a new venture - ambigrams

This is the new pastime. ambigrams
Though angels & Demon of Dan Brown formally introduced me to the concept, it was not before I visited the ambigram Flickr community and John Langdon's website that I decided to give it a try.

Since I have no formal training or much capability in Calligraphy or Font creation/designing, I must say I rely on already available fonts and their modifications to achieve the same. I prefer using Old English Text Font to create ambigrams using Paint.NET software.

These are some that I have been able to create or do.

They stand for amit and eldrich.

more updates soon.

Finally, a solution for winamp 5.541 and gtalk music track status clash

Aha! Finally I have put to rest an issue that has been dogging me for some time.

Whenever I played the latest updated version of Winamp along with GTalk (Google application) with its status kept as "Show current music track", my GTalk used to freeze and refuses to work in tandem with Winamp. This was untill I came across a nice tech site (unfortunately I forgot the name) which suggested me the solution. The site author writes he recently chanced upon the solution provided by another man on the net.

The solution is so simple that it may seem stupid bit it works and is nothing less than magic!

Solution:

1. Goto the winamp installed folder
2. Create a file called winamp.m3u

• Goto windows explorer menu and uncheck the hide file type before creating a new file and renaming it as winamp.m3u
• 

Voila! Thats it. Now start the winamp and gtalk wont freeze when status is kept as music track!

Month after Insect photoshoot and tagging

What a Month! I created Profiles and did Photoshoots for many.

Many of them were 6-legged, 8-legged and of classes and sub classes that spin my head! Many had antennae and sting like tube at the back for laying eggs.

Now, before you start imagining, let me clear the air!

I was chasing around Insects and capturing them onto my Sony DSC Cybershot W80 camera. Well many would ask me, "Got nothing else better to do, Eh ?" Well, it seems I am an Insect lover who likes to take their pictures without troubling them!

Macro mode of the digicam is my favorite as it lets me explore fine details of insect body structure from their photos.

Dragon Fly resting on my pencil.

This comical and cutest Insect is a Dragon Fly. The best part is they eat mosquitoes and hence generally live near water.

Their Body structure reminds me of Helicopter and I must say their wings are large and strong!

More insects in further posts.

Meanwhile check all of them at http://www.flickr.com/photos/prashantmaxsteel

Pakistan : Friend or Fiend ?

I am forced to ponder, when and where, India will draw the Line and say "Pakistan, this is it. One more step and pay the price". I am no extreme rightist or nationalist, but a peace loving countryman wishing to live alongside Pakistan amicably. However, I am deeply concerned over the growing ISI and Pakistan sponsored militancy in India. Not a month passes when an Indian common-man or armed personnel is not killed or hurt by I.S.I. sponsored activities.

Pakistan is my country's biological sibling who left the family in 1947 after years of spilling blood over separation and ownership. In 1947, after the old, stubborn tenant - Britain was evicted and the old house was brought down; two new houses were constructed next to each other, namely India and Pakistan

Partition or division of ancestral wealth was not enough. Pakistan wanted the princely states to side with Pakistan and went to great lengths to accomplish so. Kashmir is one such example. When Hari Singh of J&K princely state was not willing to side with Pakistan, it dispatched Pakistani tribal warriors and rangers to capture Kashmir by force.

Pakistan has never grown up or matured. It envies India's glory, diversity, liberalism, democracy and stability. Pakistan always blames India for the religious, political, social, economic unrest in Pakistan. Pakistan fails to differentiate a friend from a foe. It considers India as its foremost enemy in all fields. All its policies are meant to act as deterrence against India. It spends a whooping portion of budget on arms & ammunition meant against India when its economy is crumbling. It uses the double edged sword of terrorism against India when conventional wars couldn't succeed. This terrorism is now backfiring. It has virtually lost all control over North West frontier provinces, SWAT, Waziristan, Baluchistan to name a few. It faces Al-Qaeda menace after decades of supporting and harboring their activities in Afghanistan and westen regions. It faces constant brutal suicide bombings by rival Muslim sects. Pakistan has always acted against the Geneva Conventions. It never recognizes Human rights and brutally treats POWs. Infact it still hasnt reclaimed bodies of rangers and of armymen who had fought the Kargil Proxy war. Its ISI has constantly beaten Indian consulate members and has implemented diabolical acts of terrorism. against India.

Pakistan's democracy is a failure. Multiple Military coup is the proof. It is a country where Army is the king maker and major player. It fails in the field of IT and other fields while India flourishes. Indians and Pakistanis have the same blood running in their veins. Both speak same dialects, languages, follow same traditions, customs and culture and share the same PAST. Indians and Pakistanis share the same brain and soul, after all we are brothers! Then why is Pakistan in such an horrible mess ? The country faces an ever lasting dillema as to who is the actual head ? Why is India excelling while Pakistan is plumetting to new lows?

Pakistan suffers from skewed vision. It fails to reconcile with India and come out clean. It misinterprets Islam and has misused the wonderful religion to spread hatred. It needs to alter its constitution to prevent another democratic miscarriage. It needs a complete religious, social, political and economic make over. It must focus on Industrial revolution rather than terrorist revolution. It must stop interfering in Indian matters and start minding its own matters. It must change its attitude and strategy to prevent an all out political, social, religious and economic turmoil.

But will it ?

Kerala : God's Own Country but managed by Devil's Own People

Dont come after me over the title. You will hear this from many Malayalis themselves.

I just stumbled upon a blog and that seemed to share my views on Kerala.

This is a comment from the blog.

"Great initiative folks. I am a malayalee who has been in kerala till my graduation and even had contested election as chairman in one of the notorioulsy famous govt college in kerala:)). Thankfully sense prevailed to me and i left kerala for my MBA and from there i have only seen growth. Today i am an NRI and lead an american company abroad, but if someone asks me if i will ever invest in Kerala , the answer is a big NO. I love my country and i may even retire there but i see no sense in doing anything for the development of this state."

The Blog named "Dog's Own Country? - The Save Kerala Initiative" is an excellent blog with views on the never ending (worse than the Saas-Bahu Soap operas -i can bet millions of $) political gimmickry in Kerala and its effects on Malayalis.

Don't pity for the fellas getting beaten up by khaki clad policemen/women. These khadi clad people belong to the worst genre. They are the political activists or followers (worse than the politicians)

This my nariyall phod over the issue.
Wait for next blog.

CRT Colors and Dog napping Photos

Check these interesting pictures!

(a) A macro photo taken of CRT Monitor Screen.

The Image1 can be seen to made of combinations of Red, Blue and Green in Image 2.
Click here for original Image (you can see better resolution. size around 2Mb)


Image1



Image2

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(b)I hope the dog does not fall off !

Revisiting Infrared Camera

This month's Chip magazine has an article on Using white LED's on breadboard to act as supplementary light system for shooting pics in less light.

It struck me with an idea! Why not do the same with Infrared Led's ?
So I bought one breadboard. (I dont prefer Soldering for such small works) and 5 White LED's and 5 Infrared ones.

Simply plug the LEDs (check out the anode-cathode) in the breadboard and connect it to a external supply.

Voila! There you have it!

Since I didnt find proper wires, I used a metallic scale and Screw Driver as connectors and Telephone Wire as Current source!

Photos:
1. and 2. White LEDs in action
3. Infrared LEDs connected with tubelight
4. Infrared LEDs connected in Darkness

Now many will think, this can be achieved even with White LEDs. though white LEDs seem better Light Supplementary; Infrared is invisible to naked eye, so adds up the thrill. Think of it as a better option for Stealth Camera!

My Moto !

Well, after a long time I decided to play with my mobile Motorola SLVR L7.
Here are some of the things i played around with.

Itunes Corelets
It comes bundled with L7e or i.
Yes, Itunes from Apple! Its a good music player corelet that unlike java midlets is loaded when mobile starts. Its functioning is similar to ipod. I simply liked it. In legal versions media files are uploaded using Itunes. others use a nice software called Mototunes!
However this time(after I had my mobile serviced at Moto centre) it failed to run! God knows what those fellas at service centre have done. Still working on that!

Seem editing
This is the best part.
You can use it to edit and bring about excellent changes in your mobile.
I unlocked the different presets for video recording!
I used seem editing to increase video recording limit to 10Mb. (Thats a lot for a simple mobile camera!)
You can also edit gain table( increase/decrease sound levels of your phone)
The list is endless! Some person at Howardforums has charted a map for seem-editing.

P2K Tools is a good tool for seem-editing.
Motomidman is a good choice for loading midlets and corelets.
RSD Lite2.5 for flashing/flexing.

Though many sites are not known for Moto applications.
Two excellent sites that make up for this loss are mobilejunkies and howardforums.

Mobilejunkies seems to be an Indian-subcontinent based one. I like their rapid response and clear, concise tutorials for modding the Motorola mobiles.

Its really fun playing with hex and binary codes and manipulating tiny things to get such a reward. I am proud that I own a moto L7 rather than any rigid phone.

My stealth infra-red camera!

So, finally out of hibernation!

The past month passed with lots of activity and curricular happenings leaving me with no time to spare.I happened to come across an interesting article in Chip India Magazine. It was on how to check whether a remote control's (working on Infra-Red) battery has drained out or not.

Their advice was to use a digital camera to check the front portion of the remote control keeping any button on the remote control pressed. (ie. check the led in the front). You will see a white light beam on the LCD of digi-cam coming out of the front portion of your Remote control. Infact its the infrared beam shooting out of your remote onto the TV. So if beam is visible, baterry and the buttons are working else not.

My friend, Fish and I came to the conclusion that the light sensors in a digi-cam must be sensitive to spectrums other than visible range. Wow, I never knew that Infra-red spectrum can be seen on digital cameras. Though it can be explained easily by science, but the fact that seeing something invisible to naked eyes using common minimal tools as in here a little mobile camera is really fun!

Though the beam is not strong enough, I still managed to use it to click and shoot pics n tiny movies in pitch darkness. Voila! I have a stealth Infra-red camera! He.He.He..

Check them..

Videos

1)keyhole in Infrared and visible light



Pictures. (my remote, before pressing a key, after pressing a button )

How to make an animated gif badge !

Hi there, I recently got the latest Adobe Creative Suite 3 (trial ware).
So I thought why not try make an animated gif (badge) as ready made ones are hardly enough.I have provided pics links to make it easier.
So here goes!

Software I used: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional
Knowledge reqd : Adobe Flash.( A little bit to create a small flash file)
OK! So Lets Begin!

(1)Start Flash CS3. A flash screen appears.Open a New Flash File. Since our aim is to create badges with width around 80 to 85 pixels and height around 15 pixels, change size from Property window.Pic 1.
Pics 2 3
Choose whatever background u wish and other stuff as per your creativity. Go on experimenting as you wish!

(2) If you want some background image or any file then first import it into flash library as follows; File menu, Import and in it Import to Library. Pic4
If you want to edit an already present gif, import it onto stage.

(3) Goto the Timeline section. Pic 5
Create a set of frames as u require. Pic 6 (I expect a minimum knowledge of Flash).Pic 7

(4) Then publish it as a gif. simply goto File menu and then to publish. in publish window check the box next to gif for publishing gif and then check settings of gif. Pic 8 9 10.

(5) Your gif will be published.