Raju Alluri’s Personal Blog

శ్రావణ శుక్రవారం ప్రొద్దున్నే ఇంట్లో పూజ జరిగింది. తలస్నానం చేసి, ఆఫీసుకి రెడీ అయిన తరువాత సుష్టుగా ప్రసాదాలు తిన్నాను. పులిహోర, క్షీరాన్నం మరియు గారెలు తిన్న తరువాత కారెక్కుతూండగా వివిధభారతి వారి పండగ ప్రసారాలు గుర్తుకి వచ్చాయి. రేడియోలో పండగ ప్రసారాల సంబరం తగ్గింది అనుకుంటూ రేడియో పాటలు వింటున్నాను. ఈలోగా రేడియో జాకీ శ్రావణ శుక్రవారం గురించి, లక్ష్మీ దేవి కటాక్షం గురించి ఊదరగొట్టేసాడు. జనసామాన్యంలో పెరిగిన భక్తికి ముగ్ధుడనై ఉండగా వాడు శ్రోతలందరికీ రిసెషన్ ఎఫెక్టు తగ్గాలని ప్రార్ధించాడు. అపుడర్ధమయింది - అసలు విషయం.

The SSL cert issuing and validation process look clean individually, but this null character thingy spoils the party. Read more here. Good that Mozilla 3.5 is not vulnerable. Also, certain browsers restrict the validity of the wild card certs to a single level of indirection. Those browsers handle this case better.

The Microsoft-Yahoo agreement on Bing gives a shot in the arm to Bing. The approximate market share of Bing (5.3% in June) will be added with about 9% of market share that Yahoo enjoys now in the search engine landscape.

Take a look at this article on Technology Review. Talks about the way Microsoft is using the games to improve the search engine. Nice idea. Take a look at this paper referenced closer to the end of that article. It is worth reading.

Here are the audio albums purchased in the last few days:

• Josh (Telugu Movie Audio)
• Anjaneyulu (Telugu Movie Audio)

Yet to listen to the songs.

The promos of the movie Love Aaj Kal is one of the best I have seen in recent times. The TV promos are good enough, given the nice music. When I checked out their website, I got a pleasant surprise. Here are the good things I like about the movie website.

• The main page features only a couple of items: A disposable paper cup representing the present (2009) and a traditional Indian tea glass representing the past (1965). Nice thinking, glove in hand with the storyline of the movie.
• The way the photos are swapped (as if you are moving them with your hand) in the stack to show your selection. Reminds me of all those tabletop prototypes.

Very sensible website indeed!

BTW, the topic of discussion between me, my wife and my daughter is the dress style of of Deepika in the Chor Bazaari song from the movie.

This is a nice article talking about NSA’s cloud plans for collaborative intelligence gathering. The inclusion of discovery is an interesting facet of this model.

On a lighter tone, there is one company that is “maintaining” a cloud to gather “essentially every kind of data there is,” and it is called Google .

Read more here.

“Once Again, I must ask too much of you Harry”

says a feebling Dumbledore. And he is not alone. All fans of the series seek the same too. The latest movie in the series delivers the drama, but it could have been better.

I get a feeling that the movie adopted a visual theme of a slightly reddish tinge when compared to the previous installments.  That falls in line with the intended state at the end of this movie. The mini island in the middle of Lake Inferi reminds me of Superman’s planet Krypton. The reddish fire summoned by Dumbledore reminds me of the backdrop in which Anakin Skywalker fights with Obi-Wan Kenobi in Revenge of the Sith. But the biggest letdown is the scene on the Astronomy tower. The book describes Harry’s helplessness, immobilized under the invisible cloak, very well. The movie doesn’t depict it well enough to make it dramatic enough.

Overall, the movie is a good watch. I enjoyed the book better.

India PC market shrunk by 6 percent year over year in the Q2 of 2009. This is a better number when compared to 11% decline in first quarter. Read more here.