Of This and That

As a kid I have played around a lot with view master, where I would insert a circular disc with pictures around the outer edge of the disc and as I would pull a handle sort of a thing from one side, the disc would rotate and the pictures would change. There were many different kinds of pictures to browse and it used to good fun. This is now getting a push into the virtual reality space. A modified new device (which overall looks kind of the same) and pictures that pop into virtual reality. Check out more details here . 

Come long weekend and the trend these days is that you need to be going out with family for the long weekend trip. However this also means that one has to make the bookings well in advance as otherwise usually nothing much is available at the last min. For the 26 th Jan weekend, we did realize a bit late and unfortunately as expected, didn't get any bookings anywhere. Spending the 3 days at home, wasn't making any sense, so we decided to rather make do with day trips so that we don’t have to stay anywhere. With this intention in mind, we looked up Rajaram’s PlacesNearPune blog site, and like in past, I did find options near Pune that were within 30-40 km range. The first was the Kodit Maskoba temple and the other was the Kanifnath temple . Both are on Pune Saswad road and hence easily doable in a single day trip. Given that many temples tend to close during noon, we decided to start early in the day so that we get sufficient time to spend in the temple, but the g

If you planned to do some basic computing experiments that possibly includes both software and hardware integration as well, but wanted all of that to be at a throw away cost, then am sure you would have heard and possibly already being using Raspberry Pi. At a price of just about $ 40, this credit card sized board, along with basic computing power, using an ARM chip, can connect to a regular desktop/laptop and use external keyboard and mouse and allows you to easily program in a language like python (you can also use other languages like C, C++, Java, Ruby, Scratch etc.) The recommended OS is Raspbian but ARM Linux is equally popular. Here’s  the list of additional OSs that can be used. The device can be really useful, as I said earlier, for quick throw away programming. The idea being that you use this low cost device to quickly do some POC and if that works out, you can then plan to go big (commercial) with possibly a full-fledged computer or maybe a tablet device or even a c

After having used Android for last few years, I finally decided to switch games and try my hands on Windows Phone 8.1. My official work experience has been mostly on Microsoft and Windows and I have closed followed the development of both Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 and then their newer versions and have written my share of white papers on it as well (till last year). One of the main reasons for staying away from Windows Phone 8 or 8.1 so far had been the lack of availability of various apps that I found need in my day to day work. With time however the availability of applications has improved and while not every app is still there in Windows Phone 8.1 incarnation, but the scenario is surely better off than before. So when my Samsung Galaxy S3 started giving problems (hanging, call drops, charging issues, breaks in song playback and in general a distinct slowness in response times), I decided to get myself a new phone. However didn't want to spend a whole lot. So looked up