Entries from March 2006 ↓

I am observing a pattern in my life. I can’t stay put. I don’t like equilibrium. I can not stay idle. I can not live without a problem for long! Every few months, I start something new. I get fully into it, enjoy it, and then once it is settling down, look out for some other challenge to work on.

I have been doing this from childhood. I remember I took on model rocketry. Then I explored aeromodelling. Then electronics. Then hypnotism. Then wrote a book. Setup the Young Scientists’ Club in the town. Then focused on studies for a year. In college, got into computers. Did some path breaking work in the computer society. Then started India’s first ezine, which later transformed into Magnet - our company. In business too, it’s been like that. I try on new things, then go back to basics, then am ready for new challenges.

And guess what? I love it! I think this cycle keeps me creative. It keeps me active. I like change, and I like it better when I cause the change! The feeling of inventing something is ecstatic. Being at the source always gives power.

My invitation to you is to look at your life and see what you can achieve by being creative. Pick up something new today. Do three things you have never done before!

My blog now has a new header image! I hadn’t changed it after Christmas, and this one is definitely worth the wait!

Thanks Neetu, for the wonderful design

I knew OpenLaszlo was working on an AJAX implementation for a while. But when the FABridge was announced, it was a surprise.

This means that you can now write applications in OpenLaszlo that will render as DHTML and use AJAX for communication. Single set of source files can produce both Flash and AJAX versions! Without you needing to figure out browser compatibility issues and such. The implementation is still in progress, but the LZpiX demo is quite cool. It ran very slow on IE for me and did not run at all in my Firefox (requires 1.5), but it is still great for something so young.

Flex, on the other hand, has Flex AJAX Bridge now. Ely has written a nice piece on how the whole thing came up. FAB allows you to use JavaScript to control Flex and vice versa. It uses ExternalInterface method for AS-JS communication, but solves most common problems of the approach and makes it easier to develop RIA.

The Flexcoders and RIA-India mailing lists are abuzz with FAB, and the Laszlo mailing lists are gearing up.

Giving you a heads up! These two developments are going a long way in web application development!

I am reading a unique book these days “Stealing the Network - How to own the box“. Written by a team of well known hackers - or white hat crackers - and published in 2003, the book is still a very interesting read.

I have read only the first three “stories”. Yes, the book is a series of fictional stories about cracking into networks and owning “boxes”. I was excited, scared, thrilled skeptical, awestruck and grinning while reading these stories. The book shows what goes through the minds of crackers and how they execute their plans. It’s like the Hollywood tech movies, but much more realistic - even with full details of tools used.

Network sniffing, cellular phone interception, physical theft, password cracking, worm creation and finger print faking are some of the things I have read about so far. And I am eager to learn more!

The book is printed in India by Shroff Publishers and I recommend it to all hackers around! Thanks to Kartik for passing on the book!

Create a field of 6×5 size. That prints like the following:

-------------------------------
|  1 |  2 |  3 |  4 |  5 |  6 |
|  7 |  8 |  9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
-------------------------------

The input to the application will be a string of numbers, separated by commands. E.g.

23,3,4,10

These numbers represent the mines on the field. And you have to put two crosses “XX” in their places. So the output will look like this:

-------------------------------
|  1 |  2 | XX | XX |  5 |  6 |
|  7 |  8 |  9 | XX | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | XX | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
-------------------------------