techthoughts - Learn, ponder, share

Tree Traversal Ordering - Whats the order again?

2009-03-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

I have always had trouble remembering what exactly are the orders of inorder, preorder and postorder traversals. Well today I think iv had the defining insight :). the "IN","PRE" and "POST" is based on where the root node is.In "INorder" the root node is "IN" the middle of left and right nodesIn "PREorder" the root node is "PRE" i.e. before the left and right nodesIn "POSTorder" the root node is

How to test out ActiveRecord in irb

2009-03-08T20:19:00.000-07:00

I like how interpreted languages provide this interpreter for you to try out stuff. As I am learning ruby on rails I frequently need to try out ActiveRecord's dark ways of doing things and I would like to be able to try it out in irb so here is what I doLaunch irbirb --simple-promptand then execute the following code assuming you are in the rails app directoryrequire 'rubygems'require '

Line numbers in Java Exception Stack Trace

2008-02-19T23:56:00.000-08:00

This post is almost like a note in my java diary. I came across this problem while using the ant javac task. My javac task looked like this: No real problems right? Except the fact that when an exception occured in

Getting off the ground with SVN.

2007-12-17T13:22:00.000-08:00

Do you frequently ask your colleague to email code to you and then "integrate" on your machine? Do you frequently miss somebody's code before deploying the application? Have you had days when you have felt, "it would have been great if i had my code of 2 days ago!"?If you are in a situation similar to the ones above you should seriously consider using a version control system. At its most basic

Firefox 2.0.0.10 crashing

2007-11-29T10:34:00.000-08:00

I don't know if I can call this an accomplishment, but I have been able to crash firefox in a consistent repeatable manner by following a sequence of steps. The test case goes like this:Start Firefox - Open firefox. I have 2-3 live bookmarks one of which is My reading list on google reader, now when I initially launch firefox this live bookmark doesn't load as i need to sign into my google

Earthquake in Delhi

2007-11-25T15:14:00.001-08:00

An earthquake shook Delhi and its neighboring areas in the wee hours of Monday morning on 26th November 2007. The earthquake was a relatively strong one and lasted for about 4-5 seconds. I must mention that it was a little scary as earthquakes have a history of widespread devastation in India, and the memories of that poignant republic day in 2001 are still fresh.Update: The earthquake occurred

GMail probable bug

2007-11-09T09:25:00.001-08:00

While using the new GMail, which I believe everyone hasn't received as yet, I observed the following behavior. While using the chat, it showed one of my friends as offline even though i was chatting with them and there was no problem in recieving the messages. See screenshot below? Post comments if you have seen this kind of behavior. For the record I run Google sidebar on Windows Vista Home

GMail new mailist feature

2007-11-08T00:30:00.000-08:00

The new feature for filtering messages of a particular mailing list in Gmail. I subscribe to a number of mailing and up until now had to use from addresses to filter my messages, this is a lot more precise.This keeps up gmail's appeal to people who use mailing lists quite a lot. The conversations feature still prevents me from even thinking about any other web based email.

Academic Research Commercial Research

2007-11-04T12:52:00.000-08:00

An academic research effort in any field is supposed to establish outer boundaries. Commercial efforts demonstrate what is profitable; academic efforts show what is possible.

Airtel 220BX router forgot password

2007-10-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

If you are reading this, you like me belong to the forky lot, who just cant rest without forking around in something unitl its messed up. Why do we do it, "thats how we learn!!!" right?So, you know that blackbox in your home is not some magic but a Beetel DSL router, whose default username is admin and password is password But that was default, the moment you you got to know of it, you had to

Enabling Indic in Firefox on Ubuntu

2007-10-03T20:16:00.000-07:00

Do you have problems reading Indic lanaguage websites? Do you see incorrect rendering such as misplaced matras, aadha akshar appearing with a halant? Have you been blaming firefox/Ubuntu for not getting such basic stuff right?Well not to worry as the fix is a very simple series of steps.First check if your browser has been compiled with the --enable-pango flag. To check this, type "about:

The "I have 2 orkut accounts problem"

2007-10-03T04:40:00.000-07:00

This is a problem that a lot of people tell me about. I have 2 orkut accounts or separate Gmail and orkut accounts but how do i open them both in Firefox. Opening 2 separate windows doesn't work.Well the solution is pretty simple if you follow the following Step by Step. This is a solution on Windows which i believe is the majority audience here.Close all firefox windows, including any download

Google News Strange Behavior

2007-10-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Last night I was up till about 2 AM watching the English Premier League Game between Totenham Hotspurs and Aston Villa. Spurs have had a horrendous start to the season, so I slept off when it became 1-3 thinking it was a done deal. Then today through a news report on TV i got to know Spurs had actually drawn level at 4-4. Now i wanted more of this news. Fired up my browser went to Google News

Quote Unquote

2007-10-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

The ideathat the value of the system will be discovered rather than known at the time ofinstallation implies, in turn, that product flexibility and adaptability, as well as ongo-ing account service, should be critical components of any buyer’s evaluation check-list.Geoffrey Moore

P2P file sharing

2005-09-17T02:09:00.000-07:00

P2P stands for peer to peer and is an amamzing concept that is brillian because of its simplicity. Its yet another technology thats modelled on human behaviour of one on one talk and thats what p2p systems exploit, they build on one on one interaction between computers to deliver value to users. The most popular category of p2p systems is file sharing systems such as napster, gnutella , KaZaa etc

The Linux fairytale

2005-06-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

Linux pronounced "Lih-nux" is a storey teller's dream. Its a fairy tale really of how it started with a man(Linux Trovalds) in the Nokia-country(Finland), and has caught on to become one of the nightmares of the tech Czar Bill Gates.So lets go the fairy tale way: Once upon a time there was an Operating System called Unix that was used by the educational institutions as well as in the industry as

Welcome

2005-06-07T17:06:00.000-07:00

Hello, and a very warm welcome to all of you looking to start your life as an open source developer. I am using this space to enlist the things that iam going through as a novice open source developer.My primary focus right now is to get involved in one of the GNU projects as i ahve been influenced a lot by the FSF thoughts esp the thoughts of Prof G. Nagarjuna who is the chairman of FSF India.