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Links for 2007-06-06 [del.icio.us] Posted: 07 Jun 2007 12:00 AM CDT English words similar to Sanskrit Those who know English can easily remember the following Sanskrit words

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Links for 2007-06-02 [del.icio.us] Posted: 03 Jun 2007 12:00 AM CDT Scripting with Eclipse Monkey - Aptana * About Eclipse Monkey * About the Eclipse Monkey sample projects * Installing Eclipse Monkey * Creating the Eclipse Monkey sample projects * Creating a new Eclipse Monkey script * Adding metadata to an Eclipse Monkey script * Tips and tricks for writing

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Links for 2007-05-31 [del.icio.us] Posted: 01 Jun 2007 12:00 AM GMT-06:00 SCons: A software construction tool software construction tool—that is, a next-generation build tool. Its an improved, cross-platform substitute for the classic Make utility with integrated functionality similar to autoconf/automake and compiler caches such as ccache. (an easier, more rel A-A-P Recipe Executive program that builds other programs, much like the venerable make(1) program. However, Aap uses the power of Python to make the "recipes" (instructions on how to build a program) more readable and more flexible. Aap can also replace the age-old autotools a

Simple Stress Management

Via SACRED SPACE: Unburden Yourself-Editorial-Opinion-The Times of India

A lecturer was giving a lecture to his students on stress management. He raised a glass of water and asked the audience, "How heavy do you think this glass of water is?" The students' answers ranged from 20 gm to 500 gm.

The lecturer said, "It does not matter on the absolute weight. It depends on how long you hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it is OK. If I hold it for an hour, I will have an ache in my right arm. If I hold it for a day, you will have to call an ambulance. It is the same weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes".

"If we carry our burden all the time, sooner or later, we will not be able to carry on, the burden becoming increasingly heavier. What you have to do is to put the glass down, rest for a while before holding it up again".

"We have to put down the burden periodically, so that we can refresh and are able to carry on. So before you return home from work tonight, put the burden of work down. Don't carry it back home. You can pick it up tomorrow. Whatever burden you are having now on your shoulders, let it down for a moment if you can. Pick it up again later when you have rested..."

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Links for 2007-05-17 [del.icio.us] Posted: 18 May 2007 12:00 AM CDT India - Rigveda: UNESCO-CI being among the first literary documents in the history of humankind, they transcend far beyond their identity as scriptures

Quote: Illusion & Reality

God made the illusion look real and the real an illusion. He concealed the sea and made the foam visible, the wind invisible, and the dust manifest. You see the dust whirling, but how can the dust rise by itself? You see the foam, but not the ocean. Invoke Him with deeds, not words, for deeds are real and will save you in the afterlife.

- Rumi, ‘Mathnawi’

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Links for 2007-05-10 [del.icio.us] Posted: 11 May 2007 12:00 AM CDT Global Warming: Early Warning Signs XUL Tutorial Pyrex lets you write code that mixes Python and C data types any way you want, and compiles it into a C extension for Python

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Links for 2007-05-08 [del.icio.us] Posted: 09 May 2007 12:00 AM CDT ANT Tutorial Apache Ant User Manual

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Links for 2007-05-06 [del.icio.us] Posted: 07 May 2007 12:00 AM CDT Python: Lambda Functions Python supports creation of anonymous functions at runtime, using construct called "lambda". This is not exactly same as lambda in functional programming languages, but it is very powerful concept that's well integrated into Python and is often used in co Darjeeling tea will now be called just Darjeeling, just like Champagne (wine produced in Champagne district) Darjeeling tea will now be called just Darjeeling, just like Champagne (wine produced in Champagne district), Bordeaux (wine produced in Bordeaux region), Tequila (spirit made in Tequila, Mexico) or Cognac (brandy produced in Cognac) Dr. Dobb's | AJAX: Selecting the Framework that Fits | May 1, 2007 Dobb's Journal reviews 5 AJAX frameworks: Dojo, Prototype, Scriptaculous, Direct Web Reporting, Yahoo! User Interface Library, and Google Web Toolkit. 'Dojo provides more features and HTML widgets than YUI and Prototype' but eventually 'settled on the Yah Python main() functions some suggestions on how to write a main() function that's easy to invoke in other contexts, e.g. from the interactive Python prompt when you feel like experimenting. Introduction to Python: File I/O File Management in Python Python makes file management surprisingly easy, especially when compared to other languages. Peyton McCullough explains the basics

Links for 2007-05-05 [del.icio.us] Posted: 06 May 2007 12:00 AM CDT SQLObject popular Object Relational Manager for providing an object interface to your database, with tables as classes, rows as instances, and columns as attributes. SQLObject includes a Python-object-based query language that makes SQL more abstract, and provides path Python module provides a single class that wraps the functionality in the os.path module. You wouldn't think that would be so helpful, but in practice I find it much more pleasant to write and to read. mxDateTime - Date/time types for Python These types were created to provide a consistent way of transferring date and time data between Python and databases. Apart from handling date before the Unix epoch (1.1.1970) they also correctly work with dates beyond the Unix time limit and thus is Year Python re Module - Use Regular Expressions with Python - Regex Support Python's built-in "re" module provides excellent support for regular expressions, with a modern and complete regex flavor,. The only feature currently missing from Python's regex syntax are atomic grouping and possessive quantifiers. pydoc.org: Python Documentation Online Use this site as a handy central index of the documentation for all versions of Python from 1.5 to 2.4. You can also search all the docstrings in the standard library.

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Links for 2007-05-02 [del.icio.us] Posted: 03 May 2007 12:00 AM CDT 10 Golden Lessons From Steve Jobs at Ririan Project selection of some of the most insanely great things he said, golden lessons to help you succeed in life

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Links for 2007-04-29 [del.icio.us] Posted: 30 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT Ant Sync Task - That Was Easy! While digging around recently I noticed a 'sync' Ant task and bookmarked it away for further reading. Today I finally had some time to check it out and it was really easy to implement! Sync Task Synchronize a target directory from the files defined in one or more Resource Collections. Java Tips - How to use Sync task Synchronize a target directory from the files defined in one or more filesets. code:ant [thecrumb] Bertrand's weblog: Simulating rsync in ant

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Links for 2007-04-25 [del.icio.us] Posted: 26 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT SWIG Tutorial

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Links for 2007-04-23 [del.icio.us] Posted: 24 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT HINDUISM: The world's third largest religion Hinduism differs from Christianity and other Western religions in that it does not have a single founder, a specific theological system, a single system of morality, or a central religious organization. It consists of "thousands of different religious gro Henotheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia term coined by Max Müller, to mean devotion to a single "God" while accepting the existence of other gods. Müller stated that henotheism means "monotheism in principle and a polytheism in fact." Sanskrit Texts and Stotras contains a wide variety of Sanskrit texts and stotras in the pdf format, which you can view or print for your personal use. Most of the texts are in Devanagari script, some with English translation Sanskrit, Tamil and Pahlavi Dictionaries

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Links for 2007-04-22 [del.icio.us] Posted: 23 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT English Pronouncing Dictionary with Instant Sound Free Online An English Pronouncing Dictionary with Instant Sound Sandboxie - Front Page Tired of dealing with rogue software, spyware and malware? Tired of spending countless hours removing unsolicited software? Try Sandboxie. SysExporter: Grab data from list-view, tree-view, combo box, WebBrowser control, and text-box. allows you to grab the data stored in standard list-views, tree-views, list boxes, combo boxes, text-boxes, and WebBrowser/HTML controls from almost any application running on your system, and export it to text, HTML or XML file GWT Components - Auto-Completion Textbox

Teamwork Skills

While looking for forming-storming-norming-performing model of team development, I encountered list of teamwork skills on Wikipedia.

Since these are so very important, I am simply pasting them here as a reminder for everyone:

Aside from any required technical proficiency, a wide variety of social skills are desirable for successful teamwork, including:

• Listening - it is important to listen to other people's ideas. When people are allowed to freely express their ideas, these initial ideas will produce other ideas.
• Questioning - it is important to ask questions, interact, and discuss the objectives of the team.
• Persuading - individuals are encouraged to exchange, defend, and then to ultimately rethink their ideas.
• Respecting - it is important to treat others with respect and to support their ideas.
• Helping - it is crucial to help one's coworkers, which is the general theme of teamwork.
• Sharing - it is important to share with the team to create an environment of teamwork.
• Participating - all members of the team are encouraged to participate in the team.

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Links for 2007-04-20 [del.icio.us] Posted: 21 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT ... for Some Value of "Magic": Python is Not a Religion there is absolutely no need for religious wars when it comes to choice of programming language, and that the appropriate question to ask is "is Python a good way to solve my problems" Python Advocacy What is Python?, What does the source look like?, In which application areas is it being used?, more questions... Dougma (dŭg·mə) n. - the truth acording to Doug » of Advocacy and Idiocy The job of an Advocacy Coordinator is not one of an advocate, but one of an educator, healer, and organizer. This is not about the Python language. This is about the people who want to use, or are using the Python language. Python can speak for its self.

ब्लॉगर की नयी लिप्यान्तरण सुविधा

अपने हिंदी भाषी बंधुओ कि जानकारी के लिए मैं यह वर्णन करना चाहता हूँ कि गूगल ने ब्लॉगर को हिंदी लिप्यान्तरण समर्थ कर दिया है ।

उल्लेखनीय यह है कि गूगल की लिप्यान्तरण प्रणाली, बाक़ी दूसरे गूगल उत्पादों की तरह, चतुर व अभिज्ञ है ।
इस कारण ब्लॉगर में देवनागरी में लेख लिखने के लिए:

• जटिल लिप्यान्तरण पर ध्यान देने की आव्शकता नहीं है । केवल अंग्रेजी से सम्मिलित अक्षरों से व्यक्त होने वाले उच्चारण पर ध्यान देना होगा ।
• इसकी दूसरी विशेषता यह है कि यह व्यक्ति विशेष के लिप्यान्तरण प्रवृति के स्वयं अनूकूल होती जाती है ।

अधिक जानकारी के लिए निम्नलिखित को देखें:

• Now you can blog in Hindi
• How do I use the transliteration feature?
  

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Links for 2007-04-09 [del.icio.us] Posted: 10 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT What issue tracking system is best for you? - Java World A review of Bugzilla, Trac, and JIRA By John Ferguson Smart, JavaWorld.com, 03/14/07 An introduction to Maven 2 - Java World How applied best practices can optimize the Java build process By John Ferguson Smart, JavaWorld.com, 12/05/05 Eclipse, NetBeans, and IntelliJ: Assessing the Survivors of the Java IDE Wars comparison of the latest versions of the major IDEs in the Java development space: NetBeans, Eclipse/MyEclipse, and IntelliJ IDEA. Find out how well each performs in four common areas of development: Swing, JSP/Struts, JavaServer Faces, and J2EE/EJB 3.0 Vimplugin Wiki : Home Page Eclipse plugin that brings the power of the editor Vim to the Eclipse IDE. Based on vim tip #1031 (thanks to Pavel Tavoda)and relies heavily on JTA, a swing-based java terminal emulator and the SWT_AWT bridge of Eclipse 3.1. HelpNDoc | IBE Software Generate HTML Help Generate Help Web Sites WYSIWYG Word processor Advanced keyword editor Easy to use Extremely low learning time Free for personal use Welcome to Eclim bring Eclipse™ functionality to the Vim editor. Eclim is less of an application and more of an integration of two great projects. The first, Vim, is arguably one of the best text editors in existence. The second, Eclipse, provides many great tools for d viPlugin for Eclipse | ... 'cause editing still is the way to code viPlugin adds vi(m) functionality as a layer on top of an open editor like the JDT, CDT, ...19.8 USD

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Links for 2007-04-06 [del.icio.us] Posted: 07 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT ET survey busts Sachar panel report : sachar committee report, muslims, economic condition, survey, contradiction, household income, expenditure : IBNLive.com : CNN-IBN In contrast to the Sachar panel findings, the ET study says Hindus and Muslims are not only very close when it comes to average household income, expenditure or savings, they match each other even in terms of ownership of select consumer goods

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Links for 2007-04-04 [del.icio.us] Posted: 05 Apr 2007 12:00 AM CDT Table designs based on CSS and DIV elements -- css.nu # Introduction to CSS "tables" # Example of a 2 by 3 table layout # A three column table layout # A 10 column table layout Cascading Style Sheets Gallery for HTML Tables glish.com : CSS layout techniques CSS Techniques; CSS Resources; CSS Tutorials Bring on the tables | 456 Berea Street do your best to avoid using tables for layout, but for tabular data, tables are what you should use. I’d like to talk about how tables should be used when marking up tabular data Using CSS to Create a Two-Column Layout - replace tables with css layout form tutorial

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Links for 2007-03-30 [del.icio.us] Posted: 31 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT TimeSnapper 2.3: Extract Text Using Optical Character Recognition The killer feature this time around is Optical Character Recognition. You can now select text straight out of the images you capture. We've been keen to include this feature since day 1, and finally it's in! Jon Galloway : Free OCR software? You may already have it...

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Links for 2007-03-29 [del.icio.us] Posted: 30 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT JavaServer Faces (JSF) Tutorial Net. Collection for Newbie; Ajax4jsf; Faces and AJAX; Faces 1.2; JSF vs Struts, JSF with Struts; AJAX Examples; Integration with Other Technologies; Developing JSF Components; MyFaces ; Component Libraries; Discussions ; Resources; Faces Technology in Use Code Generation Library - Code Generation Library powerful, high performance and quality Code Generation Library, It is used to extend JAVA classes and implements interfaces at runtime. This library is free software, freely reusable for personal or commercial purposes g.georgovassilis - Using the GWTHandler If you have used Spring before and are already using GWT for serious applications you might have considered using Spring controllers instead of GWT's RemoteServiceServlet. There are plenty good reasons for doing so actually. Issue 389, RPC delegation support - active? - Google Web Toolkit Contributors | Google Groups GWT Widget Library

Links for 2007-03-28 [del.icio.us] Posted: 29 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT Integrating the Google Web Toolkit with JSF using G4jsf G4jsf CDK: GWT-JSF Integration Library Component Development Kit -- Binary Distribution JSF - onGWT - Tracking News on GWT GWT-RPC: Customizing RPC in GWT | Robert Hanson's Blog Using JSF with AJAX | bpcatalog Working with JSF and Facelets: November 2006

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Links for 2007-03-27 [del.icio.us] Posted: 28 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT Blat - Command Line Emailer saves me time | Computer Zen Sri Rama Navami | SACRED SPACE | The Times of India Sage Vasishta: Is there a thing called sky independent of emptiness? Even so, there is no 'thing' called world that is independent of Brahmn the Absolute. Just as coldness is inseparable from ice, what is called the world is inseparable from Brahmn Rama As An Avatar Of The Sattvic Human | SPEAKING TREE | The Times of India The three names of Rama | Spirituality - Indiatimes Ravana means a mind that moves away from the nucleus drifting away by the centrifugal force, dissipating mental energies in all 10 directions. Ravana can be defeated or destroyed, only when one takes shelter in Rama. So one under whom Ravana automatically

राम नवमी

श्री राम के जनम दिन पर सब को हार्दिक शुभकामनायें ।

आज के दिन श्री राम का स्मर्ण करें और धर्म का पालन करें ।

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Links for 2007-03-20 [del.icio.us] Posted: 21 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT Virtual PC 2004 | Coding Horror If you are wondering just how this software can make your life easier, allow me to quote from the product FAQ Virtual PC 2004 tips | Coding Horror The Single Most Important Virtual Machine Performance Tip | Coding Horror always run your virtual machines from a separate physical hard drive Automatic Login for Virtual Machines | Coding Horror Creating Smaller Virtual Machines | Coding Horror producing the smallest possible Windows XP Virtual PC image Here's a great list of tips on Optimzing Performance with Virtual PC (VPC) | Computer Zen Performance Tuning, Additional Disk Optimizations, Computer Zen Virtual PC Tips and Hardware Assisted Virtualization | Computer Zen

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Links for 2007-03-18 [del.icio.us] Posted: 19 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT Roundup Issue Tracker simple-to-use and -install issue-tracking system with command-line, web and e-mail interface. Based on winning design from Ka-Ping Yee in the Software Carpentry "Track" design competition. Current stable version of Roundup is 1.3.x which has quite a compr Mylar & Roundup Issue Tracker | [News.eclipse.technology.mylar] Is it possible for me to use Mylar with our roundup issue tracker as task repository? Roundup Issue Tracker - PyCon 2005 Presentation Author: Richard Jones Date: 2005/03/16 CallForTrackers - PythonInfo Wiki Jira was first choice of committee. A lot of people complained about using a closed-source and hosted bug tracker, so a call was posted for volunteers to help administer a Roundup installation. Enough volunteers came forward, so work is now proceeding on

Bram Moolenaar's presentation - Seven Habits of Effective Text Editing 2.0

On February 13th 2007, Bram Moolenaar gave a presentation on Vim (at Google office) - 'Seven habits of effective text editing 2.0'.

The news update is at Vim site and the links of the video and the pdf presentation can be found at vimannounce Yahoo group.

The pdf presentation is very short simple and still useful.

Very briefly it states:

1. Detect inefficiency
2. Find a quicker way
3. Make it a habit

and the seven habits are:

1. Moving around quickly
2. Don't type it twice
3. Fix it when it's wrong
4. A file seldom comes alone
5. Let's work together
6. Text is structured
7. Sharpen the saw
   

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Links for 2007-03-13 [del.icio.us] Posted: 14 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT Languages By Keyboard How to tell a person's language of choice by looking at their keyboard

Links for 2007-03-12 [del.icio.us] Posted: 13 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CDT Install multiple versions of IE on your PC | TredoSoft Internet Explorer 7 running side by side with IE6. (standalone) | TredoSoft

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Links for 2007-03-11 [del.icio.us] Posted: 12 Mar 2007 01:00 AM CDT Isha Upanishad | Sri Aurobindo Ashram - E-Library Sanskrit verses, with explanation in English Why Can't Programmers... Read? It never fails to amaze me at how some companies I’ve worked with (or at) praise developers who are fast, even if they do the wrong thing because they failed to understand the spec or include so many bugs as to have made the spec irrelevant Why Can't Programmers.. Program? | Coding Horror After a fair bit of trial and error I've discovered that people who struggle to code don't just struggle on big problems, or even smallish problems (i.e. write a implementation of a linked list). They struggle with tiny problems

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Links for 2007-03-10 [del.icio.us] Posted: 11 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CST Isha Upanishad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sanskrit poem (or sequence of mantras) from the Upanishads and is considered Śruti by followers of a number of diverse traditions within Hinduism. It is one of the smaller texts of the Upanishads (18 verses in total) but also one of the most often quoted Sri Isopanisad | Bhaktivedanta VedaBase Dhyanalinga multi religious, meditation shrine - a powerful space for meditation Set amidst the dense forests at the foothills of the Velliangiri Mountains, is the Dhyanalinga Multi religious Shrine, the first of its kind to be completed in over 2000 years

Copying contents of vim register

Following command copies the contents of register q to copy register
:let @*=@q
Once copied, these contents can be used any where else, by simple paste.

One example use is to update a macro.
Following command updates register q
:let @q="Paste-copied-contents-Then-edit-as-required"
which then can be fired/executed by @q in command mode.

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Links for 2007-03-08 [del.icio.us] Posted: 09 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CST Metrics 1.3.6 - for Eclipse

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Links for 2007-03-06 [del.icio.us] Posted: 07 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CST Christian evangelists targeting India (Rape of India by David Kostinchuk) At the present time North India is considered the core target of evangelists in their effort of world evangelism. They justify this to Christians by using derogatory remarks like " 900 million Hindus are spiritual bondage" (Baptist Press 10/99) A Conversion (Religious) MNC - Christian Aggression How can, such organised trade be accorded freedom to convert ? Just as there are laws to prevent the exploitation of as sale of consumers, there must be laws to regulate this business of religious conversion

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Links for 2007-03-04 [del.icio.us] Posted: 05 Mar 2007 12:00 AM CST Holi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Safe Holi campaign — kalpavriksh.org Working towards a completey natural and safe Holi!

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Links for 2007-03-03 [del.icio.us] Srimad Bhagavatam 1: Creation 2: The Cosmic Manifestation 3: The Status Quo 4: Creation of the Fourth Order 5: The Creative Impetus 6: Prescribed Duties for Mankind 7: The Science of God 8: Withdrawal of the Cosmic Creations 9: Liberation 10: The Summum Bonum 11: General H Open The Third Eye On Mahashivaratri | THE SPEAKING TREE In logical terms, everything begins from nothing and ends in nothing. It evolved itself out of nothingness and it is again going into nothingness. This nothingness is Shiva Banish Depression From Your System -Editorial-OPINION-The Times of India If your sadness is reminding you that you are incomplete, it is good; make use of your sadness to grow. - By Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

A Guru Rating Service !!!

While searching over for Isha Foundation website of Sadguru Jaggi Vasudev, I encountered something very very surprising - a Guru Rating Service.

I was stunned, confused, and annoyed. Digging further I found that the site is actually quite detailed and lists and rates many or most Gurus. Every name that I knew or had ever come across was on the site.

The site seems to be well maintained and extensive, with links to the official website of the Gurus (if any), and any articles relating to them.

However it was a surprise, not expected. How can anyone rate a Guru !

The site itself mentions the brickbats received on the very first page

How tragic! How weird! Rating the non-dual teachers - how tragically American

I have the same view.

However, as the site quotes another review, '... it was inevitable'.

Enchanting Sanskrit

Few days ago a Sanskrit university students were outraged by UP Governor's preaching on learning English.

News agencies reported this incident in various different manner. Some were pro Governor, and some other just tried to state facts, adding that Governor was giving a well meaning advice.

Honorable Governor was not incorrect in advising the students to learn English as well. But it seems that he demeaned Sanskrit to make his point. I don't know exactly what he said, but TOI reported that he said - learning Sanskrit would just make students good for doing pujas, Sanskrit is not language of god, and Sanskrit is a language of bail-gadi yug.

I believe he may have outraged the students to a great extent that the response was so unanimous and strong - even from the faculty.

Coincidentally, just a few days ago I came across an article about Sanskrit - Enchanting Sanskrit. It primarily details decline of Sanskrit, its importance, and attempts for it revival.

Here are a few striking points from this article:

• In 1835, Lord Macaulay produced his "Minute of Indian Education" in which he stated, "What we spend on the Sanskrit colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of truth; it is bounty money paid to raise up champions of error [that is, Sanskrit scholars]." He said Sanskrit literature is, "barren of useful knowledge" with "the most serious errors on the most important subjects."
  
  
• One of the factor that contributed greatly to the neglect and "death" of Sanskrit was the treatment it received at the hands of academics. "Nowhere will you find a language being taught in a foreign language," says Sri Krishna Sastry. The easiest and most effective way is the conversational method. Ironically, Sanskrit was being taught through English and in textbook fashion. As a result, students, instead of learning the language and developing affinity, moved away from it.
  
  
• Knowledge of Sanskrit is imperative to understand Ayurveda, but Indian government first made it compulsory that students of modern sciences as majors would only be admitted to Ayurvedic courses. However at the same time CBSE made Sanskrit an optional subject. As a result, students with science background who study Ayurveda at college level, do not know Sanskrit, resist studying it, and instead use translated texts.
  
  
• Sanskrit was initially compulsory for five years of Ayurveda course, was reduced to one year of study. Now science students are even protesting this one year of Sanskrit study.
  
  
• Dr Rahul Peter Das of Martin Luther University in Germany believes that learning Sanskrit helps students understand mathematics better.
  
  
• It recommends three-language formula as: Regional + Classical (Sanskrit) + International (English)
  

I believe every Indian should read this article.

Related Links:

• Unlocking the Splendors of Sanskrit

Blog from Microsoft Word

Blogger now has an addin for Microsoft Word, to create/edit posts and drafts right from Word.

Blogger: Download Blogger for Word
Blogger Help : Blogger for Word FAQ and Known Issues
Blogger Help : About Blogger for Word

Have used it just for a few posts, but this is my experience till now.

What I like:

• No need to visit blogger.com to post on the blog, just work in Word


• All the features of MS Word now available when drafting your post – spell checker, grammar check, and formatting too.


• Works thru the firewall, without any problems

What I did not like:

• ‘Open Post…’ dialog is not resizable. Moreover the ‘Title’ column too is not resizable. This makes difficult to read the post title, and thus ‘Open Post…’

Guess the issues will be resolved soon, and we will have cool capability to blog from Microsoft Word itself.

Firefox and must have extensions

Quite some time back I moved over to using Firefox. Initially I had some issues (basically related to usage), but now I am Firefox fan. Now, I hardly ever open IE.

Firefox has rich collection of freely available extensions. There an extension for almost everything you could think.

The extensions I use are as follows:
* autocopy
* yahoo companion
* dictionary search
* adblock
* tabbrowser preferences
* mouse gestures
* flashgot
* googlebar
* linkification
* foxylicious
* print preview
* quicknote
* ieview
* targetalert
* greasemonkey
* sessionsaver
* del.icio.us
* spellbound
* webmailcompose
* live http headers
* aardvark
* download manager tweak
* scrapbook
* duplicate tab
* resizeable textarea
* hit-a-hint
* feedview
* super dragandgo

The ones underlined are must haves.

Thanks to all Firefox developers and Extension developers for developing such a fine product.

Opera 8 released - with Gmail support

Opera 8 has been released.

Following are some of the interesting features:

1. Improved security
2. Voice support
3. Fit to window width
4. Support for XmlHttpRequest giving full Gmail support

For complete list list of changes review Opera 8 changelog

Joel's interview by CFUNITED

Joel will be giving two speeches at CFUNITED - the ColdFusion technical conference coming up in Washington DC June 29th - July 1st. Michael Smith of CFUNITED interviewed him.

Following are some interesting extracts:

On an untrained project manager running a software project
A common mistake is to hope, against all evidence,that the team members are smart and will be able to organize themselves, so the newly promoted programmer decides he or she can afford to spend 80% of their time writing code and only 20% of their time managing. The trouble is that without any kind of system in place to decide what to do and in what order, chaos ensues and you either get a death march project that’s never done, or an inadequate product that nobody wants. A typical manifestation of this is that team members work on the fun things first, not the important things, so when the schedule is running late and you have to cut features all the features left to do are important features that can’t possibly be cut.

On overhead of tracking bugs and tasks of the project
Hiring an architect adds a lot of overhead to your kitchen renovation, but they both save you a lot of time and money, in the short run and in the long run! You're going to be tracking bugs and tasks anyway, it's just a question of whether you do it in an organized fashion where everyone can be on the same page, or on a whiteboard in one person's office, where it's apt to be erased by the cleaning lady.

There is another interview text of Joel available at Salon.

Roundup Error - Code 403

This week, besides other things, I was trying to fix a problem with the web interface of Roundup Issue Tracker being used in the organization I work in.

Roundup is Python based open source Issue Tracker. There are many other freely available issue tracking softwares - viz. Request Tracker, JIRA, etc. Of all these, I selected and used Roundup, because it is written in Python - and I love Python.

I could not locate the exact reason of the problem. All I could identify was that a corrupt query was creating problem in the web interface, and it used to throw following error

Error response
Error code 403.
Message: /xaissues/ (You are not allowed
to view items of class query).
Error code explanation: 403 = Request
forbidden -- authorization will not help.

After posting and following the issue on Roundup mailing list, the problem got resolved. It was all because of the help provided by Dr Ralf, Berthold Höllmann, and Richard Jones.

As a general guideline, to avoid and resolve such problem, I would suggest the following:

1. Make sure you are sending the Issue Tracker output to the log - this help you to locate any problem and the time when the problem really started showing up.
2. If you encounter this problem then make sure that you locate the offending query - by using log in step 1 or from the feedback of individual users.
3. Run the following two commands and you issue tracker web interface will be rolling again
   roundup-admin -i /path/to/your/tracker retire query16
   roundup-admin -i /path/to/your/tracker set user2 queries=-16

The above two steps are primarily to avoid the interference of offending query, when the web interface is templating to return html pages to the browser. In case you are interested in the entire discussion its here and then here.

Hope this helps all those who face this problem in future.

Aamir's Coke Thanda Campaign

After Amitabh Bachhan, Aamir is one of my favorite actors. Particularly because of his conviction and his remarkable ability to immerse himself into any role he plays.

Check out this interesting slide-show/presentation on indiatimes- about the wonderful Coke Thanda Campaign. The ad in which Aamir played Nepali Gorkha is one of my favorite ads of this campaign.

I have also saved these photos of Aamir on flickr.


Aamir as Nepali Gorkha

Sunrise from balcony

Sunrise from balcony of my house

My name in Flickr photos

You can try yours at metaatem.net/words

Great essays at developer.* and DevSource

Just read three insightful and wonderful essays at developer.*

• Are You a Typecast Developer?
• Personal Chemistry and the Healthy Body
• Ten Reasons You're a Software Developer

'Personal Chemistry and the Healthy Body' is a great general article - must read for everyone. And by the way developer.* is Jolt Awards 2005 Productivity Winner in 'Websites and Developer Networks' category.

Later, browsing from Slashdot.org encountered a huge/long article 'The State of Scripting Universe'

In this artcle experts of Dynamic Languages - Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl - answer questions relating to state of scripting Languages, their future, advantages, disadvantages, and adoption by businesses.

It also has a very long section 'Five Things You Didn't Know You Could Do With Python, PHP, Tcl, Perl, Ruby'

Update:

The above-mentioned wonderful and enlightening essay Personal Chemistry and the Healthy Body is by Gerald M. Weinberg. Coincidentally, I encountered another article about him on Devx.com Adjust or Go Extinct: 50 Years of Conventional Wisdom and Eye-raising anecdotes from Programming veterans

Here is link to his website www.geraldmweinberg.com

Flickr web page

My flickr web page

Photos: www.flickr.com/photos/vikramsjn
Profile: www.flickr.com/people/vikramsjn

Naisha's photo collage

Photo collage of my niece Naisha

Insightful article about Wikipedia

Insightful article about Wikipedia on Wired magazine

Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia on the internet. It is free to use, and anyone can contribute to it - thus it is self-organizing, self-repairing encyclopedia.
Contributing on Wikipedia is so simple that even a 16 year old can contribute.

This article explains, in brief, the encyclopedia building models, how the Wikipedia system works, and what critics say about the functioning of Wikipedia.

Interesting facts from the article:

• 5 yr old, nonprofit venture, Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia on the planet. It offers 500,000 articles in English - compared with Britannica's 80,000 and Encarta's 4,500.
  
  
• In olden days encyclopedias relied on 'One Smart Guy' model e.g. Aristotle tried to record all the knowledge of his time. With Industrial Revolution, it was followed by 'One Best Way' model e.g. group of experts each performing a task working under direction of a manager. Now Wikipedia has provided 'One for All' model - every one can contribute to the knowledge repository - instead of clear lines of authority, it depends on decentralization and self-organization.
  
  
• It is very easy to make changes to Wikipedia, and hence obviously to deface it as well. Still the system works - cases of mass deletions, a common form of vandalism, are corrected in a median time of 2.8 minutes. When an obscenity accompanies mass deletion, the median reduces to 1.7 minutes
  

Must read for every Internet user.

अक्ष्र्माला

आज विकीपीडीया पर भ्‌रम्ण कर्ते हुऐ अक्ष्र्माला के बारे मे पता चला । यह बहूत ही सरल व मुफ़्त साफ़्टवेर है । मैं बहूत समय से एक अच्छे हिन्दी लेख्न साफ़्टवेर की खोज कर रहा था, अब मेरी खोज खतम हुई । मैने तुरन्त इसे डाउन्लोड किया और यह लेख लिखा ।

अब मैं दिल खोल कर कम्प्यूटर पर हिन्दी मे लिख सक्ता हूं ।

आप की जानकारी के लिये विकिपीडिया विकि पर आधारित एक आज़ाद content ज्ञानकोष है । आज़ाद का मतलब न सिर्फ उपयोग की आज़ादी बल्कि बदलने की भी आज़ादी । विकिपीडिया बहुभाषीय है और खुला है । विकिपीडिया लोगों के सहकार से बना है । यह विकिमीडिया फाउन्डेशन द्वारा संचालित है जो एक नॉन प्रॉफिट संस्था है । फरवरी २००४ में इसमें अंग्रेज़ी भाषा में २,१०,००० से ज़्यादा लेख है और अन्य भाषाओं में २,७०,००० से ज़्यादा लेख है ।

A Stormy Rainy day in Lucknow

5th March, 2005 - A Stormy/Rainy day in Lucknow, India

How to Report Bugs Effectively

Resources on How to Report Bugs Effectively

1. Eric Raymond's and Rick Moen's How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
2. mozilla.org's bug writing guidelines
3. Simon Tatham's How to Report Bugs Effectively
4. PHP Bugs How to Report a Bug
5. Joel Spolsky's Painless Bug Tracking
   

vikramsjn at Shimla

vikramsjn at Shimla
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Prince of Ayodhya and Original Ramayan

On 15th Feb, Swaroop mentioned book ‘Prince of Ayodhya’ on his blog. His blog entry got me excited to read the book. He describes the book as ‘awesome’.

I am proud that Ashok Banker came out with a still newer version of Ramayan – one which presents it in competition with epic books like ‘Lords of the Rings’ – and I am proud that it has been received well.

The younger generation of India will get connected to its roots by this work of Bankers.

However, I have decided to read the Original Ramayana (or the near original translation) first than any other version, because the retold version will be:

1. Novelized,
2. Interpolated,
3. Cannot be better than the Original Ramayan
4. Banker’s retold Ramayan was published first in UK and USA, then why should it be read first.

Rama surrounded by Sita, Laxman and Hanuman. Tanjore Painting
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