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.