Welcome venukb.com

As mentioned in my previous blog, I moved my blog to wordpress. However later I found that the functionality provided in wordpress.com was very limited compared to functionaly provided by wordpress.org.

In wordpress.com, your blog is hosted free by Wordpress (like Blogger), but you cannot add extra themes or plugins. You can only select from the one's provided by wordpress. So in order to use the full functionality of wordpress you need to host it on your own server. From many days I was thinking of registering a domain. However the "cost" factor made me think many times.

So I decided to bear the "cost" and registered my own domain

www.venukb.com

Also I have used wordpress.org to host my blog www.venukb.com/blog

The setup of the site was pretty easy, the details of which will be posted soon :)

So go ahead and explore www.venukb.com , and don't forget to give your feedback.

Contemplating ....

I have stuck to Blogger for blogging for quite some time. Very few people know that I have a synchronized blog at venukb.wordpress.com. Now I am seriously contemplating on a move to wordpress due to number of reasons. Wordpress is pretty powerful and allows tagging and categorizing of blogs. And again if someday I have my own domain, wordpress provides a very convienient way to move the blog to my own server. And there is a nice search feature and I dont need to rely on google. I really think this search is needed as my blog grows bigger and bigger. I guess blogger was intended for people who dont anything about web posting. I guess its pretty good for a entry level. As now I guess I have entered the "intermediate" level and now ready to play with PHP :-) And best of all, it wordpress provides a import facility, which can import all the blogs+comments. Nice isn't it. So if your have this link in your favourites don't forget it to change to http://venukb.wordpress.com Categorizes should definitely help you in selecting the blogs of your interest :-)

Riya - Photo Searching Redefined

Few weeks back I blogged on "Photo Uploading" portals. Flickr was the best, however there was a upload limit in the free version and the number of albums you could create also was limited to 3. At that same time, the google search had come up with a link to Riya. The portal boasted of a photo search based on "Face Recognition". I tried to sign up, but I found out that it was still in developement and asked for people to register for beta notification. 2 weeks back Riya sent out the beta invitation to the registered guys. Infact now Riya is open to public. This is how Riya works 1. First thing to do is "Register" in Riya. 2. Then you need to download the Riya Uploader which is used to upload the photos (yeah you guys might say the name suggests that). However this uploader doesn't just upload the photos. There is a face recognition engine built into this uploader which recognizes faces/text in the photos that are being uploaded (The CPU usage does shoot up to max and you can make that out from the CPU fan sound :-) ) . Initially this recognition engine was built into the server, but later they found it slows up the portal a lot, and hence moved the processing to client side. 3. Once you upload the photos you should be able to see them in the "Albums" section. Now click on the photo and you should see riya marking the faces in the photo and asking "Who is this" 4. This is where you start training Riya to identify people. You train Riya to recognize say 15 photos, and from next time it will automatically recognize the face when you upload the photos. There are different kinds of training available. check this "Take The Tour" section for more details 5. There are other settings you can do, like make the album public or private and also share the photos with your friends. 6. And the search is not just limited to face, Riya can also read "Text" within the photos and users can search based on this text. There are host of other features like Calendar Search, training based on the email address etc. And the best feature of Riya is that its FREE. Yes, there is no limit on the number of photos to be uploaded and no limit on the number of albums. So go ahead and experiment with Riya ! Search for "Venu" and see what you get ! Also do check out CEO Munjal Shah's blog ! Worth Reading Other interesting links: About Riya Vision of Riya Jobs at Riya (Bangalore and California guys Check out !) Staff at Riya Official Blog of Riya

Operating System By Oracle !

Oracle was the first company to release a commercial database Oracle8i for Linux. Today, all key Oracle products are available on Linux. Now the database giant has more agressive plans and wants a place on the desktop PC. To counter Microsoft Windows' dominance among corporates, Oracle revealed plans to create and sell their own Operating System based on Linux complete with all required software. Infact, Oracle even considered buying Novell, which after Red Hat is the biggest distributor of Linux. Such a move would redraw the software landscape and open a new front in Oracle’s long rivalry with US rival Microsoft. It will also give a big boot to Linux adaption among the enterprise. Larry Ellison also told Financial Times newspaper that he was pushing Oracle further into hosting software on behalf of customers, relying on regular subscription payments rather than upfront revenue Source : FT

Calendar - Google Style !

Google has now introduced Google Calendar - a "google" tool that simplifies keeping track of events, special occasions, and appointments. Its integrated with Gmail and you can add appoinments directly from your Gmail messages. More information can be found on this link Now I can see one more features of MS Outlook being put on to web ! Next in the line might be : Google Notes This is the only one I find missing now in Gmail, and yes we definitely need a nice GMail client.

Sony Ericsson Rocks !

Recently I happened to see a flash of the new Sony Ericsson mobile phones displayed in CeBIT2006. I also happened to see a program in CNBC where the CeBIT was covered. The host of the show checked the nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson booths. His final verdict was “Sony Ericsson Rocks !”. He thought that the best phone in the show was the Sony Ericsson W950

I have stuck to the view that Sony Ericsson makes the best mobile phones and my Nokia buddies have always begged to differ. Agreed Nokia does bring out with a new phone “every day”. But the features build and most important the cost to feature provided by Sony Ericsson is amazing

Check out some of the other phones (which I liked)

Google Talk - Updated !

Goolge has release a new version of Google Talk ! Download the latest from http://www.google.com/talk/ Now you can add pictures (as you do in Yahoo or MSN) and also change the appearance of the chat session. Check this official googletalk blog for more details

Google Romance

One more beta out from Google... It called Google Romance..Read on for more details !! Google Romance, a beta product currently incubating in Google Labs, uses cutting-edge personal search algorithms to help you find your soulmate, then sponsors your first Contextual Date with said soulmate-to-be in exchange for showing you highly relevant advertising that just might help Cupid's arrow find its mark. Does it really work? Yup it does ! The tour is pretty extensive ! Do read it before doing the search for your soulmate I used the search facility and the results were mindboggling ! Check it out without fail !

Multiplex in Mysore Infosys !

Wish we had something like this in our office !