A midjourney imagining of a busy Bangalore street where the story takes place.

Beautiful Routines

A story on routines and their beauty told using an interaction of a couple I observed in Bangalore traffic.

August 18, 2023 · 1 min · Vishal V. Shekkar
A cover image with the Musings branding

Musings—My New Blog Site

Introducing my new blog site, Musings. The post discusses how I used to mainating my own blog earlier, and why I decided to move on to a static site generator like Hugo.

July 4, 2023 · 4 min · Vishal V. Shekkar

The Search for Privacy-Friendly Website Analysis

I recently decided to start writing regularly and publishing what I write on this blog, Musings. While I mostly write for my contentment—to allow myself to think about a topic, research, and form a meaningful thought about it, I’d also like to know if others are reading what I put out and what posts and topics have the most views. Most people would end up integrating a popular option like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or similar....

July 3, 2023 · 5 min · Vishal V. Shekkar
Onsen with an outdoor pool

Onsens in Japan

Reflecting on my experience of using Onsen in Japan — covering the various aspects of dealing with and enjoying being unclothed as a foreigner in a traditional Japanese setting.

July 2, 2023 · 3 min · Vishal V. Shekkar
A cover image showing alight from a lamp reflecting off of a smooth surface.

Home—The Details Matter

A walkthrough of my home where I concentrate on the tiny details that make it my home.

October 11, 2020 · 5 min · Vishal V. Shekkar
An illustration of passphrase entered in a secure input field.

Cacti Passphrase Best Practices

Check out xkcd’s xkpasswd. It allows you to generate very secure passphrases with various configurations. The reason we use the word passphrase and not password throughout the Cacti Vault app is because we want to push you to use as long a passphrase as possible. The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends creating long passphrases that are easy to remember and difficult to crack. According to Special Publication 800–63, Digital Identity Guidelines, a best practice is to generate passphrases of about 64 characters, including spaces....

September 9, 2020 · 4 min · Vishal V. Shekkar
A banner image that only shows the selection feature of Cacti Vault.

Photo Selections—Cacti Vault

Dsicusses the different ways photos may be selected to move to the Cacti Vault.

August 17, 2020 · 3 min
An image showing a high-level system overview of the Verizy backend architecture.

How Verizy Handles over 1M Resource-Intensive Requests Every Month?

Verizy efficiently processes over 1 million complex monthly requests using a dual-service infrastructure called Crust and Core, handling customer interactions and intensive data processing respectively, ensuring 100% uptime in 6 months with auto-scaling, load-balancing, and continuous updates. This architecture guarantees no request loss and maintains high performance and reliability.

September 30, 2019 · 4 min · Vishal V. Shekkar
A image showing the iOS Mail app icon with a zero notifications badge count.

The Biggest Problem in Striving for Inbox Zero (Iz)

The pursuit of Inbox Zero (Iz) demands excessive attention and diminishes overall productivity; instead, prioritize email content over inbox neatness for better productivity and less distraction.

March 17, 2018 · 5 min · Vishal V. Shekkar
An image showing the Apple Music Logo.

An Apple Music Inconsistency

A critique on the inconsistent placement of the ‘Apple Music’ vs ‘Library’ filter in the search function across the iOS Music app and iTunes on Mac, and questions the lack of a handoff feature between these platforms.

February 9, 2018 · 1 min · Vishal V. Shekkar