I was refreshing my mind about API design and wanted to see if there were any good resources online apart from the book that I have. Came across the following 3 hour lecture on how to design APIs which pretty much covers one of the better books I have read on API design. The presenter is the co-author of Framework Design Guidelines: Conventions, Idioms, and Patterns for Reusable .NET Libraries which I found to be good and useful book.

Some useful tools can be found here…and here is the list to replace built-in tools in XP[via Lifehacker]

A 30 minute interestingvideo on how your eyes actually work viewing a webpage/site. Mostly aimed at web designers and SEO people. Still, I learned a lot…

Can be found here…

It really baffles me that the leader of a nation can deny facts in front of the rest of the world and everyone just laughs it off. As an example, when Iranian president visited Columbia university he made several denials that made the audience explode in laughter, yet none of these denials are joking matters. And yet another example of these denials that certainly cannot be blamed on his ignorance of lack of knowledge is the standard answer he gives on why the Baha’is of Iran are denied their basic human rights.

These are very deliberate denials. And Iran’s regime knows that no one will stand up to them on the question of minorities in Iran. Why? Because there are bigger issues that they get away with, so this one is a walk in the park, and that is why the president himself can outright lie and deny facts and get away with it.

Putting that aside, the question in mind today is what level of hatred, ignorance or whatever you want to call it does it take when you put so much energy into even destroying the Baha’is’ cemetery which is located somewhere very remote and desolate. And what have these Baha’is done that generates such a level hatred? They believe in oneness of mankind, oneness of religion, universal peace, elimination of poverty and many principles similar to these I just mentioned.

For those of you who have an unusual name for the country you live in, or your name is simply not international enough, I am sure you can relate to this little dilemma: You pick up the phone to make a reservation at a restaurant for dinner with your friends. It’s a simple task, you dial the number, say hello, ask for a table for x number of people at a certain hour and thats that. max 30 seconds needed. But in my case that never would be the case. After saying my name, they ask me to repeat it three times, then we go into spelling it…and since “d” and “b” and some other letters sound familiar, you now have to go into F as in frank/foxtrot, a as in apple/alpha…

so 5 minutes later I have successfully managed to reserve a table for dinner. Well a couple of years ago I decided no more of this, so my resturaunt/starbucks/general waiting line name became Bob Heart. Think that solved the problem? Oh yes! However, once every three months, when I order coffee at a coffee shop and they ask for a name to call when its ready, I get the question sometime: “You don’t look like a Bob. You sure your name is Bob?”..to which I respond, would you like to spell my real name instead?

Over two months into being a dad, I thought I would jolt down some of the experiences before new ones make the initial memories fade away (mostly due to lack of sleep). People ask how it feels, and regardless of how hard I attempt, I feel I am short of words to describe it.

The closest description I have come to, that most can relate to is going through, what I call, pink-clouds-period of falling in love: Nothing else matters, you walk around with smirk on your face, you don’t need food, sleep or drink. You are in a constant wonderful high and each time you hold your baby or see her face, your heart just melts away and you are washed over by a giant wave of joy. Every little movement or sound she makes is the cutest thing you have ever heard and as a bonus her occasional (reflex) smile puts you over those pink clouds.

Simultaneous to these feelings, there is a sense overwhelming feeling that you can’t help being reminded about constantly, mainly the great responsibility you have for this soul’s well being and development. The well being part being a walk in the park in comparison to the development part. I am far from having perfected my own flaws and character and yet here she is and it is a reality that can be overwhelming. And of course, I can’t get away with do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do.

The start of this journey is a happy one as at least for me, fundamentally, it comes down to knowing the purpose of life before you start focusing on smaller puzzle pieces. It makes it a little easier to align the rest of your actions in accordance to this objective or at aspire and try to.