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Secret of Rajinikanth's Website working without Internet

For the ones not aware of the website developed in the name of Rajinikanth by his fans, the website runs without Internet connection. Sounds crazy? Read on.

Always Rajini’s style and stunts are unique and also after the popularity of his role as a robot, Rajinikanth became very popular in jokes and impossible things. To that account Rajini’s fans have developed and dedicated website in the name of their popular star ‘Rajinikanth’ which depicts his life and career. Obviously, to give Rajini touch – the website works only when internet is not connected.

The website opens with a welcome message that the website runs with the Rajini power not with the internet and kindly disconnect the internet to continue further. Once the internet is disconnected, we can access further pages about Rajini, in the mean time suppose if internet is connected the website stops displaying its content with a message ‘Aiyyo! That was unexpected. To keep browsing, switch off your internet. ‘

The design of the website is wonderful and it is the first of its kind. Looking at the technical details of the website, we can easily make out it is designed using Flash. Upon opening the website a temporary folder containing flash pages will be stored into the computer memory. When the internet is disconnected, the pages will be in the memory of local machine (or the user machine) and won’t be fetched from the internet. Coming to the internet connection, the web page opened will be pinging to some server at the back end, if any data packets are received then it display the internet is connected to system otherwise no such messages and we can access to all the contents. The design is such that pinging process will be done continuously so that if any arrival of data packets is identified, immediately the above mentioned message displays informing internet is connected!

Rajini is always popular giving shocks to his fans. Now, his fans only gave him shock developing a website running on Rajini power.

Rajinikanth’s website working without Internet can be found at ‘Rajini’s power website’

Nokia Phones are becoming rare

Slowly Nokia phones are vanishing from the people’s hand and heart. One time don of Indian mobile market, the best mobile phone on which one can rely upon for its performance, long battery life (compared to the other phones) and the company which had attracted millions of Indians though it’s simple yet classic phone is facing the difficulty of surviving. Recently have observed many people ranging from simple users to hi-end users, they are no more relying upon Nokia phones compared to earlier. How a long time hit phone in the Indian market is slowly losing its monopoly? I tried to analyze it and gathered some information which may be responsible for the decrement of Nokia phones.

Low end Nokia phones recently launched in the market are facing the design problem of using the same speaker for ringing and hearing purpose. Earlier Nokia phones were coming with different speakers one for hearing and the other for ringing when there is call or message. With the usage of single speaker for the dual purposes have increased the additional noise resulting in poor voice quality and also the person standing near to the phone also can hear what people on phone are conversing!

High end Nokia phones are coming with the Symbian Operating System. The number of Apps which can be loaded on this operating system is limited and as symbian is not a free one, the cost of Nokia smart phones are high compared to other phones available in the market. Some models of Nokia phones are having Windows operating system, which is again not freely available making the cost higher. Almost same features of Nokia smart phones are available in low cost with the Android Operating System which supports for more applications even the user developed ones.

Nokia is not trying to understand necessity of people immediately and act according to it. Different mobile service providers are having different tariff plans, some are having good offers on talk time, roaming etc., making people to have more than one sim card. It’s obvious that such people will look for having dual sim phones rather than frequently changing sim cards. Unfortunately, Nokia released its dual sim phones quite late in the market, becoming one of the reasons for its reduced popularity. Even the nosier dual sim phones are having signal problem compared to the other company phones.

Even people are asking for Android phones in the mobile shops irrespective of its manufacturer making Android phones more popular. Some of the companies are releasing mobile phones with more features (majority with Android) for cheap price compared to the best low end Nokia phone.

Earlier mobile phones were just used for calls and messages but now people look for the best possible applications available and then think about the rest. When the good phones are available in other models (I mean other companies) why people will go for only Nokia phones?

Copying in the Examination

Being in academics gives some experience of conducting or doing invigilation in examination on a regular basis. Also invigilating for three hours in the exam hall is like a punishment – this is one side of the coin. The other side of coin is the paper evaluation, reading whatever students have written. I need not tell explicitly that students will write whatever comes to their mind than what is required or asked in the examination.

Even though am not allowed to do evaluation of semester examination answer scripts, being a junior in the department need to help all the senior colleagues in counting total marks, filling the OMR sheets etc., On one of such occasions it so happened that one answer sheet had a small bundle of papers. Immediately we recognized it as the micro copy which student might have used for copying in the examination. Copying or carrying any text material in paper can be treated as malpractice and the punishment can be imposed even to the extent debarring student from taking examination for certain years.

The student has made sure that all the pages in the book were properly scaled down to the small rectangular book to be able to hold in the pocket or hide in the answer booklet so that it won’t be visible to others. Don’t know why the student has left the chit in the answer booklet itself, as many students will copy in the examination without the notice of room supervisors and external observers and won’t be caught even after copying successfully!

Many students planning to copy or to recall answers while writing scribble some code words or small letters as hint on their geometry box, scribbling pad and worse is that students won’t mind writing on the back side of identity card issued by the institute. Even few students find out their seating arrangement in the exam hall in advance and paste the text book material or write down important points on the desk they sit.

These are just the ways I noticed there may be many ways left to the innovation of students as one of the girl recently caught during exam has neatly scribbled important formulae on six pencils just by skinning those!

Story of Google - Doodle

Many times opening Google home page we have scratched our heads thinking why Google has changed its logo. Google is following it as a rule to display special kind of logo instead of its regular blue, red, yellow and green color combination logo on birthdays of celebrities or scientists contributed for the advancement of human life and also on special occasions.  The logos placed on such occasions are popularly called as ‘Doodles’.

Doodles have become popular over time and even some time back Google has arranged competition for children on designing Doodles. The concept of doodle was initially designed by its founders itself in 1998. But the name Doodle came after a longtime. As mentioned in the Google’s official website, first time the Doodle was used when the founders Sergery Bin and Larry Page went to attend Burning Man festival at Nevada desert. Their absence at the office was indicated by them by placing a stick figure drawing behind the second ‘o’ in the company name intended to make users understand that founders are out of office. The actual logo used by them for the out of office purpose can be found here.

Actually doodle gained prominence when Dennis Hwang developed a design for Google logo on ‘Bastille Day’. Later Dennis Hwang, who joined Google as intern was made in-charge of Doodle and later on the occurrence of such doodles were often on the Google website.

Doodle is fun and many love to see them on the home page of Google. The collection of Doodles can be found here.

Personally, I liked the interactive Doodle electric guitar published on June 09 2011 to celebrate 96th birthday of Musician and inventor Les Paul. A student project which was initiated to perform efficient data mining in an university campus has become so popular and ruling the majority of web world as giant!

Anjaneya Temple at Shikaripura, rebuilt

Modernization has not left the temples also. The old architectures built using stone and mud are now replaced by the concrete structures. The ancient beauty of temple is gone and it looks like the commercial complex than the temple.

The ancient temple of Sri Anjaneya Swami has been rebuilt at Shikaripura. I got the old photo of the temple while searching something on Wikipedia, I readily remembered the childhood days when I used to play in the temple premises sitting on the stone elephants placed near the entrance of the temple. Now, everything is gone except the marble floor at the entrance.



Old Photo of the Temple Entrance with two small stone elephants near the entrance


 Photo of the same temple recently rebuilt

Happy New Year 2012

I was not awake last mid-night to welcome the new calendar year 2012. I slept off on my usual routine time without any hint of getting any mid-night phone calls or messages. But I made sure that phone is not in silent mode (not even in vibrate mode) which is the state my mobile phone will be most of the times.

At around 1’o clock in mid night my phone started ringing. I didn’t have any other option than receiving as I forgot it is New Year eve and blindly received. The caller was my student, called to wish Happy New Year. Somehow controlled the sleep and wished her the same. 

Even I had received messages from the students and a colleague. Messages are less this year compared t last year as many cellular service providers have cancelled the free message offer on December 31st and January 1st. In anguish, one of the blogger has even mentioned the cellular companies as bunch of beggars for cancelling the message offer.

Had a brief deep sleep after the phone call, only to wake up in the morning 6’o clock with an intension to see the sun on 2012. But it went in vein as the weather is cloudy with the cold breeze. More cold here in the surrounding as it doesn’t have any vehicular traffic. The reason for the cold may be the effect of the cyclone Thane.

Even the regular coffee shop was not having regular Sunday crowd with majority of Infosys employees, may be because of mid-night celebrations. The news papers had all the news and expectations for the New Year. Also, the most discussed hot topic end of the world in 2012 December is widely covered.

Form this blog onwards, all the blogs of mine will be listed under the tag 2012. In 2011 I was able to write 154 blogs starting from March 28th receiving nearly 6,000 visits. Hope to double the readers in the New Year with good number of useful posts.

Even it started to rain while composing this blog, one of the first rains experiencing in Hyderabad. From tomorrow another semester is going to start hoping to see the new students.

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year 2012.