Girish Gangadharan - Simply put

Pretty sad...

2005-12-12T22:10:00.000-06:00

Was catching up on my blog subscriptions and came across this. This guy Rajeev Srinivasan is hard core but sometimes there's undeniable truth in his posts. Like the one mentioned above.

Sad but true.

And oh by the way....i released the next version of Select Search 1.1

Added the most important feature everyone wanted - Options.

Customize Select Search the way you like it.

You can now add to the Select Search menu, the sites and search engines you want(from the choices available).

Questions? Comments? Talk about it here.

Search Select 1.0 Release

2005-11-27T20:11:00.000-06:00

This is not how i wanted the final version to be. But anyways...

Here's the official release of Search Select 1.0.

Thanks a million to Jeremy who let me host this extension on his site and also created a domain for it.

http://selectsearch.23hd.com

Post your comments and suggestions here if you have any.

And before i forget, if you have Cute Menus installed, then you can see the lil' bitty icon beside Select Search in the context menu, that Jeremy created for me, which is pretty cool. The extension will work just as fine even without it.

I've also added background to the menus which might seem cheesy to some people but heyy...that's for the kid in me :)

Search this...

2005-11-21T23:30:00.000-06:00

Well, I’ve decided to throw my bit of knowledge into the big spinning wheel of Technology.

Although what I have to offer is only a mere speck of what exists out there, I have enjoyed the hours I have put into creating, what I feel, will enhance your search experience.

I have created an extension to be used in Mozilla Firefox.

What can I say? I love Firefox (though I am a die-hard fan of Opera).

You can get firefox and check it out for yourself if you already haven't.

So what does my extension do? Let me give you a scenario.

Let’s say I’m searching for a MP-3 player (again...he he) and I want to do some price comparisons.

Usually this is what i would do. I go to bestbuy.com for example and I find the MP-3 player I like. Then hit “ctrl + t”, type in shopping.com in the address bar and hit go. In the site that opens up, I enter what I want to compare it's price and have my results.

Good.

But do you know what would make it great?

Staying at Bestbuy’s website, highlighting the text (i.e. IPod shuffle) right-click and going to “Advanced Search” where I have choices at my fingertips.

In this case, I would choose “Price Comparison.”

From there I can choose from the popular sites: Shopping, NexTag, Price Grabber & CNET. I just pick and click.

Or hey, what if you’re a newbie to the Tech world and have no idea what an IPod is (unthinkable, I know.)

Just highlight the word IPod, right click and this time choose "Wikipedia" under "Quick Search" menu or for the slower ones, pick “Definitions and Acronyms.” under "Advanced Search" menu. From there you may choose from Dictionary or Acronym Finder.

Oh and incase you are wondering, the definition for IPod is “a trademarked class of portable digital audio players designed and marketed by Apple Computer .”

So, have I got your attention yet?

Ok, you are at Starbuck’s site and wonder just how healthy coffee really is to your body.

Obviously you haven’t had a cup of coffee yet if you’re thinking like this.

So you probably get the idea now...select text, right click, advanced search, choose “Health” and go to WebMD.

In which you will find that Decaf coffee may raise heart risks. Woooooow,caffeine rocks!!

So these are just two examples, “Price Comparison” & Definitions and Acronyms.”

You can also pick an address on a page and look up the location in Google and Yahoo maps. Yupp...No copy-pasting line by line anymore.

But wait...there's more...

You still have “Mapping, Shopping, Jobs, Product Reviews, Movies & TV, or Music” to choose from in Advanced Search.

And well, I guess it’s not all about Advanced Search. You could choose from Quick Search if you have a desire to.

In which you will have choices from “Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves, A9, Wikipedia, or Search All (Dogpile).”

So this is my project. I call it “Select Search Beta”.

It currently is getting a “Look” and hot slogan that reads “make your right click more powerful than your left” (A big thank you to my co-worker Jeremy Johnson)

I intend on putting “Select Search” on its own site so you can read about it, install it and experience the magic (yeah...right!) for yourself.

Again, a creative mind required and so another thank you to Jeremy for that idea.

Thanksgiving part now...

Mapz librarian helped me test it and provided some valuable feedback. So did Russ, Mike and Luis.

Thanks guys.

With all the valuable feedback, when all its elements are aligned and it has reached is creative climax, I will put the link on my blog for all to download.

Will keep you updated on its birth date.

GirishG.com revamped

2005-11-07T10:49:00.000-06:00

Finally...even though half baked, i updated my website with its new looks. Like i said, not completely done yet, but the way i was procrastinating it, seemed like i'd never make it live.

Probably gonna get beaten up for the color combination i've chosen (i suck at picking the right colors) , but heyy....that's what criticism is for. If you can suggest a better combo, i'm all ears.

I bought GirishGangadharan.com and redirected GirishG.com to the new one. But i think the email girish AT girishg DOT com should still work since i get one free email address for registering the domain even though i cancelled the hosting with GoDaddy.

Anyways, check out my "all new" website and lemme know what you think.

Till next time,

Happy Living.

Dell from Hell...

2005-10-10T22:52:00.000-05:00

Wow, where I do I begin on this one?

Ah yes, the evil underground customer service ring out to screw the world.

This time they have disguised themselves as Dell Representatives.

So after much consideration, I decided to purchase a Dell Inspiron 6000 with a WSXGA LCD screen and a bunch of other cool superdy dooper specs that simply means RAW POWER.

On September 8th I placed a phone order and received a confirmation number. Everything went smoothly.

So I thought.

To avoid tax I had my order shipped to my friend in New Hampshire.

Now I was just playing the waiting game.

And wait I did.

I checked the status of the order online and it showed pending.

A week later, it still showed pending!

So, I called Dell.

They asked for my confirmation number and in return proceeded to tell me that that confirmation number is not valid and apparently the order was never placed.

Here we go!

Hmmm. Excellent time to get some type of compensation for the delay.

They were happy to give me a $75.00 coupon.

And so the waiting game continued...

Oddly enough I received a phone call from them the following week explaining to me that they were out of the $75.00 coupons and would have to give me a $100 one.

After giving it much thought (for approx. about a second) I said ok!

And so everything was going as planned.

My friend received the laptop and shipped it to me.

I opened the box and...

WRONG LAPTOP!

No WSXGA but instead WXGA.

I immediately called Dell, in which they said, "No problem, we will have someone pick up the order."

Amazingly it took them only ONE day to pick it up; if only there customer service were as amazing as that!

So this should be an easy mistake to fix. Just place the same order and hey, use the $100 coupon I received. Excellent!

So, I'm back on the phone with Dell placing the same order. Except there is one problem. About a $400 problem.

The promotion is over!

And even though it was THEIR mistake they cannot give me the same deal.

So I managed to rework the specs and even upgrade from a 512mb to a 1GB. This raised the price $100 from the original amount I was going to pay, but the coupon would cover that.

Great! Order is placed and I receive an acknowledgement email NOT a confirmation. I was told I would receive a confirmation via email within one day.

Four days pass.

Again calling Dell, in which by now I should have them on speed dial!

I can't even believe what I'm about to type next.

The Dell representative replies "Sir, we show no order placed."

WHAT THE F ***?

What do you means the order was not placed? I got an email ackowledgment from Dell.

"Sir, we don't know what happened there. You will need to place the order again."

So we have to redo the order once again. The price they gave me was $100 more. This is BULL S***!

"Hey, what about my coupon?" I asked.

"Sorry sir, that has been redeemed and can not be reused."

Ok, how can an order never have been placed and yet the coupon used is redeemed? That question will never be answered.

However, after battling with these guys for an hour I was able to get another $100 coupon.

With restrictions of course! I have to use my credit card and not my preferred account in order to redeem it. At this point, who cares!

So once again, i go online praying that everything goes fine this time.

Order placed. Received confirmation email. My laptop is shipped to New Hampshire.

I get a call from my friend who not only tells me he received it but um..."Dude, you got two shipments!"

What the hell!!!

At this point everyone at Dell knows me by first name!

Apparently the FIRST order did go through and therefore I was charged twice!

I was instructed to tell my friend to NOT ACCEPT THE PACKAGE. If he did I would have to pay to have it shipped back.

Seriously, could someone please wake me up from this nightmare!

By now I have built up enough confidence in asking for some type of compensation.

Dell offered me a 720 printer (worth $49).

I declined saying I didn't want a printer and that instead I would prefer a $100 coupon. Sound familiar?

The conversation was friendlier and briefer than last time.

Initially the representative declined the request. I asked them to talk to their supervisor. Again, declined!

And again, I pushed!

Hello $100 coupon...with only 30 days to redeem.

I still have not received my laptop but I should be getting it by Thursday.

Coupons anyone? Talk to me...

Aryan Invasion theory

2005-10-07T09:32:00.002-05:00

Wonder when this is going to be declared official by the Govt. Of India. This should be updated even in all our textbooks and history keepers( whoever they are) should push to update the official records about this.

Here's the latest findings about Aryan invasion

No playa and my name is Chris…

2005-10-06T22:28:00.000-05:00

My mp3 playa is no more.

I could go for the bigger GB but then I had to think reasonably.

Asking myself all those responsible questions we always ask ourselves AFTER the fact.

How often will I use this?

Is it worth the money?

So my answers were: not often.

I can’t use it in the car, no need to in the apartment.

And as far as work in concerned, I’m not the type to listen to music while working.

And if I did have a need I have up to 4 gb on my office server.

Thanks to the coworkers who dumped the music collection onto the server.

Maybe if I were a traveler sitting in airports, riding trains…

And as far as the money…I’ve other things to spend it on.

Like my new laptop & my student loans.

I enjoyed the concept and perhaps when I have money to blow and time I will reconsider.

So I returned the mp3 to Circuit City.

In which I thought I had the receipt but no problem they can pull it up with my phone number.

And the customer service (kid) asked “Ok sir you live in Carrolton and your name is Chris Israelson?”

Ummmm.. NO!

Well your number shows up with this information.

Well I’m not Chris.

Do you remember which credit card you put it on? We can pull it up from there.

Hmmm….thumbing through my collection. Bingo.

Hand it to the guy.

Okay sir your credit card purchase is still showing up under the name Chris Israelson.

Do I look like I would have the name Chris Israelson?

C’mon!

Anyways…

They proceeded to get another person involved.

And then another, being the one that checked me out initially.

I said “hey remember me; you helped me with the mp3 playa?”

She looked at me like I was from mars.

I guess if I were a scared teen thinking I did something wrong I would play dumb.

Obviously my concern here was the fact that my credit card was under someone else name in their system.

I mean could this Chris guy go on a shopping binge with my card?

They (all 3) tried reassuring me that Chris doesn’t have access to it.

That when a buyer checks out they ask for a phone number.

That Chris probably had my number at one time.

The girl that helped me, whom suddenly lost her tongue, never checked what name came up when she typed the phone number in to ring up my purchase.

And as far as the credit card, since the name was not changed at that moment I bought an mp3 under Chris’s name.

To further reassure me they said they would physically have to have my credit card to pull up any information.

Ok. I get it. So let’s change the information under that phone number.

Sorry Sir you have to purchase something for us to access the number.

WHAT?

You know I’m starting to think there is some kind of evil underground customer service rings purposely out to screw the world.

It’s like they meticulously have everything planned.

So just when I was thinking that the Vet and Circuit City was lacking in the definition of customer service this underground ring was planning their greatest hit against me.

Stay tuned for what I feel is an award winning attempt to screw me on my purchase of a Dell laptop.

What about Mia?

2005-10-05T19:30:00.000-05:00

Well it’s official. Any chances of little Mia's running around have ceased.

Last Monday Mia went under the knife.

I don’t think she quite understood why I wasn’t feeding her or giving her water that morning.

These are the instructions the Vet office gave me prior to her surgery day.

It tugged at my heart to see her confused; somewhat out of her element.

When I picked her up the following day she was a bit groggy with less hair on her belly and approx. 5” of stitches of where her motherhood was stripped away.

The vet assistant gave me the bill and told me that the stitches on Mia would dissolve and there was no need to bring her in.

Cool I thought.

Of course I would need to keep an eye on her to make sure she would not chew or lick the stitches before they dissolved; as this could cause an infection.

So everything seemed great.

I get home and Mia seems happy to climb in her crate for a long nap.

That’s fine. I’ll just read the information sheet the vet gave me with the bill.

Hmmm that’s interesting.

"Bring your animal in approx 2 weeks to have stitches removed."

What?

Didn’t the assistant tell me that they would dissolve?

Did I misunderstand her?

So I call them.

Her response “Oh no, it just says that. They are dissolvable stitches. You don’t have to bring her in.”

"Well why does the sheet say to bring her back in?" I asked.

"Well sir I told you that you didn’t have to bring her in didn’t I?"

"Yes, but the paper says otherwise."

"Yeah but we just give the same paper out to every customer"

I replied, "Yes i understand that its just that its misleading. "

"Yeah but i don't understand, you were told what to do....

Um...so...uh..why is there a problem sir?"

At this point i just gave up. And said, " Alright thanks a lot."

I offered my customer advice in how they should correct the writing and the assistant just kept saying but I told you in person and that’s all that counts.

Ok. I’m just thinking about all those whose memory is not as sharp as mine.

Imagine they looking at the paper a week later and saying “Oh no, I was to bring my pet in to have the stitches removed.”

Show up at the vet’s office and the same assistant saying “Sir/ Mam didn’t I tell you the stitches would resolve?!”

What the hell. This is a simple problem that could easily be resolved with a couple of strokes from a keyboard.

Anyways...

So Mia is healing nicely and so far the stitches are still in tact.

And I’m hoping dissolving!

This last Sunday, Oct. 2, I took her to her first training class.

It is time for my Mia to learn some manners.

I can tell she’s is going to be a quick learner.

Of course she already knows how to sit and shake.

In which she graciously flaunted.

There was another puppy in the class.

The owners claimed it was a Labrador.

Notice I said “claimed.”

So the trainer used Mia as the assistant in his training techniques.

She did everything right.

While the other puppy was barking and showing all the reasons why it needed to be in training!

My Mia just sat there being a good girl!

I was so proud; grinning from ear to ear.

This first class was just basic dos and don’ts.

What collar/leash to use, how to hold your hand with the treats to get your dog to perform a trick, how to keep him/her from jumping.

The class is every Sunday at 3 o’clock for an hour.

I’m certain I will have much more to brag um…excuse me, BLOG about with the training to come.

Lost and found (not)...

2005-09-25T13:29:00.000-05:00

Seems like something remarkable ALWAYS happens in my life. I was working late on friday and wanted to take a break after hours of brain-hurricaning(i just made that word up. Brain storming is old-school. Hurricanes are "in".)

So decided to blog. It was a pretty big post. I enjoyed writing each and every word of it.

It was around 10.30pm that my friend called. And i got out of the office to let her in. And that's when it dawned upon me that "Wow..you are locked out Mr.Girish Gangadharan!"

Remember...i haven't clicked on the "Publish post" button yet.

So...anyways, i and my friend were standing outside my office door staring at the door knob, wondering if i should be happy that i wasn't locked out of the building.

But guess what? Didn't matter at that point if i was inside the building or outside. Cuz, God dang it. I had all my stuff on my office desk including my wallet, keys and the most important of all, my CELL PHONE.

What would a man do if he were in such a situation?

What were my options at that point?

All offices in the building were closed.

Yeah...you know what? Screw it. I'll just go home.

Ohh...that's right. I can't. Cuz my car keys are on my desk. So i have to walk to my apartment.

Fabulous!

"It's less than 2 miles, Girish. Just walk. It's ok. This place is not that bad.

Even if someone were to mug you, you have nothing to lose other than your Walmart $5 shirt and $20 jeans (Not sure where i got it). Your wallet is on your desk.

They would just kick your cheap ass and cuss their fate that they picked an idiot to rob."

Fortunately didn't have to go through all that since my friend had a car. We drove back home.

Brilliant!

Ok...What next?

After you go to your apartment, drink some water. Play with Mia. Tell her what happened. If she sadly walks away into her crate, just understand that she is thinking in her mind "Why? Why God, Why Girish? So many beautiful families out there. Why let this idiot adopt me?"

Things just keep on getting better.

Alright...Now what?

Call someone from your office and let them know what happened and see if they can help you.

"Uh-Oh!"

What?

I don't have any of my colleagues numbers.

Why?

It's all on my cell phone and the phone is on my office desk.

When i screwed my car, the same day Mia tripped over my laptop and broke it's screen, i thought that was THE worst day EVER in my life. Well, apparently not.

Ohh...wait...wait...

I called Russ the other day to get Garret's number and wrote it down on a piece of paper before i saved it to my cell phone.

Hope!

Look for that piece of paper.

Drawers, Kitchen counters, bathroom, pantry, closet, Mia's mouth...

Nope...

Heyy...i just cleaned the drawers last night.

Tore the unwanted papers into pieces before i put them in the trash.

TRASH!

Now i have to go through the trash to find pieces of a paper that could possibly carry Garret's number.

Let's get to work.

Damn...that STINKS.

This is a nightmare. i just found atleast 500 pieces of paper of different size and colors.

Gotta fix the jigsaw puzzle to get his number.

Man...do i really have to do this? Is there anyway out?

Can i wait?

Can this wait?

Let me re-think my options here....

So..just when i'm staring at the trash can, wondering why i was blessed so much to experience all this, something fell from my shirt's pocket into the trash can.

WHOA!

What was that?

HOLY CRAP. That's my Samsung YP-T7 mp3 player.

Oh Lord! I just got it from Circuit City 2 hours back when i was taking a dinner break.

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??????????????/

So i have officially run out of choices now. I have to go in.

And boy...did i go in.

Took the whole garbage apart.

Found my playa! Unhurt. Un-scratched.

Now for the paper that had the number.

Ok...gathered all the pieces. Let's try to solve the puzzle.

20 mins later....

Solved the puzzle.

YEAH!

Got the number.

Here's the fun part. That was not Garrett's number.

It was a customer service number of some company.

I love my life.

Turned around to see what Mia was doing.

She was sitting there just watching me.

Awwww......

Yeah...no time for that!

Did i look under that laptop bag there?

Heyy...what's this?

WOW...This is the paper that has his number...

So..i never actually trashed it. Excellent.

Ok..lets call him.

Wait...what's the time man?

11.00 pm.

Not a good time to call a 26 yr old single American guy on a Friday night.

Desperate time calls for desperate measures.

Call him.

He's not answering.

Let's think here.

Who would answer their calls at this time of the night?

Umm..i would.

Yeah..But unfortunately you can't help yourself here.

Who else can I call now? I don't have anyones' number...everything is on my cell.

OK ok think Girish. Ah yes...my company's website. Contact information! YES!

Simple enough.

So I went online and I could feel the numbers at my fingertips. The music is playing of celebration! I'm almost there... SILENCE!

Login: xxxxxx

Password: OH Sh*$(#*$). I don't remember the password.

Never had to remember any password because my browser did that for me.

You know sometimes you it's very difficult to appreciate the concept of "remember password" option especially when you are in situations like this.

SIGH!

So I'm trying all the different passwords I've ever used in my life. Nope, not working!

Alright, alright. I will do the forget password thing and have it email me the password.

Ok, email sent.

Login to webmail.infoquest.com. User ID: XXXXXXXXXX Password: Holy Sh*$#(. Not again?!!

Well thanks to outlook I never had to login to the web interface to read my emails.

Now, I don't remember the password to my email login.

Fantastic!

Now what?

Alright, trial and error. Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying...

What tha? It worked!

Here's your password.

Alright. Finally access to every employees' phone numbers.

Ok. Who to call now?

Parag, first choice.

He answers...cool!

But he is in Bedford.

Wow...my luck.

Ok. Luis.

Location: Downtown Dallas.

Can't make it, sorry.

Damn it!

I hate to bother him but...Russ. Final option for the night.

Nope. Doesn't answer the call.

Alright, I give up.

I'm going to bed now. Wake up tomorrow morning and start all over again.

Next morning. 8:00 a.m.

Now trying to figure out who is up this early to call.

Tried a couple of numbers.

Finally! Mike's wife comes to the rescue.

Thanks Susan.

Problem solved. I'm back in business!

Back at my desk...ahh!!

Ok, remember I did not hit the "publish post" button to my blog.

I click and guess what...session timed out!

Lost my hundred line post. Vanished into thin air.

I love my life!

Until next time...

Happy living.

My first MP3 player...

2005-09-23T23:48:00.000-05:00

I spent hours and hours of research online and onfoot at Fry's, Best Buy, Circuit City and heck, even walmart!

Who could pass up the NEW Nano?

Well actually...after much consideration. I did!

Yes...the slim design mixed in with it's siblings popularity was certain to draw even the most skeptical (me) to the Nano world.

But c'mon! There is bound to be 'ALTERNATIVES' to the Apple world!

Sure the Nano is small but I want smaller, with a COLOR screen.

So my relentless quest landed me in the world of Samsung.

The YP-T7 Samsung MP3 player may have only 1GB for this size (for 5 GB the size resembles the mini iPod) and Nano offers up to 4GB, I feel it offers all the "technical savvy" that Apple markets in their products.

Is it smaller than a Nano? Yes.

It is thinner than a Nano? No.

It is lighter than a Nano? Yes (Nano - 1.5 ounces, YP-T7 - 1.269 ounces.)

Does it download music with ease as the Nano is said to do? Yes. (As easy as drag and drop!)

Picture viewer, text viewer...You name it! This bad boy's got it!

Oh and did I mention that the SamsungYP-T7 has a recorder & an FM tuner as well.

Does Nano? No.

The price comparison? Approximately $50 less than the 4GB Nano.

So are you buying for the Hype (Popularity)? Or for what works best for your music world?

For more comparisons click here

Is YP-T7 better than the Nano? I have never owned a Nano so can't honestly answer that.

But I can say the SamsungYP-T7 works best for me!

View my player.

Until next time...

Happy living...

92% of Indians say family comes first..

2005-09-18T18:22:00.000-05:00

According to a BBC poll, 92% of Indians say family comes first.

That's what i'm talking about...

RSS feed

2005-09-15T13:00:00.000-05:00

For all regular visitors of this blog, here's the RSS feed link if you happen to be using RSS reader.

http://www.girishg.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Whining??

2005-09-14T15:58:00.000-05:00

A very good friend of mine, Madhu has posted a nice comment for my previous post. It was kind of funny actually. Here we go...

" Hey Girish,
Whats this whining all about? I've been following your blog posts for a couple of weeks now and thought you were a guy with a positive outlook.
Anyways, did you lose your job or something more important than that? Do give me a call if you find time. I don't have your number with me : ("

No Madhu...i did not lose my job. I did not lose anything. Infact you have no idea how much fun i'm having at work. Technology has never got me this excited before. Learning so much every day, that sometimes it hard to keep everything in my tiny memory. :) Yeah...there's an excuse...right there! Something bothered me recently. And i had to talk about it without being too obvious. If you actually read my post, you will notice that i have been positive.

" I never take things to heart. Because there are very few things in this world that are so important to me to lose my peace of mind over. This is certainly not one of them. Not even close. I thought it was. Well...apparently not. Anyways...that's one reason why i never had any troubles moving on....

And move on, this time i will, just as always."

The above lines are from my previous post. See??...i AM positive!

Moving on...is a good thing.

To be honest, i'm happy to know that there are people reading my blog. And the number of comments in there doesn't actually reflect the true statistics of the number of readers.

Hmm....Interesting!

Madhu...Thanks dude...My number is 412-9062.

Hope everything is fine with you man...Will talk to you soon...

Sometimes....some people...

2005-09-14T02:04:00.000-05:00

You know....sometimes....some people just act crazy for some reason . But then, there are some people that act crazy ALL THE TIME for no sensible reason. It's very hard to understand why things have to be so difficult. Reminds me of this beautiful line i read somewhere;

"Life, as such, is simple. It's the people that make it complicated".

There's a limit to everything. Especially a man's patience.

Nothing in August.....Nothing in September....Everything got over by the end of July. If only i had the patience and motivation to say that to whomever it concerns. Fortunately, I don't.

Anyways...no point trying to even think about it. Enough is enough. No need to prove anything to anyone.

Never had to.

You know...there's one thing i've always loved about myself. I never take things to heart. Because there are very few things in this world that are so important to me to lose my peace of mind over. This is certainly not one of them. Not even close. I thought it was. Well...apparently not. Anyways...that's one reason why i never had any troubles moving on....

And move on, this time i will, just as always.

It's amazing how certain things happen just at the right time.

My dad used to tell me "Every grain of rice you eat has your name written on it".

That's what destiny and fate is all about, my dear friend.

If it has to happen, it will.

And it will, for a good reason.

Anyways...i will now officially have more time on my hands. And this space will have more thoughts and ideas and i can imagine a few code snippets sneaking in here as well.

Gotta upload a lotta pics and videos of Mia...

She's like a little pony now.

Let's see.

Moving on....

Katrina Vs Mumbai monsoon

2005-09-02T07:31:00.000-05:00

July 26, 2005. Heavy rains slashed Mumbai and most of Maharashtra, in India. People did expect heavy rains. But this was huge. Almost wiped out an entire city. All in a matter of 3 hrs on that fateful tuesday. The official toll of people killed in this calamity is more than 1000. Mumbai is the financial capital of the India. Seems familiar??

Yeah...Hurricane Katrina has done to New Orleans what the heavy rains did to Mumbai. (Wish we had a fancy name for the rains too...like....say for example....Monster Monsoons??) So what's the difference? Oh...there's so much to say dear....

First of all, media coverage.

I watch Fox news twice everyday. Morning and night. Not a single word was mentioned abt the Mumbai calamity. They covered the Brazilian guy that was shot dead by the British cops because he refused to stop when they ordered him to and killed him mistaking him for a terrorist. Heck....Fox and NBC covered the guy's funeral in Brazil as well. That drama continued for 3-4 days. Same time back in Mumbai, 1000's were dying and starving. They needed help. Government said they were doing their best. People were tired, hungry and angry. Army was deployed to help rescue operations. So much was going on...Not a single word mentioned even in their websites.

That's US media for you....right there.

But i bet Indian media is covering Hurricane Katrina with as much importance as one would give to a humongous tragedy like this. Yeah....that's how we are.

Second of all, seems like people are ruthlessly looting the stores in New Orleans. Cops are given orders to shoot looters in extreme situations and what are these people looting? Bread, Milk, Chips??? If they did, that's a different thing. It is acceptable in a way. Cuz, there are no stores open. There are no people behind the counters trying to run a business there. Even if that's the way things are, then who has the money to go buy stuff there? And people are dying of hunger. They need to feed their kids. And the food is going to rot anyways since everything comes with an expiration date.

But there are people looting televisions, DVRs, electronic goods etc. No...seriously....govt says it's gonna take atleast a month to restore power. What are these guys gonna do with the stolen electronic stuff till then? They have no place to go. Their houses are in water. How are they gonna explain when the cops ask them abt the stuff they have in their car trunk?

Stupid and ridiculous.

I'm watching the news as i'm typing this. Rapes and murders were just reported in New Orleans. I see a dead body floating in the streets. Geez....rapes and murders?? Not sure if i even want to say anything about it...

See, people were helping each other in Mumbai. There were no cases of looting, raping or murders. Yes...relief efforts were a bit slow from the govt side. But people didn't act barbaric.

Man...i don't think i can even write anymore .....this is DISTURBING!

Funny email my colleague sent me....

2005-08-25T13:33:00.000-05:00

Only in Thailand

Only in Texas

Only in Mexico

Only in India

Only in Hawaii

Only in China

Last but not the least.....Only in America

Datagrid Vs Datalist Vs Repeater

2005-07-24T15:08:00.000-05:00

One of the most popular questions in the .Net world is "What's the difference between the Datagrid, the Datalist and the Repeater? And why would you choose one over the others?"

Though this question has been answered in hundreds of blogs and articles online, some of us still consider this to be a grey area and leave it mostly to the developer's preference.

Well...here's what i understand about these web controls.

First of all, all the three controls were created with the same objective, which is to display data. So why are there 3 different controls?

When these controls are bound to a datasource, for each entity in the datasource an "item" is created and added to the collection of items for the control.

Each Webcontrol's "item" belongs to a different class. For example, a DatagridItem class is derived from TableRow class. This is because the HTML rendered by a datagrid is nothing but an HTML table with rows and columns based upon the datasource it was bound to. Hence each item in a datagrid collection is nothing but an HTML table row, when it is displayed in the browser.

One big advantage of the datagrid is that it is very simple to use and easily customizable with some cool color settings for borders,backgrounds etc. It also supports paging and sorting which also is accompanied by some customizable features for example, the way the page index can be displayed, as numbers or "previous and next" links etc.

So if you have a source of data that needs to be displayed with no customization or no complex stuff, datagrid is the best choice.

But remember, you will have no control over the HTML table that is being rendered.

Like the rows, each column in a DataGrid is an instance of a class that is derived from the DataGridColumn class. There are five built-in DataGrid column types:

* BoundColumn
* ButtonColumn
* EditColumn
* HyperLinkColumn
* TemplateColumn

Besides these built-in data types we can also create our own customized DataGrid column types by creating a class that derives from the DataGridColumn class.

Most of the newbies out there do not pay attention to the most important issue in datagrids ; Viewstate. ViewState produced by the DataGrid can be humongous if it contains a considerably large number of rows and thus be detrimental to performance. Of course, you DO have the option to turn the viewstate off but then that doesn't help you if you are planning to use sorting, paging and editing features in the datagrid.

Apparently the datagrid has the worst performance of all the 3 web controls.

The Repeater Web control offers the most flexibility as far as control of the rendered HTML is concerned. The datagrid and datalist controls place the content within a HTML tag like <table> or <span> automatically. That's how they are rendered. But a Repeater control renders ONLY what is specified by the developer. For this reason, if you wish to display data in some way other than in an HTML <table> tag or in a series of <span>tags, Repeater control is the best choice.

A Repeater is designed to let the user customize its output and thus have complete control over what is being rendered. So understandably RepeaterItem class is not derived from the TableRow class.

Just like in the DataList, with Repeater you specify the markup using templates. The Repeater contains the following five templates:

* AlternatingItemTemplate
* FooterTemplate
* HeaderTemplate
* ItemTemplate
* SeparatorTemplate

An important thing to remember about the Repeater is that, it is not derived from the WebControl class, like the DataGrid and DataList due to which it lacks the stylistic properties common to both the DataGrid and DataList. So if you want to make things look pretty in a repeater, write it yourself ;). But in most cases this is what i want : Complete control over what is being rendered.(Yupp... i AM a control freak!)

Among all the 3 web controls in question, Repeater offers the best performance, though only slightly ahead of the datalist but beating datagrid by a considerable margin.

Finally about the datalist.

The DataList does not use columns as in datagrid.It uses templates to display items just like Repeaters. The advantage of using a template is that with a template, you can specify both a mix of HTML content and databinding syntax.

Along with the ItemTemplate the DataList supports six other templates for a total of seven:

* AlternatingItemTemplate
* EditItemTemplate
* FooterTemplate
* HeaderTemplate
* ItemTemplate
* SelectedItemTemplate
* SeparatorTemplate

By default, the DataList displays each item as an HTML tablerow. But an important property of datalist is the RepeatColumns property. Using this property you can specify how many DataList items should appear per table row. In addition to that, you can also specify if you want the contents of the DataList should be displayed using <span> tags instead of a <table> tags. This is done by setting the RepeatLayout property, to either Table or Flow, which would render the data in HTML <table> tags or in <span> tags.

With its templates and RepeatColumns and RepeatLayout properties, it's obvious that the DataList allows for much more customization of the rendered HTML markup than the DataGrid. Thus customization again, is the reason why one might prefer to use a datalist over datagrid.

One major advantage of using Datagrid over datalist and repeater is, as already mentioned, the sorting and paging functionality. While such functionality can be implemented with some smart logic in the code, it's the question of how much time and effort would be involved in doing it and whether the trade-off is worth it in the application development process.

Guess ...that's about it. This is just an overall view, at a very high level.

For more information,

Read Scott Mitchell's article on the same topic

2005-07-23T07:48:00.000-05:00

There's a reason for me to leave work at 6.00 pm these days...And here you can see the "reason" sitting in my arms.

2005-07-23T07:42:00.000-05:00

Can she get any cuter than this? Can ANY puppy get any cuter than this?

2005-07-23T07:40:00.000-05:00

Mia and me....This was taken 2 days after i got her

Now i have a blog too....finally...

2005-07-22T22:41:00.000-05:00

This is my first post. For that matter, my first blog. Not sure what i'm gonna write here. Not sure why i created a blog in the first place although I think i have a faint idea why. I'll write about what i've learned thus far. Perhaps not about everything. Just what i think was remarkable. Be it in technology, cooking, cricket or life in general.

Besides my occasional ramblings, i hope i'll write something useful here. May be i'll post some links to some excellent articles accompanied by my thoughts if not anything.

Oops....gotta go...someone's waiting for me ;) Mia....i'm coming....