Chronicles of a Software Developer

NBCOlympics.com has been doing an incredible job providing streaming videos in their rich Silverlight player – with Picture In Picture dual streams and all. I have been watching quite a few video streams and the quality is exceptional at full screen size. Nicely done.

Want Live video – here you go - http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/index.html

If you have a Vista Media Center capable PC then it gets even nicer. Using the Video To Go app, you can schedule your favorite programs for background downloads which means when you get back later in the evening you will have HD quality video to watch instantly. I just hope there was a web based implementation of remote scheduling where I can use a different PC to schedule my recordings, but hey I guess this works for most.

Hey, in case you haven’t seen, the US MSN Homepage also has a compact and neat little Silverlight gadget here – http://www.msn.com. For the folks who still haven’t got Silverlight, you get a downlevel HTML version as well.

Click here to get shining in Silverlight 2.

Halo3 launched amidst great fanfare and excitement tonight (the night of September 24th)  at the Bellevue BestBuy store.

There was an unending line of people waiting to get their hands on the "Best. Game. Ever." I've got my preorder all set, but I waited outside the store to hang out with the cool Bungie folks who descended from their chartered buses. There were oodles of goodies thrown into the air, from posters to keychains, to other cool swag. After my bro and I got our hands on a "Finish the Fight." poster, we dashed off into the Bungie team crowd and were lucky to get them to sign our poster - Marty O'Donnell, Hao Chen, Max, Jason Roberts, amongst other super talented developers, testers, IT folks, Support teams. Its got to be the coolest launch for any game. Ever.

A big shout-out to their families as well for allowing them allow the Halo Nation to "Finish the fight". We owe our gratitude to you all. Here are some pictures taken with some Bungie folks at the launch venue. Major Nelson is in NYC and is notably missing.

Come, let me show you some of my best friends at Bungie -

AWESOME!!!

 - Chandra

With Summer arriving at my place, I am fondly reminded of the trips Pavani and I have been to over the past couple years. Here is a collection of some of the trips - blogged directly from Live Maps - maps.live.com

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My Live Search Maps collection

Lake Chelan, Chelan, Washington, United States

Mt. Rainier, Paradise Point

Crater Lake (lake), Oregon, United States

Leavenworth, Chelan, Washington, United States

The Wife & I have just finished the prototype of our first collaborative technology activity and we are calling it by its short name of "your personal tara-balam calculator" and its hosted here.

This site is v0.4 release and we now need to work on documenting the entire process and also refreshing the UI to be more intuitive.

Right now, we expect the user of this tool to know what is going on. The upcoming refresh should also allow a hobbyist user to get a feel for what this tool aims for.

The site is http://www.chivukula.com  (Updated March 10th: Changed url to my new homepage since winisp is not hosting my site anymore.)

My brother just sent me a link to a gootube video of how a US-based SAP consultant would be if were the hero of the hit film Pokiri.

Its a good watch and a very good attempt for the actors and the editor(s). Its got all the elements to make it a hit... Good one fellas, maybe next time. Keep it up.