Google Similar Image Search Firefox Addon

I found it annoying that I could not search for similar images directly from the browser.

I figured this should not be a hard thing to do, so I decided to write a firefox addon which will allow you to right click on an image and search for similar image (the technical term is "reverse image search").

So, here it is : Google Image Search.

PS: Later many such addons came out. Most of them better than mine :)

Airtel broadband DNS sucks and how to fix it

I have been using for Airtel broadband sometime now, I find their DNS annoying if not unusable. Every now and then DNS server goes unresponsive which slows down internet for me.  After a while, well, I decided to take things into my own hands.

The solution is simple - use a better DNS server.  One way of doing this is to change the network settings in your computer to use a static DNS.  In linux, you edit /etc/resolv.conf. In windows this is done by editing Interface properties.

But this method did not suit me because there are multiple devices connected in my home network and I will have to change all of them. Also, devices come and go in our network (We have BYOD!).  The way out is to change your modem settings so that your modem relays a different DNS than what Airtel gives you.

I have always liked Google public DNS -- I think because they have super simple IP addresses ;).  I used it as my DNS Server.

I have a Binatone DT845W modem. So the steps below are for that modem.
Connect your modem in your browser. Usually modem IP is 192.168.1.1, so just point your browser to that address, provide your admin username and password.

Go to "Interface Setup" -> "LAN", there you can find a section called "DNS".  Change DNS relay to "Use user discovered DNS". Fill in your favorite DNS server IPs, save the settings and your done.

Welcome to a better Internet :)

Swanalekha JQuery plugin

Swanalekha is now available as jQuery plugin. Check it out.

This plugin makes it simple to use Swanalekha in your website/webpage.

Just include the jquery-swanalekha.js in your page and use it.

Some examples :

$("#t_input").swanalekha(); //will enable swanalekha on the element with id 't_input'

$("textarea").swanalekha(); //will enable swanalekha on all textareas

$("input").swanaleka(); //will enable swanaleka on all inputs, but only text inputs will actually be enabled

The Solar eclipse

We bunked office today and went to Kanakakunnu Palace. It was like a festival there. School kids from all over Kerala had come to witness the Solar eclipse.

This snap was taken through an aluminium foil.

Registered നിഷാന്‍.com

I registered നിഷാന്‍.com[redirected to this site now] recently from domainsite.com. These guys support unicode domain names by converting it to a cryptic string starting with 'xn-'.

May be you would want to register yours before someone else snatches it! :)

Swanalekha firefox add-on

Swanalekha malayalam transliteration tool has been packaged into a Firefox add-on.

You can install the add-on and type Ctrl-M on any textbox to malayalam-enable it.  Right now, this does not work in rich text editors (eg: gmail compose box).  I am still scratching my head on how to do that :)

The addon basically wraps the javascript used in swanalekha online.  The script was orignally written by Santhosh, thanks to him.

"Mr Darwin, we're sorry", The Church !

"People, and institutions, make mistakes and Christian people and Churches are no exception. When a big new idea emerges that changes the way people look at the world, it's easy to feel that every old idea, every certainty, is under attack and then to do battle against the new insights.

The Church made that mistake with Galileo's astronomy and has since realised its error. Some Church people did it again in the 1860s with Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection."

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