Life changer...

I used to tell myself, it takes a lot to change someone's life. As many of my friends know, my motto in life is - Cruising through life one day at a time. Or in the more famous words "Let's see where life takes you". Well turns out I was quite kidding myself.

I never in my wildest fantasies imagined that my trip to India in 08 would change so many things. Going from a don't give a s**t attitude to a shocked and angry Indian; and a few other amazing things, this one trip has turned my life upside down or inside out (don't quite know which one...:D).

I reached India in the midst of the dreadful Mumbai attacks, being sent to Delhi instead of Mumbai and jumped through hoops to get into Mumbai; made me wish it was as difficult for those attackers (morons) to get into Mumbai. Anyways, after reaching Mumbai and making sure my friends and family were unhurt, I was in complete shock with what was happening. Felt like a nightmare that I desperately wanted to wake up from. Kudos to our commandos, our brave Mumbai cops and for a change to the Congress government (I'm not really a government person...:D) for handling the situation during and after the attacks. Even though people - both politicians and public played the blame game, I believe the situation was handled really well. At the time, I was in a total state of desperation, with my visa interview date fast approaching and being unsure if there were more of these morons roaming the streets, my nerves had never been higher. Damn I wished I had chosen a better time to quit smoking (which I eventually couldn't...:D). Things only got better; at least for a while; after my visa interview was over. I was a happy and confused person at the time. One would think that's a lot to handle in one trip...well, just keep reading!!!

So by this time, my family had already started talking about my future plans, when I intend to settle down etc etc; the typical headway to an arrange marriage. My grandpa had already shown me some "Bio-data"'s by now, but no photos yet. One fine day he shows me the pictures of this most beautiful girl I've seen in my life - Poonam. So I decide to meet with her. One thing leads to another, we end up dating and as you might have already guessed, I'm "ENGAGED". It is the most amazing and at the same time most bizarre feeling on earth (more on that later). Some people might say it's impossible to fall in love with someone so quick, but I surely beg to differ. This experience has completely changed my outlook towards life and now I really know what it feels like to be in love as oppossed.....grrr..uhmmm...nvm. For those who know me as a grumpy moody eccentric etc, well I'm the most happiest person on earth right now.

My trip to India was a roller coaster ride, which had it's downs and ups in that order. All I can say to sum it up is...it was a "Life Changer..."

Top 10 Free iPhone Apps

The iPhone official 2.0 software version was available on July 10th (courtesy of MacRumors). The main highlight of this release is the ability to install applications. I have been playing around with the free applications and below is a list of top 10 free applications that I liked:

1) EverNote
Category: Lifestyle
EverNote is the best note taking application. It let's you write text notes, click pictures and create audio notes. One of the best highlights is the photo recognition component which is part of the EverNote search. When you search for a phrase in EverNote it not only matches the text in the notes, but also matches text patterns in photo notes including hand writing. EverNote lets you create a free account with 20000 notes, 400 photo notes and about 40 audio notes. All the notes are then uploaded onto an account online, and you can download them anywhere or use it over the web. The best part, all this for free.

2) Remote
Category: Entertainment
The Remote application from iTunes lets you control your iTunes music library on your computer and apple TV. The Remote app works with your Wi-Fi network, so you can control your music from anywhere in and around your home. You can see your playlists, it let's you control your music and also displays the album artwork etc. You will sure feel like a DJ with this app.

3) NYTimes (New York Times)
Category: News
Use this application to get a daily dose of what's going on in the world around you. The application displays the latest new articles in a pretty nifty way by showing photos along with the articles. You can customize your news into categories.

4) Pandora Music
Category: Music
Pandora is a free online music radio. It provides access to the free music Genome project. Create a list of artist and/or songs you like and Pandora will create a "station" that plays their music and more music like it. For example if you create a "Snoop Dog station", Pandora will songs from artists like 50 cents in the list. With this app you can use the power of Pandora on your iPhone. Works great with Wi-Fi but was a little disappointing on Edge due to buffering from time to time. Overall great app to listen to free music on the road and at work.

5) Yelp
Category: Lifestyle
Yelp is usually the first place I look for restaurants, pubs and other attractions. So having Yelp on the iPhone is a must. Look for places to eat, drink, shop, relax and enjoy; just type in your address or let it use the current location feature (I bet it works better with the new 3G phones). You can get the contact information for the place, browse through hundreds of reviews or just look for the community favorites. Yelp can also put all the search results on a map which comes in real handy. Try the app, I'm sure you'll like it.

6) Tap Tap Revenge
Category: Games
Tap Tap revenge is sort of a rip off of Guitar hero. As the music's playing, beats drop down from three wires. Tap through the beats as they hit the white bar at the bottom. It also makes a clever use of iPhone's accelerometer. Shake the phone left and right as the arrows drop down. It also feature a cool two-player mode and a tournament feature. One of the must have games for the iPhone.

7) CheckPlease
Category: Finance
Ever go to a restaurant with your friends and wonder how much to tip when the check arrives. What's the share for each person. Use the CheckPlease application for calculating the tip and splitting the bill evenly among multiple people. Smart and simple. The user interface could have a been a bit better, but it's a free app after all.

8) Dial Zero
Category: Reference
Tired of listening to long and annoying IVR's when you call customer support. All you want is to talk to a real person. Use the Dial zero app to quickly dial the customer service numbers of over 600 companies and skip directly to a person. It will tell you exactly what prompts to enter and they also keep updating the database.

9) Sports Tap
Category: Sports
This is the ultimate sports app with access to all the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA, NASCAR, F1, IndyCar, AFL, PGA, Tennis, MLS, English Premier league and UEFA score and stats on your phone. It also puts an alert (like the mail application) on top of the category which has some ongoing event. It would be pretty cool to see this app in action. Drop them a line if you would to see other sports. I am rooting for cricket; whose with me?

10) iPint
Category: Games
Give yourself and your friends a good laugh. Play the stupid game and the reward is a pint of cold beer - free!!! The final beer animation is the best part of the game. Try it yourself.

And for all the social networking freaks out there iPhone has apps for Facebook, Myspace, AIM, Exposure, Eventful and the list goes on. The collection is so huge that Apple had to create a seperate Social Networking category for these apps. Unfortunately I did not try any of these apps but I'm guessing they do whatever a social networking app's suppose to do.

So this was my list of top 10 iPhone app's. I will surely post information about other apps as they become available. If you come across some other interesting app, drop me a comment.

Indian Education Reservation - A creeping nightmare

Indian education system might be one of the most advanced in the world, but is certainly not the best organized. No doubt we have world famous MBA colleges, one of the best medical schooling on earth and India churns out more engineers each year than any other single country in the world. However, it has the potential of being a lot better. The Indian education system suffers from the ridiculous system of caste based reservation. The roots of this reservation system lies in the Hindu caste system that existed hundreds of year ago. The caste based reservation system was introduced by people like B. R. Ambedkar and Jyotirao Phule to help the under-privileged dalits and other sections of the Hindu society which were not treated equal. The current constitution requires any educational institution that receives funds from the government to set aside 22.5% seats for dalits, OBC, SC and ST, and host of other socially deprived castes. This provision was extended to some of the higher education system in the 90's.

In 2006, the UPA government proposed to raise the reservation from 22.5% to a ridiculous 44.9% for admissions to medical schools. The medical students and doctors took to the streets in huge protest and hunger strikes. The only relief was an increase in 50% seats for undergrad and grad school. The medical debacle was followed by a similar proposition for goverment aided IIM (Indian Institute of Management), one of the premier B schools in the world. Again there were protests and increase in admission seats. Now only last month, the Mumbai government passed a bill to impose a 70-30 regional quota where all the colleges are suppose to give 70% seats to locals and remaining 30% to applicants from suburbs. Not even happy with that a Bombay high court judge wants to make the ratio a 55-45. The decision is still pending.

The caste reservation amendments to the constitution were due to expire sometime in 2004-2005 but was extended in the form 93rd Constitutional amendment. It's no secret that the Indian economy is booming and is at its peak today. Every person from every facet of life has benefited from this progress. At the point where India claims to be secular it disgusts me how these politicians are trying to keep the caste reservation active to fill their vote banks. I believe there are other ways to implement affirmative action. We not only need to change the reservation system for the higher education but also for primary education. India needs to strengthen it's public schooling system especially in villages and make sure every kid gets the basic education at least till the 10th grade. We need to make sure whether rich or poor, scheduled tribe or upper middle class, every kid gets the same education and same facilities. Only then we can change our reservation system and base it on one's financial status rather than one's caste. There are tons of poor people in India who do not belong to the so called socially deprived castes. On the other hand not all the people belonging to the socially deprived classes are socially deprived. Every worthy kid who cannot afford to goto college on their own needs to be provided merit seats and reservations etc. I personally would be fine with such a reservation being 50%. Then within that 50% we can provide preference to the one's from the socially deprived classes to ensure affirmative action. The government really needs to think of the future of the country rather than it's own vote banks. Once we are able to achieve that the Indian graduates will be hot assets out of college and can be ready to take over the world. Go India!!!!

Extended families: Are they really the best?

Extended family or joint family is the term used to describe a household where many generations live under one roof. Such a living arrangement is not uncommon for Indian families. It's part of the Hindu culture. All my life I've lived in a joint family. My grandparent, my parents, my uncles and aunts and my cousins, we all live under one roof as one big family. It's like one big never ending party when you live in an extended family. There's so much going around all the time, it feels like one big feast. There is always someone present to share your even the most inconsequential moments of joy or to cry with you when you're down. There are so many Bollywood movies made on the theme of joint families and they always have a happy ending. But eventually it's all a big fat illusion. In today's age it never is a happy ending. The dark side of the force always takes over. The fact of the matter is there is always at least one rotten apple in the bunch who wants out of the situation. But he's either too coward to do so or just enjoys creating all the trouble. Over time people start arguing over stupid issues like who does the house cleaning, who cooks tonight, who gets to eat what, the list goes on. Everyone in this type of living situation pretty much knows that it's going to end someday. The whole joint family concept is so outdated that you need someone strong and powerful, someone over 60 to keep the whole family together. I love my family and I certainly love the joint family part when everything's well. However, I believe it would be a better situation if everyone lives their own lives, get together every weekend and be a happy extended family in that way. No one interferes in anyone's business and that will be a true Bollywood style happy ending.

Apple + RIAA = The Music Tyranny

Recently Apple announced it's sale of 5 billion songs on iTunes. That news makes Apple the largest music retailer in US. It is a major victory for Apple and for RIAA. A lot of people around the world are celebrating this huge ordeal. But to me it's an awful news.

The success of Apple and it's ability to sell over 5 billion songs on iTunes is a result of countless negotiations between Apple and various record labels. The outcome of the negotiations gives both the RIAA and Apple a way to form a music tyranny. Now, some of you might argue that iTunes lets people buy music for cheap. It also helps save the music industry. There are two major flaws in this argument and both are related to DRM. DRM or Digital Rights Management is a way that Apple and other major music providers "sell" you music. I rather prefer the word "lease music". When you "buy" a song on iTunes, you're not really buying it. Rather you're acquiring a license to listen to that song. Even worse, that license can be taken away from you anytime. You can't send that song anywhere you like it to be (sure miss the old CD days). And it's subject to humongous copyright laws that makes you pay much more for what you get. When I buy something I like to own it, I like to share it. Since when is it okay to not be able to own something you buy? Since when is it wrong to do whatever the hell I want with the things I own?

So you may wonder where does RIAA come into this whole picture. If iTunes wasn't half as successful as it is, the record labels would be forced to think of alternative ways of selling music. Am I wrong in saying that Apple is the root of all evil. Because of these capitalistic agreements that RIAA has with such music retailers, allows them to exploit our privacy and serve litigation letters to colleges and other organizations. The reason RIAA is successful in doing so is because of the funding from the record labels and companies like Apple. If each and everyone who has been served with such a letter decides to fight back, the music tyranny would collapse. That would be day when the music industry would be forced to care about it's consumers and rethink the way to sell music in a more affordable and efficient way.

It's high time we stop supporting DRM and put an end to the abuse which comes with it. Instead of feeding the monster, we need to cut it off as soon as possible. That will take more that just you and me, it will need for "us" to make an effort. And untill we do that the tyrants will continue to fill their banks.

iPhone - A user's analysis.

I am an ardent Windows user. It's everything from entertainment to my bread and butter. So buying a MAC based product wasn't just a cake walk. I've always disliked MAC; OS X to be precise (sorry MAC fans). But still I couldn't resist myself from getting an iPhone. Getting to the point, I've owned an iPhone for about 6 months now. It is admittedly the most sophisticated piece of technology out there. Everything from the touch interface to the proximity sensor to the accelerometer seems to be seamlessly integrated to fulfill a smart phone users every tech - fantasy. The numbers speak for themselves, iPhone's smart phone market share rose to 28% in USA in less than a year from it's release. But I guess we all know that. So how is it like owning one?From the hardware perspective it's a really designed to be smart. Good battery life, with ample built-in power saving features. As I already mentioned hardware wise it is really sophisticated. The headphone jack, although is a standard AUX port, but the slot itself is designed so that the commercial AUX cables do not fit in. You have to buy iPhone compatible cables from Apple store or a third party vendor. It's nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy by Apple. The best workaround, use the dock. The only improvement I can think of is to provide a replaceable battery compartment. Having a detachable battery not only helps people on the road, but also helps to reset the phone. People claim that having a 3G radio would help, but only if you're a European.From the software perspective it has some great features. The in-built safari browser gives you the best browsing experience (at least on a phone). Having an iPod in the phone with an access to the iTunes store is a plus. The weather channel and mail applications come in handy. Although it currently supports only pop mail, it's still useful. Other than that, the software itself is not too impressive. The initial releases including the most latest ones are good but not fully featured. By that I mean the iPhone can do much better. Over the past 6 months, Apple has been releasing a new software upgrade almost every month. Apart from adding minor features like home screen shuffling, multiple home screens, web shortcuts on home screens etc, they really didn't do much. From the very beginning, what I really want to see on an iPhone is the ability to support corporate emails and have applications, games etc. We certainly know that the jail broken one's have applications. Besides they boast about having a complete OS X kernel running in the background, then why not use it's full power? Correct. Until now it felt like Apple's deaf to these user demands. But turns out not quite. In the backgrounds, Apple's been working on it's most feature rich software update; version 2.0. Recently in 6th March 2008, Apple announced that it will release the 2.0 update sometime in June. Maybe to mark it's one year anniversary. At the same time Apple also released a SDK for developer's to create applications for the iPhone. It also promises better (or rather a functional) Microsoft Exchange support via ActiveSync, remote wipe, WPA 2.x support, Cisco IPSec VPN and much more. Mind blowing isn't it. I tried to get my hands on a beta of this 2.0 (without jail breaking that is), but in vain. Also I also wanted to play around with the SDK, but it turns out it works on only good for nothing MAC books (once again, sorry MAC fans). Only if they could release a SDK for Windows!!! For now, I'm just counting down till they release this upgrade and hope that they do not delay the release, coz my sources tell me the beta is buggy as hell (at least the email part). And hope they decide to release a SDK for Windows (maybe I'm dreaming...). That way I can make some money developing app's or maybe get a slice of that 100 million dollars iFund pie.In conclusion, all those of you still "thinking" of getting an iPhone; well you know what to do...

Migrating VC++ code from VS2003 to VS2005 to VS2008

VS2005
The best reference for Migrating to VS2005 is available at MSDN.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177253(VS.80).aspx

Some additional issues I faced during conversion are documented below:
Resource.h file missing:
For some stupid reason Microsoft keeps moving around the include directories, making the paths incompatible. If you intend to use the "Resource.h" file in your projects and the compiler complains that it cannot find the file, simply do the following:
1) Use the string "$(VCInstallDir)atlmfc\src\atl"
2) Add it under Properties->Resources->General->Additional Include Directories.
This should fix the issues.

VS2008
SOCKADDR_STORAGE:
This function definition was moved to "Ws2def.h" instead of "Winsock2.h" for VS2008. Also the function was renamed to SOCKADDR_STORAGE_XP. The work around is to include the "Ws2def.h" fine. Also define a preprocessor of the form _VS2008 (if you don't want to rename the structure everywhere in the code). And add a code snippet of the form

#ifdef _VS2008
#define SOCKADDR_STORAGE SOCKADDR_STORAGE_XP
#endif

This ensures that your solution works for both VS2008 and VS2005 or before. If you don't care about previous versions anymore, just skip the #ifdef and just use the #define part. Also please make sure _WIN32_WINNT is set to the right value (0x0501 or higher).

I will keep updating this post for more issues as I face and fix them.