Vikas Kamat is a programmer- entrepreneur
living
in Atlanta. This blog is a complex mix of Indian
culture, life in southern USA, computer sciences, and sports. Opinions are his
own. About - Bio - Contact
Computing, Libraries, Tennis, India & other interests of Vikas Kamat
House of Million Dollars
This might sound silly to y'all, but I'm so proud of my idea.
I had to do some artwork for the website of a real estate investment
club. During our meeting, this customer had given me some million dollar currency bills in jest.
I wanted a graphic that conveyed real-estate and wealth in an interesting way. After going through plethora of clip-art collections, I thought of making something original.
I made a house out of the bills the customer had given me and placed it in my yard and photographed it.
After a LONG wait, finally Yahoo showed me their much debated interface. I am disappointed and prompty switched back to the old interface.
It would have been probably acceptable, if I were not a paying customer (I am), or if it didn't precede with so much hype.
I really like GMail. If only Google stopped hyperlinking the last words of a sentence when not accompanied by a space. (If you skip the space after the period, GMail thinks it is an URL and hyperlinks it).
Someone asked to be specific about what I don't like in new Yahoo mail and not spread negative vibes unless I have reasons. So here we go:
What I don't like in 'drag-and-drop' Yahoo Mail
(As compared to GMail)
The search still sucks. Guys, if you are going to copy, copy from the best. I want search like GMail Search.
What's up with the "Loading Yahoo Mail" wait? Give me a break. I login to Yahoo mail 100 times a day, and waiting for it to load 100 times means you have wasted two hours of mine each day.
I don't want to clutter my address book with every Tom-Dick who sends me email (I get a LOT of mail), so why can't you drop down the nearest match as I start typing the email address (like GMail does)? Currently only those in address book are dropped down.
Why is "Search Web" box in my Mail account? It is confusing. If I want to search web, I go to the toolbar, don't I?
Drag and Drop is cool for only those organize the messages into folders. I don't, because many times I want one message to appear in multiple folders. GMail has solved this problem by use of labels.
(HTML) Frames are old technology. People didn't like them. The new Y!mail technically may not be using the frames, but they look and behave like frames. I hated them in Outlook and I hate them in Yahoo Mail.
I want to believe in the sanctity of human birth. I want to believe that
we are created equal.
I want to believe that humans are monogamous by design.
I want to believe in God. I want to believe that animals and plants
believe in God.
I want to believe that money is nothing and character is everything.
I want to believe in fairness of laws and fairness of life.
I want to believe that I am an honorable son, husband, citizen, vendor, and
friend.
I want to believe in the power of non-violence.
I want to believe in the dignity of death.
Handling of Indian Characters in RSS Feeds
Request for Pointers or Help.
I am re-writing the spider that fetches the latest Pickup Lines for Blog Portal and realized that all the non-English characters render incorrectly.
I
am using .NET for the spider and the Pickupline is fetched correctly with the XMLDocument class (prints OK
in debug window), but gets messed up in the process of making a round trip
to the database (Microsoft SQL Server 2000; the PickupLine is a nvarchar(200)). I have played with converting encoding mechanisms,
storage sizes etc, but in vain. Anyone with experience in handling non-English
characters in feeds please help me with your tips at .
I can't begin to list the flaws in the research and report filed by Satish Jacob in this ABC News Story on Stortage of Skilled Workers in India (link to ABC News).
First, he skims off commonly available jokes on Indian English (example: "As I am marrying my daughter...") as something he encountered during his research (proof).
His estimate that one out of seven knowledge workers in India are foreign, seems unbelievable (per article, there are 350,000 such workers of whom 50,000 are foreigners).
At one point in the story, he suggests that since Indian's don't have adequate European language skills, they would have to be filled by American workers -- as if American workers have skills in non-English European languages.
Finally he suggests that American and British workers should move to India where "... their English and their accents will be an asset.".
A very incompetent report, I must say.
RIP Kerry Packer
OK, this gives out my age. But when I was a fan of the game of Cricket, one man single handedly changed the game. His name was Kerry Packer -- a reminiscence at BBC upon his passing.
Incremental Changes
Happy New Year! -- Here's a recycled New Year's Greeting using just text and styles.
Some new stuff at Kamat.com
• Added detailed Profiles to Blog Portal, click on the icon. • Added a new category called "Ad. Infested Blogs" that have too many advertisements or have pop-ups. • Added a new category "Frankenstein Blogs" is a category of India blogs that have more than four subsystems.
All these are automatically computed, using a software system, so if you think it is classifying incorrectly, please let me know
Powered NOT by Blogger or MovabaleType or
WordPress, but by SimplyBlog, a software I wrote to
create blogs.
See details
of implementation or download SimplyBlog.
This is how I surf the web. Turns out
creating your own start page beats all portals, back-flipping,
personalized corporate pages, and book-marking tools.
Someone asked to be specific about what I don't like in new Yahoo mail and not spread negative vibes unless I have reasons. So here we go:
