The best way to learn any programming language is to take a real world problem and try to build an application for it. A lot of times, finding that real-world problem is itself a problem. However, the problem of having to remember login passwords at VJTI is a very real and annoying one. Passwords are set to expire every 14 days, and most of us end up keeping simple passwords like ‘password2010′. It’s stupid. 

So to store silly, unimportant password data, I’ve created ‘Sirius PocketPass’.  The application requires the user to set a ‘Master Password’ in the first run. This will be used to authenticate the user. Once that’s done, the user will be able to store the names of the services and the passwords used to access those services. The application can store a list of passwords, and the user may edit or delete existing passwords. The ‘Master Password’ can also be changed. 

I built this application in JME, and it uses the Record Management System (RMS) to store data into a persistent database. Pretty low-level stuff since there’s reading and writing of bytes involved, but it’s cool. Currently, the data isn’t encrypted, but since JME binds the RecordStore to the MIDlet, data theft is not really a concern. Future versions may see the use of java.crypt functions, and hopefully a working splash screen with PNG images.

The application should work on most Java-enabled cellphones, but I can only speak for Sony Ericsson K750i. The procedure to install the app is similar to installing any other Java-based app.

1. If you have an application like MyPhoneExplorer or some PC suite for your cellphone installed, use it to upload the “SiriusPocketPass.jar” file
2. If no such application is available, copy the files “SiriusPocketPass.jad” and “SiriusPocketPass.jar” to your cellphone, and execute the “SiriusPocketPass.jad” file

Also, in SE when the list shows up, you’ll see a “Select” left-button that doesn’t do anything. Use the right-button (menu) to see your options.

“Sirius Inc.”  is the name of my fictional company and I’m not only the CEO, but also the sole employee. Being a fan of the Open Source community, I’ll be releasing the code on SourceForge soon. 

Note  that this is a “heavy-beta” version of the app, meaning it’s only for testing purposes. 

Use at your own risk. 

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The Hunt for the Perfect Jeans

Trust me, it’s terribly hard to find a pair of classic Levi’s Jeans. It’s as if I belong to a lost generation of people whose clothing needs are no longer given attention by the corporate apparel brands. All I wanted was a pair of nothing-fancy, standard-fit, straight, flat, uncut, unworn, simple jeans. What I found was a wide variety of worn-looking jeans, some that had been cut into, some skin-tight and some baggy jeans (that revealed more than what is visually bearable).

Even in T-shirts, I could feel the trend was moving toward body-tight, short-sleeve tees that were meant to highlight the forearms of men who worked out. People are moving towards what is hip rather than what is comfortable. I ask, what happens to those of us who’re blessed with paunches? What do we wear?

I visited 3 malls – Infiniti, MegaMall and (my favourite) Inorbit, in the hope of finding something to my liking. I ended up with a feeling of being ignored. And the new kids on the block have weird taste in clothes; not too far off from their terrible taste in music. Damn those pesky kids.

Girls wearing stuff that they’re not comfortable in is fine; that’s different. They’ve been wearing highly uncomfortable/painful high-heels, and skin-tight, blood-flow hindering apparels and accessories for years. They believe it gives them more power, or a better sense of self, or whatever else they’re looking to kid themselves with. But for guys, the idea of putting on something you’re not comfortable with is plain wrong. Guys who take care of themselves aren’t guys. The word “shabby” defines us. The rise of the so-called metrosexual (“semigay”) male is horrifyingly disturbing for those of us who’re hoping it’s a fleeting phase. If clothing brands began designing clothes according to the wishes of the metrosexual crowd, several generations of old-school men are going to be furious. Of course, you’ll find a section of men who feel comfortable in baggy jeans, but for me, the idea of being so scarily close to being pantless in public is unacceptable. The very thought of it brings nightmares.

Clothing brands are having a profound influence over our product choices. It’s sad and unfortunate, but I believe our purchase-decisions are heavily influenced not by what we like, but rather by what’s hip and out there and what’s available in our favourite stores. People enters stores, pick out what they feel is best for them from among large sets of apparels that don’t really suit them; yet, for the sake of buying something from the store, purchase some or the other item at an over-priced rate and exit. The fashion out there isn’t decided by the people, it’s decided by the brands. Fashion is fed to the masses. And quality for the younger generation is apparently equal to the price they have to pay. Selecting crap out of crap will get you nothing but expensive crap. For me, quality is equal to something that’s comfortable and inline with my taste, a lot of times with very less influence of the price.

It’s hard for me to like something. And once I like something, I use it until it wears out. That’s how I get my money’s worth, and that’s why price has low significance while purchasing. Spotting what I like is extremely easy; it’s like love at first sight. And yet, the tough part is getting what I like. It takes me hours to find something that interests me, but seconds to reject things I don’t like. So most of the time, I end up rejecting hundreds of items quickly, and the one item that I like immediately captures my attention. I see it. I like it. I buy it.

I’m afraid that soon the younger generation will take over the market and I’ll be left with no option but to wear what’s “hip”. Thankfully, the sporting brands – Adidas/Reebok/Nike/Puma are largely unaffected by the changes in styles, fittings and sizes. The shoulder lengths continue to be where they were years back. That’s what I love about them. They still have that basic, classic feel.

An IT letdown

A few days ago while I was enjoying my long weekend, a friend asked me for a solution to a seemingly simple IT problem. At first, it seemed doable, but later it hit me that it would require a lot more work. It annoyed me that I couldn’t come up with a solution, being the IT guy. Today again, although I was able to help someone with one problem, I couldn’t help assist her with another simple one.

The Problem : “Why can’t I see Applications on Facebook? Where has the chat gone? Where has the toolbar at the bottom gone?”

Suggested Solution : Assuming that Facebook changed it’s code and it’s not pushing out  standards-compliant code, “Try a different browser. Works fine in Opera.”

Real Solution : “Switch back to Facebook from Facebook Lite. See Settings.”

The problem was in understanding the problem. The approach should have been broader.

Sometimes my mind is like a live-wire, electrifying my head and compelling me to do the things I love and blank out everything else. So when I came to know of a senior giving us a seminar on how the recruitment process in VJTI is going to take place, that thought of going for it never really got too much attention. Over a period of 22 years, you’d think I would know to distinguish between right and wrong, what’s good for me and what’s not. Well, some may think I’m not taking things seriously, some others may feel I’m rebelling against any significant change in my life, and some others may believe I refuse to grow up. But in the end, what really matters is what I think, isn’t it? After all, being an adult, I’m supposed to own up for the decisions I make. 

’twas a choice between going to college on a Saturday morning and sleeping till late afternoon. I chose the latter, not purely because I was lazy, but because I needed the rest to work for long hours and implement some of the things I had thought of. Besides, the part of my brain that’s responsible for deciding what’s important from what’s not, gave the event of listening to a senior speak about the placement process a measly score. Apparently, my mind would like to stay unemployed. 

I guess my greatest fear is that I won’t get to express myself in the way I want to once the job-life begins. I’d be forced to do things someone else’s way, out of my comfort zone, doing the things I may not necessarily love. This is the only time I get to do what I love. To put my stuff out there.

In contrast to what people generally have to say about living your college-life (or pre-job life), I disagree with most “experts”. They usually say something along the lines of “Trust me, you need to do this. You won’t understand the importance of doing this until later”. It usually seems like they’re trying to educate us on their regrets, or boat about all the things they did right. One respectable person recently pointed out that participating in extra-curricular activities, competitions, college festivals was critical. To that, my brain said, “This website counts as extra-curricular. The visitors who stumble down here are the judges. This is a gold-mine I’m working with here. I’ve built this from scratch. And it leaves my mark on the world. Google my name and have a look. What could be more critical that making it to Google?”. I agree that my brain constantly tries to find ways to avoid criticism, but I firmly believe that I am my own critic. Criticism is essential for growth. I don’t expect you to believe that I am my harshest critic and you may feel like I’m resisting growth. If you feel that way, that’s when you’ll find me telling you to mind your own business. I live in a shell thanks to my introverted nature, and it’s cosy in here. You are not welcome. At the end of it all, it’s me and my brain that decide what’s good for me. Outside opinions are welcome, but they may not stick.

What works for you may not necessarily work for me. That’s the basis for everything. Live life your way. Own up for mistakes; that’s what life is for — making and learning from mistakes. Have no regrets. I don’t believe people should try to learn from other’s mistakes, at least from ones that aren’t obvious. You just might miss out on some golden moments. 

Interruption — I just watched a bit of “Beautiful People” on CNBC TV18, with Anuradha Sengupta interviewing Ram Gopal Verma. God, she was annoying! She didn’t let him finish his statements. I bet he was annoyed out of his mind. Maybe the folks at CNBC TV18 put her there to do just that; to get as many questions through as possible. Every time “Ramu” was about to say something interesting, she’d interrupt him and ask another question. Boy, would I hate to deal with such a personality in real life, even as a friend. It’s like she’s barely listening and drawing conclusions prematurely even before you finish expressing yourself. She kept saying, “You mean to say…” and blabbered on about what she had gathered from what he said. That is just rude! 

Anyway…

I’m thinking of creating a “Changelog” to document the cutting-edge changes here. I intended to mention the names of the Wordpress plugins I’ve edited so that it could help people, but recently I’ve experienced my fourth interaction with a hacker (this time, from Ukraine). Reported that sucker to StopBadware.org and McAfee’s TrustedSource.org.  That experience also introduced me to a real-world SQL-Injection exploit, that I had only heard of previously.  The exploit looked to take advantage of vulnerabilities in the code of some plugins, namely — wp-cal, fgallery, wp-adserve, wassup, st_newsletter, wordspew, and others. Not something you would learn by attending lectures in college, boy. to_date=-1+group+by+id+union+select+1,2,3,0×6875616B,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12– :P 

Some of the changes that took place IN ONE DAY are as follows —

1. Embedding YouTube videos in Wordpress the jQuery.Flash way
   Adding YouTube videos in Wordpress was kind of a pain since the code generated by YouTube for embedding videos is NOT XHTML-standards-compliant. Validating this page would produce errors. Annoying. Then, I modified a brilliant plugin (that will not be named) to insert a SPAN element with the YouTube video ID, and a small JS code to make jQuery replace the SPAN with jQuery.Flash magic. This method was used long ago on the main website.
2. Clickable Flash Headings
   Gone are the days of system fonts. Behold the new way of display non-default fonts in the web browser without requiring the user to have the font installed. The power of two of the most exciting web technologies combined. jQuery and Flash. Again, a very old feature on my website. The change I made was that the Flash animations are now clickable. I mean, it’s the heading of a post, so it ought to be clickable! I now pass the post URL as a Flash Variable to the movie, which applies the link (getURL) to a rectangle shape for the onRelease event. I was mighty impressed with myself.
3. RSS, better than ever before
   RSS feeds for Facebook are now rendered beautifully. An added feature was the replacement of “You” in FB feeds with my name. Well, not necessarily my name. I modified the Wordpress Feeds plugins to replace “You” with the owner of the blog, presumably having user ID 1 in the Wordpress Database “wp_users” table. The getuserdata(1) function helped out. A bug that later caused trouble was identified and rectified. I was using str_replace() whereas I needed to use the str_ireplace() function, which is case insensitive. More problems followed, but were rectified. Admin options for the widget’s new “Replace You” feature added. 
   
   
   
   View Code
4. Finally fixed the time issue. Who would’ve known that I would actually have to go through documentation to find a solution to this. I was previously using the date() function, which took into account the Daylight Savings time. date_default_timezone_set(‘Asia/Kolkata’) wasn’t working for some mad reason. Tried editing php.ini and setting the date.timezone too. Anyhoo, I needed to use gmdate() Greenwich Time, and that’s what I’m doing now
5. A Facebook Share icon
   
6. Numerous other changes in CSS code

Now I need to get college things into order. UML, WT and other uninteresting crap.

Conan O’Brien in his last stint on The Tonight Show said these wonderful words —

“Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

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It’s about time I shared my secret about how I respond to Facebook messages so quickly. Recently, my friend compared me to a “bot” who spends his entire day lurking around on FB just because of the speed with which I commented on her wall post. I admit that compared to other activities, I spend most of my free time on Facebook, but that time is mostly spent responding to mails, comments and other correspondences; not “lurking around”. 

What allows me to respond so quickly is the nifty Feed-Reader feature built into most modern browsers. I haven’t really explored this option in any browser apart from Opera, but I’ve heard about Firefox and Chrome having a similar feature. Not sure if it’s built-in or available through extensions in other browsers, but I’m pretty happy with Opera. Sure wish they could add the ability to play a sound for new notifications. Currently, sounds are available only for a handful of events. I’ll surely request this in the DesktopTeam’s blog. 

Anyway, so everytime you communicate with me on Facebook and you cause a new notification to be generated (bottom-right corner, next to FB Chat), that notification is delivered to my browser/desktop via an RSS Feed. Clicking on the notification describes what it’s about, and if needed, I log into Facebook to respond to the activity. I get notifications in my browser without having to log into FB. Got it? 

The feed is updated every 5 minutes, so yeah, that’s a lil too frequent.

The following set of screenshots should guide you on how to go about setting Opera up for the Facebook Notifications.

Umm, about these images, I realised a lil too late that my screen resolution was too high. 

Also, use the arrow keys on your keyboard (left/right) to navigate through the images. You can “drag” inside the image to move it.

I have never come across a TV show with characters so honest, with story-lines so simple yet hilarious, with situations so real and with outcomes of those situations so true. After watching the first 3 episodes of the show at a stretch, I was crazy curious to know what to expect from the show. It’s a new show so I felt after the initial episodes it would pick up pace and move in a different direction to attract audiences. I was wrong. I guess it’s for the first time that a TV show is trying to be honest rather than entertaining.

A few weeks back I read an article criticizing Stargate Universe for being sexist, and a few weeks later I sensed that the story-line began portraying the female characters as strong individuals, especially Camile Wray. For me, that isn’t fair. Story-lines should not be altered according to fan or critical opinions. Show-writers need to have the creative freedom to take the show where they want it to go. SGU’s story-line eventually settled back to where it was after the spat between the Captain and Camile came to an end.

Coming back to “Men of a Certain Age”, the show has realism as a major component. That’s why I like it. I usually don’t like Dramas but this one and “House MD” are strong exceptions. The show is largely meant for the male audience since the female audience may find it hard to relate to. It might be for the first time that the male audience of a TV show sympathizes with the characters. It’s oh-so-hard to feel sorry for unreal TV characters. Maybe a certain class of men feels sorry for the characters in “Desperate Housewives” , but no one feels sorry about Gregory House (we love that he’s an addict!).

I feel the situations are like those in Seinfeld. Very real. While Seinfeld tries to be funny, this show tries to be honest. Get a glimpse of the sensitive side of men; a side you don’t get to see very often.

For Joe’s character (played by the awesome Ray Romano), it’s not a story of a 40+ separated “underdog” who scores a hot chic. It’s a story of up’s and down’s; the small, little things that bother him, pull him down, and the silly things that make him happy. He owns a party-supply store (who wouldn’t want to own a party-supply store with cool balloons, hats and fancy items!), has a gambling problem, and has a tendency to fret over the silliest of things. He’s single, vulnerable and lonely, but a great father and a nice genuine guy. After being married for a long time and separating from his wife, he finds dating to be a tedious task. The most hilarious scene was this guy on a float in a pool, totally drunk (after he finds that his ex-wife has moved on), with packets of chips floating around in the water. Being kind of a straight arrow, I guess this was the first time he broke a vending machine to get chips out of it, used the pool after official hours, and got drunk with his “bet-provider”. I felt the episode ended with the sentiment that two random guys who’ve been through similar situations (“girl problems”) can relate to each other pretty easily and no matter how unlikely their friendship may be, they can have a crazy night to fix it all. Brotherhood.

Terry, the struggling actor, who manages to date girls almost half his age, is kind of a playboy but with a great heart. He’s clear about his intentions before he starts the “relationship”. Although he breaks up with his dates pretty often, he appears to still have good relations with them, which is very commendable. He believes in Yoga and some other spiritual crap, and tries to give (unusual) advice to his friends when they need him. He’s also been mighty helpful to his friends.

Owen is a family-man who has a seemingly difficult relationship with his hard-headed Dad, and puts in quite a bit of effort to prove himself to his critics. A wonderful family-man.

Personally, I love Joe’s character, admire Owen, and find Terry hilarious (although he doesn’t try to be funny). Terry’s in-depth knowledge of how to hook up with younger chics is also commendable.

This show, along with the movie “(500) Days Of Summer” is something I feel every guy should watch. Not for entertainment, but for realism.

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