Chaos Reigns

Configuring BLU Logic 1211 in my Pruis 2010

2010-07-30T03:05:00.001+05:30

My Prius 2010 without navigation has a BLU Logic 1211 bluetooth package. This was one of the initial models where it was not integrated into the audio system's display, but instead just had 3 buttons (up, call & down buttons) below & to the right of the steering wheel.

I recently erased its bluetooth pairing with my phone, by holding down the call button for about 15 seconds (till I heard 4 short consecutive beeps). Then, when I tried to pair it again, my phone would ask me for a pin that I had conveniently forgotten.

The manual had no information about this & the information on the internet was skimpy. Finally, here's what I found:

The BLU Logic 1211 is configured with a pin/passkey as "1234". I am not aware of any way to change this, but this one just works.
For information about the different operations that can be done on the Blu Logic 1211, visit http://blulogicupdate.com

iChm - a better reader for .chm files

2010-05-21T22:53:00.001+05:30

Today, I found iChm - an ebook reader for CHM (Microsoft Compiled HTML Help) files on a Mac.

I had been using Chmox till now for reading the few chm documents that I had. But the minute I laid my eyes on iChm, I knew Chmox is history. The user interface conforms to the latest UI standards set by Apple & just feels at home on my Mac. Chmox on the other hand was good for its age but has not been updated in a long time now.

iChm loaded faster, had better keyboard navigation, was crisper in its rendering, allowed exporting to PDF files too (so I could load the file onto my eBook reader) & is free.

If you read CHM files on your Mac, be sure to give this a whirl !!!

Disillusioned with iPhoto

2009-10-25T12:44:00.002+05:30

I went around snapping about 30 pictures in the past 2 days from my iPhone of product options for my kitchen & some jewelry options at various stores, so that I can decide later at home.

Today I open up iPhoto, import the photos from my phone, and ask iPhoto to delete the photos on my phone. iPhoto just hung at this point trying to remove the photos from my phone. I finally had to force quit iPhoto.

Alas, when I started it again, I just had 11 photos on my phone & the imported photos from my iPhoto library were also missing. Basically, iPhoto just erased 1.5 days of my effort.

More than the loss, its the knowledge that I cannot trust iPhoto as my photo store is much more concerning to me. Considering that iPhoto is such an excellent product in terms of usability, I expected much more concern for user's data from it. And more to it, there is no data that I can include as a bug report to the iPhoto team, as the photos are gone from iPhoto & the iPhone. There is no record of them anywhere.

I guess I need to start another tedious cycle of finding another photo management software & migrating my photos to it. :-(

Mac keyboard shortcut to Maximize a window

2008-07-07T05:23:00.006+05:30

I have sorely missed the simple keyboard shortcut from Microsoft Windows to maximize a window (alt+space x).

There are many other solutions out there for a Mac based on AppleScript & a 3rd party application to invoke it using a shortcut (like Quicksilver). But there is a way to do this for most applications without installing any other applications.

Almost every application has a "Zoom" menu-item in the "Window" menu which does the same action as clicking on the Maximize button on the left corner of the window.

So, here are the steps to setup a keyboard shortcut for this:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Go to "Keyboard & Mouse"
3. Navigate to the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab
4. Click on the "+" button below the list
5. Set the "Application" drop down to "All Applications"
6. Set the "Menu Title" to "Zoom" (no spaces)
7. Set any keyboard shortcut. I have set Cmd+Shift+M (opposite of Cmd+M which is the standard shortcut for minimize)

8. Click on Add
9. In the "Keyboard Shortcuts" tab, scroll down to see "Application Keyboard Shortcuts" at the end. Expand it to see "All Applications". Expand this to see the new shortcut you just created.

10. Close System Preferences

You are done. Now go to any application, press your shortcut & enjoy a maximized view of the application.

Hebbar Tamil - A comparative study

2008-01-21T09:49:00.000+05:30

Being a Hebbar Iyengar myself, I am much too familiar with the reactions of Kannadigas (people from Karnataka) & Tamilians (people from Tamil Nadu), when they hear Hebbar Tamil being spoken. It usually goes like "that sounds a bit like Kannada but is not Kannada" & "you may call it Tamil, but I cannot understand it at all".

And surfing around, I found this gem of an article
"A BRIEF SURVEY OF HEBBAR TAMIL'S VERB MORPHOLOGY"
comparing Tamil (as spoken by Tamilians) & Hebbar Tamil grammatically.

Although it has a heavy emphasis on the grammatical differences, the examples given serve as a light reading that reveals the subtleties of our language. I would recommend any Hebbar Iyengar who speaks Hebbar Tamil to read this article.

Bloxorz - nice puzzling block game

2007-12-12T03:55:00.000+05:30

Here's a simple game of moving a 1x2 block by rolling/turning it over to finally reach a hole. Reminds me very much of Sokoban, but with some interesting twists including the absence of walls.

Play it to know more - it sure will bring down your productivity at office

RCDefaultApp - centralized application association management

2007-12-12T03:00:00.000+05:30

I came across this nifty preference pane RCDefaultApp for Mac OS X, that allows you to manage all kinds of associations like file associations, default applications for various file extensions, url protocol associations at a single place.

Its a relief to be able to set the default browser, default newsreader or default application for .xxx files at one place, instead of hunting around for the settings in various applications like Safari, Mail, Finder, etc.

This is now one of my must-have utilities for Mac.

Tunnel - simple and strenuous game

2007-12-11T12:22:00.000+05:30

I downloaded this port of the old arcade game "Tunnel" for the mac. You can check it out here

Its a really fun game, but the feature that really got me hooked was the use of the sudden motion sensor to play the game. It is real fun to pick up your laptop and start using it like a joystick (although its really strenuous on the wrist)

I would have liked the option to increase the speed to make it more challenging and a pause feature. But on the whole, a throughly enjoyable game :-)

Cheeni Kum title song rocks

2007-12-07T06:37:00.000+05:30

The title song of the movie Hindi movie "Cheeni Kum" just rocks!!! I love the passion with which Shreya Goshal has sung the song.

I personally feel that she has bested her own previous top "Jadu Hai Nasha Hai"

Windows Scandisk better than Mac disk tools

2007-12-07T06:28:00.000+05:30

I hate saying this... but it seems that the Windows Scandisk tool is better than any of Mac's disk tools (Disk Utility, fsck) at fixing disk problems.

I finally connected my external hard drive to a Windows system and ran Scandisk. That fixed all the problems with my hard drive. And now the hard drive mounts fine on a Mac too.

Sorry Apple!!! But this one goes to Microsoft :-(

Mac & FAT32 HDD problems

2007-12-03T01:50:00.000+05:30

A file on my external USB hard drive failed to read today. The hard drive has a FAT32 file system, so that I can read the data from a Windows box and my Mac.

I suspect that the hard drive has some bad sectors (something I use to fix using "scandisk", when I used to run a Windows box).

I tried running Disk Utility -> Repair Disc from my Mac. It ran fine but the problem was still there.

I tried running "fsck" from Terminal, and it gave me a weird error "BAD SUPER BLOCK: MAGIC NUMBER WRONG ".

And googling just seems to bring me to the conclusion that nobody uses a FAT32 external hard drive with a Mac. Am I the only freak doing this??????

Shaan's best in Dastaan-E from Om Shanti Om

2007-12-01T01:55:00.000+05:30

I recently watched the movie Om Shanti Om and loved the final song of the movie "Dastaan-E". The more I listened to it, the more I wanted to listen.

The singer of the song came as a shock... Shaan. I couldn't imagine Shaan with such a deep & rich voice. I still can't believe its Shaan, even after listening to it again.

I feel this is one of Shaan's best pieces. Its also one of my all-time favourites. Way to go, Shaan!!!

Common questions to ask about housing loans

2007-08-10T20:12:00.001+05:30

Its been a painful week enquiring at a dozen places about the various housing loan options.

With each new enquiry, I accumulated some more questions to ask about any housing loan. Here they are, in case you need them:

Is a fixed rate of interest really fixed for the entire tenure? If it is not fixed for the entire tenure, when is it revised?

At what interval is the floating rate of interest revised?

Can you convert a floating rate of interest to the fixed rate of interest during the loan tenure?

Are there any part-payment charges?

Are there any pre-closure charges?

Is the loan insured? Does the insurance cover property damage or also accidental death of the applicant?

Is the loan issued on the (house value + registration)?

Does the loan also cover charges for soft furnishing of the house?

Is there any discount for timely payment of the EMI? (Believe me, some banks do give this)

Is the actual loan amount directly handed over to the vendor or to the applicant?

How long does loan disbursal take after completion of sanction?

Snapshots in Mac

2007-05-23T09:32:00.001+05:30

I knew that on a Mac, Cmd+Shift+3 could be used to take a snapshot of the entire screen and Cmd+Shift+4 can be used to take a snapshot of a selection.

But I was surprised to find that Cmd+Shift+4 followed by Space can be used to take a snapshot of a particular window. This is very useful and convenient, as I no longer need to carefully select a window from the top-left to the bottom-right. Just point at the window and click.

Interesting conversational explanation of REST

2006-07-13T11:50:00.000+05:30

A cool explanation of REST modeled as a conversation between a couple.

How I explained REST to my wife...

A very interesting read.

Double Words Optical Illusion

2006-06-14T13:56:00.000+05:30

Been some time since I posted anything. Was not able to find anything worth posting here. But finally the drought is over... Hurray.

Check this link out... Double Words Optical Illusion

Demonstrates some cool optical illusions relating to antonyms.

REST vs. WS-*

2006-05-17T12:09:00.000+05:30

A beautiful article written artfully with a very interesting analogy, that manages to convey the meaning in a light-hearted manner.

http://cafe.elharo.com/web/rest-vs-soap-a-parable/

A must read (for both serious and humorous reading)

Handwriting Tips

2006-04-28T15:39:00.000+05:30

A very sensible and practical article explaining an approach to improving your handwriting.

Handwriting Tips

I am gonna try it for sure

Very good CSS articles

2006-04-19T10:59:00.000+05:30

Good CSS articles explaining CSS positioning in simple language with nice examples.

Learn CSS Positioning in Ten Steps

Relatively Absolute

The Comic Project

2006-03-17T11:48:00.000+05:30

This blog rocks!!! All the original Phantom & Mandrake comics scanned and downloadable...

The Comic Project

These are some of the coolest comics I grew up on.

Nice free Flash based games

2006-03-02T15:06:00.000+05:30

Here is a site with a lot of nice Flash based games playable online & also downloadable

http://www.miniclip.com/download.htm

Some of the games like Snake (a better version of the old snake game) rock.

Classic Old PC Games

2006-03-01T18:00:00.000+05:30

Some of the best old PC games (from 80s & 90s), now downloadable for free at

http://www.bestoldgames.net/eng/

Pure nostalgia :)

And to go with it, a DOS emulator that even has a build for MAC.

http://dosbox.sourceforge.net

It had been so long since I played Dangerous Dave... YooooHooooooo!!!!!!

Cool open-source applications

2006-02-08T17:25:00.000+05:30

Was looking around for some open-source applications for my Mac & found 2 cool apps -

Cashbox - A great & simple tool to maintain your personal accounts. Switched from my Text files immediately. Needs more work on reports and export facility, but can work with it for now.
Freemind - A cool tool, something even I was thinking of creating, for putting down my ideas in a structured form (but in a quick and simple way).

The more I search, the more better software I find for my Mac :) giving me more & more reason, to never think of going back to my PC.