I have received a Invite to attend "Intel Developer Forum" happening next week in Bangalore.

I am (and Vishwak) not into much on system level software that get impacted the most from new Chipset/CPU designs and API from Intel. Like any other ISV and SI the new generation of chips from Intel and AMD open up a new possibility and better ROI for our customers. That's my interest in attending the event. Also wanted to attend a Non Microsoft for a change and a chance to sit and relax as an attendee - no pressure of being a speaker.

The objective of this post is that I liked the way Intel India is organizing the pre-event. I got email and phone follow-ups, then I registered online which took less than few minutes. Upto this is normal for any major event of this scale. What pleasantly surprised me is that I received by courier today, the Badge with an RFID Tag that should hopefully allow me to walk to the event straight, without the need to stand in a queue for registration on the day.

Kudos to the organizers. Hoping the event itself will impress me equally.

 If you have been programming in Windows API/C++/VB 6.0 for long, you will feel the pain of DLL Hell. Dotnet framework solved it, but here is a good song to remember the DLL Hell.

Link to DLL Hell Song Page

Some incidents disturb you a lot and make you question about the world we are living in. One such incident that affected me was the Kumbakonam School Fire incident - 2 years back, the other one was the shooting that happened yesterday in a US School.

During these times, the only thing we can do is to pray.  

I have been using various versions of Outlook for almost 6 years now - before which my email reader of choice was Eudora. Even now I wish Outlook can get some EMail features (especially the handling of POP3 downloads) from Eudora, I love Outlook as a great PIM (Personal Information Management) tool.

Anyways, coming to the issue for this post - for some reasons after my last install of Windows XP in my laptop some of the rules where not running, I couldn't edit those rules either. I found no way to get rid of these rules altogether.

(Delete/Change grayed in Rules Dialog)

After some web search I found this article on "Everything You Need to Know About How To Troubleshoot Microsoft Outlook" and found a command-line switch /CleanRules, running Outlook.exe using this switch, all the client rules got deleted and I am good to go. I then found this official Microsoft Article which lists all Outlook Command-Line switches. Check them out, they could prove useful on a rainy day.

India Image is a portal to access all of Government of India websites.

Americans and People familiar with USA, know "Uncle Sam" is a national personification of the United States. Several years back when I first came across this term , I didn't understand it but eventually figured it out from the context. Over the years many times when I came across the term, I was curious on its origin and official status but never bothered to check it out.

Today I took the effort to find out and got the answer from here & here. It dates from the War of 1812 and there are multiple theories behind the actual origin.

As you would have noticed I have upgraded my blog software to latest version of DasBlog - version 1.9.6264. I have used a new theme for UI from this version. Let me know whether you like this theme.

About DasBlog 1.9 - posted by my fellow RD Scott Hanselman (one of the Authors of DasBlog)

Last Wednesday (20/Sep/2006) I delivered a Keynote address for "National Conference On Advanced Computing & Technology" - a technical conference organized by MCA department of Jayaram College of Engineering & Technology, Pagalavadi, Trichy. As the Chief Guest of the event, I had the privilege of sharing the dais with Dr.R.Krishnamoorthy, Deen Bharathidasan Institute of Technology, Trichy (BIT).

When I agreed to attend the event, my expectations were not great - Students are not going to be interested in hearing one more industry talk. I was mistaken, the participated students were attentive and even had some interesting questions for me. I spoke about the reasons why I believe that Indian IT Exports are poised to grow further and tips for fresh graduates. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the event and the trouble of spending one-and-half days (Chennai to Trichy by Road takes about 5 to 6 hours each way) was worth it.  

The Hospitality of the organizers was awesome and their College Chairman Er.M.Subramaniam & other dignitaries spoke great about me - I am not sure I deserve it and I had to accept them in all humbleness.

Following the Inauguration function, there was a brief press meet for me organized with the reporters from media (TV, News Agencies & Print). Press meets are always interesting and they are a tight rope to walk - you want to tell them as much as you can so that you get good coverage and at the same time you don't want to imply anything that you didn't intend to. You got to be as clear and as explicit as possible, to the extend you don't sound boring/legal. My position also makes it difficult, I want to talk about my company "Vishwak Solutions Pvt. Ltd." and the great work we are doing there; but press wants (as expected) to focus on my honourary title as "Microsoft MSDN Regional Director" -  I don't want to be mis-interpreted as a "Microsoft" Official. This meet was useful for me, as I got good oppurtunity to talk about Vishwak's investments in mobile web technology, hiring challenges, problems of taxation for Indian Small Software exporters and more. I am happy to see good coverage resulting out of it, coming in various media (On DD Poodhigai TV - 27/Sep, The Hindu - 24/Sep, Dina Malar - 21/Sep and others).

After the event, I had a spontaneous invitation by Dr.R.Krishnamoorthy to deliver a similar talk in his college. Accepting the invitation I travelled down to BIT (in Pudukotai highroad near Trichy Airport) and talked to the students there for about 15-20 minutes. It was lunch time so I didn't risk standing in front of their food

Watch video of my speech: From Google Video (or) From Myspace.com (or) From MSN Soapbox Beta

Attachments:

• My keynote presentation at NCACT '06 (205 KB)
• My Letter to the event Souvenir Booklet (58.61 KB)

Media Coverage:

• The Hindu Trichy Edition Coverage - 24 Sep 06 (390.8 KB)

The Register (UK) carried a news item about an interesting idea to prevent Students from cheating in exam halls - it is to put them behind cages . Read more here at "How to stop exam cheating: put teenagers in cages | The Register"

I am wondering on what happened to good ol' copying by seeing the answers of the Topper in front of you?. Nothing can beat the thrill and joy of it - I am not advocating this, but doing it during your class trial tests are neverthless fun, right?  

Now that Vista is close to launch, it is important for Developers to understand the new OS and its impact.

Here are few good resources for the same:

• MSDN Vista Development Center
  Vista team's official site for Developers - DevReadiness.org
• Kenny Kerr on Windows Vista for Developers - KennyKerr
• Registry's article on introducing Vista for Developers - RegDeveloper.co.uk