Me and Dynamic Multilevel Drop Down Menus......

You crib about something, curse the person (even in front of them) who designed / programmed something, suggest some improvements that could make it better, which that person is not able to do because of some constraints, and suddenly like a thunder lightning bolt out of the blue on a clear dark night sky, you get a chance to change it, to make it look better, to perfect it...... and you did not have the required skills to do. How it would feel :( ....

That is what, the situation i am in..... I had been cursing about the drop down menus implemented in my company's product. I don't know about the clients, but i certainly do criticize each everything which i feel is not worth to be there or in that way... Suddenly, the CEO calls and asked me yesterday can you do it. I was dumbstruck for a moment. Though i do not have the basic skills required ( i don't know javascript or even what css meant till yesterday), I accepted the work, because i am being given a chance to make something better than what it was previously. But how am i going to proceed.....

With the same belief with which i stepped into this company to work, i started off. i read the file a little, i could n't understand much, i took a few help from my Child, and then got off to some start, then did some small settings changes and made it a little workable, but it was still way off the mark. It was a work around to make people a little happy.

The task given was to convert the drop down menus from becoming active on mouseover, and getting deactivated on mouseout, it should be made to work on onclick event. I nearly achieved that, but yet again there was many a problem. Now i stand at the brink of the first level victory, it is nearly ready, yet it is not perfect, it does not finish off as the required. To be correct, it does not finish off at all. It does appear on mouse click, it holds even on mouse out, but it does not disappear on mouse click outisde the menu.....

Kino, KdenLive, OpenVideo Editior Vs M****S*** Windoze Movie Maker

After all these years of moving away from windows at every possible opportunity, last week, i had go back to windows. Video Editing is still not easy for a novice, or even to a slightly average user. (maybe i am wrong, i am writing what i faced).

We had shot some videos during the new year celebration in our office, and i was given the job of editing the video, add some subtitles, some title slides here and there, and such. I decided to give a try once more on linux. The last time i tried was in December of 2006, using LiVES on a Fedora Core 6 System, but i couldn't spend time back then.. This time i set up Kino, KdenLive, OpenMovieEditor on my Laptop which was running mandriva 2009. I did not have to time to compile and set things up, else i could have even given a try for cinelerra, about which i heard some great things. For audio, i went with Audacity which i feel is the best.

Kino was cool. I just could understand what is what, but when trying to use it, i had trouble at exporting. something was not right, and system kept hanging or it would end up doing the wrong thing,(i know, kino just does what i ask it do, so i can't put the blame on kino). KdenLive was also nice, the interface was interesting, and certain things were really nice, (i did not take time to note things down). But i ran into problem soon(may be i was ignorant to search the menus or google it). and Open Movie Editor just kinda freaked me out. ok i am not saying anything bad, but at the state that i was, i just kinda threw me out....

Since i was pressed for time, i had boot back to windows ( windows gets a point ), start up windows movie maker and start doing things. I can't say Windows Movie Maker is the most coolest editor ever, i have seen sonic something when i was in college and some other stuff, which were really wonderful. Coming back, i am using the software nearly after 5 years, the last time i used it was to set up a video of all the still pictures which we shot during our Karnataka tour with a background music, so i can say i was not much of an expert at movie maker too. But i was able to start off immediately and proceed and finish the job in a day.

May be the fact that i have seen people use Movie Maker, may have unknowingly made me know that these things are there, and how to do those things and stuff.

I will have to live with it for some time, but i will have to find something or do something, so that i can and the others whom i have created interest in and those whom i have converted to linux can do video editing. I wish i could it sooner, or atleast some more time to check out any of the above mentioned tools.

BloGTK

lately i have been on the lookout for an off line blog writing software on Linux. On windows, in office i had been using the Live writer (i know that is a MS product, still that is great), and now the scribe fire firefox plugin.

The Scribe Fire plugin is good, but somehow i am not so very comfortable with it. with every new version released, something is throwing me off, like holding the previous blog in the editor area, and stuff like that. Other than that it is great. But i want something outside of the web browser, on the desktop. (Again don't start, i know i am some one who lives on the internet, but i too need to do take a break and do something different). So had been searching a lot, and came across gnome-blog, blogtk, kblog. I needed something out of these K's and G's. It is boring to say i use Kthis Kthat and ....., So i zeroed in on BloGTK. The version which is installed on my home computer is 1.1, i have to check what i have got in my laptop in office.

It looks nice. I love the icon of BloGTK and their web site. Ok, though bit not easy to find info. I've been trying to configure it for blogger, for the past 3 hours then i came across a link which finally got me working, it is here...

In the Server URL textbox in the Accounts and Preferences window, enter the url as http://www.blogger.com/api/RPC2, the rest of the things are self explanatory. Fill in the rest of the details, and you are ready to go. Go to file --> connect, then you can start writing.

But i was not able to enter the Title for my blog, i tried to see if i had done anything wrong, Googled for it, but in vain. If i can find something for this title, i think i can get used to it. Though you can't say it to be user friendly (it slightly requires you to understand and use HTML), still it should do the necessary for me. But till i find out how to enter the title and solution to any other problem which i might face, i will be logging in to blogger directly and then posting.

and just in case you end up with a blank BloGTK.conf file in /home//.BloGTK, which makes BloGTK to crash everytime (which happened to me, i un-installed and then reinstalled), i am posting my .BloGTK configuration, which might be of some use....

[Default]

useutf = 0

system = blogger

publish = FALSE

server = http://www.blogger.com/api/RPC2

retrievalnumber = 10.0

user = nasarabna

pass = xxxxxxxxxx

font = Clean 12

defaultpublish = 1

It stores your password in plain text in this file.

Christmas Surprise

It was a day which was different. I don't remember when i had gone out to some one's house, just because they invited, maybe back in school/college days(i can't remember anytime other than when ish would call me to his house).....

I went to Melo's house. Me, PRO, The last king of Jharkand, Mithun Chakraborty, Mr.dot, Mumbai Indians went to his house. I can't say we had a blast, but it was nice. it was different. I don't know what to say, but it felt good.

Then came back and watched Terminator 3 - Rise of the Machines. The tamil dialogues were ok, not bad, but those words or dialogues which are the essence of Arnold's character were wasted in tamil. The I'll Be back / She'll be back and the last words of Arnold as Terminator - Asta la Vista, Baby, were rendered horribly in tamil.

And then, there was a surprise, i had a comment, a real comment i should say after a really long time. i had never been so excited about people's comments. But to be frank, this one was out of the blue. The poster, identifies himself as raghav, the superb dancer raghav who danced in Maanaada Mayilaada, who was there in Silambattam. He says thanks for noticing his efforts. I still can't believe it. Is it really you Raghav?!!!

and i created a profile in google. check it out here.

Fight Club!!!!

Awesome!

That is the only thing, that i can say to describe this movie. wow! Brad Pitt was amazing, Edward Norton was cool. The story was great! the shots were cool. I don't have anything to say, other than.....

Just watch it.

Silambattam - Simabattam...... - A review.

Well, well, a simbu movie it was in the movie of the month in office. To be frank, simbu was not at any spot in my movie lists, except for say manmathan. And the talk was, the movie was ok, and the songs great. That was the information with which i entered the movie hall in sathyam.

By Far, the worst, by simbu that i had seen till date, that is what i can say, what he is not dancing to the songs too. Is that a hip hop kinda style which you are trying to adopt in the songs dude. Never mind, you had so many things missing. not something, so many things. I ain't no one who know dancing, but you didn't have nothing to make me move.

But hold on, the flashback part was good. Simbu was great there, the song, sung by ilayaraja was superb. Prabhu was majestic. wonderful on his part. The part where he comes in like BILLA, was superb, except for the fact that, he does not have the body to carry the grace which is required for that character. But i can think of it as a spoof of billa and laugh. and to say the truth, yes it was a laugh riot at that juncture of the movie.

That song, no wait it was not one but two songs, "Vachikkava unna mattum" and "Where is the party tonight". i couldn't make why they had to interrupt the movie for these songs. i couldn't see a reason why the songs were there in the first place. You can hear the songs, but don't take the trouble to watch em. It sucks, the moves suck. especially, Where is the party tonight, the dance sucks, the video sucks.

It is just the kind of movie you would watch if you are down too much.
Watch it for Simbu's performance as Thamizh, in the second half, the other guy, i think his name is raghav, the character which kills the cows in Thamizh's house. and Prabhu.

Beliefs vs wishes.

Since last sunday, i had wanted to write, badly, but, at the same time, i also, didn't want to sit down to write those things which i wanted to write. thought that i might imagine things, write what might happen in future, might hurt someone. But i couldn't stop me from writing. so here i am.

For those who are around me, they know, what is happening. My mom and pop are looking for a girl to get me married. (i Can't explain the traditions here, at this point of time, coz i myself don't know em).

Come on, what, i am just 25 now. i don't even have finished working for the major things in my wishlist, i don't own a thing, except for what?,,... a laptop, a desktop, and a mobile phone, and... and... what else do i know, other than, my video games, computers and cartoons.

What about my wish?,,... well the ones whom i believe (ma friends, if you didn't know) think i don't stand a chance to woo anyone. I don't even know the basics. and what did they call me now, after all these years of struggle, after being looked down at every point, they are saying, i am too geeky to make any one to even turn and take a look at me. and they are asking me to try for someone in my office instead of the whole world. Bull S***, That is office. where you work, create beautiful things, which are of use to someone, not some place for flirting and romance.

I know, i don't look good. i don't have a great body, i'm obese slightly. I talk with a kind a humor which many find difficult to understand. I live online, than the real world. And i don't know anything outside of computers. And that is what i am. And i want to be me.

i know i am confuzzed.....

Gold Star! - followup

i had mentioned about unconference which takes place in my office every alternate week. and how i missed a gold star last week. Well this time i made it. But i don't think i was worth it this time. After the question by the other tall lady, i didn't stand a chance. i had lost all hope once that question was posted. mine never had a chance, and i was also not able to think of anything else. i had lost all hope of making it this session, i was not even a single position of getting even a silver. But somehow i made it to 13 votes, and the tall lady too managed 13 votes for the best question. i couldn't believe it. But the fact that i had to share the gold is not great. But this is the first gold. But still it should have been her. She was the one who had shared, with me. her question was best. But you can never stand in front of the people. See there is a saying in tamil. "Makkal Theerpe magesan tirpu", meaning the people's decision is the god's decision.

Next time, next week. i will work even more hard to be solo winner of the gold. But i have already set my eyes on the red bell which goes for challenge and which is a point more than gold. i have challenged some. Seems i have to read more and be cautious, coz in the next session i will be travelling thru hot waters, one small mistake could create large slides and falls.

Me, Rain and JLPT 2008

It couldn't have started any thing like this.

Even before i reached the railway station near my house, myself, my mobile, and my laptop were nearly drenched with water, coz of natural (rain), and unnatural (faulty design of the subway). Then after reaching Central the rain stopped completely but the Train in which i was supposed to go had not arrived due to some other problem, and it was delayed by around 3 and a half hours.

phew, after a long wait, i left chennai for madurai. after a overall delay of another half an half from the delayed schedule, i reached madurai at around 2330.

I started my preparation for the JLPT exams the very next day. in between i went to the book fair which was happening over there in madurai. It was wonderfull. I wish i could buy nearly every other book which i saw. but, was a little short on cash, and these guys do not accept plastic money. so i had to be content with 3 - 4 books which i bought.

I got some nice small story books and puzzle books for my uncle's daughters. well it was nice, after nearly 2 years i had gone to a book fair. Surrounded by books i was lost in time, till the organizers decided to pull me out of the trans at around 2100 in the evening on that day.

Then i left for Bangalore where i had to write the exam on 7th. Reached there on 6th stayed in Jeyan's place. he is not the same as last year, he was a little tensed, and shaking too much. I just can't believe what can happen to a person. We both wrote the exam in our respective levels, and not expecting any great. Hope everything turns fine for him.

Back to chennai, back to office, it was fun. I missed office so much. and now i am back.

Rules!!!

I broke one of my sacred rules yesterday!.

i sent a link of a post to some people.

i never wanted to advertise. But... I had to, i think, that was the only way out....