Intro to Guitar Tab, Neck and Chord Diagrams

It gave me a good introduction, and I also liked the humor.

System Tray using Java

...SysTray for Java is an API written to enable Java applications access the system tray. Originally it was running on Windows only. In the meantime it is also available for KDE3...

Making international calls at the cost of a land line call

There is nothing great about making international calls using a broadband connection and your PC. The only problem being you should be at home with your PC and also having a broadband connection.

I can connect up my land like to my PC and then whenever I call up my land line from my mobile phone (local call charge) I should be given an option to make an international call, this international call will be made using my net connection and my PC. That way I would only have to pay for the local call from my mobile phone to my PC, since I have allready payed for my internet connection.

There are some issues about this desing.

1. Making calls using the PC to a specific land line - I dont think this is possible unless you sign up for a VoIp service that gives you that feature but you will have to pay for it. So for now we can call only other broadband users using this.

2. Interfacing the land line to the PC so that the software running on my PC (VoIP client software) will make the call??? - There should be some progress on this if Google goes in for VOIp and provides some kind of API.

These are the only problems that I can think of right now but I guess there are other things involved too.

Google VOiP

Screen recording as easy as Screenshots

http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/vnc2swf/

Vnc2swf is a screen recording tool for X-Window (X11), Windows and Mac OS Desktop. Vnc2swf captures the live motion of a screen through VNC protocol and converts it a Macromedia Flash(TM) movie (.swf).

Parasite Eve,Metal Gear

Parasite Eve	Metal Gear

Database Reverse Engg

I wanted a tool that would do database reverse Engineering, something I wanted for a project that I am working on. I knew that TogetherSoft provided a feature by which I could desing a database model in TogetherSoft and export that model to Sybase Database. I wasent sure if it could reverse engg ( i.e reading data from the database and creating a model) it seemed quite likely that it supported this feature.

I had a look in the menus but I couldnt get it, I also searched for reverse engineering in help but I still could not get hold of it, so I started searching for similar applications in Google, that could create a database diagram by connecting to a JDBC datasource, It would have been great if I could get an IntelliJ plugin that could do the same. I got some interesting results.

According to this article you can use Visio for database reverse Engg : http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6330-1039355-3.html

I couldnt setup up an ODBC datasource of my local machine to connect to Sybase server so I didnt go ahead with this.

Later I located the option in TogetherSoft that allows you to do database reverse engg.

Database Reverse Engg in TogetherSoft

1. Set up the DBMS server: Tools | Set up DBMS Server

2. Import the Database Schema: File | Import | Database Schema

Follow through the wizard and you are done......really simeple.

 

News on your iPod

Many news sites provide RSS news feeds, genereally they are categorized like Science and Technology, Business, Entertainment etc. Technical Introduction to RSS news feed

I was wondering if these sites also provide an mp3 new file so that I can say updated my iPod every day in the morning with latest news and listen to it while I am going to work. I know the easier method would be to read a news paper on the tube but in the morning the tubes are so crowded that it is not at all possible to read anything ( some people do manage it but I am not one of them)

Since everyday in the moring I start up the PC ( if it has not been running through the night ) and check the weather report and the tube status etc( if I actually write the mobile program that I was talking about in my previous blog, I wouldnt have to turn on the PC in the morning), additionally I can now also select the news that I am interesting in listening, just select the news article and I should have the news article in mp3 format downloaded to my machine, all that is left to do is connect my iPod to the PC and sync. If you have gone through the RSS Introduction above you will see that the only thing required is a new link in the RSS feed that points to the mp3 file that contains the news in the audio format(well that is what I think).

Pale Blue Dot

I have to get the book Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan. Seems to be an interesting book, here is an extract from the same book.

I tired looking for the book at Waterstones and also at Books.etc but none of their branches have a copy of that book at all, seems like a rare one. I should look for it Foyles, or at Borders either of them should have a copy else I will have to get it from amazon.

Over the weekend 22nd Jan I tried all the books shops that I know of and I still could not get my hand on this book. It seems like a really rare book, well after all this waiting I have the audio book downloaded and so I listen to it when I going to work on the train. This book is really a very interesting book. One the things that adds Kudos to this book is the fact that it is an audio book( since very less concentration is reaquired), I dont think I would have read as much of the book if it wasnt an audio book.
There is some very interesting extracs from the book, that I would love to quote


...
George Bernard Shaw, in the preface to his play St. Joan, described a sense of science preying on our credulity, forcing on us an alien worldview, intimidating belief:

In the Middle Ages, people believed that the Earth was flat, for which they had at least the evidence of their senses: we believe it to be round, not because as many as one per cent of us could give the physical reason for so quaint a belief, but because modern science has convinced us that nothing that is obvious is true, and that everything that is magical, improbable, extraordinary, gigantic, microscopic, heartless, or outrageous is scientific.
...


This is just one of the many things that I find interesting in this book, I still havent gone through half the book but I seem to like it alot.

Blog Search Engg

Blog Search Engg

Thanks to this guy : http://linuxnotes.blogspot.com/

History of Programming Languages

The History of Programming Languages by O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. -- O'Reilly has produced a poster called History of Programming Languages, which plots over 50 programming languages on a multi-layered, color-coded timeline. Download the poster in PDF format, and join our wiki discussion if you have more to contribute.

Thanks to http://linuxnotes.blogspot.com/

10GB online storage - for free

I have to check this out when I get home.

Faye Valentine, Kaleina

Cool Axe Flash

Nice Flash stuff by Axe

I think I have been hit

I think I have been hit by w32.netsky

Since the Sys Admin informed me that I have sent couple of emails with an attachment Part-2.zip and Important.zip.
I ran a search through my system and also looked to the Reg entry bu I could not locate the worm ????

IntelliUML Teresa - IntelliJ UML Plugin by beto software

I was having a go at this UML plugin for IntelliJ, I have had a look at a couple of other UML plugins for IntelliJ but they are not worth mentioning. Since this particular one required a license I had a feeling that it should have some quality.
So I got the 30 day trial license and started using it.

One thing to note:- If you download the plugin through IntelliJ IDE (i.e Ctrl-Alt-S followed by 'S') and the if you go and download the the 30 day trial license from www.betosoftware.com/teresa site the plugin doest seem to work !!!
So I had to delete the stuff that was download from IntelliJ and download and install the plugin from www.betosoftware.com/teresa

Using the plugin.

• Open up your Java Project
• Select from the Menu: Tools|IntelliJ UML Teresa | Start (This starts up the plugin)
• Select any class or any package from the Project Exporer and right click and select 'Reverse Engineer' (The Plugin reads the selected class/package)
• Select from the menu: Window | IntelliJ UML Teresa  (Only the selected class/package that you chose to reverse engineer is displayed in the IntelliJ UML Teresa browser)
• In the IntelliJ UML Teresa browser right click on any package and select : New | Class Diagram
• In the IntelliJ UML Teresa browser Select individual classes and right click : Add to  Diagram.

Now you can keep adding classes to your digram and stuff with them like create associations, generalizations etc.
This is quite a good tool if you are creating an new desing from scratch, since you can create a skeleton class structure very fast and once you are finilized with the structure you can go to code and start editing directly (yes it has code and diagram synchronization)

Now since I have been using Together Soft for a long time now ( 3+ years ) my expections are set quite high. I mainly installed this plugin so that I could use UML diagrams like class and sequence since I wanted to learn how and existing program works.

Once I have added the class to the diagram there is no way that I selectively display only the private/protected/public methods/variables of a class. Since my class is really huge with really long method names and a lot of parameters, this one class occupies the entire screen. If you could hide certain details of the class I could possible added more classes to diagram and see how them all together, just to see how they are associated to each other.

I was expecting that there would be some kinda sequence diagram that could be generated for any method, but this plugin only provides me with class diagrams.

Overall a very good plugin, much better than the other UML plugins that I have seen for IntelliJ.

Googling my name

Running a google search on my name 'Vivek Viswanathan' the 2nd link the is article that I wrote on Loadbalancing web applications.

Wierd problem with my phone LCD and iPod LCD.

I have noticed over the last few days that my iPod screen seems to be shaded or rather discoloured - it is something similar to what happends to your TV screen when you have speakers close by (caused due to the magnetic field caused by the magnets in the speakers). I notice this problem initially and then after some usage I dont see the problem.

Today in the morning before leaving for work I just connected the iPod for charging (4got to charge it last night), while walking to the station I noticed again that the iPod screen was discoloured and then I noticed that my mobile screen had the exact same problem. I thought that it may be caused because of just charging the iPod, but that dosent explain why the mobile was discoloured ????

Who Locked me Up ?

'If you've ever been unable to delete a file because windows says it's locked… but you aren't sure why…and have asked the eternal question "Who Lock Me?" then you will find this free utility very useful'

Source of Information : Office Mate - Aaron G.
http://www.dr-hoiby.com/WhoLockMe/index.php

Bandwidth Speed Test

I generally dont check the emails at the ISP's email drop, since genereally I just get junk. The other day when I checked the mail box I realized that my ISP had upgraded my account to a 1Mbbs line for 3 months starting 2nd Dec 2004 free of charge, It is some kinda trial.

I still havent speed tested my home connection after getting this upgrade but I did check the speed at work and it was 3.2 megabits per second.

You can test the speed here : http://www.bandwidthplace.com/speedtest/

Firefox tabbed browsing extension

Office mate (Tom) told me about this tabbed browsing extension for firefox.

It is really nice I havent gone through all its features but here are some of them that I liked.

• Progress bar on each tab indicating the download status.
• Color coded tabs that are opened from a single parent tab (i.e right clicking on a link and selecting open in new tab)
• Reordering tabs

Well these are just a few of the features that are provided, it seems to be highly customizable ( using the menu item 'Tabs')

For installing this pluging navigate to the site using Firefox and select the download link. You may not see the extension being downloaded since firefox may block the pop up from this site, in that case you will get a message stating that the popup has been blocked (same for any other popup being blocked), click on 'Edit Preferences' on this message and allow popups from this site. Now select the download link again and you should see a Firefox extention installation dialog, confirm the selection and you are done.

Restart FireFox and you will be prompted about the type of settings for tabbed browsing (i.e Novice, Advanced..... Authors Settings). I went in for Authors Settings and tweak the settings from there.

Note: This extension causes problems when you want to install other extension.
When ever you click on an extension a site, you just dont see the install confirmation dialog box at all.
The solution to this problem
1.Disable this Tabbed Brower Extension (it can be disabled from the Tools| Extension - right click on the extension and disable it
2. Install other extension that you want.
3. Enable the Tab extension.

Hungry Black Hole

A nice news article about a really hungry black hole. The really interesting bit was

 ..The black hole occupies a volume of space about the same size as our solar system but it affects a volume of space about 600 times the size of the whole Milky Way galaxy..

I dont know what is the astonishing thing, the fact that the black hole is as big as the solar system or the fact that it is creating a space time distortion for 600 times the size of the whole Milky Way galaxy ???!!!

Relativity and Faster than Light Travel

Daddy was reading through some notes on FTL (Faster than Light Travel) over here http://www.physicsguy.com/ftl/ there are 4 parts and an introduction section, I was having a read through all of this during the flight from Bomaby to London and it is really interesting stuff, and since it is explained in simple english it makes it easy to understand and interesting.

I have just read through Part I and Part II.

Cool T-Shirt 'Love Me'

I really really need to get this T-shirt

Here is another snap of the same t-shirt ... as seen on Unwell Video by Matchbox Twenty



I have a feeling that I like this T-Shirt just because of the song. - Unwell Lyrics

Since it is going to be really difficult to get the exact same T-Shirt the only other alternative is to paint one !!!????

Talking about great looking T-Shirt there another good T-Shirt in Foo Fighter's Video - 'All my life'.

Michelle's Sketches

Here are a few sketchs made by my sister Michelle