OK. I have finally uninstalled Minefield from my laptop and it promptly removed all the bookmarks and passwords stored inside Firefox too! To be fair to the uninstaller, it did ask me if the bookmarks, etc. can be removed. I did not understand it because the installation folder was different, it would not touch the bookmarks or plugins under Firefox folder. But it did! :)
Is this an opportunity to restart my bookmarks from scratch (there were literally hundreds of them) or is it a bane? I don't know - it sure does irritate me to start typing all the URLs again :)
These plugins top my list:
1) Downthemall
2) Image-show-hide
3) All-in-one sidebar
4) Morning Coffee
5) ColorfulTabs
6) NoScript
7) Fast Dial
8) IE Tab
9) Chromifox
Friday, November 21, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
One more lover
The DSP exam is closing in but I felt it is time I gave out my verdict on Minefield. It did not score a perfect 10 but still got a decent 7+ on my scale.
I did notice some perceptible speed improvements compared to Firefox 3 and IE 7 [is it still in contention?!:-)] - for some of my favorite sites most notably google.
There is still some more support needed for my favorite firefox plug-ins and apart from the couple of crashes while watching the Vishy Anand vs Kramnik chess championship match on chess.com site, there were no hiccups with this browser.
So, one lover already in for this cutie of a browser ;) once the testing stage goes off and it launches in full-scale mode (still hoping plugin support by that time)
I did notice some perceptible speed improvements compared to Firefox 3 and IE 7 [is it still in contention?!:-)] - for some of my favorite sites most notably google.
There is still some more support needed for my favorite firefox plug-ins and apart from the couple of crashes while watching the Vishy Anand vs Kramnik chess championship match on chess.com site, there were no hiccups with this browser.
So, one lover already in for this cutie of a browser ;) once the testing stage goes off and it launches in full-scale mode (still hoping plugin support by that time)
Friday, October 24, 2008
This ain't a bomb ...
Did you try 'Minefield' yet? It seems good! I would not put in the same league as its predecessor yet, since it is still in the alpha stage. But from what I have tried since this morning, there have not been any problems with it.
Oh, by the way, minefield is the next gen Firefox (yepp ... built from the same mozilla base by the mozilla team) with a supposedly ultra-speed Javascript engine. One site (arstechnica) even went to the extent of putting it 10 times faster than Google chrome's JS engine.
An advantage with installing Minefield is that it installs into a separate folder from Firefox. Most (not all) of the firefox plugins I had worked seamlessly with Minefield automatically. Even in the Windows Task Manager, the process appears as "firefox.exe". The bookmarks and form passwords I had saved in Firefox also got transferred automatically to Minefield.
FF's themes however are not yet supported in MF. So, am going to be in the testing mode for next 1 week and see how Minefield fares as against Firefox on user experience. In fact, to update this very blog am using Minefield now. Will update my findings later ...
Oh, by the way, minefield is the next gen Firefox (yepp ... built from the same mozilla base by the mozilla team) with a supposedly ultra-speed Javascript engine. One site (arstechnica) even went to the extent of putting it 10 times faster than Google chrome's JS engine.
An advantage with installing Minefield is that it installs into a separate folder from Firefox. Most (not all) of the firefox plugins I had worked seamlessly with Minefield automatically. Even in the Windows Task Manager, the process appears as "firefox.exe". The bookmarks and form passwords I had saved in Firefox also got transferred automatically to Minefield.
FF's themes however are not yet supported in MF. So, am going to be in the testing mode for next 1 week and see how Minefield fares as against Firefox on user experience. In fact, to update this very blog am using Minefield now. Will update my findings later ...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Bitten by the bug
If you are thinking of love, well .. yes, it is love (and hate!) for me :)
It all started with my birthday when Abi gifted me a wooden chess board. Poeple might ask what is so great about a wooden board with 64 squares painted black and white. For me, it is a huge opportunity to do something I really like to do. For lack of ability to express better, I can simply say 'it is just beautiful' :) Chess has been a secret passion for a very long time now. I used to even sometimes envy people who were so good at playing chess .. may be that was a silent hurt - of not being able to learn that elusive art well!
Well .. so began my chess saga. Now, after about 2 months, Abi is just short of complaining that I am so lost in my games and chess study spending very little time with her or Isha. The truth of the matter is, earlier I used to spend so much time on the internet for which she complained and that time just got diverted into chess now!
Out of the blue, I downloaded the Kasparov Chessmate software and started using it. Abi's brother saw it and needless to say got bitten by the same bug. We started playing some serious matches within ourselves. Abi is not someone who witnesses from the sidebar for a long time. After all, she was the one who taught me the basic chess tactics of fork & pin while we were in the US! And mind you, she loses regularly but only if she is distracted with something or other - otherwise, she is a far better player. Am not ashamed of that, it as after all a great learning experience to play with a downright attacking player like Abi :)
May be I will write all my chess learnings and how one site led to another in this process sometime soon. But first, I need to study DSP (that is right - Digital Signal Processing) - the exam is nearing, hushhhhhhhhhhh!!
It all started with my birthday when Abi gifted me a wooden chess board. Poeple might ask what is so great about a wooden board with 64 squares painted black and white. For me, it is a huge opportunity to do something I really like to do. For lack of ability to express better, I can simply say 'it is just beautiful' :) Chess has been a secret passion for a very long time now. I used to even sometimes envy people who were so good at playing chess .. may be that was a silent hurt - of not being able to learn that elusive art well!
Well .. so began my chess saga. Now, after about 2 months, Abi is just short of complaining that I am so lost in my games and chess study spending very little time with her or Isha. The truth of the matter is, earlier I used to spend so much time on the internet for which she complained and that time just got diverted into chess now!
Out of the blue, I downloaded the Kasparov Chessmate software and started using it. Abi's brother saw it and needless to say got bitten by the same bug. We started playing some serious matches within ourselves. Abi is not someone who witnesses from the sidebar for a long time. After all, she was the one who taught me the basic chess tactics of fork & pin while we were in the US! And mind you, she loses regularly but only if she is distracted with something or other - otherwise, she is a far better player. Am not ashamed of that, it as after all a great learning experience to play with a downright attacking player like Abi :)
May be I will write all my chess learnings and how one site led to another in this process sometime soon. But first, I need to study DSP (that is right - Digital Signal Processing) - the exam is nearing, hushhhhhhhhhhh!!
Sunday, September 7, 2008
We are backkkkk
Phew ... What a relief it is to be back after two weeks of hospital stay! Our daughter is finally doing good enough to be sent home and just be taking oral anti-biotics. The fever was diagnosed to be acute typhoid which brought her down by a few pounds in weight.
Our daily schedule at hospital was demanding enough - changes in biological cycle for sleep was the first affected. Our sleep would usually be around 1 PM or later and we will wake up to the door knocks (is it impolite to say 'bangs'?) by the nurses, ward-boys, etc. We managed to grab some sleep during the day once they go off our backs - if Isha continues to sleep. If she wakes up, then we are done in :)
My initial reaction back at home was a strange kind of nervousness. It was so strange to see the outside world after almost a week(!). I no longer craved for the daily newspaper (btw it is TimesOfIndia that I like the most nowadays) nor the night sleep. The craze for my laptop was still there of course, but a lot of things did not seem to matter that much any longer.
This hospital ordeal had other interesting side-effects as well - making me thinner than I was earlier and more importantly making my wife more paranoid than ever, almost to the point of obsession. You could understand my position when she started blabbering about infection and neutrophilia in her night's sleep. In fact, she had so little sleep due to this fear of infection, that she woke up early, fed our daughter and again fell asleep. Thankfully, I was so exhausted in all this hospital stay and running that I slept like a log yesterday night. I hope both my kids (I call Abi my first kid) let me sleep tonight as well - I have a lot to catch up with at work tomorrow :)
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Noise...
It has been quite a while since I wrote my last blog. There has been this debate in my mind for the last few days - it is actually like a subtle background noise for everything am doing of late. I wanted to get this out of my mind and hence this attempt :-)
It is actually a sequence of questions that led to this 'noise'. For example, while reading a book, these are the questions that led to the 'noise' come to foreground:
1) What is the purpose of life?
Answer - no idea
2) What am I doing?
Answer - reading this book
3) Why am I doing this?
Answer - To get some knowledge and kill off time as am getting bored
4) Why are you getting bored?
Answer - I have not figured out what else to do
5) OK. Why do you want to get some knowledge?
Answer - I have always had this affinity to books. May be as a kid I learnt reading books / getting knowledge might help later in life.
6) That still does not answer that question to the point?
Answer - OK. It is for getting some benefit later in life.
7) Why are you planning for this benefit when you know nothing can be predicted about future?
No Answer really :)
8) OK. If it is for some benefit today or whenever, what does it lead to?
Answer - I would be happy.
9) Why do you want to be happy?
!!!!!
This is precisely where am getting stuck and not able to proceed after this.
I brought it up with Abi and we had a conversation this morning discussing the answer. She simply said "Happiness is the way life tends to be. If you just leave any life without disturbing it, that is what it will tend towards."
Somehow that answer made sense but at the same time I still had the incomplete feeling with it. Then I brought up the discussion about perfection. Are we tending towards happiness because we are tending towards perfection? May be we have some idea that being happy is equivalent to being perfect?
Abi was not convinced with that and we kept discussing till we realized it was getting late to office and pay my taxes. So all the 'noise' again went into background and we were running behind tax payment today being the last day for it :-)
Now that I got some free time, I was idly browsing the internet and sure enough the noise came to foreground. This time, I have decided to write it down and see if something more comes to mind, at least after this. Ain't I being optimistic? :-)
It is actually a sequence of questions that led to this 'noise'. For example, while reading a book, these are the questions that led to the 'noise' come to foreground:
1) What is the purpose of life?
Answer - no idea
2) What am I doing?
Answer - reading this book
3) Why am I doing this?
Answer - To get some knowledge and kill off time as am getting bored
4) Why are you getting bored?
Answer - I have not figured out what else to do
5) OK. Why do you want to get some knowledge?
Answer - I have always had this affinity to books. May be as a kid I learnt reading books / getting knowledge might help later in life.
6) That still does not answer that question to the point?
Answer - OK. It is for getting some benefit later in life.
7) Why are you planning for this benefit when you know nothing can be predicted about future?
No Answer really :)
8) OK. If it is for some benefit today or whenever, what does it lead to?
Answer - I would be happy.
9) Why do you want to be happy?
!!!!!
This is precisely where am getting stuck and not able to proceed after this.
I brought it up with Abi and we had a conversation this morning discussing the answer. She simply said "Happiness is the way life tends to be. If you just leave any life without disturbing it, that is what it will tend towards."
Somehow that answer made sense but at the same time I still had the incomplete feeling with it. Then I brought up the discussion about perfection. Are we tending towards happiness because we are tending towards perfection? May be we have some idea that being happy is equivalent to being perfect?
Abi was not convinced with that and we kept discussing till we realized it was getting late to office and pay my taxes. So all the 'noise' again went into background and we were running behind tax payment today being the last day for it :-)
Now that I got some free time, I was idly browsing the internet and sure enough the noise came to foreground. This time, I have decided to write it down and see if something more comes to mind, at least after this. Ain't I being optimistic? :-)
Friday, July 4, 2008
Weekend Blues
For most people, a weekend brings lot of smiles and relief. It did for most part for me too, until last weekend when not a single thing went our way - starting with a phone call.
Tony, our Construction Engineer, called up to say that the water bore's motor & hose pipe broke and got stuck in the mud. Well that could happen in Coimbatore it seems, where people dig water bore pumps of depth >400 feet usually. He, along with 10 other people, had tried all night to get it out. They were able to recover a bundle which happened to be just the smaller one among the two broken pieces. Tony was more upset than us. We have asked him to take it light and focus on the remaining things with the house. Still to find a solution for this ...
On Friday night, Abi and I had a huge argument. I was so visibly upset that I just took off from home despite all the rain outside. I went for a drive in my car and filled petrol. I was still angry when I returned home while my car got stuck in the mud right before the garage. There was a ditch dug by the maintenance department and as is customary in India, it was not filled properly. The more tricks I tried, the more it got stuck. Only in the morning we were able to see clearly that the front portion of the car is resting on the ditch pavement and the wheels were just rotating pointlessly throwing up more mud. Fortunately, by about 4 PM, with the help of so many friends and a couple of car mechanics we lifted it using two car jacks, placed a few stones beneath the tires for grip and were able to reverse it out. Phew, that was quite a drainer, first the fight and then getting the car out ...
Anyway in the evening, we had to confirm the contents of our house warming ceremony invitation and since there was no rain on Saturday, we went to Menaka cards right away. That was done and we started our return journey home when all of a sudden, our bike just skidded off road. I was the driver and Abi was at the back - we both just fell. Fortunately, there were no big vehicles coming that route though it is usually full with cars by that time. I landed on all fours and injured my right hand. Abi scraped through minor injuries luckily. The pain did not subside for an hour and the doctor finally confirmed what we suspected. The palm bone had a crack and my right hand is supposed to be out of action for two weeks at least.
Well .. this might not be related to luck at all, but definitely qualifies as one of the most fantastic series of unfortunate events in my life! Why would I bother to document all this typing with my left hand only all this while? :-)
Tony, our Construction Engineer, called up to say that the water bore's motor & hose pipe broke and got stuck in the mud. Well that could happen in Coimbatore it seems, where people dig water bore pumps of depth >400 feet usually. He, along with 10 other people, had tried all night to get it out. They were able to recover a bundle which happened to be just the smaller one among the two broken pieces. Tony was more upset than us. We have asked him to take it light and focus on the remaining things with the house. Still to find a solution for this ...
On Friday night, Abi and I had a huge argument. I was so visibly upset that I just took off from home despite all the rain outside. I went for a drive in my car and filled petrol. I was still angry when I returned home while my car got stuck in the mud right before the garage. There was a ditch dug by the maintenance department and as is customary in India, it was not filled properly. The more tricks I tried, the more it got stuck. Only in the morning we were able to see clearly that the front portion of the car is resting on the ditch pavement and the wheels were just rotating pointlessly throwing up more mud. Fortunately, by about 4 PM, with the help of so many friends and a couple of car mechanics we lifted it using two car jacks, placed a few stones beneath the tires for grip and were able to reverse it out. Phew, that was quite a drainer, first the fight and then getting the car out ...
Anyway in the evening, we had to confirm the contents of our house warming ceremony invitation and since there was no rain on Saturday, we went to Menaka cards right away. That was done and we started our return journey home when all of a sudden, our bike just skidded off road. I was the driver and Abi was at the back - we both just fell. Fortunately, there were no big vehicles coming that route though it is usually full with cars by that time. I landed on all fours and injured my right hand. Abi scraped through minor injuries luckily. The pain did not subside for an hour and the doctor finally confirmed what we suspected. The palm bone had a crack and my right hand is supposed to be out of action for two weeks at least.
Well .. this might not be related to luck at all, but definitely qualifies as one of the most fantastic series of unfortunate events in my life! Why would I bother to document all this typing with my left hand only all this while? :-)
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