Mac Quick Look tips
Some cool tips for mac I learned today. Mac has a cool quick look utility which is used for quickly looking at any file. This saves the time to open an application. For example, to quickly look at pdf file, I could go over the file in the Finder and press 'Space', and the file shows in a very fast viewer.
What makes it more interesting is that there is a command line utility 'qlmanage' which can be used for viewing files from command line in Terminal. This is very useful when modifying pdf files from command line and then viewing them. Interestingly, writers of Quick Look feature wrote the qlmanage utility to debug their program.
I use a small alias to open this program quickly.
alias ql='qlmanage -p "$@" >& /dev/null'
See this
link for more information.
Mac terminal
I recently got my new Macbook Pro and have become a mac fan. The interface and the hardware are just amazing. Switching from windows and linux which I used for more than 12 years.
I am currently setting up my mac and installing lots of software. Here is the list of software that I have installed so far:
1. Xcode: A must for any non-dumb user.
2. Gimp: Took a lot of time
3. Gnuplot
4. Tetex: For paper writing stuff
5. Picasa: Can't escape the familiarity with this cool software.
6. VLC media player: For all those .wma files
7. Skype
8. Gvim: My favorite text editing app
I have this problem with the mac terminal that it would not load .bashrc at the startup. I would have to manually type 'source ~/.bashrc'. I found the solution to this problem today.
Basically, Mac OS uses bashrc from /etc/profile. So it has to be told to also include things
from ~/.bashrc. For this, the command did the job:
[ -r $HOME/.bashrc ] && source $HOME/.bashrc
I found this info on:
First BLog from iPhone - unintelligible.. Blogspot does not allow modifying the text box
FFFSGZSGGEFZHCBDKFBXBAB
New Improved Firefox 3
Firefox 3 has broken a Guinness record. This article is not for that reason. The record was broken for the maximum number of downloads in a single day.
I am talking about the improved performance and features of Firefox.
Firefox 3 is very fast compared to any other browser. Previously, Opera was the fastest browser and Firefox was second. Safari and IE are nowhere in the race. Firefox 3 has also removed the memory leak and is quite stable (although I think the memory leaks were already removed in some previous version).
Plus, Firefox has now some very cool add-on extensions. These extensions in fact help in improving the speed of browsing.
1. Adblock Extension: This is one great extension which is used for blocking all kinds of ads on a webpage. Not just irritating banners, flash ads, and popups, but also the text-based ads. As a result, the webpage looks extremely clean. No ads just content. It is almost like a dream-come-true!
2. Flashblock Extension: This is another very useful extension used for blocking all kinds of flash on a webpage. Sometimes, a webpage itself has irritating flash (rather than in the ads). Flashblock disables all the flash present on a page. Moreover, just by clicking on the flash, that flash can be enabled. So, youtube videos can be watched while other kind of flash is blocked.
3. Firegestures: I also like fire gestures, which is used for using mouse gestures to operate the browser. The mouse gestures feature comes by default in Opera browser. Fire-gestures has built on that feature and have many more kind of options and gestures than Opera browser.
Funny Quotes by Warren Buffet this year
Warren Buffet came out with his annual letter to shareholders yesterday. Like all the previous years, this letter is also simply great. I tried to compile some of the funny quotes in this letter.
Here is my list.
Buffet on Acquisitions:
.... To date, Dexter is the worst deal that I’ve made. But I’ll make more mistakes in the future – you can bet on that. A line from Bobby Bare’s country song explains what too often happens with acquisitions:
“I’ve never gone to bed with an ugly woman, but I’ve sure woke up with a few.”
Buffet on profitability of See's:
.... Just as Adam and Eve kick-started an activity that led to six billion humans, See’s has given birth to multiple new streams of cash for us.
"The biblical command to “be fruitful and multiply” is one we take seriously at Berkshire."
Buffet on Housing crisis:
... As house prices fall, a huge amount of financial folly is being exposed.
"You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out – and what we are witnessing at some of our largest financial institutions is an ugly sight."
.... John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo, aptly dissected the recent behavior of many lenders:
“It is interesting that the industry has invented new ways to lose money when the old ways seemed to work just fine.”
Democrats must be foolish to loose Hillary
I will first make this clear that I am a Republican who favors free market policies, and many other right economic policies (pun intended) of Republicans. However, for this election, I have been hoping from the start for a Democratic win. More so, I have been hoping for Hillary Clinton's win. The reason for this contrary hope is something I will explain later. I know its now too late and I will be too optimistic to hope for Hillary Clinton's win in Democratic primary, leave alone the general elections. But I will still write this blog.
First, I want to talk about the people's attitude towards Hillary Clinton from the start of the election season. From the start of the primary elections, most of the people, including Hillary Clinton herself, had accepted that Hillary will be the next US president. Hillary Clinton is the perfect candidate. She is a woman who has been to White House and knows everything about governing a nation. Her personal qualities are immaculate. She has shown enough courage and enthusiasm to be a public leader. She has always been a no-nonsense woman who is always careful to never make mistakes. Even in the extremely hard time of Bill Clinton's scandal, a scenario which is the worst nightmare of every married woman, she showed the whole world that she can think from her mind and her heart, and not let her emotions take over her.
Politically also, she is the perfect candidate. Now I will come to the reasons I support her. Hillary is a Democrat who is never too left. She has shown good policies in my opinion which put her right in the middle. Through the years of Bush policies, US has come across as a big bully to the rest of the world. And nobody likes a bully. This image can do significant damage to a nation as no nation can live alone how powerful it is. You can not live like Sawyer in Lost the whole time you are on an island. Hence the perfect person to undo this damage would be a woman President, someone who can give a more acceptable image than a bully to the rest of the world. Even most of the Republicans know that they cant get a Republican president this time due to failing policies of the last President. And I think due to her middle-ground bipartisan policies, both the Democrats and Republicans had almost accepted her as the next president.
If Hillary is such a perfect candidate, then what made her loose so badly now? I think that Americas reluctance to support Hillary can be compared with the cold feet a man gets a day before his marriage with a perfect homegrown girl. He has always seen that girl grow since high school and knows that she is the perfect girl for him who can make his life better. All his life he knew that he will marry her. But then when he is just about to marry her, he begins to think whether he is making a mistake, whether he should wait more before settling down, whether there is something in her that he does not like, or like the movie Last Kiss, whether there exists a young Rachel Bilson for him out there. Fortunately or unfortunately, Democrats found the young sexy Bilson in Barack Obama.
I will now come to conclusion of this blog. I think that the current Democrats fancy with Barack Obama will come out to be a huge mistake for them. This election is the only chance Democrats have got to improve the corrupted system created by years of Republican rule. I am not blaming Republican party only for being corrupted. Anyone who is in power for too long can get corrupted. And that is why we should keep changing the governments. But if the Democrats think that they should change this system, then they still have a chance to elect Hillary as their nominee. If Barack Obama becomes the Democratic nominee, then most probably, like him, most Democrats will feel during the general elections, what happens when you are suddenly woken up from your sweet dreams. They would find that he has nothing to counter against any Republican attack on him. His ideas will be proved to be highly impractical. All he could do is to say something nice in debates about hope and change. And these words will sound very funny in any debate on policies. And whatever policies he do wish to propose, he will find that they are shown to be so much to the extreme left (which they are), that any Republican in his/her right mind will not support them; and all his talks of bipartisanship will not stand. And just like Al Gore and John Kerry, Democrats might loose their most well-deserved opportunity of having a Democratic president in those debates. Its still not too late.
Burying Mainframe
University of Manitoba disposed of its 47 year old IBM 650 mainframe, named Betelgeuse (courtesy HitchHikers Guide To Galaxy), by holding a New Orleans style jazz funeral. The total memory of system is 2000 words (2KB) and the mainframe weighs 1966 pounds. The card reader weighs another 1295 pounds.
The interesting eulogy to the mainframe available on their website:
"For forty-seven years you've served us well, you cast us in your green spell. You processed transactions without complaint, we've asked the Pope to make you a saint.
"The users you were always able to please, with a little training theycould enter with ease, all the data they needed in 2 or 3 screens instead of the 57 in VIP. And getting data was easy in IMS, there were six hundred reports in the RS. And Finance was easy with FRGLA, in the time when the mainframe held sway. And the programmers they had all the tools they need, Easytrieve and COBOL made programming a breeze. And Mantes were there to manage the files, and to help with debugging if it wouldn't compile.
"Now gone are the punch cards and card readers of yore, andmainframe computers that used up the whole floor. With tape drive controllers and large stacks of tapes, that kept operators scrambling all over the place.
"Farewell IMS, we'll remember you well. After forty-seven years,there are many stories to tell. Like when Tel Reg nearly shut down MTS, and when the Y2K bug put us under duress. You helped us achieve our academic objectives, and gave our admin processes a proper perspective.
"But now we must lay you under the flora, because we have to go deal with this bloody Aurora. So we commit your parts to be recycled.Earth to Earth Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust To the god of computers, please bless it and keep it And give it grace and peace But please do not resurrect it.
Funny Quote of the day
"This here was a great step for the Americans and a small step for mankind".
-- Germany's environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel.
Mr. Gabriel made this statement after President Bush speech on Global Warming in U.N. in which he prescribed a global fund to promote research in clean-energy projects. President Bush is against mandating cuts in greenhouse gases on developed countries (Kyoto Protocol) which most European countries favor and follow.
