If you were thinking twitter is just for sharing one liners, think again. It can actually be used to save a life. Thej has developed tweet4blood to help people in need of blood. Read more here- http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloids/how-save-life-021.
Over the weekend a friend discussed his idea of creating a web portal for some specific services with me. The failed entrepreneur in me liked his idea and encouraged him to go ahead (anyone, who is trying, should be encouraged). He shared some wireframes for his portal, but he was not sure how will it actually look on the web. So after returning home, I decided to get some basic version of the website up on the internet to help him. Resulting in the journey mentioned below.
Step 1: I knew I will have to share my email address with service providers (hosting space/ domain name etc.). And as I am looking for free stuff, it would be more than possible that I come across some fake websites. So I thought of creating a dummy email id which could be used to register to all these websites.
Step 2: Now I needed a domain name. I could buy, but as this was just a dummy site, why waste money. Next option is using subdomain from web hosting provider. Here I had to look for a free web hosting provider, and my past experience with free hosting providers is ‘don’t trust them’. The site can go down anytime without notice (its for free. What were you expecting?). So I thought of getting a free domain name, yes, a co.cc domain. I registered a domain with http://www.co.cc/, which I could use with any service provider.
Step 3: Now I needed web hosting. I googled around some free web hosting sites, zeroed upon one (checked features and reviews), registered, and bam, it is not working. Moved to second one, registered, and this time it worked. It was awardspace.com. I got Linux hosting with Apache, PHP, MYSQL. Basically all I needed, for free. I set up the nameservers for the domain and all is good. (Ofcourse I tried a hello world example, I am still the same old fashioned developer at heart).
Step 4: Now we have all set to host our web pages. I had the wireframe with me, and I had frontpage, I could easily create the HTML pages. BUT, from my past experience, I knew designing web pages is a sin for a developer (”Are you colorblind! Why are all the pages grey?”). So instead I pinged a designer friend and asked for some templates. Who suggested checking http://projectw.org for free html/ php templates (you will find more interesting stuff on the forum, but handle with care :D). Ok so I had a template with me, now I needed to customize it for my pages. Actually this was the part which took most of the time. Once done! I just had to upload the pages to my website using ftp. And we are done.
Wasn’t it simple. If instead of a website you are trying to create a blog, you can simply upload the blogging software. Infact most of control panels come with blogging softwares, so that is actually simpler.
If you don’t have your website yet, what are you waiting for? Go ahead! Get your hands dirty.
After trying to stop spam comments on my own, and failing, I have opted to install the third party captcha plugin. Using Recaptcha plugin for wordpress. Let’s see if this can solve the spam problem.
Sometimes things go terribly wrong. Its life, it is not meant to be perfect and smooth. When everything around you start falling into pieces, you might feel now this is the end of road, but actually it might just be a small hurdle and who knows, it might actually be a new beginning.
I remember a very beautiful incident in my life. I was working on an important project as a technical lead with a team of 4-5 developers. The day we moved the application to production; it bombed. Nothing was working. It was an important multi million dollar piece of software, which we had tested and retested multiple times before moving to production, but it refused to work on the d-day. Obviosly clients were furious and emails started pouring from each side. As a tech lead it was my responsibility to make sure no technical issues should be there so I had a strong feeling that my career is over. My reporting manager would give me a call anytime and.. no idea what was in store for me. Anyways I tried my best to fix the problem, meanwhile I got calls and emails from client managers and directors, discussing issues, setting up meetings. But my manager never contacted me.
So the next day in morning, I went to my manager, thinking that he might actually have not read the emails. I was at his desk even before he came and waited for him. I was ready to take the responsibility of whole thing and was ready for any consequencies. So when he came, I tried explaining him the issue, but he told me that he had seen emails yesterday. So I asked him
“So what should I do now?”
(He, matter of factly) “Go and fix it!”
Thats it. Does he not understand the problem. I might lose him business, client might now want to do business with us again. So I again tried to emphasize on the seriosness of the issue. He just told me
“Kamal, you are handling that project and I trust you. What ever is required to be done, you will do it. If we lose business becuase of this, I will not care as I know you tried honestly. so Go and fix it”
Wow! I was so amazed and felt very confident after that. Afterall, if such an experienced man is telling me to fix it, there must be a solution out there. So I went back and met with all the managers from different teams and asked for help. To my surprise, everyone was more than ready to help me and my team. It took us 3-4 days, but we were able to fix the software. And while we finding the fix, we actually came up with many new processes to make sure others do not face similar issues in future. So at the end we were appreciated by the clients for our sincere efforts. The project which we thought would lose us business, eventually helped us improve our relationship with clients.
One very important lesson of my life I learnt from this incident, that even if the problem you are facing is scary and you are sure that this is end of road. Think again. There must be a way out. After all, every problem has a solution, and who knows, what looks like a problem, might actually be an opportunity. So whenever such a problem comes, I just tell myself, “Go and fix it”. cos there is no other way to deal with problems.
Nayi Subah hai, Chal uth naye safar ko chalen
zindagi udasi ke pehloo main padi achchi nahi lagti
behtar hain toofan se takra kar bikhar jaayen
kashtiyaan sahil pe khadi achchi nahi lagti
Everything was planned. I was dreaming about driving back to Delhi, my home town, from Chandigarh, while singing “Country roads! take me home. To the place I belong”. But as always is the case with my life, I had to prepone my travel date because of a family urgency. Drove at 120 kmph on Delhi - Chandigarh highway. And finally I am Delhi.
After 3 and a half years. Out of which I spend some part in Bangalore, some in U.S. and last 11-12 months in Chandigarh, I am back home (laut ke buddhoo ghar ko aaye). Things were not always as I expected, infact they never were as expected. But still.. main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya…
Spammer bhaiyo aur behno.. please stop sending spam comments. Evertime I check my comments section, it is full of spam. ‘Get hot date’, ‘cheap Viagra’, ‘Free nude ladies’. Abey characterless aadmi samjha hai kya.. aur koi link chalta bhi nahi hai isme se..
Koi baat nahi beta.. aise aise filter lagaunga na.. ke reverse spamming ho jayegi, aur tumhare mail boxes bhar jayenge spam mail se.. and I am serious..
Today is the festival of Rakshabandhan (haan wahi! jab behne bhai ki kalai pe pyaar, i mean rakhi bandhti hai aur unki jeb dhili karti hain). Almost on every year this day, the words of a 7 year old kid comes back to me. Even I was 7 at that time. Yes, some things you just can’t forget (20 saal ho gaye!). So that was the age when you talk to girls only if there is no other option (hoo jee! ladki se baat kar raha tha), and Rakshabandhan was one of those days. Anyways, girls were tying Rakhi to all the boys, and this dude, my friend at that time, was hiding in a corner. I asked him “Kyu be! tu kyu nahi bandhwa raha rakhi” and the reply was “Abey! rakhi bandhwaonga to ye meri behan ho jayegi. aur agar bade ho ke inme se kisi se meri shadi ho gayi to?”
Dude! that is some serious future planning. I am pretty sure this Guy has made big in his life.
A Good Car+ Good smooth long Road+ Good Scenic View+ Some Good Quality Music= Life
I have been using the FF browser for like last 5 years, but this is the first time I observed this feature, that too accidentally. If you double click on the empty space on the bar next to your browser tabs, a new tab opens up.
There is no indication anywhere that a double click will open up a new blank tab. That is one kool thing I found in IE browser, that small box next to your last browser tab, which very clearly tells you “click me! I will open up a new tab”.
I guess that is what we call usability.
Country’s election results are out today, and obviously all news channels were full of reports on the same. Every other news channel coming up with its own breaking news every second minute. “Sabse pehle humare channel par”.. you know that stuff
And ofcourse they would add some spice on their own. The most funny and amusing stuff was the songs they came up with for different politicians. For BJP leader Advani one channel played, “Chan se toote koi sapna, jag soona soona lage”, for Rahul Gandhi we had songs like “main hoon yuvraaj” and “yaha ke hum hai raajkumar”, and ofcourse for Manmohan Singh we had “singh is king”. These news channels do have a sense of humor.
But amidst all this drama, one important thing that came out was victory of democracy. Predictions of all the channels for a hung assembly were proved wrong (well almost), and the country is hopefully heading towards a stable government.