My first few Weeks in Milford

Not pretty exciting!Well looking forward to it..
I have just rented a 2BHK apartment here, planning to buy a car(Milford is really horrible when it comes to public transport..Boston is way better)..
Work normally extends 8-8, and I do cook food sometimes!
Nothing exciting happening here...just the regular work-cook-sleep kinda life..
I am dying to jump start another small project or something..something that I may look forward when I come back home...The way it was in India...
The best thing here is the weather..it is pleasant..sometimes cold..and changes erratically...Spring is arriving...and the trees are starting to bloom..so that is the good part of this place..
The first place that I visited was Rhode Island..but the rains ruined the fun..had to stay back at the hotel for about 6-7 hours..will post snaps soon..
I have never been out of house like this..never in my entire life..so it all seems overwhelming...I have to make decisions that I have never thought of taking...and at times I tend to go nuts deciding between things..

My Experiments

Last night,I was trying to install Debian on my Ubuntu sytem under Virtualbox.It was a painstaking 3-day download from the Debian Http servers, and then I understand that Virtualbox currently does not support a 64-bit guest OS yet.So it more 3-painstaking days to download the 32-bit Debian iso.

Apart from this I have ordered a new device from China,it has come pre-installed with WinCE and GPS logging in-built, and I need to run EmDebian on it.I really want to write down one large blog post that will show actually how to do this..effortlessly.

Things have slowly moved away from Orkut and Facebook, and more into Twitter.The system is so good that it allows posting information from a varied set of sources, and that's what make my mind tick.

I cannot believe this, that since the last 8 weekends, I have done nothing but built apps one after the other for Twitter..although they are in pretty nascent stage to date..And I love it!

Nothing more than this.

I Ran and Ran and Ran...To the finish....

It was a great experience to participate in the SCMM 2009.I enrolled in the 21.097 Km race that started at the Azad Maidan and then finished there.

I was able to finish the race in just a shade over three and a half hours.

Check the snaps here.

DIY GorillaPod

I had been trying since a few days to find something interesting to make,when i really get bored out of my programming and web surfing..The best place to be in such times is instructables.com.

I am in awe of what people are creating out of their imagination and really cool stuff is out there to be discovered.

I happened to read about the GorillaPod,which is a simple tripod for a point and shoot,and its happens to be something created out of sheer genius...the tripod can actually wrap around things,and stay stiff,so you can get those oddly positioned shots out of your camera.

Here is what my DIY version looked like...

To be honest,I have made this in 2 days flat!And it has not cost me more than $15.

Here are some more snaps of it,where the tripod seems to assumes the role of a photogenic model.

Here is how it can shoot in the macro mode....

The Pod clinging to a thin Door of my cupboard(Please neglect the mess within the cupboard,actually its a black hole,whatever has gone in,really I have never been able to find that thing back....)

Last but not the least,how the tripod clings to the window grill in my house...

I would be keen to sell this to someone who would be really interested.Drop me an email at rupin[dot]chheda[at]gmail.com....

Hacking the A570

My good old friend Mirang owns a Canon A570.
A570+CHDK=Lots of Fun on an idle Saturday afternoon.
The term CHDK stands for the Canon Hack Development Kit....
I then asked one question-Why in the world does one buy a digital SLR?And then I realised that not everyone is born a techie.
If you own a Canon point and shoot and looking for the fun of a digital SLR(Mind it it gives you the ability to open and close the camera shutter for (1/100k) second.Now thats way cool)..Then the CHDK is a way to go....

I am completely in love with all the people who really are doing things that defy the rules of normal gadget usage.They have a different perspective on gadgets,and are looking for the next free hour to try something new.The world calls them "hackers".They mean something else to me...Something way more respectable....

I really did not want to write another post teaching how to boot the camera from the CHDK scripts..there are lots of posts and information out to search and easily accessible.
Go ahead..give your Canon camera some steroids!

Updates Since my Last Blog Post

Woah..That was a long time ago..I guess...
I have been places..Visited a Marriage in Mahuva,Ahmedabad last week,and then had been to Panchgani,Maharastra this weekend.Check my album here.

I had ordered a Lappy ,the DV6929 from HP.This serves as at replacement to my old machine which has served me since the last 6 odd years.
The lappy looks great,and I seriously hate Vista,which has come preloaded.I will transfer all the files and folders from the old machine to a portable drive, and then format both the machine.The older one would be handed over to my neice,and the lappy would have XP and Linux installed...Lets see if all goes well :).Need to also set up a wifi environ at my house, and setting up a new corner in my house where I can happily sit and enjoy chatting online with friends with my cup of coffee.
And yeah,I need to get an old lappy working to set as a Linux Server in some corner of my house...

I have had a stack of around 300 Gb of movies,which I am planning to watch one every night.

Work at office and home has taken a real slowdown now,and I am most of the time surfing new things at delicious or digg...

Heart Transplant

I am scheduled for a heart transplant next year...I was planning it since the end of my college,and finally I found a donor this March...the preprations for the same have being going since then itself..the final step would be most probably taken end of next year....I am advised to get in shape before the event...I am hoping this will go well...