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Grabbing frame from video This is in continuation...
2007-07-25 07:02:00
Grabbing frame from videoThis is in continuation of my earlier post where I wanted to pick a color from an Image. Only this time, I wanted to grab a frame from a mpeg2 video and save it as a file so I could submit it to a photo contest. I got a couple of software none of which worked. I then decided to take matters in my own hand and use the Screenshot program in java that I had to take a snapshot of the video while it was paused. There's usually a slight blurring and I was okay with that. To my amazement, the results were astounding like straight out of a Stephen King novel. First I played my video using Windows media player. Then I paused it at the frame I wanted. Then I ran my Screenshot program to save the frame to a PNG file. So far so good. Now that I had saved the frame I wanted, I let the video play till the end. Then when I checked the saved image guess what I found. The image stored was the last frame from the video and not the frame I wanted to save. It was as if th...
More About: Video , Frame , Grab , Rabbi , Bing

I was in Jaipur in May'2007 on some business and I...
2007-07-22 13:58:00
I was in Jaipur in May'2007 on some business and I had a chance to experience the culture and climate of Rajasthan for the first time. I was treated to some warm hospitality and saw some great architectural sights. Here's a video from my trip showing the magnificient Birla Mandir.
More About: Business , Some , Sine

Recently, I got interested in plugins (extensions?...
2007-07-13 14:22:00
Recently, I got interested in plugins (extensions?) for the firefox browser and the feature I was looking for this. "Being able to capture the content of a portion of a webpage and store it somewhere with the possibility to transform it later into a different format. The search led me to this site which fit my need to a T. It is a web 2.0 site which allows uses to clip contents of web pages and store it on their site. Cool, isn't it.The link.
More About: Extensions , Plugins , Este , Recently , Eres

The Taj has found a place among the seven wonders ...
2007-07-09 06:38:00
The Taj has found a place among the seven wonders once again. It took an intense SMS campaign towards the end to get the Taj among the elite list. The other monuments that have found a place include>The great wall of china>Rome's Colosseum >Jordan's Petra >Peru's Machu Picchu>Brazil's Christ the Redeemer statue >Mexico's ancient city Chichen ItzaThe number of votes received by SMS seems to bethe basis for the selection of the final list. A more accurate criteria would have included a number of factors such as the novelty of the concept, the awe inspiring nature of the monument (subjective) and more measurable factors like the number of visitors to the monument, the difficulty of execution etc. The monuments that made it to the list all deserve to be among the top wonders of the world irrespective of the number of votes they received. Federer beat Nadal in a marathon 5-setter on sunday. The match was different from the games of the past when players like Becker, Edberg and...
More About: Wonders , Place , Seven Wonders , Lace

I had mentioned earlier that I had cleared my min...
2007-07-06 14:30:00
I had mentioned earlier that I had cleared my mind of the wicket related stuff I was working on. I had kept the files intact and today I had the opportunity to tinker with it a little bit. I started tomcat and browsed to the link and it worked like a charm. I might be onto something here. A treetable component capable of editing XML in your browser could have many uses in these web 2.0 crazy times. RSS comes to mind immediately but any XML could be edited. Here's a screenshot of my editable XML treetable showing a ruleML file.
More About: Arli , Lier , Earl

The other day I was listening to the track "Stuck ...
2007-07-05 13:47:00
The other day I was listening to the track "Stuck in a moment you can't get out of" from U2's album 'How to dismantle an a*****c b**b'. By their standards, it looks quite ordinary though that might change as I get to hear it more. I am great fan of U2 and feel that their album "Joshua Tree" is in my opinion the one of the greatest albums ever made and the song 'with or without you' quite simply the best song in the album. I have seen people rating 'Achtung baby' in the Top ten rock albums and Iam ready to agree with that too. One thing I noticed and Iam sure many would have also is why the long names. Their last album title and the song I mentioned above both have more than 5 words. Their work in eradicating poverty is admirable and they deserve to be the highest paid Rock stars for their music and commended for their charitable work.
More About: Track , The Other , Listening , Trac , The O

There's good news in the family as my sister has g...
2007-07-05 13:24:00
There's good news in the family as my sister has given birth to a girl child. We plan to call the newborn 'sanjana'. Welcome Sanjana to the world and here's wishing her the very best. There's a picture of Sanjana that I will post here shortly. My sister already has a daughter 'sneha' aged 5 years. My brother too has 2 children, both girls. I have had trouble remembering the birthdays of my nieces already and with the addition of the new one, that task has become more difficult. I plan to talk to my mother ( she would know) and note down their birthdays so I can send them a card or presents on their birthdays. I think its very important to remember the details pertaining to my sister as she lives abroad and I get to see her only about once a year.
More About: News , Family , Good News , Good , Sister

Added a new features to my blog. You can now see d...
2007-06-29 08:37:00
Added a new features to my blog. You can now see daily top ten list along the right side of this blog. You can also express your opinion by voting on the items in the list. If it is a media item, you can also click on the link next to the item to visit the item listing on amazon.com. I hope this feature will add more interactivity to my blog and make things more fun.
More About: Features , Blog , Feat

Two products from internet innovators that are for...
2007-06-28 14:46:00
Two products from internet innovators that are for limited number of users are the EC2 from Amazon and Google's Mashup editor. Both are radically different products and have nothing in common but that they are for limited trial offers. Amazon EC2 is a business model thought up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and relies on making available servers and hardware on a as needed basis. This means that you don't have to pay for computing resources you don't need right now. The exact nature of the program is still not clear as the offer was limited to only 10000 users and was taken up in no time at all. In fact, the story goes that one would-be participant who missed out was ready to offer $20000 for a seat to another who was successful but his offer was turned down. Such was the attraction that the Ec2 program had on the internet community. Google Mashup editor is a relatively new offering from Google. It is amied at making building mashups easy and should pave the way for better mash...
More About: Internet , Products , Intern , Prod , Novato

I had this requirement to pick the pixel color fro...
2007-06-27 15:01:00
I had this requirement to pick the pixel color from an image. I usually use a image editor program that I have to select the color. Iam aware that programs like photoshop would do this kind of thing quite easily. But it didn't make sense to start photoshop if it wasn't already running just for this small requirement. As usually the case with free programs, the image editor software started acting strange and would not tell me the color. So I began searching the net for Color Pick er programs. Most of the results were for html websites that allow you to select web safe colors. There was a flash based one which I couldn't use because I didn't have flash installed. Another was a COM based google gadget which I couldn't test because I didn't have google desktop installed. So I went to the usually reliable Java for a solution. Only in this case it didn't prove so reliable after all. I call it usually reliable because there's always some java code out there that does what you want. ...
More About: Pixel

A strange thing I noticed when working with eclips...
2007-06-26 07:30:00
A strange thing I noticed when working with eclipse. The System.getProperty("ide.path') value that eclipse returns is different from what you get when you run the application from the command line. For example, suppose the classes are stored under c:eclipseworkspacemyprojectin, then System.getProperty("ide.path') returns c:eclipseworkspacemyproject whereas from the command line you get c:eclipseworkspacemyprojectin. This would affect the deployment of your application because you would not be able to store your resources relative to the application path. You notice the same problem when running your application with arguments. eclipse looks for files, resources etc. under c:eclipseworkspacemyproject when they are in fact under c:eclipseworkspacemyprojectin. Can't believe a popular IDE like eclipse would have such a limitation. Probably a configuration issue that'd go away once it is corrected.
More About: Strange , Working , Thing , Range , Tran

This year's javaone a 'damp squib'? It sure does a...
2007-06-06 05:09:00
This year's javaone a 'damp squib'? It sure does appear like it. Considering all the hype that was generated before the conference, this years' javaone definitely was pretty ordinary compared to previous years conferences. After thge keynotes and the announcement about JavaFX, it was as if they all had into a deep slumber only to wake up once the conference was over. Or maybe a Maoist regime had taken over the moscone center and imposed a blanket ban on any news getting out. Whatever be the reason, if the powers behind javaone think that 1 solitary announcement maketh a conference, they better think again. With the likes of Microsoft and Adobe coming out with new platforms for computing, java would have to buck up and get going if it does not want to get left behind.
More About: Sure , Year

Babel is a movie with intersting sub-plots that ar...
2007-05-10 05:57:00
Babel is a movie with intersting sub-plots that are full of emotion and the actors have given full support to the script. That they have given their best is evident as this movie is definitely oscar material. Brad Pitt is a different person in this film and a welcome change from the usual slam bang stuff he is known for. The story revolves around a american couple who are traveling in Morocco when the american woman is shot accidentally by 2 Moroccan sheperd boys. The movie traces the lives of 4 different people, that of the american couple, the nanny who looks after their kids, the moroccon boys family and surprisingly a japanese connection in the form of a hunter who happens to gift his rifle to the boys who end up shooting the american tourist. The last connection is so far-fetched that it could have been left out or atleast treated with a bit more sensitivenes. What does the japanese gifting the rifle to a Moroccan have anything to do with the problems faced by his deaf daughter...
More About: Movie , Babel , Babe , Abel , Plot

It's been a while since my last blog mainly becaus...
2007-05-07 09:02:00
It's been a while since my last blog mainly because of some stuff I got involved in. Our company is getting into other businesses away from developing the XML editor product. That has been put on the back burner temporarily to see if could strengthen our bottomline before contiuning development on that front. Come May-June and the summer is at its peak here in Chennai. The showers expected from the depression that formed off the coast disappointed last week. The power situation isn't all that good either. Its important to drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration from the heat. It was another hot and humid afternnon this saturday when I went to the juice shop for a cool drink. I had a slight pain in my right ear for which I was taking medication and which hurt if I had anything cold. So I ordered a fresh juice with no ice and waited. There was this man by himself, 40-45ish and dressed in a pant and shirt. But it was only after watching him for a while that it dawned on me tha...
More About: Blog , While , Been , Since

I have blogged about this so many times before tha...
2007-04-23 07:13:00
I have blogged about this so many times before that by now half the people using the internet probably know that Iam speaking at Jazoon'2007. However, I have the Jazoon logo which I thought would be nice to add to my blog. So Iam including the logo of Jazoon together with a link to their site below. Just follow the image link and scroll down to session no.660 to read more about the paper Iam presenting at the conference.
More About: Times , Blogg , Fore

Finally the super-8 rounds are over and the teams ...
2007-04-19 11:15:00
Finally the super-8 rounds are over and the teams that will be facing off in the semi-finals has been decided. It will be Aus vs S.Africa and N.zealand vs S.Lanka. There is some talk whether what S.Lanka did was right. i.e resting key players against a tough opponent like Australia. They probably felt that this way they would qualify second and meet N.zealand in the semis instead of Australia. They were well within their rights to rest their players at any stage of the tournament irrespective of whethey they had qualified or not. The motto should always be play to win though the Australians seem to carry that a bit far at times. But sometimes caution is the better part of valour. The competitive spirit still is present in this world cup also. In 2003, the semifinals was far more interesting than the finals where the ozzies drubbed India. Even in the football world-cup, the semi-finals were more interesting than the finals atleast until the materazzi incident livened things up. In...
More About: Super , Teams , Finally , Round , Fina

Does a rehash count as a sequel? I am referring t...
2007-04-18 08:50:00
Does a rehash count as a sequel?I am referring to the film 102 dalmations from walt disney pictures. I had seen 101 dalmations before and found it great. Hoping to have a similar viewing experience, I went and rented out the 102 dalmations. Guess what? 102 Dalmations is a rehash of 101 Dalmations with a few minor changes here and there. In fact, it was like watching 101 dalmations all over again. And the reason struck me only later. Most of the scenes were the same as well. The disney company had used footage from the original in this movie also shooting only a few extra scenes to make the movie look different. Does this count as a sequel. Especially when you consider the large sums being spent on the batman and pirates of the caribbean movies. Imagine the plight of those who purchased tickets to watch this so called sequel and rented out the DVD. If someone did a video diff betwen the original and the sequel, I am sure the difference would be not more than 10 or 15%. Such is the am...
More About: Count , Sequel , Ferr , Refer , Rehash

The picture has become clearer on my attending jaz...
2007-04-09 07:44:00
The picture has become clearer on my attending jazoon in that they have added my name and bio to their list of speakers. So if you want to know more about me, you can read at http://www.jazoon.com. Since it would be economically unviable to visit Europe just for this conference, Iam contemplating making a eurotrip. That way, I could combine some business with pleasure and visit placed I have always wanted to see but couldn't till now. Boy! how I wish I had a travel companion. It would be so much easier when traveling especially across places where you don't know the language. The money required wouldn't be all that high since if I decide to travel across Europe, I will be travelling budget staying in hostels and taking the train whereever possible. So in case anyone in interested, do drop me an email at ovisvana@netzero.net and I will respond.
More About: Picture

Is Ruby designed to run only on Linux? Iam forced...
2007-04-09 07:05:00
Is Ruby designed to run only on Linux ?Iam forced to ask this question because of what I have seen from the little I have worked with Ruby. The Ruby core itself installs and runs fine on windows. Its only when you want to install some gems that the problem arises. The command to install the gem isc:>ruby gem install This failed with the message that 'NMake' was not found. I checked on the net and found a link at Microsoft.com where I could download 'NMake'. After I downloaded and copied 'NMake' to 'c: ubyin', the error I got was 'cl' was not found. If I remember correctly 'cl' is the microsoft C compiler. I tried to replace 'nmake' with make and cl with gcc by downloading cygwin. But I couldn't figure out the place where I would change 'nmake' to 'make' since most of the files seem to be generated files. So the gem install process overwrites my changes. This is what has caused me to pose the question above which is"Is ruby designed to run only on linux?"
More About: Forced

The long awaited Abhi-Ash wedding is finally here....
2007-04-06 10:34:00
The long awaited Abhi-Ash wedding is finally here. The marriage is held to be held at a private ceremony in April in Mumbai. Incidentally, the Aishwarya starrer 'Provoked' is scheduled for release in India and a promotion of the film was held in London about the same time as 'shah rukh's wax statue was unveilked at Madame tussaud's. Doesn't the occassion demand a slightly happier movie than 'provoked'. Or is it that a hollywood movie is a hollywood movie irrespective of the occassion. By the way, Abhishek would do well to pick the type of ads he does with a bit more care. The latest ad he features for Motorola is a case in point. For that matter a couple of more ads are utterly silly in their cenceptualization and I hope the trend doesn't continue. The 'indian multinational's ad and the campaign for a new chips brand are the ones that could have done with a bit more thought. The rupee closed at an all time high against the dollar at Rs 42.84 to a dollar. Thats still...
More About: Wedding , Finally , Long , Fina , Ally

What's the good framework for developing a web 2.0...
2007-04-04 08:51:00
What's the good framework for developing a web 2.0 application?This is a question that I have been asking myself for sometime now. First of all, I wasn't sure whether a web application was such a good idea since I had spent most of last year working with thick clients. So for the moment, Iam setting aside this question, to be able to objectively decide which framework would be the best for data oriented projects. I am saying data oriented because if it were a text editor or had lots of charts, graphs etc, a thick client would win hands down. So the project has to be such that both a thick client as well as a web application can handle. With RIAs the gap between thick and thin clients has definitely narrowed down. This should only aid us in our evaluation. Let's take a sample project for our evaluation. Since there are a number of web component frameworks available, let's assume we will be using one such component. The Tree component would be a good component to use. The data...
More About: Good , Framework , Frame , Ping , Web 2.0

Modern day ten commandments: 1. Thou shall not do...
2007-04-03 06:14:00
Modern day ten commandments:1. Thou shall not download movies/music on to DVDs/CDs2. Thou shall not jump the line at ticket counters3. Thou shall not run the red signal at every opportunity4. Thou shall not check your email 20 times every hour5. Thou shall know the difference between a blog, a wiki and a podcast6. Thou shall not talk on your mobile while driving7. Thou shall not party for days without a break8. Thou shall embrace open source at some level9. Thou shall learn to live without your blackberry10. Thou shall not go to bed with your ipod
More About: Modern , Comm , Command , Ten Commandments , Commandments

This might be old news but India is officially out...
2007-03-28 15:38:00
This might be old news but India is officially out of the world cup. They lost to a vastly improved Bangladesh in the first game and then found Sri Lanka too hot to handle in a must win situation. There are various theories being attributed to the teams poor performance. These range from factionalism to seniors being worried about their position to too much experimenting. After seeing players being kept in the side even when they were woefully out of form, a bunch of players not doing too well in the domestic circuit have demanded a stint with the national team. Anand Jon, a fashion designer of Indian origin based out of New York, has been accused of raping women by promising them prospects. Soon others joined in with similar claims. While it isn't uncommon for people to join in in such cases, the number in this particluar case has grown quite rapidly. So much so that they are thinking of filing a class action against jon. Looks like Angelina jolie has adopted another chil...
More About: News , Old News , Official , Ally

In the last couple of week amongst other things, o...
2007-03-20 05:05:00
In the last couple of week amongst other things, one thing I have been frantically trying is to package my java application for deployment. I have a webstart version for my app which I have made available from java.net. But, I want a exe version ready for my product which is in beta. So I tried various installers but Iam yet to find one that suits my needs. And Iam not just looking for the free ones which I know may not have all the necessary features. I haven't been able to get the evaluation download of even the paid ones to fulfill my needs. The installers I have tried include:1. advanced installer - $1992. launch4j - free3. jshrink - $674. native4j - $455. lzpack - free6. macrovision installshield - $449Let me explain my requirements clearly which I think would be the same as anyone else in my position. You have built something putting in your hard effort and would like to guard yourself against unauthorized copying. So I would like to obfuscate my application. I have tried js...
More About: Couple , Week , Things , Thing , The Last

Iam in Mumbai again this week and next for another...
2007-03-13 05:04:00
Iam in Mumbai again this week and next for another round of meetings with a customer of ours. This time I made sure I packed everything including my sneakers, my swimming gear and a pair of shorts. Let's see if I get around to using them on this trip. There's a nice pool in front of the place where Iam staying but Iam not sure if I can use it. Yes, Iam not at a hotel this time and staying at the customer's guest house. Last week I managed to fit in 1 session at the gym and 2 hours of swimming into my schedule. Seems like I may be overdoing it a bit. But I had to to lose the calories I may have gained over the last month. In mumbai, I may take up jogging but that will have to wait till the weekend. Nothing more on the jazoon front. Haven't heard from them. Probably it may take some more time before they send the details about the conference. I may also be writing an article for java.net and the process has already begun and I will be exchanging drafts of my article with java...
More About: Week

I have created a new java user group for the place...
2007-03-09 13:37:00
I have created a new java user group for the place where I live. I live in Chennai and the jug has been formed to bring together users of java in Chennai. The jug is called 'chugs' and caters to Greater chennai and the greater is there to mark the growing of chennai as an IT and automobile hub besides other sectors. So far, Iam the only member but I have a few tricks up my sleeve to get people to sign up. These include creating handouts which can pinned in public places. This blog is another means to invite people to join. I hope to keep the jug a friendly place where people can come and discuss their interests related to java. Iam still looking for a place to hold the meetings and someone to sponsor the coffee, snacks etc. It would be great if some corporates could sponsor books, t-shirts, tickets to java events etc. Sure would go a long way in getting people to attend and take active interest. The jug is located at http://chugs.dev.java.net and you can join by visiting the site ...
More About: Java , User , Place , Group , Lace

The wedding party of Liz and Arun Nayyar shifted l...
2007-03-07 12:57:00
The wedding party of Liz and Arun Nayyar shifted location to Mumbai from the stately umaid Bhavan palace in Rajasthan but only for a day. They will be back in Jodhpur where the stage has been set and over the next 5 days the much in love duo will tie the knot (I presume it will be a knot as the marriage is going to be as per Hindu customs). The bridegroom is the one who is most affected as he has to sit in front of the sacred fire as his eyes become red from all that heat and smoke, and recite the many hard to recite mantras along with the priest. All the high and mighty have been invited from around the world for this extravaganza. At first it did look like the friends circle of Liz and Arun might not converge with the Bollywood celebrity circuit and Bollywood may not be adequately represented at the wedding. But apparently that is not the case as Karan Johar seems to have attended. Not that the Bollywood celebs would have cared much about Liz not caring to invite them. Iam sure i...
More About: Party , Wedding , Shift