I like Amazon.com and I spend a lot of time on the site.

One thing about Amazon.com that annoyed me was that when the site loaded, the search box did not have focus set on it. This means that I have to go and _click_ on the search box. Too much work.

Also, when you type something, there is no trigger to automatically start searching for the the text. UX glitch. Again, annoying.

So, I did what every responsible engineer does when he sees a problem. Fix it.

This Chrome extension sets focus onto the search box as soon as you start typing. A la Google. Yes. Enjoy!

Get the chrome extension here
Standalone version: http://ds.karaokefy.com

or embed it in your website by using the code below. It will look like this

Just type and the searching starts! (minimum 4 chars needed )

<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" id="sfds-widget" name="adl-widget" src="http://ds.karaokefy.com/?size=320&df=1"><a href="http://ds.karaokefy.com/">Super Fast Domain Search</a></iframe>

I am a big fan of Google Bookmarks. Mainly because it is super fast, feather light and does exactly what I want – Keep a lot of private bookmarks.

The easiest way to add Google bookmarks was to drag and drop one of their “bookmarklet” scripts into the address bar and click on it each time you wanted to bookmark something. Sounds easy, but it had a bunch of drawbacks. Like, for instance, you have to keep the bookmarks bar always visible, which eats up precious screen real-estate and also, you had to _move_ the mouse and click. Hard. Lot of work.

So, keeping up the tradition of doing whatever it takes to be more lazy, I wrote this simple Greasemonkey script that adds 2 keyboard shortcuts

1. Ctrl + Alt + ] — Pop up window to bookmark current page on Google Bookmarks
2. Ctrl + Alt + [ — Open the Google Bookmarks page in a new window, where you can see all your bookmarks sorted by date (By default, Google sorts it by title. I have no idea who thinks sorting bookmarks by title is useful. I have raised this issue with Google multiple times, but it has been unanswered)

It works on Firefox (with Greasemonkey installed) and on Chrome (natively) You can get it on userscripts.org here or get it below

• Source code
• Install

UPDATE: Now Goobe is available as a proper Chrome extension

Description: A simple photo backup script written in php that looks for all images on your disk and backs-up unique photos organized by folders named after the camera the image was taken on.

Features:

1. Find unique photos
2. Copy to a specified location for backup
3. Sort the images based on the camera model it was taken on

Get it here: http://github.com/devadutta/Simple-Photos-Backup

Usage: php simplePhotosBackup.php

Input: allPics.txt in the same folder should contain paths to all images on your disk. I wrote another simple script to do this, but the easiest way to do it is use Everything , search for *.jpg and export it to a text file “allPics.txt”

Settings: You need to edit the php file to specify destination paths. Very simple.

The project is on github, so feel free to fork it or send me improvement patches!

Stats from my photo collection:

More detailed story

Enough with random clichés and horrible jokes. Time for a dictator type speech.

Ladies and Gents,

I am proud to announce that the Kannada Koota Of Northern California’s website is now under my control. I removed the old ( and very hard to maintain ) bunch of random scripts (website) and replaced it with a modern install of Drupal with a customized theme.

The transition from a static, non-interactive website to an awesome hub of interaction has left most of our members jumping in joy*!

Also, if any of you run a non-profit organization and want to get a website setup for free (I am not buying you hosting), contact me at devadutta@devadutta.net

Thank you,
Yours’ Benevolently,

Devadutta

Screenshot:

* proof:

BoiledBeans scanner plots all questions ever posted on bb based on their difficulty levels. Check it out here

The backend magic is delivered by SQL and php and front end is of course powered by Google Visualization API.

Please tell me how it is!

I got some overwhelmingly good response for the buzzer and I decided to make it available for download.

KapaLa Moksha — Quiz Buzzer v0.1

Features

1. Supports up to 8 teams
2. Communicates with a computer via RS232
3. Windows software which displays team number on screen is included
4. Additional LCD display which shows team number and other debug data

Hardware requirements

1. PSoC CY3210 PSoCEVAL Kit. I had this kit from a course I had taken in grad school. The PSoC is a very versatile platform and facilitates rapid implementation on hardware, which is exactly what you are looking for when you are trying to rig a project in 3hours.
2. A computer with a RS232 port
3. Lots of wires and n* push button switches

*n = number of teams < 8

Thats it!

Downloads and implementation instructions

1. Get the kit and connect n switches between Port A ( or whichever posrt you choose to make the input) and ground.  Should look something like this



2. Download and burn HEX code availabe in the C source code package under the folder quizBuzzer\output\quizBuzzer.hex onto the PSoC chip. Or you can open quizBuzzer.soc in PSoC Designer(comes with the kit, or you can download it from www.cypress.com )
3. Connect to a computer with an active RS232 port (NOTE: otherwise, the program will crash) and run this program
4. Hit reset and press one of the team buttons. You will hear a buzzer sound form the computer and the team number will be displayed! Screenshot below

The thing is really nifty and can make audience very happy!

The Name: KapaLa Moksha in kannada stands for “One tight slap”.

You can listen to it here

The software is quite impressive but far from perfect.

Pros:

• Does a decent job.
• Free!

Cons:

• Very few inbuilt drumkits
• Synthesis is limited to drums and does not have other instruments and the output audio quality is not as good as Fruity Loops.

But still, I like it and really appreciate the effort put in by the developers to deliver a free and open source music composing experience!

I built a neat bash like interface for the quiz using Mootools ( and of course, Javascript and HTML ) and people really liked it!

Take a look at it here!

Screenshot:

I am planning to make the code public in a while. Since the quiz is still alive, I cannot release it immideately.