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Internet Radio : As you like it

Tired of listening to Radio stations that might or not play what you want to hear? Try Pandora (www.pandora.com). Pandora claims it’s sole mission to be “To help you discover new music you’ll love”. The founders of Pandora have analyzed more than 60 years of music and created a sophisticated taxonomy of musical information. If you specify an artist or song, Pandora creates a unique radio station based on a Musical Genome of the song/artist/band. And to top it all off, it is completely free :). I love the sleek and simple flash interface too. I would love to take a look at how they keep up with streaming all that content across the Internet.

Update : Some Googling lead me to this article in Computerworld which speaks about some of the technology used to power Pandora.com. Looks like they use OpenLszlo.The programming approach is as elegant as the site :).

April 10, 2007 by Fun Uncategorized Web 1

Project PresidentFeed

I came across a new project by one of my old colleagues, Tim O’Brien, called PresidentFeed.com when I saw another colleague mention it in his blog. Tim is one of the smartest people I have come across in my career. Not only is he a great technologist but he also takes an interest in politics (which more and more people seem to do less and less of 🙂 ). He built this new website, that aggregates information on all the 2008 presidential candidates and also lets you cast your vote for them. Obama has the largest number of votes and highest approval ratings.. Go Obama!!! . Get your mouse over to this site and take part in shaping the free world :).

April 8, 2007 by Fun Politics Technology Uncategorized Web 0

Podcast about management

I am always looking for people, books, sites, podcast that can make me a better person to work with. There are quite a few sites out there that have help for managers, but the one I found that has the most relevant and interesting information is Manager-Tools.com. It is a weekly podcast by two management consultants (Mark Horstman and Michael Auzenne) with practical advice that can used in our day to day life. Mark and Mike provide an fresh insight into business advice, management consulting and personal coaching. Highly recommend it to anyone thinking of moving into management.

April 8, 2007 by Management Uncategorized 4

Mac : Enhance your Apple Remote

While I am on a Mac spree :), here’s an app that can really enhance the apple remote that comes with all the new macs. The default functionality you get with the Apple Remote is pretty basic. You can only control Front Row and put your Mac to sleep. I am trying “Remote Buddy” from IOSpirit and have been pretty impressed with all the apps you can control with your apple remote now. And you cannot argue with the 9.99 Euro cost either :).

April 6, 2007 by Mac Technology Uncategorized 0

HOW TO : View Chat logs in Adium

Adium is a multi protocol instant messaging application for the Mac OS X. I have been using it on my MacBook for a while now and think it is a fantastic example of how powerful open source can be. I was trying to figure out how to look at the chat logs on Adium. Some Googling helped me figure it out.. :). To view the chat logs on Adium, you can type “Apple Button + l” or click on “Contact -> View Chat Transcripts” in the menu.

April 4, 2007 by Mac Technology Uncategorized Web 0

RECIPE : Chepala Pulusu

Recipe for fish curry (AKA Chepala Pulusu in Telugu). Credit goes to my Athayya (mother-in-law). Lakshmi and I learnt a lot of new dishes during her brief visit to Chicago.

Ingredients

  • Cat Fish : 3Lbs
  • Onions : 3 (large)
  • Thai Chill : 6
  • Tamarind : 10 gms (or use 2 table spoon of tamarind paste) : 6i
  • Ginger Garlic Paste : 3 table spoons
  • (sambar) Chili Powder : 3 table spoons
  • Curry Leaves : 5
  • Cumin Seeds : 1 tea spoon
  • Mustard Seeds : 2 tea spoons
  • Turmeric : 1 tea spoon

Preparation

  • Skin the cat fish, cut out the fins and tail.
  • Cut the fish into medium size pieces and wash with turmeric and salt (this takes out the fishy smell).
  • Pour 5 table spoons of oil in a broad pan and let it heat for ~2 minutes.
  • Add mustard and cumin seeds and let them sizzle for ~30 seconds (this is known as thalimpu in Telugu).
  • Add curry leaves and let them sizzle for ~20 seconds.
  • Add the chillies and onions and fry them.
  • Add 1 table spoon of salt to soften the onions.
  • Add turmeric powder.
  • When onions start to brown, add the tamarind water.
  • Add the chili powder and let the contents simmer for a few minutes.
  • Lay the fish pieces on the mixture evenly (after this point, don’t move the fish pieces since they can fall apart).
  • Cover the pan with a lid and let the contents boil for 15 minutes.
  • Serve hot with white rice and enjoy :).

Visuals

March 31, 2007 by Food Uncategorized 2

Blackberry : Administrator tip

If you ever wanted to find out how to confirm that a message you have sent to a blackberry device has been delivered, you can send a message to the blackberry with just < confirm> in the subject. You will get a confirmation e-mail as soon as the message has been delivered to the blackberry device. We usually use it to check latency and other issues on our blackberry server.

March 13, 2007 by Networking Technology Uncategorized 0

HOW TO : Cognos Installation

I tried setting up Cognos (Business Intelligence tool mainly used for reporting) on a test machine for Lakshmi to play around with. After going through the install, I can say with confidence that Cognos has some of the worst documentation :). Here are some quick tips that you won’t find in the official documentation for someone trying to configure Cognos BI 8.x on a Win2k3 server running MS SQL 2005 and IIS 6.0.

  1. After installing Cognos, run the “Cognos Configuration” tool and change the “Gateway URI” setting to “http://servername:portnumber/cognos8/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll” in the environment section.
  2. Edit the default.htm and index.htm file in the “< cognos install directory >\cognos\c8\webcontent” directory and replace cognos.cgi with cognosisapi.dll
  3. Open ISS manager and go to Web Service Extension. Add a new web service extension called isapi and add cognosisapi.dll as a required file. Make sure to set the extension status to Allowed.

This should enable you to launch cognos and log into the web interface.

March 13, 2007 by Networking Programming Technology Uncategorized Web 1