Top 10 lists

Books in 2023

January 4, 2024 / How I do things, Top 10 lists / Leave a Comment

I read 52 books in 2023 (about the same as in 2022, 2021 and 2020.) Here’s what I read (best books first).

Fiction

Non-fiction

How I read books

  • Select. I add book recommendations to my GoodReads – To-read list. Then I sort by rating and pick the first one I like to read.
  1. Listen. I listen to non-fiction audiobooks during walks.
  2. Read: I read fiction as ePUBs on my laptop or phone.
  3. Stop: I stop reading books that are boring, with no guilt. I’ve better things to do.

One Year of Transforming Thoughts by Changing Environments

December 27, 2023 / How I do things, Top 10 lists / 3 Comments

From The Extended Mind I learnt that our environment shapes our thinking more than I’d expected. That we can arrange our environment to extend our thoughts.

In 2023, each month I changed something in my environment to see:

  1. What does “changing my environment involve”? What can I change?
  2. Will I succeed?
  3. Does it affect my thoughts? Can I track this?

Here are the results.

  • 🟢 Jan. New desk orientations. Rotated standing desk, settled on one direction. Impact: LOW. I don’t know if my thoughts changed.
  • 🟢 Jan: New walking routes. I explored new areas in Singapore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Impact: MEDIUM. Just seeing new shops, posters and layouts helped me think differently.
  • 🔴 Jan: New song genres. I playlist-ed with several western genres, but listened only twice.
  • 🔴 Feb: New book genres. I list 12 genres I dislike: Art, Chick Lit, Christian, Cookbooks, Gay and Lesbian, Horror, Music, Paranormal, Poetry, Religion, Sports, Travel. I didn’t read any.
  • 🔴 Mar: Sleep over problems. Sleep is a great way to solve complex problems. But I couldn’t summon the willpower to “load” problems at night.
  • 🟢 Mar: New people. I met a new person daily. Impact: HIGH. Meeting diverse people had the highest impact.
  • 🟢 Apr: New work places. I worked out of libraries, cafes, school, parks, and offices. Impact: HIGH. New complex environments (like libraries) prompted new thoughts.
  • 🟢 Jun. Notes from podcasts. I took notes rather than just listening. This helped me reflect and synthesize. Impact: MEDIUM. BTW, I listen mostly to Cautionary Tales, The Knowledge Project, Hidden Brain, How I write, The Seen and the Unseen, and Deep Questions.
  • 🟢 Jul: New gadgets. I bought several new gadgets that changed my habits. Impact: HIGH.
  • 🔴 Aug: New cuisines. I tried a Bibimbap, a Verdure Ciambatta, and then discovered my cholesterol problem. I stopped.
  • 🟢 Aug: New work habit. I used Pomodoro with micro-tasks. Impact: MEDIUM. I became more aware of where I misestimate time and got less distracted.
  • 🟢 Nov: New exercise pattern. I switched walking to cycling. This increases heart points, reduces foot stress, and gets me to work. Impact: MEDIUM. I switched from typing notes to dictating, which needs a different thought process.

In summary:

  • 8 / 12 attempts were successful.
  • New people, new places, and new gadgets had high impact on thoughts. Most others had at least medium impact.
  • The changes mostly led to diverse thinking. But measuring that is subjective.

I’ll continue exploring new environments in 2024. I’m evaluating:

  1. New book genres (contd)
  2. New music genres (contd)
  3. Walking meetings
  4. Reading while walking
  5. New places to sleep (e.g. AirBnB)
  6. Working while traveling
  7. New audiences to teach
  8. New attires

Picking books to read

January 11, 2023 / How I do things, Top 10 lists / Leave a Comment

I add book recommendations to my GoodReads – To-read list. Then I sort by rating and pick the first one I like to read.

In 2023, I’m reshaping my environment. Picking books I usually won’t pick. (Read The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Wanted if you want to be similarly inspired.)

So here are 4 approaches I’m adding to my process.

  1. Algorithmic. Sort Kaggle books based on popularity, rating, and age. Pick the top 10 (or 50)
  2. Serendipitous. Go to bookstores and libraries. Pick the most popular books
  3. Award-winning. Pick from the Pulitzer, Booker, Nobel, Hugo, and other award winners
  4. Challenges. Pick from Popsugar, Book Riot, Goodreads, The 52 Book Club, and other challenges

FYI, here are algorithmic results (for books with 100+ ratings and a 4+ average on Goodreads):

Top rated books

Most popular books

Oldest books

Books in 2022

January 8, 2023 / How I do things, Top 10 lists / 2 Comments

I read 52 books in 2022 (about the same as in 2021 and 2020.) Here’s what I read (best books first).

Mind-blowing

  1. Man’s Search for Meaning. Viktor Frankl. It’s 75 years old and timeless. Who we are is independent of what’s around us. This book shows us why. This story is a great example. My best book of 2022.
  2. The Paper Menagerie. Ken Liu. I cried all the way from the beach to home. The skies joined me. It’s short. Touching. It healed a wound I can’t speak about. The most touching book of 2022.
  3. The Data Detective. Tim Harford. 10 powerful, down-to-earth rules for how to make sense of data, and avoid being fooled. I plan to incorporate every one of these into my talks. The most useful guide to working with data in 2022.
  4. The Extended Mind. Annie Murphy Paul. Explains how we think not just inside our brains, but in our bodies, in our physical environment, and in the people around us. The most effective guide to transforming my thinking in 2022.

Life-changing

  1. Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, Homo Deus and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Covers the past, present, and future of humanity, weaving the shared beliefs we’ve crafted — God, money, equality, property rights, happiness, and much more.
  2. Four Thousand Weeks. Oliver Burkeman. We live just 4,000 weeks. When you realize that, time management takes a new meaning. This is the most different time management book I’ve read, and I’ve started writing down stories of what I’ve done with my 4,000 weeks — each week.
  3. The Motive. Patrick Lencioni. Why do you want to stay a CEO? That’s the question this book answers, and in a sentence, it’s about doing the most important stuff that no one else will do. Not the stuff you like, or are good at.
  4. Team of Rivals. Doris Kearns Goodwin. The life of Lincoln and his cabinet. It’s extraordinary to see the path 4 eminent politicians took and the day-to-day decisions each made during the American Civil War.
  5. This is Water. David Foster Wallace. A commencement speech about the importance and power of noticing our blindspots, and making a habit of it.
  6. The Unknown Unknown. Mark Forsyth. A short, witty defense of bookshops. But it’s actually about blindspots and the power of randomness.
  7. Messy. Tim Harford. Explains how messiness is good for creativity and efficiency, with dozens of stories that prove the point.

Interesting

  1. The Conquerer series. Conn Iggulden. The life of Genghis Khan. Factual, but interpolated with imagination. Gripping.
  2. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. Mark Manson. A direct nudge to face our fears and choose our pains (not pleasures) actively.
  3. Talking to Strangers. Malcolm Gladwell.
  4. Bad Blood. John Carreyrou. The story of Therenos. It shows how thin the line to cross is.
  5. Land of the Seven Rivers. Sanjeev Sanyal. A history of India.
  6. The Ocean of Churn. Sanjeev Sanyal. A history of the Indian ocean.
  7. On Writing Well. William Zinsser. Teaches you to write with clarity, simplicity, brevity, and humanity.
  8. Superforecasting. Philip Tetlock, Dan Gardner. Techniques to consistently forecast better.
  9. Oathbringer. Brandon Sanderson.
  10. What the Dog Saw. Malcolm Gladwell.
  11. Humble Pi. Matt Parker.
  12. David and Goliath. Malcolm Gladwell.
  13. Next in Line. Jeffrey Archer.
  14. The Bomber Mafia. Malcolm Gladwell.
  15. Emperor series. Conn Iggulden.
  16. Flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
  17. When Breath Becomes Air. Paul Kalanithi.
  18. The Lost Metal. Brandon Sanderson
  19. The Assassin’s Blade. Sarah J Maas.
  20. Skyward. Brandon Sanderson. Sunreach, ReDawn, Cytonic, Evershore

Readable

  1. War of Lanka. Amish Tripathi.
  2. A Court of Thorns and Roses. Sarah J Maas. Part 1, 2 and 3.
  3. Asterix and the Magic Carpet.
  4. Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life. Bryan Lee O’Malley.
  5. Scott Pilgrim vs The World. Bryan Lee O’Malley.
  6. Daughter of the Deep. Rick Riordan.

How I read books

  1. Select. I add book recommendations to my GoodReads – To-read list. Then I sort by rating and pick the first one I like to read.
  2. Listen. I listen to non-fiction audiobooks during walks.
  3. Read: I read fiction as ePUBs on my laptop or phone.
  4. Stop: I stop reading books that are boring, with no guilt. I’ve better things to do.

Books in 2021

December 30, 2021 / How I do things, Top 10 lists / 14 Comments

On my Goodreads 2021 reading challenge, I read 52/50 books in 2021. I managed 47/50 in 2020 (see 2020 reviews) and 26/24 in 2019.

Here’s what I read (best books first).

Mind-blowing

  1. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant. It’s the best non-fiction I’ve read in 5 years. It focuses Wealth and Happiness. It’s short. I finished it in a day. But it’s deep. I can spend a decade practicing just a single sentence. It’s available at navalmanack.com as a free e-book and audio book.
  2. Rhythm of War. The 4th book of the Stormlight Archives is an action-packed fantasy. A great gift for teenagers. In an extra-ordinary magic system, Brandon Sanderson builds up to the greatest climax I’ve read. What an ending!
  3. Death Note #1-#12. Light Yagami gets hold of a “death note”. If he writes a name on it, they die. “L” is out to catch him. In a cat-and-mouse psychological thriller, Light and L work next to each other, share their plans, and still try to outwit the other. It’s like chess. The pieces are visible. But it’s the strategy that counts. A brilliant comic series.

Life-changing

  1. Atomic Habits. A systematic, well-researched approach to creating (and stopping) habits that last. It’s the best “Habits” book in the market right now..
  2. Being Mortal. A thoughtful, practical guide on dealing with old age. Must read for those with aging parents. It helps that Atul Gawande is a great storyteller and draws from his personal experiences.
  3. Originals. Teaches you how to be more creative and take risks safely. If Creativity Inc inspired you, this book is a way to build Pixar’s magic into your teams. An easy-to-read piece by Adam Grant, backed by solid research.
  4. Combatting Cult Mind Control. The gold-standard in knowing when someone’s in a cult, and how to escape the cult. Opened up a whole new world for me.
  5. Rich Dad Poor Dad. Teaches you to make money work for you rather than you working for money. I was shocked when I realized that the middle class buys liabilities (a house to live in) while the rich buy assets (a house to rent out).
  6. Think Again. Teaches you how to stop fooling yourself and avoid blindspots by checking your assumptions, enjoy learning from mistakes, and open up people’s minds — especially your own. Yet another easy-to-read piece by Adam Grant, backed by solid research.
  7. Influence. A research-backed guide on the science of influencing people subconsciously. Reciprocity, consistency, social proof, authority, scarcity — these are signals we react to unknowingly.
  8. Dawnshard. Book #3.5 of the Stormlight Archives. A handicapped shipowner and her winged reptile pet travel to a mysterious island that no one returns from. With a typical Brandon Sanderson climax that moves this from “interesting” to “life changing”.
  9. From Data to Stories. The first & only comic data story book, with step-by-step cricket analysis explained by comic characters. This was written by Gramener’s Story Labs team using Comicgen characters.

Interesting

  1. The First Law #1-#3. Joe Abercrombie. A wizard assembles 3 flawed heroes for a quest.
  2. Shoe Dog. The Nike founder story.
  3. Skin In The Game. On accountability & commitment.
  4. That Will Never Work. The Netflix co-founder story.
  5. Sycamore Row. John Grisham. An old man’s will leaves everything to his servant.
  6. A Time To Kill. John Grisham. An African American’s on trial for murdering his daughter’s rapists.
  7. The Psychology of Money. How to make money work for you than the other way around.
  8. Detective William Warwick #2-#4. Jeffrey Archer. More adventures from Dt. Warwick.
  9. Zoom. A wordless book that zooms out on every successive page, and nothing is what it appears.

Readable

  1. The Goblin Emperor. Katherine Addison. A Goblin half-son inherits the throne and political intrigue.
  2. A Time for Mercy. John Grisham. An African American kid’s on trial for shooting a cop.
  3. The Rithmatist. Brandon Sanderson. In a world where chalk drawings come to life, a student investigates murders.
  4. Karna: The King of Anga. Kevin Missal. A fictionalized story of how Karna re-takes the kingdom of Anga against Jarasandha.
  5. Asterix #34-#38. The latest adventures of Asterix & Obelix, the gauls.
  6. Infinity Blade #1-#2. Brandon Sanderson. Deathless immortals battle each other, and discover their origins.
  7. Old Man’s War. John Scalzi. Senior citizens are given a physical boost and sent to fight aliens.
  8. Measure What Matters. The definitive guide on how to use OKRs (Objectives & Key Results).
  9. The Maze Runner #1-#3. Kids escape from a maze prison and discover why they were there.

How I read books

  1. Select. I add book recommendations on my GoodReads – to read list. Then I sort by rating and pick the first one I like to read.
  2. Listen. I listen to non-fiction audiobooks during walks.
  3. Read: I read fiction as ePUBs on my laptop or phone.
  4. Stop: I stop reading books that are boring, with no guilt. I’ve better things to do.

Software & Gadgets, 2020

December 27, 2020 / Tools, Top 10 lists / Leave a Comment

My most-used apps in 2020 were:

  1. Everything. Locates files. Like Finder. Fast and brilliant.
  2. Chrome. But Edge is pretty good, and I’m using it for secondary accounts.
  3. Visual Studio Code. It’s my note-taker, TODO list, outliner, and IDE.
  4. Minecraft. I’m addicted.
  5. PowerPoint. I use it to make & edit videos, not just slides.
  6. Zoom. Thanks to the lockdown. Breakout rooms are great.
  7. Mail. It uses under 50MB. Gmail takes 250MB.
  8. VLC. It still plays all formats, but I’m looking for a replacement.
  9. Seafile. Our private Dropbox.
  10. AutoHotKey. The best macro tool, but hard to use.

The new utilities I started using recently are:

  1. WizTree. Fast visual disk space analyzer.
  2. PowerToys. FancyZones and ColorPicker are my favorites.
  3. WSL. Run Linux on Windows, natively (it’s fast).
  4. ngrok. Expose local web apps publicly.
  5. TabMemFree. Closes unused Chrome tabs, saves memory.

The gadgets I bought this year are:

  1. Casio CT-X9000IN keyboard. Good touch response. I play every day.
  2. HP Pavilion x360. My first touchscreen laptop. Yet to explore touch apps.
  3. Raspberry Pi. But I’m yet to use it 😟
  4. Teqneq S530 Bluetooth earbud. 2% of an airpod’s cost.
  5. JBL Endurance Run Headphones. More durable than Foxbit FX500 / JBL C100SI — but one ear always conks off in a few months.
  6. PureIT Eco. Consumes a lot less water than regular RO purifiers.
  7. Treetop Air Purifier. Fairly quiet, and shows the air quality.

Books in 2020

December 27, 2020 / How I do things, Top 10 lists / 5 Comments

My Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge target is 50 books. I’m at 45/50, with little hope of getting to 50. (I managed 25/24 in 2019.)

The 10 non-fiction books I read (most useful first) are below.

  1. The Lean Startup by Eric Reis.
    The principle of Build – Measure – Learn is useful everywhere in life too, not just in startups.
  2. Never Split The Difference by Chriss Voss.
    Shares principle-driven strategies to convince people.
  3. The 4 Disciplines of Execution by McChesney, Covey & Huling.
    Teaches how to build execution rigor in an organization. A bit long at the end, but the first section is excellent.
  4. Sprint by Jake Knapp.
    A detailed step-by-step guide to running product development sprints that you can follow blindly.
  5. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams.
    Dilbert’s author shares his strategies for life. Very readable, intelligent, and slightly provocative, but always interesting.
  6. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni.
    Written as a story (like The Goal). Talks about the 5 problems in teams and how to overcome them.
  7. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle.
    Explains the elements of strong cultures – belongingness, shared vulnerability, and shared purpose.
  8. Data-Driven Storytelling by Nathalie Henry Riche et al.
    Shares the latest points of view on telling data stories. My team and I read these chapters as a group.
  9. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek.
    Inspiring when I read it, but I don’t remember what it said.
  10. Deep Work by Cal Newport.
    Shares tactics to focus. Practical and useful.

I also started, by haven’t finished these four:

  1. Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown
  2. The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
  3. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams
  4. Stories at Work by Indranil Chakraborty

I read these 25 works of fiction — mostly by Brandon Sanderson (my current favorite author) and Brent Weeks.

  1. Lightbringer (Books 1-5) by Brent Weeks.
    In a world where color is woven as magic, the most powerful man is caught in politics. This series had enough twists and turns to keep me hooked till the end.
  2. Skyward (Books 1-2) by Brandon Sanderson.
    An outcast girl on an outcast planet becomes a fighter pilot with an alien spaceship. I love the way this is developing.
  3. The Wheel of Time (Books 1-6) by Robert Jordan.
    I picked it up again mainly because Brandon Sanderson wrote the last 3 books. It was great up to book 4 but has started dragging.
  4. Alcatraz Versus The Evil Librarians (Books 1-4) by Brandon Sanderson.
    The author lies to you. Literally. And tells you that he will, in almost every other paragraph. Great book for kids to laugh over.
  5. Night Angel (Books 1-3) by Brent Weeks.
    An assassin in a story that spans centuries of the history of magic.
  6. Legion (Books 1-3) by Brandon Sanderson.
    A detective who has multiple split-personalities in him — that help him solve cases.
  7. Snapshot by Brandon Sanderson.
    What if you could create a snapshot of the world, enter it, interact with it, and solve crimes?
  8. The Art of Letting Go: Poetry for the Seekers by Sanhita Baruah.
    It’s my first poetry book. (I hate poetry.) I took this up to see if I could survive it, and get a fresh perspective. I survived.

… and these 10 comic books/series.

  1. Batman, Volume 1: The Court of Owls
  2. Batman, Volume 2: The City of Owls
  3. World War Hulk (1-5)
  4. Superman: Red Son (1-3)
  5. Flashpoint (1-5)
  6. Batman – The Long Halloween (1-13)
  7. Batman – The Killing Joke
  8. Kingdom Come (Vol 1-4)
  9. Spiderman: Ends of the Earth
  10. Amazing Spiderman, Vol. 1

At the moment, I’m at 45 books, with little hope of completing 5 more this month unless I pick up comics. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do 😉

Software I currently use

May 9, 2014 / Top 10 lists / 8 Comments

Every few years, I review the software I use. Here are some of my earlier lists.

Right now, among browsers, Chrome is my primary browser. What’s interesting is that IE 11 has overtaken Firefox in terms of usage. That’s partly because we’re working with Microsoft a lot, but also because Firefox has a number of weird bugs like IE6 used to have, and is slowly lagging in the race.

Next to browsers, I spend most of my time on the command prompt. I use Console2 for tabbed console windows. Given the number of command prompts I open, this is often necessary. I use bash in Cygwin as the default shell. Haven’t had the need for PowerShell.

The only text editor I use is Sublime Text 3. This is the only text editor I’ve used for the last 3 years. The only plugin I use is PlainTasks which I use as my todo list. I write my blog posts in Windows Live Writer, which makes blogging offline quite painless.

For image editing, I use PicPick to capture screens and basic editing. Since I haven’t upgraded to Windows 8, I don’t have the snipping tool. But PicPick also lets me pick colors from the screen, which is pretty useful when copying designs. For slightly more serious editing like changing colours, adding annotations, etc., I use Paint.NET. It’s close enough to Photoshop for most practical uses. On rare occasions, I’ve needed to power of GIMP – especially to remove background on images. But when even this fails me, it’s ImageMagick to the rescue, with inscrutable command line options that can morph Obama into Osama. If I want to edit icon files (to create favicons, for example), I use IcoFX. For vector graphics, I use InkScape, which has a steep learning curve but doesn’t seem to have a good free alternative. To edit shapefiles, I use QGIS, and Shape Viewer to view them.

For music and movies, I’ve kept it simple: I use VLC. It lets me stream on to my iPad. I can also watch/stream movies as they are being downloaded via μTorrent – which is probably the coolest feature feature of any torrent client. I store all my music in one large folder, and keep .m3u playlists. These are rsynced periodically into my Android phone.

For audio editing, Audacity remains my best bet. However, for video editing, my needs have changed. It’s usually screen-recordings I need to create, so I don’t use VirtualDub much. I’ve moved from CamStudio to Microsoft Expression Encoder Screen Capture (long name for a rather nice piece of software that works reasonably well.)

To read books, I’ve started using Calibre, simply because it can read both ePub and .mobi formats. Since then, I’ve been using Kindle less. I continue to use my old copy of Microsoft Reader, even though the product is dead, because I have a lot of .lit files. (That’s one of the advantages of software over online services. Even if they pull the plug, you can use an old copy of the software. And it works!) To read PDF files, I use Foxit PDF Reader. On the extremely rare occasion that I need to print PDF files from a software that does not support PDF printing, I use CutePDF Writer.

For file sharing, I use Dropbox for files. It’s simple, popular and just works. I tried BitTorrent Sync as a peer-to-peer alternative to Dropbox, but the interface has a long way to go before it’s usable. I do hope something emerges. For screen sharing, I use TeamViewer (which is fast) or join.me (which doesn’t require a client). Though I use Skype for calls, I don’t find its screen-sharing fast enough.

I play around with data a lot. This is mostly done in Python, for which I use Continuum’s Anaconda builds – they have most of the useful packages built-in. When I need to scrape Javascript-based websites, I try CasperJS on top of PhantomJS. This is particularly handy for the several ASPX based Government websites. I also have node.js installed, but don’t really use it much.

I use RStudio as my R IDE. I’m experimenting with Tabula to see if it’s practical to extract PDF tables with it, but my current preference is to use xpdf to convert PDF to text and then process it. For data cleansing, there’s only one tool that I know that’s effective: Open Refine. For network visualisations, I use Gephi, though NodeXL can do a small but useful subset of that within Excel.

For compression, I use 7-zip. The 7z format provides the best compression across most file types that I’ve seen, but even if you want to use ZIP files, 7-zip creates smaller ZIP files. For image compression, I use kraken.io, which offers the best compression I’ve seen. On the desktop, TruePNG and jpegoptim do the trick.

There are several small utilities I use. WinDirStat tells me how my hard disk space is used up, helping clean drives and Dropbox folders. ClipX lets you copy and keep multiple items in the clipboard. Restoration can undelete even permanently deleted files. Truecrypt keeps files encrypted. Putty lets you connect via SSH if you don’t have cygwin. But the mother of all tools is AutoHotkey, which I use for everything ranging from typing my signature to resizing windows to storing our conference bridge numbers.

I’ve a number of web servers on my system. I use XAMPP for Apache, MySQL and PHP, but also have nginx handy. But the simplest, easiest and smallest web server is perhaps Mongoose. Just run it in any folder to start a web server. python -mSimpleHTTPServer does the same for developers. I also have Fiddler installed as a proxy – partly to monitor what URLs my applications access, and partly to simulate slow speed connections for the web apps I build. Apart from MySQL in XAMPP, I have a few databases installed: SQL Server, SQLite and SQLite Studio to read the sqlite3 files.

      Of course, some of my apps apps have moved online, and my earlier post on the A-Z of my browsing history covers that. But there are a few applications that I’ve hosted which I must talk about. WordPress, which this blog runs on, is the primary one on the list. I also use gitlab as an internal alternative to Github, slideshare.net to share slides, and etherpad.mozilla.org to chat / collaborate on code. But the application that I spend the most time on is selfoss – an RSS reader, my replacement for the late beloved Google Reader.

A-Z of my browsing history

May 11, 2014 / Top 10 lists / 2 Comments

When you start typing in the address bar, Chrome suggests a link to visit, based on frecency. What do my recommendations look like?

  • A is for airtel.in/smartbyte-s/page.html – the page where you can check your bandwidth usage. I used to check it infrequently until I upgraded to a 125GB connection. Now I check it every few days and feel miserable that I’ve nowhere near used up my quota. This has coerced me to watch many Telugu movies, of which I don’t understand a word.
  • B is for blog.gramener.com – I blog there on data stories. The last month or so has been fairly active thanks to the elections.
  • C is for calendar.google.com – which has become primarily a shared calendar. It was always indispensible to manage my time. Now it helps my colleagues pick when to call me. Right now, my calendar has events booked about two months in advance.
  • D is for docs.google.com – for effectively one single purpose: shared spreadsheets. This is such a common and powerful use case, and I’m surprised it hasn’t become much easier to use.
  • E is for epaper.timesofindia.com – some of our content has been published by The Economic Times, and I keep doing ego-searches in the print edition. But close behind is eci.nic.in which I’ve been scraping a lot, and election-results.ibnlive.in.com which we created for CNN-IBN.
  • F is for flipkart.com – not facebook.com. I’m not often on Facebook.
  • G is for gramener.com. Naturally. (It’s not surprising that it’s not google.com: I search directly from the address bar.)
  • H is for handsontable.com – a library that I’ve been using a lot recently, followed by html5please.com that tells me which HTML5 features are ready for use.
  • I is for ibn.gramener.com – another property we created, but it only just beats irctc.co.in.
  • J is for join.me – a clean way to share your screen without the audience having to install anything (though you the sharer do have to install the software.)
  • K is for kraken.io – an amazingly efficient image compressor. As you might have guessed, I lead a strange life.
  • L is for learn.gramener.com – our Intranet. Sorry, you can’t access this one.
  • M is for mail.google.com. I’ll probably be moving away from gmail as a backend this weekend to Mail-in-a-box, though. Google’s pulling the plug on Google Reader has shaken my faith.
  • N is for news.ycombinator.com. When I’m bored and want to watch something while I have dinner, I don’t open YouTube. I open Hacker News.
  • O is for odc.datameet.org – the Open Data Camp. I’m quite into open data.
  • P is for pay.airtel.com, but if you ignore the number of bills I pay, it would be pandas.pydata.org, the home page of a remarkable data processing library.
  • Q is for quirksmode.org, PPK’s remarkable browser-compatibility guide
  • R is for reader.s-anand.net, my self-hosted RSS reader. It used to be reader.google.com, but Google let me down there.
  • S is for s-anand.net – this blog.
  • T is for twitter.com. Unlike Facebook, I don’t dislike Twitter so much.
  • U is for underscorejs.org. Clearly I need to get a life.
  • V is for visualizing.org. They have a number of interesting data visualisations.
  • W is for webpagetest.org – it helps measure the speed of web pages.
  • X is for xem.github.io. I’ve probably visited this page once, but it’s the only one in my recent history that starts with X
  • Y is for youtube.com. I lied. I spend an order of magnitude more time watching Telugu movies on YouTube than on Hacker News.
  • Z is for zoemob.com. Again, a page I visited only once, but there’s nothing else in Z at the moment.

Software for my new laptop 2

September 27, 2011 / Top 10 lists / 19 Comments

Time for a new laptop, and to replace software. Here’s my new list.

A lot has changed in the last 5 years. Mainly, I use the browser, cygwin and Portable Apps a lot more. (The last is to escape jailers, not registry bloat.)

Media

  • Chrome [new]: For browsing and development. Fast, light, and stays out of the way.
  • Firefox: I keep it just for printing. Chrome sucks at printing.
  • Media Player Classic: Nothing against it, but I decided to stick to just one app, which is…
  • VLC: Continues to be the best media player, IMHO.
  • WinAmp: I just manage my playlists as M3U files, using Python programs.
  • Audacity: Still the easiest way to record audio.
  • Camstudio: The simplest free portable screen capture software I know.
  • PicPick [new]: Lightweight, powerful screenshot grabber
  • VirtualDub: Not the simplest, but still good for what I need: cropping and joining video.
  • MediaCoder [new]: Good for video/audio conversions. Maybe I’ll install this later.
  • Foxit Reader: The simples free portable PDF reader I know, better than…
  • NitroPDF Reader [new]: … which is good for Printing PDFs – better than…
  • Primo PDF: … which has trouble on rare occasions.
  • Microsoft Reader: I have a lot of ebooks in .LIT.
  • Kindle for PC [new]: I don’t own a Kindle, but I’ve bought a few ebooks.
  • Paint.NET: Good enough for cropping and adjusting colours on images.
  • Windows Live Writer [new]: The best way to write this blog WYSIWYG
  • Inkscape [new]: I occasionally edit vector graphics.
  • Google Earth. Google Maps is good enough.
  • ImgBurn: I no longer use CDs/DVDs. Just flash drives and external hard disks.
  • Picasa: I’ve stopped browsing pictures. No time.

Sharing

  • Dropbox [new]: Simplest way of sharing files.
  • Skype: I use it more than my phone.
  • Google Talk: For those friends who have chat enabled on Gmail.
  • TeamViewer [new]: Pretty efficient screen sharing. Works better than Skype, I think.
  • Google Calendar Sync: To keep Outlook in sync with Google Calendar.

Utilities

  • 7-Zip [new]: Covers all compressed formats, and has the best compression ratio.
  • WinRAR: 7-Zip has it covered.
  • AutoHotKey [new]: Shockingly powerful macro functionality. Shockingly underused.
  • Clip [new]: Command line clipboard. dir | clip copies the directory to the clipboard.
  • ClipX [new]: Stores multiple clipboard entries and history. Invaluable.
  • DiskTT [new]: I’m paranoid about disk speed. I keep measuring it.
  • WinDirStat [new]: Best way to find what’s taking up space on disk.
  • ProcessExplorer [new]: Just in case Task Manager doesn’t show you everything.
  • Google Desktop: Well, it’s dead.
  • mDesktop [new]: A Virtual Desktop Manager (multiple screens) for Windows 7.
  • PowerToys: doesn’t work on Windows 7, but I got X-Mouse working.
  • Teracopy: I don’t worry too much about copying files any more. Maybe later.
  • Junction Link Magic [new]: To map folders. But I now use Cygwin, and symlinks rock.
  • uTorrent [new]: For bittorrent.
  • ntlmaps [new]: proxies requiring a password to a proxy not requiring a password
  • Putty [new]: SSH for Windows, but can also act as an SSH tunnel
  • TrueCrypt [new]: To securely back up my bank details on the cloud.

Development

Data Visualisation

  • R [new]. The God of all statistical packages. Install reshape and ggplot2.
  • Gephi [new]: Does network visualisations quite well. 
  • GraphViz [new]: Does network visualisations not quite as well.
  • Google Refine [new]: Helps clean up messy data.
  • qhull [new]: For voronoi treemaps. Don’t ask.
  • wkhtml2pdf [new]: To print web pages as PDF.

What am I missing that you really like?