29

Sep

Mazda CX-7

Last week, on the sixth month anniversary of our marriage, me and my wife shopped and bought a new car. It is a 2010 Mazda CX-10. I traded the old vehicle in and got this one.

Reading a lot of websites for advise, setting the budget, working through edmunds, kbb and getting reviews and retail values and finally doing the bargain with the dealer. It was a new experience, but a worth learning. Thinking about this takes to one thought, the world is growing richer in cash. Yes. My dad bought his first car 3 years ago. I am buying it now. Good thing.

Wonderful driving ahead.

122 days ago Short URL Comments

Society

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11

Sep

Money

Last week, I watched the tamil movie ‘Mankaatha’ with my college buddies. The film was all about money. The protagonist has even a dialogue “Money, Money, Money, I want the f**ing money”.

Similar to this our life has changed course and started to be more money oriented. In school and college, I was just like any other kid wanting to enjoy life as much as I can. Once I got out and started to work, the first few years I spent all my money on enjoying life, buying clothes, eating out, going out with friends, buying expensive mobile phones etc. But at some point, the simple truth struck. “More money is what you require to enjoy more.” Soon, money was not enough.

The room we stayed in after we got out of college was a single bedroom, where I stayed with four of my friends, the salary then was around INR 12000. This was not enough for me then and at the end of the month, I would have spent all. Same was the case with all my friends. Then it started raising. From 12000 it went to 36000. Even then at the end of the month, it was a close call.

Why is that we cannot get enough? Why do we crave for money? Why is it too addictive than any drug to long for money? I always wanted to least care of money and enjoy life. But now, if someone asks, I would say to enjoy life, you need money. Is it money that is all I require. No. I need people, friends and on top of it money.

Money, money, money… !

140 days ago Short URL Comments

Musings

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25

Aug

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs resigned from being CEO of Apple yesterday!

A visionary, a man who loved aesthetics. Here is one of his best quoted speech Stanford speech. From being a simple dropout to being the CEO of a multi billion dollar corporation.

One thing that Steve had was the love for the thing that he did and not giving up on his high standards.

Thanks Steve for all the wonderful technology gadgets you gave us to love, including the Mac that I am composing this post on.

156 days ago Short URL Comments

Musings

12

Jul

iPad 2

Bought an iPad 2 this week. I am exploring the different apps to install on it.

Got iBooks, Kindle, Netflix, Weather, Dropbox, Angry Birds installed. My hunt for a gTalk app with video chat capability had led to vtok. Google’s version of gTalk for iPad does not provide voice or video chat capabilities.

iBooks and Kindle both look great. iPad2 supports Unicode fonts. With access to books in HTML format, I was able to convert the HTML files to EPUB files using Calibre software. Calibre also makes it easier to move ebooks to iPad. I am now able to read books in tamil on my iPad.

My wife is busy reading and playing Angry Birds game on it.

Will keep updating this post on my experience with iPad 2.

200 days ago Short URL Comments

Computers

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28

Jun

Marriage

It has been long since I posted on this blog. Reason: Marriage changes :)

I am now happily married to Akila.  Wow! that is perfect. But I have to take the time to thank all people who worked to make it a success.

My parents, Sister and brother in law my father’s friends, Anathu uncle, Kumar uncle, Raghu uncle, Ravi uncle, Subbaiah uncle, Velan uncle and their spouses in the alphabetical order and not in the order of importance. They all made sure that everything was well arranged.

Her parents, her relatives, Sathy uncle, Jayanthy aunty, Bharathi miss this list is too big  and so are her friends and family. All of them contributed to it.

Thank you all for your blessings.

Now it is more than 3 months of married life. I have made the adjustments to have a better work/life balance. I am becoming more and more responsible, so is my wife getting used to taking care of the house and family. Hoping to post more and regularly in the coming days.

214 days ago Short URL Comments

Musings

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06

May

ILSpy – .Net Reflector alternative

Since the free version of the .Net Reflector that I have will not longer be free from 5/30/2011, I started the hunt on the next available free alternative to .Net Reflector.

ILSpy - This is a open source implementation of the reflector and I suppose it remains free.

It works similar to the .Net Reflector and has the same interface. Instead of the Green colored code, we get a nicely formatted, syntax highlighted code from the ILSpy.

ILSpy in action

ILSpy in Action

Try it!

268 days ago Short URL Comments

Open Source

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03

Feb

Appreciation

Appreciation – One factor that drives one to move forward and keep continuing the effort.

If a child is not appreciated when it starts to speak, walk or call out, it does not get the urge to do it the next time. Same holds true for grown up people too.

Lets learn to appreciate. It motivates.

359 days ago Short URL Comments

Musings

19

Dec

Tangled

Watched Walt Disney Pictures latest creation ‘Tangled’ today.

Wonderful. I liked the animations, music, lighting, expressions, shading and every aspect of the movie. A old story re-told in the best possible way. Great!

The 3D was titled ‘Disney real 3D’ and I felt this much better than the 3D in the Avatar movie. Up next ‘Unstoppable’ and ‘Manmadhan Ambhu’…

406 days ago Short URL Comments

Movies

09

Dec

Customize Terminal Prompt

In Mac OS X terminal, to customize the terminal prompt, edit the .bash_profile file to include the following line

export PS1=""

Following options are common:

\d - current date - e.g. 11/09/2010
\w - full path to current working directory - e.g. ~/Users/Raj/Documents
\W - current working directory - e.g. Documents
\u - username -e.g. Admin

I use the following for my prompt:

export PS1="[\W$ ]"

You can use any editor to edit the .bash_profile file. This file is located in your home directory (~)

415 days ago Short URL Comments

Open Source

09

Dec

Thanksgiving in Florida

This thanksgiving was memorable. A road-trip to Florida from Richmond with friends, what else can one ask for. As it was nearing the end of fall and temperatures were steadily dropping, Miami, was warm! Warm in air and spirit!

All credit goes to Nair, Swami and Ravi who planned the trip! 3 days of nightlife and pure fun!

It was a nice getaway from the routine, work, cook, clean, sleep… work, cook, clean, sleep routine. (You can see me cribbing :)) Now that I am back, completely refreshed!

Miami, ‘Feels like being in Goa’, as Nair kept re-iterating all through the trip, with the Spanish lingo, beaches, water, bays, boats, fish and fun. Nice trip guys! With Miami, I have now travelled the entire east coast stretch, excepting Maine.

Next is the cross-country trip! Vegas baby!

416 days ago Short URL Comments

Musings

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