Monthly Archive for September, 2008

Switch Of Design

Published on September 27, 2008 in Anu. View Comments

I have a history of moving my web page and changing the theme and design. I have listed here the locations of my previous sites. This one on hyperwebenable.com is the latest and the best one. However, I am yet to find a good theme for this site.

Finally I have moved over from the Amazing Grace design theme to this new theme which has the look  and feel of that of a magazine. Its called the WyntonMagazine Theme.

One of the major reason that prompted the change was the appearance of the sidebar on the home page. The home page should focus on the better articles and also allow for a clear navigation, exposing the door to the articles on the blog so that a user can easily jump to posts that are to his liking. The present theme comes close to achieving this.

The first impression that you get are the four highlited posts. These can be easily managed by the blog admin. I can also have a sticky post here without installing any plugin. These four articles are members of two special categories which have actually been hardcoded into the theme.

If you scroll down you’ll find the categories and the latest article of each category. Now the designing is obviously not complete. For now I have added the categories list at the extreme right lower, but it might change to something else – which provides a better navigation possibility – the focus should always be on the user easily finding the articles of his choice.

On the top bar one can see the pages on the first row and the categories on the second row. Another feature of this theme is that the pages do not have any sidebar – gives you lot of space to write your page. The articles though do show the sidebar which has the listing of recent posts, posts of same category, recent comments and all. All these allow the user to discover the elements of the blog easily.

The 404 page has been modified to show posts which match the keywords of the search and also the list of recent posts.

A lot of improvements are in queue and shall be implemented in due course of time. A few of those include ajaxifying the comments and adding the popular posts feature. Also a complete overhaul of the colour scheme has to be done, but that will be the last priority .

Hopefully this design meets all my needs. Otherwise another hunt for a new design will have to be done.

Popularity: 1% [?]

And I Thought It Was A Trilogy

Published on September 25, 2008 in Miscel. View Comments

Since when did trilogy mean four ?

Brisingr Title

The Cover of Brisingr

The third book of the Inheritance trilogy – Brisingr by Christopher Paolini was released on the 20th of September. Having read both the earlier titles – Eragon, and Eldest, I was eagerly waiting for the final book to be shared in our campus. Though the book matches not Lord of the Rings in any department, it does make a good reading. The story is engaging, and atleast has better pace than LOTR (I can’t stand Bombadil or the Ents – yeah, I am hasty ! So what ?).

I woke up today to find the book listed amongst the newly shared items. Hurray ! Finally ! The wait comes to an end. But I have an exam in a few hours. Darn , get your priorities right – Which is more important, Brisingr or the mid sems – Brisingr says I.

I downloaded the e-book and also the audio book. The first chapter was The Gates of Death. Crap, fast forward, I want the last chapter first – habits do not change overnight, do they. Now was the time for me to discover what happens in the fight of Galbatorix and Eragon. I read the first paragraph – unknown characters. The next one, more un-heard of names. Another – again something completely not what you would expect in the final chapter of a trilogy. I checked the label again – yeah, it is the same book. So what is wrong ?

Finally I got to the end of the chapter after skimming through all the heart of hearts and nonsense. And what do I find there -

Brisingr Footnote

The Footnote of Brisingr

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I have always known the story to be a trilogy. To make sure that I had the right book, I googled up the author. The findings were astonishing.

Apparently the author had pretty high expectations and declared that the final installment of the trilogy (read the Brisingr) would be so thick (so as to incorporate every tiny detail, and clarify any loose ends left by its predecessors) that he thought it wiser to split the book into two. Later on, he decided to have only a single tome, but then it would be substancially thicker than the rest. However, he finally decided to part it and announced in October that the series is being extended by one more book.

Puff, so little publicity that he had to mention in the footnote about the story concluding in the next book ! For the moment I have lost the interest to read it. Will perhaps try it after a few weeks.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Radio – Last Fm

Published on September 24, 2008 in Miscel. View Comments

I have been a member on Last.fm for quite some time now. I loved it right from the start. I like all kinds of statistics and last fm provided me those that I needed the most – my music listening habits.

Within a few weeks of signing up, I was frantically searching for sites where I could discover my musical taste and search for similar artists. I came across a page which displays the tag cloud of a user. It was here that I learnt my favourite genre – broadly metal, specifically progressive metal. Wow !

I made full use of last fm recommendations and links. Scanned for artists that would suit my taste, search for them on dc++ (the peer-to-peer we use inside the campus to share files) and try them out. The first three artists that I liked were Blind Guardian, Hammerfall and Helloween. Considering the fact that I had spent 3 months listening to just 3 artists, picking up 3 artists in a span of just 3 months was exhilarating.

The search hasn’t yet stopped. On the one hand I have diversified into rock and alternative, but also gone deeper into metal listening to symphonic metal, melodic death metal and a lot. At the moment my 500 GB hard disk has about 100 GB songs !!!

But I hadn’t realised the full potential of last fm until yesterday. Feeling bored of the playlists I already had, I wished if I knew any good radio. And then it struck me – last fm has an inbuilt radio. Wonderful !

Last Fm Radio

Last Fm Radio

And looking around a bit, I realised that the radio couldn’t have been much simpler. All you need to do is to enter any artist or tag name in the software and it’ll play the corresponding radio.

Last Fm Radio

Last Fm Radio

Great, isn’t it ? This was just what I wanted. Now I can tune into songs depending on my mood. Since examinations are going on at the moment, my radio has been playing symphonic metal all the time.

Last Fm Radio

Last Fm Radio

Simple and nice that the radio built into the software is, it still lacks an important feature – multiple tags. The only shortcoming is that you can specify only a single artist or tag at a time. I would rather have my radio playing me multiple tags at the same time, like symphonic metal AND progressive metal. Hopefully such a feature gets incorporated into the future launch of the client.

Till then, enjoy the radio. And yeah, even the radio songs get scrobbled.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The Road Goes Ever On

Published on September 21, 2008 in Miscel. View Comments

This is a track from the Lord of the Rings Musical. I am sure you will like it.

The Road Goes On … Ever Ever On …

Popularity: -1% [?]

Alonso – Yet Again

Published on September 20, 2008 in Sports. View Comments

Twelve months ago, the two times reigning world champion, Fernando Alonso had the transfer market  buzzing with rumours. He was unhappy at McLaren. A rookie, who went by the name of Lewis Hamilton, had the pace to out run the defending champion. To make matters worse, towards the later stages of the season, Ron Dennis decided to throw his weight behind Hamilton. Alonso’s fall from grace was nothing short of spectacle. He became the whiny self, always complaining – so uncharacteristic of a leader.

The alliance shattered and Alonso became a free agent. He finally returned to the team which gave him his two world championships – Renault. The struggling team has hardly managed to impress any one this year. Full credits to Alonso for gathering all the points to put Renault besides Toyota in the championship.

With the season finale in sight, Alonso is rumoured to switch the team once again ! So ,what options does he have?

The first would a move to Honda. Ross Brawn has already dedicated his campaign for the next years car development. It would be repeating Michael Schumacher’s feat if Alonso can get Honda to where Michael put Ferrari (remember, Michael won the first championship for Ferrari after a drought of 7 years).  Alonso being great at developing a car, it is very much likely that Alonso – Ross – Honda partnership could be the one to beat in a few years time.

Having tasted the glory of being a champion, Alonso might not want to wait for another year before being back in the title hunt. He desires to be counted as a front runner, and not as a driver making up the mid field. The latest buzz in the market is that BMW has shown an interest in signing Alonso. Though not at par with Ferrari or McLaren, BMW does have what it takes to get Alonso on the podium next year. But then, this deal will put Alonso in the same dilemma he was an year ago – Kubica won’t sit there in his cock pit and let Alonso win the races. Alonso will have to fight his team mate, something he failed at in McLaren.

Renault would definitely want to retain Alonso for the next year. Having neither the car, nor Ross Brawn, the only way they can lure him into signing a contract is offering the best possible contract (financially and with a clause to leave the team if he wishes to). Otherwise I see no reason why Alonso should put up with a struggling team yet again.

It’ll definitely be interesting to watch how the stories evolve. For now, I am going to recline on my sofa and enjoy the end of the season as Hamilton and Massa make a last dash for the glory. Can Hamilton fight the demons which drowned him last year at this time ? Can Hamilton keep his nerves and the Brazilian ? Lets have some fun.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Yo Ho Yo Ho A Pirate's Life For Me

Published on September 20, 2008 in Tech. View Comments

Google has released a new lingo – Pirates. Save the Settings page and then navigate to google search to see the new homepage.

Popularity: -0% [?]

Anuvrat – The Philosophy

Published on September 15, 2008 in Anu. View Comments

Anuvrat figures in the philosophies of the jains. Below is an excerpt taken from http://www.jainworld.com.

Not everything in the world is variable; there are things invariable too. Nature is perennial; so is human nature. It consists of different habits at the back of which are elements like anger, vanity, deceit and greed. Good as well as evil are eternal. Only their form keeps changing. When objects and worldly phenomena change, why does man not change? Anuvrat is the philosophy of change. Its sole purpose is to enable man to introspect, understand his own nature and to make efforts to transform it.

The main plank of the Philosophy of Anuvrat is building individual character.

Popularity: -0% [?]

Never The One

Published on September 14, 2008 in Anu. View Comments

I have switched my blog host/webpage many times now. None has really satisfied me yet. I started out with googlepages, but that has such minimalistic (did I say minimal, actually none !) features that I could not see myself sticking with it for a long time. I still do have a page there at the id

http://singh.anuvrat.googlepages.com/index.html

Next I discovered 110mb. A host which provided me with php enabled home page. But the journey ended soo afterwards for a couple of reasons. For one, they do not provide mysql for free – its a paid service. Secondly, I forgot my password. And if that was not enough, I cannot now remember what username or email id I had it registered on! Crap, its one of the disadvantages of having multiple id’s and numerous passwords. I have tried almost all possible combinations of the ids and passwords I have used till now (those that I stll remember), but no luck. I actually doubt if I will ever be able to unlock that id. Damn, I have had weird passwords sometimes – the best being a sentence 22 character long terminating with 3 question marks!!!.

http://anuvrat.110mb.com

Now began the search for a new host. At this point I was in Switzerland, working as an intern at EPFL, Lausanne. I got into the habbit of reading a lot of blogs, arbitrarily, and then this idea of having a blog for myself crept into my head. Of the two choices – blogspot and wordpress, I went for wordpress. I feel wordpress is so much better than blogspot. But the wordpress.com blog has barely any features. They provide very few blog templates, you cannot edit the css unless you pay for a css custom upgrade package, cannot install plugins of your choices.

http://anuvrat.wordpress.com

It was a stroke of luck that I came across a host that provided me space on web and agreed to install wordpress. I jumped at the oppurtunity and here I am having my blog hosted outside the wordpress.com domain. I am pretty much satisfied with the new host though sometimes their server goes down and it refuses to log me in. I intend to carry on blogging at this site unless I have resources enough to buy a domain for myself and move my blog permanently over there.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Subtle Comment

Published on September 14, 2008 in Miscel. View Comments

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

This comment by Bilbo Baggins in The Felloship of Ring by Tolkien has fascinated and puzzled me ever since I read the book. I have googled the phrase many times over, but none of the interpretations fit in with the personality and the character of Bilbo. I wonder if I will ever fully understand what Tolkien wanted to say here.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Kimis' Ferrari Contract Extension

Published on September 12, 2008 in Sports. View Comments

The news couldn’t have come at a better time for Ferrari’s ace driver and the defending champion Kimi Raikkonen. He has been granted an years’ extension to his previously 2009 expiring contract. He now has a contract which lasts till 2010, as long as Massa lasts.

The declaration also puts an end to the rumours of Fernando Alonso’s joining the Maranello based outfit. Speculations were rife that Alonso might switch to Toyota for an year and aim for a seat at Scuderia the next season. Also Kubica was being singled out as a worthy candidate to replace Kimi at the end of the next season. 

This must be a real morale boost for Kimi. He was in knee deep trouble earlier not having scored a podium for some time. But not everything was his undoing. Fate deserted him recently. Engine blowing off, rain washing away his hope of victory after having led till the third last lap and more to count. 

At the moment its fun to watch Massa and Kimi wrestle each other for the top drivers sopt at Ferrari. Massa must feel he deserves the top spot, but Raikkonen refuses to just give in to the pressure and he has been supported by the team president himself. And once again it appears like Hamilton is feeling the heat of contending for the cup. The championship couldn’t get more exciting. 

Popularity: unranked [?]