:: rushabh ::

How to solve really hard problems

Ans: By starting. Somewhere. And pointing in the right direction. James Gosling expesses the same far more eloquently. Link

Pumpkins need their vitamins too

Pumpkins need their vitamins too


Originally uploaded by Rooosh.

My friends Julie and Damian threw a pumpkin carving party last week - my first pumpkin carving. Ever. Woot!



It was a blast. Needless to say, I sucked. Two mistakes for the pumpkin rookies out there:

1. Its all about the silhouette and so if you carve out the entire front, there ain't going to be much of a sihouette left. Oops.

2. You actually need the top to put it back on. So don't hack the top to pieces right after you remove it.



I guess it would also have helped if I had an artistic bone in my body (which I don't) since you need to draw some pattern or something cool on the pumpkin. Thankfully a friend of a friend (and hence transitively, a friend) stepped in and drew me a flower which I then dutifully proceeded to destroy.



Minus the carving disasters, the party was a blast. Got lots of pictures, but forgot the tripod. Oops.



Finally in the interest of full disclosure, this awesome picture was not my doing at all, but rather that of Emily (another friend of a friend) who was evaluating my camera against the D70. Canons rock.

Pumpkins need their vitamins too

Pumpkins need their vitamins too


Originally uploaded by Rooosh.

My friends Julie and Damian threw a pumpkin carving party last week - my first pumpkin carving. Ever. Woot!



It was a blast. Needless to say, I sucked. Two mistakes for the pumpkin rookies out there:

1. Its all about the silhouette and so if you carve out the entire front, there ain't going to be much of a sihouette left. Oops.

2. You actually need the top to put it back on. So don't hack the top to pieces right after you remove it.



I guess it would also have helped if I had an artistic bone in my body (which I don't) since you need to draw some pattern or something cool on the pumpkin. Thankfully a friend of a friend (and hence transitively, a friend) stepped in and drew me a flower which I then dutifully proceeded to destroy.



Minus the carving disasters, the party was a blast. Got lots of pictures, but forgot the tripod. Oops.



Finally in the interest of full disclosure, this awesome picture was not my doing at all, but rather that of Emily (another friend of a friend) who was evaluating my camera against the D70. Canons rock.

Andy and Rushabh's Seattle Bike Ride

Andy and Rushabh's Seattle Bike Ride


Originally uploaded by Rooosh.

25 miles! Woohoo!



We started off at my place in Cap HIll, on to Greenlake and back to the UDistrict for some food at Portage Bay Cafe.



Took the Burke Gilman trail from there to meet up with some friends in Inverness and then continued (with friends) to Kenmore where we turned around and headed back to Inverness. By the time we got there, it was dark and I was totally exhausted, so we left the bikes there and got rides back home.



So. Much. Fun.

Jeez Apple, what does it take to make a media player

I've been using iTunes 7 for a few weeks now (since just about after it was released) and I must say that I'm less than happy and getting less than happier with every passing day. When I first got it, I was so excited - they had put in some ridiculously needed features such as automagically getting album art and so on. Aweseome.
Except not quite. Their implementation is so bad, its not even funny. This is the windows implementation, I haven't played around with the mac enough to comment.

• 35 MB zipped download. Seriously. W. T. F. I mean its a friggin' media player for crying out loud, it doesn't really integrate and whack your OS the way Windows Media Player does (and I hate that beast). At this point, I'm half tempted to go with the nice, small, does-exactly-what-its-supposed-to winamp.
• Automatic album art download: Woot! Except not. If it can't find album art for some reason, it does nothing. I right click, tell it to go get album art and ... nothing. No error box, no feedback, nothing. These guys are supposed to be UI gods. How did they miss UI 101? Did they not read Design Of Everyday Things? You have to provide the user with feedback and explain why you didn't do what they told you to do. And the errors are strange too. On some days the album art won't work, on others the same album art will download. Uhm. Hello?
• Sluggishness: This is the worst of the lot. Apple: don't do shit on the UI thread. I'm a server programmer, and even I know this. How can the random button and the shuffle button go do shit on the UI thread and stop painting and receiving events! I mean, not even my Microsoft intern would make such a stupid mistake (actually he was very smart and didn't make any stupid mistake, but I still give him a hard time).
• Don't screw around with key mappings: Like how can right and left change album art but not move me to the next song (or previous or beginning of this one). I mean - seriously. This is a defacto key mapping across just about every media player, including iTunes when the focus isn't on media art. The problem with the focus is that since they're breaking just about every UI law, they don't really show you what has focus. So you have no idea if its the images that have focus and are going to do something stupid like scroll around. Oh and there's no obvious way of moving focus too. Stupid stupid stupid.
• Movie trailers: I used to love iTunes to go watch trailers for upcoming movies from the music store. Now that they're selling movies, finding the free trailers takes a while (no thank you Mr. Jobs, I don't want to watch the stupid movies that you're selling. Get a better collection and tell me how to hook my computer to the TV and I'll consider it). Anyways, getting back to free trailers, so I eventually find them, somewhere at the bottom of the page, go to the movie that I want trail, and ... it downloads! Like a bloody movie or podcast. So wierd. Fine. I'll download it. Downloaded 25Mb of a trailer. But, but, but, but where is it??? Holy crap, it just disappeared. Its not in music, movies, tv shows or podcasts. Uhm. Bug?

All in all, iTunes 7 blows. If they don't release a better player soon or an update or something, I'm switching.

Rainier sunrise

Rainier sunrise


Originally uploaded by Rooosh.

A long, long time

Its been a long, long time since I last wrote. To all of my three readers, I apologize.
That being said, I'm back. Hopefully I keep it up longer than last time.
In major news:
I quit Microsoft. It was a tough decision to make. I really loved the people there admired them and learnt ridiculous amounts of good stuff from them. And had fun doing so. And making windows, and playing halo. The list goes on. I quit because I wanted to try the startup world. Looking back, I think I should have done this like a year ago. I'm not made for corporate life. Startups rock. Lots and lots and lots of work, but lots and lots and lots of fun. If you need me to talk you into joining a startup, preferably the one that I work with, give me a call.
Oh and for the record, this is where I work now. Not much there. Not until our public beta anyway, at which point, you'll definitely see a bunch of posts about it.
In the meantime, if you're looking for a job, like / don't mind the Seattle area, and want to work in a startup, call me. Or email me. Or leave a comment. Something.
Things have changed in personal life too. I don't want to go into those, especially since this is more or less a public, permanently archived platform. To all my friends: thank you for being so supportive. You guys are the best.