The Uncomfortable Small Talk

I often wonder when people start a small talk and comment on personal life, what is going through their mind? I mean, do they just want to probe, and ask about the personal lives very casually or they have some kind of deliberate motive that serves no good purpose to anybody as they probe more and more?

I was at my cousins home for dinner today, and they got a visitor. To them, this visitor is apparently a known person, not really sure if they are friends. This visitor started talking about something too personal to my cousins, and my cousin couldn't really answer it right upfront, and as I could make out, my cousin indeed felt somewhat uncomfortable, and so she tried diverting the topic. This visitor was still probing on the same topic insanely. I find that as the most annoying part of these small talks.

My cousins cannot drop her off even though they are hurt. Their feelings getting hurt may not be unbearable, but for that some time, they ARE hurt, and ironically, this lady who is supposedly a friend didn't seem to understand that fact.

When people want to meet up with friends and relatives, they just should come by, have a cup of coffee, share a few laughs, and leave. I don't understand why a few things interest people the most when they just do not concern to them at all. I lose the good impression on such people as I witness incidents like these. Yes, I do. I do not know if that is good or bad. I do not care.

Good Will Hunting

There are two scenes from this movie that are, and will remain, favourites to me forever.

First, when Will is touched by emotional anger that Sean, the psychiatrist who was trying to treat Will, brings about when they meet the second time. In the first scene, Sean was asked to treat Will, who was a very defensive kid, and, Will, deliberately insults Sean's wife who was dead. The monologues in this scene are very deep in meaning. Sean's explanation of life, love, and emotions is unmatched.

Will was said by Sean "I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms "visiting hours" don't apply to you. You don't know about real loss, 'cause it only occurs when you've loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you've ever dared to love anybody that much."

Will perhaps feels confronted, and the scene closes.



 

Second, it is in this scene that the girl that Will met was being so vulnerable to him coz she loves him a lot, begs him not to leave her, but he leaves. Will's realization of life and love later is the cause for his reunion with the girl, and the movie ends in merry! :D



 

When the protagonist says "been totally vulnerable", and from the meaning that I could derive, it sounds emotionally very deep. This was perhaps experienced by the Skylar, the girl, and later by Will. This movie is one of "the best" movies in all aspects. An amazing story that tells what is Life, what is Friendship, and what is Love.

Future Unknown

Out of few things I wished for while being at school, then growing up and becoming a college going boy, then, watching seniors from my hometown make their own jobs, I still see some similarity in the way I wish and hope for my future.

While I was at high school, math was very daunting. I always wished I could just become as seamless as my teacher overnight. Never did it happen, but, gradually, it became okay. While I was at college, the same story just repeated. It just took more time than my peers to get along; I still was having the same expectations as my school days. Hoping things just change all of a sudden, overnight with nearly everything I wanted! When folks from my hometown got jobs, I was travelling along with them to return to college after vacations while they returned to their jobs. As I saw them, I kept wishing that the I would graduate quickly so that I could get a decent job, make some good money.

While I wished for all these, I never felt so very daunted about whether or not I could make it, perhaps I just wasn't too serious about them or I wasn't just thinking about whether I could make it or not. But now, I'm wishing for a few things, and a better future. Sometimes they appear just around the corner, sometimes way too unreachable. While they say as long as we keep trying, we get to things, it is just scary and badly sulking when things get stagnant and are just out of your reach, but, yeah, future is just so unknown. The only thing we could do is just wait for it to reveal.

And When Things Go Wrong!

We had a terrifying issue last Friday. Due to a mistake my peers did, nearly a few hundred users lost their access to Subversion, and reinstating their access was pretty much a nightmare as this sort of thing never happened in the past. I'd my share of suggestions on how this can be prevented from happening again, and etc, and things became stable only this morning!

Today evening, we had a retrospective session held by our manager, and he and the senior folks had some suggestions for the peers who are beginners.

As I kept hearing the suggestions, I recalled my last job and the mistakes I made. Lucky enough, I had one friend who stood by me often times and helped me correct things. What he never told me persistently was(or at least, I can't recall being told) "Hey, this is how you can improve, and never repeat a mistake." I was a lone wolf who wasn't having that retrospective mindset either. If I had gotten a chance to work in a team like the one I'm in now, right from beginning, probably, I'd have been much better than what I'm now. And in that sense, beginners in my team have got better opportunities.

My point about these mistakes is

• When in doubt, we should ask.


• Think before we hit enter. In IT industry things are one click away. Whether it is granting access, or disabling access, or creating a Cloud host or just clicking on something. It is in one click that a worm can spread, a bunch of machines can go down, or a website is shut down or confuse the whole Internet world that googles around.


• Feedback or criticism should be taken positively.


• Whether the issue is created by our team, or assigned to our team; if we are the ones to fix it, fix it as per the priority.


• A checklist has to be there if the task is big enough, and plan not to release things on Friday. Not because we will be disturbed while on weekend outing, but, things will be held up over the weekend as not all the stakeholders may be available over weekend.


• Accept the mistakes.

That said, I broke something early last week, even though I took utmost caution. And that called for a checklist. I believe I'm no longer the guy who never had a retrospective mindset, but someone who learns from his mistakes, and strives to do things cleanly.

Nobody is perfect. The more preventive we are, the better things turn out. Isn't it?

Uh, by the way, "To me, you are perfect" is just a Love Quote from Love Actually. You know, just in case perfectness reminded you of that! ;)

Lucia@PVR

Lucia(ಲೂಸಿಯ) is a Kannada movie. People say it kinda seems like Inception with complexity reduced. I'm not sure what was the motive for the director.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="220"] Lucia[/caption]

Picture Credit: Wikipedia

I always wanted to visit PVR ever since I came to Bengaluru because PVR was, in my belief, the best theater out here in Bengaluru. I got a chance yesterday, and I went with my friend, and his mother. Unluckily we were just about on time, and so the C row, third from the screen was being sold. C row was somewhat uncomfortable.

This movie Lucia falls under the category of films where the conclusion about the movie is left to the imagination/will of the audience. I've watched a few English movies of this sort. The movie is not concluded from the director's point of view. It is pretty catchy thing to understand the movie or should we even try to? For instance, in American Beauty, Lester Burnham gets killed. The director never discloses who killed him, and for what reason, but leaves behind just a few dubious scenes in the end and the audience seem to weave their own stories, and justifications for who was the culprit, and what was the reason! That looks one smart way of film making. It is nice to see that a Kannada movie is made in such experimental way.

Lucia is funded by over 1500 people, and that's amazing! Isn't it? You don't need to have a producer whose pocket is deep enough to fund you, as long as you can find and convince a few like minded people who understand and pay you a few thousand rupees with trust and support you, you have got producers! That said, Lucia is rich, creative, and one of the best in all senses among Kannada movies of these days.

distcc for Distributed Compilation - gotchas!

After getting our builds run with gnu make in parallel, we spent some time evaluating "distcc" for distributed compilation. I had some hiccups and learnings. I'm hopeful that the following shall be useful and handy if you are just starting to use distcc.

• In our build environment, the directory where compiler is stored keeps changing as we have very frequent SDK updates. The compiler is accessed via soft link, and only this soft link is moved to the new path when we have SDK updates. So, we do not have a fixed absolute location to compiler that can be used by the distcc wrapper, and I'd to make sure that the distcc wrappers are written on-fly with absolute path to compiler before the build starts. So, what I did was, while the CC/C++ Compiler path was initialized, I ensured that the wrappers are written into the user home directory/a directory(DISTCC_WRAP_STORE) that is available both on build machine, and the distcc servers.


CC := $(PUMP) $(DISTCC) $(DISTCC_WRAP_STORE)/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc -m32


$(shell echo $$(readlink -f $(LINUX_I686_GCC_BIN_DIR)/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc) \""\$$@"\" >> $(DISTCC_WRAP_STORE)/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc )
$(shell chmod a+x $(DISTCC_WRAP_STORE)/x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu-gcc)


• disctcc wrappers must be executable files, and they seem to work only when they have the absolute path to the compiler in them! Otherwise, the errors you see are quite weird, and they give no clue about the missing execute permissions or the relative path.


• If you are using .d files generated by GCC compilers, then the .d files may end up created in current directory from where compilation starts, while you might be expecting them in the object directory This problem can only occur if you're using gcc 3.0 or later, have the source and object files in different directories or under different names, and you are using -MD or -MMD but not -MF. Even with -MF in place, the first line in the .d file, which is the path to the object file, may not really contain the object.o, instead it will be source.o if source, and object files have different name! ie. you are compiling errorHandler.c to errorHandlerM.o and in this case, you gotta make sure you correct the .d file after it is generated.

I will add more findings, if I come across any. We have some troubles with PUMP mode right now, hopefully, we will get through them.

Rocky and Mickey

Those who have watched Rocky Movie Series would know who Rocky, and Mickey are, the two amazing characters. The following scene is one of the best of the series. I find it hard to write about this scene because I can't be eloquent with my writing. In the small group of those that Rocky knew, Mickey's place is perhaps equally best as that of Adrian, Rocky's wife, wonderful character in the entire series.

What strikes me when I see these characters is, sometimes we all need help desperately. Perhaps, luckiest are those who have people in their lives that stand by and help without you yelling out for it and what hurts is losing them away. Doesn't it?

 



 

Filthy Minded Petrol Retailers

It is pretty common that every now and then you get cheated at fuel pumps either knowingly or unknowingly. And after you get cheated once, the next visit makes you feel skeptical about the fuel quantity, and quality etc., Doesn't it?

If your mindset is "I will pay whatever the money to get the right quality and quantity", you lose your nerve when you get cheated. Don't you? I've such mindset. I cannot take these things lightly. I've a very huge expectation on how things should look like. In countries like Germany, you don't see any staff a fuel outlet. You got to help yourself for whatever the amount. I wish it happens even in India someday and the quality, and trust is given utmost prominence by each Indian company at all their retail outlets. Shell Petroleum cares a lot for the quality, and the trust of their consumers. I've never seen such care and importance given to these very important aspects by any of the Indian oil business leaders. A lot of Indian Oil petrol pumps are having this cheating mentality. I can give a list of such outlets if you want! Looks like it is same even with HP. I've had comparatively more trust on HP pumps, not anymore.

Yesterday, after getting cheated for 100/- at a HP petrol pump, I logged a complaint at their website I've been given a ticket number. I wonder what action they take on the outlet I complained against. Whatever maybe their action, I did my bit for my own satisfaction. And I don't want to get upset visiting them again. So, I've decided to start using Shell Petrol. Hopefully, Shell people stand their motto on quality and trust of consumers.

Many Worlds That We Live In

My family often tells me that I don't know the world outside the home, the college I went to, and the workplace I'm now going to. Most of the time I just nod, although I don't really agree with them because I think nobody knows the world well enough ;)

I think we live in many worlds everyday, and in each world, we got to have a very decent score earned all by ourselves. We should try not to depend on others to get through these daily worlds, or to stay happy, or to handle a corrupt cop, or to handle anything for that matter. I don't say that we should stop seeking help. The whole world is circular dependent, humans are no exception. But, the extent to which we depend on somebody is a very crucial thing, and even more importantly what do we depend on somebody for? What if the person we depend on is just gone? Gone for whatever the reason and you can never reach them again? I think it is here that the decent score we earned helps to get along the many worlds we live in. Doesn't it?

Epic (2013)

It's a wondeful movie. Adventure of the small, flying on flies fighting the evil. I love the green trees and I find the jungle very beautiful.

Picture Credit: Wikipedia

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="220"] Epic[/caption]

The leafmen and their troops, in my opinion, is the representation of the nature itself and nature by far the very powerful thing that we ever can see. Nothing can stand against it, and when people say "Save the Planet", they are just saying "lets save ourself". Planet, like nature, cannot really by saved by us! It knows how to protect itself by its very vitrue, just as it happens in this movie. No matter what evil we do by overusing things, it has its ways to protect and evolve. We human beings are just parasitic creatures.

I love the last scene. I see the joy in doing a thing they like the most, and in rushing to meet a friend.

And, Movies should end in merry so that you walk out of the theater with a wide smile that lasts long enough till the next movie! :)

Constructive Criticism!

"Constructive Criticism" - That's a big word, isn't it?

We'd a hot discussion back in the office today. I said the real work I'm expected to do isn't moving at all because of various other "routine-for-me-but-not-for-others" activities I handle everyday. I'd this feeling that I'm not finding time for those activities that really interest me + they are in my backlog from a real long time. But, I started feeling it more these days maybe after I started seeing others doing more quality work than me.

While I enjoy training my small wonderful team that I lead, and trying to teach them, often I hear criticism that some of the emails were just between us and not shared with the entire team, and having handled these routine activities, raising a mild alarm that I'm not finding time for my own tasks lead to a hot discussion and I was questioned, why wasn't something routed across to somebody else and why did I keep doing the routine thing all by myself?

Now, that's pretty uncomfortable situation, especially when my intent was to get some help. Isn't it? 

One of the reasons I kept answering these routine questions was because I thought others were quite busy. Uhh! While doing so, I got terribly busy!

I think I should take this criticism a bit constructively. Yes, I should delegate things to others. Start saying "No!" to others when an issue is not really something I should address but with a bit of time spared, I can. Don't be the frontdesk. Don't assume that others schedules are tight, but push things to them.

And yeah, is the story same for everyone, except for the names? As in, you change the name, and my story is your story. Or did I just give in to whatever criticism?

Happy Blogging Anniversary!

I received the following notification on my blog today. It is pretty late from them, though, as my 1st blogging anniversary was nearly 2 months ago!



I was being too adamant towards myself in liking my own writing, and eventually deleted my blog after a few days. Well, not anymore! See, I completed one year successfully, and so, I have some bragging rights now and I just gave myself a little pat on the back.. :)

And, Love you WordPress! You are a dear friend who happily listen to many that express themselves by writing.

CSS Popup Box With Background Disabled

It is my curiosity to right mouse click on a web page, and click "Inspect" that comes with Firebug every time I find a web page catchy. I've been trying to have a CSS pop up box that forces some type of confirmation, and while the question asked in the pop up isn't answered, I wanted to have the parent background disabled (ie. no anchor links from the parent should be active/clickable)

I'd some options in mind, but I was unhappy with them as they seem to be inelegant. So, I went on to analyze how it is done on some of the websites. For instance, on Facebook here is what they seem to be doing as of this moment, the way I understand.

Say you wrote something in the "Update Status", but clicked on something else. You are likely to see a pop up that asks whether you are sure about navigating away from the page.



The pop up that you see will have the following CSS rules.

.generic_dialog_modal, .generic_dialog_fixed_overflow {
    background-color: rgba(252, 252, 252, 0.9);
    height: 100%;
    z-index: 400;
}
.generic_dialog {
    left: 0;
    outline: medium none;
    overflow: visible;
    position: fixed;
    top: 0;
    width: 100%;
}

As z-index of this div that encloses the pop up div is 400 (must be the highest among all the elements), height being 100%, top being 0, position being fixed, the popup occupies the entire page on top of the any other element on the page.

If you want to find a way to click the links/images on the apparently disabled background, then just go on reducing the z-index using firebug, and you will notice that the right chat/update dock box+graph search portion opens up first, then the rest of the page become visible and the links becomes active, and dialogue box disappears when z-index is less than 0.

So, this seems to be one elegant and simple way to have a CSS pop up, with disabled/diminished background. :)

I hope this post is helpful.

Lost In Translation

It is an old movie, and I watched it quite some time back. Was talking to a friend yesterday about some movies, and I thought of watching this one again, and I did watch it today.

I get carried away in the emotions of the characters, and I don't know if that is good or bad. As I watched the last scene of the movie, I felt like I was losing someone I never even met, and nostalgic. Uhh! Exaggeration? No. I felt it, and I'm writing it down here. :) I don't know if that makes any sense.

It's a nice movie. At least it is of a type I like.

Vacations!

This Thursday, I'm going home. Obviously, it is going to be a long weekend as 2 days of off adds to the weekend, but you know, it doesn't last long, don't know if the clock in the mind thinks that way.

Every time I hear someone say "Time flies! " or when I feel that for myself, the general notion I get is "Who runs the clock against our wish either too fast, or too slow?!" Even when the "seconds" needle in the wall clock is driving up against the gravitation, or when the "minutes" needle is holding on to its position for a minute, they keep their pace. I wonder how time manages to fly yet, sometimes, again, not always.

Anyways, done with the preamble :)

Plans don't really workout well, but, I'm going home keeping some in mind. Gotta see how they turn out. If they start to work well, I wish time doesn't fly so that I can finish up things, otherwise, you know, you got it!

Just to add, this week has been very nice so far. Which means, time, probably, did fly! ;)

ಹೈ - ಬೈ!

ದಿನ ಶುರುವಾದರೆ Hi'ಎಂಬ ಹವಳದಂತ ನಿನ್ನ ನಗುವಕಂಡು,
ಹಿಂದೆಂದು ಕಾಣದ ಹೊಸ ದಿನವದು ನನಗಂದು!

ಹೊರಡುವಮುನ್ನ ನೀ Bye'ಹೇಳದಿದ್ದರೆ ನನ್ನಕಂಡು,
ಅಹೋ! ಚಂದ್ರನಿಲ್ಲದ ಹುಣ್ಣಿಮೆಯ ಸಂಜೆ ಅದು ನನಗಂದು! :)

Idiots from Customer Support

Have you ever had the experience of talking to the Customer Support people, who don't pay any attention to what they are speaking, and who they are speaking to?

I get irritated when these people behave like morons from jungle, who talk at the speed of a few dozen words per second, which when put together make no sense. You should be another guy who work at a Customer Support to catch up what they are saying.

I get annoyed even more when they call me with a name that is not my name at all! These idiots should at least pay attention the name of the person that they are talking to, let alone the issue they are trying to address. If they don't care about pronouncing the name correctly, what on earth have they learnt in the first few weeks of the Customer Support training sessions? Have they been asleep, damn it?

If they think they can't pronounce the name, it is fine. They can just say "Hello! I'm from so-and-so customer support, and I'm calling you to in reference to the ticket blah-blah-blah" That explains it. I don't care whether they saluted me with "Sir!" or not, as long as they fix the problem I reported, I'm happy.

Hell with their etiquette, they miss the basics, and irritate a lot of people. I lose my nerve sometimes, but you know, I can't yell at them for their mistakes. So, I just try expressing my anger on my blog.

Change in the linker behavior(binutils2.2?)

I'm currently handling the task of migrating/trying our builds on RedHat6.x So far our builds are run on RedHat 5.3/5.5 and given that we are running on relatively older version of RedHat, we are planning on migrating.

One of the issues I observed was with the way version 2.2 of gnu ld works. I'd built binutils 2.2 on redhat 6.1 machine and it looks like the way dynamic linking works has changed slightly. The following was the error I got. I don't see this on binutils 2.1.x

/usr/bin/ld: note: 'some_reference' is defined in DSO some.so so try adding it to the linker command line

I read about the possible work-around, rather fix I'd say, at Fedora Wiki page http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/UnderstandingDSOLinkChange , and it worked just fine in our case.

The bottomline is, while generating binary/.so out of objects/shared objects, you should make sure that any dynamic linked library that resolves the references to the symbols in these objects/shared objects must also be linked dynamically even while generating binary/.so i.e no indirect linking anymore..

If my explanation doesn't make sense, read through the wiki link given above, and you will be out of confusion.

Need of Clean and Transparent Politics

I'm no expert to analyze the current politics. I don't have to be one to judge, and make a statement that nearly every political party in India is corrupt in one or the other way, and the undying hunger for money, and power dominates the mottos of these political parties. It is obviously a naked truth. Every party has a set of aims and objectives, but, that is carelessly kept aside(most of the time), and money making becomes the prime objective, and there are hardly any attempts made to ensure that corruption gets its punishment given.

While nearly everyone is angry, and frustrated with these type of leaders, and the parties,  making a choice on whom to vote, and elect as leaders is a very big challenge as almost every elected leader does loot. Probably, choosing the ones who does it to a meager extent is a better choice.

But, time has come where there are a lot of eminent, honest, confident, and passionate people contesting to beat, and challenge the bigger group. All we need to do is, choose such good leaders wisely. Let go of the mob mentality, and analyze who is good, and who is bad before we vote.

"Lok Satta" is one such party, lead by an eminent, honest, cognizant, and persistent leader Jayaprakash Narayan He proved that with a mere 4.5 lakh rupees, one can win elections. A sheer example that the best, and the honest can win. He contests from Kukatpally, Andhra Pradesh It's one of those fast growing constituencies in Andhra Pradesh. He's the all India topper in India's highest civil service examinations IAS , never did he read a single book to stand there, because, he'd such thorough knowledge of what is going around in India, and around the world! He quit from his position as an IAS officer to start a party which is aimed to enrich the political scenario in India with its true spirit

Please watch the video on youtube where JP talks about the party's vision, about the contestants from Bengaluru/Karnataka, and optimism over India, and its politics - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIzpm5R0jfQ Do watch the related videos to know more about him.

He faced physical, and verbal assaults for being honest. Despite all these, JP continues to fight, and he's optimistic that we can see a developed India soon.

Hopefully people will consider the smaller group of people under Lok Satta, that exhibit the potential of changing the fate of the people, and elect them in the upcoming state assembly elections at Karnataka.

The Croods!

I'd never watched a movie in 3D effect till today, and I watched one today! The Croods. It was hilarious!




Picture credit - Wikipedia

I just wish I could get one of those nice traits in each of those characters from the movie, that can make me behave better. I shouted at my colleague who's also my friend whom I know for quite a few months now just because today was a busy, and uncomfortable day at office. :(

After the bad day that I always hate, the movie preceded by the McDonolds eatables was very relaxing. Luckily I'm in a wonderful team.

I wish life always unfolds like those scenes from my favorite movies. Okay, movies that I haven't watched yet, I mean. These has to be the thriller stuff even in life that makes you want to ride the sun! Doesn't it?

That said, if you haven't watched "The Croods" yet, go watch it. It's a good movie. Very entertaining.

Deleting Directories from Subversion Increases Size of Repository

Nothing great about this post, but during one of the training sessions a few days ago, a colleague was concerned about the number of branches we keep in our Subversion repository, and he said why can't we just delete those unused branches/done-with-it branches so as to reduce the space utilization.

I told him that deleting these branches wouldn't reduce the the space used by this repo on the server, instead, it actually increases. He'd a sarcastic sigh on his face! I told him, it is only the client that is benefited if number of branches(Or directories) to show-up in the Repo Browser  is less. I guess, it takes less time if there are 10 branches/directories to show, than  when there are 100.

Given that nothing added to version control(at least SVN) can ever be removed by a normal user(well, if you really want to remove some file/dir, there are ways to do it. Resort svndump, and svndumpfilter), logically, it is obvious that to stop the client from showing a particular directory that is removed, on the server, there has to some entry that says this deleted dir no longer exists in the head revision. And that some new entry definitely adds a few bytes of data.

Here is some proof:

D:\Repositories\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE is where the data is stored physically, on my laptop(which is acting as server) for this test repo.

When a client requests to access my repo via URL https://GNQ85BS.net/svn/DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE/
the server actually reads the data from the above directory, and lets the client display it in the form of repository.

C:\Users\venkrao>svn co https://GNQ85BS.net/svn/DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE/

Checked out revision 0.

C:\Users\venkrao>cd DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE

The size of the repo on the server is given below:

C:\Users\venkrao\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE>D:\fun\Tools\du.exe D:\Repositories\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE

Du v1.5 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2013 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files:        27
Directories:  11
Size:         28,911 bytes
Size on disk: 1,51,552 bytes

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, I import some data into the repository(ie. add data to repo)

C:\Users\venkrao>svn import -m "" D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer
.0.5 https://GNQ85BS.net/svn/DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE/
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\blogger-importer-blogitem.php
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\blogger-importer.php
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\languages
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\languages\blogger-importer.pot
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\oauth.php
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\blogger-importer.css
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\blogger-importer-sanitize.php
Adding         D:\userdata\venkrao\Downloads\blogger-importer.0.5\blogger-import
er\readme.txt

Committed revision 1.

------------------

Now, size of the dir that physically holds this data ON THE SERVER(ie. my laptop), obviously increases.

C:\Users\venkrao\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE>D:\fun\Tools\du.exe D:\Repositories\delete_increases_size

Du v1.5 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2013 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files:        30
Directories:  11
Size:         64,174 bytes
Size on disk: 1,96,608 bytes

C:\Users\venkrao\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE>svn log https://GNQ85BS.net/svn/DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE/
------------------------------------------------------------------------
r1 | test | 2013-04-04 22:41:27 +0530 (Thu, 04 Apr 2013) | 1 line

------------------------------------------------------------------------

C:\Users\venkrao\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE>svn ls https://GNQ85BS.net/svn/DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE/
blogger-importer/

NOW, I delete the data from the repo. See what happens to size of the dir that holds the data physically.
It actually increases. BECAUSE, it has to make *SOME* new entries(in layman terms) in the server, that tells the clients that this
data is removed from the repo in some revision, however, they are in fact present in the older revisions.

C:\Users\venkrao\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE>svn del -m "Deleting to see if size of repo on the SERVER, increases" https://GNQ85BS.net/svn/delete_increases_
size/blogger-importer/

Committed revision 2.

-----------
Notice that the size of my repo dir on server has increased by 354 bytes.
C:\Users\venkrao\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE>D:\fun\Tools\du.exe D:\Repositories\delete_increases_size

Du v1.5 - report directory disk usage
Copyright (C) 2005-2013 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Files:        32
Directories:  11
Size:         64,528 bytes
Size on disk: 2,04,800 bytes

C:\Users\venkrao\DELETE_INCREASES_SIZE>

Missing Common Sense Is Common!

It so happened yesterday that we, the entire team working in our project, were receiving plenty of emails. They were from the new joiners in our team who were trying to subscribe to an internal mailing list to which the software release notes, baseline release emails, etc were sent.

These new folks did not know the email address that subscribes them to this mailing list. They were actually emailing the mailing list itself to subscribe, and the email reached everyone who was already part of the list.

I just wanted to let these guys know the right procedure, and what I did was emailing the same mailing list. Guess you got the joke. My instructions had no way to reach out to those who really needed it because, they are not part of the email address to which I sent instructions! I missed the common sense.

This incident reminded me of a joke. Once there was a scientist. He'd three cats of varying size as pets. One big cat, a smaller one, third even smaller. To have a way for them to go out, and come back home during night, this scientist made three holes in the wall.

A big hole, a small sized, and third even smaller! :)

Missing common sense is, you know, common.

Behold WordPress theme demo

Check-out the video for a preview of Behold WP theme.

Please note: The video is without audio background!

Features:

Featured post slider, custom menu, 4 widget areas, featured posts, social icons.

Optimized the theme to adjust it's layout based on the width of the device you are viewing it.(responsive design)

Hope you like the theme. Please leave a comment, if you have feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98qnu0GyjN8&hd=1

My Fantasy World!

I started my work at office at 9 in the morning. There was this long pending task I was involved in, and the person who was expected to fix this was running a follow-up at an opensource forum. I, out of curiosity, was also trying to seek some help from stackoverflow. I did get some good help.

As I kept reading more about the issue, I'd this feeling that, I just don't know anything yet!

Every time I see someone with verse knowledge explaining, or writing a topic, a thought just occurs in me that says, 'Hey, read about that stuff. It is interesting' I read it for a while, then get myself distracted onto something else. I've been working for almost 6 years now, and every time look back to see what have I learnt, I go blank. There isn't a single area that I've stuck myself to for a few years.

I sometimes do wish to go back to college, sit in the class room, listen to the lectures. Long since I left college, I think I also developed some kind of aversion towards classroom teaching, too. I sometimes want to quit work, sit at home read more and more, but I fear trying that for the same reasons I mentioned.

Although I do realize that I must cultivate interest in one subject, and try mastering it, I'm finding it as one thoroughly difficult task to choose something as I get carried away by many easily, leaving my stance nowhere.

A friend once referred to a book, "How to become a programer in 10 years". Probably what I'm doing is just admiring things like that, and continuing to live in my Fantasy world.

Improvement Is Gradual

I've been reading posts from "Freshly Pressed" for the last 3 days. Ok. Not all, only those that interested me. Of those that I read, some of the musings were very close to what I had in my mind or once I'd thought about. This could also be some kinda of déjà vu feeling! I don't know. But, I never knew how to put my thoughts on paper.

I'm a bit hesitant and bad at expressing myself. I take time. A lot of time, rather. Like preparing for exams day n night, and sleeping in the exam hall, tired! This seem to be happening with my writing, too. I want to write; about a few things I've in mind, see around me, experience everyday. But I lack words, the prose that can hold the reader on my blog for a few minutes, and I thought I should prepare for writing first, then try to write.

Then I remembered that I was posting articles to a contest conducted by "The Week" English magazine. This was during my college days, 6 years back. Never did I felt my writing was poor at that time although I know now how poor my articles were. That made me realize that I improved a bit since then, and its okay to write. So, here I go. I just wrote what I'd in my mind.

''Improvement is gradual. If I could think about something I wish deep inside me, for a long time, and try to pursue strongly, perhaps, I can make my wish come true. And, I'm just trying to write on this blog more.

It just lingers..

I read this post last week. I read it again today.

I don't know how this sounds to me after a few months or years. Yet I'm writing this.

I know I'm not qualified to talk about the topic written over there - startup - as I don't have the necessary knowledge to write or to talk about it. Yet, this thought keeps lingering in me - and in a lot of people out there I guess.

If I can figure out something that matches what's written in the last 2 paragraphs of the above article, I will take it up. I read/I write, but I've not struck at anything like that yet..

ಬ್ಯಾಚುಲರ್ ಲೈಫ್!

ಸತತವಾಗಿ ಆರು ವರ್ಷಗಳಿಂದ ತಿಂಗಳಿಗೊಮ್ಮೆ ಒಗಿತಿದ್ದೆ ಬಟ್ಟೆ,
ಹಾಗಂತ ನಾನು ಪ್ರೊಫೆಷನಲ್ ಅಗಸ ಅಲ್ರಿ, ಬ್ಯಾಚುಲರ್ ಅಷ್ಟೆ!

ಆ ಕಷ್ಟದಿಂದ ಪಾರಾಗೋಕೆ ಅಂತ ತಂದೆ washing machine ಇವತ್ತಷ್ಟೇ,
ಕೇಳ್ರಪ್ಪೋ, ಇದು ಕವನ ಅಂತೂ ಅಲ್ಲ ಬ್ಯಾಚುಲರ್ ಹುಡುಗರ ಕಷ್ಟ ಹೇಳೋ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಸಾಲು ಅಷ್ಟೇ! ;)

ಪ್ರೊಕ್ರಾಸ್ಟಿನೇಶನ್!

"ನಾಳೆ ಎಂದವನ ಮನೆ ಹಾಳು!" ಎಂದು ತಿಳಿದಿದ್ದು ಮೊನ್ನೆ,
ಏನು ಮಾಡುವ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಯೋಚಿಸಿದ್ದು ನೆನ್ನೆ.
ಯೋಚನೆಯ ದಣಿವಿಂದ ಹೊಳೆದ idea'ಗಳು - ಸೊನ್ನೆ
ಮುಂದೂಡುವ ಚಟ, ಇದರ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷು ಪದ - ಪ್ರೊಕ್ರಾಸ್ಟಿನೇಶನ್ನೇ?

-- ಚೆಕ್ ಮಾಡಿ, ನಾಳೆ ಹೇಳ್ತೀನಿ!  ;)

New year and resolutions!

I can't recollect if I'd set myself a few resolutions last year. But, if I'm asked was 2012 any good for me, I'd say, "Yes!".

Yes, because, without getting discouraged,  I wrote more on my blog. Well, I started this blog this year, though. I'd this bad habit of deleting my blogs if I didn't like them after a few days of writing, coz no one read them. I WILL NOT do it anymore. I pledge.

Yes, because, I made a tiny¹² contribution to the OpenSource, and to WordPress through my WordPress theme Mimbolove

On the personnel front, I made two mistakes, too, that sometimes make me feel bad about myself. :(

For 2013,

I think I will want to put on some weight, get some big muscles. Yeah, I brought a small gym kit, and I want to get stronger! I will see how it goes.

Improve my theme to make it more useful to the community, and write at least one new theme, there by becoming sharper.

I can't get taller anymore even if I drink Horlicks ;) So just stronger, sharper as year's resolutions.

- Thanks for reading!

-- Wish you a fantabulous year 2013!