Sarcasm

Geek vs Nerd [infographic]

Of late I have started loving these nicely designed infographics. (newspeak?)

Quite a handy tool if you want to convey a chunk of information as a vignette. Chances of it going viral in the social media age can’t be ruled out as well, if things are planned properly.

Like for example, this one… An old yet refreshing take on Geeks vs. Nerds debate with a pinch of humor. No wonder it exceeded expectations of MastersInIt.org guys (their website Bandwidth is currently down it seems, since it went viral on social media and various blogs).

Geeks vs Nerds

Bigger image here

Also, this reminds me of a Venn diagram I saw sometime ago. The one that rightly puts the Geek vs Nerd vs Dork vs Dweeb equation into perspective:

Geek vs Nerd vs Dork vs Dweeb

One a personal note, I’m not in favor of labeling people in anyway. We can be a good or bad mix of any of these traits depending on the circumstances. However, with this, the Sarcasm category begins on my blog. =)

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Interests, Music

Windmills of Your Mind



Windmills of Your Mind ~ Sting [The Thomas Crown Affair]

Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel.
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that’s turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it’s face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it’s own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it’s face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that you said
Lovers walking along the shore,
Leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And a fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of this song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning,
On an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

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Generally, Internet

Paypal Issue in India

New Update on Paypal Blog

New Bank Withdrawal Instructions for Our Customers in India

In wake of recent issues Paypal users in India have been facing over last month for remittances of personal credits into their Indian bank accounts, Paypal today morning apparently has sent this e-mail to “affected” users:

PayPal

Dear Romil Javed,

We have been diligently working with the RBI and our business
partners to resume Indian bank withdrawals for the thousands
of Indian businesses who depend on PayPal to sell their goods
or services in the global marketplace.

Today, we are happy to announce that the RBI has allowed us
to continue local bank withdrawals for settlements for exports
of goods and services.  We are currently making changes to
comply with Indian regulations for settlements for exports of
goods and services, and we anticipate that, as of Wednesday,
March 3rd, customers will be able to use our
bank withdrawal service.

As part of the changes, you will be required to fill out a
new field entitled 'Export Code' when you request a withdrawal.
This information is required under the current laws of India in
order to identify the nature of cross-border merchant transactions.

On Monday, March 1st, we will be back in touch with specific
instructions on how you can move your money into your bank account.

Moving forward, the RBI has told us that PayPal needs specific
approvals to allow personal remittances to India, which we
currently do not have.  Until we get these approvals, personal
payments into India will remain suspended.  However, if you are
an exporter, you will continue to be able to use the PayPal
service for payments of goods and services.  In fact, with the
changes we are making to our system, PayPal is now set to be a
more powerful engine for exporters in India.  With purpose codes
for export transactions and FIRCs (Foreign Inward Remittance
Certificates), you should now be able to get the export
related benefits you seek.

You can check the PayPal blog for additional updates.

www.thepaypalblog.com

We thank you for your business and for your patience during
the past few weeks.

Sincerely,

PayPal

Now, it remains to be seen if RBI levies certain charges on us “exporters” who have been doing our little bit in accumulating foreign exchequer for India.

The previous updates can be found here:

  1. Paypal India Block Leaves IT Guys High & Dry – Need For An Indian Paypal?
  2. The Paypal Blog

Will post more on this as soon as I know more on this issue.

New Update on Paypal Blog

New Bank Withdrawal Instructions for Our Customers in India

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Music

Signs of Life – Pink Floyd

David Jon Gilmour is great!

This song, the opening to my favorite Pink Floyd album, A Momentary Lapse of Reason is a mysterious yet soothing instrumental piece. Gilmour is great with guitar as usual. The album has a background voice by Nick Mason, faint and almost negligible though.

If Wikipedia article is correct, the person rowing the boat through River Cam, Grantchester is Langley Iddens, caretaker of Gilmour’s houseboat studio Astoria. (Wow, already feel like owning one myself, sometime.)

Great one, my personal rating 8.5/10.

When the child like view of the world went, nothing replaced it… Nothing replaced it… Nothing replaced it…
I do not like being asked to… I do not like being asked to… I do not like being asked to…

Other people replaced it,
Someone who knows.

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Security

How to choose a safe password

My friends often ask me how to secure their accounts from increasing security vulnerabilities.  Also, some of them who are too busy to ask, I notice, use self-styled security measures as far as choosing a smart password goes.

What they don’t realize is the fact that, if one of their accounts is compromised, it may lead to security lapse of their entire online activity, from social networking tools, work or home e-mail to banking accounts as well. Situation can really be scary. The recent twitter attack has highlighted this issue once again. Before its too little too late, here are some good advice I found on the Gmail Blog the other day:

Creating a new password is often one of the first recommendations you hear when trouble occurs. Even a great password can’t keep you from being scammed, but setting one that’s memorable for you and that’s hard for others to guess is a smart security practice since weak passwords can be easily guessed. Below are a few common problems we’ve seen in the past and suggestions for making your passwords stronger.

Problem 1: Re-using passwords across websites

With a constantly growing list of services that require a password (email, online banking, social networking, and shopping websites — just to name a few), it’s no wonder that many people simply use the same password across a variety of accounts. This is risky: if someone figures out your password for one service, that person could potentially gain access to your private email, address information, and even your money.

Solution: Use unique passwords
It’s a good idea to use unique passwords for your accounts, expecially important accounts like email and online banking. When you create a password for a site, you might think of a phrase you associate with the site and use an abbreviation or variation of that phrase as your password — just don’t use the actual words of the site. If it’s a long phrase, you can take the first letter of each word. To make this word or phrase more secure, try making some letters uppercase, and swap out some letters with numbers or symbols. As an example, the phrase for your banking website could be “How much money do I have?” and the password could be “#m$d1H4ve?” (Note: since we’re using them here, please don’t adopt any of the example passwords in this post for yourself.)

Problem 2: Using common passwords or words found in the dictionary

Common passwords include simple words or phrases like “password” or “letmein,” keyboard patterns such as “qwerty” or “qazwsx,” or sequential patterns such as “abcd1234.” Using a simple password or any word you can find in the dictionary makes it easier for a would-be hijacker to gain access to your personal information.

Solution: Use a password with a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols
There are only 26^8 possible permutations for an 8-character password that uses just lowercase letters, while there are 94^8 possible permutations for an 8-character password that uses a combination of mixed-case letters, numbers, and symbols. That’s over 6 quadrillion more possible variations for a mixed password, which makes it that much harder for anyone to guess or crack.

Problem 3: Using passwords based on personal data

We all share information about ourselves with our friends and coworkers. The names of your spouse, children, or pets aren’t usually all that secret, so it doesn’t make sense to use them as your passwords. You should also stay away from birth dates, phone numbers, or addresses.

Solution: Create a password that’s hard for others to guess
Choose a combination of letters, numbers, or symbols to create a unique password that’s unrelated to your personal information. Or, select a random word or phrase, and insert letters and numbers into the beginning, middle, and end to make it extra difficult to guess (such as “sPo0kyh@ll0w3En”).

Problem 4: Writing down your password and storing it in an unsecured place

Some of us have enough online accounts that we may need to write our passwords down somewhere, at least until we’ve learned them well.

Solution: Keep your password reminders in a secret place that isn’t easily visible
Don’t leave notes with your passwords to various sites on your computer or desk. People who walk by can easily steal this information and use it to compromise your account. Also, if you decide to save your passwords in a file on your computer, create a unique name for the file so people don’t know what’s inside. Avoid naming the file “my passwords” or something else obvious.

Problem 5: Recalling your password

When choosing smart passwords like these, it can often be more difficult to remember your password when you try to sign in to a site you haven’t visited in a while. To get around this problem, many websites will offer you the option to either send a password-reset link to your email address or answer a security question.

Solution: Make sure your password recovery options are up-to-date and secure
You should always make sure you have an up-to-date email address on file for each account you have, so that if you need to send a password reset email it goes to the right place.

Many websites will ask you to choose a question to verify your identity if you ever forget your password. If you’re able to create your own question, try to come up with a question that has an answer only you would know. The answer shouldn’t be something that someone can guess by scanning information you’ve posted online in social networking profiles, blogs, and other places.

If you’re asked to choose a question from a list of options, such as the city where you were born, you should be aware that these questions are likely to be less secure. Try to find a way to make your answer unique — you can do this by using some of the tips above, or by creating a convention where you always add a symbol after the 2nd character in the answer (e.g. in@dianapolis) — so that even if someone guesses the answer, they won’t know how to enter it properly.

Solution 4: Keep your password reminders in a secret place that isn’t easily visible
Don’t leave notes with your passwords to various sites on your computer or desk. People who walk by can easily steal this information and use it to compromise your account. Also, if you decide to save your passwords in a file on your computer, create a unique name for the file so people don’t know what’s inside. Avoid naming the file “my passwords” or something else obvious.

Problem 5: Recalling your password
When choosing smart passwords like these, it can often be more difficult to remember your password when you try to sign in to a site you haven’t visited in a while. To get around this problem, many websites will offer you the option to either send a password-reset link to your email address or answer a security question.

Solution 5: Make sure your password recovery options are up-to-date and secure
You should always make sure you have an up-to-date email address on file for each account you have, so that if you need to send a password reset email it goes to the right place.

Many websites will ask you to choose a question to verify your identity if you ever forget your password. If you’re able to create your own question, try to come up with a question that has an answer only you would know. The answer shouldn’t be something that someone can guess by scanning information you’ve posted online in social networking profiles, blogs, and other places.

If you’re asked to choose a question from a list of options, such as the city where you were born, you should be aware that these questions are likely to be less secure. Try to find a way to make your answer unique — you can do this by using some of the tips above, or by creating a convention where you always add a symbol after the 2nd character in the answer (e.g. in@dianapolis) — so that even if someone guesses the answer, they won’t know how to enter it properly.

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Joomla

Joomla and Magento Integration

There is this talented young guy from Thailand called Anh Nguyen, from the class of  GSoC 2009 which Joomla! team has quite timely picked keeping in view the future of this great open source CMS.

So, Anh is working on J! Mint and I have been closely following the development through various sources, like this Webinar and the Magento Forums.

Some of the factors do look challenging in these two vastly different open source leading softwares. However, Anh’s work is nothing but promising there is little competition from a developer in Holland. Well, looks like we gonna be benfitting end of the day.

Looking forward to more updates on all the fronts, maybe a BETA release for us to test. :)

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Music

Daag – Dilip Kumar

I have a very faint and fleeting memories of this song, my father used to humm in one of those fine mornings while getting ready for work.

Talat Mehmood has given his mellow and famously trembling voice to legendary Dilip Kumar (aka Yusuf Khan) in the 1952 romantic classic called Daag (Film by Amiya Chakrabarty).

Video

http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/broadband/video/eros-movie-songs/hs277O91/1/Dilip-Kumar-s-Daag.html

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