Spring has arrived and Swami arrives this afternoon

After a long phase of rains and cold nights, it finally feels like spring. The tulips in our yard now are in full bloom. I am sure the ones at Crystal Hermitage too but haven't seen them in the last week.

On a more important note, Swami arrives in the village this afternoon. It will be a joy-filled two months here with many events, satsangs, concerts, theatre plays, etc. It sure is a good time to be here.

IFTE #3 - CO detector for cars

Ideas From The Ether #3

I don't drive that often since I work from home, but when I drive, I have an 8 hour one-way commute to Santa Barbara, where my company, Occam Networks, is located. 8 hours gives you a lot of time for thinking, so my mind also wanders about how to improve one's driving experience.

How often do you get behind an old vehicle going up a hill and you see the black smoke coming out of it's exhaust ? You reach for your car's recirculate button but it's too late, you already let all those fumes into your car. A carbon-monoxide detector is a common thing you can get for homes. Why not have one in a car that is integrated with the car's air circulation system? As soon as it detects the CO, it puts the system into "recirculate" mode. For added bonus, it also activates the ionizer to add a bit more freshness to the air. For the design of the year award, it also detects skunks. Wouldn't you buy that optional feature if you were buying a new car ?

IFTE #2 - iPod Projector

Before iPod came out with the iPod video, I was thinking about a portable video device that can support a large display in a compact unit. iPod video is a step forward, but who would watch a full-length movie on such a small display, much less watch it with someone else ?

What if you could do a mini projector that would fit into the form factor of an iPod video (or perhaps make it slighly bigger)? This is not intended to be used in a large conference hall for a professional presentation, but perhaps to watch a video with a friend or to watch a movie on an airplane on a projected screen of the size of a common laptop display perhaps.

Here are some challenges and possible solutions:

1. Power drain: a standard projector lamp uses a lot of power, however there are already some LED based projectors out there. Again we are talking about a small screen and relatively short throw distance here. With LED, there is no heat, there is no warm-up/cool-down period and there is no bulb replacement after so many hours.

2. Screen: You need something to project the video on. A piece of white paper? Wrinkle-free folding fabric ? That should be easy.

3. Internal vs external: This could be an external plug in unit that attaches to the iPod through the dock connector. It may even have it's own rechargeable battery so that it doesn't use up the iPod battery. Once the technology improves I can see Apple offering it as an integrated iPod video projector unit.

Extend my Windows desktop

Lifehacker today posted an article based on a NYT article regarding the productivity increase when using a dual monitor setup. I can't agree with it more. Though I used virtual desktops before I found them only marginally useful. The dual monitor setup is great. Especially for someone who does more than just email and browsing. The setup I use is not a PC with two video cards. At least not visibly so. I use an IBM T41 laptop, which happened to come with "Multiple Monitors" support. I have my laptop raised up a few inches next to my 19" LCD monitor with the laptop's display also open. I use both the laptop's LCD and the external LCD at the same time resulting in a double-wide screen. The screen real estate is nearly doubled. In order to use an external monitor as an additional monitor to your laptop's LCD, the laptop needs to have support for "Multiple Monitors". If you have a modern laptop, perhaps it already has that support.
How to find that out ? Right click on an empty area of your Windows desktop. Click on Properties. Go to Settings tab. If you see two monitor icons, you are in luck. When you click on #2 monitor, you will see a checkbox below that says "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor". Click on Apply and you are good to go. You can change the position of the monitors by dragging #1 after #2 or vice versa.

IFTE #1 - iPod autostart/stop mode

Here is IFTE (Ideas From The Ether) #1.

I sent this idea to Apple but so far no action. I am sure they hear thousands of ideas from their fans. When I first started using my iPod in the car, I missed a simple feature that I was used to when playing CDs. When I am playing a CD in the car, every time I stop the car the CD stops, when I restart the car the CD continues from where I left it off. Very useful feature that I am accustomed to when I am running errands in town. The iPod can't do that. You have to remember to turn it off and then turn it back on again every time. Moreover, if you park your car overnight and you forgot to turn off your iPod, next morning your iPod's battery will run out.

This is such an easy feature that can be added to an iPod. You add a setting that says "AutoStart/Stop Enable/Disable". When enabled and if it is plugged to a power source, the iPod would automatically turn off when the power is cut off. It would automatically restart when the power source comes on again. This will work the same way a car's CD player works. I am hoping that Apple will eventually implement this feature.

IFTE - Ideas From The Ether

Every once in a while my engineering mind starts churning and spitting out ideas that I don't do anything about. Sometimes I think, I should patent this idea or I should start a company. Some of these are simple improvements to existing products, some are new product ideas and some are kinda futuristic - way out there - type of ideas. All are within the realm of possibility and I believe the technology exists to create them, even if it may not be practical to manufacture them in terms of cost and ROI. More often than not, either the idea feels to far out or I don't have enough motivation to really do something about it. So instead, I decided I will start posting these ideas in my blog. If you find an idea great and want to pursue it by starting a company or patenting it, go ahead. (If you get rich and would like to make a donation, I can tell you the name of my favorite charity). Well, you can't actually patent it because since it is posted on the web it is already public information.

In general, I think that a lot of these ideas are already in the ether and probably a number of other people have thought about it or are thinking about it or perhaps even a product exists that uses that idea. In either case, blogging might help get these things out of my brain so that those empty cells can go into the "available cell repository" (if they don't get immediately filled with new ideas).

I will title these blogs IFTE (Ideas From The Ether) #xx.

With this post, I will also start experimenting with the blogger ads. Let me know if they become annoying.

Papatya - In Memoriam

Papatya (1993 to Easter 2006)


Our dear friend and companion Papatya has peacefully passed away on Easter morning 2006.

She was born in Koral and Suzanne's home in Santa Barbara to Lavender (father) and ?? (mother) who were rescued from a household where they were not being well cared for. She started living with two existing bunnies (Amber and Sasha) in the same house, as well as her mom, dad and three other siblings. When she moved to a home with a larger yard, she preferred the outdoor living to indoors. After all, Santa Barbara climate was perfect for her. Unfortunately, over the first few years of her life she lost all of her friends and relatives to different causes (a dog attack, myxomatosis - a deadly virus). After those losses she preferred to be alone and kept indoors. Though she were given many choices of companions of same species, she preferred to be a celibate nun for the rest of her life. She started her meditation lessons along with her adopted parents in the year 2000.


For the rest of her life she continued meditating regularly by frequently visiting the meditation room in her house.


Though she no longer had any bunny friends, she made many human friends (Jackie/Virani, Eliane, Elanor Marcella), who frequently cared for her when her parents were out of town. She consistently contributed to the household by providing extra-potent fertilizer for all the garden vegetables and fruit trees. She is survived by her adopted parents Koral and Suzanne, who already miss her. A memorial service was held right outside her home at Ananda shortly after her passing.

Calle Koral

In case anyone is wondering if I am famous in Santa Barbara, a picture is worth a thousand words. Right after I left Santa Barbara for Ananda they named this new street in Goleta after me (for some odd reason they didn't call me for the opening ceremony). It is a few blocks from my work and kitty corner from the Goleta Valley Athletic Club, which I visit almost every day when I am in Santa Barbara.

koralusa

Someone at work figured out what I do in my spare time. I guess I can't keep it secret anymore :-)
http://www.koralusa.com

cycling after 6 weeks of break

I was finally able get on to my bike again today after a break of six weeks. Not much aerobic exercise during those six weeks either. In fact, one might consider walking on the streets of big cities of India anaerobic exercise. Kidding aside, the air quality in India was much better than I anticipated, nevertheless, it is no comparison to the fresh air of the Sierra foothills. After weeks of rain and snow, the sun was shining today and the air was very crisp. Going out for a bicycle ride felt as healing as getting an Ayurvedic massage. My legs remembered the bike but my butt didn't, as it felt sore right away, I guess it will take a few more rides to numb those nerves again.

Of Mice and Men

Another cute story I remembered from our India trip. It was during the meditation classes held in Delhi. We were at the Officers' Club, Railway Officers' Colony which we were using as the lecture hall. I was sitting in the very back of the room by the entrance to help with the late arrivals. Haridas had just finished a short meditation session and as he was finishing up he suggested everyone to hold on to that peace as they opened their eyes. Right at that moment this big rat started running on the floor past the back row of chairs where a western lady who lives in Delhi was sitting. The rat ran past by her catching her totally off-guard and scaring her to death. She tried to stay quiet because of the quiet room so she barely uttered this "Eeeek" and pulled her feet up to her seat. I had to hold myself hard not to laugh at the whole situation.

memory foam

I remembered a fun story of the time we were in Kolkata and I had to blog it. The high-school girls, Smallens, Santoshi and Irene were staying at the Fairlawn hotel in Kolkata, while we were at the Oberoi. The two hotels are about a 5-10 minute walk from each other. One evening, we were having dinner together at the Thai restaurant at the Oberoi. Suzanne and I were at the same table with the Smallens, Santoshi and Irene. Santoshi and Irene were relating stories about the comforts(!) of their hotel. Irene had a hard time sleeping on her bed because the mattress was out of shape. She started thinking, "maybe it's memory foam" then she thought "Yes, it must be memory foam, it remembers every single person who slept on it". We couldn't stop laughing for ten minutes.

01:02:03 04/05/06

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 AM the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06
How cool is that?

Barbara's web site

Here are many fun photos and movies from India that Barbara Bingham has posted on the web:
http://web.mac.com/barbara_bingham/iWeb/India%202006/Welcome.html

We are back at home

This concludes my blogging regarding our India/France trip. I hope you enjoyed the posts. I figured this was a better way of keeping in touch instead of emailing. It's good to be back home.