Just my two cents...

On the Indian Railways site, you can search for trains between certain important stations here. Once you specify the locations between which you want to travel and click the Get It button, you are presented with a search results page. You can select a train and get its seat availability, fare and schedule for the selected dates between the two stations.

When I tried it, I found something. Everytime you click on the Get Availability button, you are presented a message box that says,

Please note:
"PNR status" and "Accommodation availability" queries are very network
resource intensive queries. You are therefore requested to please wait for
sometime and not to re-submit the same.
Thanks for your co-operation.

Also notice that the three buttons on the top and bottom of the search results have their captions changed to Wait For Availability!

OK, guys, I get it. You want to prevent people from clicking the button repeatedly out of impatience. But for that, you can better disable the button, right?

The remaining two buttons (Get Fare/Get Schedule) also have this scenario - captions changing to inform the user to sit quiet. Disabling the button would be a better solution.

Some nice YouTube videos

A post after a long time!!! What made me post now? Two great, heart-warming videos I saw yesterday on YouTube:

The famous 'Mile Sur Mera Tumhara' video. Anyone who spent his childhood in India and watched Doordarshan during that time will remember this. I almost felt a rush of childhood memories in me while watching this video. More info can be found on Wikipedia.

A nice video on true love. Am not sure about the country of origin, but the title of the video is 'Kiss'. It was fresh, heart-warming, the actors were great, the music was good. Overall, the video is downright superb!!

Gmail's Loading...

When you login to Gmail, you must have seen 'Loading...' appear against a red background on the top right of your browser window. Nothing special about it, I thought, until I scrolled down. I was surprised. Instead of moving up like the other elements, the 'Loading..' thing stayed there.

I was stumped. From then on, I have been searching around on the Net to determine how to do that. It turns out that this effect is due to a CSS property which we often use - position. We have used this attribute to position elements on our page by giving it the value, absolute. Ok, to get the effect of Gmail's 'Loading..', use fixed instead of absolute, and hey presto!! it stays there, even if you scroll.

But there's a catch here. It works only in standards-compliant browsers, which means FF/Mozilla/Opera render it as expected, but not IE. That's a problem to which I haven't found a workaround, although you can use the onscroll event and move the element by the amount scrolled. I tried it out, but it doesn't give the effect required. There is a time delay in moving the element to the position you want, which means for that time period, you won't see the element there. After this time period, the element arrives at the position you want.

But what puzzles me is how Gmail achieved the effect in IE. If anyone knows how Gmail achieved this, leave a comment.

War of Currents

While in college, doing my B.Sc. Physics course, we were taught alternating and direct currents. The books prescribed to us weren't really great; they were designed to make us pass the exam. So I was always confused between these two types of currents.

Why the hell were we taught these? Was it just because there were two types of currents in this world, and hence they have to be taught? Or was it because one had an advantage over the other? I never knew.

Today, I was browsing through Wikipedia when I decided to end this discrepancy in my knowledge for ever. I began with AC and very soon stumbled upon War of Currents.

The article details a time in history when the supporters of AC and DC argued over which was better. It superbly explains the history behind the two forms of current, and why we use AC for most applications today.

Viewing Current HTML Source in AJAX

Now this is a solution I have been waiting for a long time. In AJAX based applications, everyone knows that it is possible to change the HTML without even refreshing the page. Here's the catch: Suppose you have done so, and now face an error. You want to debug the HTML, but now find that when you do a View Source, you get the HTML that was originally sent by the browser, not the current HTML. This can get increasingly frustrating, and sometimes even gets on your nerves. Why can't there be an option to view the current HTML? Many of the developers in my office resigned to this fact.

But fear not, frustrate not. You do have an option, a way out. In fact, two ways, if you are using Firefox/Mozilla apart from IE. If you are using Firefox/Mozilla, simply install the WebDeveloper extension. This is very useful for web developers like you and me. Apart from the various options it provides, click on the View Source -> View Generated Source menu option and hey presto!!, you get what you want.

OK, that one was for Firefox/Mozilla. What about IE? For that, you must visit this blog entry by Rumen Stankov.

Update (10th Jan 2008): Looks like the link to the Rumen Stankov article doesn't work. Well, I'll post the info here. In IE, to get the latest HTML source, just type

javascript:“<xmp>” + document.body.innerHTML + “</xmp>”

in the address bar and press Enter.

A nice week

Its been a pretty nice week for me. The entire week was spent in support calls, and as a consequence, I learnt a lot about the software we support.
Of course, a lot of my work is pending. I was not able to do any of my development work because support calls took up most of my time. But in the end, I did learn something about the software I support. And I believe some of these should hold me in good stead.

Helmets need wipers

The rain was intense. Not as intense as the rain last November, though. But it still made its presence felt. I felt old feelings rushing back in me. One of those was that helmets needed wipers. Yep, like the ones you have in cars. Driving requires concentration; driving through rain requires much more concentration;worser still, driving through rain at night requires the highest levels of concentration. Matters are made worse if the view through your helmet is clouded with rain drops. Hence it would be nice if helmets came attached with wipers

Ya, I know, the idea sounds ridiculous, still...

Btw, anyone has any idea on what to do in such situations?

Update (9th July 2008): Google Analytics says I am not the only one searching for such a helmet. Hence, if anyone does come across such a helmet, please do leave a comment as to where you bought it.

School Van

Today morning, I was driving my scooter towards the office. Arriving at the Sardar Patel Road - Velachery Road junction, I encountered the usual peak hour traffic that occurs here. I moved towards the signal as much as I could, squeezing between the gaps, until there was no more place to go. I was now stationary behind a guy on his scooter. To his right stood a school van.

I slowly came to realize that the guy was playing and having fun with the kid sitting in the last seat of the van. The guy would put his hand into the van and poke the kid. The kid immediately tried to catch his hand, but would fail. The guy would take his hand out and laugh.
This continued for sometime until the car in front of the guy moved forward a little. The guy and me followed suit. Now I was alongside the kid.

The kid was quiet for sometime. Then an adult in the van(presumably his teacher) asked him something. The kid immediately pointed to me and began to complain. I, just to build up the fun, immediately brought a "Oops-I-have-been-caught-red-handed" expression on my face. The teacher laughed!!

The signal turned green. We continued our ways, until we came to the Anna University signal. By then, most of the kids at the back had climbed their seats and were viewing the traffic that followed the van. Most of them were making faces - grinning and showing their baby teeth and making naughty faces. Everyone behind the van were laughing - irrespective of who they were.

I found a gap between the vehicles, and moved forward. It was then that I realized that those behind the van could have moved too - but they didn't. They wanted to stay behind the van and watch these kids' antics.


What a way to start the day, I thought.

The 500 mile email problem

I am a frequent visitor of the Joel Reddit. This reddit contains some interesting articles on just about anything related to computers. One such article which I found a few days back is pretty interesting.

The author is a person running the campus email system. He gets a call one day from a person in the statistics department who cribs that their emails are not delivered to locations farther than 500 miles. Stumped? Take a look at how he solves it.

Mobile Puncher

Saw this first on Gandhi Mandapam Road. A scooter tyre hung from a nail driven into a tree, with the sides of the tyre painted in yellow all round. The words "Mobile Puncher" are then painted on the yellow band, with a mobile number appearing underneath it.

In case you got it wrong, "Mobile Puncher" doesn't punch mobiles to pieces. In case your vehicle has a puncture, then you can call up the number advertised and they come and rectify the tyre. Such ads have now proliferated all over the city and are now found in many places.

Yep, you got it right. It should read "Mobile Puncture".

Help help!! Blogging's getting to me!!

Yep, that's true. Before starting my blog, I used to wonder what I would blog about. There seemed to be nothing in life or about me which I could blog. (Am shocked as I write this. How could there be nothing to blog about, my mind tells me.) Nowadays, I just can't seem to exist without posting once in a while. Also, I constantly feel a need to visit my blog and re-read all my posts; see if I can make them better.

Interestingly, these are the same feelings which I felt rushing through me when I first visited Wikipedia. I felt like a baby who learns something new when I made my first edit. (I now remember, my first edit was to the Bollywood page). Once I got the hang of Wiki, I used to frequently make changes, and check out the latest changes. But I never created an account there; I used to think, "What articles are we going to write? What do I know to write on Wiki?" But in the end, I did create an account, and from then on, I would constantly make edits as well as repetitively check the Recent Changes and New Pages. Incidentally, somewhere last month, my edit count crossed 500, with two new pages to my name.

Blogging has become so addictive that I constantly think of what to post. In fact, this post is currently being written using the Performancing extension for Firefox!! I faced this situation with Wiki; but I am now much better as far as Wiki is concerned. I don't visit that much - just maybe twice or thrice a day - and I stay no more than 15 minutes there. Atleast as far as Wiki was concerned, I would be forced to work when the net was down in my office; however, Performancing allows me to save my posts and publish them later, which means I continue to blog even if the net is down!! Surely, I'll have to do something about blogging.

In the world of Wiki, people with these symptoms have a name: Wikipediholics. Is there any such for blogging?

Blank Noise Project & I Don't Want Dowry.com

I subscribe to the Chandigarh-based Tribune newspaper's e-newsletter. As usual, the newsletter for the 25th of June, 2006 arrived in my Inbox. Like all newspapers, they too have weekly specials, one among them being 'Society'. On that day, the Tribune had carried an article about how women blog as much as men. They also had another article about Indian women bloggers titled 'Sisters at home'. (read both here)

The article about Indian women went on to describe a blog known as the 'Blank Noise Project'. If you are a regular reader of The Hindu, then you might have come across Kalpana Sharma's articles on women in The Hindu's Sunday supplement, 'Magazine'. Some time back, she had mentioned about the Blank Noise Project. I had wanted to check the site, but with other pressures, it went to the back of my mind. The Tribune article reminded me of it.

The aim of the Blank Noise Project project is simple: Whenever a woman is eve-teased, the first question that pops up is, "What was she wearing?" The woman may have worn the dress because she likes it, or because she wants to be up-to-date in the latest trends, but never to be eve-teased. So the Project aims to fight this tendency, in a unique way: It asks women to send in the dresses they were wearing when they were eve-teased. (Hmmm.... should say its a nice plan).

Also, check out their 'Eve Teasers Unwanted' list (on the right side of the page). Q: What were the eve-teasers thinking when they posed for those photos?

Now onto the I Don't Want Dowry site. I Don't Want Dowry is actually a matrimonial site. The image on their home page aptly sums up what the site stands for. What does it stand for? Well, unlike traditional matrimonial sites, (where you decide to meet up with a prospective groom, and then find out that he is the I-want-dowry type), I Don't Want Dowry is exclusively for prospective brides/grooms who oppose dowry. So, if you are against dowry, then you can feel confident that the groom whom you met on this site is like-minded. That ups your confidence a bit, right?

The makers of this site say that their aim is

"eventually to eradicate the Dowry system which is a thousand years old setback in the society!"

They also claim that this is the first service of its kind in the world. Registration on the site is free.

Web Developer extension

Those of you who are using Firefox/Mozilla/Flock/Seamonkey probably know about the Web Developer extension. If you don't, well, it is an extension that is a boon for web page developers. It provides various features using which you can test your web page. For more info, go here.

Well, this post is not to praise Web Developer, but rather about what I saw just yesterday. By default, the extension installs with icons and text, (i.e.) it looks like this.

The 'View Source' you see is the last menu option in the toolbar. However, menu options do exist even after View Source. To view those, use any of the following two ways:

1. Click Tools(on your browser) -> Extensions -> Web Developer -> Options. Select General in the left list, and select 'Text' in the 'Display Toolbar With' combo.
2. Slam the mouse pointer to the end of the toolbar and click. You should get a menu with the options: Persist Styles, Reset Page, Options..., Help..., and About.... Select Options. Select General in the left list, and select 'Text' in the 'Display Toolbar With' combo.

Now your toolbar looks like this:
The 'Q' specifies which rendering mode the current page uses. Q is for Quirks, while S is for Standards.

The 'N' specifies whether JS errors have occurred on the page. If yes, 'N' changes to 'E'. However, I had a page where there were errors on page load, but the extension showed 'N'.

Now, why did I not come across this information on any other page?

Update: Could this be a resolution problem? The computer in which I got this problem had a maximum resolution of 800 * 600. Now on my new computer with a resolution set to * 768, I don't face this issue.

Why experience is valued

So there I am, hurriedly departing for office in the morning, with my mind constantly reminding me that I have to leave my scooter for service, and then take a bus to office, when my mom comes over and tells me not to forget the lunch box.

I say, "I never forget it."

Mom says, "It's not that. Last time, when Anna (Tamil for elder brother) delivered his vehicle for service, he forgot to take his lunch box from under the seat. You don't do the same thing again."

I say, pretty dismissively, "Ya ya. I won't forget it."

When I reached the workshop, I found that I was at the end of a long line of people who had come to deliver their vehicles for service. After a wait of what seemed an eternity, (and what was actually 45 minutes), I told the guy that this was a free service, and that the brake lever was loose. The service rep. told me that my vehicle would be delivered the next day.

Already pretty late, I hurried towards the bus stop. Halfway there, I realized something: I did not have my lunch bag with me!! It was still in the vehicle!!

I ran back to the workshop. I told the security guy there that I needed my lunch bag and asked him for the keys to my scooter. The guy searched in a tray of keys, but told me mine wasn't to be found. I thought, "Maybe they must have left it in the scooter itself", and looked over at my scooter, but no, it wasn't. I searched the tray; no key. Finally, another guy came and he searched - again no key. He said, "Maybe it's in here" and opened a cupboard. There were a few keys in there, and among them, mine!!

I ran over to my scooter, opened the seat, and retrieved my lunch bag. I ran back to the dealer, deposited the keys, and ran to the bus stop.

Hmmm... so much for experience.

Guy in bus with helmet

Now why would a guy travelling in a bus have a helmet? Sounds strange, right?

Well, that is exactly the thought that travelled through the minds of fellow passengers when, 3 months back, I boarded the bus with a helmet. No one really noticed (or atleast, I didn't notice anyone noticing me) until the bus came to a few metres of my destination. I got up to alight. The bus was crowded, and I couldn't move with a bag strapped over my shoulder and the helmet at my side. So, I did what I felt was logical: I lifted the helmet above the heads of the passengers and moved towards the exit.

The guy standing next to me looked at me strangely. I realized what he must have thought and smiled at him. He too sheepishly smiled back. But he still had the doubt unexplained and it was revealed in his eyes. The bus came to the stop. Not wanting to leave him in that state, I explained, "I had left my vehicle at the workshop for service, and they are delivering it today. That's why I am having the helmet with me."

The guy and me both flashed a knowing grin. I got off the bus.

Now that's one reason why a guy needs a helmet while travelling in a bus!!! ;-)

Why am I posting this now? It's three months since this happened, right? Well, for two reasons:
a) I began blogging only recently, and
b) Yesterday morning, I delivered my vehicle at the workshop for service. ;-)

Customary first post

Hi people!!! This is my first posting. I am a software developer by profession, hoping to make my mark (some mark) in this world. I love anything that is interesting. In general, I like to learn as much as possible about this world.

I intend this blog to be a record of all my experiences as I face them in life. I also intend this blog to be a record of all new things I learn; so if there is something that you do not like or which gives you that less-knowledgeable feeling(tee hee hee), just move on to the next post!!!