End of Blogger

I end blogging at Blogger and shifted the writing
at same domain

www.gehariharan.com
Now with Wordpress installed in my own server space.

Scratchy Start after a couple of Years

Of late, after a long break, I resumed one of my favorite hobby - Graphic Designing. Adobe Photoshop was one of the tools which revered the most during the 4 years of my period at Rotaract Club of Saibaba Colony. I was given opportunity in the club to test any kind of ideas I had, and in that way I started doing graphic designing for the club as a cost cutting exercise. It turned out to be a great hobby where in some instances I got paid for some huge banners which I designed for my friend's college festivals. For designing I always wanted a PC with a good Processor Speed and at least 512 MB RAM a couple of years of back. I did not have the hardware at that time and hence for every design I need to request someone's PC Hours, that is what I call for borrowing their PC for doing my work.

Today I own a laptop with a specification of  2.1Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo and a 2 GB Ram. I never imagined I will own such a sophisticated hardware. Now at XL I got a couple of opportunities  to start with my hobby, so I did not want to leave now, I loaded my Laptop with Photoshop CS2 and started with some initial designs. Though my designs are very scratchy in some time it will improve. I am going to publish the designs which I will be doing here afterwards. For that I am using my Beautiful Rants Blog at Yahoo 360.

So to look at my recent designs click here.

The Road Traveled #1

"Profits are a Signal to resources holders where resources are mostly highly values in society"

- Michael R Baye

I think, I was fascinated a lot about Economics before landing here at XL, because of  Tim Harford's Under Cover Economist. This book was the eye opener for me. And Why I started to say all these, Profits are Signal, we always are in search of becoming a unique from one group and that is a never ending process. When we are in school we would like to go to college which is the best and that gives you an identity, so we would look for "Signals", like which is the best college to join, based on the "Profits of others", may be the advantages of the existing students of the college. Once we reach that college do our search stops. That again starts, we would like to make our self Individualize and would want to look for the best company. And the search continues there on...Now I had two question. Are we looking for excellence and perfection ? If So what is that will end this search?.

From Here on I would give my narration of how I ended up in this institute at Jamshedpur . I still remember the first time I read this name of the city during my Social Science class, when I read about the revolution of Jamshedji Tata and Tata Steel. I never thought I would land up in this city and would spend a couple of years in this place.

Doing an MBA was a major aspiration in my life, but I never had a plan to do it after my Graduation. So I ended up working with TCS for the last two years. As I loved Mumbai a lot after a visit during my college days for a South East Asian Rotaract conference at Daman. The packed train I boarded at Dadar was the biggest attraction for me to spend my initial two years of career in Mumbai. So I landed the same way in Mumbai working for TCS.

Joined a Domestic project of TCS, since technology interests me a lot, the big Implementation project for the domestic client was a Huge learning opportunity for me.The best part of it was that it happened so I was able to work with my best friend Pratheeba also in the same project. I had a good mentor, Arun, who taught me the skills required and that really helped me in delivering my work with a sustained high performance. I made some Friends here at TCS, the list I am giving is not exhaustive so I can name a few, Vivek, Charan, Karthi, Gokulan, Niraj, Ram, Prasanna, Rakesh, Chezhian, Archana, Vidya, Anu, Amol, Pulkit, Ashish & POS Team...and the list does not end there.... it goes on. So when I started to work I was not in any idea of doing my MBA in my near future. But it was my Pratheeba who nudged me on my head to remind me of doing it soon. I started my preparations for management entrance exam off late in 2006 in December.

As I never researched on this, I did not have any Idea of what all B schools exist. I was aware of only 2 exams one was the CAT and other was GMAT. I was planning of GMAT. The first day I saw the astronomical fee I need to spend stumped me and that was the end of GMAT story. The next Best option was CAT. So I started my preparations aiming at CAT 2007 from December 2006 by joining TIME  Mumbai.

(Will be Contd... # 2....)

This blog, now on Sits on my own Domain

Addressed To : The very few readers of this blog, my good friends and those people who come accidentally because directed by Google.com or any other search engines.

Subject:  This Blog, from now on is moved to my new domain name.

www.gehariharan.com

So after a long time I now write a blog in my own domain.

Next Target: Host my own site and blog, but since monetary situations at present do not help me now to do that so. Wait for that to happen soon.

Thanks for spending time to read this Rant from your Weblog writer.

Lively is bit lively But...May be for Children to Enjoy

Today I had some time to look into the new Google labs innovation Lively. The idea looks the same old chat rooms of the past with a only new thing seems to be lot of efforts have been put in the look and feel. 

Lively, the efforts spent on the interface is good but as you can see the time consumption in loading is horrible as they are 3D models. The avatar concepts are not an innovation. So as such I expected quite very new from Google and they have also started to give some look and feel bloated applications usually done by Microsoft. I still love Gmail for its simplicity and Google.com for its elegance and minimalist approach. This lively I feel, at least for now is a waste of time for me. May be for kids its a big time entertainment. But one warning already there are so many Adult only rooms opened. So you need to keep watch if you children are into it. :)

When I Double click the Drives - Open With dialog box appears

I had this weird problem when I clicked the Drives in Windows Explorer. The Open with dialog box appears and asks me to choose the program to open. I did not have enough time to find out the resolution for this as I thought, I would have screwed my registry accidentally while researching my new laptop.

To tell about my new laptop its a Dell Vostro 1400 series. Full black in color and I find it quite compact. You can refer the link to find the special features of the laptop and other usual features like 3 year warranty, Graphic card etc, I do not want to bore you with those details. Only thing attractive in this deal was it came with a DOS OS, which gave the freedom to load the favorite Windows XP, expecting to load Fedora soon. Licensed XP was provided in college, that was an additional bonus I got. XP on 2 GB RAM and 2.1Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, is giving lightning speed boot up. That is enough boasting I did about my laptop.

I wanted to fix the Problem, mentioned above very badly because it was irritating me at times when I have some urgent work. In my lecture classes today, the classroom system had the same problem. The Professor was also not able to access his flash drive, because he was trying to double-click the drive. Temporarily I just gave the drive name in the address bar to continue with the lecture. Came back to room and did a bit of Googling for some time to fix the issue in my laptop. Yes, it was a worm attack which had screwed the registry settings.It was the stupid W32/RJump.worm. I tried with Windows Drive Fix Registry File downloaded from Microsoft site. It made a different problem. It fixed in some drives leaving some drives the same way.Finally this forum gave me the actual file I need to run to clean the worm and access the drive freely. So you may well check with that if you too have the same problem by referring the forum. Hope this will reduce the time to fix the problem :) I have to try the same in my lecture hall system Monday to fix this.

Update 24 July 2008 :  As I can see a huge hit for this post from search engines dear readers you need not follow that forum and find that tool to clear your Problem. Please download the Flash Disinfector Tool from here. Run this tool after download to clear your problem.

Loser but a Winner of Hearts

I am still thinking, whether the match I saw today was the real match and the player was Don of the All England Club. But its a reality. Roger Federer after fighting till the last moment showed me who he could have been. Down with 4-6, 4-6 in first two sets and taking the next two sets in 7-6, 7-6 is not an easy thing against the No.2 player. The most important thing to note here is the mental strength he showed at the third and fourth set says " I am Roger."

But Federer did not give away easily his sixth title, fought till the end of the fifth set to 9-7. He really would have won the hearts of many who lose their mental strength when we are down and out after the initial struggle.

In fact this is a great lesson for me, Roger you are still my Favorite not because you have won 12 Slams but you are a Real Character in my Life.

Self Interests - Ever Maximizing Function

"Its not out of the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the banker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regards to their own interest"

-Adam Smith

These lines make me write again after a short break in posts in this log. I could state multiple reasons for not posting but still it could not be replaced for the act of not doing. There has been a lot change in the environment when I started this blog to this day. People changed , places changed even my self has gone through a lot of changes to adapt to the external environment. Now I sleep and eat at weird timings, because that is the culture here. Should I adapt to that is the biggest question. When I read the above quoted lines today in Baye's book on "Managerial Economics and Business Strategy", this showed it is not that bad to be a self-interested person and after all the whole world is full of them.

That will be my ice-breaking post as a new B School student, after a stint as a software engineer ( I am not sure, can I call myself like this, may be my colleagues can really say). So what made me come here is all I would be briefing more as it would make myself clear and also could be of great help for others who may have Self-Interests in my similar lines.

Tabula Rasa - Nature Vs Nurture

I always like the famous Nature Vs Nurture argument. When people start with a topic like "Inborn Genius", "He has his talent in his blood". They will turn me off. Yes I never go with the concept that some qualities come by birth. I always say it comes based on the situations you undergo and those opportunities mould every individual. Tabula Rasa is one such thought which favors the Nurture side. But still I usually try attempting to strengthen my argument from my reading and analysis. Today I received a mail from my dear friend Pratheeba regarding this and I have posted below.

All babies look alike to certain extent. All are born alike but we are changing when we grow. What changes us? What make us look beautiful and ugly? What make us think positive and negative? There exists a force that changes how we want to be both, physically and mentally. Some call it Belief, some call it faith, some call it thinking, some call it a mystical power of subconscious mind, some call it thoughts, or we call it as GOD. But ultimately there exists a force that changes everything we want to be. We can name it anyway we want, but the result is same!

I got a thought to process in the above lines. All new lives which come to this world has only a soul inside some flesh and blood. On its birth, it is taken care by parents/grand parents. So the child's physic and face looks like the person who is taking care of the child for most of the time. Also its characters are getting formed and moulded like its environment and family members. So this means, nothing is inborn including beauty.All comes from the focus the child has. If the child constantly looking at his/her Mom who looks bright and beautiful the child also becomes the same way. If the child always looks at the clean and fresh place then it feels and become good and fresh.. the same happens what it wished.

The body gets formed inside womb from mere molecules and then the blood and muscles.Then the hands and legs. Mean time the soul is also selected and erased from all its previous life memories, then the soul is given to the body only when the body comes out of the womb. That is why the child is crying when it comes outside i think, because only that time the soul enters the new body. In many cases only body is grown inside the womb and the soul will not be given when it comes out, that time we are telling the child is born dead. Also, the soul get affected not by the direct words alone, but strongly by the thoughts. Any thoughts including ours and others can affect the soul, that is why i think when we make others feel bad, we are getting same thing back in some time as the other soul that got hurt wants us to hurt like that. If you get a bit further you can understand clearly, when you motivate someone or do some good to someone, you feel good. I think that is not because you are feeling good because you did good, but because they are feeling good and their thoughts towards you are good which makes you feel good!

Same happens in each and every aspects of life. If we sit and analyse we need ages to do that :) What an interesting psychology? See how easily we can change ourselves. This is how the system works ultimately! Very interesting topic. Lot more to explore .. but I think already I stressed you so much..

-Received via Mail from Pratheeba Subraminian

I am still in the process of strengthening the Nurture side and hope the readers will help me too .

Real Vs Reel

The mantra being chanted by all the cricket lovers in India is IPL- The Crickets Mahaydh ( I call it as only as a money milking cow). May be this IPL is doing for cricket what Rupa Publications did for books. Cheaper books and selling huge volumes, here too many matches all around and an affordable rate. I too had a chance to go for a match here in Mumbai @ D.Y. Patil Stadium. Mumbai Indians Vs Delhi Dare Devils, I missed the Chennai Superkings Match. The Crowd response was the greatest amazement for me as they booed and cheered every ball. I enjoyed the crowd response than the match.

As for as the match is concerned, it looked like any other college tournaments if you forget the fact that you are watching Professional players. They also do a lot of mistakes on field. To our luck Sanath Jaysurya and Shewag rewarded our eyes with some brilliant Sixers. I felt the cricket we watch in Television screens is similar to the movies which has lot of editing and mixing to make it look attractive. The real match was something like a movie shooting :) I can say. You can read more about the match from my accomplice in the act in his blog.

Quick Review of Recent Reads # 1

After my last book review, I thought of grouping my book reviews into a separate head. This will reduce the scattering of information, as I get some extra bit of time to read many books at present. To start with recent reads I will chronologically list in the order which I have read and add a small bit of Review and my Rating to it.

Book 1:

"Fermats Enigma" by Simon Singh was the book acted as an impetus to continue my reading habit which was in quite bad shape in the last six months of 2007. My reading was in abrupt halt with some scanty reads. This book was in my wish list for long after I read Simon singh's The Code Book during my sophomore days. I accidentally came across this book in a nearby book shop, did not want to leave it and snatched it immediately. This book is a must read if you love maths and logic. I have added logic as most of the mathematicians where great logicians and vice-verse. This captures the story of how mathematicians over centuries struggled to prove one of the greatest riddle of maths. It starts with the riddler Pierre De Fermat and moves gradually across all the greatest mathematicians the world has ever seen till the year of Andrew Wiles who solved the last theorem of Fermat after struggling for eight years in isolation. I had a great learning in this book on how inquisitive the minds of every mathematicians had been, especially I loved the logician Bertrand Russels Paradoxes.

My Rating : 4/5

Book 2:

"I Too had a Dream" biography of Dr. Verghese Kurien is one of the very few biographies I have read. I rarely read biographies, because I felt they are just blowing their own trumpet. But after reading this book I had to change my mind as there was a great learning for me in various aspects of a persons life. I never knew what a Co-operative means, and what went behind the Great Operation Flood which has made India self-sustained with milk and diary products. I was asked a question recently in one of the interview to differentiate Labour Union and Milk Unions. I was so clear with my answer because the concepts were so clear from this biography. The story of Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL) also made me understand what AAVIN means to farmers in our state of Tamil Nadu.

My Rating : 3/5

Book 3:

"The Pregnant King" by Devdutt Patnaik started to have a break with non-fictions, but turned out to be a thin line of fiction added to the Great Epic Mahabharata. Since this is the first fiction work by the author, it was vivid in his plot. I must say there was no plot actually in this book as most of the story included branches of mahabaratha which I have been reading since my childhood, so it was not quite enthralling. But I could learn some valid justification of some traditions of those ages like Niyoga, Anuloma etc which has been puzzling me a lot when ever I narrate Mahabaratha story to any one Whenever I narrate how the Pandavas where born, people who are listening will start questioning about chastity and sanctity of those days. This book could help to some extent. From this book I was able to add some of the missing branch stories in my inventory like "The story of Iravana", "The story behind Arjuna's masquerade as a women" and "Story behind Shikandi". Overall I cannot say this is a must read for all, if you are interested in Mahabaratha this would be a small addition to you and an interesting read to certain extent.

My Rating : 2/5

At last! Relieved from Haloscan

Haloscan is a site that offers free commenting and trackback services for blogs. One of the feature which Blogger does not offer is Trackbacks. This tempted me in switching to some other commenting sites. So when I encountered Haloscan I did not even think for a moment and switched to Haloscan commenting. The problem is that to switch to Haloscan commenting, you need to download the existing template of your blogger. This has to be uploaded to Haloscan account and the template will be altered and given a new template. This new template I uploaded without even storing a backup six months back. Now if I switch to any new template all my valuable scripts embedded in the code which I have used in it for analytics and other purpose will be gone for ever.

But since them too many problems I have with the commenting system of Haloscan, though no trackbacks I have ever received for which I switched. Nowadays most of the people don’t bother to give trackback pings; instead they just post a comment with the link of their post. The main problems you will face are,

1. It reduces the load time of the pages as the comment details are taken from a different site
2. The Comment page also takes a considerable time
3. No option of automatic restriction of anonymous comments
4. No profile image shown in bloggers with each comments are far better than Haloscan’s
5. Ad’s of Haloscan that cribs in the comment page.

Since then I have been struggling to change the code to remove the Haloscan commenting and switch that to blogger comments which has improved a lot after the beta. But since the template was in XML I used to make mistakes every time and end up with an XML which was incomplete tags.

So Today I forced myself to complete this task and finally I have converted the commenting system back to Blogger’s. For those who are having similar problem you need to follow these steps.

1. Take a backup of your template
2. Then you need to look for the following parts in the template

<!-- start haloscan (part 1) -->

<script src='http://www.haloscan.com/load/ username type='text/javascript'> </script>

<span class='post-comment-link'>

<a class='comment-link' expr:href='&quot;http://www.haloscan.com/comments/ username /&quot; + data:post.id + &quot;/&quot;' expr:onclick='&quot;HaloScan(&quot; + &quot;\&quot;&quot;+ data:post.id + &quot;\&quot;&quot; + &quot;);return false;&quot;'>

<script type='text/javascript'>postCount(&#39;<data:post.id/>&#39;);</script>

</a>

<a class='comment-link' expr:href='&quot;http://www.haloscan.com/tb/ username /&quot; + data:post.id + &quot;/&quot;' expr:onclick='&quot;HaloScanTB(&quot; + &quot;\&quot;&quot;+ data:post.id + &quot;\&quot;&quot; + &quot;);return false;&quot;'>

<script type='text/javascript'>postCountTB(&#39;<data:post.id/>&#39;);</script>

</a>

</span>

<!-- end haloscan -->

-- Same as above Part1, Part 2 also will be embedded in the XML.

<!-- start haloscan (part 3) -->

<a class='feed-link' href='http://www.haloscan.com/members/rss.php?user=username target='_blank'>Comment Feed (RSS)</a>

<!-- end haloscan -->

3. Now the above tags has to be removed
4. Now the hilarious task is to insert blogger commenting. In the place of Part 1 & Part 2 of Haloscan code the following code is replaced

<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>

5. For Part 3 the following code must be replaced.

<a class='feed-link' expr:href='data:f.url' expr:type='data:f.mimeType' target='_blank'><data:f.name/> (<data:f.feedType/>)</a>

6. Now still you will face a problem that comments will not come for individual posts page. To fix that you need to add the following code just above the line where you have replace Part 2. Since that code is long you can get the patch here.
7. Alas! You landed back to your home land of blogger commenting. You would have lost all the old comments of Haloscan , that you can compensate with the Haloscan widget which you can see in the side bar of this blog.

Hope the above steps would help you in removing the irritating Haloscan commenting.