Microsoft Small Basic

There are some fans of BASIC language out there (like me), here is some good news for you. Microsoft has a .Net based small basic.

The syntax is like the BASIC earlier but it is object oriented. Learning is fun. Hobby Programming.

Comes with the interpreter plus IDE.

Visit this site, download, get the docx/pdf learning guide and have fun this summer.

High Availability Manager

In Storage world, data is the driver. The purpose of storage vendors is to keep the data safe. Then innovations started. At the most basic level, RAID was offered to keep the disks (or LUN’s)  assigned to host (OS or clusters) safe. Then came the issue of availability, So there was dual pathing. But then the entire box could be a single point of failure. Here enters High Availability Manager from Hitachi Data Systems (HDS). So if for what ever reason either due to regular maintenance, or disaster or disaster testing or any other reason for that matter, if we need a failover from one USPV to other, there is a solution now. Failover always could have been done on the Storage Box, but for hosts to failover, it had to be done manually. Now even this is automated.

So you let the second USPV takeover from the first, all at the back end, front end, everything runs the way it was. I think this is not just an incremental jump. Good news for customers. Better sleep.

Read more here.

My first youtube video.

My daughter is featured here.

Bollywood Movies

This year 2009 till now (Jan-April) almost 70 movies have got released. My numbers are based on the site here. But yet we don’t see a single movie that has become hit.

Have the directors lost the formula for success? Or Are the movies not released well? No advertisement or no pre release promos etc. What ever it does not sound good for viewers.

Probably we need some magic to work in movies. Last year by this time we already had Jodha Akbar declared a major success.

Hindi TV Serials

Just like all of us have identity crisis in our lives some times, so is Hindi TV Serials having now a days. If you watch the serials and compare them to what we had on Doordarshan 20 years back, it makes us sad. Some points.

• even after 20 years the TV industry has failed to reach a maturity in making serials. It is a shame.
• Years back serials used to be made on stories picked from Hindi literature. Today they are written with absolute zero literary value.
• There are so many (hundreds to thousands) so called actors churned from so called acting schools, who don’t mind acting in any role. Commercial interest is the only driver.
• None of the private channels have any time slot for education or programs for children. Just soaps with women fighting with women wearing expensive jewellery, livng in palatial houses and wearing makeup 25 hours a day.
• Sad that we don’t even have original songs. Remix Remix Remix.

Have we reached the pit or is the quality going to fall further. I have no answers. But seems like TV has lost quality. Other than making money nothing seems to work anyone. And reality shows, better to be silent.