I went and watched Harry Potter yesterday. It was an ok movie but I am glad that I watched in India where I paid Rs 120 (< $3) for it instead of watching it in the US where I would have paid ~ $10 for it. The main reason I didn't like the movie is that I am not a harry potter fan and the movie was too slow moving for me. 'cause I am not a Lord of the Rings fan either but I liked the movies. Just going to share some of my thoughts on the movie so if you haven't seen it yet stop reading because the remainder of the post might contain spoilers. The main thing that i found weird was that they went and created this army and Harry spent a lot of time training them to fight. But when they finally went to fight only the five of them went. Why? Couldn't they wait a few more mins and gather everyone, after all most of them were there in the office... Anyways, I like the Die Hard 4.0 much better than this one. So far the only movie that I really liked this summer were, Fantastic 4 2 and Die Hard 4.0. This is all for now. Will post more later. - Suramya
July 15, 2007
July 12, 2007
Interesting Advertisements I found online
Following are a couple of advertisements I found online that I really liked. Don’t really remember where I found them so can’t credit the source.
So without further ado here goes:
Alcohol creates new realities
A good use for Post-it’s…
Its a good idea to check everything…
This is all for now. If you have found any other interesting advertisements let me know in the comments or via email.
– Suramya
July 9, 2007
Want to be a computer scientist? Forget maths
Finally. Official proof of what I have been saying for years. 🙂
A new book seeks to demolish the concept that computer science is rooted in mathematics and, in particular that the notion of the algorithm is fundamental to computer science.
Source: iTWire – Want to be a computer scientist? Forget maths
– Suramya
July 6, 2007
Allow passwordless access to a subfolder of a password protected directory
Hey,
We have a directory on the server thats password protected and we needed to give access to a subdirectory of that folder to everyone (Without having them enter a password). Turns out it is possible to do so using .htaccess
Create a .htaccess file in the subfolder that you want to give full access to with the following content:
AuthType none
Satisfy any
Save and exit. This overrides the password protection of the parent folder and gives anonymous access to the folder.
Thanks to Vinit for the tip.
– Suramya
July 4, 2007
General updates on life
These past few days I have been going on early morning walks with my mom. Its a nice time to take a walk as long I don’t have to wake up at that time. Earlier we used to do Yoga but I prefer to walk/jog. The reason we switched is because of the heat; as past few weeks have been pretty hot. However now that the monsoon is finally here the temperatures have gone down a lot which I love.
Today it started raining just as we were getting home from our walk. Another few mins and we both would have been drenched, which I guess would have been fun. When we were kids I loved playing in the rain. Actually I still do but don’t get the time and don’t have company. We used to play soccer in the rain. Now that I think about it I feel sorry for mom, when I remember the state of our clothes after our games. We would be covered in mud. It used to get so bad that we were forbidden to enter through the front door and had to come in through the back door straight to the bathroom. God I miss those days.
Sakshi came over day before Yesterday with her parents came over for a visit and we had a really nice time catching up with each other’s lives. Have to visit her before she moves to Hongkong. Might do that today or tomorrow (Depending on whether I wake up on time or not). Her kid is cute. As long as he doesn’t cry (Crying baby’s and me don’t go together that well)
Well this is all for now. Will post more later.
Take care,
Suramya
July 2, 2007
All geeks rejoice on 29th June
All geeks rejoice on 29th June:
well.. maybe not all 😉
Source: Hoodydoo
– Suramya
PS: In case you haven’t figured it out by reading this blog entry; Yes I am back and I survived the weekend. So the blog will now again get updated semi-randomly based on the lunar cycle and my mood.
June 29, 2007
No updates till next week (Maybe)
It still surprises me sometimes when I look at the stats for my blog and see that so many people visit my blog. Its flattering to think that so many people find what I write interesting.
Any ways this is just to let everyone know that I have been crazily busy at work so have no time/energy for blogging. I hope to have most of this stuff taken care of soon so maybe, just maybe I will start blogging again next week. Till then, take care and thanks for visiting.
– Suramya
June 24, 2007
Getting a 404 error in asp.net when the file exists on the server
Hit this issue recently on a web server that I was setting up on Windows 2003 server using IIS. Now everything was installed correctly and I had copied all the files to the server, then I created a virtual directory for my asp.net application and when I went to http://localhost/Test it would show me the directory listing (Yes I had enabled that so that I could debug). However when I clicked on the service.asmx file it would tell me that the file didn’t exist and I would get a 404 error. Now I knew that the file was there and I could see it in the directory listing but for some reason the IIS refused to show it.
The problem was caused because the server was running the 64 bit version of ASP.NET 2.0 while we were expecting the 32 bit version. Yes, it took me a couple of hours to figure that out. To fix it basically what you have to do is tell IIS that you want to use the 32 bit version for this particular Virtual Directory by changing the Script Map. The steps to change this are:
- Open the IIS management console.
- Expand the local computer node, expand Web Sites, and then expand Default Web Server.
- Right-click the folder for the application, and then click Properties.
- On the Directory tab, click Configuration.
- The Application Configuration dialog box appears.
On the Mappings tab, select an ASP.NET application extension, such as .asmx or .aspx.The Executable Path column of the dialog box lists the path to the ASP.NET ISAPI extension used by the application. By default, the ASP.NET ISAPI extension is installed in the following location:
%system root%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\versionNumber. Browse to the appropriate directory and select the aspnet_isapi.dll file.
- Click Ok and exit
- Finally Stop and Start the webserver for the changes to take effect.
Now you should be able to access the files on the server without issues.
BTW, also make sure that the user IIS is running as also has permissions to read files and execute scripts in the directory where you have copied your files.
Hope fully you found this helpful.
Source for the steps to change the mapping: How to: Configure ASP.NET Applications for an ASP.NET Version
Thanks,
Suramya
June 22, 2007
How to wash clothes?
So how do you wash clothes?
In my case I give it to mom 😀
– Suramya
June 20, 2007
iPhone is not going to be my phone…
I am getting pretty tired of the hype that is surrounding the iPhone. Every website I check there are atleast 2 articles/news on it about the iPhone and a lot of people I know are eagerly waiting for it. I am not.
I am a person who usually goes for the latest software and products. e.g. I am typing this entry using Gran Paradiso (Firefox 3 Alpha 5) and when I bought my phone it was one of the latest in the market. But I don’t fall in for the hype. If a product has too much hype surrounding it and if it becomes a status symbol to own it then I am more likely than not to not buy it/get it. e.g. gMail accounts were the big things 2(?) years ago but since it was considered so much of a status symbol and considering the fact that I didn’t need another email account I never bothered getting one till almost an year ago when I had to get it to start using Orkut.
So why am I not getting the iPhone? Many reasons… First, I don’t like the way it looks. It looks ugly. Everyone is jumping around claiming that the interface is revolutionary but none of them have actually used it (Well, neither have I but..). Once they do they will come to the same conclusion that I have. Its clunky. Yes its shiny and new. But thats not a reason for which I would buy a $600 phone.
Second, it doesn’t allow you to install other apps. I love adding new software to my phone. That way I can enhance it by adding features that it doesn’t support by default. I might not, but that that doesn’t excuse them making the phone so that I can not. (Yes I know that they are making Safari a platform for development on iPhone)
The battery like sucks. It only gives you abut 6 hours of talk time/net access.
My Nokia 6270 gives me most of the features for 1/2 the price and the new N series from Nokia does pretty much everything that iPhone does for a lot cheaper.
Ah well, hopefully this craze will pass soon. I am sure that the iPhone is going to sell a lot initially thanks to the ohh shiny crowd, the apple fans and the gotta have the latest status symbol crowd. But in the long run I don’t think its a worthwhile investment. I would rather spend my money somewhere else like a new laptop. or maybe a new mp3 player.
– Suramya