Bala – Page 3 – Balamuthu's Blog

New York City

Long time no see 🙂

May 2o14 was a busy month for me. Shifting to another apartment, trip to New York etc.

My wife and I visited New York. We stayed in a hotel near by Times Square. Our room was in 24th floor and the view from the window was spectacular.

Day one:

We reached hotel in the evening and decided to go to Empire State Building which is very close to the hotel. We went up to 86th and 102 floor to see the night view of the New York City. It was really fantastic.

Day two:

I booked tickets online to Statue of Liberty, We didn’t get a clue on where to take the bus, so hopped in to a taxi and reached the place at 9 am.

The ferry took us to the statue of liberty, the experience was so good when I saw the statue on one side and skyline on the other side. It was mesmerizing to see the lady liberty standing tall and her arm reaching the clouds. The statue is an awesome outcome of Engineering and Art.

We had lunch and visited WTC memorial, roamed around taking pictures of the skyscrapers.

My wife and I reached hotel to took rest for a while. I appreciated myself for booking a hotel in the New York City though it is expensive than booking somewhere cheap and far.

After a short rest, my wife dressed pretty well and I got ready for Madame Tussauds.

Day Three:

Walked on the Brooklyn Bridge then took a subway to central park, but travelled towards the other side :). finally figured it out and took the right subway to central park.

late in the evening, we walked down the streets of New York City. I felt Times Square like T Nagar, Ranganathan street minus the tall buildings and digital billboards. 🙂

Next day, we took a train to New Jersey to catch the flight back to Cincinnati.

New York is a very happening city and we enjoyed it pretty well.

Reminder App

I decided to create a reminder app for IOS. This is not a unique idea, but I just wanted to create an app and learn a language required for it.

It is so regretful that I haven’t learnt anything new for the past few years. I don’t want to be stagnated with the knowledge that will be legacy soon. So I chose to upgrade my skills to match the phone, tablet and desktop ecosystem.

There are several ways to learn a new language, I like to start developing an app and learn it on the go. Learning cocoa is more tougher than I thought, I hope I’ll grab things quick.

Why Reminder app?
I don’t know, I was talking to my friend and he wants me to remind him about something and when I opened the iOS 7 reminder app, I felt like the native app isn’t that good. Functionally, it does a great job, but I think the usability isn’t good enough.

So, I decided to start creating a reminder app with a new UX design. There are tons of reminder apps on the App Store which is so cool, but still I wanted to create a yet another app that is available in the market 🙂

I will post my progress frequently! Happy learning and coding!

Hello 2014!

Happy New Year to all. 2013 was a wonderful year for me. Lot of memorable moments happened, I got married, bought a decent car, traveled to few places, but what about the most important 2013 resolution ? Saving Money?

No!! I didn’t save at all. Let me try this year ;). My 2014 resolution is going to be the same as previous year. Save Money and Travel a lot!

I hope to make 2014 a much more delightful year.

Here’s is the lovely annual report of my blog made by WordPress!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Payday

Sized like a full moon,
Days later…
Disappears like a new moon.

– My Bank balance.

Mailbox

Small wooden box
When opened with grace
Gives you the hidden treasure!

Every evening, I have this habit of opening my mailbox expecting something interesting in it. But I end up seeing nothing or a bunch of advertisement slips 🙂

Picture credit: Google Images.

Set WOW – 32 bit .net application on a 64 bit PC

My development computer at work was a x86 PC that has windows XP. Recently I had to upgrade to a windows 7 64 bit PC which brought a lot of trouble. One among them is running a .net 32 bit application. After a lot of research I found a way to enable WOW (Windows On Windows). This is quite old and most of the techies knows about it, but I thought its worth to share it.

Here you go…
1. Open command prompt.
2. Navigate to ‘C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\’.
3. Type ‘Ldr64.exe SetWow’ and hit enter.

This will enable 32 bit CLR applications to run properly. You can always revert the settings with the command ‘Ldr64.exe Set64’.

Happy Coding!

Home sweet home

I started my journey to home on July 11, afternoon at Cincinnati airport. I felt the flight like a bullock-cart that can fly.

Chicago to Frankfurt:
I reached Chicago in an hour and waited there for 3+ hours to catch my next flight to Frankfurt. Chicago airport was nice, it seem to be a happening place unlike Cincinnati. I spent time in roaming and and checking office Mails. It was time to board and I was so eager to travel and at the same time i was quite curious to see who sits next to me ;). My expectations went down when i saw an old man and his wife :). I booked an aisle seat so that it would be easy for me to go to the bathroom frequently. Before me settling down, the old lady asked me if I can switch the seats, I was not sure why she asked but I just said ok and then realized that the kid sitting behind was kicking the seat now and then. The another old guy who sat next to me was nice and we discussed a lot about Foods and technology. Old people sound more interesting to me when they share their experience.

Frankfurt to Chennai:
I landed in Frankfurt in the morning. The layover time is 4 hours and I used free wifi that lasts only for 30 mins. I used my criminal mind and tried using three different devices (phone and ipad) with different emails and used internet for around 1 1/2 hours :). I bought a key chain, paid in dollars and got the change in Euros. I roamed around noticing people talking English in German accent. I was happy to see lot of Indians at the boarding gate. Frankfurt looked like chennai airport :). This time I was not much curious on who sits near me. In a while I saw a girl approaching my seat asked me to get up so she can go inside. I started to laugh when the crew spoke in Tamil…Seemangale Seematigale…the girl gave me a weird look. she looked like a Tamilian but doesn’t know a single word in Tamil. I somehow felt the old guy’s company was much better than this girl. It’s a nine hour journey and I spent time in reading books, watching movies, eating and sleeping. I was so excited to see the lights and buildings in chennai and prayed that the flight should land properly.
People barged inside the security checks and did not wait in queue at all…oh yes, I reached India :). The girl and I waved bye and it was 1.15 am when I got out of the airport.

Chennai to Kilavikulam:
I did not book a domestic flight to my place as I have to wait for 8 hours in chennai to catch a flight to Madurai and I dont want to disturb my friends or relatives at night so I informed my cousin to book a travels for me few days back. when he said the driver will have a board saying ‘Balu, America’, I wanted him to display ‘Balu, Kilavikulam’ instead :). It’s a innova car and the driver seem to be a nice person but I was bit tensed by his careless driving. After several hours I was so shocked to see the driver sleeping while driving. I was pissed off and asked the driver to stop and have tea. I asked him to sleep for while but he said he is fine.
I thought of booking another car in Trichy or Madurai. I kept talking to him and he was seriously tired to drive and lost his sense many times. I made sure he stops and refreshes now and then. I was cursing my cousin and took care for this stupid driver like a kid. He was totally fine when he took an hour break in Madurai for breakfast. I did not want to eat anything until I reach home. I finally arrived home at 11.30 am July 13. Mom and Periyama asked me why it’s so late before welcoming me 🙂
I gave a lot of extra tip to the driver for safely dropping me and asked him to take rest and then return. He said he’s fine and will take rest whenever required. Huh! It was so easy to come from US to India but reaching my hometown from Chennai is really exhausting.

Home sweet home:
All those tensions flew away when I stepped in to my house. My home is like a Bothi Maram to me. I slept off during the day and was awake all night :).
The very next day I went to my relatives home in rajapalayam and gave the gifts that I bought for them.
I made sure I don’t sound like most of the Indians who return from America who always carry mineral water, talks about hygiene and complains about the traffic and climate 🙂

It’s my second day at home and already enjoying moms food especially Dosa, Chutney and Sambar. My mom, Periyama and I gossiped a lot in two days :).

PS: I got up at 3 am today and started to blog in phone. Let me get out to Thinnai and get some fresh air and signal to post this on cellular data 🙂

PS1: Ready to have Fresh milk 🙂

Can’t Wait

Why does a week feel so long ?
Why a bag full of gifts is still not enough ?
No mood to work, cook or eat
No patience to wait…

I wanna go home!

Smoky Mountains

This memorial day weekend I toured smoky mountains – Cades cove in Tennessee and Clingman’s dome in North Carolina with my friends. Our first visit was Cades cove which is an auto tour on the valley and mountain.

Then we returned back to the cabin – Black bear hallow in Townsend.

Enjoying Jacuzzi. I would call this as Jaccu Boy 😀

Next day, we started to Clingmans dome which is about one+ drive. Drive was pretty slow but it was great to see the mountain alongside. There were many scenic spots during the drive. Once we reached the parking area, we had to walk for .5 miles to the dome. It was a steep hike and the view from the dome worths it.

We had a good time here, planning to visit again during Fall.

If given a choice

If given a choice to become a Superman or a Software Architect,
I would choose to be a s/w architect.
If no choice given, I will still become a s/w architect.
– misterB