Couple of months back, I posted a blog entry about my Bad(???) Luck while traveling back to my hometown (Mumbai). Couple of days back, I posted it on MSN India Contribute (and it has been quite a hit!)
If you did not read the original story, go ahead read the version published on MSN
Last Saturday, October 13th, myself and Sudhakar visited the school being run by Devnar foundation. It was amazing to know the kind of things that the students have achieved even when they have one of their critical sense organ not functioning properly. Not to mention other limitations such as scarcity of resources and non-acceptance from the mainstream society.
Most of the students are on vacation but still we got a chance to meet two of them – “Rajshekhar” and “Deekshit”. Rajshekhar is doing Chartered Accountancy. He is the first blind person to have cleared the entrance exam and now he is preparing for the mains. Deekshit has just cleared his 10th and is not studying in a reputed college. He is studying science and aspires to be an engineer. The principal of the school later told me that many of the students are preparing for IITs. Some of them have got admission in prestigious engineering colleges across the state and most of them are securing first ranks in their respective colleges.
Rajshekhar and Deekshit took us around to show their school. When we entered the laboratory, I was amazed to see several scientific models made up of clay, wires and other day-to-day household items. Rajshekhar told us that their Egbert sir had made all those models for them to touch and understand (Egbert sir is a 76 year old man committed to the cause). Rajshekhar also explained to us one of the clay models depicting the flow of blood (and the purification system in the heart). And he was just fabulous. Later he proudly told us that he got appreciations from the Govt. of Andhra Pradesh when he had explained the same model to him during a science exhibition. Next up was the printing press. They showed us the Braille printers that could automatically translate English characters to Braille and then print them. They also told us that the foundation prints Braille books and provides them for free to all the schools in the state. Next thing that we saw was the computer room. The school teaches computers to the students after 5th class onwards. The students use some special software that converts text into speech and they can listen to the messages, text etc. They use the same kind of keyboard that we use (They don’t have special Braille keyboards).
I am in discussion with the school and some of my friends from Microsoft here in Hyderabad and we are trying to find out ways to get engaged with the foundation and help them. Meanwhile, for those who are unable to contribute directly by being present, here are a few things that you could do.
Sponsorships
Other ways
And most of all, they need our moral support.
NOTE: All donations to Devnar foundation are exempted from Income Tax (in India). Contributions should be made in favor of "DEVNAR FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND"
It’s been quite some time since my last post. So much so that people have started asking me why am I not posting anything? Well, there are two reasons for it
I know this is probably not a place to announce something like this! But hey… this is my personal blog. And I want to give it a further personal touch by posting things that are actually personal to me.
So… the news is – I am getting engaged on Sunday August 26th 2007 with Esha Singh. I have been personally instructed by Esha not to post her pictures. So I won’t do it (basically I don’t want to get into trouble at such an early stage!). As opposed to most of my friend’s expectations, it’s an arranged marriage!
I am very excited about it and am looking forward to a happy new life.
A few years back, when I was a kid, I started reading about Mahatma Gandhi. It took me so many years to understand the value and impact of Gandhian principles. In the recent times, I have been reading a lot about history, politics, and a lot of other social issues that affect an average Indians life. When I put both the learning in context, it surprises me to see that this nation of Gandhi has deviated so much from Gandhian principles. It has only been 60 years and the political system as almost collapsed.
It may sound little too big (and a bit stupid too) but I have decided to take an effort to change this. More on this front in the coming few posts.
I have a blog on MSDN to which I have not posted anything so far. Primary reason for this was that I did not have too much of tech-stuff to contribute. Or, to be more specific, I didn’t have any experience of writing a tech-blog. And being a long time reader of various blogs on MSDN, I understand that a normal reader would expect technical content on MSDN blogs.
All the forthcoming posts will be on my MSDN Blog.
I have started writing at least informative posts about Microsoft and its products, so, after contemplating the decision for the past few weeks, I have decided to move this piece to my MSDN Blog. However, I will keep posting a link to the posts on my MSDN blog for the first few posts.
I will continue to blog here but only on things that are not related to Microsoft (my personal life beyond Microsoft). Additionally, as I said, I will be linking to my posts on my MSDN blog.
Windows Live SkyDrive team at Microsoft announced three major changes yesterday-
As you can see, Windows Live Folders is now Windows Live SkyDrive. I like the new name because it sounds cool. Way better than something like "Folders" or something.
Windows Live SkyDrive is now available in three regions - US, UK, and India.
I tried playing around with it a little and found it to be super cool. Very easy to use and yet very powerful. Go, sign-up now!
Have you not had your hands on Windows Vista yet? Still thinking if it will actually help your business? Well, here is your chance to take a look at it online. Try your hands on Windows Vista running live right through your web browser.
Visit Windows Vista Test Drive Website today.
For the techies who are willing to know how this online hands-on thingy works, here is a bit of Gyan for you. It is powered by Microsoft Virtual Labs. Virtual Labs is a cool new way for Microsoft to demonstrate its new products running live in virtual environments. Its something like running a virtual machine on your Virtual PC. The only difference here is that the virtual machine runs on Microsoft's hardware and you seem to work in a live online environment.
I am confused about one thing. And the reason for my confusion is - why on earth are you still reading this post? Had I been in your position, I would already be taking a tour of Windows Vista or playing around with cool new technologies on Virtual Labs. Go ahead. Do it :-)
July 26th was quite a happening day at Microsoft. As outlined in my previous post, Microsoft launched "Open Source at Microsoft" to connect better with the Open Source Community.
On the same day, Microsoft launched beta 2 of Visual Studio 2008 and .net framework 3.5. Also, there came an announcement that Silverlight 1.0 RC will be available for public download in the next couple of days.
For further details on Visual Studio 2008, you can see go to Visual Studio 2008 Downloads website.
I know exactly what's on your mind. Is this some kind of a joke??? Well! your reaction to the unexpected title is quite expected. Generally, developers (or in general software users) do not relate Microsoft and open source in a positive sense.
But Microsoft has shown time and again that it is committed to the evolution of software platforms and to sharing knowledge via various open source/shared source initiatives. On July 26th 2007, Microsoft took one more step to reaffirm its commitment.
Bill Hilf, General Manager, Competitive Strategy at Microsoft announced plans to submit the Microsoft Community License (MS-CI) and Permissive License (PL) to the OSI. Both these licenses are available as of today.
Additionally, Microsoft launched a new web property Open Source at Microsoft that contains information like how to get engaged with Microsoft in various shared source initiatives and updates on what Microsoft is doing in this space.
I remember I heard of Rotor (commonly known as SSCLI) several years back. I am amazed to see people still getting amazed by the fact that Microsoft has such an initiative. In fact, that precisely is the reason why the title of this post startled you. Probably we were not able to build a proper channel to connect with the open source community. The newly launched initiative will sure help bridge this gap.
BTW, you see... I wasn't joking :-)
I have a news. Its kinda strange but definitely pleasant. Well..at least to me :-).
Let me ask a question. How big a fan you are of Microsoft? I know there are quite a few Microsoft fans around here and they will have all sorts of things to justify that they are the biggest fans. But wait... the fan that I am talking about is definitely the biggest fan of Microsoft.
Microsoft MVP Bil Simser named his daughter "Vista Avalon Simser". I don't have to say what Vista is. Avalon was the codename for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). And Simser ofcourse is Bil's family name.
There is something more to it. If Bil had had a son instead of a daughter, he says, he would have made sure that his son's initials read as DOS (the first name being "Dev").
Geeks do all sort of things (which may sound weird but trust me, we have our sentiments attached to things we do). This is just one of them. I am now waiting for more of these. How about having names like - Zune, Linux, iPod, William 2.0(instead of Willuam Jr.)
For those of you who still don't believe me on this story, Bil runs a blog titled Fear and Loathing on weblogs.asp.net. And here is the post that introduced Vista Avalon Simser to the world. You are already famous baby girl!!!
A recent study by Compete.com revealed that Live Search increased its query volume by 67% from May and 48% from a year ago. Quoting the entry on Compete Blog,
Google finally has a competitor join it in the (until now) exclusive, positive-year-over-year-growth club. MSN/Live increased their query volume by 67% from May, and 48% from a year ago. Search volume was up all across the board in June and took most everyone else in the same direction.
Now, that's impressive!!! Cheers!!!
Apple released its much hyped iPhone a few days back and reviews have started coming in. Here is what Ryan Block has to say about it
Well... Not that everyone dislikes it, there are others who did like the new iDevice and thought it is worth the hype.
Anyway, I am not going to pass any comment on it (as I have not seen it!).
But, I would recommend people to take a look at this new device from HTC running Windows Mobile 6.
#define WinSafari "Safari for Windows"
Apple released their famous (???) Safari browser’s beta for both OS X and Windows. Before getting into details, I must say, it definitely is a welcome move from Apple. Apple had been very close ended so far targeting Safari only for just about 5% market share that they have in the Desktop market.
On day 0, hackers around the world put their brains to work and wrote exploits for WinSafari . Here is a quick compilation of some of them:-
You can find many more if you search on the internet (or if you write one)!!!
I downloaded Safari today out of curiosity. I didn’t get into details of writing an exploit on Safari. But I just tried to surf a few websites that I visit quite often. All I can say is that it is highly immature for at least rendering. CSS breaks most of the times, Unicode doesn’t work, JavaScript breaks every now and then and many more. This is not a hacker’s perspective. This is a naïve user’s perspective. As a simple user who wants to surf the web, one would assume that the pages will at least appear as they should.
Here are some side by side comparisons of how the same page looks in IE 7 and in WinSafari
| Page | On IE 7 | On WinSafari |
| iGoogle |  |  |
| Windows Live Image Search |  |  |
| Unicode characters (Hindi) |  |  |
#if
