The Ephemeral 4 Years

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Finally, my engineering degree has come to an end. The four years have passed by in the blink of an eye. Now with the completion of the degree, the nostalgia is boggling all around.

I still remember my first day in college; the ragging by seniors - those 90-degree bending and wishing them - the all white dress-code with no accessories (belts, watches etc) - repeating the same intro in multiple languages multiple times a day - and the other fun stuff... Soon the studies started and in no time we had our first sessionals - then the second - and then the end-sems.

Semesters came and went - the cycle continued: 1st sessional, 2nd sessional, end-sems. These were the only times for study - that too with one night stand policy before the exams. A week was all we studied during the sem. With virtually nil attendance in classes and no idea of the syllabus - we always landed at the photocopy shop to get the xerox for the notes - or relied on friends to scan and email them - or search for the topics on the Internet - or just leave it, I don't intend to top the exams :P.

But, college was a lot fun too. Working for DLC (thats, D'LangChaps - the literary society) events and the college fest, GATES are the most memorable times of the college. I would never forget those long meetings - the strategy discussions at Bindra pakore waala - the brainstorming sessions at the 'den' - working till late night in the college - the hide and seek games without any lights - the overnight stays - the sleeping on the chairs - the lunches and dinners at Deepak ka dhaba - the outings, the trips and the videos we shot ;) - and a lot of amusing memories to cherish.

There were times we attended some classes too. Our favorite activities during lectures included: sleeping - aptly using the free SMS's by chatting with a friend sitting in the next row - playing games on the phone - eating our lunch - discussions on philosophy unrelated to the subjects. The missing of the deadlines - the long library queues - the copying of the assignments - the xeroxing of the files before the practicals - the multiple canteen visits - the visit to the labs for surfing the internet - the seminars and sessions - the projects and the presentations... There's a long list of things we did, but there are restraints on being candid.

These 4 years were really amazing. These unforgettable years have gone by and what they have left behind are memories, sweet memories...

P.S.: Here are a few lines on college memories which were circulated via SMS:
Wo College Ki Sidhi Par Pyar Bhari Baate,
Wo Syllabus Ki Tension Wo Exam Ki Raate,
Wo Canteen Ki Party Wo B'day Ki Laate,
Wo Ruthna Manana Wo Bunk Wo Mulaqate,
Wo Lab Wo Library Wo Sona Temporary,
Wo Movie Wo Music Wo Cards K Magic,
Wo Proposal ki Planning me Raat Ka Gujarna,
Fir Class Me Piche Ki Seat Pe Sona,
Wo Library Me Jakar Chehro Ko Padna,
Betuki Baaton Ko Seriously Le Lena,
Na Rahenge ye Din Na Rahengi Wo Raaten,
Bachengi Kuch To Bas Yeh "Yaadein".

Screenshot Utilities for Web Pages

Saturday, May 10, 2008

I need to take a lot of screenshots of webpages for my presentations, projects and websites. I have been using some easy to use browser screenshot utilities for quite some time now. After observing some friends taking screenshots the hard-way (by coping multiple parts on paint and joining them), I thought it would be wise to share these tools.

When you take screenshots of webpages from the browser, it is mostly impossible to capture the complete webpage. Also, you might not like the browser window with your shot. There are many utilities to help you solve these problems. Here are a couple of them which I use:

FireShot: This is an extension for Firefox that can capture the screenshot of the webpage you are viewing in just two clicks. It provides an option to capture the entire web page or only visible part of the page. The captured image opens up in an editor having a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Screenshots can be uploaded to server, saved to disk (PNG, GIF, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.

ThumbPage: This is a small software application which allows you to generate thumbnails for a webpage. It can be conveniently used to generate thumbnails of any size and type. Thumbnails for multiple pages can be generated together by adding multiple URLs. Its ideally suited for generating icons of the webpages. I have been using this utility for generating thumbnails of my projects, which I've used in the work page on my website.