25 Apr 10

Here I am with my first youtube upload I have been trying a while to do some videos for demos but was not able to do it, so I went ahead first created a flash demo using wink and after googling around for a while I came across nice utility from iWisoft which is flash to video converter and conversion was pretty easy and straight forward. There is no audio added to it, I have used annotations for explaining things where ever required. This was my maiden effort may not be that good but still someone might find it useful, enjoy and have fun.

This video covers some basics of TortoiseSVN a client for Subversion.
Steps covered are checking out your code, adding some existing content, commiting changes to repository, reverting to older revision and how to view log and compare two revisions.

Filed under: OpenSource

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17 Apr 10

In this article I am going to put on links to various useful Subversion resource available on internet which can get you started with using Subversion easily; whether you are end user or a developer looking for an API for language of your choice and I hope you all can contribute to grow this list further I am aware that there is exhaustive list already available on tigris site.

Lets start this list

Subversion Home : Home of the great tool you can find the binaries for latest version from the website based on operating system of your choice it also includes collabnet certified binaries.

TortoiseSVN : Most preferred Subversion client for windows

VisualSVN : Great tool to get you started quickly with Subversion without any hassles comes with Apache and wizard based setup is just awesome for newbies

AnkhSVN : Visual studio integration for all M$ fans :)

RapidSVN : Multi-platform GUI front-end

SVNKIT : Java API for Subversion, pretty easy to get started lot’s examples available and documentation is just awesome

PySVN : Python API for Subversion, nice pythonic interface, some people might differ and point out Subvertpy is more pythonic, I like both of them equally.

This list is In progress and I will keep updating it.

Filed under: OpenSource

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15 Apr 10

I recently setup Subversion on Centos as well as RHEL, so thought will share the steps followed though it’s pretty straight forward it will help people looking for it and will be available to me for future references as well :)

Step1 Install rpmforge repository

$ sudo rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm

Step2 Install Subversion

$ sudo yum install subversion

Step3 Install mod_dav_svn (Only required if you planning Apache Integration)

$ sudo yum install mod_dav_svn

Voila and you are done, go to command prompt and type following

$ svn –version

You should see output as below

svn, version 1.6.9 (r901367)
compiled Mar 22 2010, 00:59:50

Copyright (C) 2000-2009 CollabNet.
Subversion is open source software, see http://subversion.tigris.org/
This product includes software developed by CollabNet (http://www.Collab.Net/).

The following repository access (RA) modules are available:

* ra_neon : Module for accessing a repository via WebDAV protocol using Neon.
– handles ‘http’ scheme
– handles ‘https’ scheme
* ra_svn : Module for accessing a repository using the svn network protocol.
– with Cyrus SASL authentication
– handles ‘svn’ scheme
* ra_local : Module for accessing a repository on local disk.
– handles ‘file’ scheme

Filed under: Linux,OpenSource

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14 Apr 10

I wanted to write this post from long time at least 2 years now, when I came across MLM for first time, I think the company was some ‘quest’ selling some gold coins, but I was refraining from writing but few days back I got a similar mail saying it’s some ecommerce business and details will be only disclosed when I meet them in person, I was able to sniff the MLM from it pretty easily.

Mail contents are as shown below

Hello,

I’m getting in touch with you for a specific purpose. I’m currently building my business that’s based on an e-commerce platform and a network marketing model. I’ve partnered with some very respectable and highly accomplished business people and Investors from India & Abroad. We have established markets in India, Middle East, Singapore, UK and are looking to expand further Globally. In this regard, we are looking at working with people who already have or would like to set up their own business. The model is tested and proven, and here’s what’s available for you, should you choose to take up this opportunity.

- An opportunity to build a new business, starting off on a part-time basis, and in a matter of 3-5 years, have it run on auto-pilot for you, in terms of earnings.

- Learn to leverage the internet to build your business globally.

- Create a network with the guidance some highly successful people from various walks of life.

- Be guided directly by the leaders in this business in India and globally.

I’m assuming if you’re like most people, you’ve probably come across network marketing in some form or the other. I’m unaware of your experience of the industry, and would like to add that the opportunity I’ll be sharing with you, should you choose to take a look at it, is unique and highly rewarding, provided it is done with the right mindset. I prefer not to discuss any details/numbers over the mail or phone. I’d prefer that you get in touch with me on my number below, or alternatively respond to my email with your contact details, if you’d like to know more. We can set a meeting accordingly.

Thanks and Regards,

P.S – Just to reassure you, this is NOT a get rich quick scheme but a genuine business that requires good work for one to succeed.

I have removed contact details and some irrelevant things from the mail.

So why I say MLM is fraud, I say it because the basic principle on which it is based is flawed, I am not going to cover all the detail of MLM there is umpteen material available on interent just Google for it, adding fraud word it leads to lots of results too, yeah getting back to why I say it’s a fraud being a programmer I have read the concept of binary trees so what so special about binary trees every programmers knows about it, special thing is that number of nodes which will have two nodes below them is half the total number of nodes, so drawing this parallel to MLM which seeks every person to have at least two person(Nodes) below them, wait a moment what I just said contradicts concept of binary trees so that’s practically not possible. So come what may half the people joining in MLM pyramid is bound to loose all their money. People who get money out of this are not getting it by doing something but fooling more people to join in and laying there hands on their hard earned money, so there’s no business here.

That was just one point but there is more to it, products which you have to sell is at much higher costs than their actual value, for e.g. some coin which you need to sell was around 30k 2 years back it was rare according to them as it was manufactured in less quantities and will have a very high value in future, is that the definition of rare if today I start manufacturing something and just create on piece out of it will it make it rare, I looked at ebay to get actual price of that coin, it was easily available and at much lower cost.

Though many a times it’s difficult to prove that this business is illegal but than there are things which are legally right but ethically wrong and things which are legally wrong but ethically correct.

I will end this here promising to revisit this post again sometime in future with some more details, but for me bottom line is MLM is fraud in most of the cases.

Some links related to MLM happy reading.

Wikipedia definition of MLM

RBI flashes red signal at MLM companies

MLM Watch

 

Filed under: General

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28 Mar 10

It’s been almost year since I and my partners started fiddling with idea of providing hosted Application Life Cycle Management to startups and small companies, slowly but steadily we started building specs for it , we looked at all existing applications and tried to analyze what are the problem in using these applications and than we concluded that one thing which can make us stand out is simplicity, ease of use and sensible way of doing things. With this objective in our mind we started building BootStrapToday, we tried to keep things as simple as possible and along with keeping it simple we tried to make complex tasks possible on demand by user.

Today I am announcing the official launch of BootStrapToday to readers of this blog, a maiden product by my company Sensible Softwares Pvt Ltd

Below are some snapshot of BootStrapToday , off course there is more to it , to know more about BootStrapToday visit our website.

Project & User Dashboard

AccountHome

Easy WikiPage Edit

Source Browser

We have free account as well as 30 day trial for our premium account.

There is sandbox account available for those who don’t want to signup before getting feel of it.

Sandbox URL : https://sandbox.bootstraptoday.com Username: bst  Password: sandbox

Looking forward to hear your feedbacks on BootStrapToday

Filed under: General

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24 Mar 10

I want to blog regularly but so far I have failed in my endevours to take blogging as regular affair. After going through this presentation I have found new motivation to try again, Merlin has hit the bulls eye in this presentation of his, no fancy stuff pretty simple and obvious thing but than you need to figure out what is obvious sometimes. Enjoy the presentation and keep rhyming

Find you obsession. Everyday explain it to one person you respect. Edit everything, skip shortucts, and try not to be a dick.Get Better

View more presentations from merlinmann.
I want to blog regularly but so far I have failed in my endevours to take blogging as regular affair. After going through this presentation I have found new motivation to try again, Merlin has hit the bulls eye in this presentation of his, no fancy stuff pretty simple and obvious thing but than you need to figure out what is obvious sometimes. Enjoy the presentation and keep rhyming

Filed under: General,non-techanical

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23 Feb 10

I just go a mail on Subversion mailing list informing that today is the 6th Birthday of Subversion for those who are thinking what is Subversion they can read here.

So Subversion has come along pretty well since it’s 1.0 release 6 years back and this day I would like to thank all developers who have put in there efforts to make Subversion what it is today; it stands tall among the many commercial tools.

So how I celebrated the Subversion’s birthday I went to svnforum.org and tried to answer queries of people as thats the way you can help Subversion adoption to grow among masses.

Developers are doing there bit by developing it; so we as a part of community need to contribute in what ever way possible.

This day I wish many many happy returns of the day to Subversion and want to congratulate Subversion community for great going looking ahead to more great accomplishments in future.

Filed under: OpenSource

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9 Jan 10

I have been thinking for a while to write about my experiences but was refraining from this for some reason or the other but today something happened that I can’t hold my anger against the shity policies of companies in India; I will illustrate three experiences of my life which forced me to believe that India is still way behind when it comes to serving customers and listening to there problems and promptly providing the solutions.

So I will start with my latest problem which I am facing with Tata Indicom broadband connection; I took a plan of RS 1300 6GB combo so it was all goody goody initially when I didn’t used much of my allotted usage of 6 GB free usage which I had; than this month I had to download some linux operating system from internet that started the nightmare experience it was 3.7 GB of download still less than my free usage and the very next morning I got a call that you have exceeded your credit limit of RS 1700 and you need to make a payment of 3100 I am still trying to figure out from where the hell that figure of RS 1700 came from; if I do a flat conversion of 6 GB of free usage with their rate 0.9/MB it leads out to some where around RS 5000 I was totally surprised with this and in next two days my line was barred; I didn’t had a option there I went to the office of tata indicom and made the payment of RS 3100 and it took them more than a day to restore my line.
I haven’t even realized that my lines are fully working I got another call next day asking me to make a payment of RS 1500 and since I was afraid that my line might get disconnected again which may cause another day of work getting lost so I made the payment immediately but I was even not able come out of two back to back payments I got another call from them today that I have exceeded my credit limit again and I need to make a payment of RS 2300 I was so badly pissed of I called the customer care and asked what the hell is going on and he had more shocking news for me sir your billed amount is RS 7000 and your unbilled usage is RS 11000 I was shocked WTF and than I asked him to check again than he started saying actually the correct unbilled usage will start reflecting in 48 hours that amount is not correct that was some respite for me.
I was told I can check my unbilled usage from tataindicom site but there another tragedy stuck me I had registered to that site already but never received the first time pin I told the same thing to customer support executive, he tried to reset password but it was in vein he kept getting that customer not registered and I kept getting you are already registered and you can not registered again.
He told me sir you will have to write a mail; now I have to write two mails the first one which I had already written for increasing my credit limit and another to fix my account on tataindicom.
I hope they will not f*** any more as I have already given up with them. I am planning to change ISP any suggestions are welcome.

I think this story has taken quite out of me I will write other two experiences some other day, keep watching this space for more bitter realities of customer support in India.

Filed under: General,non-techanical,review

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13 Dec 09

Few days back I was trying to create database in a batch job using createdb.exe and I encountered this problem createdb.exe prompts for password and there is no way of passing password from command line as an argument.
I tried to find out how to do this but in vein there is no way you can pass password as an command line argument; than after looking around for sometime and googling I found two ways of doing it

  • Setting up PGPASSWORD environment variable : This method is not preferable as it’s insecure more for further details read this


  • Setting up password in pgpass.conf : The file is to be located
    %APPDATA%\postgresql\pgpass.conf

File has the following format

hostname:port:database:username:password

Each of the first four fields may be a literal value, or *, which matches anything.

For further details the postgres documentation

Filed under: OpenSource

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22 Nov 09

As always Google silently launched new version of its one of most popular application that is Orkut, I don’t exactly when it was made available as I noticed it couple of days back.
I thought to give it a try and realized that the features added are heavily inspired from Facebook, its quite apparent that Orkut was seem to be loosing to Facebook on many aspect so redoing the Orkut was always on the cards and they have done a fare job but still I haven’t found many people using the newer versions and you can not use newer features like commenting which is one of the most used features of Facebook unless other person is also on newer version.
Lets see what strategy is used by Google to move to people to newer version. One thing I liked and appreciate about changes done by Google is that you always have option to hop between versions very unlike Facebook which shifted me to lite version without my knowledge and only switched back after a month or so.

Filed under: General

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