The Showman CEO of Apple Inc , Steve Jobs returns to the office officially with this September 09 event named

Rock n’ Roll …. The event showcased a new lineup of iPods as rumored by tech pundits for a while …

The major highlights of the event are

The new iPod Nano has a Video Capturing facility …

iTunes 9 is released with Genius Mixes and iTunes LP

iPhone 3.1 software update is released …

iTunes store is revised…

Enjoy this promo clip featuring Shruthi and Blaze ( Song Title : Easier said than done aka Vanam Ellai Illai) …

Also , read the original press notice issued by Dr.Kamal Haasan against the Pyramid Saimira …

This is in response to the Pyramid Saimira’s press report yesterday , trying to tarnish kamalji’s public image…

Watch the rocking and mind blowing trailer of kamalji’s latest release , “Unnaipol Oruvan” aka “Eenadu” in telugu …

I can’t simply resist from watching this video , again and again and i ultimately lost the count of it …

Watch it to get stunned … BGM is great and so is cinematography … Hats off to Manoj Soni ….

Needless to say , kamalji’s voice is mindblowing … Very punchy lines and his delivering style is something , you can’t beat …

Mohan Lal , too is looking classy … Hope it would outperform the original one , “A Wednesday” , like “Kuruthi Punal” did “Drohkal” , its original …

As always promoted by Kerala Tourism, “Kerala – God’s Own Country!” , it is also true that “Munnar – Tata’s Own Hill Station” … I’ve been to Munnar many times , what all the time comes to my mind ever since my first visit to the Munnar is “Tatas” and their tea estates in Munnar … It is fair , if u point randomly from any hilltop in Munnar , and say “That Tea Estate , you see a ten miles away , is Tata’s ” … They have a very strong presence in Munnar and also in some …

That said , you can buy some finest and original tea from them … Their Kannan Devan Tea Factory Outlet is in the Munnar town and you can buy directly from them … They sell all grades of Tea … Especially the green tea is very good yaar …

Bike Light trial at Early Morning

Myself , my bro (Vivek) and my cousin (Siva) , had been planning to go for a road trip for many, many years … And we finally made it happen , two months ago … So , Here we go …

This time , We decided to go by ourselves , only the three of us , in two bikes …

Fact Sheet about this trip …

Rollers :

Me (Karthick) , My Brother ( Vivek Kannan) and My cousin ( Siva Kumar )

Bikes :

Pulsar DTS i 150 CC

CBZ Star 150 CC

Route:

Kangeyam – Pollachi – Valparai – Sholaiyar – Athirapally Falls – Kalady – Perumbavoor – Kothamangalam – Neriamangalam – Adimaly – Pallivasal – Munnar  – Marayoor – Chinnar – Udumelpet – Palladam – Kangeyam

Gear:

Backpacks , Helmets , Jackets , Boots , and Panasonic DMC FZ-28 Digital Camera

Days:

3

Day 1 :

Monkey Falls

This is the month of Monsoon’s arrival – July … Monsoons are not yet started … Yet we imagined the worst case scenario of heavy showering , and  decided not to suspend the trip ,in any case …

From a viewpoint on uphill to valparai

Me and my bro started from our home in kangeyam and joined with siva at palladam , at somewhere around 4 am … We are ready to roll … We arrived at Pollachi by 5 AM and continued non stop to reach the foothills of valparai by 6 AM … We were a bit early to 6 , so we clicked some photos with the Aliyar Dam in the background and also sneaked into Monkey falls , which was completely deserted …The clouds are already dark , and we decided not to waste any more time here …

A fisherman in Sholaiyar Dam

Siva(cousin) and Kannan(bro)

Me and my Cousin (Siva)

So we started our uphill ride to Valparai … A few kms up the hill , the clouds started pouring , slowly at first and then almost constant and heavily afterwards throughout the uphill … We never stopped for the rain until we reached valparai … We ate our breakfast at valparai and decided to waste not time here , as we have already been up here many a times …

Reflections - Athirapally River

We rolled into the jungles of Western Ghats , the stretch of jungle road , that I love the most …

The rain was completely stopped after we passed sholaiyar … We were rolling slowly … Time was at our side … We were careful not to miss anything … We clicked photos through this trip … We were eager to encounter at least any one animal , but unfortunately , we didn’t … But , someplace in the middle of the jungle , we stopped to piss and we heard some noise … We turned in the direction of the sound and We watched two or three large birds flying from one tree to another up in the tall trees … We could not see it clearly … And We never have seen any bird as huge as that …. Later , recently now , I found out that bird , while watching , Sandesh Kadur’s Documentary  ” Mountains of the Monsoon ” … And it was , the Great Indian Horn bill pictured below…

What a magnificent bird it is ?! … We continued rolling and stopped at Athirapally falls and ate our lunch here … After lunch , we trekked a bit to see the falls at the top , from where its pouring … We were heavily exhausted , by our ride through the constant rain in the morning … So we decided to skip the trek to the bottom of the falls , which we have already seen …

We then headed towards perumbavoor via kalady … This route is through the Rubber Plantations and it is known as shortcut road which saves some 18 kms to cochin ( kochi ) , instead of taking NH 47….

The road is just a single lane and fully deserted except for a few bikes until Kalady …. But we had some quite a unique ride through the rubber plantations …

We halted our journey for day 1 at Perumbavoor …

Day 2

A scenic waterfall on NH 49 to Munnar

We started from perumbavoor to munnar via famous NH 49 ( Munnar – Cochin) … I gotta tell you , this is one of the very exotic and scenic uphill roads in the southern india …. You pass through at least half a dozens of Water falls … Its quite busy traffic compared to udumelpet to Munnar road … We stopped at two of the water falls and took some pictures … We continued uphill and stopped at a place where the signboard read as Viewpoint … The view is really good … We could see only mountains and mountains from here , no plains or no civilization , as far as our eyes could see …. It was here , we pictured this flower in the backdrop of the mountains … It came out really well …

Beautiful flower with backdrop of mountains

We reached a place alongside the road before 18 kms up to munnar … It was called something like Poonkavanam or Flower Garden (if transliterated abruptly) … A old man was standing at the entrance of that place, which was a muddy,steep path that goes down … Also an elephant was there … The old man told us , the place is a kinda park , where a stream is flowing and also have some caves … And we promised that we could have some real fun there … But since it was already noon , and also we were tired , we thought of coming the next day …

Room with a view - Misty Mist - Barely a view

We rented a room in a small homestay some 4 kms before munnar at a place called pallivasal … The room was damn cheap at Rs.400 as it was off-season … And surprisingly we had a great view from the balcony of our room … We took some rest and decided to go to Munnar then … When we started , it was drizzling and we had some quite lovely mist covers over the valleys and mountains … Munnar shines at what it is famous for … THE MISTY MISTS … In fear of wetting the camera , we missed some great photos … Once we reached munnar , We had some snacks and decided to go to Mattupatty Dam and Echo Point and Top Station … As soon as we climbed up the road to Mattupatty Dam , the rain started pouring heavily …. And as it seemed , it won’t stop for a long time , we then ride back to the room … Again in the evening , we reached munnar and tried second time to go to mattupatty dam … But again , it started raining even before we could start from munnar … So we got back to the room and rested for the night …

Day 3

Munnar Rocky Mountains

We then descended downhill through chinnar wildlife sanctuary and again we spotted some more deers and a boar and also some more wild birds …

It ended our trip on a high note…

P.S: More photos coming soon

Mattupatty Dam

Zend Studio 7

I reckon ZEND STUDIO 7 i5 , the best PHP IDE with a great PHP debugger , ever built for a MAC OS X …. I simply love to work with it ….

I tried the previous edition 6.0 and 7.0 Beta , but 7.0 is a leap ahead from Zend and Eclipse … Look no further , PHP guys , simply go for it

You wont regret it …

Mountains of the Monsoon

Today , I watched the “The Mountains of the Monsoon” by Sandesh Kadur in Discovery … I was really overwhelmed by not only the richness of the documentary … but also the fact that a person like Sandesh Kadur , who have been documenting the Western Ghats for 10 years now is completely unknown to us … while we all go crazy watching the Mark and Mike , and Steve Irwin  , and austin stevens ….

i was thrilled to see the mountains that i travelled and trekked  , presented on the Discovery Channel in more vivid manner and what a great tribute to richest biodiversity of the world … Through this unravelling documentary of western ghats , or otherwise unknown to many , is a great watch …

This show showcased the flora and fauna of the western ghats but more emphasis is made on the unknown cat spotted by sandesh in the high grasslands of  Eravikulam National Park , Munnar …. I had a great peek into those restricted grasslands through this show…

Also , they showed  Kabini backwaters  in the dry summer , where all the elephants around kabini , usually come for water in the dry summer … and i dont remember the last time , i saw such huge number of indian elephants in one area … around 200 elephants …

Also they showed Lion-tailed Macaque,Great Indian Hornbill, Nilgiri Langur and Nilgiri Tah fror and various species of frogs and other birds …

i recommend this show for all who love western ghats and kerala esp.,

i also thank Sandesh Kadur and Discovery for their great work…

Best Mac Softwares

Best Mac Softwares 2009

BBEdit for Web Development

MPlayer OSX , VLC  for Video Playback

iTunes for Audio

iMovie for Video Editing

iPhoto for Image Editing

Adobe Dreamweaver for WYSIWYG Editor

Toast 10 Titanium for Burning

Adium for Instant Messaging(IM)

MAMP for Apache Web Server

Cyberduck & Transmit for FTP

Skype for VOIP services

Firefox and Camino for Web Browsers

Stuffit for Compression Utilities

CleanApp for App Uninstalling

Speed Download for Download Manager

]]> http://karthicklive.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=126 0 http://karthicklive.com/blog/?p=112 http://karthicklive.com/blog/?p=112#comments Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:51:04 +0000 Dr.Strangelove http://karthicklive.com/blog/?p=112

BBEdit review

PROS

Huge Features list

Comprehensive Editing Options

Great Support for REGEX

Also supports various CODING STYLES and FORMATTING

CONS

Intermittent Software Crashes

No WYSIWYG EDITOR

No support for tag auto-completion

No Designing Mode

top_php_frameworks

PHP , does not exist alone anymore … Atleast in the Corporate Scenario , People started using various convenient PHP Frameworks for Rapid Application Development (RAD)…

PHP Frameworks are far Better than Smarty Templates or any other Templating Engines

Gone are the days , when PEAR ruled the RAD in PHP , and also slowly the Templating Engines too …

Nobody is using Smarty Templates for PHP anymore …

Now its all FRAMEWORKS … Welcome to the Next-Gen of PHP Development …

While there are many PHP frameworks available in the Market today , only a very few of them stands tall …

Ofcourse this is based on their features,performance,security and Models … Personally , Code Igniter is my favorite and I am using it for my most works …

So well lets jump on to the Comparison of the “three kings of PHP frameworks” …

Spoiler: This is just a personal opinion of mine and i dont guarantee or testify the post ….

The Major PHP frameworks that i laid my hands are,

1. CakePHP
2. Code Igniter
3. Zend Framework

“Cake PHP pros and cons”

pros

Huge repository of Components and Components

“Automagic” – Automation of code

Great Community

ORM(Object Relational Mapping)

Easily Extendible

cons

No support for Templates

No modules integration

“Code Igniter pros and cons”

pros

User-friendly

Well-documented

Faster than CakePHP and Zend

Lots of additional Components

cons

No ORM(Object Relational Mapping)

No AJAX support

No Auth Module

“Zend framework pros and cons”

pros

Great Library Set

Flexible

Community support

Enterprise Identity

cons

Poor Documentation

No EDP(Event Driven Programming)

No Templates Support