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→ The first step is to start
August 31st, 2010

I’ve heard enough from myself lately, and I’m going to act on it soon. To never follow a dream because you don’t think you’re good enough or don’t have the skills, or knowledge, or experience is a waste. In fact, these projects where there is doubt are the ones to pursue. They offer the greatest [...]

→ Be Happier: Rent Everything
August 11th, 2010

This pretty much summarizes my argument against owing a house/pet/car/child etc. In short, ownership dampens your happiness and burdens you psychologically. Being able to leave your home and not worry about a pet adds to your happiness. Keeping your housing costs low and not accidentally accumulating stuff allows you to spend time and money on [...]

One week with iPad
August 5th, 2010

When iPad was announced, I wasn’t really sure if I needed one. All the time I drag my mac around, so I thought I don’t another device to keep an eye on. But when it was released in the Netherlands, I wanted one. My iPad arrived last week and so far it found its rightful place on my desk. Anyway, here’s what I like and dislike about my iPad.

★ Risotto à la Vijay
August 3rd, 2010
Fun with School Kids
July 23rd, 2010

After a long grueling road trip for the past 5 days, I finally got a chance to get back to real India, the country side. I visited the school where my mother teaches and some pretty good fun teaching the kids whole afternoon. They are so curious and excited to learn new stuff. After a [...]

Virtual Tour of Trans-Siberian Railroute
July 11th, 2010

Amazing virtual tour of  Trans-Siberian Railway courtesy of Google and Russian Railways. The Great Trans-Siberian Railway – the pride of Russia – is in 2 parts of the world, 12 regions and 87 cities. A joint project by Google and the company “Russian Railways” will allow you to not leaving the house to pass on [...]

→ Pictures
July 6th, 2010

I don’t want to stare at some photo of me at 21 when I’m 50 and contemplate everything I was, or could have been. I don’t want to have to drown in partial truths, grasping at a falling memory to paint in details. I’d rather either remember, or not. Rather know, or forget. I’d rather [...]

Hand to Mouth to India
June 28th, 2010

I wrote Hand to Mouth to India in 1997/8 at the age of 20 and it’s the tale of how I hitchhiked from England to India with no money. via Hand to Mouth to India.

★ Copenhagen – Mœrsk Building
May 14th, 2010
★ Copenhagen – Tivoli
May 13th, 2010
★ Copenhagen – Driverless Metro
May 13th, 2010
★ Copenhagen – Angels
May 13th, 2010
★ Reverse Lens Macro Photography
May 10th, 2010

Some experiments with upside down lenses

→Your Office Chair Is Killing You
May 2nd, 2010

Frequent TV and Web surfers sitters have higher rates of hypertension, obesity, high blood triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol, and high blood sugar, regardless of weight. Lean people, on average, stand for two hours longer than their counterparts. The chair youre sitting in now is likely contributing to the problem. “Short of sitting on a spike, [...]

Rules of Eating
April 22nd, 2010

Never eat on an empty stomach. Never leave the table hungry. When traveling, never leave a country hungry. Enjoy your food. Enjoy your companion’s food. Really taste your food.  It may take several portions to accomplish this, especially if subtly seasoned. Really feel your food.  Texture is important.  Compare, for example, the texture of a turnip to [...]

★ Makizushi @ Home
April 4th, 2010
Keukenhof Opens with Theme: From Russia with Love
March 17th, 2010

Theme 2010: From Russia with Love Russia: a colossal, beautiful and mysterious country. Under the theme From Russia with Love, this year Keukenhof pays homage to a special country that has a special past. Follow the themed route from the entrance of Keukenhof and you won’t miss a thing. You will walk between the main [...]

★ Turin – Ciok Art! – Chocolate Cabbage
March 7th, 2010
★ Turin – Gobino Chocolate Experience
March 7th, 2010

I’m not a much of a chocolate guy, but Gobino Chocolate experience is something I really enjoyed.

★ Turin – Totally Tally!
March 6th, 2010
★ Turin – Vittorio Emanuele II
March 6th, 2010
★ Turin – Mole Antonelliana
March 6th, 2010

Mole Antonelliana (Also National Museum of Cinema) – The Quintessential Photograph of Torino

★ Turin – Training Capital of Europe
March 4th, 2010

I’m giving training in Training Capital of Europe

→ Holi 2010 – The Big Picture
March 3rd, 2010

via Holi 2010 – The Big Picture →

The First Golden Hippo
February 27th, 2010

Yesterday I joined the hippo professional services team for a fun filled team event with go karting evening and the first ever Golden Hippo Award event. The evening started with go karting fun, we were competing with each other. This was the first time I ever did this, I failed miserably in the qualifiers. Clearly I’m [...]

★ Madrid – Carnival
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid – Royal Palace
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid – Puerta de Europa
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid – Iron Sculptures
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid Carnival – Laurel & Hardy
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid – Fountain of Cibeles
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid – Palacio De Cibeles
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid Carnival – Marilyn Monroe
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid -Ritz Hotel
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid
February 14th, 2010
★ Madrid
February 14th, 2010
My Love
January 20th, 2010

My love is like an iron wand       That conks me on the head, My love is like the valium       That I take before my bed, My love is like the pint of scotch       That I drink when I be dry; And I shall love thee still, my dear,       Until my wife is wise.

→ Quote: War vs Peace
January 12th, 2010

In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.  In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace — and what did they produce? The cuckoo-clock. – Orson Welles, “The Third Man“

→ Letters of Note: Your pal, John K.
January 11th, 2010

In 1998, aged just 14, aspiring young cartoonist Amir Avni decided to get in touch with the creator of Ren & Stimpy, John Kricfalusi. Being a hardcore fan of Kricfalusis work, Amir sent him an introductory letter along with a few cartoons hed drawn, some of which contained relatively unknown characters of Johns. To call [...]

→ 50 Things we know now that we didn't know this time last year
January 3rd, 2010

Grumpy people think more clearly because negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking. The calmest place on Earth is on top of an icy plateau in Antarctica known as Ridge A, several hundred miles from the South Pole. It is so still that stars do not twinkle in the sky because there is no turbulence [...]

Looking back & Looking forward – Happy New Year!
January 1st, 2010

Happy New Year! to you all whoever is celebrating it.  2009 has been a roller coster ride in my life with some major events happening. Some good, some bad and some best! First of all a review of what I was wishing to do, I made 5 resolutions last year January 1st and its time [...]

★ Snowmen – I made two :-)
December 20th, 2009

More than an hour, 3 tools(cheese cutter etc) and a lot of snow resulted in two-face snowman  They are now stuck in a blizzard!

Quote – Bill Watterson on work & life
December 17th, 2009

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top [...]

A course on Death
December 11th, 2009

Everybody who is alive is interested in their own Life, and I think anyone who is interested in Life, should be having many questions about Death. I ponder, albeit less philosophically, about the death, soul and other concepts. Because of my family background, I have fairly good acquaintance with various hindu religious scriptures – like The Bhagavad [...]

The Hindu on Telangana Issue
December 10th, 2009

I completely agree with Hindu’s Opnion about the formation of a new state Telangana by splitting Andhra Pradesh . Aside from the unwisdom of breaking up South India’s largest State, a separate Telangana will fuel demands for a separate Rayalaseema, for a separate coastal Andhra, and, maybe, even for union territory status for Hyderabad — and [...]

Converting .mkv to XBOX 360 compatible format
November 29th, 2009

1. Download Handbrake 2. Select the .mkv file. 3. Click Toggle Presets if presets are not visible already. 4. Select “High Profile”. 5. Start. Once encoding is done, copy the resulting file to a USB drive, plug into XBOX.

Photowall
November 27th, 2009

Here’s what happens when I’ve freetime and a photo printer. Posted via web from moc.nariKyajiV|VijayKiran.com

Hippo Forge Friday
October 23rd, 2009

On October 30th, we at Hippo are organizing the free Forge Friday hacking event. If you are using any software from Hippo or interested in implementing it in the future or even just wanted to know more about Hippo Software, this is a great time to come and join us during the Friday Forge event. [...]

My OmniFocus Theme
October 10th, 2009

Here’s the theme I customized to use with OmniFocus. If you like it and want to install here’s the link for the theme file – OmniFocus – Clean Theme

UP 3D – ★★★
October 8th, 2009

The last 3D movie I watched, ICE AGE 3 – Dawn of the Dinosaurs, was pretty disappointing – both technical and story wise. So I was a bit hesitant to goto UP – 3D. But I really had a nice time watching the movie in 3D. As far as the plot goes, UP 3D wasn’t that [...]

Sneak Preview 1
September 15th, 2009

Version 0.01

Dessert Sunday: Orange Pudding
September 6th, 2009

Ingredients 3 Cups Orange Juice 3 Table spoons Ground Rice 1 Cup water Grated Rind of 1 Orange Sugar to taste Rosted Almonds Preperation Stir all the ingredients together-except the almonds-and cook over very low flame, stirring constantly, until the pudding thickens like thin custard. Pour into a shallow serving dish, let cool, and decorate [...]

Specialization is for insects
July 29th, 2009

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook [...]

Already Broken
July 18th, 2009

I’m pretty sure that the Heaven, if it exists, has the Internet, otherwise it won’t be heaven. I hope my dad finally gets some time to get online and reads my blog. “You see this goblet?” asks Achaan Chaa, the Thai meditation master. “For me this glass is already broken. I enjoy it; I drink [...]

The sorry state of Hospitals
June 20th, 2009

Seems like Hospitals want to make sure that the patient’s attendants are also getting equal amount of pain and discomfort. Here is the photo of the people whose relatives are in ICU getting treatment, just like my father. I’m waiting in the same chairs and room every night for the past 10 days. Its a [...]

Back in Holland with New Job
April 21st, 2009

I’m back in holland after getting married and yesterday I joined the new job as Product Consultant at Hippo B.V.. The last month has been really hectic, getting the necessary documentation for the new job and also because of other personal stuff like getting married etc.

Just Married
April 21st, 2009

After  years of negotiations with our elders and longest drama of my life, I got married with Neha last week during my trip to India. And we have a brand shiny new website about us: www.VijayandNeha.com To keep noise to signal to a minimum, we’ll be uploading our photos, and publish our blog in that [...]

Last day of Work
March 17th, 2009

Today was the last day of my work at International Criminal Court (and with LegalCraft). I was working on JEE(Seam/JBoss/Oracle ADF and other stuff) for the past 1.5 years with them. Though the work was enjoyable at times, it was mostly disappointing and unsatisfactory for me, except for a couple achievements in introducing the Open [...]

Piquant Potatoes in Jackets
February 28th, 2009

Tonight’s Menu Piquant Potatoes in Jackets: Potatoes stuffed with fresh indian spices and yogurt

GrowlMail breaking Mail after Safari 4 Beta Installation
February 25th, 2009

After installing the latest security update on Mac OS X 10.5.6, Mail began to crash on startup. It printed out the message saying the problem may be because of the GrowlMail plugin. Disabling the Growl and removing the GrowlMail plug-in didn’t help. I’d to remove the GrowlMail.mailbundle from both the ~/Library/Mail/Bundles and /Library/Mail/Bundles. Now the [...]

★ Portrait
February 19th, 2009
★ Portrait – Valérie
February 18th, 2009
★ Portrait – Valérie
February 18th, 2009
★ Portrait – Valérie
February 18th, 2009
★ Portrait – Chris
February 18th, 2009
My Inspiration: Swami Vivekananda
February 13th, 2009

Just like every one else, I am continuously inspired by various people, phenomena, places, things etc. In these posts, I’d like to share/blog about those that inspire and motivate me in and drive me in various aspects of my life, work, thoughts. When I was in my 12th (at the age of 17), I had all sorts [...]

Update: Learning Guitar
January 17th, 2009

I made a little video to show what I’ve learned so far. The password is the name of instrument I’m learning to play, no caps.  

30th Jan: An Evening with Malcolm Gladwell →
January 4th, 2009

The John Adams Institute is proud to present an evening with Malcolm Gladwell. [30 January 2009] What if the Beatles had never gone to Hamburg in 1960? Would they have become a sensation? What if Bill Gates had been born five years later? Would he have revolutionalized the world? Excellence, we often think, comes from practice. But [...]

Happy New Year
January 1st, 2009

Happy New Year to all. Last year, just like every other year , was fantastic filled with all the joy, sadness and wows and oopses of the life. I hope every one had a good one too.  Here we go again, another day another year, but still same old people, problems, joys, sorrows I need [...]

Photos from Swiss : Sneak Peak
December 28th, 2008
Leaving for Winter Vacation
December 19th, 2008

I’ll be leaving today for my winter ski/snowboarding/hiking holiday for 10 days. Tomorrow I’ll be in Samedan, in Switzerland. This is the first time I’m going to a ski resort. And most of the time I’ll be in St. Moritz.  As the ‘birthplace’ of winter sports, St. Moritz has achieved world fame and nowadays is the [...]

Learning Guitar: Month 3
December 17th, 2008

It has been 3 months since I started learning guitar. I’ve finished learning all the notes on the Major C scale. And most of the basic open chords (C, D, D7, Dm, E, E7, Em, G, G7, A7, Am). Still I’m not able to play some chords like C7, B7, A properly because of the [...]

★ Untitled
December 3rd, 2008
★ Louvre – A weekend in Paris
November 24th, 2008
★ Louvre Park – A weekend in Paris
November 24th, 2008
★ Wheel of Excellence (Night) – A weekend in Paris
November 23rd, 2008
★ Seine – A weekend in Paris
November 23rd, 2008
★ Wheel of Excellence – A weekend in Paris
November 23rd, 2008
★ Eiffel Tower – A weekend in Paris
November 23rd, 2008
In Memoriam
November 20th, 2008

I’ve very few friends and fewer well wishers. Sekhar was one of those fewer people. I had a previlege of being his friend for the last 10 years. Without him or his help, my life would have been completely different than it is today. My process of learning about computers and software started because of [...]

★ Sinterklaas Parade
November 15th, 2008
★ Sinterklaas
November 15th, 2008
★ Sunset in India
November 14th, 2008
"Passenger Free Internet"
November 4th, 2008

Another “It happens only in India” thing. The WiFi network in Bangalore International Airport is “passenger free”. 

"It happens only in India"
October 19th, 2008

Priests offering prayers to Gods for Kingfisher London flight.   [Photo from Economic Times, India]

New MacBook/Pro rumors
October 14th, 2008

Later today Apple is going to announce new updates to their notebooks range. As per the rumors 15″ MacBooks will get aluminum casing and upgraded harddirve etc. There seems to be no major update to the 17″MBP though. I need to wait and see. But from the information/rumors I heard till now it seems that [...]

Learning Guitar : After 1 month
October 13th, 2008

It has been a month since I started learning guitar and I’ve made some good progress. I’ve learnt all the notes on the first measure and I’m now able to play “Jingle Bells”, “London bridge is falling down”, “Yankee Doodle”, “Minuet in C” and “Ode to Joy” at 72-80bpm. Also, I’ve learnt G7 and C [...]

Jenga Fun
October 6th, 2008

Jenga is a game of physical and mental skill, marketed by Hasbro, in which players remove blocks from a tower and put them on top. The word jenga is derived from kujenga, the Swahili verb “to build”; jenga! is the imperative form.

Googling for my name in 2001
October 1st, 2008

Google has turned 10. And the search index of 2001 is available online for a month.  I tried searching for my name, and the message I posted on 3rd March 2000 is the first link. And vijaykiran@engineer.com was my primary email address in those days . And here’s proof of my existence (online) in 2000. [...]

Transit Visa, Avifauna and Guitar
September 30th, 2008

I went to Amsterdam to get my “Direct Airside Transit Visa” for my trip to India via London. The ridiculous thing is for 1:30hr of transit via London I need to get a Visa from the British Consulate. And they’ve all sorts of silly questions in the Visa form: “Did you ever participate in genocide [...]

Aperture WTF!
September 27th, 2008

Aperture needs -2 petabytes! I guess I need to downgrade my 160GB hard drive to -2PB.

My first guitar
September 11th, 2008

I learnt Guitar for a very brief period when I was in chandigarh. But after that I couldn’t keep up. Now my interest is rekindled again, and I got a new Washburn D10SB Guitar. I tried learning the first chord (E-Major). My fingers are hurting like hell. I guess it will take a couple of [...]

My mobile phone usage history
August 28th, 2008

My (not-so-accurate) mobile phone usage history: Motorola T2288 (2001-2003) BenQ M560G (2003-2004) Samsung N620(2004-2005) Nokia 3220(2005-2006) Nokia 3230 (2005-2006) Nokia N95 4GB (2006-2007) Apple iPhon 8GB (2007-2008) Apple iPhone 3G 16GB (2008-NOW)

★ Matka Biryani
August 24th, 2008

I tried cooking the vegetable biryani in slow cooker I got yesterday. It took almost 3 hours to cook. But the taste was amazing, and reminded me of the DeeZ biryani in Gurgaon.

Coding….
August 22nd, 2008

Me writing code on 42 inch “monitor”. So I finally understood the “Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything“.

Brussels Trip
August 18th, 2008

After wonderful time at Scheveningan with Fireworks, this weekend started as a fantastic one. And it ended with a whirlwind one-day-tour of Brussels. After slacking in the Netherlands for the past 6 months, finally I got my b*tt out and went to Brussels, Belgium. Brussels seemed to be completely different and nice. High-rise palaces and [...]

★ Fireworks
August 17th, 2008
★ Fireworks
August 17th, 2008
★ De Pier Scheveningen
August 16th, 2008
Fireworks Festival Day 2
August 15th, 2008

Photos from Day 2 of Fireworks festival 2008. Today I got a new Tripod. The photos I took are much better looking than yesterday’s. Click on the image to see the complete set.

वन्दे मातरम् (Vande Mataram)
August 15th, 2008

वन्दे मातरम् सुजलां सुफलां मलयजशीतलाम् शस्यश्यामलां मातरम् | शुभ्र ज्योत्स्ना पुलकित यामिनीम् फुल्ल कुसुमित द्रुमदलशोभिनीम्, सुहासिनीं सुमधुर भाषिणीम् सुखदां वरदां मातरम् || My obeisance to Mother India! With flowing beneficial waters Filled with choicest fruits With Sandal scented winds Green with the harvest O mother! My obeisance to you! Ecstatic moonlit nights The plants blooming [...]

Fireworks Festival: Day One
August 15th, 2008

Click on the photo to see more

Fireworks Festival
August 14th, 2008

29th International Fireworks Festival starts tonight at Scheveningen, Den Haag in a couple of hours. I’m getting ready with my Camera to get some good shots.

My birthday gift
August 7th, 2008
★ Windmill at Kinderdijk
August 5th, 2008
iPhone 3G and ADC Select
August 4th, 2008

My birthday is a couple of days away, and I already bought myself gifts ! 1st one is my new iPhone 3G/16GB/Black version. I used my existing T-Mobile number and converted the number to subscription number. After activation, I was able to test 3G for almost an hour or so. The speed is impressive and [...]

★ sculpture at scheveningan beach
June 29th, 2008
Non Duality
May 19th, 2008

Poem by Sri Adi Sankara, the essence of non-duality principle. aAtmashtakam – Song of Soul by Adi Shankara I am not the intellect, ego, mind . Neither am I hearing, taste, smell, sight . Nor am I space, earth, light, air, field of consciousness. I am the pure consciousness of bliss – I am Shiva [...]

★ Sunset at scheveningan
May 7th, 2008
Online finally!
May 7th, 2008

After waiting for more than a month for the ADSL connection, today I was able to set it up. The ADSL line has been activated since 30th April, but I did not receive the modem yet. I ran out of my patience and bought Linksys Wireless + ADSL2 Router.  I called up Orange to get the settings. [...]

Vijay in Dutch is vyjeawy
April 23rd, 2008

I tried spelling out my name to the Orange customer service rep. And this is what she wrote in her records.  vyjeawy

The Hundred Gypsy Violins
April 17th, 2008

Yesterday I’d a great evening. I went to the The hundred gypsy violins orchestra. This is thefirst time I ever saw some thing like that. I absolutely enjoyed the performace. The second half of it was much better. The “Budapest gypsy symphony orchestra”, in Hungarian “Szaztagú Cinanyzenekar” (100 – head Gypsy Orchestra) is the worlds [...]

Portraits
April 16th, 2008

Yesterday night was the potrait practical at the images photo club. As I said, I’ve never tried portraits before, and never thought of tryingeither. But I had a wonderful time yesterday clicking photographs of four models in the “studio environment” with flash and backdrop etc. I’m glad that I’ve joined such a wonderful club with [...]

★ Flowers from Keukenhof
April 15th, 2008

New photos from Keukenhof, click the image to see them.

Portrait Practical
April 15th, 2008

Tonight is the protrait practial at Images Photo Club, which I joined very recently. I’m very excited to and looking forward to meet and learn from the fellow members. I’m not that good at taking portraits and it was never been my cup of tea. But I hope to change it and this could be [...]

New Apartment/New Bicycle
April 7th, 2008

I moved to a new apartment last week. I’m still in the process fo settling down. The apartment is located just 5mins from the sea and 2 mins from the Dunes of the Hague. It is prety nice and probably the luxuriest of all the places I stayed in till now. I’m still not able [...]

★ Orange Tulip
April 1st, 2008
★ Yellow Tulips
April 1st, 2008
New keyboard
March 11th, 2008

A couple of months ago, some keys on my MacBook Pro’s keyboard has started acting strange, especially the SpaceBar. And it is nearly impossible to clean the keyboard or remove/fix the keys back again. Yesterday I bought the new Apple Keyboard. The tactile response of the keyboard is amazing, and the keyboard is beautifully thin. I was not sure when I bought the keyboard, but now I carry it to work as well, So that I can use the keyboard all the time.

Bye Bye Bangalore
January 28th, 2008

Its time to say good bye!

My duration of stay in bangalore is coming to a conclusion soon (21-Dec-2005 23:25 to 31-Jan-2007 10:20). I’ve had very nice time here, made few friends. And lost some.

Bangalore treated me well, and its been a crucial in shaping my career ( if I’ve any). I’m taking with me some good memories, including Bike/Car trip to Sringeri, Foss.in, M.G.Road shopping, Traffic, good/bad/ugly house owners to pretty good colleagues, my bicycle, barcamps, moments of togetherness, and some unexpected exceptions, nice time with friend(s), bad times in the meetings, Kidney stones and etc. etc.

For now, I’m gonna end up with my parents for some few days. Life is good, as always.

MacHeist Bundle
January 22nd, 2008

Finally, I bit the bullet and buying the MacHeist bundle. I’ve already purchased CSSEdit which is part of the bundle. But there are some great apps in the bundle I don’t want to miss out. Also, being a Heister I’ve an extra discount of $10. So, all 14 apps for just $39.00 :-)

Happy New Year!
January 2nd, 2008

I hope you all had a very nice new year eve and parties. I started the new year with a nice long road trip. This time it was by a car instead of my bike. I went to Sringeri and Udupi, from Bangalore. The trip was for two days 31st Dec and 1st Jan and [...]

Say Hello to iPhone
December 15th, 2007
Candle
November 11th, 2007


sleep deprivation
October 24th, 2007

Many of my friends out there know that I’m nocturnal (active at night). And I get almost less than 4-5 hours of sleep a day. Since I can’t sleep in the mornings, people keep on knocking and ambient noise etc. etc. Now, here’s a warning from Live Science to all of you

When we’re sleep deprived, it’s really as if the brain is reverting to more primitive behavior, regressing in terms of the control humans normally have over their emotions

So next time, I’m behaving like a primitive cave man, blame it on my sleep deprivation. Blimey, I’m typing this post at 3:40am in the morning.

Java Certification Deadline
October 24th, 2007

I work better when I’m on a deadline or my neck is in the line. So, finally I’ve set a date for using the two Sun Java Certification coupons before the end of November. The coupons are valid worldwide, so no problem with travel as well.

I need to read a couple of good books on Java back2back like Thinking in Java. Although, I’m working on so-called Java Development for some good years, I think I need to prepare a bit. The problem with regular development and Certification is, when you are working on a project all you need to think about is how to get the task/feature done.

You don’t think about why something is like that unless you’re fortunate enough to get a good Lead/Mentor who explains the things. Certification is a different thing, you need to understand almost every nook and corner of the language. But looking at the sample questions of SCJP 5.0 things are seeming to be easy. Let me see if I can finish the coupons by November.

Selected Photos from Kailash Mansarovar Trip
October 13th, 2007

I’m back from the trip. Was busy fixing up the things and catching up with pending work. This trip has been “The trip of my life”. I’d some wonderful experiences.

Also, I’ve learnt a great deal about photography, and tried to put my SLR and three lenses for a good use. I’m trying to create a calendar out of some selected images, take a look at them by clicking on the image below. If you like the photos and want the calendar, drop me a line. I’ll try to send one your way. Of course you need to pay for printing. .

If you are very interested, or rather just want to kill some time, you can check the entire gallery on my new studio.vijaykiran.com.


So, it begins.
September 18th, 2007

In a couple of hours, the journey to the trip begins. I can’t and won’t be online/available for 15 days, till October 6th, 2007.

Thank you to all the people who ‘wished’ or ‘tried to wish’ or ‘thought of wishing’ me. :-)

More, on my return, if any.

Signing off for now,
Vijay Kiran

Photos from Beluru Trip
September 10th, 2007

I went for a one day bike trip with my friend to Halebidu and Beluru. We accidentally visited a couple of other places not in our list. Kondajji and Neerelli. Kondajji is a cute little village with a single road encircling it.

The place has a idol of Varadaraja Swamy of 11 feet height. Very nice quite place.
Later we went to Haelibidu and Beluru. Check out the full gallery by clicking on any image below.
A little video for everyone
September 7th, 2007

Cute!

New Laptop
July 26th, 2005

I finally purchased the iBall laptop. After extensive market research for features/price/performance, I bought the Emperor High end model. The configuration of the laptop is :

  • 1.7GHz Pentium M Centrino Processor.
  • 1 GB DDR RAM.
  • 80 GB Harddisk.
  • DVD Plus Writer.
  • ATI Mobility Radeon 256bMB Graphics Card.
  • 15.4″ Wide WXGA Screen – Resolution upto 1680 X 1050.
Better late than never.
July 18th, 2005

It’s been a while I posted something onto my blog. Things are moving fast at my end. I couldn’t really keep track of them Okay here’s what happened during these days of no-posting: I got the Personal loan to centralize all my inherited-debts. Its 2.5Lac loan from HSBC. I am on a look out for [...]

Our First Masterpiece
July 7th, 2005

Created with Yahoo! Messenger’s Doodle IMVironment.

I am famous!
June 30th, 2005

Saw this image anywhere? This was created by me last year for a colleague’s blog, When I was working for ESN Technologies, Hyderabad. One of my friends, sent me this recently via some junk mail, I just looked at the image, and how strange internet is! When I look at the image I feel like [...]

Rain Rain Come Again!
June 26th, 2005

Seems like summer is over here in chandigarh. It was a rainy day till now. Clouded and very nice weather after a long time, although little humid. Temperature is down to 29Degrees and the Humidity is 85%. The temperatures during the summers have been 44Degrees+. The forecast for the next four days shows thunderstorms, so [...]

Chandigarh – Topview
June 26th, 2005

The Google Map’s view of The City Beautiful. On the top-right corner you can see a large waterbody. Its the sukhna lake near sector one of chandigarh. Here’s the link.

End of One more month
June 25th, 2005

As usual the End-Of-Month-Economic-Crisis strikes again. I’d to get the money from Emergency Relief Fund (a.k.a The Coin Storage). I counted them today and it was Rs.150+, Can you believe it? I am rich!!! I picked a handful of coins to feed my bike, he was almost on empty-stomach. I went to the petrol bunk, [...]

I live here!!
June 25th, 2005

Here’s the photograph of my house in Chandigarh(Mohali). I live at Sector 71. In the first floor. Its a bedroom + kitchen & all that I need .. A double bed, A/C, Small TV with 5.1 DVD home theater System, Kitchen, Geyser for summer, all in all .. Home sweet home. And my true companion [...]

Photos in Blogger
June 25th, 2005

Finally .. its here! The feature I’ve been waiting for. Blogger has photo upload! Here’s the link. Now I can merge my two blogs into a single one. I’ll update the blog with new Images from manali trip. Here’s the one of the best picture from Manali-trip. The trip was a lot fun. And all [...]

The Flickr badge
June 25th, 2005

I’m loving Flickr a lot. Clean interface, excellent features. Now the latest feature is the flickr badge Look on the navbar … pretty cool, isn’t it?

Photos from Manali Trip
June 22nd, 2005

Manali trip in the last weekend had been great. The complete albums are here. Some of them are also on my photo blog @ photos.vijaykiran.com

Back from Manali
June 20th, 2005

This weekend we went to Manali for an Adventure camp at manali (pandrah meel – 15th mile ). After two days of activity, came back today early morning. The activities we’ve done .. Rappeling, Rafting, Traversing and trekking .. and above all sitting in a stupid bus for 11 + 9 hours Pictures are being [...]

Migrating to Ubuntu
June 6th, 2005

After 6 months of using debian, I am now migrating to Ubuntu Linux. I always wanted to keep my software at the bleeding edge, wanted to try all the latest features first. I’ve used many Linux distributions including Slackware, Redhat (7.2 – 9.0 ), Fedora, SuSE, Mandrake, Gentoo and Debian. I’ve been searching for a [...]

New looks and new blogs
June 3rd, 2005

New template for the blog. This template is from http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com. I’ve got a new mobile: Nokia 3230, loaded with tons of exciting features. I’ve just setup a flickr account. Flickr is really a great photo sharing service. I send a mail/MMS to flickr address, it grabs the photo stores it in flickr, makes it bloggable, [...]

April 1st
April 2nd, 2005

I was looking at all the funny slashdot april 1st pranks .. This is wonderful: Ygoohoogle

Blogging from Desktop
March 28th, 2005

Here is my first blog from my Linux Desktop! I am blogging through the gnome-blog applet. This applet seems to use the blogger SOAP RPC API. I am going to give it a shot by writing a desk-top blogpost in Java, let us see how far I can go with it.

What’s New
March 25th, 2005

It’s been some time since I posted to the blog .. here is what happening at my end: * Instant Messaging Server (Jabber).* eGroupware (online collaboration suite ). Both of them are installed on my machine which will be serving as the internal server for my Team (QDM R&D). And in the Java side, I [...]

Abou Ben Adhem
February 26th, 2005

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,And saw, within the moonlight in his room,Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,An Angel writing in a book of gold: Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,And to the Presence in the room he said,“What writest thou?” The [...]

New Mobile!!!!
February 22nd, 2005

Finally, I got new MobilePhone! It’s brand new Nokia 3220 .. It’s a new phone every day …Some of the exciting features: Java Enabled ( MIDP 2.0/ CLDC 1.1). 65536 colors & 128X128 Pixels EGPRS (EDGE — to watch HutchTV clips). WAP 2.0 & MMS via TCP/IP Operating System: NokiaOS Shared Memory: 4.5MB 1.2 MegaPixel [...]

./configure complete … run make now
January 30th, 2005

At the outset: Some of the events that happened since the last post, not necessarily in Chronological order! Ø Joined Quark as Member – Integrated Products Group (R&D). First joined into Code Implementation Team, but from Monday I will transition to the Code Design Team, with some contribution to the CIT. I am part of [...]

./configure
November 3rd, 2004

Okay.. here’s the first post ..