About Me


My name is Rajan Manickavasagam and I have been working in information technology since 1998. I share my views on technology, food and other stuff in this blog. All articles and books published are my own and not that of my employer or any other organization.

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All data and information provided on this blog is for informational purposes only. The author makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, recentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is and best endeavour basis.

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Meta Prompting for Success

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Meta Prompt  Regardless of the Generative AI model used, sometimes the model may refuse to provide a response for a valid prompt. Often the reasons cited are - "I don't know", "I am not trained for the task", "violation of safety/responsible/ethical guardrails". This is sometimes more acutely felt when using Generative AI models for creating images. Overcoming this behavior can be frustrating and time consuming. An approach is to ask the AI model itself to generate prompts so that the prose and nuances of prompting are aligned with how the AI model has been built. This is called meta-prompting . The theory is that the prompts created by the AI model would have better chance of working. Let's dive in to see if and how this meta-prompting works in Gemini .  How to Create a Meta Prompt As with all good prompts, start with a persona/situation that describes the overall context. Next, describe the task in detail. In this case, it is about creating some ...
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Book Review - The Price of Being Fair

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Overview  As the FairPrice group in Singapore completes 50 years, "The Price of Being Fair" book is a timely story of it's birth and evolution. The book has been authored by Sue-Ann Chia and Shing Huei Peh. While being true to history, the book has nuggets of "behind the scenes" information, given the time the authors have spent with various leaders at FairPrice. The book is already a best seller according to Kinokuniya book store. At under 200 pages, it makes for a breezy read. The Usual Suspects Having worked in retail industry for over two decades, the travails of  NTUC FairPrice seem familiar to me. A retail CEO once remarked that retail is a pretty "public" industry. There is not much behind which a retail business can hide. As such, retailers often have to follow the aspirations and concerns of the communities and customers they serve. The journey of FairPrice from being an EDLP (everyday low price) retailer to one having multiple formats, busin...
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How to create a big picture

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Typically, you need wide view or fisheye lenses to capture a panoramic picture. An alternate method (though may not give the same quality) is to use software to create a panoramic image. There are several software available which you can use to create a panoramic image. The concept is called - "stitching". Some of the software available are - PTGui, Panavue, PAX-it, AutoStitch and so on. I sometimes use AutoStitch to create the panoramas since I have a 50mm lens for now. Each of these software vary in price and features. The added advantage is that you can take the pictures using any kind of camera - digital, phone or SLR. Steps: 1. Visualize the picture you want to take. 2. Use your camera and "divide" your image into rows and columns. An example being - 2 rows and 5 columns. 3. Take 10 pictures to cover your entire image. 4. Use any of the software to "stitch" them together. Here is an example of a panorama created using AutoStitch. I to...
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