.....and hilarity ensued.

We Know Where You Live - Remix

I wanted to like this show, in fact I wanted to love it but the truth is We Know Where You Live - Remix just wasn't very funny, sure some of the sketches caused an occasional smile but that was about it.

In truth the only reason I bought this DVD was because Simon Pegg was a cast member ( well that and it was damn cheap ) and I think I can pretty safely say it's rather unlikely I'll ever watch the series again, if this was the best the series had to offer I don't think I'd like to see the material they didn't include on the DVD.

Computer Woes

I got up this morning as is my habit, took the dog for a walk ( or more truthfully it took me ), came home made myself a coffee and fired up the computer.

Now the fact that it seems to be making the kind of noise I'd expect to hear if someone was forcing a frozen cat through an electric cheese grater probably isn't a good thing - perhaps my long delayed computer upgrade isn't too far into the future after all.

Green Lantern: First Flight

While I don't read as much as I used to I consider myself a comics fan, like most kids ( and later adults ) I had my favourite titles and others I enjoyed but I didn't go out of my way to pick up every issue, Green Lantern was a title I enjoyed but I didn't go out of my way to pick up every issue.

Being a fan of comics I try to ( eventually ) watch every comic related movie / TV series that comes along, if it dosen't feature one of my favourite characters I tend to be in no hurry to see it and that was the case with Green Lantern: First Flight - that was what I would call a mistake.

Green Lantern: First Flight was a fantastic movie, it covers Green Lantern's origin in around 5 minutes, it tells the viewer everything they need to know if they aren't familiar with the character without taking up half the movie, from there it's straight into an galaxy spanning adventure that includes The Guardians, the Green Lantern Corps and Sinestro and despite the movies fairly short running time ( approx 75 minutes ) it all makes sense and is still enjoyable to anyone who was totally unfamiliar with the characters.

I hope the producers of the upcoming live action Green Lantern Movie see this film, I think there is a lot that could be learned from this movie that would help them to do Green Lantern justice but I think I for would rather seen a sequel to this outstanding animated movie.

20th Century Here I Come !

I finally broke down and did it, yes I dragged myself firmly into the 20th Century, I don't know that I have much to say or that if I do anyone could possibly find it interesting - time will tell.

Basically I'm a sci-fi, fantasy and horror fan who has managed not to grow up, I'm also married and have a child, well a 17 year old daughter ( it's almost the same thing minus the hormones ).

To anyone who may read this Welcome, hopefully it won't be a complete waste of time.

If Apple holds the future of Computing ,I dont want to be a developer

Software development is my childhood dream. I always wanted to be computer engineer and now i am very close to it . Only two months away from my computer degree .

But suddenly a question pop ups in my mind “ Do i really want to be a developer of the future? “ .After seeing current dynamics of industry, my answer seems to be no !!! . Let me explain.

Openness and Choice

The primary things drew me to the software field is its openness and choice. Software industry became very open ,thanks to open source movement and Internet. Its open in terms of code,process,entrepreneurship etc . There are millions of books,sites,blogs to help you in every step of journey . There are many experts to help you when you encounter a problem . We call this expert group as the community.

Software field is an ocean of choices . We have choices in platform , programming languages ,frameworks etc. There no one to force you what to use and how to use .

The openness and choice always results in innovation . If you look at the enterprises like Google , Facebook ,you will know what type of innovation can happen in open world .

Mobile is the Future

Mobile devices are in use over decade. But its potential reveled only after iPhone is released . Mobile is the feature . What we do today in the PC , we will be able to do in mobile devices . Mobile devices doesn't only refers to the smart phones , but they also include netbooks , tablet computers etc . The power of mobile devices growing day by day and its predicted that future generation will doesn't know what a mouse is !!.

Can we expect same openness and Choice in future ?

The openness and choice what we enjoying today is for PCs and web. But is same openness and choice will be there in mobile devices . By seeing current scenario I am afraid it will be not.

Apple is the leader in mobile devices . iPhone was named as Jesus phone and AppStore is De facto standard for mobile applications. They have more than 150,000 applications in the store and its a very large compared to second big store ,Android Market, which has only 30,000 apps.

From the above figures its clear that if you want to be developer for the future , you have to develop for the mobile and that too for iPhone . But do you think it will easy?

Closed platform and Closed minds

Apple is always a closed platform like Windows . But it will create no problem for a developer till they create great applications using the platform . But the iPhone Eco system is closed such that you will start to suffocate in it. The following are the reasons that make you suffocate

1.Develop in their own hardware and OS : To develop for the iPhone you need to own a Mac. Come on man , for developing for a mobile device you have to get a new system altogether? .If you are Mac user then there will be no problem.

2.Closed minds : iPhone SDK policies states that you cannot share what you are making with your fellow. If you do that,then its a offence . What??? is this way you develop applications in the past . We had great communities to help , but now we are helpless.

3.No choice in language and tools : Recent change to iPhone SDK TOS stated that you have to use Apple tools to develop for the iPhone . Which means their own language Objective-C,IDE etc etc. If you are expert in other languages ,you skill sets are waste . You have to learn new language and new tools or stay away.

4.Big boss has to approve your application in order to reach the users : Whenever you developed the apps in the past , there was no one to say “hey let me check the app ,if you cant please me you cant get users” . It was the users who made an app successful or failure . But in the case of iPhone , Apple has to approve the app in order to reach to the user .This means if you are in rival company you cant get your app in Appstore. Google voice is a good example.

Are we going to develop applications like this in feature. Sitting in the dark room, fighting with 80's language and waiting big boss to approve your app. I fear yes.

Still hope is there

Though current scenario looks like hopeless , there is a ray of hope in dark called as Android. An open platform which embraces the openness and choices in the Mobile industry . Though its not market leader , it will be in 2014 as projected by IDC.

I am desperate for Android to win, so that i can pursue my dream . There are millions of developer like me who want the same. If it is not going to happen , i will change my field rather than developing for platform like Apple. Whats your stand??

Array copy hack in C

Programming is all about hacking . Hacking in good sense means tinkering the code for achieve great things.

So here is a small hack in C using which you can copy one array into another array without using any loops!!!! and obviously without using any in built in functions.

Here is the code

#include

int main()

{

static int i=0; //array index

int a[10]={1,2,3}; //first array

int b[10]; //second array

b[i]=a[i];

printf("\n %d",b[i]);

i++;

if(i>2) exit(0); //continue till first array is empty

main();

}

The hack uses the two simple facts of C

1. A static variable will not be re initialized when a function is called

2. main ( ) is a user defined function

Do you have any better hacks? Let me know!

Mozilla Firefox -”Browser for Human Beings”

I attended Mozilla DevDay yesterday here in Bangalore.So thought of sharing my experience with you guys.This post does not gives you detail happening of the day's activities...it will be coming soon..If you want know what it was all about check here.

Firstly I have to confess that I am not an ideal Firefox fan. I switched to Google Chrome when it arrived in Linux few months ago and very happy with that. But attending the yesterday's conference changed my view about whole FireFox community and why Firefox is not yet another browser in world. By the way , i am posting this post from Chrome itself :)

Firefox vision of Web as a platform

If you are following the news very closely , your may be heard that word “Cloud computing”. Its says you can do every thing in the browser.Companies like Google,FireFox say that Web is not just document host, but its next generation application platform.But both companies differ in their visions.

Google's vision is very enterprise centric.Its all about blazing fast web applications, fast web browsers and fast Internet connections. But FireFox vision is very user centric. They are more interested to help user to deal with web with little annoyance and with greater security and privacy.

One of the very interesting project in this path is,

Account Manager– A protocol and add-on which enables the user to log-in to any site with very secure manner and that to right from the Browser window. A great step towards avoiding fishing.

It also should be noted though this feature now in the FireFox, it can be easily implemented any other browsers since its open, which means Firefox does not want tie the user to a single browser as other browsers.

Firefox vision of Open Web.

“Web is very healthy and open today....But is it will be same after 100 years?” ,its the question asked by one of the Mozilla Developer.We are all enjoying a nice open web.But recent developments are becoming threat to open web. FireFox wants to our next generation to enjoy the open web which not governed by any corporation or government. Open web means open formats, open source and open standards. One of the most controversial dissuasion in open web is the open format for video codec in HTML5 . Its nice to see FireFox is committed to the open source,royalty free implementation codecs like Ogg thoera.Firefox believes that Web should be available as it to anyone which any control over

Firefox -”Browser for human beings”

Community is what makes FireFox very special. Many millions of users are participating in shaping the Firefox and Mozilla as a whole. It is the key part that is missing in other browsers. Thought Google Chrome is also an open source browser, i never heard or seen a guy saying i am chrome guy , but you can see millions of FireFox guys outside. So FireFox gives a human touch to the browser.

Firefox.next

DevDay gave me a chance to see the what will be available in FireFox 4.0.Not too surprisingly many nice features of Google Chrome will be coming to the FireFox like tabs on top of URL bar, single reload,stop,go button etc.But thankfully FireFox not trying to yet another Chrome. They are also trying many great user interface ideas like Home Tab,Account Manager etc which are unique to Firefox.It also nice to see that many great developer tools like Ruler will find their place in next Firefox version.

Firefox was the first browser to break the IE monopoly over web. It showed how much innovation can be done in browser space. I hope that they continue their good work and make the web a great world to be in.

Next post will be on some of very interesting projects by Firefox that are showcased on DevDay .They are targeted towards the young ,new web developers. So if you are interested stay tuned......