Linux finally has a stable Chrome release

Year and a half back, I wrote about Google's step behaviour to Linux. Meanwhile, We tried the experimental Chromium build to get a taste of Chrome on Linux. It was slow, buggy and unstable.

Now, the wait is finally over. Chrome for Linux can be downloaded from the Google Chrome website. On first glance, it looks really stable, extensions are working, flash (which used to crash Chromium) works smooth. I need more time to play around and write a complete review. Check back soon and enjoy surfing :)
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And here is the rest of it.

How smartphones can help you Lose weight and Stay healthy

I have never needed to go on a diet, till now. It all started two weeks back when I stepped onto the new digital weighing machine placed near my squash court. My body weight has always hovered around the 75-77 kg mark, so I expected no different. Thus I was completely caught off-guard when it showed 82.5 kgs. I checked again for zero error, but that was the fact.

I have a desk job which requires me to stare at the monitor for 10 hours. The only exercise I get is some weekend sessions of badminton and squash, which gets cancelled more often these days since my mates are either too sleepy or have more social things to do.

I realized it was time to press the panic button and take action. Logically, all I had to do was eat healthy and work those extra calories out. Which meant occasional jogs and trips to the gym. Now like a lot of you people, I am lazy and single. Thus inherently there is no motivation to sustain any such routine to look good and charm the opposite sex. I had rather sleep an hour longer in the morning than go for a jog.

Now If you are in similar situation, where you want to lose weight and get fit, but are too lazy to chalk your own routine, I have the perfect solution for you. This involves getting a free account in a food and fitness tracking website, (myfitnesspal), a Smartphone (iPhone or any web-enabled device) and a spirit for adventure to try something new for no apparent reason. So let's start our journey to fitness.

First, I downloaded the myfitnesspal app from the iPhone app store. For non-iphone users, you can use your browser to visit myfitnesspal. There, I entered my current weight and height, work profile, target weight state and no. of weeks to achieve it. The app then suggested a daily diet plan with a fixed amount of daily calorie allowance and the fat, vitamins and protein. And thus my routine began trying to eat within the allocated calorie budget. Now interestingly, if you want to eat more, all you need is to exercise and increase your allowance.

Smart, right. For instance, a 30 mins of jog burns around 200cal, would entitle you few more of those delicious cheese fries. Luckily there are some really nice apps for iphone like runtastic and runkeeper which let your track your daily exercise. I bet you can find similar apps for other platforms.

Success of this entire process depends on how diligently you follow your diet plan. To help you further, you can search and add the food you take from their comprehensive over 160,000+ food database.
I was really impressed by the food list since it covered not only popular instant food brands but also local (indian, chinese and thai) cooked food. Again, calorie count depends on the way a particular food was cooked but this gives a roughly right composition.

A lot of skeptics might turn this down, saying it isn't rational or scientific but if you delve deeper it is plain common sense. If you calculate your Body Metabolism Rate (BMR), which is amount of calories your body burns just to stay alive. For me it's around 1,394/day. This means, as long as I eat less than this, I should progressively see a reduction in my weight. The real challenge is to have a healthy and balanced diet given this upper calorie limit. So no more fast food, more fruits and green vegetables.

So does it work? I managed to shed 3 kgs in 2 weeks. Now I weigh a good 79.5 kgs.
To sum up, losing weight is easy. Eat healthy but less than your BMR requirement and exercise more. You have all the tools in your arsenal. Stay motivated and be happy :)

Excel Quick Tips: Reactivating right-click context menu after Essbase Add-in installation

If your company uses Hyperion cubes for all financial reporting, there is more a chance of you using an Essbase addin to pull financials from the Essbase cube into Excel. Interestingly, this plugin has notorious reputation of overriding your right click button with it’s own functionality. To disable this behaviour and get back your usual context menu, follow these steps:

1. Go to Essbase Addin Options

2. Browse to Global Settings and uncheck the “enable Secondary function..”

3. Voila, you have your context menu back. Easy!

Excel Quick Tips: Disable Privacy Warning

If each time when you save your macro enable workbook, you receive an annoying popup "Privacy warning:This document contains macros, ActiveX controls, XLM expansion pack information, or web components. These may include personal information that cannot be removed by the Document Inspector", follow these steps

1.  Go to Excel Options, navigate to Trust Center and click on “Trust Center Settings”

2. First, enable all macros in the Macro Settings (Note: Assuming all your macros are safe and tested)

3. Then go to Privacy Options and uncheck “Remove personal information…”

4. Save and close the file. Next time when you open it, no more annoying privacy warnings.

Apple's new iPad: A logical evolution or a marketing dud

Apple finally unveiled its new tablet, the iPad, after months of feverish speculation and hype online, and as usual, without any official indication by Apple that the product even existed.
In the same typical style and exuberance, Mr Jobbs' unveiled the "next big thing" in consumer lifestyle computing but the initial response from Press and the tech community hasn't been as welcoming.

Unlike a lot of their earlier successes, Apple couldn't wow or amaze the audience. The iPad was exactly as everyone predicted with no surprises, never before seen features or a radical change in end-user consumer computing. For years, I have personally bashed the Mac for all it's glitter and no purpose, but the iPhone changed my perception. Undoubtedly, It is the most practical and purposeful phone till date. It has replaced my laptop for almost everything, keeps me organized, syncs my calendars and gives the best browsing experience through Safari, which is still the best out there. For more than 3 years, competitors have tried but failed miserably trying to emulate the user experience and the rich application store that the iPhone offers. And the new iPad is no different.

The iPad is definitely a logical progression from the iPhone. It is simply a bigger looking iPhone with which Apple plans to capture the e-book reader segment (with the likes of Kindle and Sony readers), the gamers, the designers (the wacom space) and the fast paced business executives who want to show off the latest sales figures and marketing presentations to clients on the move.

For those who currently use the iPhone to read books, watch movies, surf the net or to simply blog, will appreciate the generous 9.7" multi-touch screen and a quoted 10 hour battery life. The best part is, that it can run almost all the existing 140,000 App Store apps, making it easier for developers to port their applications to a new device painlessly. Given the feature set, the first iteration of the device looks highly promising. There are already talks of major newspaper and magazine publishers lining to get their content published over iTunes. Will this be the end of the print era? I hope it is. Trees all over the world rejoice, your savior is here :)

But obviously, I have the same complaints as the rest of the community. Firstly, who in marketing thought of naming the device "iPad". iSlate or iTab would have sounded fab. It could be that Apple was a bit late in acquiring the copyrights to these names but still, "iPad" is a strict no.

Though the native Apple built-in Apps support it, I still miss multi-tasking on my iPhone, and Apple had no reason of overlooking it in the iPad. It's definitely not an architectural challenge but could be a huge battery drain on these devices but the choice should be left to the end-user. I still believe the new iPhone 4.0 and later versions of the iPad OS would some day support multi-tasking.

This one is a no-brainer. How hard is it to include a file manager and a USB support to a full blown tablet. If the device has a fully functional OS and if the target consumer is a tech-savvy net junkie, who loves his photos and movies, then why skip a built-in USB port to import and export content from 3rd party devices. Apple's decision to have a closed ecosystem of their devices accessible only via iTunes doesn't really make sense. This will only encourage jailbreaks and hacks in the future. Even the cheapest netbook has a couple of USB ports and a linux/windows filesystem manager.

To end this long discussion, the iPad isn't revolutionary, it won't blow your minds off, it may not force you to queue up for long hours. But it is the most logical follow-up to the iPhone. Apple may have guaged the response after the keynote and sure enough there may be some last minute changes before it's official launch. For now, I guess I will have to wait for another year to replace my aging laptop, hoping Apple listens and gets their act together for the next generation iPad2.

Google Challenge1: Weekends!

I have had some time issues in updating this blog. Till I re-prioritize my activities, I have thought of starting a new filler section called Google Challenge. It's about gathering the most feasible statistical inference using Google. Here is an interesting one.

I hate my weekends. My friends ridicule me when I share this sentiment. I believe there are lots more out there who think Weekends are an absolute waste of time :). In order to prove this, I need to figure out, statistically how many good folks out of 10, think likewise. My gut feel says it should be at least 3 out 10. Now let's find out.

There are couple of ways to do it. One, I could do a survey with a sample of people. The key challenge is, it's hard to get a random sample to survey. I would prefer a geographically and culturally diverse people, including single, married, men, women, kids. And obviously, I don't have the financial means to hire Gartner or BCG to help me here, so let's try to find a simple and cheap way to do this.

Attempt1# is to use 2 keywords "I hate weekends" and "I love weekends" and look out the no. of pages google returns. Note: the double quotes ensures the exact string match.


"I love weekends": 498,000 hits
"I hate weekends": 89,100 hits
Inference: For every 100 people who really enjoy their weekends, there are 18 of us who absolute hate it.

This Definitely doesn't help my case. The percentage is too small. Conceptually there are a lot of issues with this:
1. Results included lyrics of songs that had "I love weekends", youtube videos, reviews etc. which skewed the results.
2. If you change the keywords to "I love weekend" (remove 's' in the end) , "I love sundays", etc, each results in a wide spectrum of results. So for simplicity sake, I will stick to the earlier keywords.

Attempt 2# Rather than searching all results, let's focus on blogs. Blogs are personal accounts of people.



"I love weekends": 214,000 hits
"I hate weekends": 74,100 hits
Inference: For every 100 people who really enjoy their weekends, there are 35 of us who absolute hate it. This number is a lot nicer :)

Some issues with this method are:
1. Not all blog. And those who do, have lots of time to kill, and more prone to hate weekends :) like me
2. Demography that blog tends to be a more young generation

Attempt 3# Using twitter to find a more personalized result
"I love weekends" site:twitter.com : 27,400 hits"
"I hate weekends" site:twitter.com 4,970 hits

Inference: For every 100 people who really enjoy their weekends, there are 18 of us who absolute hate it. Interestingly, this result is quite similar to Method1, which I think is sheer co-incidence.
Some really obvious issues with this method are:
1. Not all twitter
2. Google doesn't index all tweets
Now, in all three cases, we are forgetting the group of people who are indifferent to the concept of "weekends". Assuming that's 10% of the population and assigning 20% significance to method1, 70% to method2 and 10% to method3. Below are the results.

i.e 7 out 10 love their weekends, 2 absolutely hate and 1 is indifferent. Great! That was fun. I still stick to my 3 in 10 gut feel. But I don't know if I can ever statistically prove it. Maybe some day we can analyse human behavior better.

Do comment if you have a better, easier and faster way to deduce the above challenge. Happy googling!

Back to writing, and the long Techspiring Filler

It's been a long hiatus from blogging and a lot of things have happened around, which needs to be written about. So to start, as I ease myself back into writing, here are some of the interesting events in the past couple of months:

1. E3, the uninspiring Gaming Extravaganza:
The coveted E3 came and went past without much excitement. As expected, the theme was motion sensor controllers and Microsoft stole the show with Project Natal. Hardcore gamers may not be thrilled with the idea of using their body as the controller, but personally it creates a far more immersive and interactive experience. I was particularly fascinated by the "Milo" demo in which a virtual character (Milo) can react to human emotions, real world actions and expressions. It was a bit gimmicky but definitely the way for the future. Imagine a virtual therapist who you can talk to, right from the comforts of your home, or the perfect friend with whom you can discuss Sir Arthur Clarke's last novel and the secret recipe of Russian half-baked cupcakes while battling the evil forces of the Dark Side. Possibilities are endless. Before I drift away in my own imagination, Sony and Nintendo also had their share of "new" stuff to display. Sony's new motion sensor controller looked good but nothing out-of-the-world. The demo was a bit half-baked apart from the really cool archery show.
The message was clear. Nintendo would have to buck up and get serious soon else the big two will catch up soon.

Some great games were also announced but there is nothing I had like to play more than the new Ghostbusters game. A-ma-zing!!!
There is also a  new show on my must-watch list now. It's Revision3s - Co-op. Imagine a bunch of dudes, who play games for a living. That would be my idea of a perfect job :)

2. The Billion Dollar gamble
The big corporate news was Oracle buying off SUN. We are yet to hear about Oracle's plans for Java, MySQL and OpenSolaris but opensource pundits can relax for now. 

M$ is all set to release Windows7 RTM this July (release to manufactures/marketing) and will be hitting shelves in October. Consumers all over the world are already pissed at Microsoft's pricing model. Sometimes one wonders if they ever learnt anything from their "Vistaic" past. This release could make or break M$, and as our Cupertino buddies with their flashy new Snow Leopard also await with baited breath, us Linux folks will wait at the sidelines, cheering neither of them. Well Ok, I still have a soft spot for Mr Gates'  legendary company and Windows 7 RC was really impressive but paying 320 bucks (USD) for the ultimate is ludicrous. Well, times like these one remembers the perks we had of being a student. Sigh, someone send me a free copy.

And yeah, did I mention Apple frickin sold a million of their 3GS over the first weekend, and Steve Jobs is back as Mac shares rise in joy.

3. Smartphones, smartphones everywhere!
June was an interesting month as both Palm and Apple launched their new handset. Pre which dazzled everyone at CES in January with it's unique card interface, was launched in US by Sprint. I think Palm and Sprint made a couple of mistakes. One, they launched it just a few days before Apple's WWDC (where iPhone 3GS was unveiled). The pre's launch buzz, fizzed out even before it could start, by the news of the new iPhone 3GS.
Either they should have done it a month earlier, thereby locking AT&T haters and tech-purists into a 2year contract with Sprint, or a few weeks after WWDC, giving them enough time to beef up their marketing campaign to combat iPhone's somewhat new features.
But their failure to grab the moment didn't really result in bad sales. Pre managed to sell 300,000 units in a month, which is not bad for Palm's latest outing. Pre will keep Palm alive and hopefully spawn more handsets which would run their revolutionary new WebOS.

 

Meanwhile, apple rewrote record books by selling a million iPhone units in a weekend. It's a bit hard to understand how Apple manages to sell such an overpriced device in times like these. And AT&T should really thank it's stars (and wallet) for managing to keep the Apple exclusivity for another year.
Btw, iPhone 3GS is launching in Singapore, this friday. Singtel seems to be a lot nicer than AT&T and I am going to find out, real soon.

4. The buzz in the linux World
Well nothing exciting has happened lately. After the hugely impressive Fedora 10, Red Hat's Fedora 11 (not technically the 11th version) was a bit disappointing.

On a personal front, my Jaunty Jackelope (Ubuntu 9.04) boots in 20 seconds, but freezes every time I delete big files. Can't blame the folks at canonical. It's an ext4 bug and these are perks of being a beta tester. It's lately getting a bit frustrating now, so soon I will either format my "\home" as ext3 or move on to try Fedora 11 or the new mandriva. Hopefully a new post will follow soon.

Phew! Not bad for a post, after such a long time. I have no idea how many of you would still be reading this blog. But thanks anyways for all the support. My commute to work has increased by another 30 mins, and I think I just found an interesting way to kill the 1.5 hour long journey. Happy surfing.

Ubuntu/Mint: Test driving Google Chrome for Linux

Google Chrome for Linux does not officially exist yet, not as "Chrome" but as a pre-alpha project called "Chromium". It's a really early build so don't go filing bug reports for it. And definitely, it won't replace your firefox or Epiphany. Atleast not that soon. So let's get started. Let me remind you one last time, Try at your own risk :)


1. Edit your apt source list.
$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and append the following lines at the end
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main


2. Update your sources and install Chromium
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install chromium-browser


3. Time to test drive
$ chromium-browser


Chromium Alpha will launch with a warning message. You already know it's Chromium not Chrome. It's still a pre-alpha but is fast and renders reasonably well. Other common features such as the bookmark manager, javascript console etc. are missing but hopefully should be ready soon. Till the official Chrome Linux beta, enjoy Chromium and happy surfing!