Murugavel's Lark

The secret history of Swine Flu

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:39:42 PDT

New Scientist has put togather an tracing the origins of the H1N1 influenza virus.

The timeline does a great job by explaining how the viruses evolve, how the interaction of humans and viruses in the past influences their relationship today and why older people have higher immunity to the 2009 strain that younder people lack... and other interesting bits :-)

TOP 10 Webhosts

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:39:14 PDT

Doing a complete research before deciding to choose a web hosting provider is critical for your business and peace or mind!

Webhosting Blue Book does exactly this by listing the TOP 10 Hosts by ranking them by price, reliability, popularity, features, control panel, overall ease of use and support.

Web Hosting Bluebook is an informative guide to helping consumers and businesses find top quality web hosting services. Web sites ranked at webhostingblubook.com provide, affordable domain and web site hosting. No hidden charges and no future spikes in monthly charges. 24/7 support. Very reliable, with 99.9% uptime and unique hosting features to help customers build unique, professional sites with no hassle. According to their website, they are committed to finding web hosting services the keep in touch and constantly provide a great product for there customers.

Why should you start using Google Reader?

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:41:28 PDT

Google Reader is a free, Web-based reader for RSS feeds. You can find feeds on nearly every Web site. RSS feeds offer a simplified view of Web content down to just text, pictures and videos--minus the site's style and formatting, which can sometimes hinder or befuddle casual reading. Google reader lets you subscribe to these feeds as easily as typing them into your browser's address bar, and lets you read them like you're browsing through e-mail. There are many online RSS readers available, but Google is one of the best. It's easy to get a grip on Google Reader basics, but there are several tips and tricks that can make it extremely productive.

Here are the Top 7 reasons why you should!

1) It is sociable: It is easy to share your feeds on other social networks like Twitter, Facebook , Digg, Delicious, Friendfeed.

2) Do more with your feed: Sharing in Google Reader is not the latest thing but there's more than it. You can save your feeds as PDF file in your computer, you can email it or you can simply share it anywhere you want. You can also translate your feeds with Google translator.

3) Read it off-line: Google reader allows you to read your feeds off-line. You have to install Google gears.

4) It is personal as social: Google Reader gives you better control on over your feeds, you can share your folders or individual post or keep private.

5) Better control over shared items: You can unshare your shared items anytime.

6) Better subscribing options: You can subscribe to any feed easily by just entering the URL of web page of just the title. By using Google Reader bookmarklet you can can subscribe any feed easily.

7) Easy feed management: You can manage your feeds easily the way you want it. It supports drag and drop and so you can send your feed to any folder. Easily create and delete folders, easy subscribe/unsubscribe options.

Swine Flu Treatments: Tamiflu (Oseltamivir), Ralenza (Zanamivir)

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:42:11 PDT

As news of the A/1H1N Swine Flu pandemic spreads so do the rumours and fear. One persistently reoccurring statement is that existing flu treatments Tamiflu and Ralenza (generic names: Oseltamivir and Zanamivir) are not effective against the newest strain of Swine Flu. These rumours are not true; Tamiflu and Ralenza (Oseltamivir and Zanamivir) are considered to be effective and viable Swine Flue treatments.

You have probably heard more and more about the swine flu epidemic from Mexico spreading to the U.S., and a new media advisory is confirming that the drugs Tamiflu by Roche (OTC: RHHBY) and Relenza by GlaxoSmithkline (NYSE: GSK) are being released to combat the swine flu. While there was no mention of how many doses of each drug were in the total stockpile of 50 million doses, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a White House briefing that the government is releasing 25% of the 50 million stockpiled doses to treat the outbreak. This data may already be old, but the cases are listed as follows: California has 7 cases, Kansas has 2 cases, New York City has 8 cases, Ohio has 1 reported case, and Texas has 2 cases. These numbers are from earlier and obviously if this is any epidemic or is much more widespread then those numbers will grow. This is on the heels of some 1,300 suspected cases in Mexico and even New Zealand has said it is “likely” that 10 students who were recently in Mexico have swine flu. The CDC noted many ways to combat this, such as washing hands frequently, avoiding contact with sick people and the agency asks that you do not board an airplane if you are sick.

Zanamivir was the first neuraminidase inhibitor commercially developed. It is currently marketed by GlaxoSmithKline under the trade name Relenza. Relenza is the only type of zanamivir...Both Influenza A and B cause illness, however Influenza A is the more virulent strain. Influenza A is responsible for both the common ‘seasonal flu’ and notable influenza pandemics such as the Spanish flu (1918), while the Influenza virus B does not cause pandemics. Between 1990 to 2000, nine significant outbreaks of influenza A caused many deaths in England and Wales, compared to just four outbreaks of influenza B.

Oseltamivir is indicated for the treatment and prevention of infections due to influenza A and B virus in people at least one year of age. The usual adult dosage for treatment of influenza is 75 mg twice daily for 5 days, beginning within 2 days of the appearance of symptoms and with decreased doses for children and patients with renal impairment. Oseltamivir may be given as a preventive measure either during a community outbreak or following close contact with an infected individual. Standard prophylactic dosage is 75 mg once daily for patients aged 13 and older, which has been shown to be safe and effective for up to six weeks. The importance of early treatment is that the NA protein inhibition is more effective within the first 48 hours. If the virus has replicated and infected many cells the effectiveness of this medication will be severely diminished, especially over time.

Disclaimer: News and information compiled from various sources!!!

Communications Skills

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:49:25 PDT

I have been writing a series of posts on Effective Communications Skills @ The Digital Electronics Blog, that are useful for any industry. The series is a humble attempt at sharing my views on effective communication from my past experiences of working in many multi-cultural and cross site settings, spanning various geographic zones!

Read Popular Magazines Using Your PC for Free

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:42:44 PDT

Amit Agarwal @ Labnol has published an article on how to read popular magazines for free without any subscription. This hack requires the Safari browser and some change in settings. He also has a trick to read the Wallstreet Journal for free on the same post.

This is infact a simple trick to read the latest issues of popular magazines like PC Magazine, MIT Technology Review, Popular Mechanics, MacWorld, Lonely Planet, Reader’s Digest, Photography and also adult magazines like Playboy & Penthouse etc without paying any subscription charges. These digital magazines are in fact exact replicas of print that are served as high-resolution images for offline reading.

Dinamalar, Dinakaran, Tamil Murasu, Dina Thanthi, Malai Malar

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:59:03 PDT

Leading Tamil Newspapers...

Maalai Malar
Dinamalar
Tamil Murasu
Daily Thanthi

Classifieds: 2BHK Flat Available for Rent in Rustam Bagh, Bangalore

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:00:14 PDT

Updates: Not available anymore!

A 2BHK Flat @ Rustam Bagh, Airport Rd is available for possession from 1st May, 2009. Rustam Bagh is a very calm and pollution free locality right in the heart of Bangalore, right behind Manipal Hospital! This flat in on the third floor and accessible by an Elevator. The Apartment has only 19 Units, with Generator Backup, Cauvery water & Borewell Water. The Apartment comes with a split AC in one of the Bedrooms. This apartment is just 2 Mins walk away from Manipal Hospital, and easily accessible/walkable to Nilgiris Supermarket and Total Mall on Airport Rd.

The rent of Rs 16,000 is excluding a monthly maintenance of Rs 1000. This monthly maintenance amount is fixed by the Association. The rent is negotiable.

Label/Category specific blogger feeds

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:34:22 PDT

If a blogger blog you read is using labels and also has site feeds enabled, then you can pick and choose which topics you want to subscribe to. The format for label feeds is this:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/labelname

Be sure to substitute in the correct blog address for blogname and the label you're interested in for labelname. Also, don't miss the hyphen ("-") in the URL. That's not a typo!

Note that a URL of this form will only work if the blog in question is using this specific label, and has also enabled site feeds. However, no special site feed settings are necessary. As long as the basic site feed for posts is enabled (with either short or full descriptions) then label feeds will also work.

Lok Sabha Elections 2009 & Rule 49-O (No Vote)

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:34:25 PDT

What do you do when all the candidates in your constituency are corrupt/unreliable/thugs/goondas and when you decide not to vote in favor of any of them? Unfortunately there is no such provision in our electoral process and this rule (49-O) is highly misunderstood and misinterpreted!

Rule 49-O is a rule in The Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961[1] of India, which governs elections in the country. It describes the procedure to be followed when a valid voter decides not to cast his vote, and decides to record this fact.

WARNING: The apparent purpose of this section is to prevent the election fraud or the misuse of votes.

Checkout this Wikipedia Article and related links to further understand this. As a note of warning, if you ask the electoral officer about this clause and if you disclose the fact that you do not wish to cast your vote you are actually disclosing your secrecy of ballot :-)

Free classifieds for Rustam Bagh residents!

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:54:10 PDT

The Rustam Bagh Tribune, a community website and blog is hosting free classified mainly for Rustam Bagh residents! Outsiders have to pay a very nominal fee of Rs 10.

Rustam Bagh is the best kept secret of Bangalore. This is a thriving community right in the heart of Bangalore, yet untouched by the fast pace of life and pollution. This community is right behind Manipal Hospital, off Old Airport Road.

Plagiarism in the Blogosphere!

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 23:56:58 PDT

Wikipedia defines plagiarism as, the use or close imitation of the language and ideas of another author and representation of them as one's own original work.

Many of you are aware that i am also the founder and contributor at "The Digital Electronics Blog". This blog happens to be the most influential and is a very prominent part of the semiconductor industry with its intutive articles spanning a wider scope of subjects. This blog has also been recognized by leading industry conferences and design houses.

But what does plagarism has to do in this context? The reason i am pointing this out is, we at "The Digital Electronics Blog" are trying hard to have a positive impact in people's lives terms of semiconductor and electronics knowledge sharing. But there are people in the blogosphere expecially from India who are bent at copying ideas and articles without giving the credit back to us the original authors where needed. In this case we have been affected profoundly and also conspired in negative publicity.

This is a sincere request to the people from india and who are pasrt of the blogging community to avoid the shameful acts described above. I am sure you are exploring ways to make meony online through adsense and stuff but plagiarism is a serious matter and you will surely get affected in the long term.

Madurai Meenakshi Maha Kumbabhishegam

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 03:23:34 PDT

The Maha Kumbabhishegam is scheduled for April 8th, 2009 between 9:00 AM and 10:00AM.

The sanctum sanctorum of the temple will remain closed from 2.4.2009 to 7.4.2009. However the devotees will be allowed to worship at the yagasala located in the North Aadi street. Archanas and special offerings will not be performed between 8th April and 10th April and only dharshan is allowed.

Meenakshi Sundareswarar Temple or Meenakshi Amman Temple' is a historic Hindu temple located in the holy city of Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. It is dedicated to Lord Shiva (in the form of Sundareswarar or Beautiful Lord) and his consort, Goddess Parvati (in the form of Meenakshi). The temple forms the heart and lifeline of the 2500 year old city of Madurai. This temple has a stunning architecture and a significant testimony for Vishwakarma Brahmins for their master architecture in sculpting this temple.

Atrocious!

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:10:46 PDT

No prior intimation whatsoever. This is how we work in India.

Addition Desktops in WinXP for free

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 08:47:28 PDT

DeskHedron is a tool to add and switch between desktops by using a seamless 3D GUI.

At 3D view you can switch the desktop by using the mouse wheel or left and right cursor keys. DeskHedron can organize approximately 9 desktops, and switch the desktops as well. The best part is that it is only 350KB in size and does not require fancy installation or registry intrusion.

Initially 2 desktops are available to switch when starting this utility. If you want to add a new desktop, you'll have to select "Desktop +" from the menu on tray icon by right clicking it. The desktops which are created by this software remain even after you quit the software. When you logoff or restart the PC, the additional desktops will automatically be deleted. When you restart this software without logoff or restart, the software will continue to reuse the desktops which already exits.

Paperwalker

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 00:59:46 PDT

Character design work, colour palettes, visual development, inspirations and current projects!

Florian Satzinger: A student of the legendary Disney, MGM and Hanna-Barbera animator and animation director Ken Southworth ("Alice In Wonderland", "Woody Woodpecker", "Tom & Jerry", "The Flintstones") who influenced him greatly. At present, he is a production designer, character designer and writer ("StarDucks", "Toby Skybuckle - Adventurer By Mistake", "2Q3 - The Creating Dragons Formula", "The Recalibrated Fantastic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn") at S&H FEATURES.

Productive Dreams

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:52:10 PDT

This is a series with an effort to showcase the works of popular Web designers and Web developers around the world. Please send us an email or comment for us to review and showcase it.

Productive dreams is a popular blog by Gopal from Trivandrum, India and dedicated to Web 2.0, Design and development! It is a rather exceptional attempt to list and publicize development in Wordpress themes.

6GB of Free Music from SXSW '09

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:48:59 PDT

Everybody likes free downloadable Mp3 files and always looking for a whole lot of new, free music?! So here is your chance to download a full 6GB of legit music for free.

The unofficial SXSW 2009 torrent compiles every song freely available on the SXSW Music web site into three multi-gigabyte BitTorrent downloads. So just head over to the SXSW 2009 torrent page and get your download on. It's a great way to get your hands on some legitimate, free, and new music. Direct link to the torrents!

Dying for music but still not sure about this crazy BitTorrent thing? Send me an e-mail!

Eating in the Bus!

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:33:41 PDT

I have never really liked the idea of people eating and drinking inside a public transport. This post is to criticize the people who do it. As many of you may know, this is unlawful in many countries and carries a hefty fine. But unfortunately it is not a law in India and i have reservations about it!

My criticisms about this specific woman in the Bus i traveled in today morning to work. Route# 4U to ITPB, Bangalore, 9:10 AM. The woman apparently from the company, First Indian Corp.(from her ID)

Please avoid eating in public transport!

Wallpapers for your Gadgets

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:41:35 PDT

There is a lot of craze in India these days about the iPhone and its attractive clownfish Wallpaper. So here is my attempt to bring you that wallpaper which you can download and customize!

Clownfish Wallpapers

for iPhone, Nokia, PSP or other Gadgets!

Location: Waterbody somehere

Your comment is our Driving Force!

Disclaimer: Source of these images are unknown as i had downloaded them sometime back!

Finance Spreadsheets

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:10:40 PDT

Use of spreadsheets helps us significantly in automating calculations & budgeting that would otherwise be very cumbersome when done manually.

I am sharing two links to websites that showcase Spreadsheets that are very useful in finance. Many of them may be used in our day-2-day finance planning in calculating liabilities, risk assessments, tax planning, lease estimates to name a few.

Matt H. Evans
Damodaran Online

Please comment if you have more questions!

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:43:36 PDT

Highlights & Updates:
Please checkout my custom updates for photoposts or photoblogs as you may call it, in my previous post. I really appreciate your comments. I would really like to know if this design matches the overall template structure and design!

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:53:45 PDT

Title or Caption

Sub Photo Caption

Location or Source

Brazilian City Makes Food A Basic Right And Ends Hunger

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:12:44 PDT

The city government of Belo Horizonte, Brazil declared that food was a right of citizenship. With a populations of 2.5 million that had 275,000 people living in absolute poverty, and close to 20 percent of its children were going hungry. Click on the Title to read the actual post on Tree Hugger!

Can we make this happen in india? The answer would be yes. But, before we debate about our Governments capabilities or incapabilities and widespread corruption and how we could make this happen in our own land, lets first look at the initiatives taken by that government and let us debate!

The city agency developed dozens of innovations to assure everyone the right to food, especially by weaving together the interests of farmers and consumers. It offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce-which often reached 100 percent-to consumers and the farmers. Farmers' profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.

Three large scale "People's Restaurants" serve healthy meals to 12,000 people a day for the equivalent of $0.50, and innovative school programs ensure that students are well fed.

Belo’s food security initiatives also include extensive community and school gardens as well as nutrition classes. Plus, money the federal government contributes toward school lunches, once spent on processed, corporate food, now buys whole food mostly from local growers.

In just a decade Belo Horizonte cut its infant death rate—widely used as evidence of hunger—by more than half, and today these initiatives benefit almost 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million population. One six-month period in 1999 saw infant malnutrition in a sample group reduced by 50 percent. And between 1993 and 2002 Belo Horizonte was the only locality in which consumption of fruits and vegetables went up.

You are responsible!

murugavelganesan@gmail.com (Murugavel Ganesan) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 05:27:52 PDT

You are completely and solely responsible for yourself and for everything that happens to you and people around you.

You are where you are, and what you are because of yourself, because you have decided to be there, for the choices you have made. Your life is indeed a result of your own choices and decisions, and you made them, no one else. You can’t escape from the results of your own behavior and choices.

Taking full responsibility puts you back in control of your thoughts and feelings. Instead of looking to others as the reasons for your life, you have to look to yourself. You have to become your own cause, and you create your own effects. You can then make your life whatever you want it to be.

Go for it! And wonderful things will happen to you.