On Learning Car Driving...

I have felt ashamed of myself for not knowing how to drive a car this long..Not anymore! The month of december, being last of the year made me wonder what did I learn new this year, there are a few notable things but one thing missed out of my long wanting 'TODO' list - Driving a Car!

Joined a driving school here and applied for Learner's License!
Since I was from Driving School, I had an oral test in the RTO Jayanagar office, asking about 10-12 mandatory,cautionary road signs and asking me to demonstrate the hand signals while in LMV, to turn right, turn left and stop.
So got my LLr. without much problems, the driving school guys make your life easier!

So couple of classes are completed and hooo! its a lot different from the bike.. the whole perspective of seeing things change and I still have not let out the beginner's fear, which I should soon or the Instructor is going to be mad at me.
Scared many people already on the road and stalled the car in the middle of the road, causing traffic halt in two places....
My first class was even musing when the Instructor said "Brake" I did the "Accelerator", Good that he had the control with him!
my Poor Memory or High Tension may be the cause!

Tried Reverse Parking a Bit but missed looking at the Tall Pillar Post and again Instructor took the control of break and saved the day for me...

I asked the Instructor for feedback on areas to improve - First leaving out the fear, then the clutch handling and the left turns but he said I will get it with more practise!

These 2 days of experience is giving me a mixed feeling - both fun and fear, but I'm confident that I'll learn soon!

Meanwhile, browsed these two sites on car driving and liked it, good to read before you start your class everytime, like a revision -

http://www.standardshift.com/faq.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_3234_drive-car-with.html

Barcamp 2 in Bangalore

This was the event I was really waiting to attend. It was one load of fun and learning being there. The experience of Barcamp, is something one understands, only by being there.
The benefits of Barcamp I think is that, it triggers more passion in you for technology, ideas, entrepreneurship, it provides you with loads of learning, the best of it was finding great people around! Networking is something that one cannot miss out here.
It is definitely an event to attend...
More slides and Photos links here

Bengalooru Auto!

What is good about Auto-Rickshaws here ? Run on LPG so non-polluting autos, cheaper ( may be not!) I think what I like in these autos is the "Auto Driver's License Display System". This amuses me everytime, I get to see a bit of personal details of the driver, esp. the name of the auto guy, Then I decide in which language I would tell him the directions. If the name ends with some 'appa' or so, like, "sommappa" etc, then I get to speak in my broken kannada. If the name is more with 'Khan' then hindi and some names like 'murugavel' then Tamil and for rest of the names the default language is Hindi.



There are few autos with fradulent meters and my friend Deepti could recognize one today morning and to our wonder, he was ready to take Rs.5 less than what showed on the meter. Strange eh!

The biggest trouble here with autos is that you dont get one when you really need one...

Parry's Pure Refined Sugar

There is a huge bilboard advertising "Parry's Pure Refined Sugar" near the Domlur flyover. I am one of the Regular buyer of this sugar for many months now.
The best thing about this sugar is its refined and looks all white and nice, and the size of granules is smaller and melts as soon as you add it in your coffee...

Unfortunately, last time I bought my grocery, this sugar was not available, I had searched almost in 4 shops to only then buy a different packet with bigger granules and cheaper in price but from same Parry company, it was not a Pure Refined variety and was in a different packing. The same week I noticed this bilboard up there.

Should it be some kind of strategy to hold up the stock, aggressively advertise and then launch it in stores again...

How does it help ? Theory of Demand and Supply ? Cant quite get it, should wait and watch what they come up with.

Another Blog on Parry's sugar marketing analysis which I liked reading...
http://marketingpractice.blogspot.com/2006/11/parrys-sugar-branding-commodity.html

December 04 2006 An update...
The bilboard there is gone! was there merely just for 2 weeks, now is replaced with ad for pondicherry.. wanted to take a picture of it for this blog.. but never did that!

Garbage Collection

Makes me immediately think of all possible things - From C# GC, PC Recycle Bin to the literal Trash Bin at Home..
Well I recently came across a "release build only bug" which happened when I used Mutex and the actual reason being, the Garbage Collection cleaning up the variables when out of the scope immediately in release build. Some refactoring got it working.
Similar one discussed here: http://weblogs.asp.net/savanness/archive/2003/05/23/7496.aspx

On a different Note, a recent visit to St.John's Hospital made me wonder about the garbage collection for the hospital waste. Then googled to find this one: http://www.medwasteind.org/
oh wow, lotsa things, how great it is to run a good hospital!

One of the Best things I saw here in Bangalore, the guy who comes to collect our garbage bags (atleast the one who comes to our street everyday) has all the patience to seggregate the garbage out (unlike many people who dont). And I feel, the garbage collection infrastructure has to improve a lot in India...

Ready Steady and "Muv"

www.mymuv.com is up and running, will be launched officially to public very soon...
a trends tracking website
and kudos to my colleagues who developed it..
after all the hardwork I've seen them do, the brainstorms, the creativity that ebbed till the Huge treemy fish cutout that we all made..(now pasted on our office wall) every bit of the project seemed enjoyable!
Hope everybody else likes the site as much as we all here do!

Foodie Scribble -- Sprout Dosa

Ok, I know I harvested too much of sprouts... little did I remember that I will be out of town this weekend, and my husband is not a salad lover unlike me...
Not having a heart to put away with it, an idea clicked to me..

I had ground two handfuls of sprouts, a little salt, few green chillies, a cube of ginger and a pinch of asafoetida into a smooth paste. Added two ladles of Dosa batter (readymade from shop) to it ( more as a binding agent) and mixed well. it was smooth and poured it on tava like our normal dosa... wow, came out well... tasted more like 'pesaret' and a little like 'adai'

One more successful " My experiments with food " and my hubby gave me a pass mark and a smile 0:-)

Ok, an additional topping for your dosa could be sprinkling some moong sprout, grated carrot, Chopped onions, tomatoes, corriander leaves and some grated cheese... (if you really crave for pizzas in some form.. he hee! )

Quotes that adorn mail signatures

I used to keep them in my mail signatures earlier(and a few now)... this is just a recollection....

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
- Theodore Roosevelt

We look forward to the time when the power of love will replace the love of power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace.
- William Ewart Gladstone

"Nothing for me; no matter whether the thing is good, bad or indifferent; I do not care for it; I sacrifice all unto Thee." - extract from Karma Yoga by Swami Vivekananda.

Tech Scribble - Firefox Extension Samples URL

The best resource I used for creating an extesion for firefox.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Example_code

This one comes handy lot of times.

Tech Scribble - Using Virtual PC - Part II

Okay, just installing VM is not enough, Go to the Actions menu after opening the VM and there install the virtual machine additions. This provides a lots of features like shared folder usage. Now we can create a shared folder from setting and start sharing files between the host and the VM running.

This VM helped me to figure out one issue on writing registry entries of my application.

Tech Scribble - Using Virtual PC

Atlast, the solution for testing windows application in different environments. I find it difficult most of the times to create suitable testing environments and sometimes, just being a developer cant save the day, you have to think of all possible test cases and try it out in different environments, figure out problems and fix it even before the actual testing team can do it.

then there is this Microsoft Virtual PC, as saviour...

All you do is get the Virtual PC 2004 installer (45 day trial version is available)
and install it on your system. Then create Virtual Machine, map Virtual Harddrive and install OS on the virtual system.

Installing OS was a little time taking as I did not have a CDROM attached to my desktop. Finally got one CDROM fixed to my desktop. The virtual PC did not recognize this CD drive (I was not able to figure out why) So installed Virtual CD v5 and created a Virtual CD of the XP setup.

In the VM, from CD menu, I selected Map physical drive (points to a virtual CD drive) and rebooted the VM(Virtual Machine). and cool, it detected the XP setup.


(well, I wonder why VM did not recognize the physical CDROM, anyway virtual CD was useful in making it work, but Now I am thinking should I use these virtual CD everytime I try to install anything on my VM ?)

Now I can test the windows application in a cleaner XP machine and play with it, changing all possible things I can... and from my own comfortable seat! (not to walk to different cubicles to try out things)

This is just what I wanted. Wow to Virtual PC, this is so real! and I got a chance to try it after so long....

Wikimapia

spotted our apartment today... My mom and dad stay there now and me in Bangalore with my husband.
chromepet

Arun was asking me why dont I blog... I do.. but bits and pieces in different sites (in sulekha...) and I dont have one single place to track all of them, so better to put it in one place..
May be just not about fiddle and the doodles here... more of scribbles too...... :p

Music Links bookmarked...

Good resource I've in my bookmarks for a longtime...

http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/Homepages/shivkuma/personal/music/ - A very good site to learn carnatic music.

http://www.musicindiaonline.com - to hear more carnatic music.

"The sound of your violin is miserable...

Thats the statement which any violinist cannot bear and any learner gets demotivated easily.

Following these easy steps may result in good finer sound,

1. give more pressure to the bow ( using a full bow )
2. press the string on the note location distinctly
3. Donot feel shy and lessen the volume thereby ( If you think your neighbours would hear you and mock you for anything, that could just be the silliest assumption you could make )
everytime you play, feel as if you want to listen to the best sound from your violin and feel as if "You, Yourself and her, the Violin"

Last but not the least, as always, concentrate on the ThAlA ( maintaining the tempo) and be distinct on the note ( follow the rules of rAgA and LakshAnA)

The finer the sound, the finer the artist you become!

Shruthi MAthA Laya PithA

Shruthi - Pitch of the note is the mother of music and the father is Laya, which is the 'ThAla' or the tempo.

Thala is very important for any kind of music. In classical carnatic style of playing violin, the thala is put with the legs as the hands play the instrument.

As you sit on the floor/chair in a squat position, with your right leg stretched before to place the instrument, each tap should be put with the left knee, with a slight tap on the floor movement and the countings are done using right toes tapping floor again..

It takes a lot of practise to get this synchronised!

Careful, not to miss a tap...

Voila, the Violin...

Violin is known to be the Queen of Instruments.

She is indeed the queen, a great beauty with her shrill pleasant music can take you to eternity, forgetting thy self, feeling humble and bowing to the spell she can cast.

Going to her history,
Violin is said to have originated in Italy roughly around 13B.C. Violin itself is an Itailian word, when the french had called it 'Violon' and german calling it 'Gaige' and 'Fiddle' in English.
The Violin family has her big sister Viola, aunts Viola Pamposa, violon cello, cousins lira-da-braccio, bass viol, Lyra viol and granma violetta Marina and the little sister Viola d'amore...

Mr. Andrea Amati of Italy had made first few violins in 1525AD , followed by his grandson Nicolo Amati who made the first few violin masterpieces.
We salut them for their wonderful contribution to the mankind!

Then on, it had continued to take several phenomenal growth and modifications to the models, She became what she is now with GDAE strings from left to right.

In India, we have Violin tuned for Carnatic style which is far different from the western way of playing it. Violin is tuned for sa- pa- Sa- Pa.

It is very difficult to learn and master violin as it has no reeds that separates out the notes distinctly. It has a smooth fingerboard where the notes are differentiated by pressing the strings at different levels and running the bow along the string.

It is definitely very interesting to make music out of this instrument!