can't spell a thing !!

peek into campfire

2008-07-23T08:19:00.000-07:00

wrote a small web app a couple of weeks ago, to aggregate messages from all rooms of a campfire account. its called peek into campfire :-)

we use campfire on our current project at eos, to help us be up to date with everything that's happening on the project. its a really nice way to communicate when the team is very distributed, like in our case. we have people working in 2 offices in bangalore, one guy in pune and the client folks in california.

we have setup our campfire account to have one room per person in the project. everyone writes about the stuff they are working on, in their own rooms and also reply or comment on others' updates. the painful part of using campfire though, was viewing everyone's transcripts. campfire shows one transcript per day per room, and that means we need to click open these transcripts, every few hours. That's a lot of tabs and it gets even worse when you see that quite a few of the transcripts just have messages indicating people entering or leaving the room.

so thought a little screen scraping would be useful and created peek into campfire. its a rails app that uses mechanize and hpricot to do the scraping. it was good fun scraping and re-organizing campfire data. all the clean html from 37signals surely helps :-) another nice tool i discovered while doing this little project was heroku. they surely have made it easy to deploy and fix issues by directly editing your code online. git access to the deployed code makes it even more smooth.

newly born

2007-11-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

two new guys have entered my brother vivek and his wife suman's life in the last 6 months...
my little nephew anish :-)

and a brand new company :-)

being a part of a new company was always going to be exciting... but the freedom i experienced to approach, design and implement the app was awesome ! and of course it was damn nice to actually complete and deliver a project ! even though the project was similar to the kinda stuff we do in thoughtworks, the experience of taking on the entire responsibility (now thats a lie, i ran to my brother for every small decision) of a project was a first.

i am back to working on my initial project ideas, now with a company backing my effort... im still as confused about what i want to do as i was when i quit thoughtworks... but still as excited to discover it :-)

quit thoughtworks

2007-04-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

its almost 2 months since that happened... never blogged about it... but its one of those things that you have to blog about... initially i thought i ll write a detailed post with the reasons and my half baked plans, then i thought i'll write an emotional one, then a funny one... but now i have had enough of thinking about it... so there you go... i just put it in the title :-)

in the bangalore photography festival

2007-04-13T01:23:00.000-07:00

7 of my snaps have been selected for display in the bangalore photography festival :-)
looks like they have been very linient in their selection... heard that there are around 200 snaps just in the amateur category

you can see them at the Leela Galleria on airport road for the whole of next week ... 15th to the 20th of this month from 3:00pm to 8:00 pm
as i know now, the festival has been divided into two sections each showing a different set of categories:

the first 3 days will feature categories like nature, sports, fashion, social issues

the next 3 days will show people, culture and bangalore

and the last 2 days, on 21st and 22nd (next saturday and sunday), will feature the best of the lot from all categories.

small teams rock !

2007-03-26T02:32:00.000-07:00

they are playing a two hour video on this topic in the theatres :-) check it out !

vidya balan is not a person

2007-02-01T04:40:00.000-08:00

vidya balan is a feeling :-) a good feeling

it feels like vidya balan...
when you see a beautiful girl,
when you see small methods in small classes,
in a cool breeze,
in a positive moment,
when you keep bare feet in cold river water :-)

neel and me

2006-10-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

It's almost un-fair how easily he can make people smile.

My six-month old nephew neel has been awesome fun to hang out with...
he tries to eat anything you give him...
loves any kinda sound...
and just like me... he can watch crap on TV for hours together :-)

away day !

2006-10-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

some of the snaps from the recent thoughtworks away day in kerala... the blog's been lying dead for a while now.... thought i'll throw some colors into it :-)

the bangalore metroblog

2006-08-25T04:45:00.000-07:00

i just stumbled upon the bangalore metblog a few weeks ago and was excited to see much interesting information about the city in it.

last week i applied to be one of the authors on the site and was pleasantly surprised to see it accepted... now i am all excited about posting on it, think it will give me a chance to combine my passion for photography with the passion for bangalore:-) i guess all the random photography will soon start having purpose :-)

download all yahoo photos in one go

2006-07-31T02:50:00.000-07:00

just wrote a tiny greasemonkey script that changes the text-links on the yahoo photos album page to point to the hi-resolution version of the photo.

found a similar script here but it didn't seem to work on the album page, so just ended up writing one myself. also, you can now use the DownThemAll firefox plugin to download all photos (in Hi-Res) in one go

for people who have never used greasemonkey before - you will need to install the greasemonkey firefox plugin before being able to use this script. it basically allows you to change the behaviour of certain web-sites on your local machine by running custom javascripts called "user-scripts"

nice way to start the day

2006-05-24T19:56:00.000-07:00

the picture i took at supreeth and aru's wedding last year just got the thrid place at a local weekly photography contest

very happy :-)

a useless rails plugin

2006-04-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

The Useless Ajax Mux-Demux plugin for Rails allows you to multiplex a bunch of ajax requests into a single one. These requests will be disptached on the server and the results collected as a single JSON object. This makes it very easy to update multiple sections of a page using a single ajax call :-)

Its always disheartening to find out that your new idea has already been implmented.... kini and me came up with this little idea while working on a personal rails project..... so we went ahead and spent a couple of nights implenting it, only to find out that the new rails version has already solved the problem.

Anyway, thought we might as well put it up, you never know what other palces people might need to multiplex and de-multiplex ajax requests.

Here's the code you need to update multiple sections of a page using a single ajax call:


    new Ajax.MuxDemux([
      {container: 'tag_cloud',     url:'/tags/show_cloud'},
      {container: 'book_details',  url:'/book/details/10?level=3'},
      {container: 'book_header',   url:'/book/header'}
    ])

simple... isin't it ?

goa !!

2006-02-03T07:10:00.000-08:00

well.... the blog is alive again. these are some of the shots from last weekend's goa trip. had a lot of fun, mostly by making a fool of myself :-D

very happy to start clicking again but hope i find the same kinda josh i used to have a year ago with the old camera..... yet to fall in love with this new one actually

towards kick-ass user interfaces...

2005-05-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

i have started to beleive that any information that is represented as text in an app is begging to be shown in more engaging way!

when i showed the user interface of an internal project that i am currently working on (which deals with status of various project across thoughtworks) to rajesh, representing location info as points on a map was one of his many suggestions. it seemed interesting... jude (karan singh) and me pounced on the problem.... and boy it was a fun ride!

we found a flash map that uses a meta-data file containg the lattitude and longitude of the points to be shown... converting location to lattitude and longitude seemed challenging.... finally managed to write a program that uses google maps and some other raw data to retrieve the lattitude and longitude.

of course, i cant display our project info here... but i made a map of all the people in my college gang with links to thier blogs.... u can zoom to a particular location by drawing a rectangle on the map... go play with it :-)

click here for a larger view.

as rajesh said... it will be great if we can generalize this interface to support other kinda maps, maybe a floor plan of our office showing where each person is working.... any more ideas?

"Im Umesh... and I do theatre for a living"

2005-04-14T06:26:00.000-07:00

Thats the line i took away from last weekend's playback theatre performance. Its really nice to see a new way of doing theatre.... thanks to ashu, one of the actors in the playback group for taking jaggi and me to the show.

when umesh introduced himself at the end of the show... he was very humble, but it hit me hard... and i realized that there's no way in the world that i can mention my profession with the same kinda pride....

its time to go beyond familiarizing myself with the latest technologies.... need to write some kick-ass code.... solve some hard problems.... or maybe even switch to a profession that allows more creativity.

tvml and some bad ruby code...

2005-03-14T04:45:00.001-08:00

rajesh introduced me to tvml ..... a nice little language to create small animations.... its really easy to create new charecters, make them talk, look at each other, make gestures, etc.

also spent some time implementing manoj's idea: to write a program that gnerates tvml code based on a yahoo messenger conversation, where each person is represented as a charecter that speaks.

its a very badly written ruby program -> http://karthikc.topcities.com/code/gentvml.txt ... but was fun to see it work.... boy!! ruby seems to be as amazing (if not more) as people are making it to be.... think im gonna spend a lot of time in the next couple of weeks, writing programs in it.

and its gone....

2005-03-08T04:35:00.000-08:00

lost my camera last week..... left my bag containg the camera, my shades and some other crap in an autorickshaw :-(

guess its time to get a real slr now :-D ..... will always remember my first camera.... its amazing, how easily i could communicate with it!

loosing it isint making me feel too bad though, probably because i have contemplated loosing/dropping it so many times.... but i do feel pretty sick in the stomach every now and then, when i realize that i misplaced something so expenisve....

yeh lamhe... yeh pal, hum... barson yaad karenge...
yeh mausam chale gaye toh, hum fariyaad karenge...

internationalize ur jsp in seconds !!

2005-02-24T04:27:00.000-08:00

finally managed to put up the intellij plugin that i wrote a while ago.
managed to complete most of the imp features.... still need to work on the gui.
ok... here u go -> Jsp Internationalizer
its my first swing app... and yeah u'll realize that as soon as you run the plugin :-D

in case u use it..... do let me know... if it worked for u :-)

the show...

2005-02-14T06:08:00.000-08:00

the air show was a lot of fun... have never seen a live display like this before..... thanks to ashwini.... but boy it was exausting!! was tired, tanned and felt old at the end of the show.... have some more pictures here.... not my favorite album really but........ whatever :-)

also managed to watch "Black" this weekend.... boy what a gutsy movie.... and such stunning photography.... almost felt like a text-book for cinematography.... i think its goin to be one of those movies that i am going to watch again and again and again till i have analysed every camera move... cant wait for the dvd release.

some code....

2005-01-31T04:22:00.000-08:00

started writing a new intellij plugin a couple of days ago..... the idea is to find (and run) all tests that are referenced either directly or indirectly by a particular method.

i had the initial bit of code working which uses intellij's find usages capability to get all tests that reference the method..... then i realized that the code was ugly and refactored..... ooops no unit tests (i had a good excuse... i was using too much of the api and it would be tough to mock them :-D) ..... of course i got screwed.... now everytime i run the plugin the comp hangs :-(

if anybody's interested in joining me to complete this tiny tool do let me know :-)

rise n shine...

2005-01-31T03:26:00.000-08:00

actually woke up at 6:00 on a sunday morning to catch the sunrise.... i went up a small hill near home (the girinagar gudda) to get a better view and wasn't really pleased to see that i couldnt find anything other than the sun in the frame :-( ...... finally i ended up using just the plants and trees to compose.

the one thing that came as a pleasant surprise as i was clicking the sunrise was the quality of light that kept improving every minute.... unlike clicking the sunset where the sun dips down as soon as u got the best idea for composition and ur left staring at the blank horizon!

have uploaded the rest of the pictures on my yahoo page

play...

2004-12-29T04:48:00.000-08:00

took this at the christmas party in office
that's JD playing the guitar. was hoping tht the focus would be on the right spot but it didn't really work out. got the thumb in focus instead of the index finger :-(

also just noticed a couple of days back that my photography website is the first result on google when u search for "karthikc" :-D

birth...

2004-12-19T22:41:00.000-08:00

...of a passionate photographer.... of a new website http://karthikc.smugmug.com

please feel free to comment/critique on my pictures..... nothing can be more valuable to me :-)

caught right in between

2004-11-29T04:51:00.000-08:00

15 minutes to go for a meeting at office and i have no clue what to do..... so decided to dig up some more old pictures and post them here..... this ones one of my favorites, took during a sail boat cruise in Santa Cruz, California. Managed to catch the bright guy right in between the boat and the light house :-)

one step behind...

2004-11-29T04:16:00.000-08:00

my close friends archana and supreeth got married last weekend...... still hard to digest that it has actually happened..... but me and jaggi (my friend who has begun to share my passion for photography) had a ball taking all sortsa crazy pictures...... heres a picture of the couple from one step behind the official photographer.

back home.... and it rocks !!

2004-11-29T03:56:00.000-08:00

its been a month since i returned and it feels great!
happy to say that i am still persisting with photography :-) ..... not that i have improved much but still as passionate and still persistant...... above is a picture of a grasshopper in wayanad, kerla. had been there a couple of weeks ago..... had a lot of fun even though it was just 3 of us in th trip.

rice n rasam...

2004-10-11T23:00:00.000-07:00

just finished preparing rasam, (properly) for the first time :-)
think it turned out pretty good...... unfortunately i lost my apitite by the time i finished makin it..... so i decided to take pictures of it and this was the best one i got.
mmmmmmmmmmm..... fooooooood :-)

seattle

2004-10-08T18:23:00.000-07:00

a bunch of chilles hanging in the market at seattle. had a really nice weekend.... spent time with some of my best buddies.... ashu n rahul .... feels really nice to meet a close friend after a long time :-)
rest of the pictures

focus

2004-10-08T17:54:00.000-07:00

its high time i started focusing on the things i really love to do..... well there are only a 3 things that i absolutely love: photography, programming and keeping fit

have done absolutely no physical exersice in the last one month.... and that sucks big time.... gonna get a new pair of running shoes from a factory outlet tomorrow..... hopefully that should inspire me to run everyday :-)

vivek was here...

2004-08-04T23:37:00.000-07:00

my bro vivek was here last weekend...... had a really good time with him and his friends... jayanth and ambi...... wow that was a nice n pleasant change .... started getting bored as soon as he left on sunday evening... we went to the 17 mile drive ( for the 3rd time :-| ) and saw .... rather slept thru.... bourne supremacy :-D

cant wait ...

2004-07-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

to get back to bangalore..... get back home.... get back to friends

time to play again :-)

2004-07-31T15:42:00.000-07:00

decided to start palying with the camera again.... i remembered seeing these cute weeds near amit's apartment.... i went there today n took a bunch of snaps...... 3 of them seemed ok... i have uploaded them in the "photlab" album (look at the "pictures" link on the right)

i've started to love using a small depth of feild... so that only a small part of the picture is in focus and everything else is blurred..... no better way to highlight the subject

karthik confused??

2004-07-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

seem to be getting interested in too many things......

want to learn photography
want to read software design (i'll be really happy when i actually complete a book!)
want to write more software
want to read a lot of articles/opnions on technology
want to spend more time with friends
want to make more new friends
want to learn about movies n cinematography
want present a tech paper

naturally i was thinking that the biggest problem would be time........ strangely enuf, indecision has been the villian...... as soon as i get myself started one thing, i get tempted into doin somethin else...... and we all know the result..... another day wasted...... guess aruna was right when she said that the "c" in "karthik.c" stands for confused :-|

well atleast i managed to put an entry in the blog.... guess thats a start :-)

it works !!

2004-07-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

finally got my camera delivered..... and it works....i bought it from ebay and it surely doesnt look new, but hey who cares :-) (i got it for 300 bucks less than the marked price). took this picture from the apartment parking lot

F828

2004-07-05T23:23:00.000-07:00

Just purchased the sony f828 online.... feeling very nervous abt it.... its the first time im purchasing something this expensive online. Cant wait to get it though...... Im sure it will be a hell lot of fun :-)

hi this is karthik...

2004-07-04T15:52:00.000-07:00

its my first weblog and i have no clue what i want to post here :-)
anyway, heres a bit about me.... i work for thoughtworks, supposed to be around 23 yrs old, blessed with an awesome bunch of friends and have a wonderful family...... and yeah i cant spell a thing :-)