So don’t waste your time, have a look at Photosynth, its loads of fun! And for your viewing pleasure I have created a synth with photos taken during my last visit to Munnar. Just click on the play button on the right top corner to view the awesomeness!

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=640E95F1-F00B-4E7A-A415-DEF35146BA46

The best thing I liked is the way the results come up on screen. Instead of going the Google’s famous sweet and simple way, the results page is more detailed, with longer content from the pages coming up. This works pretty good especially for more broad one word searches, for example : “cricket“. The results come neatly organized, presented in a visually rich manner but at the same time keeping it not too complicated. And there is a nice little info box on the right, which is pretty smart, where you can browse cricket related stuff by category.

But at the same time, try for a more targeted search like : “the best con movies“. It churns out all irrelevant results and the best you would get is a list of horror movies! You can’t go more wrong can you? Well let me give it some benefit of doubt, after all it is only 1 day old. Things should improve. And if it does, who knows it might be astalavista Google… naa, maybe not ;) Anyways worth a try, play around!

The things the folks at Google come up with! Simple but excellent idea. Their aim is to make a collaborative video about how a “GMail” gets delivered! It is simple.. All you need to do is print out a GMail envelope, create a 10-sec video in which it enters from the left of the screen and exits out to the right and upload it onto YouTube. The editors at Google would stitch up a nice video from all this and show it to all the world… You can read all about it here. Let’s see what they come up with!

I am currently reading one of his books – India in Slow Motion. Highly recommended reading! Maybe I will post a review in a few days too :)

Have a look at http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html. It told me that I had a left-liberal attitude, which is what I think I really am.

So where do you figure in the political map? Tell me :)

You can get the song from CoolToad – http://as01.cooltoad.com/music/song.php?id=213127

By the way, I did not upload this song there, just happened to see it there. Do check the legalities before you download.

http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/irising/klueLESS/

I managed to reach level 12 level 24. I hear there are 33. :)

Euphoria is a relatively new language developed by Robert Craig in the early 90’s. It was probably envisaged as a cheaper alternative to Microsoft’s QBasic. It was initially an interpreted language for DOS. Today it is still an interpreted language, but is now 32-bit and supports all leading platforms – Win32, Linux and FreeBSD. It is does not claim to support OOP, but from what I read it is quite possible to implement OOP concepts in Euphoria.

The syntax structure of Euphoria is a seamless mix of the two different worlds of the BASIC and the C style of coding, along with some touches of PASCAL. This might seem a very difficult concoction but it they have managed to do it quite elegantly. I have to say, it is one of the neatest languages I have ever seen.

So why go of Euphoria? Firstly, it so small and simple making it ideal for that quick bit of programming you need to do. It is quite simple for a beginner to learn too. But that doesn’t mean Euphoria is not powerful. The first big use of Euphoria was in fact to create games. It does a good job there too. Squid Blaster is a game created in Euphoria. Have a look. That should give you some idea about its potential.

A simpler example. Here is how you would add 5 to all elements in an array.

x = {1,2,3,4,5}
x = x + 5

After execution x would now contain the values {6,7,8,9,10}.

Euphoria is fast. Euphoria is interpreted. Again ideal for those one-off bits of programming, but at the same time powerful enough to support complex graphics. Well a good testimony to this is that the Euphoria distribution comes with the source code for the Euphoria interpreter written in Euphoria! :)

Point three. Price. Well nothing can beat Euphoria in that respect, since the SDK comes absolutely free!

All in all, Euphoria is something worth a try. It may not be a language you absolutely cannot live without. But do have a go. It costs nothing and you never know, one day you might be saved by Euphoria.

Links:

• Download Euphoria » (rapideuphoria.com)
• Official Site » (rapideuphoria.com)
• In-Depth review of Euphoria » (from Monitor magazine)
• The Unknown Elegance of Euphoria » (rapideuphoria.com)