Thought Garage

Wow !!! Apple App Store reached 10 Billion downloads.

I have been thinking for a while to learn and develop iOS applications but has been putting off due to other commitments. Last week I have finally decided to take the plunge and get started. I am planning to post my travelogue with notes and links to resources of this exciting journey on this blog.  Join or subscribe to RSS Feed or by Email if you are interested.Courses & ResourcesAfter few hours of watching and reading various content available, I found that there is no place better than the Apple : iOS Dev Center to get started with developing iOS Applications. There are tons of content ranging from working samples,developer guides to full length WWDC videos delivered by none other than Apple’s own engineering staff. If you prefer a class room style, with a prescribed direction and outline, here are some courses I found on iTunes that are teaching or have taught iOS development. Stanford UniversityCS193p : Developing Apps for iOS (Fall 2010) CS193p: iPhone Application Development…

uastring = self.request.headers.get('user_agent')
if "Mobile" in uastring and "Safari" in uastring:
  # do iphone / ipod stuff
Via stack overflow

On LivingSocial, not only you can get emails about great local deals, but you can get the deal itself for Free. Share for a Free DealAfter you buy the deal, you'll get a unique link to share. If three people buy the deal using your link, then your deal is free.Now that’s a great deal.

If you are a budding .NET developer looking to kick start your career in 2011 or advance your career on Microsoft .NET technologies, here are two great events right here in DFW that you must attend.Windows Azure 2 Day BootCamp : 16th and 17th February 2011This is a 2-day deep dive program to prepare you to deliver solutions on the Windows Azure Platform. We have worked to bring the region’s best Azure experts together to teach you how to work in the cloud. Each day will be filled with training, discussion, reviewing real scenarios, and hands on labs.More Details and Registration here.Dallas Day of Dot Net : 4th and 5th of March 2011With Phil Haack kicking off the 2 day event with ASP.NET MVC 3, it got 2 days of immersive .NET programs including but not limited to “Windows phone, Azure, C# 4.0, HTML 5, Asp.Net MVC 3, WPF, Silverlight”. The event is priced at $200, but all proceeds go towards helping a cancer patient.More Details and Registration here.Live as if you were to die tomorrow…

“You don't have to learn the language of a great poet to write beautiful poetry. Master your own instead.”

Following up a note that I wrote a while back about H1B visa refusals and delays, here is a fresh news brief from Murthy.Com law firm indicating that H1B and H4 visa applications are increasingly rejected without much information.Visit News Brief Page on Murthy.comBack in 2009, I wrote “Going for H1B Visa Stamping? Be Prepared To Stay Back For A While” noting that H1B visa stamping is getting increasingly difficult and also taking time and asking reader to prepare well for the delays.But this new note from Murthy.com is little more disturbing. Job market, particularly in IT sector appears to have picked up lot of momentum in the last few months and hopefully situation will improve in the days ahead.If you are going for Visa stamping in India, make sure you take all required and any and all additional documentation that prove your eligibility to avoid delays and refusals.

Little long but quite a thought provoking article on whether Software Programming is a craft?  I totally love the full post and couldn’t agree more but here are a few excerpts from the post that stand out.The thing is, at one level software can be described by the utility it provides. It doesn’t matter how ugly it is under the hood as long as it delivers the goods. A programmer can show beautiful software to another programmer, but that’s where the appreciation stops for software per se.A really great programmer (and I’ve been lucky enough to work with a handful over the years) can out-perform a doing-it-for-the-money programmer by orders of literally hundreds, delivering in hours or days what would take an average developer weeks or months.A truly skilled programming team can deliver amazing business results in insanely short amounts of time. Let’s go after some of that! I want your experience. I want your knowledge. I want you to show me “the simplicity the other side of complexity,…

Its so cold, almost freezing outside and snow from last night is still shining. Its time for a hot and spicy Andhra style Biryani. Hope you haven’t made any New Year resolutions to go all veggie. Even if you did, its time to break rules.
Enjoy and have a great time.

Justice Sri Krishna Committee Report on Andhra/Telangana Issue is now available for download, link below:Download Link (PDF 11.4MB)You can alternately download the report and full 70MB appendix to the report at Ministry of Home Affairs here : http://mha.nic.in/uniquepage.asp?Id_Pk=584

Wonderfully simple and easy to read book for all ages, "20 Things I learned about Browsers and The web" from Google Chrome team. Must read for all that would love and enjoy web. You can read it online right from your browser or download the PDF version of the book.
If you are curious to know more how a browser really works, you may check this wonderful cartoon book from none other than the Google Chrome team itself : The Chrome, Comic Book.

Its not unusual for most of us to make resolutions on the New Year’s eve, every year. It’s a great milestone to look back and review ourselves and set our goals for the next year.
Technically, I never made any resolutions on a New Year’s eve. Not that I don’t like to make. I just happened to have a different milestone, my birth day, that comes about a week before the New year’s eve. I do it mostly on my Birthday (:-)).
The Resolution of 1999 I would like to share about one such resolution that I really enjoyed chasing it. Its about a resolution I made way back in 1999, immediately after joining in my first job. The resolution is about teaching at least 1000 hours in the next 10 years.

The inspiration behind this resolution was a teacher I met, a lecturer by name VB (Vijay Balachandran) that taught us English at SMVM Polytechnic, Tanuku. He is undoubtedly, one of the BEST teachers I have ever met and I consider myself to be the luckiest bunch to have that opportunity to learn from …

My personal blog,  ‘Thought Garage’ that I started back in 2004 on Google’s Blogger has found its way back home, after moving through various blogging systems including a self-hosted Wordpress. Just one small change though, it got a brand new address to begin the new year.

Here is the URL of the new home http://ThoughtGarage.MuraliM.com
The RSS Feed is available through Google’s Feed Burner at http://feeds.feedburner.com/ThoughtGarage
If you are regularly following the blog on the web or through the Feed, sorry for the inconvenience. Please change your bookmarks and RSS Feed URL. Thank you for your understanding. Will share more about the background of this brand new address and reason for moving back to blogger shortly.
I would like to take this opportunity to Wish You all a Very Happy New year. Hope your dearest dreams will come true this year.
Let’s be in touch.