farid thinks...

As Darkness Falls..

2012-01-18T15:04:00.000+05:30

When darkness falls, we are reborn...

Dubai, UAE

Satoli, Uttarakhand, India

Lansdowne, Uttarakhand, India

Sharq, Kuwait

Kuwait City, Kuwait

Kuwait Towers, Kuwait

Olaya, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

London, United Kingdom

Aberystwyth, Caredigion, Wales, UK

Cardiff, Wales, UK

Aberystwyth, Wales, UK

Geneva, Switzerland

Sukhbataar Square, Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia

Brahmaputra, Tezpur, Assam, India

Brahmaputra, Tezpur, Assam

Chitralekha Udyan, Tezpur, Assam

Tezpur, Assam

Sinister Sunsets

2012-01-16T14:35:00.002+05:30

Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK

Seagulls coming home

Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK

Amazed at the discipline of the seagulls how they line up just during the sunset

The Pier, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK

A few lonely rowers rowing back home?

Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, UK

Who is she? Why is she so lonely? Just as I was...

All photos taken not with any fancy DSLR but with a Fujifilm FinePix S1730 prosumer camera.

Peora Old Dak Bungalow 1905

2011-10-10T15:31:00.005+05:30

A 100-year-old colonial dak bungalow located at a picturesque point commanding a sweeping view of the Himalayan ranges. Surrounded with multi-layered gardens, and as typical of the 'Raj' bungalow architecture, there are high-ceiling rooms, exquisite stone flooring and teak roof. A fireplace with a mantelpiece above and antique furniture completes the period setting.

This is the “Peora Old Dak Bungalow 1905” in Village Satoli near Mukteshwar in Uttarakhand, India.

Leased out and renovated by Pradeep and Shubha Gupta, this bungalow serves as a homestay for those who like to spend a few days of solitude by taking in the fresh mountain air and listening to the chirping of birds while sipping hot tea and other favourite brews. The Guptas have taken care to retain the old-world Raj-era charm with the rustic furniture, basic amenities and comfortable beds. There are three rooms – two suites and one double room. The suites have a living room with a fireplace, a divan and comfortable chairs. All rooms have an attached kitchenette with the necessary utensils if you care to cook your own food. Otherwise, you can be Mrs. Gupta’s guests for meals.

And what delicious meals she cooks! Being a compulsive carnivore that I am, all in my family were astonished at how many chappatis I gobbled down with the delicious vegetarian fare she served. Breakfast and lunch are usually served out in the open while dinner is served in the cozy little cottage where the hosts live.

The extensive verandah overlooking the Himalayas is furnished with arm-chairs, ‘murhas’ and comfy chairs where you can laze around all day reading from the good collection of books and magazines kept in the rooms.

If you feel like moving out, you can trek to Aarohi. Aarohi is a non-profit, grassroots organisation committed to need-based and people-planned integrated rural development in the Central Himalayan region of Uttarakhand. Aarohi is located a few kilometres from the dak bungalow and runs a school, a hospital and a Nature Shop where you can buy local handicrafts like soaps, scrubs, oils and herbs. All materials are sourced from the nearby villages and grown organically. Both Mr. & Mrs. Gupta are associated with Aarohi.

I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking…

Living Room

Bed Room with the Kitchen further right

Bedroom

Main Gate

Front View

The Gupta's Cottage

On a clear day you can see the Himalayan Range from here

The verandah

Breakfast time!

Do not come here looking for made-to-order meals, room service and modern amenities. This is a homestay where the hosts treat you like house guests and ensure that you eat well, sleep comfortably and leave with a promise to come back again.

The Austere Livestock Flight

2009-09-19T20:58:00.006+05:30

A high-profile Indian Minister, Mr. Mosmea, widely known in international diplomatic circles, is travelling to an international summit via a transit point in Europe. He is flying economy class - "Cattle Class", in case you don't remember the common term!. After a tiring 8 hour flight he disembarks in his transit airport where he bumps into Mr.Magric, Minister of a European nation, who is very well known to the former.

An excerpt from the conversation that ensues:

Mr.Magric: "Mr.Minister, why don't we have a drink together at the lounge. We can use this opportunity to see how our countries can work together".

Mr.Mosmea: "Sorry Mr.Ambassador, I'd love to but I cannot join you there. I am flying economy so I don't access to the lounge".

What is more important? Superficial austerity? Or living up to the impression that India is one of the fastest growing economy where foreign companies are welcome to do business with and make money?

[Note: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or dead or any incident, also living or dead, is purely coincidental]

Blog Update!

2009-07-19T10:36:00.002+05:30

Dear Readers

From today onwards, this blog will be dedicated to all things "non-professional". I will be writing about life and interests here and all professional articles and news will be in my new blog "GeoUX". I hope to be regular in both these spaces.

Thank you very much for reading my blog. I hope you will drop by at GeoUX too!!!

Free & Open Source GIS (FOSS4G) Tools I Frequently Use

2009-07-12T12:32:00.002+05:30

Below is a list of some free and open source GIS tools I regularly use:

Vector Viewing and Editing

OpenJUMP - for fast analysis, good cartography capabilities
MapWindow GIS - has some added raster operations as well
Quantum GIS - comprehensive and complete desktop GIS tool
uDig - good for re-projecting and exporting to different coordinate system

Web Map Server

GeoServer WMS and WFS Server
OSGEO MapServer

Client-side Web Mapping

OpenLayers Javascript API
OpenScales Flex API

I plan to write detailed reviews on each one of them in subsequent posts. So stay tuned!!!

Nokia E71 v300.21.012 firmware update!

2009-07-07T14:46:00.003+05:30

Successfully updated!

Hardware/Software Combo:

Nokia E71(India) + Windows Vista Ultimate SP2 + Nokia Software Updater.

Did a restore from backup but lot of the softwares did not work. Seems to be the issue with all other firmware upgrades prior to this.

You seem to lose the Symbian apps installed in the memory card though it retains the settings. When you re-install, you get your settings back. It is easier with Java apps installed in your card - use the Nokia Midlet Restorer to restore everything without needing to re-install. So did a fresh update. It pays to have your stuff backed up on the web and PC. The Nokia Content Copier is not useful as it backs up and restores "Device Specific Files" without an option to turn it off. This overwrites some files from the new firmware thus making the system unstable.

I use the following to Backup or Sync individual items:

Contacts and Calendar : Ovi Contacts
Landmarks: Ovi Maps and MyWayfinder
Bookmarks: Synch with Mozilla Firefox via Synchronization
Messages : Backup using Nokia Communication Center

I believe that's all you need to restore! Let me know if I missed out anything vital.

So all I had to do was install the frequently used softwares which were already archived in my 8GB SD Card. Took a bit more time but got a fresh phone :-)

Google Maps launches Delhi driving directions

2009-04-19T09:00:00.001+05:30

Google Maps has quietly launched directions in Delhi. I am not very sure the exact date it was launched but it was not there about a week back when I wanted the optimal route from my home to Chanakyapuri. So I relied on the trusty Nokia Ovi Maps then.

I haven't had a chance to check it out on the web version but the mobile version works great. I am using it on my Nokia E71 with integrated GPS and the results are pretty accurate.

Other services providing driving directions in Delhi are:

1. Nokia Ovi Maps (http://maps.ovi.com) available on Nokia phones and on the browser for free.

2. MapMyIndia - available on the browser and also on Mobile/PNDs but not fully free. They also power the Yahoo India maps.

3. Amaze GPS - amazingly capable mobile GPS application available as a free download. An ad-driven service with no subscription fee involved.

Let me know if you know of any other such services and also if the Google Maps Directions are available in other Indian cities.

Can you see 'Turbo'?

2009-02-11T18:22:00.001+05:30

This Chevy Tavera wants you to see the 'View of Turbo'. The line in the back 'Dekh Nazara Turbo Ka' says so.

caught up in deadlines

2009-01-11T19:47:00.001+05:30

Completely at a loss. Can't understand what to write. So many topics and so little time.

--- Sent from mobile

Firefox rocks

2009-01-09T12:37:00.003+05:30

My son loves riding one and I love browsing on it. Both rock.. in their own way.

--- Blogged from mobile

Designing for the Mobile Web - keep it skimpy

2009-01-08T17:08:00.011+05:30

It's very common today to have people fish out their cell phones, fire the built-in web browser and look up your company's corporate site as soon as you mention it. I do it myself. Thankfully my Nokia E51 has a full-fledged S60 browser which full support for CSS, Javascript and AJAX. Also I have an unlimited data plan so I need not worry about the many images and lots of text. Unfortunately, many of us are struck with simplified mobile browsers (including many older BlackBerry users) and data plans which charge by the kilobytes downloaded. So it is necessary for the corporate to have a version of their site specially suited for the mobile platform. I am sure your potential client would not appreciate the fact that his prized BlackBerry would break your beautifully designed and information laden site. He would also not like to see what is not relevant while paying through his nose to the mobile service provider.

What you should do? Design a site specifically for the mobile browser and let it point to www.yourcompanydomain.mobi or http://m.yourcompanydomain.com . But before you do that, identify the key content you would like to put in this site. Keeping all the content will defy the entire purpose. Simplify and keep it brief.

Keep the following in mind:

In the home page, simplify the header theme with the company branding.
Use a scaled-down version of the logo
Keep the navigation on top
Give a link to “Skip Navigation” or “Jump to content” at the top of the page
Limit the home-page to the first-level navigation only
Avoid unnecessary graphics
Use CSS Style sheets to style your elements
Use minimum markup
Use the correct DOCTYPE (DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//WAPFORUM//DTD XHTML Mobile 1.0//EN" "http://www.wapforum.org/DTD/xhtml-mobile10.dtd )
Use the proper META (meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8")
Give accesskeys for the main navigation links
Do not forget to give alternate text for the images
Use tables to show tabular data only. Better still avoid them at all since lot of the mobile browsers cannot understand tables and ignores them. Better not to show at all than show something broken
Do not use Pixel font sizes. Use Small, Medium or Large. Different phones use different fonts and the pixel sizes vary
Remove all spaces from the CSS file so that it loads faster
Give a link to the full site so that people like me who has a “full browser” and an unlimited data plan can use
Use XHTML, don't use WML
Don't use frames
Don't use pop up windows
Use stylesheets, not inline styles
Don't use tables for layout
Don't use nested tables
Specify image sizes in markup
Detect the client device and adapt content to suit it; make the most of its capabilities

Some of the mobile sites worth having a look:

1. Google Mobile (http://m.google.com)

2. LinkedIn Mobile (http://m.linkedin.com)

3. Orkut Mobile (http://m.orkut.com)

4. FaceBook Mobile (http://m.facebook.com)

5. IBN Live (http://m.ibnlive.com)

6. Wikipedia (http://mobile.wikipedia.org)

7. Windows Live (http://mobile.live.com)

I would recommend anyone interested in designing for mobile sites to read the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0 Guidelines

Why HTML Print Templates are dangerous and erratic

2009-01-08T12:35:00.004+05:30

In quite a few recent projects we executed, I have observed the developers and the UX Designers spend considerable time in designing HTML Print Layouts that never behaves like it should. It should be noted that HTML Print templates are not fool-proof as the final output depends on the individual browser settings and bandwidth considerations.

Browser Limitations:

Each browser version even from the same vendor interprets the print in it's own way. What is printed by IE6 might differ from what is printed by IE7.
The individual users Page Setup overrides any settings we might incorporate in our code.
For example, in out HTML code we can define the margins to be 0.5 inch but if the user's browser print settings are set at 0.2 inches, the HTML settings will be ignored.
In many cases, the user's disable the "Print images and background colors" option in their browser settings. In this case, no images or colors will be printed.
The page is designed as "Landscape" but the user's browser print settings are set to "Portrait". The page will print as Portrait.
CSS-based print is not supported by many browsers as they were not refined in CSS 2.0 specifications. CSS 3.0 specifications allow for advanced print layouts but no browser manufacturer has adopted this as yet except IE 8 Beta and Opera

Due to security reasons, the web application cannot change/access the individual user's browser settings.

Bandwidth Considerations:

Take the example when we need to create a map print template in A0 size for the browser. This means that the client will have to download the map image of at least 12000 px X 10000 px (40'' x 33") which might translate to 10-15 mb. In addition, it will have other graphic and text elements. In a normal 256 kbps connection, it can take upto 5-10 minutes to generate and render the preview on the client side.

Reducing the filesize will lead to dithering of the image and loss of quality.

Repercussions:

No control over the print output
Different print outputs in different browsers and different machines
Performance issues due to large image size downloads
Lost man-hours in trying to tweak the output for different browsers

All these will eventually lead to problems during the UAT and also in the profitability of the project.

Solution:

Large-size prints should be in PDF or Flash Paper formats
Generate PDF in server and let the user download the generated PDF for offline printing/plotting
Educate the client on the limitations of the browser-based HTML Print templates and on the advantages of PDF/Flash Paper

Open Source GIS Technologies are as capable as COTS?

2008-05-13T21:46:00.002+05:30

I've been championing the cause of open source GIS technologies since the last few months and find that these are as capable as the commercial off-the-shelf products and at times, more.

We've been traditionally an ESRI and MapXtreme shop and it was quite a challenge convincing others about the open source stuff until a prototype application was created with a rich user experience and that too with less than half the man-hours usually taken to customise on ArcGIS.

More on this will follow...

Web Innovation 2008 Conference was cool

2008-05-12T12:51:00.009+05:30

I was there in the Web Innovation 2008 Conference in Mumbai last week speaking on "Web 2.0 Trends in Geospatial Applications : A User Centric GIS". I attended the inaugural Web Innovation 2007 in Bangalore last year and this was on a larger scale though the Bangalore one was more spacious.

This is an excellent forum where all the innovative minds get together and discuss where the web is going towards. There were a lot of great technical and entrepreneurial sessions some were pushing their boxes. This is understandable considering the fact that a conference like this cannot be possible without sponsorships and sponsors need their ROI :-).

My session on the stage covered how the Web 2.0 concepts are being used in the GIS software industry and how some of these concepts were in use in GIS much before the Web 2.0 jargons like mash-ups, user generated content, AJAX etc came into picture.

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YouTube Mobile has had a soft-launch

2007-06-20T23:16:00.000+05:30

YouTube has silently launched their mobile version. A few months back I read a post somewhere that it is in the labs. I occassionally checked out http://m.youtube.com to find out if there was anything there only to find a YouTube logo. So the site exists!! Today was another day when I thought of checking it out to find YouTube mobile is live!!!!

I could navigate to the movie clip details. When I clicked on the "Watch" link, it opened Real Player on my Nokia E50 and tried to stream. But soon it timed out. I think it's the peak-hour EDGE connection that came into play. Will try to watch it again late night. Maybe I have some luck!!

Check out the screenshots below:

Adobe Apollo has potential... but are we ready for another runtime?

2007-03-22T15:46:00.000+05:30

Adobe recently announced the pre-release Alpha build of the Apollo Platform SDK, runtime and documentation. In case you didn’t know, it is a cross-operating system runtime - a platform that will allow developers to create to desktop applications using existing web development skills such as Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript and Ajax. Web applications can be run online or offline through Apollo. It will have the traditional benefits of desktop applications - speed, drag and drop functionality from the desktop to the application, and accessing the file system. Apollo is cross-platform, meaning any application developed for it will run on Windows, Mac and Linux machines. According to Adobe, existing web applications can be easily ported to the Apollo platform.

Unable to resist the temptation, I downloaded the SDK last night and played around with it a bit. The first Alpha release is focused at Flex(TM) based applications whilst the next Beta release will be targeted at HTML based applications. At a first glance, I feel it has a lot of potential. Will keep you all posted about the features and benefits as I explore more of it. Maybe I can post some code too. Meanwhile you can download the Alpha release from the Adobe Labs (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/) and go through the samples. I wish they posted sample codes of all the showcased applications, keeping in view that it is a very new technology and early adopters will need a lot of help.

Nokia Maps is coool!!!

2007-03-19T12:47:00.000+05:30

smart2go (a.k.a. Nokia Maps) is cool. It is a mapping and navigation platform available for free download. I installed it in my data-enabled Nokia E50 (it supports only Symbian S60 3rd Edition &Windows Mobile 5) and did a few “routine” mapping tasks. After a rather longish initial start-up, it ran like a breeze.

Using the additional “MapLoader” PC application, I downloaded the India dataset which is around 10.1MB. After installation, the 10 MB data exploded to around 128 MB!. What irritated me is that the data has to be downloaded directly to the phone (connected via USB) and it took around 60 minutes to download the same over a high-speed broadband connection. This means that for 60 minutes, my phone was in offline mode (Later I realized, i can use a Card Reader too!). There is no way you can download the data to your desktop and transfer it later. This also means that if you are traveling, you need to download and store all the countries maps you visit in your memory card. Considering the fact that some datasets like USA are more than 100 Megs, you really need to invest in a high-capacity memory card. One thing that annoyed me was the fact that although I had the India dataset installed, everytime I did a map query (as simple as searching for India Gate in Delhi), it does a search over the web and not the local dataset. This is in clear defiance to the statement “If all the desired map data is stored, no network connection is needed for mapping, routing and navigation” (Source: http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1103306). I think it is a bug that needs to be resolved.

The data quality of the US and European countries are excellent. The India dataset is very barebones. The Delhi map has only the major roads and lacks POIs, minor roads and routing capabilities. I tried the routing from my usual hotel in Geneva, Switzerland to my workplace and it was amazing. Since I do not have a GPS unit and I was not in Geneva, I did a route simulation and it drove me via the exact route my bus usually takes. The POI markers were very accurate and I managed to search for my favourite Mexican restaurant! The website says that the product is in Beta stage and more data is being added though.

The user interface and menu options are very intuitive and easy to use. The icons are crisp and colorful. You can store numerous landmarks and just select them from the list to set your route start and end points. Alternatively it also allows you to make your selections on the map.

Advanced Navigation and City Guides are paid services and can be purchased over-the-air.

Nokia Maps is impressive but needs to be refined. The India dataset is poor and downloading data every time even though it is installed is a pain. Thank heavens I have an unlimited data plan from Airtel.

If you have a Nokia E /N Series or a Windows Mobile 5 phone, try out the application for free at www.smart2go.com.

My Wishlist:

Ability to download data to a desktop and transfer to mobile device as and when required
Faster data download. Even through the MapLoader application, downloading a 10MB dataset took more than an hour. This is ridiculous.
Detailed India data with POI, route planning and Minor roads
Make the data less heavy. PLEASE.

I will add more to this list as I explore more of this application

Standards are great...

2007-02-20T11:55:00.000+05:30

My team has been involved in creating web pages and applications following W3C standards since a long time. These pages render almost the same in all standards compliant browsers save for a few which require additional hacks. Amazingly, when I tried to access the same pages from the mobile phone browser (the built-in xHTML browser as well as Opera Mini), the pages rendered well, albeit in a degraded manner. So my information was all intact and only thing I lost was the columnar layout and some design elements.

(Opera 9.1 Desktop Browser)

(Opera Mini 3.0 Mobile Browser)

Bottom-line: Make your pages standards-compliant and they will be device friendly automatically. You do not need to put in additional effort to make these pages accessible across devices.

Gmail Mobile is great and Opera Mini rocks...

2007-02-09T14:04:00.001+05:30

I posted this blog from my Gmail mobile. It's a small J2ME software that you install in your data enabled phone and you have a gmail desktop clone in your cellphone. It has almost all the functions that are available in the full web version is as fast too. Try it at www.gmail.com/app. The best part is that it works with all J2ME MIDP 2.0 cellphones with a data plan. I'm using a Sony Ericsson W810i.

If you want GTalk too then try Talkonaut (www.talkonaut.com). It has the same interface as GTalk Desktop client and is free. You only pay for the data transfer to your service provider.

For browsing, nothing matches Opera Mini. This is the best browser for Java enabled cellphones and opens all the sites - including the SSL sites.

Formatted HTML E-mails Are Notorious

2007-02-09T11:02:00.000+05:30

When it comes to HTML E-mails, we have the problem of many. There are so many different tools for reading email that it becomes virtually impossible to cater to all. There are desktop software such as Pegasus, Outlook, AOL, Thunderbird, and Lotus Notes, to web-based email services such as Yahoo!, Hotmail, and GMail. To make matters worse, a sizeable amount of the population these days access their mails using mobile devices like the Blackberry. Each of these email software tools can display the same email in vastly different ways. Also mail clients are light-years away as compared to browsers when it comes to rendering HTML.

The Problems

Different mail clients interpret HTML e-mails differently

Some do not support CSS while some strip off images and tables. So there is a chance that the recipient does not see what the sender intends.

HTML Emails are heavy

HTML e-mails are always at least twice the size of plain text mails since they are embedded with markup tags and formatting.

Annoying and expensive for mobile users

Today, many users access their mails on their mobile devices (Blackberry and Smartphones) and they pay for every KB of data downloaded. HTML mails with images and markup hurt these users. Also, most mobile mail clients cannot handle HTML tables, images, formatting and javascripts.

Web-based emails break HTML emails

Many web-based email services (including the popular Google Mail) deletes the CSS styles between any Style tags and embedded images are delivered as attachments. Some render the mail with the HTML tags making the content unreadable.

HTML e-mails can connect to the internet by itself

If an HTML e-mail includes references to online images then (by default) Dial-Up Networking will try to connect to the internet to download those images. These images can also be used to set and retrieve cookies. This can be annoying for the recipient

HTML e-mail is dangerous

Since HTML can include scripts, HTML email is obviously more of a security risk than plain text, and the most recent viruses have made full use of this flaw.

The Solution

The thumb-rule is to send plain vanilla text e-mails. If, at all, it is necessary to send HTML e-mails, then the technique described below will make it more accessible and safe.

Do not use images, CSS and Javascripts
Do not use tables and multi-column layouts
Use H1, H2, h4, P tags to differentiate between the content levels
Give a link in the e-mail to the full version hosted in the server so that the user can visit is if he so desires

farid thinks...

As Darkness Falls..

Sinister Sunsets

Peora Old Dak Bungalow 1905

The Austere Livestock Flight

Blog Update!

Free & Open Source GIS (FOSS4G) Tools I Frequently Use

Nokia E71 v300.21.012 firmware update!

Google Maps launches Delhi driving directions

Can you see 'Turbo'?

caught up in deadlines

Firefox rocks

Designing for the Mobile Web - keep it skimpy

Why HTML Print Templates are dangerous and erratic

Open Source GIS Technologies are as capable as COTS?

Web Innovation 2008 Conference was cool

YouTube Mobile has had a soft-launch

Adobe Apollo has potential... but are we ready for another runtime?

Nokia Maps is coool!!!

Standards are great...

Gmail Mobile is great and Opera Mini rocks...

Formatted HTML E-mails Are Notorious

The Problems

Different mail clients interpret HTML e-mails differently

HTML Emails are heavy

Annoying and expensive for mobile users

Web-based emails break HTML emails

HTML e-mails can connect to the internet by itself

HTML e-mail is dangerous

The Solution

Example 1 : Text E-mail

Example 2 : HTML E-mail