rangde - how to impact people's life positively

Its just as SMALL as Rs.500, 

but i impacted life of 5 people 

(infact, i'm reinvesting this like 4th time after i got payment back... still feels  good :) )

Lets take a small step

towards ruling out poverty in our nation.

Kudos to RangDe team.

Links

www.rangde.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rang_De

Hans Zimmer - hollywood Ilaiyaraaja

Hans Zimmer - Ilaiyaraaja : of course this's not  apple-orange comparison, after raaja won national award in 2010 solely for his film score ;)  (raaja \m/)

Both are epic and legends in their field, and this post is a brief on my addiciton to Hans Zimmer scores.,

Got obsessed for first time with Hans Zimmer scores during college days (~2003) right after hearing  "He's a pirate" from PoTC., all of us were gaga over Jack Sparrow, but i feel Hans Zimmer score appropriately fueled it in right way :)


Even while watching Davinci code in 2006, realized score was awesome, but was spell bound in final climax track., its just the right score that deserved to carry history of thousand years, with tons of emotions., see if you can feel the magic - (spoiler alert - actual movie scene, climax ;P )  The Da Vinci Code: Blood Line (Chevaliers de Sangreal) . 

A cleaner OST version of Chavaliers de Sangreal) track

Then once i heard first time about Angels and Demons (teasers,theatrical trailes were killers, but what glued me up was Angels&Demons sneek peak trailer, of course with a mod-track of chavealiers de sangreal, specifically named "503"), then got the OST immediately, was all over it for a month., got really addicted to 503, 160-bpm, god-particle tracks., it was the first movie i ever did a home-work, and got almost all beats by memory., its a totally new experience when i saw the movie (alone, in stockholm that time)..

Lately, Inception is the last movie i watched with Hans-Zimmer score, first time watched without any prior ground work on OST., but instanly caught up with few scores during the movie only (simple-idea, time (climax seq), dream with in a dream, etc),

Immediately got hold of OST, caught up with few tracks before watching it second time, a week after.,  again, awesome experience..

Here's a sneak peek of "Time" the track from inception climax, performed live  by Hans Zimmer on Inception  premiere.,  its almost equivalent to Chavaliers de Sangreal in appeal..

On glancing his complete work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Zimmer#Discography, its just stunning to see how many projects were touched by his amazing socres.,  and

 - yet to catch up with dark knight,  gladiator, etc.. scores.,  

 - PoTC sequels, liked Death Man's Chest, At the World's End scores while watching the movie, some how not into too much, basically movies thmeselves got slower than curse-of-black-pearl., or i didnt got ipod that time.,

Hail and Long live the Maestros..!!

how to type easily in tamil (works for hindi,kanada,marathi,arabic,etc)

It was always special to type/write in mother tongue language, but it was a hell of a effort to have tamil scripts earlier.

Life is so simple with unicode being all over the web and Google TransLiterate. Just type in English, let it take care of you.

But what made it awesome is transliterate bookmarks, that you can bookmark and click to switch between (english/tamil) (english/hindi) on the fly,,

Just bookmark these links, (keep it in Firefox Bookmark Pane or Chrome bookmarks bar), click on-the-go to type in your desired language..

   Tamil
   Hindi
   Marathi
   Arabic
   ...

More details on Google Code - Transliteration
Also, try installing IME Transliteration -> One click, you are done.

Happy mother language typing.. :)

OMAP in Android community

A tiny little heads-up on android community happenings and OMAP presence in community.

Android Community

While Google develops/maintains android exclusively in-house, Mailing lists, IRC were prominent portals for public developers to interact with peer developers around globe and Google engineers too.

Android-Porting, Android-Kernel, Android-Platform, etc, were few popular discussion groups. [http://source.android.com/community/index.html]

TI Android support

We got dedicated OMAPAndroid-Discussion gforge portal-mailinglist to address issues faced by community/customers/TI developers.

As we all very much aware, OMAPPedia portal serves great for all internal/external customers.

OMAP Android Projects

We got many OMAP projects actively going outside OPBU too. Few I’m aware of are,

-          Mentor Graphics: Android Development support on OMAP [Whitepaper]

-          BeagleBoard Projects: Should I add beagleboard redefined OMAP reachability J?  Few projects rowboat, embinux

-          Elinux Portal: Android on OMAP

 -          ... many i guess :)

Android-Porting community

I’m especially interested in this community, as the posts are nothing different from our daily L25x/L27x issues.

Queries posted gets good deal of attention from peer android porting engineers across world, and the key point is frequent direct responses from Google engineers.

Quite surprised initially to see like 2 out of 5 questions were on OMAP, beagle board, zoom. Even on 3430 SDP J

Few TIIers (Akash Choudhari, Keith Deacon, Girish, Myslef, etc...) were members already and active.

Links
Android Porting Homepage About

OMAP Queries

Omapzoom.org citations

Few sample threads from Android-Porting community: (sample threads started/resolved by us)

Video player - native application (HDMI background playback issue. but we took our own hack fix)

Problem booting Android on Zoom2

Opencore UUID association problem

Minimum Android 2.2 (froyo) hardware requirements (Keith’s response to Froyo on OMAP)

File access: sensor calibration file

How to run shell commands in Android.mk file

Disable hardware codecs

gcc flags for native library

Using existing H264 decoders

…

PS.

Why I love Android?

I can tweet my patch., and was too much excited first time to see my work that public :) 

debugging video/image formats over JTAG

If you pay 10,000 Euros for a Lauterbach JTAG debugger, you better use it to full extent :P

We can use Lauterbach to debug various image formats with data.image command.

It will be handy to debug/verify output of codec, or check sanity of a frame before posting to display.

Command syntax

Data.IMAGE <address> <horiz> <vert> [/<format> | <options>]

                        

    <format>:       MONO, CGA, GrayScale8, JPEG

                         Palette256 <red> <green> <blue> …

                         Palette256X6 <address>

                         Palette256X12 <address>

                         Palette256X24 <address>

                         RGB111, RGB555, RGB555LE, RGB565, RGB565LE,

                         RGB888, RGB888LE, RGBX888, RGBX888LE,

                         YUV420, YUV422, YUV422P, YUV422PS, YUV422W, YUV422WS

    <options>:     BottomUp

                         FullUpdate

More details can be found in Lauterbach Commands document Lauterbach General Commands Reference
Example commands to display buffers of various pixel formatFor YUV 4:2:0

Data.IMAGE C:0x40a1b0bc 320. 240. /YUV420

For NV12 YUV 4:2:0 Packed semiplanar, we need to break up into Y buffer and a UV buffer.

Data.IMAGE a:0x60000000 1920. 1080. /STRIDE 0x4000 /GS8

Data.IMAGE a:0x68001000 960. 540. /STRIDE 0x8000 /RGB565

PS.

A sample view is shown above, with Y-buffer, and uv-buffer, with commands used on window header.

(note in this case, we use strided and physical address of  a 2D buffer directly. Also, some padding used by codec is seen as junk on edge of video frame)

My eTicket booking - bangalore to coimbatore eticket options

Quite surprising to see boom of e-ticket portals in south india., almost all major portals have ebooking or tie-up with eticket portals.

TRAIN
is best option to travel, but BLR-CBE weekend travels have to be booked like 3 months in advance.,
www.irctc.co.in - clean indian railway portal.
www.erail.in - fast,sleek interface., links to irctc for booking/availability
www.cleartrip.com - recently launched., yet to try

BUS
Bangalore to coimbatore ticket sites..,
www.redbus.in (default first option., neat service., but suffered double booking few times)
www.eroad.in  (sleek,fast new i/f like erail.in.. neat, but yet to use)
www.kpntravels.in (neat service., difficult to get bookings)
www.ksrtc.in (neat, only problem is ghat journey for coimbatore via mysore. airavat is cool)

www.sharmatransports.com  (good service)
www.universaltravels.in (not used this portal, but travelled few times. nice service)
www.abtxtravels.com (bus trips by veteran transport service, yet to use, but heard nice reviews)
www.kingstravels.in (good service)
www.ticketvala.com (booked once., nice)
www.ticketgoose.com (booked once, nice)
www.customerneedz.com (clubbed portal,used few times., hated their 20% extra charge policy on weekends
www.ticketsimply.com (clubbed portal, yet to use)
www.arctours.in (yet to use., bus,service looks appealing)
www.sangitatravels.com  (used volvo once, other services too costly, and volvo broke down near hosur, bad service)
www.keralartc.com (kerala govt transport, yet to use)
www.spktravels.com (yet to use., just bangalore to tirupur)
www.srmtransports.in  (yet to use)


FLIGHT
This's out of my league :)
used like once for personal travel to Jaipur (via www.cleartrip.com)..

Bon Voyage..

youtube- 3million views huh? and few youtubers..

www.youtube.com/rdeva => 3 million+ views of videos, huh??

i forgot for few years that i got an account channel, but Lollusabha videos uploaded during of 2006 is doing the job i guess :)

And  recently i started liking few popular youtubers like 
  - Mystery guitar man  simple awesome video tricks :)
  - Meeka Kitty she's funny, u see.. :P
  - Vlog brothers
  - charlie 
  - few others.. :)

snip: Justin Beiber - Baby 's topping like hell with million views a day :) today its 302 Million., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffacxfA7G4  (poor lady gaga, her Bad romance was leading, but second now)

PS.
Snapshot

ur web identity., secure it :) - part2

After i posted last time about usernamecheck.com, realized now, many such handy portals are available.,

You never know whean you need one for yourself, or your product..
And sites like foursquare,tumblr popped in from no where.,

So, a quick look at few of 'em..

namechk.com - sleek, and uber fast.. 

lists hell lot of portals, social sites.

ud.com - more glossy., faster. 

few social-sites/portals, and lists domain names too..

Few others like namechecklist.com,  knowem.com looks good, but appears redundant, if you look after usernamecheck.com, namechk.com, ud.com.. 

Android Build: Tips and Tricks

All below build steps are trivial, but i took like a week to get a grip of..  just documenting to be handy.

$MYDROID is root of your android source directory.

Quick Incremental Build

Setup the environment for your build setup, go to moudle's directory with Android.mk and build.
`source $MYDROID/build/envsetup.sh`
`cd ./hardware/ti/omap3/liboverlay`

`mm`

Note: `mm -B` will clean build all the libraries under a subdirectory.

Package build

Building .apk in android SDK. No need of eclipse or PDK.

`source $MYDROID/build/envsetup.sh`
`mmm <path-to-package> `

(say #mmm $MYDROID/packages/gallery)

Selective Clean

`make clean-<modulename>`

(eg. #make clean-libomxcommon )

Complete clean 

`make clean`  works but, "rm -rf ./out" is faster

Display full commands

`make showcommands`

Number of parallel threads

This is same as GNU make, and chose it based on number of cpu cores available.
`make -j<number-of-parallel-jobs>`

Btw, complete android build guide is available at http://pdk.android.com/online-pdk/guide/build_system.html

GreaseMonkey Scripts Usage: especially how get 1080p videos from youtube :) and more.,

My FireFox usage has been definitely improved after installing greasemonkey scripts., various sites, custom options, readily avialable 1000s of scripts, and you can write your own like a simple one in 5 minutes.

i mostly use it for autologin purpose or adding extra menu to regular pages.., a handy use is grabbing youtube videos (legally i guess ;>  'm not breaking into youtube's content server, just using the browser's video handle)

I used to grab youtube videos for offline usage and my ipod, mostly with with tools which are either trial versions or adwares.., sometimes used on-the-go javascripts to grab video link, and again it will be made obselete by youtube in 2 days, and wont work anymore.. now its just a click away.

How GreaseMonkey Works? 

Once you install GreaseMonkey extension, when a webpage loads, firefox is capable of running offline scripts installed by the user. Say you install few scripts for gmail.com, and on any page from "*gmail.com*", the script will be executed..

Simple Steps - How to get? 

Here are simple steps, on how to get YouTube videos (just clicks)

• Install GreaseMonkey extension for firefox
• Install readily available Youtube Video Download user-script on Grease Monkey
• Restart the browser and goto youtbe page, you will be a nice menu to get video in all available format by just a click. (YouTube Video Formats)

Here's a sample screenshot.. (you can see newly added 'Download' menu, and GreaseMonkey running in bottom right)

YouTube grab is just a sample and simple usage of GreaseMonkey, and its powerful,userful beyond that.. Visit http://www.userscripts.org to get readily available scripts for 1000s of sites (gmail, facebook, twitter,...), and you can write your own autologin scripts, or skip scripts.. 

Links

- GreaseMonkey page

- YouTube Video Formats

- Youtube Video Download user-script from userscripts.org

ur web identity., secure it :)

Never be late to claim your identity in popular portals. ;)

usernamecheck.com runs through popular web 2.0 portals and checks if a user name is taken or not., 

We may not even know most of them, but i dont want to miss my id in thumblr, wordpress, .. :)

hostname and ip - demystified :)

Never involved in hardcore network programming after my academics., but recently found this tweak really handy sometimes., its trivial once u realize what it is :)

Majority of corporates have M$ Windows domain running and at least, i sometimes wanted to know either windows machine's host-name or  ip-address, given the other one. so.,

• IPAddress to HostName
  just try trace route command
  >tracert 169.24.137.123 
  Tracing route to  labpc004148.apr.dhcp.ht.com [169.24.137.123] 
  over a maximum of 30 hops:
  1  <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  [169.24.182.1]
  2  <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  jsr21-vlan299.itg.ti.com [169.24.253.34] 
  3  <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  labpc004148.apr.dhcp.dt.com [169.24.137.123]
  
  
• HostName to IPAddressjust ping the hostname, :) it will resolve into ip-address
  
  
  >ping labpc004148
  Pinging labpc004148 [169.24.137.123] with 32 bytes of data:
  
  Reply from 169.24.137.123: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=126
  Reply from 169.24.137.123: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=126
  Reply from 169.24.137.123: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=126
  Reply from 169.24.137.123: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=126
  
  Ping statistics for 169.24.137.123:
      Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
  Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
      Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms

Moi first 10k Run.. yaay!!

I always wanted to run a marathon and check what i'm made up of.. Became curious after seeing jagdeesh going for regular weekly runs with TI running club, and lot of runs coming up in the city., couldnt run last year 10k run as i was in sweden, and i was looking for it this year, and registered now!! 

Thanks to Sameer, who sent a mail calling our local TI team for a 10k mock run, around DRDO,HAL, Indiranagar.. here's the route map he planned and put up.

four, five of us teamed up, but not all could make it due to various reasons, and i ended up running alone on a saturday morning 9AM sun :) (slept till 9)

Just started running with no plan and prep, but just banking on my baddy/gym athletic stamina.. and

 - was doing great for first 4 km, almost sprinting all the time. :) but couldnt sustain, was gasping and panting..,

 - it was more of a walk and jogg for middle few kms., few down sloppy trails saved some energy :) no water/electrolytes,., justa redbull to start, and some water on the way.

 - after like 7kms, felt like numb, about to fall.,may whole water/glucose level got drained out, even next energy source- glycogen in liver too.. had a quick pit stop for a juice (2 actually).

  - It was a massive boost to know that race is gonna end in 3 km, so almost sprinted whole last strip.. :) reached office and drank gallons of water, tea!!

Best part of trek, these runs are - they make to realize whats your body made up of, and the glory u feel after completing the task, and last but not least, importance&taste of water.

The point is, just keep moving, never stay. 10km is nothing compared to marathon or half marathon :)

Later jagadeesh gave some simple, but useful tips (like sprint for 5 minutes, walk compulsorily for 30 seconds..) 

PS.

While running, i bursted into laugh after watching below sign.. 

i replied "ya, ok" to the sign., and kept running :)

Did few more 5k runs, short runs after that.. now collected my bib and eagerly waiting for 10k run day... aiming to hit < 1hour..

Makkalidurga trek (March 13, 2010)

What n How..

Despite being member of BMC (Bangalore Mountaineering Club) for two years, i havent participated in any trek or camping or rock-climbing events.., but enjoyed decathlon membership, and was inspired by its periodic outdoor events and reports (complete events list, upcoming events)

To begin with enrolled for an one day trek to Makkalidurga, and couldnt convince any one in my circle to join., so started alone.. But ended with group of strangers, and made lot of new friends.. its was fun and had good time.. 

The team was Dhruv, Arvind, Robin, Shipra, Suriya, Lalith, Paranthaman, Mayanka, Pramodhini, Aditya and Sumanth. And special thanks for Harsha for coordinating and guiding the team..

But it ended up like a small hike, less challenging, within couple of hours of hiking.. after finishing kudremukh, kemmengundi, etc, in past years, its just a sitter or mild-warm up.. Nobody got tired even like savandurga or shivganga.. but except that, its a nice fun trip :P

TripLog

so, trip log in short..

- boarded BMC shuttle at 7AM near Manipal hospital in airport road. after short trek form BTP to Leela palace..

- Picked up trek team of 11 at pickup points Manipal hospital, Domlur, Symphony theatre MG road, Yelahanka.

- Halted for breakfast by 0830 near yelahanka. packed lunch there.

- Reached Makkalidurga base by 10AM.  Started hiking after a mini orientation, intro session.

- Felt the heat of summer hot sun, dry vegetation and smoking hot rocks.. the view got better and better as we ascend.. with rocky peer mountains, plain dry green vegetation till horizon, water-full lakes in the view.

- whole team hiked in a straight line, and path was irregular w loose rocks.. had couple of breaks on the way..

- Reached top, to spot a old fort and mini shiva temple.. ruined fort walls had few watch points, where ppl can rest and just appreciate the sight in front of them.. team explored for an hour, had packed lunch, snacks.. 

- descended back by 1430, its not difficult, but all water bottles were almost empty in that sunny day :>; have to wait for sometime to get shuttle back to our pickup point. 

Returned back to bangalore, after a fun, eventfun day.. but it ended so early, that i was meddling at indiranagar streets by 4PM :)

Looking forward for another exciting trip w BMC...

PS.

Few snaps from the trip..

team ascending..

bmc team - ascendig.. stopping for break,view

bmc team..

Robin - w view..

fort on hilltop..

Arvind - checking nandi hill, skandagiri trails..

lake view, from top

the train track at hill base, supposed to be a spectacular view from top.. 

but we missed : |

Killerstartups.com

Came across www.killerstartups.com last week.. it nice and really cool, and exposes many handy/tweaky online portals, corporates.. 

About 5 to 15 startups were reviewed per day., havent gone through much, but few for eg.,

- www.typepdf.com : pdf search engine (have awful bug though.. like you search and returns query for another string)

- www.tubeoke.com : karaoke wrapper for youtube ;> 

- www.twitwinner.com : twitter equivalent of google war 

Site: www.killerstartups.com

Avatar - OutOfWorldExperice

Plot of the avatar is not out of the world, but the experience is... literally!! Remained wow'd for whole time and as michelle says in the movie - 'you should see your faces' ;> As said in caption, was taken by OutOfWorldExperience..

Its grossing like hell, and its a matter of time to be the highest box office grosser ever.. myself watched first on 2D, then again on 3D.. should go again sometime!!

Five things i love about avatar..

• Nature and forest.. so lively, where u can link urself with animal, with trees of epic height, lawns that light on a footstep, water collected from dew drops in leaves, those are the leaves where you can free-fall from thousands of feet, horses that breath like a BMW engine,floating mountains...
  
  
• flying moments while jake flying his Ikran for first time, navi's climbing to iknimaya (floating mountains).. with awesome score and visuals - you feel likeflying.
  
  
• Navi human war is epic awesome and got great stunt sequences, with stunning visuals and score.. jake bombing the flights, Tsute's brave fight and death,
  

• 2050 human inventions: soldiers and warfare took a new dimension.. giant super soldier suit, awesome flights and their landing, .. the crew patented all their designs.. ;>
  
  
• Everything else... ;P
  

Hmm, it will still take a while to assimilate the whole movie...