Perpetually Perplexed

The other day, I was feeling little bit off. That happens most of the time, doesn't it? Well, that day I was feeling more off than usual. And was trying to fill the gigantic void with television shows, dumb mobile games and of course food. Then I got up and took my color kit and started painting. OK, I am not an artist and am quite bad at it. But still I paint plain colors on empty jam and sauce bottles now and then. And it helps. And mind you, I started this much before these the "art therapy" became hip. I even try to do some sewing. But that is more time consuming and needs better eyes. I may have patience and attention span of a two year old. So sewing is not for me. So, the question arises, why don't I use this form of meditation - for the lack of better word, every time? I would have been ten kgs lighter and much much calmer. I don't have an answer. Here is my work from that day. Again the photo has another story - I took the photo on old dining t...

Just when I ran out of ideas to blog about, God gave me one. No sorry, my tablet gave me one. See, I convinced every one and myself that I need a tablet to test my apps and bought a - cheap one. Nothing new in that, I repent each time and each time I buy a low cost, low quality device. This is a micromax tablet - the feature which caught my eyes was the salesman's willingness to pay 2000 Rs. instead of 1500 for my old tablet. Ha! So it is lollipop, has dual camera and dual sim and is INDIAN. I need to be pro-national, right! I repented the purchase immeditely. The first touch theme or some thing was showing very large icons which were not even pretty. But then after some tinkering I started using it - for playing games and once in while browsing. But yesterday it died. Or the battery died. And today morning when I was charging, I pressed the power button and lo, it got chinkified. It started some blue menu with some lines in a language I could not decipher. I think the...

Finally I have published C++ app. The name is "C++ notes". And you can download it here Unlike my C Interview questions app this app has short notes on each topic along with objective and programming questions.  Please remember that it is not a substitute for a good book. But can be used as a quick reference. So you or your kids need some help with C++, I am there. Sorry, my app is there. And one more thing. I have gone through the material many many many times. But still there could be errors and even typos and grammatical mistakes. Please send these errors to me at hegde002@gmail.com I need to start on my next ground breaking app. Ha ha.  

Around 30 years ago, I bought and read a book called "Illusions" by Richard Bach. During those days I was a fan of his works. And this book which is about a Messiah who teaches his craft to fellow barnstormer influenced me for a long time. Well, the title says it all - everything is an illusion - a maya. So in the book when Richard learns how to walk on water, he feels how tough it is walk on ground. Because, according to the book, we are under the illusion that the earth we walk on his hard, so accordingly we are able to walk. But if we strongly believe that the water in the lake is hard and cool, we can walk on water as well. So now here is my dilemma. How much in my life is an illusion? All of it? Some of it?  If I think these to be illusions, I can sleep peacefully at night. If not, it is really tragic. ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಮಾಯವೋ ಪ್ರಭುವೇ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಮಾಯವೋ ಹೆಣ್ಣು ಮಾಯವೋ ಹೊನ್ನು ಮಾಯವೋ ಮಣ್ಣು ಮಾಯವೊ ಕಣ್ಣು ಮುಚ್ಚಲು ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಮಾಯವೋ

You have seen all those pretty screen shots in google play when you try downloading some apps. For a very long time, I did not realize I can make a pretty screen-shot too. I used to take bare screen shot and put it for display for my apps, without even a frame. Gradually I realized android studio itself gives me an option to frame my screen shots but without many options. And in the internet there are some sites which frame your screen shots - free of course. Be careful though, most of the good one are for ios - not android. But you need screen shots to start with. For that you need to run your app either in the device which can get connected to adb.or an emulator  I have two phones with adb. But what about other devices? Emulator is very very very very slow. And gets disconnected after 10 minutes. And will not get connected at all after that. So in an hour you can get maximum two screen shots. So I tried  to install third party emulators. Googled and read first few wor...