KrishnaShasankar.com

New Camera

Feb 11, 2010 Photography, Travel Leave a comment

Gifted myself with a new camera, a couple of weeks ago, so was busy researching on it. This is a Nikon 3000, it came with a 18-55mm Kit lens, Kit bag, 4 Gb mem card, etc.. .

The Camera as such is excellent with a wide range of enhancements, the zoom is the only thing that hurts. I certainly do know the metrics behind zoom lenses in SLR cameras, but having got used to a superzoom (FujiFilm S5700) for more than a year, I find this very hard to get used to. But if you go to a store and check the  price of those super zoom lenses for SLR’s you wont think about them.

Here are some of the snaps taken with the new camera

Also see,  Snap from Kodaikanal trip Jan 2010, taken on my friend’s Sony A200 DSLR

The correct SDLC

Jan 18, 2010 Fun Leave a comment

This was a funny extract that i found in some forwarded email

AND THERE IT COMES TO AN END… 2009

Dec 31, 2009 Fun, General 1 Comment

In a couple of hours from now, 2009 will be over. Again a new year will begin, but this year would have given me some of the most unforgettable moments of my life. If I had to summarize 2009 in a few words, I would say, it was a dream run for me. It helped me look at reality; it looks like it has possibly shown me a path of where I should be heading. I became fully qualified in this year, ZCE, did try my luck at java as well, and then I was able to get enrolled for my MS. It was all very good. Much of it should be credited to the support of my friends (most of them are ex-colleagues now), so 2009 will be remembered happily for all that.

I tried learning guitar, it was quite happy to see myself playing it well, but due to unexpected (But somehow all my friends guessed it beforehand) distractions, I couldn’t continue with it for too long. My travelling hit an unexpected all time low this year with just 3 or 4 noticeable trips for the whole year; this was a huge drop when compared to earlier years. So If I wasn’t travelling a lot, I wasn’t obviously using my camera lot. I also had some fun at stock market and made some marginal profits out of my money; it did help me learn a lot on financial matters.

I did do a lot of stupid things in 2009, but just like every year, I would not regret for them (he he:) ), it’s a part of the package, which has some pluses and minuses; you don’t really have a choice but to bear with it. Nobody is perfect. I don’t want to be nobody…

So what are my plans for 2010?

• Study … Study… Study… If some of my engineering classmates looked at this… they will roll on the floor and laugh… but I have to do it, not too many choices here
• I should plan some trips and execute them!, travelling is one thing I missed a lot in 2009
• I technically don’t need any more gadgets/electronic devices… So I shouldn’t buy anything else this year, but save money (I was thinking about a Mac Book, an Android Phone, a Nikon D5000 SLR… and one more 23” Wide screen so that I get a dual screen setup at home, at the time of writing this…)
• Find someplace where they conduct Guitar classes during weekends near my residence (have already invested some money on the musical instrument, should try to get at least some ROI)
• I should blog more often, and start contributing lot more tech articles to Clickoffline.com, traffic influx has increased in the recent months.
• Anh! Well… Stock Market… yes

Why did I write this post? — Because of this inspirational article by my friend

Wish you a happy 2010 for all of you !

Stop Press update for geeks: I have just integrated the Picasa Web Albums into WordPress using GData API which is provided as a part of the Zend Framework (Sounds cool right). Checkout the Photography Link on the header, it uses ZF’s GData API to render the images by fetching them from Picasa Web Albums Site. I will blog about this in Clickoffline.com and will try to do some server-side optimizations to improve the blog’s performance.

New Things

Dec 15, 2009 General 1 Comment

Lot of changes happening around here during the last one month, so I couldn’t find enough time to scribble here. Firstly, I have quit Corporater. It was a hard decision to make, but had to call it, I have now moved into a new Chennai based Web Application Services firm. So I am busy with that part during my business hours. The second thing that has kept me busy is the application and documentation part for my masters, I had at last secured the admission for the Work Integrated MS Programme at BITS, Pilani.

This one is an interesting offering from BITS, this as far as I know this is the only available option for anyone who wants to do a working masters in engineering, tech, etc. Since technically these programmes cannot be offered via distance education, BITS has come up with a web-based delivery model which is also integrated to work. Good thing is that you will be able to choose most of the courses that you may wish to take in the degree, this allowed me to plan my degree to match my web development career. And I have to study all these books..

• Unix Network Programming, Volume 1: The Sockets Networking API
• Unix Network Programming, Volume 2: Interprocess Communications
• Advanced Concepts in Operating Systems
• Fundamentals of Database Systems
• Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object- Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development

BITS – WILP Link – http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/dlp-home/

MS (Software Systems) Programme – http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/dlp-home/degrees/collab/collab.html

Crazy life… always studying..:)

Theory and Reality of Google Wave

Nov 13, 2009 Fun, Technology Leave a comment

Comparision of Google wave in Theory and Reality