Venky’s World

Folks,Won’t be updating this site anytime soon.. If you want to follow my latest developments check out The Technology Stig

While writing commercial applications which require some sort of licensing/copy protection/user duplication prevention ,developers need to have a method for retrieving any unique id associated with a device.For most practical purposes this unique id is the IMEI(International Mobile Equipment Identity) or the ESN(Electronic Serial Number)of the mobile device.On all phones this can be retrieved by dialing “*#06#”.A few  mobile platforms have this exposed by way of native API’s which return the IMEI/ESN  of the device.On some mobile platforms such as Windows mobile, these API are restricted and need the application to be signed for the API to function properly.But there exists a way in which the IMEI/ESN can be retrieved by all applications regardless of the platform,this approach uses the GSM/CDMA modem to get the IMEI /ESN .All that is required is to programmatic ally open a serial port connection to the modem(mostly on COM9) ,initialize the modem and then send the “AT+CGSN” command.In response the modem will give you the IMEI/ESN of the device.In case you are not able to establish a connection on COM9, try polling all the available COM ports and see which one responds to specific commands.

There’s a lot that has kept me out of action for the past 3 years,personal as well as professional.I’ve grown older professionally and personally(my receding hairline is a testament to it!).I’ve restarted the blog because i believe that i have a lot to offer in terms of my perspective on technology.So here it is hoping that i can stay true to that….

One of the most annoying things while working with code libraries is the lack of documentation…it’s almost as if, the more usefull the library the lesser documentation available on it.. 2 classic cases that stood out for me was while using OpenSSL and zlib.OpenSSL takes the cake though, a lot of things are left to the developer to make sense of it…

Gtalk was supposed to go interop with the release of libjingle..well from my experience that doesn’t seem to be the case exactly.The protocol which gtalk uses for signalling is not the same as the JEP specification for jingle(JEP- 0167) which causes my server  to reject all requests coming from a gtalk user …

So much for interoperability..sigh

It’s been about 5 months since i started working on xmpp/jabber,and i’ve been sold hook line and sinker!!!.I don’t know if jabber/xmpp is the future of IM but it sure looks like with Google already jumping into the bandwagon.

So what have i implemented in xmpp so far ..hmm. let’s see

XMPP core,XMPP-IM and presence and the following JEPs

Discovery Info, Jingle,Jingle audio,Non-Sasl Authentication to name a few….

More on my experiences with xmpp/jabber later…

It’s been so long, almost a year since i made my last post. A lot has happened since then, on all fronts …I have moved all my old articles/projects on to this page
I won’t be maintaining any of those old pages , i think it’s time to start afresh again!!!!

Been playing around with the iHTMLdocument2 interface, i think it has the potential to take the IM world by storm, funny that except for yahoo not a lot of people have realised it’s importance, i can see so many applications being integrated with IM making it feature packed.I’m planning to put up an article on this interface as soon as i can wriggle some time

Saw closer yesterday, amazing movie with some breathtaking performances, i have no doubt in my mind that natalie portman should have won the oscar instead of cate blanchet…so much for oscar winners..sigh

Back from a looooong vacation . Extensively travlled the southern part of india.Will post some pictures. Last weekend was in goa for my friend Sylbert’s wedding with Parul. Had a blast..Goa has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth…

Louis Armstrong has to be my favourite musician. Listening to a ’satchmo’ composition is pure bliss.His duets with ella fitzgerald are really cool. I’ve been only listening to his discography since i got hold of it.There is no particular favourite, all songs rock, but i have to pick among them, “hello dolly” , “because of you” and “as time goes by” would come out on top

I’m soon becoming a fitness freak…lol, regular visits to the gym and strict diet seems to be doing the trick!!!!. I don’t know how long this will last ))..but hey i ain’t complaining…

I’ve been doing a lot of movie watching in the past 3 days,i’ve seen like 4 movies in these 3 days,If i were to rate them i’d say “Super Size Me” was the best followed by “Pi”,”The Terminal” & “Collateral”

“Super Size me” was definitely a revelation,I knew a lot of americans were obese ,but not that 60% of them were overweight or obese. It’s a must watch documentary for all to know the harmful effects of ‘junk’ food.

“Pi” was an interesting movie,it took me abt 4 weeks to see the movie completly, saw it in parts and managed to completely see it on sunday.It’s not your regular science fiction flick,very absorbing and interesting in parts.It’s from the same guy who made “Requeim for a dream”.

“The terminal” is definitely not spielberg or for that matter tom hank’s best picture.Some parts were really funny,but for the most part it looked pretty stupid.The ending was the saving grace,i know for sure that had spielberg been influenced by any bollywood flick ,catherine zeta jones would have lived with tom hanks ‘happily ever after’.

“Collateral” is definitely worth a watch ,the last half an hour though is a major letdown. I for one strongly belive that if a movie does not end well, it’ s not good.Doesn’t matter how good it is at the start, if a movie does not finish well it’s not a good movie.

My new weblog

The site is being updated ,so some old links may not work, hold on for some time, i’ll fix them soon