Posts on Naresh Mehta

AI Fatigue

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I am pretty sure most of us haven’t heard about “AI Fatigue”. And no, it is not related to fatigue for AI, but for humans working on AI. It is a phenomenon where humans face mental exhaustion, burnout, and emotional drain from the constant interaction with AI systems. And if someone would have told me this 2 years back, I would have laughed it off. But it is real and it is happening.

Power of AI

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I came across an amazing video talk between Neil deGrasse Tyson and Geoffrey Hinton on YouTube. The first 30 minutes are amazing for any AI practitioner to understand the current state of AI and its potential impact on humanity.

Geoffrey Hinton is one of the pioneers of AI and has been working on it for decades. He is also one of the few people who has been warning about the potential dangers of AI for years. In this talk, he discusses the current state of AI and its potential impact on humanity. Geoffrey starts with a brief history of AI, neural net, backpropogation, etc. for the first 30 minutes. And then comes the best part on the potential impact on humanity, consiousness, singularity, etc. This is a must watch for anybody interested in the current state of AI and where it is leading, how the exponential growth of AI power has the potential to change the world (for good or bad is a question that is yet to be answered).

How many MCPs have you enabled in your LLM?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Context is the lifeline of LLM. Without context (or with invalid context) an LLM is nothing but a gibberish word generating machine. Context allows for the LLM to personalize, reason, provide coherence and grounding for any response it generates. The Context Window is the model’s active memory. Claude Opus-4 for instance has a 200K token context window. It is huge and suffices for most of the tasks. But efficient use of the context window is also needed to improve coherence and dept in responses.

OpenWRT Client Mode

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I got a bunch of Gale (Google Wifi devices) on an auction site as broken. The owner of the devices was basically saying that all the devices were working but randomly shutting down. To make them work again, they had to be unplugged and replugged. So he/she auctioned them off as replacement devices at an ultra low price (3 AC-1204 and 2 GJ2CQ models) of 30$ for all 5. I of course had to get it. Power doesn’t seem to be an issue. Mostly a SW conflict due to the configuration being used by the previous owner.

Gatekeeper for OpenWrt - Control devices on your Wifi

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Gale-Gatekeeper is a security tool that allows you to control devices on your Wifi. Gale-Gatekeeper is a Telegram-based network access control system for OpenWrt routers. When a new device connects to the network via DHCP, the system sends a Telegram notification with interactive Approve/Deny buttons. Devices with static DHCP leases are automatically allowed. Temporary devices require manual approval and have timeout-based access (30 minutes default).

I was so tired of the impossibility to control the wifi devices on my network. My kids used to jump devices from one to another. I also got a host of devices from school which I had no control over. So my kids basically got access to the internet almost 24x7 jumping devices. I have been trying very hard to implement a effort-reward mechanism but it was not working as I had no/almost 0 control over the screen time for my kids.

Use Claude Code with OpenAI compatible APIs

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year and welcome 2026. This is my first article of the year and I have embarked on a very interesting journey. And I am excited to share it with you. Keep reading.

Claude code is an AI coding tool operating within a terminal. It allows users to write, debug and manage code and/or AI tasks more efficiently, without going through an IDE. This typically enhances the AI interaction experience and is also quite light-weight. It also has a in-built “Agentic Loop” where the 3 phases (contextualization, action and verification) happens in a loop to provide for the most optimum output without detailed repetitive prompting. It also supports MCP, subagents, hooks, plugins and what have you.

Integrate Tavily Search with Langchain

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Something amazingly simple turned out to be amazingly weird! I was trying to create a react agent that uses tavily search to fetch relevant articles and then uses openai (on localai server) to generate a response based on the articles. I was following the Langchain docs and the tavily search docs to create the agent.

The code is available on github. If I use the TavilyClient directly as a tool in my agent, it works fine. But if I use the TavilySearch tool, it truncates the query in a weird way and sends the result back. The LLM (gpt-oss) then goes into an infinite loop trying to get the correct information from the tool. The tool in turn gives back invalid responses which do not match the query and the whole cycle is repeated again.

Integrate LangSmith with Langchain

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

LangSmith is a platform that allows you to track and analyze the performance of your LLMs. It provides a lot of features like tracing, debugging, etc. LangSmith is available as a python package and can be installed using pip and also as a docker image. But the best way to start using LangSmith is pretty simple.

If you have followed my previous article on Use LocalAI server with Langchain, you should have a localAI server running and a langchain setup to interact with it. You can download the example code that I have pasted in the previous article and run it to interact with the localAI server.

Use LocalAI server with Langchain

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Now you might have used gemini, chatgpt, deepseek, claude, etc. for your daily activities or asking a question here and there. And most of these services ask for a subscription to use their services. And if you are not tech sauvy, you might not be aware that it is very easy to run local AI servers on your local machine. No need to have a subscription or pay for cloud services. The best part is that your normal PC/Mac will work just fine. Of course depending on your HW, there will be limits on the type of models that can be used. But running an SLM (Small Language Model) or a smaller LLM (Large Language Model) is a piece of cake.

How to get Started with AI?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

AI has expanded into multiple territories. The pace of expansion has been exponential after 2022 when the first “free” LLMs were exposed to the general public for use. Suddenly overnight we have a variety of demography using AI for a variety of purposes. The chat interface offered by companies such as OpenAI, Google, ChatGPT, etc. provides for the most basic usage. People from all walks of life, all age groups and all professions use the chat interface to use the power of AI. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a game changer in that context. I work in a multi-cultural environment with customers spread across the globe speaking different languages. Just about 5 years ago, a customer email in a local language had to be translated manually. And the quality of translation left a lot to be desired. Fast forward to today and language barriers seem almost non-existent! Most of the linked-in job postings now talk about practical AI usage experience rather than proficiency in certain language as a key skill. Language though comes as an added skillset. With the development of headsets that do on the fly translation, I guess it would be pushed further down in priority, all thanks to NLP and LLMs.

LLM Parameters

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When we start learning about Large Language Models (LLMs), it is but natural to become quite interested in how the various parameters, training data size, context size, tokens, etc. affect the performance of the model. And how the existing models out there in the wild; both open and closed source; use the different parameters, what are their strengths and weaknesses, etc. It is also important to know and compare the training data sizes used in such models so one can understand how much resources would a relative model need in order to be trained from scratch.

Build LLMs From Scratch

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Building Large Language Models (LLMs) from scratch is a complex and challenging task. It requires a deep understanding of the underlying mathematics and a strong foundation in computer science. In this post, we will explore the process of building a LLM from scratch and provide a step-by-step guide to help anyone get started.

LLMs are incredibly versatile, aiding in tasks such as checking grammar, composing emails, summarizing lengthy documents, and much more. They are “large”—very large—encompassing millions to billions of parameters. LLMs are a unique subset of AI. There is a very nice book Build LLMs from Scratch by Sebastian Raschka which shows a practical approach to building your own LLM.

Book Review - Maharanas: A Thousand Year War For Dharma by Omendra Ratnu

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Theology and history goes hand in hand and should be read by any seeker of knowledge. History is the keystone to understanding the present and the future. Learning about history has a great impact on development of critical thinking skills, fostering of empathy and cultural awareness as well as shaping of individual and group identity. Connecting past events to current circumstances gives us a unique perspective of understanding human behavior, societal changes and complexities of the world we live in. Many of the so called “unsolvable” problems of the world haven’t been approached with critical thinking either because of lack of historical context or because of ignorance of the past.

Raja Dahir Sen Defeat in Batle of Aror

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Battle of Aror (712 CE) was fought between the Arab Umayyad Caliphate and the Indian kingdom of Pala Empire.
Mohammad Bin Qasim (MBQ) (695-715 CE) of Arab Umayyad Caliphate defeated Raja Dahir Sen (663-712 CE) of India in the Battle of Aror (712 CE). Raja Dahir and his brother Dahar-Sena had fought and replused the Arabs multiple times. But as fate would have it, the buddhists of Sindh and the local ‘Med’ tribe, who were alienated by Dahir had joined MBQ. They helped MBQ to cross Sindhu river at Nerun giving MBQ entry to Raja Dahir’s garrison.

What is AI?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 14 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of computer science that deals with the development of intelligent machines that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language translation. AI systems are designed to learn from data, identify patterns, and make predictions or decisions based on that data. AI has the potential to transform many aspects of our lives, from healthcare and transportation to education and entertainment. It has the potential to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, poverty, and disease. However, it also raises ethical and philosophical questions, such as the impact of AI on jobs, privacy, and autonomy.

Magisk Out, APatch IN!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 05 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I have been using Magisk since almost 12 years now when I first started rooting and unlocking my bootloaders and using/creating my custom ROMs. Magisk allowed for managing root access to applications, install modules that allowed for functionality that is not available otherwise, access the android application’s process space using Zygisk, lsposed and associated modules, etc. Without Magisk, if one had unlocked bootloader and rooted his/her device, it would be a nightmare to manage root access and host load of applications will start failing because of the “compromised security”.

Going from Wordpress to Hugo

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I have been hosting my website on the hosting platform since the last 17+ years. It has been quite a journey and I learnt a lot of things about networking, hosting, website management, content creation, etc. It was ofcourse a Wordpress (WP) site. On the side, I had phpbb (forums), GedView, etc. The website helps me keep my thoughts in control and provides me a platform to voice my opinions, ideas, views, etc. on various topics. I can go back and read the posts/blogs to sketch and retrace information as needed. So the blog/posts help me organize and keep a record of my braindump. The blogs/posts are more or less static and do not change much. So having a heavy WP install and maintaing it is a resource intensive work. Regular updates, security patches, etc. are also a pain to maintain.

OpenWrt on Google Wifi

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

OpenWrt is a great router firmware with lots of features, flexibility and security updates. It is basically a small Linux distribution and does a smart job at adding enhancements to any “supported” router. One can read more about it here.

I have been using Google Wifi for a while now and it has been a great experience. It has an amazing HW (4GB of storage and 512MB of RAM). Google SW can be controlled using Google Home but privacy, DNS, parental controls, firewall, ad-blocking and other features are either not supported or are not as good as I would like them to be. And also my version of the Wifi AC-1304 does not receive any new features.

In rememberance (Shraddhanjali) of the victims of Pahalgam terrorism

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

India has been suffering from terrorists attacks since the last 1400 years! This terrorism is based on religion and the religious principles embibed in the religious book. In the latest spate of attacks, on 22nd April 2025, terrorists opened fire on a group of tourists killing at least 28 peiple and injuring more than 20 others. These tourists were asked their names, religion and checked for circumcision before being killed. Partial details of the attack is captured in Wiki.

Reverse a string in Rust

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Rust has been gaining a lot of positive attention in the developer community due to very many positive things. You can read more on Stackoverflow (https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/01/20/what-is-rust-and-why-is-it-so-popular/) so I will avoid repetition on this blog.

Rust has fantastic support for basic str primitive (https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/primitive.str.html) but there are typical things that are very hard to get a grip on when one jumps to Rust as a C/C++ developer. I was doing some exercisim.io for Rust and came across a nice exercise where a primitive str is passed to a function which is expected to return a Rust String with the contents reversed i.e. drawer as an input is reversed into reward as an out.

Google CTF – Quest 3 (High-Speed Chase)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first quest where you are told to write code in JavaScript. It is a very easy challenge to clear and tests the basics of conditional statements. The problem is that after breaking away from the Prague Apartment (Quest 2), you are being followed by adversaries. Luckily you get your hands on a self-driving car and you can break-in into the self-driving module and write your own code to get it to move faster than the pursuers. You are also helped by data points which are collected from satellites and sent to you for use. You can use JavaScript to write the code and get away from the pursuers.

Google CTF - Quest 2 (Prague Apartment)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Quest 2 is even easier than Quest 1 (if you have studied logic gates). Basically, the idea is to go through the circuit given and arrive at the code which will provide for a 1 on the final output. The combination of gates that are TRUE needs to be mentioned in CTF{}. The rest of the gates can be ignored.

There is a very simple way to solve it. We do a reverse traversal from the final gate to the input gates. The idea is to basically have the final value as true and then look at the gates input. Determine the input values so that the final value is true. Do the reverse traversal in an iterative fashion until one reaches the inputs defined.

Google CTF (Beginners Quest)!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I have been doing reverse engineering (RE) since my childhood days and that always helps freshen up my technical skills as well as understand the intrinsic working details of a particular piece of code and/or software. I have used tools such as IDA, x64dbg/Ollydbg, hiew, and more recently Ghidra. In the past I had also used SoftICE and quite a few other things. Those were the golden days when one can play around and I had all the time to learn stuff.

Home Alarm in Sweden

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Home Alarm (Hemlarm in Swedish) systems market in Sweden is pretty monopolistic with 2 big companies (Verisure and Sector Alarm) dominating the home alarm market. Alarm systems needs to be connected to the central alarm system which is the one monitoring and calling in emergency services (Police & fire departments) in case of break-ins or fire. HomeAlarm systems from the big companies can cost as much as 500 SEK per month. In many cases, I have seen people spending more than 600 SEK per month.

Climate Change Strategies

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Climate change is for real and multiple scientific evidence that has been provided by scientists and climate change activists to ask for increased action by corporates and individuals alike to actively work towards reversing and/or stopping the phenomena. Corporates especially are increasingly challenged to incorporate visible and meaningful action on climate change in their day to day activities. Investors are also requesting for transparency on corporate greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and looking forward to strategies to reduce them. This resulted in a shift towards market responses, i.e. proactive managerial and technological measures, such as the establishment of carbon inventories, investments in ‘green’ products and cleaner production processes[1][2].

Climate Change Strategy Framework

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 30 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The literature on climate change strategies converges on 4 main strategic intents namely governance, innovation, compensation, and legitimation. The figure below identifies a corporate climate change strategy framework. The different corporate activities are grouped into 4 strategic intent with a focus of interaction / self-containment levels in each of those activities[1].

Governance which is defined as an organization’s ability to deal with risks and opportunities deals with GHG (Green House Gas) management and associated policy development, organization involvement and risk management. All of these corporate activities are mostly internal to the company and if done properly can be effectively used to formulate and strategize the corporate vision around climate change. Innovation is geared towards the improvement of existing products and processes as well as embracing any new technologies that can accelerate and conform to the various standards related to climate change activities and impact reduction. Compensation is the action taken by an organization to reduce its carbon footprint like buying CO2 credits or enhancing carbon sinks. The organization’s own technological assets and competencies remain unaltered. Legitimation encompasses the activities aimed at retaining or gaining legitimacy around the various activities done by the organization.

Viable System Model (VSM)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

VSM stands for the Viable System Model and it introduces the concept of a viable organization and its ability to survive in a changing environment. VSM consists of a number of systems that correspond to the needed roles in an organization for it to be viable and self-producing. There are four underlying principles for VSM according to Beer[1]. These four principles and relevant comments on my behalf are presented below.

Corporate Governance

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

(Vasudha Chhotray and Stoker, 2010) define corporate governance as, “Governance is about the rules of collective decision-making in settings where there is a plurality of actors or organizations and where no formal control system can dictate the terms of the relationship between these actors and organizations”[1]. The Australian Stock Exchange[2] publishes a list of principles for corporate governance which can also be applied to 3P (project, program, and portfolio) governance.

Organization Project Maturity Model (OPMM)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Maturity has various meanings but from an organizational sense, it is the ability of the organization to act on its experience, to learn, change and improve, essentially what is known as the learning organization[1]. Maturity is seen as being the integration of attitude, knowledge, and action across the management of projects, programs and portfolios. A more mature organization does have a higher rate of project success.

“The central hypothesis behind the OPMM is that an organization’s ability to manage projects successfully can be assessed by analyzing key attributes that define how well project management is being carried out”[2]. OPMM is a 4-level model used to communicate maturity. The 4 stages of OPMM are:

Positive Impact Investments

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Positive impact investments are investment approaches that seek benefits on both; eco-social and financial fronts at the same time. Business sustainability 4.0 is not only about surviving, making profit and growth but also encompasses social, environment and spiritual development of humanity. Issues such as climate change, social justice, inequality, global poverty, etc. have negative environmental and social consequences that directly affect the operating environments of any organization.

Corporate culture has taken positive impact investments into consideration especially since the implementation of both 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)[1] of the United Nations and the Paris climate accord (COP21)[2] has become an unavoidable obligation for businesses. Portfolio management frameworks today are not capable of taking Impact investments into consideration. Also, no systematic approach is proliferated to connect strategy, culture, impact, and investments from an organization’s perspective[3].

Organization Vision & Mission

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Vision for an organization is, “what the person, team or organization wants to create in its best possible future. It is an evocative description of what is possible. A vision is not “something out there” that is impractical, but a way of setting a compelling scenario. Creating this image of the future requires the ability to expand one’s sense of possibilities and then focus on what new initiatives can lead to success”[1].

Regurgitating?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Well, I just had to write about this since people in general and some, in particular, like to regurgitate the same things again and again. Regurgitating[1], of course, adds value for yourself if you are going to learn and practice but it adds little value to the already existing knowledgebase. Internet especially because of its open nature is a place where regurgitating ideas and information happens on a much larger scale. Sometimes they are just clickbait[2] and sometimes they are outright wrong in the information that is being presented.

Vision & Mission Statements

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Vision and mission statements are very important in setting the organizational culture and leadership values in any organization. The organizational aspirations are valued by the vision statements whereas the mission statements put the vision in the context of the business environment and push the organization to execute for the achievement of that vision. In simple words, “a vision is what the company aspires to BE, and mission is what the company is in the business to DO”[1].

Going back to OpenWRT

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 30 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

About a couple of months ago, I went from OpenWRT to Gargoyle on my Netgear R6220 router. You can read more about it here. I had setup a couple of networks with one hidden and not isolating clients whereas the other one doing the reverse. Now everything was OK but the Gargoyle used to crash my kernel whenever a new device tried to join the unadvertised network. The different interfaces were also brought down. Again, there are certain features of OpenWRT that I really missed with one being the ability to create multiple virtual radio interfaces and the other being the flexibility with adblock host lists.

Academics & industry

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

According to the University of Manchester, " Academics generally work within a university, combining research, teaching and administrative duties. Academics are the life-blood of a university, without whom the institution would not exist"[1]. Academics have a very systematic approach to research which provides lots of benefits when it comes to the introduction or evolution of new/existing concepts and/or processes. The way academics detail out each and every aspect of a subject under consideration is amazing. Exceptions are taken care of from an academic perspective and most of the corner cases are covered in the research subject.

Leadership & BRM

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Leadership has to be one of the key critical factors for the successful implementation of the Benefits Realization Plan (BRM) in any organization. Delegation of responsibilities as well as delegating the needed rights to carry on the successful implementation of the BRM needs flexibility; trust & faith as well as blessings of leadership on all levels. A benefits champion ideally should be a group of individuals from various departments who are more involved with the strategy and business side of the organization. A benefits steering group can be formed which should be directly responsible for not only the BRM but also effective execution of the same with the project management office (PMO) and/or portfolio management teams.

Portfolio Management

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

According to the standards of portfolio management by PMI, “A portfolio is a collection of projects, programs, subsidiary portfolios, and operations managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives”[1]. Any organization has very well defined business goals and strategic objectives. The organizations devise strategies and create a vision for the members of the organization as a guideline to follow in order to fulfill the business goals and strategic objectives defined by the organization. The strategies and vision lay the foundation for quantifying a portfolio and the entities within a portfolio.

Benefits Realization

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 20 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I have been asking a lot of technocrats around in various verticals on whether they have been successfully tracking benefits realization in one or other format and making sure that they are constantly aligned and in sync with the organizational objectives, the most I get is glares and a few cheeky answers as to how they don’t get any “added/extra” benefit! Benefits realization management, defined in Benefits Realization Management: A practice guide, “BRM encompasses the standard methods and processes that an organization uses for identifying benefits, executing its benefits realization plans, and sustaining the realized benefits facilitated by portfolio, program, and project initiatives. BRM requires alignment with an organization’s strategy, a solid understanding of key principles, and techniques”[1].

Digital Transformation & Cross-Functional Teams

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 18 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

One of the important aspects of Digitial Transformation is the introduction of cross-functional teams. A cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal[1]. Cross-functional teams include people from various departments with different functional expertise working towards a common organizational goal. This teams also might have people from outside of the organization such as suppliers, key customers, etc.

The purpose of the cross-functional team is to facilitate innovation through creative collaboration leading to higher throughput and quick problem resolution. Another purpose of the cross-functional team is to break the silos that typically happen in big organizations and instead try to build bridges for communication. All the people in a cross-functional team have various levels of expertise so even if the posed problem is not solved, it can easily be taken to an “expert” by the team for doubt resolution and a probable way forward. All in all, cross-functional teams do lead to improved coordination across various functional areas.

Project Benefits Management Plan

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 13 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

According to PMBOK, “The project beneﬁts management plan is the document that describes how and when the beneﬁts of the project will be delivered, and describes the mechanisms that should be in place to measure those beneﬁts. A project beneﬁt is deﬁned as an outcome of actions, behaviors, products, services, or results that provide value to the sponsoring organization as well as to the project’s intended beneﬁciaries”[1].

This document is a living document and according to me, its life-cycle starts way before any business plan is laid out. Information exists for this but maybe not in a centralized place. Many factors such as business execution environment changes (evolution, devolution or revolution) and/or strategy, management and economy changes are the ones which trigger activities that generate a probably viable business sustenance/execution plan.

Project & People Management

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 06 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Project management has been very much talked about and PMBOK is an excellent resource to get all the relevant information. I think people everywhere in public & private life do understand the value of project management. Simple tasks in everyday life (eg: go for an offsite meeting on Friday evening ;)) are looked upon as projects by parents. Everybody involved (husband, wife & children in this case) needs to be on the same page when it comes to execution.

Digitalization - What is it?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Before I start writing on Digitization/Digitalization, maybe we should spend a little time in exploring the alternative “Analogization”! Now I have made up that word and probably the more appropriate word might be “Materialization”[1][2] but comparing the past/existing with the upcoming/future will give a perspective and provide a context for my thoughts.

As human beings, we have been generating information right from the start of our existence and materializing it as physical objects. These physical objects were hard to manage, cross-reference, study & derive from. With the new age technologies, we are now at a stage where we can convert all the physical form of materializing information into digital bits & bytes that can be read, stored, coded and decoded by computers (Digitization).

Compile Gargoyle for Netgear R6220

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 15:41:57 +0200

Netgear R6220 router an AC1200 dual-band router with very impressive specs. It was awarded the best router in 2016 and now in 2019, I still think it is a very good router. It has a 2 core Mediatek MT7621 (MIPS) processor with 128 MB RAM & 128 MB ROM i.e. ample space with some good processing power. Below you can see the impressive specs. BTW: I got this for almost 15 USD which was a steal!

Compile Gargoyle for Netgear R6220

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I recently got a Netgear R6220 router, an AC1200 dual-band router with very impressive specs. It was awarded the best router in 2016 and now in 2019, I still think it is a very good router. It has a 2 core Mediatek MT7621 (MIPS) processor with 128 MB RAM & 128 MB ROM i.e. ample space with some good processing power. Below you can see the impressive specs. BTW: I got this for almost 15 USD which was a steal!

To Docker or to Vagrant

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 24 May 2018 15:41:57 +0200

To Docker or to Vagrant, an eternal struggle for a dev-ops / smart people (like me!) who wants to automate stuff is a big life and death question! No seriously, I mean there are just 2 camps of people, one is hardcore docker supporters who want docker everywhere (without realizing that docker is not a full virtualization solution but uses Linux kernel’s namespaces and cgroups functionality. So what does it mean? Well for starters, anything that requires mounting operations inside the docker container, for instance, requires special privileged access and these have the possibility to change your actual host filesystem (eg: mounting filesystems inside the container will mount it indirectly on your host as well and rest is history. It is not just mount operations, simple things like socket access, changes to locale or local-gen will not work inside docker containers without passing special access privilege flags while running the docker container.

Update Anaconda Navigator

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 10:30:22 +0200

Everybody using Python would nowadays be using Anaconda instead of just plain old python installed. And if you aren’t, my recommendation is to use it. Why may you ask? Because with python comes a lot of packages and each such package comes with a host load of dependencies and it is difficult & time-consuming to resolve those dependencies manually. Also, anaconda allows one to create multiple environments (basically environment containers for package isolation). So let’s say you need package1 for some type of work and package2 for some other type of work. But package2 inherently depends on a different version of package1. Now if you have the same environment, you will have conflicts but creating different isolated environment containers helps the use case.

Remote control your Linux Workstation (Efficiently)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 12:43:27 +0200

There are many different solutions to remote control your Linux workstation but most of them are not effective. For example, one can always ssh into the workstation and forward X. Well, this kind of works but has several drawbacks; the major one being that all the processes you started with your ssh session will be killed when you loose your SSH session. I call nohup, screen, etc. as bypass methods because they essentially try to give you a workaround solution instead of actually solving it. And if you are like me who keeps logging in and out and starting/stopping scripts, I am pretty sure you will forget to use those just like me and login after a good night sleep to find out that your compile script got terminated because you forgot to screen it! Also, SSH with X forwarding typically needs an X-Server on your host machine and can be a PIA to setup if you are on Windows. Yes, yes, we can all use MobaXTerm but hey, believe me, X-server is heavy in terms of resource usage on Windows. Also automatic file changes are not detected with that solution.

Tensorflow mnist_deep.py OOM error when running on GPU!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 12:43:27 +0200

I know you are interested in #MachineLearning and your first instinct is to use #TensorFlow (of course since it is backed by #Google) and you will probably find a lot of support with queries. The best part is that the available #Docker container will help you experiment and it simply runs out of the box. Look at my article on getting started with Tensorflow. Soon you will get bored by the amazingly slow executing speeds on CPU and will be thirsty to run it on your GPU because:

Automate Your Twitter with a BOT!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 12:43:27 +0200

We all have Twitter accounts and we all tweet stuff. But sometimes, we all suffer from information overload. And we all need to get more followers right? So one of the things we can do is automate Twitter posts using a tweet bot. I am using nodejs as my framework (simply because it works for webapps pretty good). You can search on the web to understand how to install nodejs and npm. Use the latest version and it should work fine. I am also using a Twitter API client for nodejs known as Twit. Twit is a very simple library that wraps all the twitter APIs in easy to use function calls. The code is pretty straight forward as can be seen below.

Simulate 100s of clients in Meteor

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 12:43:27 +0200

Meteor is a subscribe publish based application development framework which allows for rapid application development using the same code base. I had the chance of working on one of the most demanding meteor applications ever written. The client is a high profile company working with automation. So basically one of the problems they faced was to simulate tens of thousands of devices in a virtual environment. One of the most logical ways to go would be to dockerize the client and then use docker swarm mode to auto scale the clients. But the code base right now is a monolith and hence dividing the different functionality into micro-services is doable but will take a long time. The client wanted this done like the day before I got my hands dirty.

Machine Learning - Baby Steps

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 12:43:27 +0200

Machine learning (ML) is the “FUTURE”. I have been reading about it for quite some time now and I am pretty convinced by the statement. We are all talking about BigData, predictive analytics, etc. but really, when a system dude like me tries to foray into the field of ML, everything seems so overwhelming. The discussion starts with having millions of records (if you are lucky). Otherwise, it is 4TB of unstructured data as a start. Your systems brain tries to grasp the big picture and gets lost in trying to figure out the details. But well, after reading around, grappling, experimenting and reading a bit more, I think that learning ML is doable for us system dudes. You do not have to be a math genius (well, it helps if you are). But I will start with this blog of mine documenting the baby steps needed. I will use it as my reference and you can use it as yours if you find it useful.

Print a singly linked list in reverse!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 16:49:17 +0200

Today’s topic is pretty simple. Let’s print a linked list in reverse. And it is a singly linked list meaning you can only traverse in one direction and not come back. You are only given a pointer to the head. So without further ado, below is the c++ code. Only the important parts are shown. Rest is left as an exercise for the reader to create a fully working program.

Backward Compatibility!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 11 Apr 2017 12:09:45 +0200

Backward Compatibility

The internet is littered with articles on backward compatibility and why it is important and rants of people who work/use 1970s systems on the same. Well the last sentence there was a pun but people do rant on not being able to use the PS2 games on PS4 and or not being able to use Lint with the new c++11 or c++14 features or sticking to an outdated kernel (2.6.36) and not being able to use the new virtual environment enhancements, etc. Finally, all of these rants boil down to, “Everything should be backward compatible and should not break existing systems”.

Basic use of Tuples C++11

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 14:31:51 +0200

Basic use of Tuples in C++11

Tuples are an amazing feature in C++. Tuples are specified in C++11 standard (ISO/IEC 14882:2011), i.e. they are a new introduction in c++11. So if you are more used to traditional c++, tuples will come as a surprise for you. It happened to me as well and I am not that old (quite yet)! They are a great addition to generic programming and brings C++ to a whole new level of usability. Of course we have had ways to do exactly the same things that tuples does but now that it is a part of the standard language, it makes sense to use this feature instead of cooking something of our own. I see tuples as an important feature like dictionary in python (more or less). Tuples are amazing and you can feel the power when you start using them. Auto types and tuples make a great combination for very nice cool features previously rarely thought of (multiple return values from a function anyone). Anyways, I don’t see people really appreciating the flexibility being provided by our beloved language. Stefan Lavavej (@StefanTLavavej) maintaining the STL implementation, working at @microsoft, has a very nice talk in CPPCon 2016 that I recommend you watch. Check it out below. This is the one that got me interested in tuples.

Ranged Switch Case C++

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 03 Apr 2017 12:29:29 +0200

Ranges in C++ Switch Case block

Today, we will do something really stupid! Yes, I am talking about the ranged switch case support that is available in C++. In all the commercial/hobby source code that I have seen, implemented and used, rarely have I come across the ranged switch case use. Most of the code when in need of ranges inside a switch case start using multiple case cascading or (the more niche programmers) resorting to nested if..else blocks!
So much so that when I told one of my co-workers that we can use ranges in C++ switch case, he started laughing (hysterically if I may add). Taken aback, I wanted to see if I have learned stuff wrong. So here it is, just to brush up your basic cpp knowledge and fall in love with it again! Below is the code in ideone ready for you to take for a spin.

Simple Downloader!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 09:54:10 +0100

I come across this very nice site http://www.dwarkadheeshvastu.com/ which has a collection of excellent MP3s (Devotional Music). I congratulate the maintainer of that site for the excellent collection of texts/mp3s in multiple languages. So the site is more or less static with mp3s arranged inside folders starting from 000.mp3 to the <lastsection>.mp3. And you want to download them all.

Layman way is to keep right clicking on each link and do save as. But we are lazy programmers. We will just give our job to the computer to increment the URL and download the file for us. This can very simply be done in a bash script. Below is a snippet. I will not go into explaining all the details, just that the script takes in 3 parameters (start of the count, end of count and the absolute URL of the folder). Run the script and get all the mp3s that you need. One can extend the script to pass in the kind of file we are interested in (like mp3, pdf, etc.). But that is left as a user exercise. The folder path can be got by looking at the HTML code (in case you are wondering how I got it).

Forgot your EXCEL Password?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 15 Nov 2016 13:59:33 +0100

Okay. It is a bit sneaky and I will not explain everything but if by any chance you are using Excel and are password protecting the sheets and if you forget what your password was, “You are dead… ;)”. NOT REALLY! Use the following VBA script to recover the password. No need to download any softwares. Just press Alt+F11, put in the code and run it. It will soon pop up a box with the actual password which you can use to unlock.

SSHFS on Linux & Windows

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 21:28:53 +0200

SSHFS does come into play when connecting to a remote client and/or working on a remote server. I am pretty sure most of you are aware of how to do this. But if not, the below can help a lot with your development using your favorite tools. The problem is that on the remote servers is either not having root access, or updated and latest software and/or most of our new age tools might not work as expected (eg: try to run atom on it or sublimeText). Also using NX is pain… You can of course run Linux or X-Server on windows and get native X-forwarding but losing the SSH session will invalidate your window and you might have data loss. Worst of all, such X-sessions are not restored (on windows).

Angular2: Beyond the “Todo” list!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 12:09:38 +0200

Angular2 is the latest buzz word in web programming and frankly speaking, I am in love with it. It seems to be the “Docker” for web! Well I am also in love with “Docker” and the good part is that both Angular2 and Docker do not mind me loving them at the same time ;). Jokes apart, I particularly like Angular2 because of the component concept and its inherent support for TypeScript (TS). Components truly allow for creation of re-usable web components since they also encapsulate the “view” aspect. Hence no more grappling / switching between a model/view/controller. Everything is inside a component. You use the component and you get an automatic binding with the needed controller and view. This takes re-usability to the next level. Also for someone like me whose background is systems programming, components can be seen as class object exposing certain methods/properties (i.e. basic encapsulation). Components also allows for extension (i.e. inheritance) and can be tested individually, so once confirmed working, they are always working without any external dependency. That said, there are quite a few tutorials out there which creates a basic ToDo app with Angular2 and yes, it is pretty cool. But when you try to make something useful out of what has been learned from the ToDo App, the details bog us down. In any case, #FreeCodeCamp (#FCC) project on Pomodoro Clock was my trigger to use Angular2. I have the project hosted on Plunker (Pomodoro Clock) which uses Angular2, TS and Semantic-UI. I am also a big fan of Jade so have used it a little bit in the index.html but using it inside a component template seems to be a bit awkward. Though we can do so, I have used normal HTML since the components are broken down and are quite simple. Pomodoro clock is basically a countdown timer which alternates between a session time and break time and increases productivity (Google it if you want to know more).

Get Started With Docker!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:54:52 +0200

Docker is amazing! It is a gift to mankind. Next best thing after sliced bread! Lets start using it yeah. OK, lets say you want to get started with docker quickly and install a host of services on your local machine that enables you to get your big-data analytics SW into a real-time visualization. Don’t go about searching the net on how to install different servers. Instead, use Docker (I bet you knew this was coming)!

Install Linux on a Fresh Machine using LVM!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 10:43:27 +0100

Okay, I know, the title says it all right? And there are hundreds and thousands of tutorials out there that allows you to do this right? Show me one tutorial which tells you what different partitions are needed when you are doing fresh install of Linux especially whose installers do not support LVM/LVM2 installations. Lets take an example of Manjaro, the latest talk of the town. The graphical installers do not have an option to support LVM. Even if you do manual partitioning, it does want to install anything over LVM and it wants the root and swap partitions. Besides, it will forget that we also need a smaller boot partition to install GRUB/SYSLINUX right? Well, atleast it did that to me and either I am too stupid to understand it or I didn’t read the instructions properly. In any case, I headed over to the CLI installer which thankfully had an option to use LVM (which was misguiding) since it wanted to do partitions manually and did not provide any guidance as to what partitions should be created. Instead it more felt like an GUI menu for creating reminding the steps namely partitioning, creating physical volumes (PVs) and creating volume groups (VGs).

Metrics & task boards in Scrum/Agile!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 17:15:53 +0100

My thoughts on why and how metrics/measurements of ongoing tasks should be done.

I will start with the practice. The problems we are trying to tackle is:

How to make our team believe in their own estimations?
What is our cycle time?
How do we project the probability of fulfilling the sprint goals?
How do we track the state of the task?
How do we ensure continuous development of processes?

For the last 3 questions, I suggest referring to the self-explaining Cumulative Flow Diagrams (http://www.slideshare.net/yyeret/explaining-cumulative-flow-diagrams-cfd). Martin Alaimo writes on measuring sprint progress in the Scrumalliance community blogs (https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2011/may/measuring-sprint-progress). Essential Scrum: A practical guide to the Most Popular Agile Process by Kenneth S. Rubin (p.357-359) defines how task metrics can be visualized (though in a table formation) (https://books.google.se/books?id=3vGEcOfCkdwC&pg=PA357&lpg=PA357&dq=visualize+tasks+in+scrum+boards&source=bl&ots=-BBbkkfr_l&sig=KqO_9xWDIEM3hVqe-9QSi0IQKQQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZk9ztxurKAhWFs3IKHYioBLE4FBDoAQg9MAU#v=onepage&q=visualize%20tasks%20in%20scrum%20boards&f=false). An electronic task board showing the progress (https://www.targetprocess.com/content/uploads/2013/11/lists-sketch-for-Targetprocess-3.png). A detailed article by MSFT on Task board (of course tailored towards VS Team edition usage but has lots of details) (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vs/alm/work/scrum/task-board). Another article (https://blog.taiga.io/q-id-like-to-measure-the-sprint-progress-through-closed-tasks.html) very good on why sprint progress should be monitored regularly and not at the end of the sprint.

Retrospective 2015 – Good, bad and ugly!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 17:50:14 +0100

My last blog entry was on 1st July 2015. It has almost been 6 months and I am not that proud of the lapse in time without writing down my thoughts. It is as I see not only bad for my readers but also for my mental health ;). In any case, one of my new year resolutions is to jot down atleast some of my thoughts every fortnight, if not every week. Hopefully, this new year resolution does not go down the drain as every other till date. My detailed retrospective for 2015 is below. But the key takeaways were that 2015 was an average year. A lot of things happened, some good, some bad, but they haven’t been able to satisfy me and I feel that the time spent could have been done in a better manner furthering towards my goals, both material and spiritual.

OrmLite – Lightweight ORM Package + Android + <—> relationship?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 15:21:43 +0200

My most recent adventure in Android/Multi-platform applications is CrickBoard! It is hosted on github.com and is licensed under GPLv3. The application is still under construction and there will be some time before it becomes fully operational. Most of the work is remaining in the UI and further utility functions related to UI data handling. This also is my first application following Google’s Material Design guidelines. I initially had planned to use a multi-platform SDK so that it can run seamlessly on at least Android, iOS and WP. But that would branch out later I guess as my first target is Android with the material design. I am using some design libraries that I got from Android-Arsenal.com. Most of these libraries are open source licensed under very constructive opensource licenses. So for the record, as of now, CrickBoard is using MikePenz’s MaterialDrawer and Dexafree’s MaterialList. Both are great components providing ready to use material design libraries implemented and updated according to Google’s guidelines.

Garmin Nuvi 2545LMT - My advnetures!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 08 May 2015 21:58:34 +0200

As usual, I prefer writing down what I did to solve a particular problem or set of problems so that I can myself refer back to it for solutions in future and someone having similar/any troubles can use this as a starting point to try and fix the problems faced. For me, the problems started when my wife started complaining about my Garmin Nuvi 2545LMT not working properly.

There were basically 2 problems with it. It needs the full address to really search for the location and the maps were old (2013.10). So basically I fired up the webupdate in a Win7 machine and started with the updates. It took a whole lot of time (almost 8 hours) before I knew the outcome of the update. The update brought its own problems.

Open letter to Beloved Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 07 May 2015 20:31:16 +0200

Dear Mr. Narendra Modi,

I am an ardent fan of yours right from the start even before you became a national hero. So much so that my family hails from Vadnagar and I am told that my grandfather was good friends with your father. Like million others, you are my hero and I look up to you as a source of inspiration. I have been regularly ridiculed by everybody of being a “Modi Bhakt” and all the associated abuse that generally comes with it. I have been following in your footsteps, being patient enough to not react and try to find the best from the assaults, hoping that one day, truth will prevail (“Satyamev Jayate”). I am one of those who celebrated when you/BJP attained majority and you graced the prime minister’s office.

Active Inertia & Active Waiting!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 23:29:36 +0200

I have been doing some reading on Management Perspectives lately and as a working professional clearly have more or less involved and/or observed such situations. Even though at first glance one may or may not give it a name, but reading through it, understanding it and contemplating over definitely gives a very deep sense of Dejavu! Tim Hindle in his book, Guide to Management Ideas & Gurus writes about “Active Inertia”. It was basically observed by Donald Sull during his 6 year period observation of successful companies in uncertain markets. It is nothing ground breaking. I guess each and every one of us in real life does not follow an active inertia strategy but instead implements something known as “Active Waiting”!

“Libtards” –> Liberal retard!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 06 Mar 2015 00:35:42 +0100

First of all, I wish to convey my greetings to everybody on the auspicious occasion of Holi. It is a widely celebrated festival in India. Please go through “Legend of Holika & Prahalad” as I will not waste space repeating it. The topic for today is libtards!

Urban Dictionary goes into more details of who a libtard is. But basically, it is a person

1. Who thinks he is intellectually superior to others

2014 Retrospective!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 27 Jan 2015 17:32:02 +0100

Year 2014 was very interesting for me both professionally and personally. It had its own ups and downs. Today I want to retrospect on 2014 and important things that happened around me!

2014 started with an exciting CES in LA where demos with M7450 and SLSI 44xx were shown. Proud to mention that I had been very heavily involved with the bridge implementation on SLSI 44xx and M7450. And in Feb 2014, I was in Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona with Ericsson modems business showing 5 different demos ranging from global device to carrier aggregation (CA) to CAT4 DL speeds on real live Ericsson back bones. Proud to say again that I was the one who coded all the demos in various technologies.

Lead the way Microsoft!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 16:54:40 +0100

First of all, a very Happy New Year 2015 to all my readers. I am feeling pretty excited at the start of this year. Ericsson has shutdown the modem business and moved its modem workforce into core baseband business. Yes, I am now working as one. Telecommunications as a whole feels like a commodity especially after my visit to India where phones are being sold are cheap and way up in HW specs. The whole business aspect of Telecommunications is turning upside down with apps like Viber / Tango / Messenger, etc. taking charge of either calling over CS/PS or IP making the backend providers (networks/basebands) more of a data pipe. This is but a natural evolution. It would be exciting to see how the network providers / manufacturers will be able to maintain their steady flow of income to sustain, create and fund more business as well as maintain R&D capabilities.

Install Microsoft XNA 4.0 refresh without VS2010 for VS2015

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 10:28:22 +0100

My previous article http://t.co/XamFah9e8V shows how to install Microsoft XNA 4.0 refresh without VS 2010 for VS2013. In the meantime, Microsoft is kind enough to release a Community Preview version of VS 2015. And boy it looks amazing. It is fast, has a lot of functionality, and I basically am in love with it! Also Microsoft has released VS 2013 Community Edition which again is amazing. In short, Microsoft is going a very long way to please individual developers/hobbyists like me to lure them back to developing Windows (Store/Phone/Game) Apps. And I am happy that they are doing it. But back to the topic, installing XNA 4.0 refresh is a breeze for VS2015 as well. Of course we need to change the script a little bit. So here it is.

Dhanteras–First day of Deepawali!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 11:29:32 +0200

Today 21st October 2014 is an auspicious day for Hindus all over the globe. This is the first day of Deepawali commonly known as Diwali for this year. Deepawali is a 5 day occasion with each day signifying various aspects of spiritual/social life culminating into the super festival of Deepawali to celebrate the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after 14 years of Vanvas (exile) in the forest. I will write about that story shortly.

Ganesh Chaturthi Speical: The Ganesha Story!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 15:16:01 +0200

Today 9th September 2014 will be celebrated across India as the Ganesh Visargan Day i.e. the day when the idol of Ganesha will be immersed in flowing water in the belief that he will re-unite with his parents, the great Lord Shiva and Parvati. We had the opportunity to celebrate Ganesha festival for the first time ever in Sweden on 29th August in Malmö thanks to Skåne Hindu Center (SHC). At that time, I had prepared a presentation with a short story of Ganesha and its importance in our lives. One of the ideas was to get children and adults alike to understand the story and learn the moral values from it. I was not able to present it on that day as we were running late with different things but below is the story. Hope you enjoy it.

More Swedish than me!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 11:34:42 +0200

Interesting times these are in Sweden. We will have one of the most anticipated elections of modern times in Sweden. The people of Sweden need to understand that whatever and whoever they choose this time will set the tone for the future of Sweden. If Sweden wants to go down the path of full fledged development, reverse its decline of revenues, empower its youth and pave the way for the future generations, all of these and much more depends on the outcome of the elections.

Challenges that must be faced!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 20:55:49 +0200

It was a big day when the Narendra Modi government was sworn in the Indian Parliament. Never before had India seen such a great victory for a single democratic party! Never before did people celebrate on their own free will when the elections were over! Never before was the happiness levels, expectations and aspirations at their all time high for an average Indian! Even the Indians outside of India who were no longer technically Indians (having renounced their Indian Citizenship) were so very happy, outgoing and celebrating. I myself had distributed sweets in my entire team and with tears in my eyes, had prayed passionately and was thankful to God to finally free “Bharat Mata” from the clutches of evil, immoral, corrupt, blood sucking nexus that was the previous government.

Using Facebook PHP SDK v4 – Part 1

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 16:00:12 +0200

I always have ideas on how to do things in a different way. Facebook today is like an aggregator with loads of information that can be mined/used to generate revenue/business for various simple ideas. Facebook is an excellent portal which not only provides avenues for advertising/social fall through, but also provides for instant access to millions of possible clients. If one is interested or trying to launch business, I think Facebook is a very essential part of bringing in direct customers and being a part of the social community advert networks. Google is one such other social portal which can be used for similar purposes.

Win-REPO–A custom repo tool on Windows!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 14:22:54 +0100

I have created a tool in my free time for duplicating repo functionality on windows without using the cygwin. Cygwin basically emulates Linux ABIs on windows and is prone to errors. My tool is using native windows binaries so no ABI translation is needed.

The tool is available for download at: https://github.com/wolverine2k/win-repo/tree/master/releases. The instructions for configuration are available at: https://github.com/wolverine2k/win-repo

The tool is a WIP but still the repo init and syncs are working great. Please do spread the information as needed.

Install Microsoft XNA 4.0 refresh without VS2010 for VS2013

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 15:39:09 +0100

Microsoft XNA 4.0 refresh is a very good framework for doing various things including game development, simulation, etc. Of course as with all good things, Microsoft is not going to support it anymore. And one more reason in not investing in MSFT technology. But that is besides the point that one cannot simply install XNA 4.0 without a VS 2010 installation. I had VS 2013 on my machine and wanted XNA for some simulation stuff I have been developing. And I don’t want to overload my machine with multiple versions of Visual Studio.

Install old VSIX on VS2013

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 18:02:34 +0100

There are a load of extensions for VS2010 and VS2012 which should just work on VS2013. BUT, yes there is always a but, Microsoft does not want our life so easy. Each and every extension developer has to repack and republish his extensions every time a new VS version is released. Anyways, I was looking into a very exciting VS Extension known as Axiom3D. It is a rendering engine which is fully object oriented 3D graphics engine using C# and the .NET platform.

Screen toggle script using xrandr

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:33:37 +0200

Many of my friends using Linux have serious problems with switching screens, screen resolutions, connecting to projectors, etc. and all of them end up wasting humongous amount of time doing stuff like that. And after banging their heads for 30 minutes they curse Linux and all and put up a request for another meeting! Anyways, below is the code to get screen toggling and switching screens easily done. Of course one needs to modify to suite their own use-cases but I guess the script itself will suffice most people.

Blind Debugging!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Sun, 19 May 2013 07:22:47 +0200

Now WTH is Blind Debugging? Well, thats what I have been doing for the past 2 weeks everyday for 14-16 hours a day! I am working on a new top secret project(!) where there is a lot of intercommunication happening between 2 systems. One of them is a master and one is a slave. The intercommunication happens with a list of complicated protocols. Now comes the bad part. I don’t have source code access to either of the systems and my task is to get some things working in both the systems!

Ant and Grosshopper - Indian Version of story

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:31:27 +0200

Original Story:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs dances plays the summer away. Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

Indian Version:

The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer building its house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant’s a fool and laughs dances plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the Ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

Windows 8 on a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 16:12:50 +0100

Now now, don’t get me wrong. I am not recommending and writing about installation of Windows 8 over Linux. Infact, I am not recommending you guys to install Windows 8 (W8) at all except if you like me are developers and creators at heart and would like to do some applications for Windows Phone 8 (WP8). Microsoft being the good guys (deeply sarcastic if you don’t get me) have released a 1.5GB download for tools related to WP8 development. It also includes a gratis version of Visual Studio 2012 Express edition!

case and enums in C - Discipline vs Discipline

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 12:47:22 +0100

After a couple of philosophy articles, I am back to my usual self writing about technology and related rants. This time, I will write about a heated discussion that happened between me and my fellow colleague. And that was on 2 points. So let the rant begin. Now before I begin, let me write that these days I am doing a lot of coding in C. So assume C in the below discussions.

Bhakti - Important and unique concepts in Sanatana Dharma aka Hinduism

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:12:29 +0100

I got a lot of positive feedback on my previous article and I have been asked to write more and share my views on philosophy in general and on Sanatana Dharma in particular. And it is my duty to do so and spread what I have learned from all the books that I have read and my personal experience. I will keep using the same style of writing i.e. define certain words so that all of us get on the same page and similar line of thinking before I start writing anything. Of course parts of it will be controversial and there will be a lot of readers who will disagree and outright disapprove but thats the good thing about Sanatana Dharma. You don’t have to agree to neither everything nor anything. And still the whole world can leave in peace and harmony. Lets point out some important words here.

Of Pseudo-Seculars and xenophobes...

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:25:17 +0100

The below rant contains some very strong words and is not for the faint hearted! Lets start by clearing the definitions of certain words that I am going to use in my article.

- Xenophobe: Xenophobia is a dislike or fear of people from other countries or of that which is perceived to be foreign or strange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophobia). Xenophobes are the people suffering from Xenophobia.

- Pseudo-Seculars: Pseudo-secularism is the state of implicit non-secular trends in the face of pledged secularism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-secularism). Pseudo-seculars are the people who either implicitly or explicitly support pseudo-secularism.

Gain local root access on an encrypted HDD (FDE) in Linux

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 11:53:30 +0100

Disclaimer: The following information is to be used for educational purposes only. I am not responsible if you do something weird with your encrypted drive and it fails to boot! And doing this stuff on other’s computers (i.e. computers, HDD, etc. which are not owned by you) might land you into legal troubles and no pointing fingers to me.

Now with all that bla bla out of the way, we can start with the real meat. Running Linux on your local machine is fun. Running Linux on a machine connected to the network is more fun (and not funnier!). And getting Linux installed on your work machine and doing everything with it (and not looking back to WinBlows anymore) is much more fun (and not funniest!). Anyways, after having such loads of fun, of course we run into people known as system admins. And these people are real bottlenecks for productivity. If you are a sysadmin reading this, then yes it is you who is hampering productivity and utility on our Linux systems because of your stupid decisions and mis-configurations.

Ubuntu 12.04 updates on an external HDD–Grub recovery fight

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:15:05 +0200

Okay, I know what you guys will tell me now. That there are tons of tutorials on the internet on various sites on how to install Ubuntu on an external HDD. The knowledge level will vary between using UNetBoot to burning a CD and booting from it. As with all my articles, I will write my experiences here so that I can refer to the same in future if needed and also spread the information on various aspects of upgrades of Ubuntu on external HDD. And by external HDD, I mean the external HDD with rotating platters. Not a huge USB stick or any other MMC but an external HDD.

VBA Script to Change IE Settings Quickly!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 11:27:40 +0200

If you are a regular reader of my site, you will know the problems I had been facing with HTTP Authentication and related problems associated with it that I was facing. I solved it using a local forwarding proxy named Delegate. I also have put the script to get Delegate to work properly. All and more you can read in my previous articles. Everything is working fine. But at times, I need to change from my local proxy to the office proxy since some of the internal websites require the connections to be forwarded from the office proxy. So I had to go to IE settings and turn off local proxy and turn on office proxy and vice-versa. Now IE being the most optimal browser (sarcasm) and my disdain for clicking made me write the below script. All it does is change the IE settings like I intend to. But you as a vivid reader can do a lot more with IE/System settings as you would like to (you know what I mean!).

Programming Discipline!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 13:32:02 +0200

I was reading the article “Destructors Considered Harmful” on DrDobbs by Andrew Koenig. Generally I agree with Andrew’s views on various programming topics but I thought I should just write down my thoughts on this particular article. I have a number of agreements and disagreements on certain points. One point that specifically sticks out especially with the new generation of dumb-down languages is that it looses the traditional power of kind of raw functionality that you can churn out from a piece of code. Of course we can all be happy with a walled garden approach if we are only implementing some business logic which does not need to actually utilize the full power of the underlying HW but instead rely on language/OS supported runtimes to do the required optimizations for them. But what happens when we start arguing against a programming concept/construct just because it requires some basic programming discipline and understanding of basic principles before one actually needs to start using it?

Review – Prodigy 3D Black 3D Media Player

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:42:03 +0200

The Samsung 3D PS50C680 is a very good TV but misses on some features of being a fully smart TV though it is a Series 6 TV. I have searched quite a few websites for information on how to change the FW and get it upgraded with a similar model C700 or something but haven’t found confirmed results. Again, there is a huge risk of bricking the TV so I am a bit hesitant at this point in time to take such a risk. So the next move was to get a small smart media player or IPTV box which provides me with the smart capabilities. After going through a lot of dilemma on whether buying a Boxee box or IOMega TV, I settled on Prodigy 3D black because of only 3 reasons:

Configure “Delegate” as a Forward Proxy

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:48:27 +0100

Delegate is a very simple and nice proxy which can be configured into many different kind of proxies depending on the use-case you are trying to implement. Best of all, it is open source i.e. free and works across various operating systems including our most hated Microsoft Windows platforms. But before I start to write out on the solution, I will write a bit about the problem I was trying to solve.

First day in India – 2nd Dec 2011

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 11:06:27 +0100

I decided to go to India after 2 years and landed in India on 2nd December 2011. A lot of things have changed since I last visited India in 2009. The first things I noticed was the people, lots and lots of them. Even my baby was a bit upset and frightened to see so many people going along their own business and the constant hustling with a steady noise stream. The good part was that things were moving quickly. Of course all the paper work to be done when landing in India is a pain in the a**. I filled up all the forms with a green colored gel pen. When I reached the immigration counter, I was asked to fill up the forms again using either a black or blue pen. And nowhere was it written that green ink was not accepted. Anyways, I had to waste another 20 minutes filling up those stupid forms.

Android Applications released!

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 11:03:23 +0200

This post is a bit of marketing for the applications that I have been doing since the last couple of weeks. I have now release three applications on the Android Market. The first one is a re-write of my open source application Conference Manager (GPLv2) for Maemo. This application is also available in the Maemo Extra repository. I was hoping to port it to MeeGo but Mr. Elop had other plans. So I have stopped contributing to MeeGo all-together. And the best thing that happened was that I got an Android device (HTC Desire HD) about 3 months ago. The first thing I did was root it and then load some custom ROMs.

Anna & Team – Caught and in Tihar Jail

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:28:49 +0200

In the latest developments in India, Anna and team are put behind bars on 16th August, 2011. There has been a huge uproar in the nation and across the media. The irony being pointed out that Anna and team (completely clean and non-corrupt people) are put in same jails as their corrupt counterparts (Raja and Kalmadi). My rant today is not on whether Anna & team should be caught or should be allowed to roam free, or whether Article 19 and 144 of the Indian Constitution has been misused or whether the Indian Police acted in a corrupt manner or everybody in India is corrupt except Anna and team (according to one of my friends).

SMSBiljett – A new Android Application to buy SMS tickets in Skåne

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:15:17 +0200

Available on: http://slideme.org/application/smsbiljett

This is for all the people who have been struggling to get a proper ticket on the buses run by Skånetrafiken in Sweden. As most of you are already aware, starting with 1st June 2011, Skånetrafiken local buses are not accepting any cash on board the bus to buy a ticket. One just has 2 options: either buy an SMS ticket or have a “Rabatt Kort”. As an outsider, it might be very difficult to get on a bus. Also the process of getting an SMS ticket is very cryptic. My new application SMS Biljett eases the process.

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO WINDOWS PROGRAMMING - PART-I (28th February 2003)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 15:46:17 +0200

Yello! I have been busy searching through the archives of my yahoo group which I started way back in 2003. And guess what? It has a wealth of information. It is quite amazing to see how I have evolved in my art of writing and thinking. Feels a little bit nostalgic to start talking about MS DOS, Windows, etc. Now that I have been almost exclusively working with Linux on the system level and have kept myself confined to application layer on Windows, it really is fun to go back and look at my article on Windows System Programming from 2003. I talk about a lot of stuff including message queues, context switching, semaphores and mutexes, BHOs, TSRs, etc. I doubt if people use them application layer programming anymore (atleast I don’t). It is long and quite interesting. The unedited article follows.

What is Software? (10th Feb 2003)

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 14:55:53 +0200

I almost forgot about it. Yes, I had my own embedded developers yahoo group. Since the last 5 years it has fallen into decay and I was thinking of deleting it from the face of earth (I mean Yahoo!). I was going through the list of messages and realized that I had started my blogging career way back in 2003. I will now start with rejuvenating my old articles and publish it here. And maybe I am not going to delete that group but will just purge it of useless members. Below is my article from way back in 2003 and I think it is still relevant. Also note the use of the word “Floppy”. I know, I was still using it back then. Nowadays, “Floppy” and “CD/DVD” would attract the most hilarious article ever award!

Jan Lokpal Bill (JLP/LP) for Dummies

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:12:19 +0200

I am very disappointed in the manner Indian public has been led astray over the whole JLP bill. All the people more or less wants to bring a collective end to “Democracy” in India. Introduction of JLP is handling over of all our secular organizations to an entity which does not hold any accountability to anybody including the Supreme court, Prime Minister or President. Before turning on the flames, lets discuss a bit about JLP. I am 99.9% sure that most of you haven’t read a single letter in the proposed JLP. Before I proceed, let me tell you that the current constitution and the laws proposed are fully capable of tackling the corruption that India is facing. Creation of a new extra-constitutional authority will not bring an end to corruption. Infact with the proposed JLP, it will bring in a new era of super dictatorship, an era where the ruler can crush his/her opposition very easily, and an era similar to the emergency that was brought in by Indira except that it will not be called emergency. All voices which would be raised against the Lokpal will be effectively annihilated. Lets read and understand how. A simple Google search will reveal the proposals in the JLP. Without copying text from that bill, I will jot down the main points proposed and how it will manipulate democratic behavior.

Anna & Party – Political stooges of Sonia Gandhi?

naresh.mehta@gmail.com (Naresh Mehta) — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 17:34:36 +0200

I know I am going to be widely criticized and will have to face a lot of flames from my fellow Indians after having written this article, but as Lord Krishna says, “Karmanneva dhi karaste, ma faleshu kadachana”, I will do my duty and jot down my thoughts on the whole drama that is going on since February 2011. I have been closely following the events and have been exchanging a lot of information with fellow bloggers. Some of my tweets also reflected my doubts. But until now, I did not think the whole political drama needed my own words and thoughts since quite a few bloggers have already discussed and brainstormed on various aspects of the bill and the “Jholawalas” who are promoting it. But today, I do feel that I need to chronologically list the events that have been happening since February 2011, put my own thoughts on what is the motive behind those events and also induce my readers to think a bit more and not be taken as a “mere sheep for the spin”.

Posts on Naresh Mehta

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OpenWRT Client Mode

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Use Claude Code with OpenAI compatible APIs

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Integrate LangSmith with Langchain

Use LocalAI server with Langchain

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LLM Parameters

Build LLMs From Scratch

Book Review - Maharanas: A Thousand Year War For Dharma by Omendra Ratnu

Raja Dahir Sen Defeat in Batle of Aror

What is AI?

Magisk Out, APatch IN!

Going from Wordpress to Hugo

OpenWrt on Google Wifi

In rememberance (Shraddhanjali) of the victims of Pahalgam terrorism

Reverse a string in Rust

Google CTF – Quest 3 (High-Speed Chase)

Google CTF - Quest 2 (Prague Apartment)

Google CTF (Beginners Quest)!

Home Alarm in Sweden

Climate Change Strategies

Climate Change Strategy Framework

Viable System Model (VSM)

Corporate Governance

Organization Project Maturity Model (OPMM)

Positive Impact Investments

Organization Vision & Mission

Regurgitating?

Vision & Mission Statements

Going back to OpenWRT

Academics & industry

Leadership & BRM

Portfolio Management

Benefits Realization

Digital Transformation & Cross-Functional Teams

Project Benefits Management Plan

Project & People Management

Digitalization - What is it?

Compile Gargoyle for Netgear R6220

Compile Gargoyle for Netgear R6220

To Docker or to Vagrant

Update Anaconda Navigator

Remote control your Linux Workstation (Efficiently)

Tensorflow mnist_deep.py OOM error when running on GPU!

Automate Your Twitter with a BOT!

Simulate 100s of clients in Meteor

Machine Learning - Baby Steps

Print a singly linked list in reverse!

Backward Compatibility!

Backward Compatibility

Basic use of Tuples C++11

Basic use of Tuples in C++11

Ranged Switch Case C++

Ranges in C++ Switch Case block

Simple Downloader!

Forgot your EXCEL Password?

SSHFS on Linux & Windows

Angular2: Beyond the “Todo” list!

Get Started With Docker!

Install Linux on a Fresh Machine using LVM!

Metrics & task boards in Scrum/Agile!

Retrospective 2015 – Good, bad and ugly!

OrmLite – Lightweight ORM Package + Android + *<—>* relationship?

Garmin Nuvi 2545LMT - My advnetures!

Open letter to Beloved Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi

Active Inertia & Active Waiting!

“Libtards” –> Liberal retard!

2014 Retrospective!

Lead the way Microsoft!

Install Microsoft XNA 4.0 refresh without VS2010 for VS2015

Dhanteras–First day of Deepawali!

Ganesh Chaturthi Speical: The Ganesha Story!

More Swedish than me!

Challenges that must be faced!

Using Facebook PHP SDK v4 – Part 1

OrmLite – Lightweight ORM Package + Android + <—> relationship?