.NET From India

Finding People

I have been getting some comments from people trying to find information about friends in Chennai or India. I have started a new Blog called Tsunami India to help such people. If you want to know information about a friend, just mail me or post a comment in one of the blogs. If you know about someone being searched for, leave a comment in the appropriate post.

Do spread the news around, so that we can help people get in touch with friends and relatives.

New Tsunami Alerts

An alert for a new Tsunami hit in Chennai has been given. Hopefully with the alert given, I think this time around there will not be any lives lost.

Tsunami Relief

If you are working with any organization for Tsunami relief and would like to share information on the web, do mail me(Use the Email Me link on the left panel) and I would post it on the blog for you.

Tsunami Releif in Chennai

There are a lot of organizations collecting items and money for relief work in India. A friend of mine Mahalaxmi is working with some NGOs to help people in need. You can read her blog for more information or call her up at 9840851982.

Excerpt from a mail she sent out:

Also we are working for providing the victims with the following things:

1. Cooking materials - Rice/Dal, Vessels, Stoves etc. these would help them
establish their home with the basic needs
2. Bedsheets/Mats
3. Other items that would be instrumental in surviving

I would also request you to help financially to obtain the above things
since providing food alone will not help them in their living or survival in
the future.

Asia Blog Awards - Update

I was suprised to see that I am in the second postion in the Asia Blog Awards.

So if you do read this blog often and like it, do vote for this blog. You are allowed to vote once a day.

Note: There is an IP based check to enforce the once a day rule. So sometimes you may find you are not allowed to vote if you are behind a proxy and someone else used the same proxy to vote.

Earthquake and Tsunami in Chennai

I had taken a break and gone to visit my parents over the Christmas long weekend. So I escaped the fury of the earthquake and the following tsunami that hit Chennai on Sunday. It is estimated that Chennai alone lost around 250 people and the state of TamilNadu took the major brunt with more than 2500 people losing thier lives.

Reading about the over all toll of this incident (around 1600 people lost their lives all across Asia), one of the questions that come to mind is that Indonesia nearest to the epicenter lost around 2000 people, while a single state in India lost more. That gives you an idea of the people density on India. This is far higher in coastal areas as fishermen prefer to live along the costs so that they can go to sea early in the morning.

Coming back home today morning, I was quite releived to find that my house, which is 15 minutes walk form the beach, was safe with the sea water nowhere near it..:-)

My trip from the railway station to my house, went by the beach road, which gave me a look at yeasterdays area of diaster - Marina, the second longest beach in the world. Except for a few boats and vehicles scattered around, it looked very calm and normal. Around 50 policemen walking around, being the only signs of what was a major tragedy that happened 24 hours ago.

Update - Aftershock quakes have been reported from Andamans. More aftershocks are expected over the next two to three days.

Update - I have setup a blog Tsunami India to help people get information on friends and relatives in India.

Innovative use of Google!!

A virus/worm using google to find new sites to infect. According to the BBC article this is not the first one to do so, but this certainly is the first I have heard of where google is the only agent used by a worm/virus to spread.

Thousands of website bulletin boards have been defaced by a virus that used Google to spread across the net. The Santy worm first appeared on 20 December and within 24 hours had successfully hit more than 40,000 websites. The malicious program exploits a vulnerability in the widely used phpBB software. Santy's spread has now been stopped after Google began blocking infected sites searching for new victims.

BBC Article - Santy worm makes unwelcome visit

AntiSpyware from Microsoft

Microsoft today announced that it had aquired a company called GAINT Company Softwares, who make antispyware tools. MS will get a beta of thier antispyware tool, based on the aquired tool in 1 months.

The good thing seems to be that this will work from Win 2K onwards. But there is nothing about Win 95 and 98.

Asia Blog Awards

I have been nominated in the India Blog section of this year's Asia Blog Awards. Please do vote for me here.

You are allowed to vote once a day and the voting is open till Dec 31st.

CPU with .NET

A copmpany callyed .NETCPU has released a tiny CLR built into a CPU. It runs a miniature version of the CLR, 132K in size, and can be programmed against using VS 2005. They are shiping a developer kit for USD 500.

More information is avbl in this windows for devices article.

(via theserverside.net)

This is Funny..:-)

Just read this on Bharath Ganesh's Blog, about Google's Translation.. Absolutely hilarious...

IndiBloggies

The IndiBloggies 2004 is here. This is an indianized version of the Bloggies.

I was very suprised when I was invited to be a Jury member for the IndiBloggies this year (Which means I cannot nominate my blog :-( ). If you are interested in having the jury have a look at your blog use the nomination form avbl at the site.

Dan Brown Month :-)

I never read Da Vinci code till last month. Though I had heard good reviews of it, I did not go out and buy the book, nor did my mother. I got a copy last month from my aunt and found it quite good. A well laid out thriller, with interesting historical titbits.

So the last few weeks, when I had some free time, I have been reading all of Dan Brown books. So if you had recently taken a look at the Book list, you would have seen quite a lot of Dan Brown books coming there. Have finished, Angels and Demons, Deception Point. Reading Digital Fortress now.

Do you want to work on .NET 2.0?

Polaris, the company I work for, is hiring .NET programmers. This is your chance to work on the latest .NET related technologies like C# 2.0, VB.NET 2.0, VS 2005 and Yukon.

We are looking for people with 2-4 years of IT experience, 1 year in .NET and good communication skills. If you are a very good VB 6 (COM/COM+ knowledge a must) or Java programmer, you can still apply. If we think you have the right aptitude we will still take you and train you in .NET. SQL Server knowledge is mandatory. This position is based out of Chennai, India.

Do send in your resumes to anand.m at polaris.co.in. We do have a very demanding interview and selection process, so if you do not match the above requirements, do not apply.

New Prince of Persia

BBC has a review of the new Prince of Persia - Warrior Within.

Still basking in the relatively recent glory of last year's Sands Of Time, the dashing Prince of Persia is back in Warrior Within, and in a more bellicose mood than last time.

Oracle Support for .NET SPs

I was pleasently suprised to read that Oracle has released a new version of its DB server(Oracle Database 10g Release 2) that allows writing stored procedures in .NET!!!

Atleast that I what I suppose the following point mean

-- Improved Microsoft Windows support via stored procedures implemented in the Common Runtime Language (CLR) and enhanced integration with Visual Studio;

(via Merill Fernando's Web Log)

Historic Relationship between India and China

An interesting essay by Amartya Sen on the relationship between India and China from a historic perspective.

The intellectual links between China and India, stretching over two thousand years, have had far-reaching effects on the history of both countries, yet they are hardly remembered today. What little notice they get tends to come from writers interested in religious history, particularly the history of Buddhism, which began its spread from India to China in the first century.

(via Anil Dash)

VB Team's Visit to Chennai

Steven Lees and Alan Griver from the VB team visited Chennai last Friday. They did a session on the new features coming up in VB 2005. I was unable to attend that due to another session I had to do for Microsoft at the same time at one of their partners. But I went down there later in the evening for a discussion group on VB6 and migration to VB.NET.

I was quite suprised when I found that even thought people extensively use MSDN for finding solutions, they still do not know some of the areas in MSDN like the architecture center, VB movies etc. It looks like the size of MSDN is its shortcoming too.

This meeting with the team also started off a train of thoughts on why I love VB so much. I have programmed using a lot of different languages in my life: VB, Power Builder, FoxPro, COBOL on Mainframes, C etc. But VB still remains the language I love the most. It may be because Basic was the first computer language I learnt on those DOS machines (does anyone remember GWBasic and Basca anymore). Or it maybe because of the length of time I have been using VB, from 3.0 onwards. Or it may just be that I like the readability and productivity that VB gives, which I do not find in any other language, including C#.

SQL Server 2005 Express Manager

Microsoft has released a new tool that you can use to manage SQL 2005 express and MSDE 2000 version. This tool is free and is called the SQL Server 2005 Express Manager.

Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express Manager is a new, free database management tool. Designed for ease of use SQL Server 2005 Express Manager is filled with features to simplify, automate, and reduce the complexity of database support and administration.

How to become a Good Programmer

I subscribe to a newletter called the The Java Specialists' Newsletter (Yes, you read it right, it is about Java). It is a very interesting to read up indepth Java articles, even though I do not and never have coded a single line in Java. It gets me thinking on .NET equivalents etc. The 100th issue of this newsletter titled Java Programmers aren't Born, talks about how to become a good Java programmer.

Replace Java, with any other language and it still holds good. Interesting read..

Computer Heal Thyself

It is not as simple as that, but people are working on making computers self-healing. This article in ADT mag looks at one such effort.