Recent
When you get bit by precision & scale in PL/SQL…
··250 words·2 mins
Programming
Oracle
I got a bug assigned to me where my application was returning an incorrect value. Some background: The function was an age check function which takes in date of birth & start date and returns the age.
In this specific case, the date of birth was 05.01.1951 and start date was 01.01.2016 - the expected age that was to be returned(after round off to 4) was 64.9892. The application, however was returning 65.
Download your Spotify My Music songs as MP3
··208 words·1 min
Programming
Spotify
I wanted a way to download my Spotify songs for offline listening. Ideally I’d subscribe to Spotify to make use of Offline feature, but they haven’t officially launched here so that’s out of the question.
A while back, I’d used spotify_to_mp3 which made use of Grooveshark to download, but Grooveshark shut down, leaving the script defunct. This gave me an idea to build something similar.
With this as the motivation, I built Spotify-dl to scratch an itch as well as to improve my Python skills.
An Indian developer’s way of handling merge conflict
··92 words·1 min
Programming
Rants
Git
So this happened just now with a colleague. He’s been working for few months now.
My way of handling merge conflict:
Open WinMerge to diff See the conflicting part Correct the conflicting part by copying the changes to the destination file in WinMerge His way
Open WinMerge to diff See the conflicting part Opens the source file in Windows notepad Copies the entire contents to clipboard Opens a new tab in Notepad++ Pastes the contents Goes to the line to be corrected.
Getting php mail() function running on Windows 8.1 with WAMP Server and configuring it to use Gmail’s SMTP servers
··289 words·2 mins
Tips & How-To's
PHP
Sendmail
With the next Barcamp Bangalore looming round the corner, I’d pitched in to help with some of the website tasks. I installed the traditional WAMP stack with WAMP Server for Windows and started working with WordPress. Needed to get the email notifications working, saw that it wasn’t. Bit of research & found that I’d need a SMTP server or an equivalent of sendmail.
All the cool kids seem to be using Fake sendmail - I tried it to use with Gmail’s SMTP servers which uses authentication & TLS.
Game Dev Tycoon review/recommendation
··237 words·2 mins
Gaming
Mini review/recommendation I’d written about Game Dev Tycoon on Steam:
You start off as a single game dev operating out of your garage, and then slowly expand as you move to bigger office, hire more people and just grow.
The game starts off in the distant past, and contains homages to major consoles & other gaming device, albeit with similar names, no doubt to avoid legal wrangles.
Gameplay wise, this game will have you hooked.
On Backupify killing their free backup service & online services’ bait and and switch tactics
··329 words·2 mins
Opinions
Applications
Long ago when Backupify said they were going to offer their service for free, I knew it was too good to be true and weren’t going to last long. Fast forward today, they mention they’re going to not only kill their free twitter backup service, but also wipe out data of their existing free users.
Dear Customer,
We are writing to let you know that we are discontinuing the current TweetBackup service.
Pirates play a gamedev simulator; go bankrupt because of piracy.
··145 words·1 min
Gaming
Games
What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy? →
Summary of "What happens when pirates play a game development simulator and then go bankrupt because of piracy?" When Game Dev Tycoon (a Game Development Simulation Game) was released, its developer released a cracked version on BitTorrent simultaneously. After a certain point in the game, the cracked version would prevent the player from generating simulated revenue due to simulated piracy.
Alienware X51 with Ubuntu makes no sense
··724 words·4 mins
Opinions
Games
Linux
This morning in my half-woken state, as I was checking Hacker News, I spotted this piece about Alienware launching the X51 with Ubuntu. I initially thought I was dreaming, and woke up immediately and read the piece, and I was left dumbfounded when I read it again to be sure.
Kind of dumbfounded at Dell launching an Alienware X51 with Ubuntu https://alienware.com/ubuntu/ Not sure what’s Dell thinking - there aren’t any great native AAA games available, can’t imagine this would make studios to make Linux ports either
Reviving my dead Windows 8 install with no bootable USB/DVD and Linux Mint & Cr48
··680 words·4 mins
News
Tips & How-To's
Cr48
Linux
Mint
Windows
Couple of months ago, just about a month before #cpgweds - the engagement my Envy 14 laptop started showing signs of dying - weird noises coming from the vents, system freezing arbitrarily, system getting incredibly hot - and that’s really unusual because the Envy’s cooling system is probably one of the best that I’ve seen in a laptop. Soon enough, it became clear that a fan was not working - my idle temperatures hit 85 degrees C, and start any game or even xbmc, and the temperatures would hit 95-100 and shutdown sooner or later.
Salute to Fabrice Bellard
··246 words·2 mins
Programming
I probably top the ranks of lazy arses who procrastinate like there’s no tomorrow - and then there’s Fabrice Bellard
Amongst others, he’s created/led
A 4G LTE base station running entirely in software on a standard PC. A new ASN1 compiler generating small and efficient C code. A PC emulator in Javascript: how much time takes your browser to boot Linux ? 2700 billion decimal digits of Pi computed with a desktop computer.