Rungta’s Webmarks

Sibal plans to scrap ‘traumatic’ Class 10 Board exams ∞

[Kapil Sibal] believes that it is for the students to decide which stream to follow in Class 11 rather than for the schools to force it on them. “Ultimately, it is the student’s aptitude that should decide whether he or she wants to study arts or science… not the school,” he said.

Hear, hear!

The new HRD ministry, at least from the outside, appears to be really getting on with the mammoth task of fixing India’s education system.

Flickr Fodder ∞

Some new and some not so new flickr photo-streams that I’ve been enjoying for a while now.

• rushs / Rashmi Swamy
• rakeshrach / Rakesh Rachamalla
• rohittalwar / Rohit Talwar
• mayankaustensoofi / Mayank Austen Soofi

Don’t forget me though.

Wimbledon 2009 Draws ∞

The tournament that started it all, back for 2009. Sad to see Nadal withdraw from the tournament, but it should a good championship nonetheless.

• Gentlemen’s Singles
• Ladies’ Singles

No longer out of focus ∞

Ashok Malik, in an excellent editorial for Hindustan Times:

Other countries have think-tanks, India makes do with prime-time chat shows. The problem with the medium is that it has only one, reductionist template — good versus bad, right versus left, BJP versus Congress. When it extends this framework to explaining the rest of the planet, the effects are hair-raising.

Excerpts From the Diary of an App Store Reviewer ∞

Wow.

Roland Garros 2009 Draws ∞

Double feature this Sunday. The 2009 French Open Grand Slam gets underway in Paris while 20 super fast cars go screaming around the streets of Monte Carlo.

On the heels of his victory over Rafa in Madrid, will this be the year Roger Federer finally wins his first Roland Garros title, or is the Spaniard going to dominate on his favourite surface once again?

Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS ∞

Andy Clarke suggests and offers a universal, typography–only CSS file for IE 6.

I’ve been thinking of going down this path myself. No time wasted getting frustrated trying to fight work around IE bugs for the designer, and a simple, usable experience that works for the visitor.

Bits & Pieces ∞

Brand spankin’ new section on prateekrungta.com, designed to serve as a platform for me to share the numerous little experiments that catch my fancy from time to time.

Long time visitors would no doubt be aware of just how fragmented my site has become. At the last redesign, all this site had was my photoblog. Fast forward (almost exactly) two years and this site now hosts a photo blog, a link blog, tennis draw charts and a blogroll plugin, each debuting at different points of time. The design painfully shows the lack of anticipation for such expansion, as a result of which most new visitors are completely unaware of the rest of the site. Because of this, I’d decided not to introduce any new sub–sites (if you will) and make the situation worse, until I got down to redesigning the entire beast.

So, “Bits & Pieces” sat quiet and covered up in a corner of my hard disk for four long months. Hindi transliteration with copy–paste support, the bit that got me started on B&P in the first place, had been laying dormant for almost seven months though. The renewed interest in Hindi around here made me want to share “हिन्दी transliteration” and I decided to risk yet another section for the time being, with the hope that someone might find it useful.

P.S. – I’ve also (finally) created a global RSS feed for my photoblog + webmarks + bits & pieces, so go crazy.

Hypercritical ∞

A fantastic essay by John Siracusa on the importance of criticism, and how “knowing [what’s wrong] is half the battle”. Lots of quotable bits in there, but I’m going to go with this one on the extensive online analysis of the tabs in Safari 4 beta:

This stuff is what makes the Mac Web—and, by extension, albeit indirectly, the Mac itself—so great. At its best, it’s critics all the way down.

I find it ironical when some people accuse us—what’s the term, fanboys—of being critical of everything but Apple, because in my experience, the Mac faithful are amongst the most critical users one can have.

Web Advertising and Fusion ∞

Michael Mistretta, the creator of the Deck-like Fusion ad network has written a nice essay on the state of web advertising. He quotes Kyle Baxter:

Online advertising is broken. Web sites place ads to the side of content, and readers learn to ignore it; so web sites put ads in the header, and readers learn to ignore it; so web sites put ads in-line with content, and readers learn to scroll past it; so web sites use video ads and create ones that overflow into the content, so readers stop reading.

I think there’s a lesson to be learnt here for everyone. People don’t like being controlled. The harder you try to enforce things on them, the faster they’ll run away from you.

I Hardly Know Her ∞

You thought flickr was minimalist? Wait till you’ve browsed a flickr stream or two through IHNK.

So clever and well made that you almost feel stupid. Hats off to Justin Ouellette!

Political Lampposts And Independent Candidates ∞

Amit Varma explains why voting for independent candidates like Meera Sanyal (representing Mumbai South) is worthwhile in current India’s “fragmented” political environment. I’m linking to this because I’ve had people suggest otherwise.

With Hands Tied Behind My Back ∞

Apple rejected version 2 of my friend Karan’s iPhone app, Qǐngwèn:

I’m sorry, did I mention it’s a dictionary? Dictionaries have words, all sorts of words, including, yes, swear words like “fuck” and also words like “penis”, which of course is such a lewd word that I should be smited (well, technically, smitten) for having included it in Qingwen? And all of this somehow falls under their so-called “reasonable judgment”.

Ridiculous. In case Apple hasn’t noticed, developers — the most important component of the App Store — don’t like this nonsense.

Google India Elections Centre ∞

Great collaboration to provide Indian voters with information about their constituency, (shocking though not altogether surprising) profiles of current MPs, voter registration status and more. If you’re an Indian citizen, 18 or older and in the country during the elections, make your mark – go vote! (via)

The Prado in Google Earth ∞

In Google Earth, you can get close enough to examine a painter’s brushstrokes or the craquelure on the varnish of a painting. The images of these works are about 14,000 million pixels, 1,400 times more detailled [sic] than the image a 10 megapixel digital camera would take.

There’ve been demos of ultra high resolution images at TED and elsewhere, but these excellent paintings take the experience to a different level altogether. The painters’ attention to detail is just mind–blowing.

Accessibility to the Face ∞

Another wake up call, but this time about accessibility.

No, it’s not just another rant article about how you should mark–up your pages semantically or use javascript unobtrusively (you do that already, don’t you?). What is it about then? Well go on and find out.

Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip ∞

This really isn’t about polar bears any more. At this very moment, the fate of civilization itself hangs in the balance.

Make sure you watch the animated short film.

Monday in Melbourne – Gallery ∞

They’re coming. Not very far off now. I can almost hear the sound. I can feel the calm before the storm. Can you?

McLaren admit performance shortfall ∞

Well well well. This should certainly spice things up. Now we know for sure that McLaren weren’t trying to fool the others at the recent tests and are indeed facing issues with their aero package. It’ll be interesting to see which teams will be fighting for the win on the 29th. Testing times suggest Ferrari, BMW, Brawn GP and Toyota, but one can never be too sure.

Cities and Ambition ∞

A city speaks to you mostly by accident—in things you see through windows, in conversations you overhear. It’s not something you have to seek out, but something you can’t turn off.

Paul Graham follower or not, this is a must read, for if you, like me, have lived in different places you’re sure to have heard the messages.