Ourvie.ws

It was early 2000. The recession was months away, the markets were at all time highs and techies were generally a happy bunch.

We had just done a major release and were waiting for fresh work from our client. Waiting is never an easy task, especially when one has had a busy phase just before that. IE and Outlook kept me engaged on otherwise boring days.

On one such day, I remember getting a mail from Vijay asking me to check out a new language called Ruby. Being a programming language junkie and having nothing else to do, I downloaded and tried writing a few basic programs. It felt different and programming was fun again. In the coming months, I wrote automated test solutions with Ruby and cut down the time it took us (and our client) to test our releases.

Years passed. I occasionally visited the ruby language website. Always left with a tinge of sadness, sad at the lack of popularity of this wonderful language among the programming masses.

Sometime last year, things started changing. Came by way of a strange name => rails. Been following the buzz for a while now. Extremely happy for ruby for it deserves the attention.

Finally got tired of being just an observer. Took the plunge a few days back and whipped up a small bookmarking tool. Put in a bit of AJAX as well to be buzzword compliant ;)

Will be doing more if time and work permits.

A Little Kid

Kailash Nadh, a little kid who happens to be a mallu, is the author of the popular blogging tool boastology ( which in many ways is an apt name for a blogging tool )

Indians are everywhere :-)

Moving on

“For the past seven and a half years, I%u2019ve been steering my train through life%u2019s ups and downs. Never an easy ride ride, and the tracks lead to everywhere%u2014from cool Sunday afternoons, to dark and cold sleepless nights. Everything that came my way, I knew I could take it all. Whatever the challenge, I felt I had the most important tool for the job. I had one passenger beside me, and she was all I needed. She gave me love and strength, and the power to overcome all trials that rain on me. To put it simply, she was my life.”

Moving on

Would art exist if not for pain ?

Remotely hosted Trackback

“In order to receive pings, you need to have a trackback server that receives the pings and can display the list of sites that have pinged you. Some people cannot or will not run servers, even servers that are just gussied up CGI scripts (i.e. people using BlogSpot). So, we developed No-Host Trackback to help those people out.

To use No-Host Trackback, you sign up for an account, add some code to your template, and you're ready to go. As an added bonus, No-Host Trackback will also allow you to have remotely hosted comments. No-Host Trackback is fully skinnable. And of course, it's free.
No-Host Trackback is currently being beta tested. You are welcome to sign up for an account, but we are limiting the test to just 25 users. If you are limited in time or patience, wait a month or so and we'll be ready for you then.”

Remotely hosted Trackback.

It would be nice if a few more indian bloggers had trackback. Consider signing up if you use a tool which doesnt natively support trackback.

Networking always helps.

Anbe Sivam

When I started this journal a few months back, I had but a vague idea about what to write on these pages. The idea was to mostly write around the two topics close to my heart : Philosophy and Movies. Now Philosophy was a recurring theme during the early days of this site. But strangely other than just passing references to films, It was mostly relegated to the background.

Why did this happen ? It was not as if I was seeing fewer films. Infact, ever since we bought our VCD player, We have been absolutely living on films. The real reason was the fact that I did not see a single film which was worth writing about.

That changed last week.

I happened to see a film which was a perfect blend of philosophy, realistic acting and the fine art of film making. I am talking about the latest kamal - madhavan starrer Anbe Sivam.

Now, I am not a big fan of kamal. Never was. The arrogance so clearly etched on his face is a major put off for me. But ever so often, Kamal makes me admit ( albeit grudgingly ) that he is the best at what he does.

The philosophy of the film is best explained by the words of the title song,
...
Aathigam pessum adiyaarkelaam sivamme anbaakkum,
Naathigam pessum nallavarrukko anbe sivamaakkum.

Yaar yaar sivam ?
Nee naan sivam.

A rough translation goes something like this,

For the theists, God is love.
For the good among the atheists, Love is God.

Who here is God ?
You and me.


The story is written by Kamal as is the screenplay. He has sung a couple of songs as well out of which the haunting title song stands out. Madhavan is but a tool in kamal's hands which he uses effectively to his advantage.

Kamal's character changes from that of a bumbling idiot in the first few scenes to a communist union leader with a artistic vein in the middle scenes to a god like figure in the last few scenes. In the last scene, as kamal walks away into the horizon, we are left with no option but to stand up and salute the indomitable spirit of a man from whom life has taken away so much but still manages to smile.

I wouldn't describe anything more about the story because any words that I can conjure up here wouldn't be enough. The film tells a philosophy that is best seen and understood.

When Love lives in your mind, you are God.

The new rediff.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that rediff has re-designed. And even more pleasantly surprised to find that they have given their blog service such a prominent place on the main page.

This augurs well for the indian blogland. A few people I know visit rediff daily but have never heard of the word blog. This might the stimilus needed to bring such people into the blogging world. Kudos to rediff for spotting this trend at such an early stage.

I havent taken a close look at their tool but i must say that the lack of commenting option is disappointing especially since their main site now supports comments beneath all articles. It wouldnt have been difficult to add that here as well, isnt it. Maybe, in a later version.

All in all, good days ahead for indian blogland.

Now if only, humblog would take off ...

Nostalgia.

Did anyone know that I was a blogspotter once ?

Does anyone remember the first design of itismylife.com ?

Or even this or this ?

After a long period of drifting aimlessly, I have reached a point where I am satisfied with my blog tool and host. Only the design will change from now onwards :-)