My World A Blog On All The Things That Happen In My Life

Heading back to Austin
about Life on 08/08/2010 with 7 comments - like it?

Well, I’m heading back to Austin for a second stint. Had an amazing time the last time I was there – was there for almost a year. Learnt a lot – technically & otherwise. Unlike last time when I had a flight from Chennai to Mumbai and then a direct Mumbai to New Jersey flight ( with a Mumbai International Airport to boot) – this time, the flight will be from Chennai.

The route would be Chennai – Doha – Washington – Austin. Worst part about this journey is that flight takes off at 04:45, and I would have to reach there by atleast 2AM – which means – Goodbye sleep. Will be reaching Doha by 06:45 for a 2 hour stopover. The connecting flight leaves Doha at 09:00 and would reach Washington at 16:00. The final flight to Austin is set to depart at 18:50. I’m a little worried about this difference – I’m not sure if this difference is enough for me to finish off the formalities – especially the immigration part. Lets see how it goes. Hope it will not be anything like the last trip!

Tags: 3i, Austin, Chennai, flight, journey, Life, travel

Cisco VPN Client for Windows Vista / Windows 7 64-bit
about Computing on 01/08/2010 with 3 comments - like it?

I’ve been looking for a reliable VPN client, one which works well on Windows Vista / Windows 7 and especially one which can connect to a IPsec’d Cisco VPN.

Of course there’s Cisco’s default VPN client but the one given to me is a crappy old 4.6 version, and works only on Windows XP. Tried to get the AnyConnect version, but after PITA registration and deep digging into a hopelessly unnavigable site, found that I cannot download it using a “standard” registration account

Anyhow, I’ve been using ShrewSoft’s VPN Client for now, its pretty neat,  user  friendly(well, unless you’re trying to create a new connection anyway) , works great and can import Cisco’s pcf profile files as well, saving you the trouble of having break your head in configuring one.

So, go grab it now!

Windows Download Link | Linux Download Link

(PS: Haven’t yet tested the Linux version, will post on my Linux blog after trying it out)

Update: Swaroop just informed me about Cisco’s WebVPN. Neat stuff, but requires additional config from Net Admins.

Tags: Cisco, Cisco VPN, ShrewSoft, software, software recommendation, VPN, VPN client

The Getaway – Part 1 – Coming together of The Plan(tm)
about Life on 29/06/2010 with 5 comments - like it?

If you’ve been reading my blog or know me, you probably know that I have a rather regular set of vacation times – ie, a week’s break once every three months or so. This time, however it was slightly different, and it had been about 5 months since I had taken a break. Let’s go back in time for a bit, however.

[Read more →]

Tags: break, holiday, Kerala, mangalore, trip, vacations

Of comatose blogs & vacations
about Life on 19/06/2010 with 6 comments - like it?

Its been a very busy, hectic past few months. Besides my day night job( I work at US timings, PITA), I’ve also started contributing to techie-buzz, though my day night job takes a whole lot of my time, and I’ve not been able to contribute much. My Linux blog and as well as this blog has been lying almost in a coma state. I plan to start posting some articles now and then, got it in shipshape with a new theme, so watch out!  I’m still pretty active on twitter ( again, not as active as I used to be – even with my “low” activity I keep getting requests not to spam the timeline :p. I’ve been fairly active on posterous though.

I started using tumblr as my tumblelog, but switched over to posterous. The primary reason for switching over was at that time, tumblr was incapable of handling multiple attachments – it’d post the first attachment and discard the rest. Started looking for alternatives, and posterous caught my eye. Its unbelievably amazing how simple posterous is. Just send an email to post@posterous.com, and you’re done. That’s it. That floored me over.

I’ve been actively involved in Web communities for quite some time,  and now time constraints mean that current my involvement is at Chip forums where I’m the Super Moderator and at SuperUser( with rep of 7.1k ) – The StackOverflow for Power Users. I also lurk around in Meta – there are some good discussions over there. When I get some time, just drop by Reddit, Hacker News and TED.

Coming back to real life, as mentioned I’ve been pretty deeply involved in work, and come this Wednesday, I’ll be taking a break for about 10 days ( after a span of about 5 months, I believe). Initially, the break was meant just for the weekend – the plan was to head to Thrissur, Kerala and then hop back to Chennai. I decided to extend the plan,  and head over to Mangalore to take a break. Deepti, Ankit & the rest proposed that we meet up at Cochin for the weekend,and so it was settled. So, currently the plan looks like:

Jun 23rd: Chennai to Thrissur

Jun 24/25: Thrissur to Cochin

Jun 25 – Jun 27: Cochin

Jun 27 – Cochin to Mangalore

Jun 28 -  July 4th: Mangalore

Will be good to take a nice break. Hope I don’t calls regarding work, my experience says I will get it :/

Got nothing planned in Mangalore, lets see how it works

Tags: 3i, blogs, break, Chennai, communities, mangalore, vacations

Golden Rules for Developers
about Oracle & PL/SQL Stuff, Programming on 15/06/2010 with 1 comment - like it?

Steven Feuerstein has a nice little presentation on some golden rules for developers. They aren’t anything new, yet not many people read/follow them

Download the PDF from here, or just read it via the embedded doc

Tags: Development, PL/SQL, Programming

How many Justin Biebers could you take in a fight?
about Web on 14/06/2010 with no comments - like it?

I know this quiz is old,but wth.

[Read more →]

Tags: fun, oatmeal

Download Toad for Oracle for Free
about Oracle & PL/SQL Stuff, Programming, Views on 28/05/2010 with 3 comments - like it?

Toad (acronym for Tool for Oracle Application Developers) is arguably one of the most popular and best known tools used by most people dabbling in Oracle databases ( or for that matter, most relational databases anyway). Toad’s reputation is so good, I’ve known few people swear by it and don’t even bother looking at other software, no matter how good.

Toad’s got more features than your average SQL/ PL/SQL developer would use,and hence got a bit of a steep learning curve. Not to mention an even steeper price tag ( the base edition starts at $957, and goes all the way upto $4709 if you include the Code Tester and DB Admin module). Given these prices, Toad is pretty heavily pirated.

However, most people are unaware that Toad also comes in a freeware edition, and until recently was severely crippled. Few days ago, there was an update to Toad freeware – and the updates are pretty good. The freeware edition is now based on 10.5 codebase, rather than previous 8.5 codebase. Now before you start jumping up and down, the restrictions on the freeware edition are still in place, but noticeably lesser than the previous update. Some of the restrictions include you being limited to only one concurrent database connection (which btw – would severely hamper me, I generally maintain 2-3 connections). Another major irritation is that the freeware edition will expire every 90 days, and you will need to uninstall, re-download and reinstall it. Ugh.

Here’s comparison chart between the commercial edition and freeware.

If you’re OK with the restrictions imposed by freeware edition or a Toad fan, then you can go ahead with getting it. If you ask me, Oracle’s SQL Developer is a perfectly acceptable alternative tool.

(In case you’re wondering my preferred tool, its Allround Automations’ PL/SQL Developer. Yes, yes, I know, the UI is butt ugly – I didn’t want to touch it at all just because of the UI – but believe me, once you get over the UI, you’ll love it – its fantastically fast, consumes very little memory and got boat load of features for the price its available at. I’ll probably do a review of the tool soon.)

Do let me know if you have a preferred /alternative tool that I could look at.

Download Links:

1. Toad Freeware edition

2. Oracle SQL Developer

3. Allround Automations PL/SQL Developer

Tags: download, free, oracle, PL/SQL, PL/SQL Developer, SQL Developer, TOADL

Brush up your PL/SQL knowledge with PL/SQL Challenge
about Oracle & PL/SQL Stuff, Programming on 10/05/2010 with 2 comments - like it?

If you’re looking to brush up on your PL/SQL knowledge, PL/SQL challenge is pretty nice. It’s a daily challenge quiz, where you are presented with  multiple choice or true/false questions. It’s an initiative by Steven Feuerstein , who’s pretty well known. I just joined in, first few questions were not too tough Join in, there’s some great prizes to be won .

If you know of any more such websites, do drop in a comment and let me know.

(PS: If you’re wondering what’s with the weird URL structure, well its built on Oracle Apex. Long, clumsy URLs are a pain, and Apex does nothing to banish them).

Tags: Apex, oracle, PL/SQL, Programming, SQL

A Snapshot of Me From The Past
about Life on 06/04/2010 with 1 comment - like it?

Picture from 10th standard yearbook, circa 2001. Somethings are priceless

Thanks, Kevin.

Tags: mangalore, Milagres, school

Upgrading to iPhone 3G to iPhone OS 3.1.2, with keeping the baseband at 04.26
about Mobiles on 30/03/2010 with 5 comments - like it?

I think this is my first post on iPhone ( barring the rant). o_O. Surprising, since I purchased the iPhone from eBay close to a year ago. Anyhow, being the computer freak enthusiast that I am,  I keep a track of most of the latest software that appears on the tech scene.  I generally have a zero-day update policy – any new version/update that arrives for a software I generally update it. I’m probably amongst the few folks who also read the release notes and change logs prior to upgrading, to find out if there’s some new functionality or enhancement that has been added to the software which isn’t so obvious. (Of course, some say if the new feature isn’t obvious in the UI, it is unlikely to get noticed, to which I agree. That said, do read the release notes. It will contain some good information). With the iPhone purchased, however I had to break this habit.

[Read more →]

Tags: cydia, dev-team, iPhone, jailbreak, redsn0w, ultrasn0w, unlock