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Showing posts from January, 2008

Credit Card WOW's!

Is a credit card a woe or a wow? Read on and be surprised by the power of credit cards! Personally, I own credit cards and have cultivated innovative ways of utilizing them based on my experiences. Below is my list of tips to maximize the benefits of your credit card(s) in India: 1) Repayment (Don’t pay interest): Pay your FULL credit card bill each month. This way, you can completely avoid the interest charges (as high as 36% per year!). Yes, if you pay the entire amount billed in your credit card statement, you do not pay any interest to the company. As a credit card holder, your primary responsibility is to maintain manageable debt and interest rates. The interest rate does not reduce to zero, until you repay the full amount at some point. Incase you are unable to pay the full amount due to financial constraints, refer points 2 and 3 below. 2) Balance transfer (Pay in parts, keep it dormant): You can transfer the balance from one credit card to another credit card (of yours, not oth

.NET Reference Source project launched!

Moving away from tradition, Microsoft has launched the .NET Reference Source project. Yeah, Microsoft has gone "open-source". Basically, this new feature would allow developers and enthusiasts to view / debug the .NET Framework source code in Visual Studio 2008 IDE. What's in it for me? Guidance: The source code would reveal the patterns and practices followed (and preached) by the Microsoft team. This would help architects and developers to follow (or customize) these best practices for their solutions. Defect identification: The source of an application defect can be traced inside the .NET Framework source code (and not just upto the user code, previously). System defects can be reported to Microsoft and alternative code flows can be used temporarily. Community feedback: The biggest advantage of "open-source" concept is the feedback received from the community. Microsoft could incorporate developer feedback in their further releases and make the .NET bran

How to get NOC (No Objection Certificate) for your vehicle (2-wheeler) for inter state transfer (AP to Kar)

Ever wondered what it takes to transfer your vehicle legally (and without paying bribes) between states in India? Read on and be surprised! This article is most useful if you want to transfer your 2-wheeler from Andhra Pradesh (AP) to Karnataka. But, a similar process would exist for other vehicle classes and in other states. The system in India is one of the best (for the people who work in it and for the brokers who make money out of it) and the worst for the common man. Let me narrate my experience (circa 2006) of obtaining a NOC (No Objection Certificate) for my bike (Yamaha RX-135). I had got transferred from Hyderabad to Bangalore and so decided to take my bike along. First of all, (as the rest of us) I did not know the details of getting a NOC. The web was not of much help which was unusual! There was very little or no information about the process. The local brokers were demanding from Rs. 1100/- to Rs. 1500/- for the job (even with valid documents). Their price seemed ridiculo

MVC v/s MVP

Introduction This post explains the basic concepts and differences between MVC and MVP design patterns. Read the recommended links to gain more insights on MVC, MVP and related concepts. MVC The MVC design pattern separates (read "loosely couple") the presentation layer (View) from the data layer (Model); while the processing logic is contained in the Controller class. Multiple Views can be supported by a single Model via the intelligent Controller. MVP Now, the MVP design pattern (a MVC upgrade) provides better capabilities. It uses a Presenter (similar to Controller in MVC) to update the View through an interface. Here, only the Presenter interacts with the Model and makes it fully independent of the View. MVC v/s MVP The big difference between MVP and MVC is that with MVP, the View is completely controlled by the Presenter, whereas in the MVC, the Controller and the Model can update the view. Consequently, MVP provides more loose coupling and easier unit testing than MV