I can’t take it anymo….

I was wide awake when I heard the above words around midnight yesterday (it was 21 minutes past midnight to be precise)

For a while I didn’t realize what is going on, or who is saying this … Then I realized that it was my cell phone saying this. (No, I wasn’t hallucinating.) Recently I bought  a Nokia 5800 xPressMusic phone.  I downloaded this software called “Green Charging Save Energy“.

The Description reads :

Green Charging is an application that will assist you in saving power and hence, assists in curbing Global Warming. This unique application will be useful when the user will charge his/ her phone. The application will notify the user (with sound effects) when the battery is fully charged. Green charging will also share other important information like the battery status, stand by time and talk-time (in %). Why Green Charging? Saves Money Prevents Global Warming For a Greener Planet

So what had happened was that battery meter on my cell phone was showing only single bar since the morning. Thanks to this application, I knew that even if the indicator said low battery, it would definitely last me the entire day (and it did). So finally when I was about to sleep, I hooked the cell phone to the charger. Generally I turn it off just when I am about to fall asleep, but yesterday I forgot. So after say about an hour or so, the battery was fully charged, and I was told “with the sound effects” that I need to turn off the charger.

Here are some of my views of the whole thing:

• I think it is a great application. Even if I am not convinced if leaving the charger ON even when phone is not connected, consumes/wastes electricity, I think it is generally great idea, not to overcharge the cellphone battery.
• It is said that one should charge the battery only after it is fully (or near fully) drained. This helps prolong the battery life, and avoid “memory effect“.  The app is very useful is helping me decide whether I really need to charge the battery immediately or can I wait.
• While “I can’t take it anymo…” has a dramatic effect, it may not be appropriate sound effect for all the cases. There isn’t any obvious way to turn off the sound effects or to change it to something less dramatic. (Is someone from Impetus Infotech listening ? )

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How To : Turn off Email Notifications in Outlook

When I moved from manager’s role to that of Technical contributor, I realized that for Individual contributor, getting a continuous span of undisturbed time is very important to get something worth while done. At times like this, email notifications can be distraction that needs to be turned off.

Most of us are conditioned to respond to (or at least read) every email sent you immediately. But over a period of time, you realize the not every email needs immediate attention. While communication is important, the method need not always be email. If something is really time critical, (I have observed that) people you reach you by other means as well (apart from the email they sent you) Other emails are important by not time critical.

Default settings in outlook are to notify you (in multiple ways) of new email in your inbox. But do not need to know about each and every single email the instance it reaches your inbox. You can turn off these distractions by turning off the email notifications completely. But it is hidden very well by Microsoft

To turn off these notifications, navigate to the following location:

Tools->Options->Preferences->Email Options->Advanced Email Options

Now you will see screen similar to the one below. Uncheck all these check boxes.

While the above screen shot (and the location to reach this option) is taken from Outlook 2007, Options for other versions of outlook shouldn’t be very different.

Importing CSV file data into sqlite3

I was trying to import the data from CSV file into sqlite3 database. Ideally this should be very simple task, with following the steps given in the sqlite tutorial. It is a matter of calling the sqlite command with separator argument, followed by an import operation, as listed below.

sqlite3 test.db  "create table t1 (t1key INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,data TEXT);"
sqlite3 -separator , test.db ".import some.csv t1"

Except that main attribute of my CSV file was that it could contain single records with embedded comma. I was hoping that sqlite3 would be smart enough to detect that the fields were enclosed within double quotes and then separate by comma. But I soon realized that only a code specifically dealing with CSV would know about this.  As we can see in the example above, the import is a generic code and as a user I listed comma as a separator.

My Data looked something like this :

"1","data1"
"2","data2,data3"

So like any *nix geek would do, I tried providing double quote and comma as a separator. To my surprise it worked very well. I though separator would take only single character, and I had provided two (three?). Anyway, important thing to remember is to escape the single quote with a backslash (I didn’t try it without the backslash, may be that would work too)

So here is the syntax that worked :

sqlite3 -separator \", test.db ".import mydata.csv mytbl"

Update : Turns out SQLite Manager is much better solution after all.  It is an Extension for Firefox and other apps to manage any sqlite database. Not only it took care of above situation, it also handled empty cells as well where the command line failed with following error message :

line 4: expected 3 columns of data but found 2

Data with missing cells : Notice two successive commas :

"1","data1","data2"
"2","data3,data4","data5"
"3",,"data6"

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