

Numeric only Max. 7,089 characters
Alphanumeric Max. 4,296 characters
Binary (8 bits) Max. 2,953 bytes
Kanji/Kana Max. 1,817 characters

The post QR Codes appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Presenting….. DJ Munks!

2008-07-13T20:25:27Z

DJ Munks is in da’ House!

Or so it seems, at any rate.

Munks has just released 3 new remixes of an old Bollywood classic, do check it out!

He’s looking for feedback, be sure to listen and fill out his survey, as well.

Here’s to challenging your dreams, and having the conviction to know that when you work hard enough to convert your dreams to reality, you will achieve success. Here’s my toast to Munks’ first few (and crucial) steps towards his journey to success,

Cheers mate, and do keep ’em coming. 😉

The post Presenting….. DJ Munks! appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Unbelievable yoyo tricks

2016-09-13T16:54:34Z

This guy is so tricked out, seeing is believing. I’ve seen the video around 5 times, and I still can’t believe some of the stunts this guy does with his yoyo are real. Tell me what you think.

The post Unbelievable yoyo tricks appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Nothing to Fear

2016-09-13T16:55:01Z

When I found the music video to one of my favorite songs on Youtube, I couldn’t resist posting the vid, here. The song is Nothing to fear by the inimitable Chris Rea, and the video looks to be about a bedouin tribe and also an arab village-town and is a stylized, idyllic take of the life there.

As an aside, have a look at the screenshot below, of the google result. Google, post its acquisition of YouTube finally seems to be listing results from the videos there directly in the search results, that’s how I found the video in the first place!

The post Nothing to Fear appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Tread Softly

2007-06-25T02:52:42Z

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)
“He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven”

The post Tread Softly appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Alive

2007-06-01T03:25:06Z

Alive
“I want to feel passion,
I want to feel pain.
I want to weep at the
sound of your name.
Come make me laugh,
come make me cry…
just make
me feel alive.”

– Joey Lauren Adams

Chasing Amy

The post Alive appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Google Analytics gets an update

2007-05-16T03:08:46Z

Logged into my google analytics account after quite a bit of time, and I checked out the new Google Analytics release. The width, depth and length that they’ve gone to is quite impressive!

Of particular interest was the compare to past feature – you see dual graphs of comparative date ranges – neat! As is wont with Google, they tuck-away this feature, hidden inside the date range selector on the top right, but I guess their audience is that way too.

I don’t particularly like the blocky, and over simplified statistics, though. It might have been intended to provide a neat-and-tidy, and/or easy-to-use feel to the whole thing, but this has worked against them, I think.

For those of you who haven’t got the update yet, or are just too darn lazy, you could go through the new google analytics tour, as well.

The post Google Analytics gets an update appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Spiderman and Mary Jane Watson

2008-07-13T20:26:08Z

Should Spider-man 3 have been called Mary Jane Watson 1, instead?
I think so. It quickly became the epitome of everything that should not be done in a super hero movie. And it’s a long, long movie that spreads out the (few) action scenes in between long, drawn out emotional sequences that pretty much have no place in a super-hero movie. Really.

Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man
Spiderman bawls and cries his heart out, throughout the movie. I mean, c’mon! Spidey is a super-hero, not someone who keeps sniffling throughout the length of the movie. Tobey sucks as Spider-man, sucks even more as Venom, sucks worse when he bawls in the over-melodramatic emotional scenes in the movie, and worse of all goes running to Harry Osborn for help in the over-contrived climax, who (surprisingly!) true-to-character refuses him outright and then rescues him in the end, of course – what more could go wrong, in this movie?

Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson
Mary Jane Watson got way too much screen time. Kirsten Dunst is a total misfit for the role of MJ, I felt this in the first movie, the second only strengthened this belief, but Spiderman-3 left me feeling that the movie was mistitled! Kirsten is a walking talking contradiction: throughout the first movie she was her usual bubbly, freckled self, throughout the second she was mopey and kept bringing the pace of the movie down. In the third part of the series, Kirsten has outdone herself, at times drawing a collective yawn from the whole watching crowd, while the movie insists on revolving around her and what she feels.

The thing about MJ is that she’s everything that Kirsten is not and cannot portray – the original Mary Jane character is a feisty red-head with green eyes, and has a temper that has Spider-man constantly heckled. Kirsten is mopey, keeps her feelings to herself and looks nothing like MJ is supposed to.

The Super-Villains
The super villains in this third part of the series are a worse let down (hard as that may be) to both the previous movies’ villains. Venom’s screen time is paltry, all gone in favor of the long drawn out romantic and over-emotional scenes, and the interlude in between, when Peter Parker uses the symbiote’s agility, while not in costume. None of the evilness that is the Venom character really came out in the movie, probably because the movie hardly gives any time to Venom, and rather concentrates on MJ and Spiderman.

Sandman is a confused (but well-fitting, surprisingly) character who keeps tilting between being a good guy, then a not-so good guy, then a bad guy when he teams up with Venom, of all the things possible, in an attempt to defeat Spider-man. In the end, in a weird turn-around that looks wholly unplanned and last minute, Sandman actually apologizes to Spider-man for murdering his uncle, Ben Parker, that too, by mistake!

Miscellania

MJ sings an entire song in the movie, and then promptly gets fired from her theater job for having an awful voice. Good for her!
The wicked Peter Parker (under influence of the symbiote) is actually not that bad as a character, the dance sequence in the bar that MJ takes up a job, later is nice.
J Jonah Jameson has some genuinely funny moments.
Spider-man finally throws the web bullets that were present in all the Spider-man games that came out.
The sequence in which Flint Marko is transformed to Sandman was well done, but ended up feeling contrived like the rest of the movie.
The New Goblin character (Harry Osborn) dies, courtesy Venom.
Sandman befriends Spider-man and goes away weeping, while Spider-man keeps up his usual sniffling bit.
Spider-man exploits Venom’s weakness to sound waves to kill it using one of the New Goblin’s bombs.
There’s so much forcefully stuffed into this movie, it feels like all the characters refused to commit to a part 4 and so were all stuffed together into one long, painful movie.

A Conclusion
Do you really need one? I’d say give it a pass. Die hard Spider-man fans beware! This movie can cause a temporary, alternating sensation of nausea, sleepyness, and might cause an urge to hurt someone / something in the most dedicated fan.

The post Spiderman and Mary Jane Watson appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

A puzzle of logic

2007-04-14T04:25:42Z

Sometimes, the good old riddles are amazing tests of logic.

A girl is stuck in a labyrinth, and after many hours of wandering through it, comes upon two majestic doors, with large, round iron door-knockers with ancient symbols on them. A wooden sign placed in the middle of both of them, states thus:

Behold!

Two doors stand before you,
One door must speak the truth,
One door only utters lies.
One of them leads to certain death,
The other, to sanctuary and beyond.

Knock on each door, and you may ask it a single question.
Listen well, lest it’s answer be your last.

Choose wisely.

How does the girl get out of the labyrinth?

The post A puzzle of logic appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Fight Club Quotes

2007-03-17T03:20:20Z

Fight Club, one of my favorite movies is always a good watch, even after all these times of watching it over and over again. There’s always a dialog or a particular scene that you just can’t remember seeing.

When IMDB put Fight Club in one of it’s top 10 quotes from movies I just couldn’t resist the temptation. I actually went through the whole thing, there are a few repeats, but most of the movie’s best dialogs are here.

I do wish they compiled all the “I am Jack’s…” dialogues together, though; now that would be something.

Read it. For sure.

The I am Jack’s….. lines, in no particular order, of course:

I am Jack’s smirking revenge.
I am Jack’s cold sweat.
I am Jack’s raging bile duct.
I am Jack’s colon.
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
I am Jack’s wasted life.
I am Jack’s inflamed sense of rejection.
I am Jack’s broken heart.

Other favorites:

Narrator: When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep… and you’re never really awake.
Narrator: On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
Tyler Durden: The first rule of Fight Club is – you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is – you DO NOT talk about Fight Club. Third rule of Fight Club, someone yells Stop!, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule, only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule, one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule, no shirt, no shoes. Seventh rule, fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule, if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.

The post Fight Club Quotes appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

That’s you in the spot-light!

2007-02-23T21:43:12Z

For those of you who just can’t resist the big bright white light, now’s your chance for online glory!

cyn.in is running a spotlight campaign for the best looking blogs, websites and usage of cyn.in. All you have to do is register your free site, customize how it looks and put up your thoughts, ideas and posts on your own cyn.in site. Remember to publish to the Web Space if you want your post to be visible to the public reviewers.

When you feel your time for fame has come, hop on over to the official cyn.in blog and let them know. Or you could be cool and put an intro in the support forum as well (accessible within your logged in cyn.in site).

Claim your fame. Now.

The post That’s you in the spot-light! appeared first on DhirajGupta.com.

Dhiraj Gupta's blog

Unboxing and setting up the Raspberry Pi 2

picTrove 2 is now on Android

Moto G2 Unboxing

On the importance of Proofreading

Follow up: The Social Media revolution

Human hand-eye co-ordination

Cartoon renditions of Hungarian Rhapsody No 2

The Cat Concerto

Rhapsody Rabbit

Daffy Duck Rhapsody

Convict Concerto

The Opry House

Other Related Videos

What about you?

Further reading:

WordPress Easter Egg

Did you know ?

Movies to watch out for in 2009

Star Trek

Watchmen

Wolverine

Quotes from Andromeda

The Trouble with Tribbles!

cyn.in v2.1 – the microblogging release

Adobe InContext Editing: A whole new editable web?

InContext Editing: A whole new editable web. All over again.

Links:

The Dark Knight

HowTo: RSS Owl 2.0 rendering problem

After the recent move to Ubuntu

My Point?

A new beginning?

All this has happened before, and will happen again.

All along the watchtower

Not an addict

QR Codes

Presenting….. DJ Munks!

Unbelievable yoyo tricks

Nothing to Fear

Tread Softly

Alive

Google Analytics gets an update

Spiderman and Mary Jane Watson

A puzzle of logic

Fight Club Quotes

That’s you in the spot-light!