Various Hells as descirbed in Markandeya Purana

It was interesting to read an article like this. I don’t want to get into the topic of how true its, but read its quite interesting. :)

Of course I like it, some what we can recollect the ‘Anniyan’ movie effect!! ;)

Happy thought processing!

 

A description of different hells, from Sri Markandeya Purana, comprised of the dialogue between the sage Jaimini and the sage Markandeya.
hell-01
The Brahman said, ‘O son! Describe in detail about hell.’ Sumati said, ‘O father! Yamadutas carry and lynch those people who eat inedible things, who deceive and dishonor their friends, who indulge in illicit relationships, who desert their wife, and who destroy public properties like gardens, water sources, etc. Yamadutas tie the hands and legs of such people and throw them into the fire. On their way to hell, such people are bitten by crows, storks, wolves, vultures, etc.

They stay in the inferno for a thousand years. Then they are shifted to another hell named Tama, which is always shrouded in darkness. Sinners who kill the cows and their brothers are thrown into this hell. They panic due to darkness and extreme cold. They get nothing to eat and drink. Moreover, chilling winds aggravates their miseries by making their bones stiff. These sinners then drink their own blood and eat their own flesh. They stay there until all their sins have been attenuated completely. Then they are thrown into yet another hell named Nikrintan, which revolves like the wheel of a potter.

Hoisting the sinners on the wheel, Yamadutas cut their organs but still their sufferings do not end, because the cut organs rejoin and get cut repeatedly. This continues for thousand of years. Then the sinners are put in Aprathisth hell where they experience unbearable sorrow and miseries. The sinners are then put in Chakrasankar hell where they are tormented with wheels and huge bells. They are disemboweled and their eyes are also pricked. The sinners have to pass through different hells, namely Asipatra, Taptakumbha and Lohakumbha.’

Yamaduta and the King of Videha

Sumati says, ‘I was born in a Vaishya family, seven births before this present one. In that birth, I once prevented cows from drinking water. As a result of this sin, I was thrown in the hell named Daarun where I spent one hundred years without a drop of water.

Suddenly one day, a cool pleasant wind began to blow, its cool touch gave some relief to me. I saw that a Yamaduta was guiding a gentle looking man. Besides me, all the inmates of the hell felt extreme joy by the sight of that gentleman. The gentleman was asking that Yamaduta as to why he was being taken to the hell. From the words of that gentleman, it appeared that he was a renowned scholar. That man was, in fact, the ruler of a kingdom named Videha and was popular as the fosterer of his subjects.

Descriptions of Tortures in Hell

Thus asked by the gentleman, the Yamadutas replied politely, ‘O king! You once deliberately prevented your wife Pivari from conceiving because you were more attracted to your second wife, Sushobhana. It is because of that action that you have been brought here to undergo severe torture.’ The religious minded king said, ‘I am willing to go wherever you want to take me, but before doing that I would like to have answers to my questions. I see many people undergoing severe tortures in this hell. Big and frightening crows prick their eyes. Tell me, for what sin they are facing such tortures.’

Yamaduta said, ‘O king! Humans suffer or enjoy according to their Karmas. The effect of their Karmas diminishes in proportion to their sufferings. These crows are pricking the eyes of such people who had seduced other women and deceitfully acquired others’ wealth. These people will suffer for the same number of years as their eyes blinked during the leering.

These crows prick the tongues of those people who had criticised the Vedas, Deities, Brahmans and teachers. Those who caused differences between friends, husband and wife, father and sons and relatives, or killed the performer of the yagyas are suffering under the saw. Those who insulted their parents and teachers have been thrown in the pit of pus, faeces and other excretions with their head down. Those who had food before offering it to the Deities, guests, servants, father and elders, fire and birds, stay in a pit of pus.

Iron nails are hammered into the ears of those people who gleefully heard the criticism of creatures, Deities, Brahmans and Vedas. Those who remarried their daughters to another person despite her former husband being alive are cut into pieces and thrown into saline river. Those who betrayed their friends are tied tightly with a rope. Worms, scorpion, crows and owls then bite their bodies.

Those who enjoyed carnal intimacy during daytime or had illicit relations with women are hammered with nails to a prickly Bombax tree. Those who insulted the Vedas and fire are thrown from the lofty peaks of a mountain. O king! Those who steal gold, those who a kill Brahman, those who drink wine, and those who rape the wife of their teacher are burnt in fire.’

Attenuation of Sins

Yamaduta said, ‘As a result of accepting money from a degraded person, a Brahman takes birth as an ass. A Brahman who carries out yagya for a degraded person takes birth as worm after undergoing severe sufferings in different types of hell. A person takes birth as an ass or an inferior bird as a result of abusing his parents. A person who does not worship his tutelary god before eating takes birth as a monkey. Traitors take birth as fish. Those who steal cereals take birth as mice.

A sudra, who manages to establish intimacy with a Brahman woman takes birth as a worm. Similarly, killers of woman and children also take birth as worms. Ungrateful people take birth as worms, insects, grasshoppers, scorpion, crows, etc. Encroachers of land takes birth as grass shrubs, creepers and inferior trees. Butchers who kill bulls take birth as eunuchs. Thus a person has to face the result of his Karma according to the gravity of his sins.’

Sumati says, ‘As Yamaduta began to push the king ahead, all the creatures in hell gave a loud cry, ‘O king! Please stay here for few more moments. The wind that blows towards us after touching your body gives us immense joy. This wind has ended our sufferings and pains. Have pity on us.’

The king asked the Yamaduta, ‘Why are these people so joyous by my presence?’ Yamaduta said, ‘O king! Initially, you used to sustain your body by the leftovers of the Deities, ancestors, guests and ascetics. This is the reason why the wind that blows touching your body is causing such pleasure to these people.’ The king said, ‘If I can eliminate the sufferings of these sinners merely by standing here, I will definitely stay here.’ Yamaduta said, ‘No, you cannot stay here. It is a place for the sinners only. Come with us. You will have to enjoy the pleasure of your pious action.’ The king said, ‘No, I will not go anywhere leaving these poor people in this pitiable condition.’

Yamaduta said, ‘O king! Look, Dharma and Indra have themselves arrived to escort you to the heaven.’ Dharma said, ‘O king! You have worshipped me. Hence follow me to the heaven.’ The king replied, ‘No, I will not go anywhere leaving these thousands of people in the hell.’ Indra said, ‘Everyone has to taste the fruits of his Karmas. You cannot help them.’

The king said, ‘O Indra! Tell me, how virtuous was I in my previous life?’ Dharma said, ‘Though your pious actions are fathomless, be sure that their significance are not much more than drops of water in an ocean, or the stars in the sky. The kindness you have shown towards these sinners has further enhanced your virtuosity.’ The king said, ‘If it is so, may all these people be released from their sufferings by the virtue of my good Karmas.’ Indra said, ‘O king! By your words, your pious action has increased like the height of the mountain and these sinners have also been released from their sufferings.

Published in: on November 6, 2009 at 12:09 pm Leave a Comment
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Visual Studio – Debugging Multiple Threads with Breakpoints conditions

Its an article which i read and thought would be worth sharing.

Happy Reading! ;)

Debugging Multiple Threads with Breakpoints conditions:

One of the challenges with debugging applications with multiple threads in Visual Studio is that when you place a breakpoint you tend to interrupt the flow of the application. This can often mean that tracking down an issue is very time consuming. Let’s take a very simple example where we have a thread that performs a task then sleeps for 100 milliseconds.

private void ThreadWork()
{
for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
DoWork();
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
}
}

Now say that something is going wrong on this thread, the first thing we can do is to place a normal breakpoint:

1

Here we can see a regular breakpoint that has been hit and notice that you can hover over variables to see what their current values are. But what happens if the error only happens after say 1000 iterations. We can use a breakpoint hit count to limit when the breakpoint is hit. Right clicking the line with the breakpoint you can set the Hit Count property via the Breakpoint –> Hit Count… menu item.

2

In this case we want the breakpoint to be hit after 1000 cycles:

3

Note that setting the Hit Count sets up a rule where by the breakpoint will be hit based on the number of times the line has been executed. If the loop was instead modified to the following the breakpoint would be hit after 1000 * 100 iterations of the for loop, rather than the 1000 iterations we wanted.

for (int i = 0; i < 100000; i++)
{
if (i % 100 == 0)
{
DoWork();
}
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100);
}

To get around this we can use a breakpoint Condition. Again this can be set using the Breakpoint –> Condition menu item from the right-click menu.

4

In this case every time the breakpoint line is reached the expression i>=1000 will be evaluated and the result used to determine if the breakpoint has been reached. Note that this expression can be as complex as you would like but it does add an overhead to execution. If timing is important then you should make this expression as simple as possible.

If you have specified either a Hit Count or a Condition you will see that the marking alongside your code has changed slightly. Instead of the normal red dot, you should now see a red dot with a white plus sign inside it.

5

One thing to be aware of is that Hit Count and Conditions are not mutually exclusive which means that you have have both of them set. As they use the same breakpoint marking it’s not that easy to see if they have both been set. However if you right-click the breakpoint line you will see that the menu actually indicates which items have been set.

6

Unfortunately the process of actually stopping the execution of your application at a breakpoint often has the side effect of hiding or obscuring the issue you are trying to track down. Luckily there is a way that you can write an output to the output window and continue execution. From the right-click menu select the Breakpoint –> When Hit… item.

7

This dialog allows you to either specify an output to be written to the output window or to run a macro. You can also toggle whether execution continues or breaks when the breakpoint is hit.

In this screen shot the output consists of a number of parts. Essentially the output is just a string literal that will be printed to the output window. However, $FUNCTION is a predefined value corresponding to the current function name which will be substituted into the output. The dialog points out that there are a number of other predefined values that can be used. Quite often you will want to put your own custom values in there – this is where the { <expression> } syntax is used. In this case we have chosen just to output the value of the variable i, but we could make this expression more complex so long as it can be converted to a string. Again the more complex this expression is the more it will affect your application.

Now when your breakpoint is encountered by your application it will no longer break, it will simply write a string to the output window. This can help you track down issues on background threads without affecting your application execution significantly.

Published in: on October 29, 2009 at 11:58 am Leave a Comment
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Comprehend Best Dialogue

Recently i saw the movie Eeram, a Tamil Thriller movie, which was very good, pretty decent movie to watch at this current times :)

There is a dialogue that is a head shot for all the audience, may be if they realize it!!

It says “Namba veeda vida, pakkathu veetula irukura prichainai than perusa theriyum”.

For those who are not aware of the language Tamil, it says, “More than the problems in our home, we tend to concentrate more towards the neighboring houses which seem to be too complicated and too big”.

I am sure it’s not just a dialogue that the script writer would have written. We all should probably try to put this through our mind and keep them working.

Let’s all wake up ;) and apprehend situations.

Published in: on at 10:50 am Leave a Comment
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After a Decade, it happned!!!

Yes it really happened after a decade nearly of dreaming to get it!! I mean I finally got my Car license. :) for many, I may sound very silly, but only months back I got the chance of joining a driving school and here am as license holder now!

Since we don’t have any own car, I was never allowed to join a driving class for all these years, and this time I nearly fought for my dream and was accepted :)

how can it be a decade??!! that should be everyone’s query. I shall clarify that as well, right from my early childhood days, I started getting accustomed with cycling, and as months went, I started driving two wheeler. and very soon I got bored of the two wheeler at a much younger age, that I wanted to drive a car!! that was a big task for us. sigh!! so I had to wait until I get my regular two wheeler license and then still wasn’t allowed as we dint have a car. so it’s a big task, prolonged, yet completed very successfully!! :)

But now that I have a license, but don’t have a car, neither do my friends have(of all the case, I can drive from them)!! Ha ha.. ;) again just wondering when will I drive my car always..

now that I feel like driving a car where ever I go :(   lets hope for the best, as usual!!

Published in: on October 28, 2009 at 2:38 pm Comments (2)
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Download mp3 songs from YouTube!!

This is one amazing site that am using for a while. You can pick the videos from the YouTube and then use this software to download the mp3 out of it.

http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/guides/dvd/convert-YouTube-to-MP3.htm

Its pretty decent I must say!!

happy downloading..  :)

Published in: on at 11:14 am Leave a Comment
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The Perplexity of life.. :)

When we speak aloud in an intention that we should be centered, we are never heard nor listened by others….

But when we write things on a post, even though we don’t wanna people to read certain things, we are actually making the whole world to concentrate on us!!

That’s life… :) Crazy mind… ;)

Published in: on July 23, 2009 at 10:01 pm Comments (2)
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Best Wolfram Alpha’s Easter Eggs.. :)

well, i was playing with the Wolfram Alpha with these things.. so dude, try out these things enjoy ur smile treat.. ;) ;)

These are the ones that I tried to play around..

1. Who are you?

2.What is a computational engine?

3.Can you have children?

4.What is the sound of one hand clapping?

5.I hate you

6. I love you

7. How old are you?

8. How many roads must a man walk down?

9. Are you self aware?

10. How do I win lottery?

11. egg or chicken?

12. what do you like?

13. do you like me?

14. Bye

Do enjoy these, but also get to see the top Easter Eggs… ;) … am likin it.. cool one…

These are the Brand New Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs: ;) so cool…

1. How long is a piece of string?


Wolfram String

At least Wolfram Alpha tries to comfort and reassure you. Wait…do we want that?!


2. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?


Wolfram Woodchuck

One of the commenters in our original article pointed out an actual study that quantified how much wood a woodchuck could actually chuck. And now, Wolfram Alpha, can tell you that an average woodchuck could chuck 361.9 cubic centimeters of wood every day.


3. What do men/women want?


Wolfram Men

Wolfram Alpha knows us way too well…or maybe not well enough. What do you think?


4. Where’s Waldo?


Wait, not even Wolfram Alpha knows where Waldo is? Waldo is a master of disguise…


5. Where did I put my keys?


Wolfram Keys

:)

Bonus: Dude, where’s my car?


6. Where the hell is Matt?


Wolfram Where the hell is Matt


  • 7. Are you a PC/Mac?


  • Wolfram Alpha finally tells us who it favors in the Mac vs. PC wars. Actually, it took a cop-out. Smart of you, Wolfram Alpha.

  • 8. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?


    Wolfram Trees in a Forest
  • Wolfram Alpha can answer even the great conundrum.

    9. When is Judgment Day?


    Wolfram Terminator Judgment Day
  • …shouldn’t we all be dead? Thank you for saving us, John Connor (for now).

    10. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?


    Wolfram Carmen Sandiego
  • Carmen is a sneaky, sneaky gal. I sort of want to pull out my old CD roms now.

The Top 10 Wolfram Alpha Easter Eggs are here.. ;)


1. What is your name?


Wolfram What is your name ImageLet’s start with a small but simple Easter Egg. Ask Wolfram Alpha “What is your name?” and it will return with you the correct answer.

You know, one of the first steps to self-awareness is self-identity…

Bonus: Give Wolfram Alpha the quintessential computer greeting, “Hello, World.”


2. What’s the speed of an unladen swallow?


Wolfram Swallow Image

This easter egg, at least for me, was a very pleasant surprise. There is a famous scene in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail where a bridgekeeper asks King Arthur the speed of an unladen swallow. His question back turns the tide and allows him to pass.

Well, Wolfram Alpha didn’t miss this little bit of movie magic. Ask Wolfram about the average speed of an unladen swallow (doesn’t matter if it’s African or not), and Wolfram will give you the non-answer you’re looking for. It even cites the source. Clever.


3. Hello


Wolfram Hello

One of the simplest and most common greetings in the human language gets you a unique response from the computational knowledge engine. Just say “Hello” to Wolfram Alpha, and it’ll say, “Hello, human.” Other common greetings like “What’s up?,” “Hi”

Is this just Wolfram being polite, or is the advanced search program talking to us condescendingly? This might be something we have to investigate further.

Bonus: Wolfram also goes beyond “Hello” in conversation. Some more questions to ask it:

“Can you help me?”
“Where are you?”
“How are you?”
“What will you do?”
“What are you?”
“What do you not like?”


4. How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?


Wolfram How Many Roads Dylan Image

We’re glad to know that Wolfram Alpha knows his Bob Dylan.


5. How to cook a Welshman?


The answer…clearly speaks for itself…


6. Where am I?


Wolfram Where am I Image

If you ever find yourself on a random island one morning with just you and a computer, feel comforted knowing that Wolfram Alpha knows where you are. Seriously, just ask it the question and its magic (or your IP address) will do the rest.


7. Why did the chicken cross the road?


Wolfram Chicken Road Image

Did I mention that Wolfram also can crack a joke or two?


8. What’s the answer to life?


Wolfram The Answer Image

In Google, if you ask the question “What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?,” you will get a very special answer from the search engine.

Well guess what? Wolfram knows the true answer to this very important question as well. I won’t spoil the answer for you, though.

Unfortunately, when I asked Wolfram about the question to life, it was stumped. Hopefully future versions will get us this information as well and initiate an era of peace on Earth.


9. P = NP


Wolfram P equals NP Image

For those of you that are not computer science geeks or programming nerds, P = NP is one of the most persistent unsolved questions within computer science. You can learn more about it on Wikipedia, but the point isn’t that Wolfram has the answer, but that Wolfram is working on the problem.

So, if you want to receive the answer as soon as Wolfram knows, just leave your email with the computational engine. That’s just nifty.


10. I can’t let you do that, Dave


Wolfram Sorry Dave Image

And also Ten even better Wolfram Aplha Easter Eggs: ;) ;)

1. To be or not to be?


Wolfram To Be Image

We already knew that Wolfram Alpha could crack a joke and knew its music, but literature too? Maybe Wolfram is a romantic at heart?

Thank you: shotbeak


2. How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?


Woodchuck Wolfram Image

It’s a classic tongue-twister that we’re certain you’re going to repeat aloud in a few seconds:

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

But apparently tongue-twisters don’t bother Wolfram one bit.

Thank you: Alex Korth


3. Do you speak __?


Hey, hey – it’s a fair question to ask Wolfram if it can speak Spanish, Latin, or German. After all, Google (Google) search comes in 100+ languages. We’ll forgive Wolfram Alpha for only speaking English for now – it’s barely a few days old – but look forward to international versions of the engine.

Bonus: Try asking Wolfram a question in some foreign languages (i.e. que paso pa?) and Wolfram will answer in that language. Of course, this kind of contradicts Wolfram’s earlier claim that it only knows English…

Thank you: Rosana Hemann and Miguel Alvarez


4. How old are you?


Wolfram Age Image

Wolfram Alpha knows at what time the sun rose on the day you were born, so why wouldn’t it know a little about its own birthday? Wolfram provides detailed information in days, seconds, and hours as to how long it’s been in public use.

Thank you: Kristen Boyd and Megan


5. Where have all the flowers gone?


Wolfram Flowers

Wolfram Alpha once again proves that it knows the lyrics to some of the world’s most popular songs.

Thank you: Kristen Boyd


6. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?


Wolfram Angels

This one explains itself…if you know who Dorothy Sayers is.

Thank you: Allison


7. 88 MPH


Wolfram 88MPH Back to the future

Hidden deep within a standard query is this little gem from Back to the Future (which, if you haven’t seen, please do yourself the favor and rent/download). It’s good to know that it knows the speed of Delorian-based time travel.

Wait…do you think Wolfram knows the secret to time travel? This could be interesting.

Bonus: Ask it about flux capacitors. Seriously, go try right now and then come back.

Thank you: Mark H. Delfs


8. Can you eat?


Wolfram Eat Image

Well that’s rude of Wolfram – it didn’t even give me a chance to ask my entire question.

Bonus: Try asking whether it can dance. I don’t know why you’d want to dance with a computational entity, but to each his or her own I guess.

Thank you: don manu and Josh


9. Licks to the center of a tootsie pop?


Wolfram Tootsie Image

10. Are you self-aware?


These are the ones that I tried to play around..

  1. Who are you?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. What is a computational engine?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

3. Can you have children?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. I hate you

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. I love you

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. How old are you?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. How many roads must a man walk down?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. Are you self aware?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

  1. How do I win lottery?

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

Published in: on June 20, 2009 at 4:06 pm Leave a Comment
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Koyambedu Sri Vaikundavaasa Perumaal Temple (Chennai)

Sri Rama Ramethi Rame Rame manorame
Sahasranama Thathulyam Rama nama varanane… :)

Its a gift for all those Chennaites having blessed to have such a beauty in Chennai.. :)
Koyambedu is situated at the north western side of Chennai. An ancient temple for Lord Vishnu is located in Koyambedu where the main deity is Sri Vaikundavaasa Perumaal and Goddess Sri Kanagavalli Thaayaar. This temple lies adjacent to Sri Kurungaaleeswarar temple, with both forming twin temples in Koyambedu.
It is also said that the names of this place in ancient days were as Kosai Nagar, Koyattipuram and Prayachithapuram. Kulothunga Chozha is said to have ruled in the 12th Century and hence it is said that the temple was constructed during his period.
It is said that Lava and Kusa, sons of Sri Rama stayed with Sage Valmiki in his Ashram here, along with their mother Sita Devi. It is said that Sri Vaikundavaasa Perumaal here was worshipped by Sage Valmiki, Lava and Kusa.

Usually, Vaikunda Perumaal temples will have the presiding deity in sitting posture. But here Perumaal is seen in standing posture along with Sri Devi and Bhu Devi.

This temple is also famous for its shrine for Sri Rama and Sita Devi. Sri Rama and Sita are found just outside the sanctum, unusually wearing normal clothing instead of being dressed like a king and queen. Sita Devi is seen wearing a regular saree, with her hairdo (called Kodaali Kondai) as an ordinary woman. It is made to signify their position when they spent 14 years in the forest.

In another place, Sita Devi is also seen as a pregnant woman, as She gave birth to Lava and Kusa at sage Valmiki’s Ashram, after She was exiled to the forest.

Goddess Sri Kanagavalli Thaayaar is present in a separate shrine on the outer praakaaram at the southwest side of the temple. Goddess is so beautiful, decorated with all Her ornaments.

A shrine for Sri Aandaal is located at the northwest corner of the temple.

There are 3 trees uniquely grown very close to each other. There is one Vilvam tree between 2 neem trees on both of its sides. It is said that Vilvam signifies Lord Shiva and one of the Neem tree represents Sri Parvathi and another Neem tree signifies Her brother Lord Vishnu. It is believed that it is like the wedding scene of Lord Shiva where Lord Vishnu presides over their marriage by joining their hands together. A Vilvam and Neem tree inside a Vaishnavite temple is a very rare sight.

There is a separate shrine for Sri Anjaneyar at the opposite side of the temple, where Sri Anjaneyar is seen facing west towards the temple.

The theertham for this temple is ‘Lava Kusa Theertham’ which is believed to have been created by the two sons of Sri Rama. The same tank serves as Theertham for Sri Kurungaaleeswarar temple, which lies just adjacent to this temple. There are many beautiful sculptures all around the temple.

Koyambedu, apart from the C.M.B.T. bus stand, has these great twin temples, which form a divine pilgrimage center.

Published in: on June 16, 2009 at 10:52 pm Leave a Comment
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A breathtaking moment…

This time I wanted share a dreadful incident that happened to me when I was in my 5Th standard. Those were the childhood days, when my street had many similar aged kids of my age and immediately after my school hours, I used to just drop my bags and will rush up drinking my evening drink and run off to the play area. Don’t ask me whether it’s a play ground, bcoz, we don’t mind where ever we play, as we have not left any single are in our colony! :) :)

Similarly, one such day, as we were playing, my close friend and myself went to invite one other gal from her home in the same street. As we were speaking with her mom generally, suddenly two men came in a two wheeler and one of them approached us asking for the some address. Aunt when enquired about the address replied that she was not aware of it. Then this guy was requesting a glass of water to her. He was next to me and my friend was on my other side. When aunt came with some water, he drank some few of it and while returning it to aunt, he generally spoke and conveyed his regards. Just then while every one was in little tranquil, he suddenly pushed me aside and snatched aunt’s chain along with her Mangalsutra (a yellow auspicious thread tied during the marriage ceremony). It was on a Friday evening and just above six when she prayed to The Lord and lit lamp in her home. :(

We were all paralyzed and didn’t know what to do for the second. Then we tried running, but they speeded away in their vehicle. Poor aunt was in definite shock and was sobbing for the rest of the days. :(

After then all the Police men came and I was called from my home since I was considered as one of the witness :( :( . We gathered in her home again, but his time, there were numerous people just watching the show. Before I left to her home, people in my home had already warned me severely that I should not open my mouth. But when the Inspector was asking me about his appearances, by then I could not even recollect anything out his face and ended up saying, I couldn’t summon up things on.

After then for about a week we didn’t end up playing in the streets but it just lasted only for the week. ;) ;)

Published in: on June 14, 2009 at 3:11 pm Leave a Comment
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Cool Tool for Designing Mockup Screens – Balsamiq

Today i came across a powerful tool for designing anything from a super-simple dialog box to a full-fledged application, from a simple website to a Rich Internet Applications called as ‘Balsamiq‘. It will be mainly used for free hand written UI Elements and meant for Product managers, designers, developers and even clients can now work together in the same tool to quickly iterate over software mockups, before writing code.

It uses hand-drawn UI elements, so that people don’t get attached to “that pretty color gradient” or think that your mock up has actual code behind it and is “practically done”.

Designed for Collaboration

Mockups is designed to help you and your team or clients iterate on wireframes as early in the process as possible, when it’s cheapest to do so. Here are some of the features that support this goal:

  • extreme speed: you can create and tweak designs in real time during a design discussion meeting, whether you’re all in the same room or sharing your screen in an online meeting.
  • a look no-one is afraid to criticize: wireframes created with Mockups are intentionally rough and low-fidelity. The idea is to encourage as much feedback as possible…no-one will think you’ll be offended by their input, they’ll know immediately that you just ‘threw it together’ quickly.
  • multiple ways to share and get feedback on your designs:
    • Mockups exports to common PNG images which can be emailed as attachments, easily embedded in a website or saved in a shared folder.
    • Mockups also exports to the clipboard, so that you can simply paste the snapshots to your Word or Powerpoint requirement documents and feature specifications.
    • If you are using a plugin version of Mockups, you will be able to embed your Mockups in your wiki pages or bug reports, with access control, versioning and all the great Web Office features you’ve come to love.
    • You can achieve near-real-time collaboration by coupling Mockups for Desktop with a “file sharing in the cloud” service like DropBox .
    • If your colleagues haven’t bought Mockups, they’ll still be able to import your XML code in the free online demo version, tweak it, export it back and email it to you.
    • We are currently developing an online version of Mockups (subscription-based), which will have commenting, versioning, access controls and all that good stuff.

Fast, intuitive user interface

We know it: most people prefer to use pen and paper or a whiteboard to make software mockups because “it’s the fastest way”.

Well, if you count the time it takes to transfer the mockup from paper to a digital image, we think Balsamiq Mockups is faster, not to mention much easier and, dare we say it, more fun!

We optimized the user interface for speed, so fewer buttons, more keyboard commands, full undo/redo (when you’re going fast you’re bound to make some mistakes along the way. No worries).

Seventy-Five Ready-to-Use Controls :)

Balsamiq Mockups comes with a vast library of pre-built controls, so that you don’t have to spend time building them. A browser window? Of course! A media-player component, an iPhone picker? Add away!

If you need a control that’s not already included, you can bring it in as an image, download it from Mockups To Go (our community site), or ask us to add it, we add new control types all the time!

Streamlined

Balsamiq Mockups has an elegant, minimalist, easy-to-learn interface which doesn’t get in your way and lets you focus on the UI that really matters, yours.

Shortcuts Everywhere

For super-fast selection, use the quick add features: just type a couple of characters from the control or icon name and bam! select from the list of suggestions, and your control will be added in no time. Searching for an icon? Same technique! Try it and you’ll be hooked!

Mockups for Desktop also supports a large number of keyboard shortcuts to let you create wireframes at the speed of thought!

Property Inspectors: Always Nearby, Never in Your Way

When you select one or more UI controls, you’ll notice a faint Property Inspector show up. It contains context-sensitive options for the selected controls. If you don’t need it, simply ignore it (it will go away when it needs to), but if you do, just move your mouse over it to use it. And if it’s in your way, move it! Mockups will remember where you left it.

Unlimited Undo and Redo

Go ahead, experiment away! Balsamiq Mockups has a powerful unlimited undo and redo, with clear action names to help you.

Open, Portable Data

Your data is yours. We use an open, human readable format called BMML (a flavor of XML, documented here) so it’s easy to duplicate a mockup and “mash it up” with other applications. If you really wanted you could even write some scripts to transform BMML into actual code!

Fully Integrated in the way you work

Mockups integrates and can be used in conjunction with some of the best tools out there. Add Balsamiq Mockups and turn the knob to 11!

You can add Mockups to Atlassian Confluence (the enterprise wiki, more info), Atlassian JIRA (the bug-tracking/project management tool, more info), XWiki (the open-source wiki, more info), and more integrations are coming all the time.

You can use Mockups for Desktop together with DropBox for painless and near-real-time collaboration (more info), and you can run Mockups for Desktop from the command line and make it part of your build process!

Seeing is believing

Desktop applications, Web 2.0 sites, Rich Internet Applications, Web sites and Web Applications. The line between them is blurring, and Balsamiq Mockups can help you design any and all of them.

Below you can find some sample mockups that were created with Balsamiq Mockups, for inspiration. None of them took more than a few minutes to create.

  • Mockups Home
  • Sample Mockups
  • Features Tour
  • For your Desktop
  • For Confluence
  • For JIRA
  • For XWiki
  • Help/FAQs
  • Testimonials

Here goes the Sample Mockups: ;)

Desktop Applications

Dialog Boxes

Web Applications

Web sites

iPhone Applications

Rich Internet Applications

Will be happy to know if anyone has much exploration on this.. :)

Happy Sketching.. ;) ;)

Published in: on June 1, 2009 at 8:22 pm Comments (2)
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