Venkatarangan TNC

What it takes to get a website off the ground?

2010-01-29T17:19:57Z

Sometimes the best possible way to visualize something really complex is to see it as a graphic and have it printed on a huge poster. Few years back in one of the Microsoft Mix event, they released this super cool visualization of an illustration of the process of launching a web site. It was released into a website as well called “ A website named Desire ”, which made the huge poster available as a SilverLight Application using Deep Zoom. It is super cool, check it out. (I saw this few years...(read more)

Yelagiri Hills Trek

2010-01-11T04:29:00Z

One of my favourite getaways from Chennai is Yelagiri hills ( details in my earlier post ). This time I went there with my family and my brother in law Mr.Badri Thirumalai’s family for the XMas holidays. Staying in Yelagiri is a very relaxing experience and I love it. This time 3 of us (myself, Badri and his son Aravind) decided to do the 4KM trekking into Yelagiri forests. We went and came back on our own, but not sure whether we went in the correct trekking track. We ventured up to an old pond...(read more)

Smart ways to educate your kids from harassement

2010-01-10T14:03:10Z

children-eng.pdf (200.17 KB) children-Tamil.pdf (527.1 KB) Share this post: email it! | del.icio.us! | digg it! | newsVine!...(read more)

Ethiopian Restaurant in Bay Area

2009-11-24T09:37:00Z

Last week while in San Jose (CA), my good friend “Ranga” took me for a change to have Ethiopian food for dinner at “ Zeni Ethiopian Restaurant ”. I readily agreed as I like to experiment any food that is Vegetarian (As I say in foreign lands - No Fish, No Meat & No Chicken ). We went through the menu and decided to play safe with their ready-made “Vegetarian Combo” (shown above). I didn’t understand a single item contained in the combo (YE-MISER WOT ,YE-KIK ALITCHA, ATAKELT WOT, YE-GOMEN...(read more)

Windows 7 Ultimate commemorative edition

2009-11-23T15:07:00Z

As one of the Windows 7 Beta testers, about a week back I received a commemorative edition of Windows 7 Ultimate DVD. It was special with a nice “Thank You” message signed by Microsoft CEO Mr.Steve Ballmer. In general I liked Windows Vista - its engineering improvements on Security, Stability, Aero Glass & many other features; except for its slow boot-up and performance of routine file management tasks. Microsoft made a wise move of not introducing any major kernel level changes for Windows 7...(read more)

Microsoft Silverlight 4

2009-11-18T20:00:34Z

There are tons of cool stuffs for Silverlight 4 that are being shown in Day 2 keynote of PDC ‘09 and in the SL4 overview talk by Karen Corby . I am amazed at the speed in which the Silverlight team in Microsoft has been able to churn out releases at rapid pace – SL 1 in Nov ‘07, SL 2 in Oct ‘08, SL 3 in Jun ‘09 and SL 4 Beta in Oct ‘09. The main features of Silverlight 4 that caught my attention are: Access to Webcam, Microphone and other devices like Digital Camera Print Preview and direct Print...(read more)

Microsoft Azure Container in PDC ‘09

2009-11-17T13:31:00Z

I am in LA for Microsoft PDC ‘09. One thing in Day 1 I was happy to see in real was a Azure container that was on display in the exhibition floor. These are containers (shipping container) that have all included in them – Hundreds of Dell Servers, Climate controlled, Networked, Monitoring and so on. When a container arrives at a new Microsoft Data Center location, all they need to do is plug in power and network uplink. Everything else is included in the container box. A typical data center will...(read more)

Down the memory lane: High School Prizes

2009-11-07T01:34:00Z

Today my mother while cleaning her book shelf, found few of my envelopes. They were from my High School days. One was Rs.51 Cash Prize I won in Twelfth Standard for “Most Deserving Student of the High School”. The other was a First Prize with Rs.150 for “Best Speaker” in a debate competition – I am trying to recollect whether this was in any Inter School or Intra School event. Going back nearly two decades is quite challenging, but nevertheless seeing the prizes feels good. Share this post...(read more)

It is my birthday – and Windows 7 launches today!

2009-10-22T03:40:00Z

It is my birthday today (I am not telling how old I am) and I am in Cologne, Germany attending Tamil Internet Conference 2009 away from my family & friends, missing the gifts they might have given me :-) Anyways, Mr.Steve Ballmer didn’t disappoint me. He has given me a wonderful gift – he has released Windows 7 today. No doubt Windows 7 is getting raving reviews, it got released on my birthday!. On a serious note, I have been using Windows 7 for almost two months now in my laptop (Apple MacBook...(read more)

Forward emails with Exchange/Outlook even when you are away

2009-10-11T01:28:00Z

The other day one of my colleagues asked me how he can have emails from a distribution list sent to him, go automatically to certain people even when he hasn’t downloaded the emails in his MS Outlook client. A server-side rule can be setup by the individual in their own MS Outlook client itself. Here are the steps I gave him. Launch Microsoft Office Outlook , Select " Tools " Menu Select " Rules & Alerts " Option Press " New Rule " Button Select " Start from...(read more)

Dune Eco Village near Pondy

2009-09-22T10:08:00Z

Being a long weekend, we decided to go out for few days from city. I generally like going to beach resorts near Chennai in ECR road for a peaceful stay. Since I had been to GRT Temple Bay & Fisherman’s Cove in Mamallapuram, Ashok Resort in Pondy I looked out for a different resort. After reading about Dune in The Man magazine, I narrowed down on Dune Eco Village in ECR Road at Pudhukuppam, Tamilnadu near Pondicherry University. Dune is a Eco friendly resort with most of the materials used for...(read more)

The British left-behind show

2009-08-30T13:26:42Z

Read in The Hindu few days back about an exhibition with display of British era items in Lalit Kala Academy, Greams Road Chennai – this place is near the Greams Road-Pantheon Road traffic signal, few hundred metres away from Apollo Hospital. The exhibition (free entry) which runs till tomorrow (August 30) features a collection of what the British have left behind – furniture, personalities and their ideas. The items in display are from private collection of Steve Borgia (chairman and managing director...(read more)

Free (book) by Chris Anderson

2009-08-23T01:37:00Z

Free is the new book by Wired Editor “Chris Anderson”. His earlier book “ Long Tail ” was an acclaimed work that is quoted in almost every conversation with the word “Web” in it over last few years. This book’s title though had the potential to capture the same level of imagination, unfortunately doesn’t. First, Chris Anderson should be congratulated for handling such a controversial topic like “Free”. Each of us have our own understanding of the word, how it works, whether it works or not...(read more)

Tamil in Windows Mobile with SkyFire

2009-08-20T01:50:00Z

I have written in the past about lack of Tamil unicode rendering support in all popular smartphones ( iPhone , Windows Mobile, Nokia). This week one of my colleague who uses a Windows Mobile 6.0 (HTC branded) phone showed me SkyFire browser. SkyFire is a free mobile browser that uses a proprietary proxy server technology to encode all Web contents (Text, Images, Videos, Flash, Silverlight) at their server that gets rendered in the Mobile client. Because of this technology the individual device...(read more)

What is Microsoft’s SharePoint?

2009-08-19T03:09:00Z

Though we have done lot of Microsoft SharePoint projects, I find it difficult to give a single answer to everyone for the question on “What is SharePoint?”. Depending on who (their job role) is asking the question and for what they are asking it, the answer for the question “What is SharePoint” varies. It is different things for different people. One thing is sure – it has been a very successful product franchise for Microsoft and has been the fastest growing Billion Dollar business for Microsoft...(read more)