Waves from my "complex" mind...

Kindle

2011-12-20T19:24:00.002+05:30

I got my Kindle three days ago and let me tell you I am totally enjoying the experience! And that too, the Kindle touch really is worth its price. Here I first tell you why I like the Kindle and then later on a general analysis of what to consider when buying an e-book reader.

What makes the Amazon Kindle the best:
- very responsive touch screen
- screen refresh rate slightly low and that leaves a "ghost" of the previous display most of the times
- PDFs: not really the best device for reading PDFs especially if the PDFs font is already small. Increasing font size is not possible directly on the kindle for PDFs although it supports zooming in. Zooming in and panning a page can be annoying as it takes special effort unlike simple screen touch for kindle books. Anyway, its a decent experience.
- Articles/documents can be sent to a kindle.com email address that is assigned to you. This is very handy and reading the articles on kindle feels nice. And, all documents emailed to this address automatically get archived in amazon cloud from where they can be retrieved anytime.
- The on-screen keyboard with well spaced keys is great...I started typing fast right from the first use!
- Built-in dictionaries are very handy
- Last but not the least - at $99, I strongly feel its very fairly priced

Kindle vs. hard books: When you compare the prices, both Kindle ebooks and regular hard books cost about the same. In fact, in most cases Kindle books are costlier. Also, you are investing about $140 just for the device (books cost extra). I preferred hard books as they offer a far better experience than its electronic cousin. The nice covers, pages, etc. offer better satisfaction.

Kindle vs. iPad/GalaxyTab: If you already own a good phone (iPhone or some other good Android phone) or even a device such as an iPod touch, iPad or Galaxy Tab are redundant. The first few weeks would be too good, but slowly the excitement would fade away as the stuff you would do with it would be just routine. Also, for book reading a tablet is not really the best device especially under bright light conditions.

Kindle WiFi vs 3G: If you really have made up your mind on an Amazon Kindle or a B&N nook, WiFi should really be sufficient. If you travel too much without availability to a reliable WiFi connection, you should go for the 3G version. Otherwise, both the versions offer the exact same experience. Remember, the 3G version is slightly pricy compared to the WiFi one.

When buying a Kindle makes definite sense:
- you are a power user
- reading books on an electronic book reader is fun & a matter of style for you
- you have a lot of eBooks with you on your PC which you would like to read conveniently
- you want to annotate, bookmark sections of a book so you can conveniently refer them back at a later point in time
- Owning hard books requires good storage space to store them. If you are short of storage space, go for an eBook reader.

Kindle or nook - which one to buy...well the response is mixed. Be it the kindle or the nook or the iPad, reading eBooks is a different experience altogether!

Chanakya's Chant

2011-11-30T20:27:00.001+05:30

I just finished reading the book "Chanakya's Chant" by Ashwin Sanghi. Although a modest attempt by an Indian author, I liked his first book (The Rozabal Line) better. This book narrates a story happening in the current time, and the way it resembles what happened about 2300 years ago - Chanakya's story.

What I liked:

Chanakya's story was narrated very well in a concise yet clear manner
Facts pertaining to Indian politics, general political strategizing

What I didn't like:

Current day's story was unnecessarily "dirty"
Resemblance of Gangasagar to Chanakya wasn't really good
Although the book was of good quality, it missed about 20 pages (publisher Westland's fault, not the author's!). Of course, it didn't really matter as the story was easily understandable and there was nothing much to miss anyway.

I wish the book was just about Chanakya's life. I would happily read just the historical part of story again!

F1...its not just about speed!

2011-11-08T21:41:00.002+05:30

This post is a compilation of facts collected from "The Week" magazine. I know the F1 season is now behind us, but I had to type this in, hence the delay. I am sure you will be as excited as I was to read them and realize these interesting facts accompanying F1!

+ At the average top speed of an F1 car, one can cover the length of India - 3124 km from south to north - in 10 hours! The top speed of Formula One cars ranges from 320 to 360 kmph, far more than the 290 kmph take-off speed of a Boeing 747.

+ Aerodynamics, which helps an aircraft generate upward thrust for take-off, also helps produce downforce to keep a racing car stable on track. An F1 car produces enough downforce to be driven upside-down on the ceiling of a tunnel!

+ The machine:
Engine: 2.4l V8; power: 750bhp, mileage: 1.3km/litre, air consumption: 450 litres/second
Fuel: Refined version of petrol (other high-octane mixtures were banned for safety)
Acceleration (average): 0-100 - 1.7s, 0-200 - 3.8s, 0-300 - 8.6s

+ Body:
Made of carbon composites and other ultra-light material. Minimum weight, including driver, fluids and camera, should be 640kg.

+ Tyres:
Max life up to 300km. Six variants based on track conditions.

+ Brakes:
Made of carbon composites; can get heated up to 1000 degrees celcius. From 200 to 0kmph: 2.21s.

+ The man:
Thanks to extreme temparatures and g forces, drivers lose up to 3kg of body weight during a race. They drink 8 litres of water before races and gorge on carbohydrate-rich food such as pasta and bread. While accelerating, braking and cornering they experience up to 5 g force. That is, if one's head and helmet weigh 6kg, at a tight corner the effective weight on the neck would be 30kg.

Thus, drivers undergg rigorous training to strengthen the core of their body - waist to neck. They do cardiovascular exercises, too, as heart beat rates (HBR) increase by almost three times during a race. The HBR of a driver throughout a 90-minute race is similar to the HBR of a marathon runner at a finishing point.

The drivers must have immense concentration and coordination, as every microsecond counts. The steering wheel, for instance, has more than 15 control swithces, besides the clutch and gear shifters. A car undergoes up to 4000 gear shifts, which just take 0.05 second, in a single race.

The King's Speech

2011-06-05T22:25:00.004+05:30

I watched the movie "The King's Speech" and was truly enthralled by it. The whole movie was mostly very slow and steady, typical to its genre, but this one in particular had me glued to the chair all along! Very beautifully directed & performed, especially by Colin Firth & Geoffrey Rush, it was a pleasure watching the movie. The movie is about the Prince of England's stammering problem and how he mostly overcomes it.

Watching the movie with my headphones on made me realize I was using technology from the 1920s! There is a scene in the movie where the speech therapist (Dr. Lionel Logue) asks his visitor (Bertie, the King George VI) to read out a few lines from a book with headphones put on playing loud music. To Bertie's own surprise, he reads out the lines without any stammer! Its all your psychology & thinking. Bertie's wife, the queen played a great role in improving her husband's abilities with her great encouragement and patience. It wouldn't have been possible for Bertie to become what he became (the king) without her support. About the movie, the scene where Lionel's wife Myrtle returns home early to find the king & queen home is very naturally done. In all, the casting was perfect.

Here are a few favorite lines from the movie of the character Lionel:
"l can assure you, no infant starts to speak with a stammer."
"Every stammerer always fears going back to square one."
"You don't need to be afraid of the things you were afraid of when you were five. You're very much your own man, Bertie."

No wonder this movie swept 4 Oscars this year!

Government run city buses - some facts

2010-11-03T16:33:00.005+05:30

On way to office today morning in the bus I take daily, the following discussion emanated during a conversation with a friend. This guy is a good friend of the driver & got to know a few facts about the bus which he shared with me. The bus we travel in is a Volvo B570R - air conditioned, excellent suspension, great pickup, good lighting and a host of other features which we don't really care about much...the best public transport bus Hyderabad has ever had. In the end, he had only one thing to say - "We are lucky to be able to use this facility", and I couldn't agree more! We pay taxes after all ;). That is how some government departments function - service to public, not for profit. This bus and some other buses were procured through JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission - a Central Govt scheme under which it allocates funds to State Govts for developmental activities) early last year.

Expenditure:
Initial cost of the bus = Rs.87 lakhs
Mileage = 2 kmpl (diesel)
Number of shifts per day = 2 = 4 round trips per day
Kms per round trip = 80 kms => total kms per day = 320
Cost of fuel per day = Rs.40 x 160 litres = Rs.6400
Salary of an employee (driver or conductor) = Rs.15000
Cost of salaries per day = 2 shifts x 2 employees x 15000/30 = Rs.2000

Earnings:
Peak earnings of Rs.1500 per one way of trip = Rs.10000 per day on average (being very optimistic here!)

Profit:
Profit per day = Rs.1600 = Rs.5,84,000 per year
Years to breakeven = 15 years

These many years, and we didn't even include the servicing charges for the bus which runs into lakhs sometimes! And the price of fuel would most probably go up too. Another fact my friend enlightened me on was that the bus's life was supposed to be around 700000 kms of which this particular bus already traveled around 2 lakh kms. After the 7 lakh kms, the engine would need to be serviced fully which is almost equivalent to replacing it. But frankly, the mileage figure of 2 kmpl seems too low for me, but I guess that is what it is...

The other ordinary buses have a mileage of about 4-5 kmpl of diesel. This triggers yet another chain of thoughts - imagine the amount of diesel public transport buses consume! This of course would be much lesser than the amount of fuel we would consume if we traveled using our private transport. And imagine the amount of fuel being consumed throughout the country, and even worse, the whole world! The number you just thought of, even approximate, can be really frightening! We are this fast drinking up the petroleum reserves we have. Its not a surprise hence that most cognizant countries are worried about future energy security. Huh, let me stop this here...this topic sure deserves a blog post of its own!

Bottom line: Use energy resources wisely & responsibly; use public transport whenever you can!

Drenched in rain!!!

2010-06-18T22:30:00.000+05:30

I started off from office back home at about 6:30 PM, it was all cloudy (it has been so for the past few weeks). The bus started and I took a little knap and after about 1.5 hour I reached Secunderabad. The moment I got down from the bus it started drizzling. All my laziness was gone and it was a very fun moment with the little rain drops trying their best to get you wet. Then it started. Huge rain drops appeared from nowhere and me and my friend ran for shelter. We survived. So far. In about 3 minutes a bus to our destination came and stopped about 50 meters away. My friend didn't really want to go out in the rain and get wet. I was already kind of frustrated spending 1.5 hour on travel and didn't want to waste any further time waiting. I convinced him & we both ran to the bus. In the few seconds that we were under the open sky, we got about 50% wet. We breathed a sigh of relief once in the bus.

Fortunately, the bus started immediately and reached my locality in just 10 minutes. It was raining even more heavily here. My friend had earlier given me a complement that I ran really fast...that registered well in my mind :). So the bus stopped at the bus stop and I jumped right out of it and started running! I ran for a few seconds slowed down a bit, ran again when I thought it was safe to and slowed down where I thought the road might not be level under the water flowing on the road. I reached home in about 3-4 minutes from the bus stop while I normally take about 10 minutes walking. So I got drenched totally, top to bottom. All along the way while I ran I had this unknown happy feeling...I felt very light inside and it just felt great. Maybe this is how drug addicts feel after they get a shot! I totally hate getting wet partially; on the other hand I love getting wet fully, if I do have to get wet. Then I reached home, and took a quick overall bath & even now as I write this I have this great joyful feeling!

Thank you dear rain, you made my evening today!

Petrol vs. Diesel - which car to buy

2010-05-28T14:37:00.002+05:30

If you are looking to buy a car & can't decide whether to buy a petrol variant or a diesel variant, or if you are just curious to know what just is the difference between the two, read on...

Until 1 or 2 years ago, most potential car buyers were diesel averse & petrol run cars were the most popular. But this seems to be changing now. These days, I see more and more people trying out the diesel versions of their favorite car...the obvious reason? Fuel efficiency.

The big visible difference is the high price of the diesel car compared to its petrol sibling. This itself wins the race for petrol in most cases. And, diesel engines have traditionally been noisy and that is not to the liking of many. Most would think, I don't mind spending that extra penny on petrol when it can give me the comfort ride.

However, today's diesel engines are more sophisticated than before & their noise levels are almost at par with the petrol versions. Also, under the present day context where fuel prices are on the rise, buying petrol means spending about 25% more per liter compared to diesel. And, considering the mileage, diesel cars give an additional 4-5 kmpl mileage in many cases. Although other maintenance costs associated with diesel are slightly higher compared to petrol, the overall savings achieved significantly eclipse the disadvantages.

Here is a little tool that I created in MS excel showing a comparison in the costs involved in buying & maintaining a petrol car vs. a diesel car. The parameters considered are the initial cost of the vehicle and the maintenance cost involved (mileage, fuel price). Other factors like the time value of money, miscellaneous maintenance costs have been ignored and it is assumed that the petrol & diesel engines rate equal on the technology & comfort scale. You can modify these parameters (initial cost, mileage, fuel price) to study a different case. Download the file to your desktop to view it better.

Tool: Buying a Car - Petrol vs. Diesel (click here to download the MS Excel based tool)

As can be seen, the petrol version comes out to be cost effective upto a distance of about 50,000 kms which in many cases is associated with a period of 3-3.5 yrs on an average (estimated). Beyond that, the diesel version overtakes the petrol version in cost effectiveness.

The bottomline: if you travel long distances daily, the diesel variant is for you if you can afford the additional initial cost. If you really use your car occasionally and drive just a few kms around, the diesel version would prove costly.

Lessons of life that driving teaches you...

2010-05-05T15:12:00.004+05:30

Lessons of life that driving teaches you...

I have been driving down to work for the last one week, and the various experiences I come across while driving have started a series of thoughts flowing in my mind. Here, I try to present the thoughts just as they occurred to me.
Warning: the content below can get philosophical...proceed at your own will ;)

1. Speed breakers/pits: They are like difficulties in life - if you can't avoid them, minimize their impact.

2. A race?: When other cars zoom by, don't worry if you have been cruising at a comfortable pace enjoying your drive. If you believe winning is that important to you, maybe do something about it but don't keep worrying. I have personally experienced peace when I let those speed daemons pass by while I continue to enjoy the ride listening to good music. It is very important to have such feel good moments in life. The moment you start racing, you forget there is someone sitting beside you and its quite probable you don't realize the facts until you actually reach your destination. Don't always drive in the fast lane, enjoy the slow lane too!
Even in our life, we get so busy with our careers that we spend very little or no time with family and time just flies by. Later in life when repentance sets in (if it does), there is nothing you can do! Parents/kids age and things slightly change. Maintaining a work life balance is of paramount importance.

3. Watch out!: Even if you are driving on a open highway at a high speed, it is important to be alert and watch out for any pothole or animal crossing the road. Given the fact that slowing down from such a high speed requires special attention & focus, remember not to become reckless even when everything in life is going as desired.

4. Be humble: If you are driving a car, when driving through stagnant water on roads, don't go fast and spray it on people commuting on 2-wheelers beside you. ie, don't show off your power, give respect to the less capable (2-wheelers are not necessarily less capable...this is just a analogy).

5. Don't go too fast: Don't travel too fast and rash or your "car" will wear away fast! Drive smooth.

Carnatic Music Programmes in Hyderabad - March 2010

2010-03-08T12:13:00.004+05:30

It is rare that we have good carnatic music programmes in Hyderabad, and when we have them, we must not miss the opportunity of attending them!

South Indian Cultural Association, SICA, is organizing some carnatic music programmes this week onwards in Hyderabad. The tickets would be sold at the venue 1 hour before, or there are donor passes (Rs.300 - eligibility for 2 for all programmes) being sold at L. B. Stadium. Here is the schedule:

9 Mar - T. M. Krishna (Vocal)
10 Mar - P. Unnikrishnan (Vocal)
11 Mar - N. Ravikiran (Chitraveena)
12 Mar - Sankaran Namboothiri (Vocal)
13 Mar - Priya Sisters (Vocal)
17 Mar - M. Chandrasekaran (Violin)

Venue: Ravindra Bharathi, Hyderabad
Timings: 6:30 PM onwards...

Enjoy!

A sleepwalking experience!

2010-02-22T19:00:00.004+05:30

I have heard of people walking in their sleep before, but never imagined I would do it some day...yes, I did sleep walk last night! The first time in my 26 years on earth, and hopefully the last one!

The weather here is transitioning to summer now, and I am feeling more tiresome than I used to until a few weeks ago. Add to the summer the increasing traffic and I don't need to explain how it feels traveling for about 1.5 hrs in a hot summer evening to reach home.

Last night, I went to sleep at around 12 AM. There were a lot of mosquitoes making party in my bedroom. My sis generally doesn't like sleeping with the fan at a higher speed, so the fan rotates at a speed of 2, in this type of weather. Of course, all out was on too. Mosquitoes however seem to have got used to this too...they fly around freely no matter what. Ok, enough of history :). So I went to sleep, turned around a few times in the bed, with the bed sheet over me for some time to evade the mosquitoes, and sometimes beside me to get some fresh air. Next thing I know, I was turning over in bed, due to the pillow feeling a little high. The fan was at full speed and the surroundings were different...I was in a different room! Yes! I really do not remember when I got up to go to the other room, but I did this consciously for sure (justification ;)). So then I got up, switched off the fan, and headed back to my own bedroom. This time, I didn't care about offending my sister and increased the fan speed to the maximum and went to bed with a little smile on my sleepy face :). The next morning when I shared this experience with my family, they had a little laugh too, and of course, my mom put a little concerned face! "Don't worry mom, I don't do this regularly!" was what I could manage to mumble.

I generally am a sleep-late, get-up-late type of person. I almost never go to bed before 11 PM & don't get up before 6:45 AM. Lack of sleep? Some may say so. And, I almost daily get some dreams (good topic for a potential blog post, later)...special effects! So yes, from now, whenever I come across the word "somnambulist", I know very well what that experience means!

Mile Sur

2010-01-26T16:50:00.003+05:30

It is India's 61st Republic Day today and as ever, it is a great feeling to be an Indian. Watching the Republic Day Parade that takes place in New Delhi near India Gate gives me immense pleasure & excitement. The rich cultural diversity of India is unmatchable in the world. This parade showcases many such items which we don't realize to be present in the nation we live in.

Since childhood, another favorite item of mine and I am sure many of you out there has been "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara", a national integration song which was released on 15 August 1988 immediately after the Prime Minister's speech from red fort on Doordarshan. And today, the TV showed yet another version of the popular song, all newly created, but a total disaster according to me.

The new "Phir Mile Sur Mera Tumhara" is no match to the charm of the original "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara". The new version doesn't convey any message, at least to me. It only tries to make it look good by roping in celebrities, mostly filmy. While the older one really succeeded in depicting the diversity of India, the new one miserably fails to deliver the magic. It no way generates the desired effect. Even the audio is only average for that matter. The camera work is a 100 times better in the original version. Also, it depicts some real icons.

The original is what it is...a masterpiece.

PS: Visit this link to obtain some excellent information on the song.

Calendars missing from homes...

2010-01-02T12:25:00.002+05:30

This thought stuck me as the new year approached as it does every year. Calendars at some point of time were a favorite wall hanging at any home. When you entered any home, the first thing that caught your eye was a calendar...a calendar with big sceneries, or a calendar with birds, flowers, or at least a biggish calender with a grid of numbers in large fonts. A calendar was an essential article of the wall jewelery. People used to mark their appointments, etc. on the calendar.

Of course, I speak above of the non-digital age. This was in the last century. One of the biggest events in this millennium is the internet revolution. More and more people getting connected, electronic devices getting popular, every home has at least one computer. People now use calendars on their computer desktops, internet, mobile phones, iPods, etc. They no longer rely on the paper calendar that they were used to earlier...they are more comfortable using the digital calendars which they can access anywhere, add/delete entries which look neat, stay private, send notifications when the event gets due. Yes, this is the digital revolution. It is hard to imagine what other exciting stuff the future holds for us.

But I definitely miss the beautiful wall calendars that stole my glance whenever I passed by them. Their charm can never be overcome by their digital counterparts...

Changes here in 2 months

2010-01-02T12:08:00.003+05:30

First of all, wish you all a very happy new year! I hope I will able to write posts here more regularly than last year.

I left India for US on 29th October for about 2 months and came back on 20th December. These are some changes I see here...

1. At the time I had left, swine flu masks were a craze with people of Hyderabad...masks were sold at traffic signals, people were seen wearing the masks on roads, at railway stations, everywhere. Today, I don't see a single person wearing a mask...a good sign! But there was a checkpoint at the Hyderabad airport where they scanned passengers with some thermal sensor that apparently detects the presence of virus. Is Hyd free from swine flu or do people not want to spend any more on swine flu masks when they do not hear of any flu cases?

2. Even more traffic on roads now...before I had left, there sure was traffic & traffic jams, but today I feel the traffic density has gone up. Is it only because I spent two months in a sub-urban place in US where the traffic was limited & organized? No, the traffic has definitely increased now...

3. At work, there were 2 resignations, 3 marriages

4. The state of Andhra Pradesh is in turmoil over some people's demand for a separate state which only seems political to me. The common man doesn't really care, he just wants a happy & peaceful life after all.

5. My neighbor's granddaughter is older by 2 months and doesn't look like a baby any more...she crawls around really fast, throwing things here & there and is a lot more fun to play with now!

However, there has been no change in my dad's work schedule, he still leaves at 7:30 in the morning & returns home only after 9:30 at night. His health is the one that is taking a hit, but he tells us the conditions at work are such and there is no way out. This was the thing I strongly wished to see a change in...I very much wish things improve for my dad at work & he enjoys his life better.

An episode with the microwave oven!

2009-11-25T09:35:00.004+05:30

Away from home in US...ok, I felt like having some regular meal - rice. That is why I brought a microwave safe rice cooker from India. You put rice & water in it, put the cooker inside microwave for about 10 mins and lo, rice is ready to eat! At least that is what I understood I could do with it. It was the 21st, Saturday night at about 8 PM. I put the cooker in the microwave, set the timer at 10 minutes and started talking on the phone.

After about 7-8 minutes I saw a little smoke inside the oven and after another minute there was billowing smoke! I just put the phone down and ran to the oven in time to realize what had happened. As I opened the door, the characteristic smell of burning plastic hit my nose. I immediately lifted the cooker up, inverted it and carried to the sink. I felt a mixture of panic and irritation. I had planned on enjoying a homely dinner after almost a month & this is what I enjoyed instead. I then opened the balcony door, and kept the melted vessel there in order avoid spreading further smoke inside the apartment. I was already lucky since the smoke detector didn't trip. It is really cold at nights here (46F or 8C) and I didn't expect there would be anyone outside to smell the smoke; except that I was wrong. Right in the apartment above, a group of people, presumably students, were having fun in the balcony. Right after I put the vessel in the balcony and came inside, I could hear a little bit of running around in the apartment above, panicky voices shouting, etc. I realized what was happening & went into the balcony & spoke in a loud voice telling them there was nothing to worry and that the source of smoke was my apartment. A girl in her 20s with a cigarette in hand peered over the railing and took my message. I then brought the vessel back into the apartment and sealed it in a plastic bag leaving enough space between the burnt spot & the plastic.

I kept the door open for about 3 more hours. The apartment got freezing cold inside, but getting rid of the smell was my highest priority. Around 12 PM, I went to bed after having a little snack. This was my experience with cooking rice in a microwave!

Keep this in mind: if you are unsure how much time it would take for the rice to cook, cook in increments, checking at intervals how much is cooked & then approximating how much more time it might take. Ideally start with 3 mins and increment by 1 minute there on.

Here are some pictures from that day (caution: they are not a pleasant sight!)...

PS: Today is 24th Nov and I successfully cooked rice in a microwave oven. Thanks to a colleague of mine who gave me the cooker. Feeling full...cooking was fun too...potato fry, some rasam & curd constituted the dinner. Its a nice feeling I have now having cooked a full dinner myself! (secret: rasam was an instant one & curd was ready-made :))

2009-11-09T07:08:00.005+05:30

Yesterday, we went to the St.Paul Cathedral. Built it in 1850, it is an imposing gray colored structure that you can't take your eyes off! With an immaculate finish, it is one of the greatest architectural masterpieces I have ever seen. Once inside, you get a peaceful feeling that is well suited to its purpose. From the church, we stopped by at a Walmart store where I picked up some milk and chocolates. From there, we went to the Mystic Lakes Casino. This is the first time I have ever been to a casino. The first thing I noticed was that about 70% of the people gambling there were old people! Some of them so old that they had to pushed around in a wheel chair. I didn't gamble of course, but spent time going around watching people immersed in their game. Most of them were electronic slot machines with exotic names from Egypt, Greece, etc. There were 5 electronic Roulette boards, 10-15 Blackjack tables. My only spending, not that worthy :(, inside the casino was $2 on 4 postage stamps costing much less than that. By the time we came out, it was 6 and dark. On the casino building, there was a set of blue laser beams projected upward to intersect at a point...was an awesome sight. Then we headed to an Indian Restaurant where we picked up some dinner and got back home.

Today afternoon, I had my lunch (left overs from yesterday night) and enjoyed an amble to the Eden Prairie Public Library, about 3 kms away. It was a 30 min walk, but was lovely. I only expected it to be a small complex with a few books and few people but I was amazed by what I found there. The library was huge and there were a lot of people, kids and adults, spending time with books. Impressive. I quickly found my way to the fiction section and picked Stephen King's "Insomnia". I then settled down to read at a sofa nearby. I read for about an hour. It was a nice read, I put it down for some other day. I then perused some magazines. The library closed at 5, today being a Sunday. I then went around in the Eden Prairie Center for more than an hour. It was 6:45 by the time I came out. I then started my walk back home. Again, I was the only one walking and frankly, the lighting in the street is not that great. There are a lot of dark stretches which are freaky to walk through. I did feel apprehensive...but sometimes I like taking such risks which my mom doesn't approve of. I reached home at 7:15. For the first time in the ten days I have been here, I realized I was slightly sweating. I am sure you would begin to think I was sweating out of fear :), but let me tell you that is not the case. It was purely out of physical effort!

Anyway, that was how I spent this weekend here!

Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

2009-11-07T21:10:00.003+05:30

Yesterday night, I watched the movie "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button". Man, what a movie! 2 hrs 46 mins long, I watched the whole movie without getting up from my seat. The sentiments of child birth, death, parental love, etc. have been displayed really well. How old people spend their time, their feelings, everything, is depicted well. There is no villain or negative aspect in the movie except for the part where Benjamin's father gets rid of the baby Benjamin. Brad Pitt's acting was amazing as the old man. In fact, every actor lived their role. The movie totally keeps you immersed in it throughout. The story begins with an old woman on death bed with her daughter reading the diary of Benjamin Button beside her. Most of the story is thus a flashback. Interestingly, the present time of the movie is the year 2005 when hurricane Katrina hit US. The hospital's TV keeps showing a weather report with the movement of the hurricane.

A highly recommended movie!

Sleep cycle almost set now!

2009-11-01T18:00:00.006+05:30

Its Sunday and I am up early in the morning. The time on the alarm piece beside my bed reads 7:30 AM, but its actually 6:30 AM. Yes, Daylight Savings ended today at 1:59:59 in the morning (ie, 1:00:00 after the change). I now have to manually set the clock back by 1 hour. I had a good sleep yesterday. Though I slept for just 6.5 hours, it was nice compared to the day before, when I slept for a disturbed 3-4 hours. Yes, looks like I am getting used to sleeping in the US time after all!

Yesterday, we spent the day at Mall of America. Its a huge complex with roller coaster and other rides right in the middle! The centre of the mall is an open place housing "Nickelodean Universe". Attractions here are a Lego shop where you can have fun with bricks, thrill rides (a lot of them), games and other stuff for kids. Spread over 3 floors and 4 blocks (north, south, east, west), the mall is so huge you can simply spend lots of hours with a good friend. There is an underwater kingdom showcasing a lot of fishes in a Sentosa-like tunnel aquarium; star fish, sea horses, crabs, octopus & jelly fish in other aquariums. The mall also houses a theater complex. In each of the four blocks are the giants Sears, Macys, Bloomingdales, Nordstrom occupying two floors each. There is a big Best Buy store where I bought the pin-converter for my laptop plug. In all, the mall is a good fun package.

A thing I notice about Minneapolis is that very few people actually walk the streets. Everyone travels by car. Of course, the weather here is not really inviting to pedestrians. In the place I am living, the roads are almost deserted except for the little car traffic now and then. Taxis are costly too. For a travel of about 11 miles, the charge is $35. Spending this daily from my pocket is not a good idea...need to look for an alternative. I don't see any public transport system either. Driving around a hired car is what most people do but I am not sure if its safe enough (yet) to hit the roads right away. Driving in US is a lot different than in India. Anyway, this is just my beginning here...have another 1.5 month to pass. I am sure I will be a lot more familiar with the place than I am now.

The nearest shopping center from my apartment is the Eden Prairie center. It is about 20 mins by walk. This is on our go-to list for today. There is no other convenience store nearby. Walking 20 mins in a cold place is not fun. The best thing ideally is to visit the store once a week and stock up things until next time.

That's the update on yesterday's activity. Let me start with the day now!

Traveling with the Sun!

2009-10-31T03:56:00.004+05:30

Its 4:47 PM now and I got up just an hour ago after a 12-hour nap! Yeah right, I am not in my home country; I am in Eden Prairie, Minneapolis, USA. I got onto a flight yesterday morning and got down here yesterday night. Ok, let me not confuse you here. The former refers to Indian time & the latter, now local time. I have a little headache and I really feel like a time traveller! It was fun traveling with the Sun till he set in the US. All this, we fondly call 'jet-lag' :).

Our flight took off at 8:30 AM on 29 Oct from Hyderabad, India. Via London, Chicago, we reached the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport at 11:45 PM on 29 Oct. By the time we got to our apartment, it was just past 1. Technically, the airport is about 30 miles from the place we live, but it just took about 15 mins to reach the apartment. The cabbie charged us $45 (more than Rs.2000!). It was a very smooth ride. We got here, looked around the apt a bit, sent an email to home that we reached safely, changed, and just some lingering around and by the time I hit the bed it was 3:30 AM. And now some time back when I looked at the clock on the bedside table, it was 3:40 PM! I slept like a baby after a really long time. Outside, it was cool & pleasant and my mind refuses to admit it is evening and not early morning.

Something about the flight...the journey was really comfortable, no hassles whatsoever. I didn't have any problem with the food too. The familiar ear-pain when changing altitude was almost absent too. In all, the in-flight experience was very satisfying. The first two legs of flight was British Airways, the third was American Airlines.

Well, I have nothing much to write about now, having did nothing at all in this new place. Here is a picture to start with…the view from our balcony. As I go out into the balcony to take this picture, the air is very chill although its just 10 degree celcius, lot of fun time ahead!

Oct 2 & DD

2009-10-02T10:27:00.003+05:30

Come October 2 and we sit before our television watching "Gandhi" the movie. Well, we used to do this. I am in a very petulant mood now since I realize with annoyance that "Gandhi" movie is not being telecast on the TV today. The loyal telecaster of the movie, the national Doordarshan (DD) channel on TV, isn't showing it too! Ever since childhood my father always wanted me to watch the movie without fail. Back then, it was just a matter of making my father happy and of course some non-interesting watching. But today, I really really want to watch the movie and alas, the movie is not to be seen. What DD is showing instead, is the movie "Munnabhai MBBS". DD has gone to the extent of showing this movie on 15th Aug & 26th Jan too as if its some national movie! Come on DD! Munnabhai MBBS is a movie that has come on TV hundreds of times already, and it is available at all music stores for as low as Rs.40. No doubt it is a good movie, but it can never be something that can replace the charm of "Gandhi".

The movie "Gandhi", directed by Richard Attenborough, released in the year 1982 cast Ben Kingsley as M. K. Gandhi. The movie won 8 oscars including best actor in leading role, best direction, best screenplay. It is a gem of a movie. Watching Ben Kingsley is like watching the real Gandhi, he totally lives the character. The movie's greatness can't be expressed in words...one has to watch it to appreciate it.

I wish with my heart that DD resumes the old tradition of telecasting this movie every October 2 (at least this day). Every generation must watch this movie, not just once but many many times. DD has always been a channel catering to the nation's interests, its character building. No other channel can match DD's vision & goal. Hence, it is DD that has to continue doing the great things it did in the past. And yes, this includes showing great movies like "Gandhi"...

Childhood recollections...

2009-08-24T22:30:00.003+05:30

We all love our childhood...the innocence, the free time, the no-responsibilities-life, most-mistakes-forgiven life, etc. :) Here are some of the recollections from my childhood, do share any of your interesting ones in the comments!

1. Stealing money for trifles: I would like to expand this one in particular as this is something I can never forget in my life. I was in 2nd class at Indira Ideal School (Janak Puri, New Delhi). There used to be a little canteen type of thing operated out of a room with a window selling chocolates, stationery, snacks, etc. There was this pack of spicy black balls called "Chatmola" which was mine & everybody's favorite. We friends used to buy it occasionally and savor it. At one point of time I became so obsessed with it that I started stealing money (just a rupee coin now & then) from my dad's cupboard. I rarely used to spend it, I collected my booty in my school bag's front pocket. With time, there was so much change in my bag that it started making sound even with the slightest movement of my bag. Innocence at its height, I never cared about it! One day, my parents' attention was drawn to this coin sound and they asked me what it was. I went red and confessed my "crime". I now don't exactly remember my parents' reaction, but I believe they forgave me immediately with just a warning, the nice parents that they are!

2. Getting jealous with cousins since grandma told them all the stories & none to us (me & my sis)

3. Crying & crying till dad bought me a video game!

4. Fighting with my sister at every opportunity!

5. Watching detective/horror serials at night with a lot of interest & then becoming afraid to go into a dark room!

6. Getting jealous when parents bought something for my sister and not for me :)

7. Playing for over 2 hrs in the evening with my gang of friends, sometimes until late in the night!

8. Wore shorts to school until my 7th class even when everyone else was wearing pants!

9. Copying the actions of someone I liked absentmindedly until I realized I had caught up with the habit of biting nails!

10. Visiting grandparents every summer.

11. Reading chacha chowdary & other comic books with deep interest.

PS: Kids now-a-days have a totally different list. They are growing up fast mentally, missing all the fun we used to have, lack the innocence (most of them), have a good presence on the internet, play on PSP or XBox,... :)

Easy Ubuntu Linux With Wubi

2009-07-30T20:48:00.000+05:30

It has been long believed that Linux, the open-source operating system, is only meant for geeks. The installation procedure, more working on the command line, the unfamiliar and seemingly difficult-to-use interface, all this, has always kept most computer users away from Linux. However, it is not the case these days. More and more users, amateurs and experts alike, are turning to Linux to embrace the open-source term. And more importantly, the evolution of Linux into a more user friendly OS has attracted users. There is a gigantic developer community out there contributing in a big way to advancement of Linux. Myriad applications are available for free for all your needs. Basically, everything that can be done in Windows/Mac can now be done Linux too. I myself am a Windows user & occasionally like working on Linux too, for a change mainly.

Traditionally, Linux installation means creating a separate partition on the hard drive before installing the OS. This is in fact the case if you wish to run just Linux on a computer. However, if you are a Windows user like me and just want to start using Linux in parallel, Wubi is for you. With Wubi, Linux gets installed the way you install any other software program on Windows and in the same way, can be uninstalled! Yes, see it to believe it! The Linux installation appears in the Windows Add/Remove programs list and can be uninstalled from there if you wish. Please note that Wubi is a Windows installer only for Ubuntu, and doesn't work with other Linux distributions like Fedora, Red Hat, etc.

Also, when you have a branded PC, there would typically be just two drives: one gigantic drive for the OS, and the other for recovery. Manipulating the OS drive is very risky and even if you are determined, it can be very irritating. In cases like these, an elegant solution like Wubi comes as a blessing.

The best part is, installing with Wubi is not similar to using a virtual machine software. It is equivalent to installing OS on a separate partition. Once installed, you would see Ubuntu along with Windows. Select "Ubuntu" from the boot menu to get into the Linux world.

Installing with Wubi is a breeze. Following is a brief overview:
1. Download Wubi from its website. The .exe is very compact, well under 2 MB.
2. Obviously, you would need the Ubuntu's ISO to install. You have two choices: let Wubi download it for you, or download the iso manually from Ubuntu's website. Though Wubi's website recommends letting Wubi download the iso for you, I personally find downloading it manually easy & reliable. If you wish to do the latter, place Wubi installer and Ubuntu iso in the same directory.
3. Launch Wubi installer. You would see the following screen.

4. Enter information on the screen above. Select the harddrive partition where you wish to install Linux. Select how much drive space you wish to allocate to the installation (min. is 3GB and is sufficient for part-time users). Leave others with their default values and configure a user name and password as shown. Click Install.
5. If you already downloaded the Ubuntu iso from its site and placed it at the same location as Wubi installer, it would be used. Else, Wubi would download it now.
6. Once setup is complete, restart Windows.
7. Now, in the boot menu, you should see "Ubuntu" along with Windows. Select Ubuntu and press Enter. This should boot you into Linux.
8. Now, Ubuntu would do some first time setup, and finally take you to the login page. Enter credentials and submit.
9. Enjoy the Ubuntu experience!

Installing Linux this way is the most hassle-free way of doing it, and the best part is, even intermediate users with a basic knowledge of Windows can do this!

Note: If you are unsure of any of the above steps above, please don't hesitate to contact me for details. Do not take any risks as this could lead to corrupting your existing OS or loss of data on your hard drive. But, there is no need to be afraid, its quiet easy after all.

Recession - an essay

2009-07-29T23:51:00.001+05:30

The Outlook Business magazine has a contest "Your Space @ Outlook Business" and this is my little attempt to participate in it. I am way far from being a professional writer of any sorts, but a little stuff like this now and then keeps me happy. Winning a prize is not my intention, being a part of the prestigious contest is!

Enough of my theory now...click here to view the essay and do let me know what you think about it in your comments. I openly admit, some of the view points may be radical and not ideal as per many.

If you didn't discover the link in the above paragraph, click this link: http://tinyurl.com/n7mtmu

Twitter

2009-06-28T20:00:00.003+05:30

How cool an application would be if it could be used to update what's on your mind real fast. Something that would allow you to tell the world what you are doing now. That's twitter. A social media revolution that has carved a deep spot for itself in the hearts of people, amateur and professionals alike. Film starts, politicians, players, websites, everyone else is seen tweeting these days. Twitter basically allows you to publish a message limited to a maximum of 140 characters at a time. It can serve as your minute-by-minute dairy. It would definitely mean spending a lot of time tweeting...but if you have nothing else to do, you sure can do it! This is clearly not meant to write essays! This is really suitable when you are a person with good internet infrastructure available at your finger tips. You can "tweet" from a computer, your phone or most of the devices that can connect to the internet. Well, if you a person who doesn't like sharing stuff & prefers keeping secrets, then twitter is clearly not for you!

I had created my twitter account in June last year and didn't tweet at all throughout last year. This May, I was struck with the thought of checking out twitter properly and I have found it really interesting & useful. I am a guy with a complex mind and get a lot of adhoc thoughts all the time. That is the reason I started writing a blog in the first place. Through my blog, I capture my thoughts, streamline them, preserve them so that I can revisit them in the future. It serves the purpose of expressing myself in detail. Though it is cool, the time it would take me to actually write a blog post is long. Twitter on the other hand helps me put down my thought as and when it comes to my mind. I can do it before the thought escapes or dilutes.

Though one can tweet from the web at twitter's website, there are a lot of twitter clients for your computer/phone out there which facilitate faster tweeting. I use Digsby, which is a versatile multi-protocol IM client. Using a client reduces the turnaround time of posting a tweet.

While one can post one's own updates, it is also possible to "follow" others' updates, thereby creating a social circle of friends. Following others' updates leads to possible discussions on an update. Using a '#' before a word tags the update and makes it searchable. People generally tag an update if its something popular, like a movie or something. Then, you could re-tweet someone else's update so that people following you see it. Such updates are prefixed with a "RT" indicating a re-tweet. It is just like forwarding an email to a bunch of your friends!

It is important to be selective when you want to follow someone on twitter. A lot of people publish a stream of updates throughout the day. Following such people would clearly eat up a lot of your time and ultimately leave you bored. Do not just follow anyone, follow only them whose updates you care about. I recently started following Shashi Tharoor, our MP, after I read somewhere that he tweets regularly about what he does at work daily...a politician's schedule is sure interesting! Similarly, you can follow me on twitter here.

What are you waiting for? Start tweeting yourself!

Chanakya's "L.A.B."

2009-06-01T17:13:00.005+05:30

Last month, I attended a lecture at Chinmaya mission Hyderabad along with my dad. The speaker was Swami Chidatmananda, a very effective speaker I want to tell you! The lecture was about "achieving success the Chanakya way". It was a part of a series of lectures that were held for about 1 week. We could attend only this particular day, it being a Sunday. That day's lecture was from Chanakya's neethi sastra, where he tells us what we have to learn from animals that we see around us. Swami Chidatmananda called it "L.A.B." - Learning from Animals and Birds. Without much ado, lets see what Chanakya tells us about this. I will try my best to reproduce as much of it as I can here.

1. Lion: Chanakya shares his observation of how a lion, once it sets eye on its prey, chases it rapidly, holds its tight in its paw and doesn't release the grip till the prey is dead. Applying this to our everyday life, we need to learn to have a firm grip over our task at hand and not to leave it until it is finished.

2. Crane: A crane stands in a lake or a river, with patience, and springs on a fish that appears anywhere in its radius. The moment its prey is seen, it gets it, no mistakes made. This is a crane's power of concentration. This is something we can learn from a crane...focussing on our work, not caring about other stuff, assuring success.

3. Cock: A cock gets up early in the morning, notifies others around it by its cockoo sound when sun rise is around. Of course, cocks are getting up late in the morning in the new globalized world ;). After it has had its own share, a cock shares any extra food it has with other members of its family and friends. It protects its family from intruders, no matter who. It has its community's interests at heart and tries its best to ward off other creatures. Next time you see a cock around, you might respect it!

4. Dog: Our discussion would be incomplete if we didn't mention a dog's virtues! Loyalty is a dog's biggest virtue. A dog has capacity to eat more, but is satisfied with whatever it has/is given, though little - this is just great. A dog sleeps well, but is very attentive. It arises even at a slight sound. Imagine how it would be if a dog was a lazy sleeper. The dog's master would have to wake up, "get up, get up", the dog to give chase to a thief sneaking in! lol. A dog is very courageous too as we all know. There is a lot we have to learn from a dog!

5. Donkey: A donkey is always content and never whining. It does any and every work given to it without the slightest complaint. It works very hard & doesn't care about the conditions around. Be it a hot day or a rainy day, to a donkey, the task at hand is what matters the most! Next time when someone calls you a donkey, you have a reason to feel proud!

6. Crow: A crow is obstinate. It isn't frightened by silly threats people make. Say, a crow is sitting on a wall next to you and you hssh it away, it would come back the next minute. Also, a crow doesn't have blind faith in others. When someone is feeding food to a crow, a crow eats, but it is always on the lookout to danger. It is ready to escape the moment peril approaches.

There are a lot more things we can learn from not just these animals, but also from many other animals around. I really appreciate Chanakya's observation of these simple yet significant things in nature. Even if we can implement a fraction of the learnings above, we are sure to achieve success in what we do!

For those who are interested, there is another lecture series this month at Chinmaya mission (Hyd) on Sri Ram Gita (from Tulasi Ramayan) by Swami Nikhilananda Saraswathi of Chinmaya mission's Delhi chapter. The series will start 20th of June through 24th June, 6:30 PM to 8 PM. For more information, leave a comment here with your query or send me an email.

Work & colleagues

2009-05-28T20:02:00.000+05:30

Do colleagues effect an employee or a worker's attitude to work? The answer is a yes in many cases. I narrate here a small scene I came across on the way to office in the local train.

I couldn't help overhearing the conversation between two school teaches, a lady and a gentleman, discussing their colleagues. The lady, a querulous type, was speaking, rather yelling with frustration, about one of her colleagues who, she said, always left at 4 in the evening irrespective of whether there was work or not! And that she never left before 5. This is quite typical. We find such people almost everywhere, but the thing that startled me was that this lady was ready to follow his example! This type of discussion is commonplace too, but it is better not to go beyond that! It is important that employees have a sense of responsibility towards their work. Though intelligence is important, I personally believe that attitude towards work and organization are what matter the most.

Maintaining your PC

2009-05-23T11:14:00.003+05:30

I just vacuum-cleaned my PC and I can't express how "fresh" it feels to use it now! If a computer had senses (as they are evolving to be), it would surely have felt like swimming in a fresh stream or enjoying a cool breeze! Most of us just use our PCs, never care about maintaining it. I have seen a lot of my friends' PCs which are so dirty that I don't even feel like touching it. The keyboards are black (which were once white), they keys are sticky. There are CDs & DVDs lying openly on the dusty surface of the computer table...it makes me feel like running away!

While Operating System maintenance is one aspect, maintaining hardware is quite vital too for a PC's overall performance. Dust & heat are a PC's worst enemies. One should make sure his/her PC is protected from them as far as possible. The awareness about maintaining the OS has grown wide thanks to the myriad free system maintenance softwares available over the internet. On the other hand, the awareness about maintaining hardware is still very low, and this is something I wanted to highlight in this article.

Some tips to maintain your hardware...

1. Heat: We know that a PC's cabinet comes with a little fan at the back. The fan sure tries its best to keep the heat out of the system, but we need to make this more effective by placing the cabinet at a place where the air circulation would be good. Avoid keeping your cabinet in a boxy corner where it would be difficult for the hot air emitted by CPU to escape. Some of us are too protective of our PC that we don't take off the computer covers when using it...we are too afraid that the PC would become dirty if we take off the covers. This in fact hinders the escape of heat from the cabinet and harm the PC in the long run.

2. Dust: While a little can be about preventing a CPU from heating up, dust is something we can control. Many of us don't use a cover on the PC when not using it. We are too lazy to take the pain of removing & putting on the covers after every use. When the PC is not in use, make sure you cover up the PC. Another thing you can do is to not place the cabinet at a level near the floor. Keeping the cabinet at a height significantly reduces the amount of dust entering the cabinet. If this can't be achieved, say, because of the design of your computer table, make sure you open up the cabinet about once in 6 months or 1 year and clean up the dust.

If you care to follow the above tips, I can guarantee that you will see an improvement in your PC's performance and also an increase in your PC's overall life. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: It is important that you be careful when cleaning inside the PC. Make sure you don't disrupt any connections when meddling with such stuff.

Casting a vote for the first time!

2009-04-16T11:44:00.005+05:30

On 16 April 2009, I cast my vote for the first time in my life! And I want to tell you, the feeling was just great...now I don't want to miss utilizing this right ever again! Plus, the interesting thing about elections this time was that we voted for both assembly and parliament together.

I very well remember the day when I entered a polling station for the first time in my life. I was about 10 years old, and I went in holding my father's hand. The voting system was paper based - the voter was given a ballot paper with all the party symbols in the first column and an empty second column where the voter would stamp against the party he/she liked to vote. Now things are different. We have electronic voting machines (EVMs). The voter just needs to press the button against the candidate he/she wishes to vote for. And they eliminate the possibility of miscounting, atleast theoritically!

Our voting station was a school just 2 minutes away from our home. We reached the station at about 7:10 are were out by 7:25! It was good to see a lot of people from my colony getting up early in the morning, I have never seen so many people from my colony at a time! The interesting aspect about this year's voting was that there were a lot of first-timers, mainly students. As a newspaper put it, being seen at the polling station is being considered "cool"! Another exciting thing was that it was a holiday! We just spent about 30 minutes from it, and the rest, enjoyed! Also, there was a good amount of campaigning this time...celebrities campaigning, "I am voting" car stickers, TV channels & newspapers full of advertisements, etc. This definitely made a good impact.

I don't want to bore you with all the jargons - "democracy", "right",and all that stuff. Everyone very well knows all that stuff :). As one party put it, "if you do not vote, you have no right to criticize about how leaders are performing". Its definitely true. I personally enjoyed the whole experience. The candidate you vote for may or may not win, but it gives a sense of satisfaction that you supported what you thought was right, and that is very important. It is a common feeling that one vote doesn't make any difference, why should I vote then? Everyone's vote does matter. That's what elections are all about. We vote for our candidate and pray other parties don't play folly by cheating. Of course, manipulation of numbers has gone down drastically, but is still present. Ok, enough of this discussion for now :).

Optimism...good, but how much is good?

2009-04-05T12:38:00.005+05:30

Being optimistic is one of the greatest virtues to have. It makes you feel happy always, no matter what difficulty you might have. And being happy has its fantastic outcomes of its own - good health, high satisfaction levels, good relations, the list just goes on.

But, there are some people who are overly content with their life. And while optimism is a favorable thing to have, there is a side to it I sometimes ponder upon. What if a person is overly optimistic? Does he/she become unnecessarily happy and satisfied with things? Does it make him/her a dull person? Does it make him/her stop trying for things? I believe the answer to all these questions is a big Yes. And I must admit I myself sometimes feel this way :).

It is sure good to be optimistic, but it is important to see that it is maintained in the right levels. Well, there is no definition/measure for what is the right measure, but it becomes obviously visible when it is more. This needs to be checked upon. Retrospecting your actions at regular intervals helps. There is a statement that Steve Jobs referred to in his speech at Stanford. "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." is the statement that aptly reflects the attitude of many successful people. This is something that makes sure you stay young and keeps your mind active always.

Just like in any other case, anything extreme is bad. There is a popular sametha (adage) in Telugu supporting it. The adage goes like this: "Athi sarvatra varjayeth".

Jagannadh in Hyderabad!

2009-03-23T10:23:00.006+05:30

We visited the temple of Lord Jagannath yesterday evening. No, not in Puri, but in Hyderabad! Thanks to the Oriyas here, we now have a Puri-like Jagannath temple in Hyderabad now. It was inaugrated 15 days ago. It is a small size replica of the Puri temple. I haven't been to Puri myself, so it was very exciting. The sculptures were exquisite. On the inside of the temple's boundary walls, different mythological characters/events have been depicted in the form of very vivid sculptures. That caught our eye the moment we entered the temple. The temple on the whole has a brownish color and that makes it look very different from the temples we have here. Luckily, photography is allowed, atleast for now, and I could capture some cool sculptures on my camera.

The temple is located on Road No. 12, Banjara Hills, right beside the TRS office. It is a must-go spot, especially in the evening. Yesterday was really cool outside and we got the best experience. We reached the place at 6 when it was not dark yet and we came out at 7:15 when it was dark, relishing the temple's beauty in both ways. The head priest (incidentally, he is our relative!) told us that the Puri temple has 42 small temples inside it. This one had 5 excluding the main one. The whole temple has been constructed in Oriya style, but the priests are Andhra locals.

Along with the temple being in Puri style, they even succeeded in creating Puri-like atmosphere in terms of the rush! Inside the main sanctum (Krishna, Subhadra and Balaram's temple), the main doors were closed during Naivedya time. They gave some of us (including me) metallic hand drums and a bamboo stick to beat. Once the doors were closed, we started beating the drums and there was just a lot of sound. The whole place even "vibrated" under the sound's effect. It was ok to younger people, but I am sure the elder ones would have found it difficult to tolerate the noise. After darshan, they served hot halwa as prasad...yummy!

All in all, it was a marvelous experience!

Locking up your data with TrueCrypt

2009-03-06T09:28:00.010+05:30

Did you ever think your "secret" data is vulnerable to curious eyes? Did you ever feel the need to store information on your computer that others wouldn't approve of? Did you ever want to password protect your important files and be able to carry them around? Then TrueCrypt is for you. TrueCrypt is a nifty program that allows you to secure your important and not-so-important files by password protecting them, and such files can easily be carried around in a portable drive just like any other files. I personally use it as office to store financial/personal documents on my machine. So, even in case a friend of mine needs access to my machine for something, I can be sure that he/she doesn't have access to my personal information. Lets look at how you can install and use it.

TrueCrypt is an open-source software and can be downloaded for free here. Once you download it, you can choose to install it on your computer or create a portable version of it by selecting so from the installation wizard. Once installed, you will be able to create a "crypt" - a storage vault for your files. Just follow the steps below to create one.

1. The default view of TrueCrypt looks like this. Click on "Create Volume" to proceed.

2. Leave the default settings and click Next until you reach this page. Click on "Select File", enter the name of the file you wan to create and click "Save". Click "Next" twice.

3. Enter the size of vault you wish to create. Please note that this vault once created cannot be varied in its size later.

4. Select a password and click "Format" on the next page.

5. Your vault is now created. Click "Exit" on the next page.

Now that you are done with creating a vault, lets see how you actually can use it.

1. On the TrueCrypt default view (start page), click on "Select File". Browse to the location where you created the file and open it.

2. Now, click on "Mount" on the TrueCrypt default view. Enter the password when prompted.

3. Visiting My Computer will show you an extra drive (with the letter you had selected when mounting the crypt file). Open this drive like you open any other and start operating on files.

The only con I see about TrueCrypt is the fact that we need to pre-allocate storage space to the crypt and is not flexible. If your crypt becomes full, you have to create a new one with more space and transfer stuff to it. But this is a very small disadvantage compared to the features it offers!

Anger...useful or bad?

2009-02-26T19:00:00.001+05:30

Do you have to be tough/behave angry to get things done? Maybe. Prior Philip in "Pillars of the Earth" felt so sometimes. He says people tend to take you more seriously when you exhibit an imposing manner. Recently when I was behaving serious due to a slight headache, I felt I was getting things working my way. But if this means making the person opposite you uncomfortable, it might not be worth after all!

Many seem to think positive about anger and make it their regular trait. I feel it is more important to be balanced, a balance between kindness and lesser kindness. Anger not only spoils one's health but also affects the relationship with people around you. What do you think?

Save power when using YouTube

2009-02-01T15:50:00.002+05:30

It is a known fact that a black image on a computer screen consumes lesser power as lesser number of pixels are lit (or they are lit to a lower extent). Many of you are familiar with Blackle (http://www.blackle.com) which is a "black version" of our favorite Google. Since Google is one of the most visited websites on the internet, using Blackle would result in a lot of energy saving thoughout the world.

A similar gesture from Google is a new feature in YouTube. Called "Turn down the lights", this is a small button seen just above the video section on the right side. Clicking this button (see image below) darkens all the area around the video resulting in lesser power consumption. Lets help save power!

A painting I loved, bought!

2009-01-27T21:23:00.006+05:30

Sunday, 18 January 2009: We went to Shilparamam (an ethnic crafts mela at Hyderabad) as a Sunday evening outing. Such outings are normally appealing to the lady folk, so me and my father were just looking around bored. My mom & sis were in a cloth store, the shopkeeper pouring layers and layers of clothes in their front, and they did not like anything at all! Typical female behavior... :)

It was almost an hour since we had got there and I came across nothing that would interest me. I left my mom & sis at the shop and wandered forward to the next few shops. My glance was caught by a big painting of Lord Rama's pattabhishekam. It appealed to me instantly. I increased my pace and got to the shop in a second. Inside the shop were even more of such lovely paintings, mostly on the divine theme. The artist there was a short gentleman in his fifties probably, wearing the ISKCON style namam on his forehead. He wished me "Harekrishna prabhu!" with a smile as is their culture. He invited me inside and told me that the paintings were glow paintings which would glow in dark. There was a curtain which he drew and turned the light off. The paintings looked just amazing! All of them were glowing, litting up the room in their own capacity. One particular painting that attracted me was that of the great painter Bapu. The painted depicted Lord Rama, Sita, Hanuman and Thyagaraja, all showering vivid emotions with a line "Bantureethi Koluvu Iyyavayya Rama!" in telugu at the bottom. Their faces were just perfect. It depicted Lord Rama in embrace with Sita, Lord Hanuman at their feet, Lord Rama with his hand under Lord Hanuman's chin expressing love. Lord Hanuman's face is lit with joy by the mere touch of Lord Rama's hand on him. Lord Thyagaraja is seen too praying Lord Rama that he be gifted the privilege of being His servant. I couldn't help staring at it for a long time. The artist obviously knew I was interested, and picked it up to my hands. I decided I would buy it. Upon enquiry, he quoted the price at Rs.2,500, a little heavy on my pocket. The expression on my face gave clue, and he said he could a smaller version of it for a lower price, this sounded wonderful. My mom & sis were out of the cloth store in the meanwhile and I beckoned them & my dad to the shop I was standing in. They loved it too the moment they had their eyes on it. But again the price was a little high even for the smaller one...I persuaded them that acquiring the art piece was sure worth its price. They were convinced, and with some bargain we landed on a price. The artist told he would call me up 2 days later when the small size version was ready.

Thursday, 22 January 2009: He called me up saying the smaller version was not working out very well and would miss out the details better visible in the bigger version. I agreed on that. He suggested me taking the bigger one only at a lower price. I considered the offer and consulted my parents. They were ok with it. He said he would deliver it on Saturday.

Saturday, 24 January 2009: We settled on a price, and he assured me he would deliver it by any time at night. 8'o clock, 9'o clock, but no delivery. I called him up only to know that the delivery guy had left with it. He might have got delayed somewhere. I knew he wouldn't make it today.

Sunday, 25 January 2009: 11:30 AM, the painting was delivered to our home. We were all smiles! We initially decided upon installing it in the drawing room where it would be visible to anyone entering the house. But the vertical orientation of the painting really didn't match the wall's horizontal spread and we didn't want it there. I then tried the master bedroom's wall and it suited very well there.

This is where it resides now. Every night when the light is turned off, the painting is seen glowing; every morning when my mom wakes up before sunrise, she sees Rama in front of her, causing joy!

(Above is the painting in day light, below, the painting in dark (sorry, I couldn't manage a better picture with my shaky hands))

My experiments with ...?

2009-01-19T20:11:00.002+05:30

I celebrated my 25th birthday recently...yes, 25 years on Earth! It sure is a special birthday for me...especially given the wonderful family I have!

I have been reading Mahatma Gandhi's autobiography these days, and I find it really very interesting. He has presented everything with real frankness. What good is an autobiography after all if it isn't presented with correct content but with creations that would make a reader think very good of the writer? His presentation of facts with utmost sincerity and emotion makes it even more inspiring. I am actually so inspired that I want to start writing my own autobiography sometime! I am sure I would do my best to put in truth to the best of my knowledge...sounds technical? :)

I am really not sure where to start, but as I sit down thinking about my life till now, I feel now is the time to write down my experiences, my life so far. Growing elder will only fade away the wonderful memories of childhood. When am I going to publish it? I really am not sure at this point. But yes, I will try to share it as soon as I can.

Pillars Of The Earth

2008-12-29T16:06:00.005+05:30

Ever since I first read a Ken Follett's novel, I have been a huge fan of his books. His style of writing is very intuitive, realistic, vivid, clear...the list can just go on! His plots are all very near to real life situations. Of them all, I love his books on the World War II fiction. They are so spell binding that it invoked a lot of interest on history in me. Most of Ken's books are bound to have some masala (if you understand what I mean), but the plots are just too good. And if you do like masala, you enjoy the complete package! His books are undoubtedly the best in fiction. I have finished reading 12 of his books as I write this and I can't wait to finish all his books! In fact I acquired some more of his books at a recent book fair...ok, looks like I am deviating slightly from what this post's title is about.

"The Pillars Of The Earth" is a work of fiction Ken Follett published in 1989. The story is set in the time of the civil war between King Steven and Empress Maud in England. It spans over a period of over 50 years of the 12th century. The whole story revolves around the building of a great cathedral in Kingsbridge, a town. The story is an intricate web of various characters, their interplay, emotions, passions, politics, murders, love, betrayal, in classic Ken Follett style. The main characters include a cathedral builder Tom's family, an earl's children Aliena & Richard, another noble family Hamleighs, the prior of Kingsbridge Philip, Kingsbridge's bishop Waleran. Tom & Jack's passion, Aliena's determination, Philip's rightfulness, the Hamleigh's cruelty bring a great impulse to the story. One thing that this magnificent piece of fiction tries to show is how the good always wins over evil in the end. It also shows how people like Philip, Aliena, Jack, etc. rise from nothing into being the best.

Some aspects of the life back then are really interesting. Many of the people used to take bath only once in 6 months, the only exception being marriage! It is also seen that when someone was convicted for a crime, he would be executed/hanged in the town centre. For petty crimes, the criminals would be mutilated (lips removed, hands cut off, etc.). Such people usually went into hiding in forests where no one would disturb them and were called "outlaws". They would then start robbing stuff from travellers on forest roads. The Church occupied a significant place in people's lives. Be it marriage, crowning a king, schooling (in monasteries), it was the Church. By Church, I don't mean the physical structure, but also the governing body, the monasteries under it. Travellers visiting a town could go to the Church there and they would offer them bread & wine for free. Similarly on all festival days, the Church would throw a feast to all people in the town.

With this book, though Ken Follett slightly deviated from his regular war fiction style, he has done an awesome job at this too. Though a 1000+ page book, it doesn't fail to keep you interested from the beginning to end. It is an absolute page turner! It deserves nothing less than a 5-star.

Reliable, but how much?

2008-12-21T15:07:00.002+05:30

A friend of mine was at my home recently with his 2-year old Transcend external hard disk to copy some data. I had placed the disk on a chair that stands just beside my computer table to be able to connect it to the USB interface of my desktop PC cabinet, which I place in the lower shelf of the table. After some time, I had to move the chair for some reason and bam, the disk crashed on to the floor, pulled back by the wire attaching it to the cabinet. The light indicator on the hard disk was still on, so we didn't imagine any damage had been done. We unplugged it, and then plugged it back after some time to copy more data, the drive was not being read, though the light was still on to show it was receiving power. I guess the drive/spindle inside received the shock.

When hard drives like these which are specifically portrayed as "back-up" drives can't sustain a fall from a height as small as 1 foot, what good are they? Can we call them reliable? Is it ok to store sensitive information on them? So, is web based backup the best option for critical information? These questions are left to be answered by your luck!

Comic World!

2008-11-09T23:16:00.003+05:30

Many of us sure miss the fun we had in our childhood. The games we played, the kids TV shows we watched, the delightful comic books we read. We now wish we could have all the fun back! A part of that dream is about to be realized, read on...

Recently, I stumbled upon online versions of Indian comics that we used to enjoy as kids. I am really excited to share this with you. Chacha Chowdary, Chandamama, comics from Amar Chitra Katha publications, Tinkle, Phantom, Archie, etc. can be read/downloaded on the internet, and for free! :) In today's world, where children have different priorities & interests compared to what we had, comics are moving away from them. Many kids spend a lot of time on the internet these days and the online comic world is thus a great treasure waiting to be expended.

Here are some links where free comics can be found: Comic World, Indian Comics, Chandamama, Amar Chitra Katha, ACK Blog, Anupam. You can also order hardcopies of comics from the archives of Chandamama, Amar Chitra Katha. Leap into this mine and get back to the joyful world of comics!

"Bharat Ratna" Pt. Bhimsen Joshi

2008-11-06T09:35:00.002+05:30

Bharat Ratna to Pt. Bhimsen Joshi is a moment of celebration to the world of Indian Classical Music. He was chosen for the award on 4 November, 2008. The Bharat Ratna has been awarded to only 40 people till now in its 24 year history. Pt. Joshi is the 41st recipient of the award. Panditji is one of the foremost exponents on the Hindustani style of Indian Classical Music. His deep voice has won the hearts of many of us, in India and abroad.

As a boy, I first saw him on TV on the famous "Mile Sur Mera Tumhara", a song on national integration that aired on Doordarshan TV quite frequently back then. This song is a masterpiece and Pt. Joshi has the credit of opening the song with his graceful voice. His contribution is as big as 46 seconds in the 5 and half minute song, a lion's share! His song reminds me of a lion's roar...such is the intensity of his singing. Listen to the wonderful "Mile Sur" song embedded below.

Pt. Joshi hails from Gadag district, Karnataka in South India. Born on 4 February, 1922, he is famous for his khayal form of singing and bhajans. Apart from Bharat Ratna, he was previously awarded Padma Vibhushan in 1999, Padma Bhushan in 1985 and Padma Shree in 1972, a magnificent accomplishment! He started the Sawai Gandharva Music Festival which is held at Pune every December.

(source: Wikipedia, image source: The Hindu, Tata Central Archives)

Crisis & shutdowns

2008-10-27T09:56:00.002+05:30

The recent financial crisis saw many big players in business take the path back home. No wonder, many small entities even in the internet world had to close down. Look at this example...

The unexpected meltdown shed water on the dreams of many small entrepreneurs worldwide. The whole world is praying we get out of this nightmare as soon as possible. If a situation like this persists for long, it is pretty much possible that we will get back to a world where we have only the big players ruling the market, monopolizing. It could well mark an end to the advantages we reap out of competition! Anyway, lets hope this doesn't happen!

An incident...

2008-10-23T22:51:00.002+05:30

This is about an incident that happened last weekend. I was going out somewhere and had to stop at a traffic signal. My attention was immediately drawn to a young man selling soft yellow towels (normally used to clean glass surfaces, etc.). He was trying to sell it to people in a car which was 2 lines in front of me. The guy in the driver's seat didn't show interest and so the seller showed the towel to the guy in the back seat & asked something. The signal went green, and right as I saw, the guy in the car snatched the towel from the seller & the car zoomed ahead. The poor seller ran with the car for sometime before finally giving up.

Incidents like these really make me feel sorry for some reason. With people like these in our society, doing things in broad daylight, can we expect our country to grow as we say it would? Is this the meaning of democracy...a place/system where people enjoy a level of freedom which makes them forget what good is?

Money Money Money

2008-09-28T09:04:00.000+05:30

You want to eat? Then you need it. You want to go somewhere? You need it. You want to get entertained? You need it. You know its obvious that I am speaking of money! We just cannot imagine our lives without it. This post doesn't intend to tell you what money is, but this is something I have been pondering over for some time now. Though it saw its origin with the barter system originally, money came a long way to being the fanciful coins & notes we see these days. So much so, that it is an object of collection! Called numismatics, the collection & study of money, coins in particular is a popular hobby with people of all ages.

My parents tell me they used to buy stuff for as low as half-anna (about 3 paise) and lower! Its very bewildering to see such a drastic change in a period of about 40 years. Compare that with the scenario we see these days...can you even imagine one could buy a chocolate for about 2 paise :)? Of course back then, people even earned in similar figures. These days there seems to be no value for money at all. A house that would have been valued at say 20 lakhs, is now at least 50-60 lakhs! The price of petrol which was about Rs.18/litre when I was a kid is now about Rs.55/litre. Take vegetables, clothes, furniture, milk, anything for that matter. I wonder how much we would be spending on these commodities say, 15 years from now. Nothing less than double I bet!

One thing visible with rising prices is the obsoleteness of small denominations of money. This is perhaps one of the reasons why money is a collector's choice! Annas are a thing of yesterday. So are 2 ps, 3 ps, 5 ps, 10 ps, 25 ps, 50 ps and more recently even Re.1! Yes, believe me, Re.1 is gradually disappearing too. When I was in my graduation (3 yrs ago), the local bus tickets used to be 2.50, 3.50, etc. With 50 ps coins becoming less available, these fares were revised to 2, 3, 4, etc. And now, when I need to take a ticket for Rs.3 and give the conductor Rs.5 or Rs.10, he asks me if I have Re.1 so he can give me a Rs.2 coin which he has in plenty. This sure is an indication on Re.1 becoming obsolete. A friend of mine attributes this to the public phones that accept a Re.1 coin we see around us. Though this might be a contributor, I somehow feel this affects less than 30% of the number. If you are coin collector, you better preserve any 25p/50p/Re.1 you see around. It sure would be a good addition to your collection very soon!

It sometimes makes me feel good to imagine the amount of change I would be witness to in my lifetime! What is life without change after all?!

Internet until now

2008-09-03T14:55:00.000+05:30

Guys, check out the article "Internet until now..." I wrote on woikr.com, a tech blog started by a friend of mine...here is the link: http://woikr.com/internet/internet-until-now

Do put down comments there if you please!

GMail - quota

2008-08-21T22:42:00.000+05:30

We all love GMail. Right from the day it entered the email "market" it has stolen our hearts and it now brags of a large percentage of users worldwide. This post is about something I have been noticing for long with GMail's home page and now got the time to show this to you.

GMail's home page has a quota counter in the middle left showing the number growing steadily. Introduced on April 1, 2004 with 1 GB of memory and growing ever since, it recently crossed the & 7 GB mark! But what intrigues me is that the moment you open www.gmail.com, this number is seen to be in the 2 thousand something, and within 5 seconds this changes to the present actual figure (see image below). I am really not sure why Google is allowing this in its second most popular application.

And for those who might be interested, below is the GMail's screenshot on April 1, 2004!

(image source: google system)

The power of smile

2008-08-19T09:03:00.000+05:30

I today started off from home to office with a somewhat angry mood (reason - xyz). On my way, at a place where I was crossing the road, I saw this auto-rickshaw full of kids going to school. The girl in my view was about 10 years old sitting cosy on the sidebar studying and repeating from a book in her hand. This sight amused me and I kept looking at her as long as she was in my view. She observed that I was looking at her a bit later and started looking at me, continuing her study activity. Just as the auto-rickshaw was about to move out of sight, she smiled at me...maybe she felt my looking at her that way funny! That smile really lifted my spirits and I carry the same mood even as I write this. I realized a smile in the morning everyday can keep the rest of the day happy for you!

I today practically experienced what a smile can do to lift a person's mood. All those bookish sayings now make practical sense to me!

"Convincing" Spam!

2008-08-09T10:38:00.002+05:30

Today I saw a mail in my GMail's spam folder and I was tempted to check it out! The subject line said "Internet Explorer 7" and the message preview showed "Download the latest version! ...". I went ahead and opened the mail and this is what I saw.

The mail looks like it is actually from Microsoft! Even the from address is "admin @ microsoft. com" - observer the spaces though! And when I actually hovered over the links, the "Download the latest version!" link pointed to an .exe file hosted on some german site. The other three links at the bottom of mail pointed to www.msn.com! The mail looks so convincing and I am sure a person who receives this mail would surely click on the main link if not aware of things like spam! I didn't want to take the risk of seeing what would .exe do to my machine! I am sure none of you want to too...so, be aware!

Watermarking...now into radio!

2008-07-21T09:00:00.000+05:30

We see images being digitally watermarked to embed copyright information or to show the identity of the owner. But a radio song being watermarked is something really irritating!

I had to resort to listening to radio on my phone yesterday that being the only entertainment gadget that promised to work during the 3.5 hr power cut (we are having these nice power cuts daily for about 3.5 hrs since the last 10 days and the time the authorities chose for it is 2:30 PM to 6:00 PM in this hot summer!). I was listening to Big FM where they play this list of top hit songs...on almost every song, as a part of the music that precedes the actual lyrics, they inserted their own custom audio clip. Not just that, even between the regular lyrics, some guy or girl would popup and say "Big", which sounds really silly to me...not just silly, but very irritating too! That breaks apart the whole beauty of the song!

I wish other radio stations don't follow suite and resort to these cruel tactics! I hope they realize that it is not them who created the songs!

Microsoft in Hindi!

2008-07-18T14:24:00.000+05:30

The screenshot you see below is not from a fun flash file that you might have seen in mail forwards from your friends. This is actually on the microsoft.com website! Microsoft has put up this new "Help and Support" page for Indian Hindi users. I don't understand one thing here...for someone who was able to boot up the machine and navigate to this page, wouldn't he/she be knowing enough English to get hold of a phone number?

See it for yourself here. Also observe how the window's title looks in Hindi. Even on the page, all product names are still in English...! But it is actually good to see that people are designing their pages for Hindi users too, something never seen on the internet yet...

12 Angry Men

2008-07-05T17:26:00.006+05:30

I just finished watching this amazing movie "12 Angry Men" and the only word that comes to my mind is "Wow!". Released in 1957, its a black and white movie, very simple, very low on budget. The whole movie is set in a court's jury room and is all about 12 jurors discussing the trial of an eighteen year old for murder of his father. Spanning just over an hour and a half, I didn't turn my head away from the screen a single second throughout the movie! No special effects, no romance, no action, very little background score, very less actors (the total number of people who appear on screen are at the most 25), and yet, captivating! The credit sure goes to the writer, director and of course the 12 jurors who lived roles. Its a must watch for everyone.

Warning: Spoiler below. Do not continue to read if you plan to watch it sometime!
The opening scene of the movie is in a court room with the judge speaking the case and the accused, an eighteen year old boy sitting in a chair in the middle. The jury looks on as the judge announces that if proven guilty, the boy would be punished to death and asks the jury to decide on a verdict. The jurors leave the court room and assemble in the Jury Room and this is where the whole movie happens.

Davis, played by Henry Fonda, is an architect and is the only one on the jury who believes the accused is not guilty. All the other 11 at first vote guilty. Most of them try to yell at Davis to convince him into voting guilty. But he sticks to his decision only by saying that the facts can't be completely believed to put a boy to death. There are two evidences that come along the 6-day trial that happens in the court.

The first is by a 75 year old man who lived directly below the boy's house drags his left leg to walk. He claims that he heard the boy yell at his father to kill him, and one second hears a body slump to the floor. He testifies that he saw the boy running down the stairs immediately after this.
Another fact that was known was that a train was passing by fast at the same time right beside the apartment.
Another woman living right on the other side of the track testifies that she saw through her window, through the last two cars of the train, the boy murdering his father.

Slowly other jurors change their opinion as Davis points out the possible errors in these facts when put together. For how he did this, you better watch the movie!

Yahoo! Mail offering new domain names!

2008-06-20T09:26:00.003+05:30

Hey Yahoo users, have you ever been disappointed with your email of choice already taken by someone? Here is your chance to get it again! Yahoo on Thursday introduced 2 new domain names for email address and members registering with these domains would have access to all products in the Yahoo suite. There is absolutely no difference between the services offered and even the Yahoo mail interface is exactly the same. "@ymail.com" and "@rocketmail.com" are the new domains introduced.

Rocketmail clearly shows Yahoo's intention to attract users by promising fast speeds! After the recent ordeal with Microsoft, it seems Yahoo is trying to do something new again!

So guys, what are you waiting for? Go and grab your favorite id now!

Firefox's Guinness Record...will it make it??

2008-06-17T23:28:00.007+05:30

Firefox has been the favorite browser of many people throughout the world. Today, of June 2008 is "Firefox Download Day" and Mozilla foundation hopes to achieve a world record for the most number of software downloads in a day! To be sure, it created a campaign where users were asked to "pledge" that they would download this software on the designated day. I use Firefox a lot for various reasons: its free, its highly customizable, has a neat & simple interface, great performance, etc.

Today being the Firefox Download Day came to my mind today morning as soon as I entered office! I went straight to the site www.spreadfirefox.com (the campaign page) to check it out. It still showed me the "Pledge Now" button which was supposed to be removed. To my dismay, I discovered a link which told that the Indian time for download would start at 10:30 PM! So there I was, left thinking I would do it at night...

I started browsing the net at about 10:15 PM tonight and am still on it. At 10:40, I suddenly remembered about the Firefox download and opened up a new tab (yes, in Firefox!) and entered www.spreadfirefox.com and this is what I got: "Problem loading page" :( Looks like Mozilla didn't prepare itself to face the avalanche! After trying continuously for about 40 mins. more, I finally succeeded in opening up the home page. And there again, the create account link once again gave me the same error message. I cannot do anything now but to just withdraw my contribution attempt!

The site boasts of this: "If you don't already have the fastest, most secure, most customizable web browser, get it for free today!". I am really not sure if Mozilla will set the record...but lets hope that atleast Firefox 3 lives its promise!

PS: The site is still down at 12:15 AM (on 18th June 2008)...no hope anymore! All the best Firefox!
18th June, 10:30 AM: I successfully downloaded FF3 and am really impressed by its design and performance! Well done folks!

Man or Machine?

2008-06-14T14:57:00.009+05:30

Can machines replace men (or women :))? Are machines our future? Will people lose their jobs to machines in the future? These are some of the questions we think of & are afraid of sometimes. To me, I can already see this happen and the answer to the above questions partially "Yes". The second half of the 20th century has seen great advances in industrial machinery, computer industry and a lot of other sectors where machines are widely used these days. And the 21st century is seeing another trend! As companies are moving towards growth with lesser costs, better planning and execution, and better quality of work, we are seeing a paradigm shift where machines are being adopted widely in all industries.

Ok, keeping theory apart, I drew inspiration to write this when I came across a place predominantly occupied by manual labor now introducing machinery! Yes, I am speaking of the railway stations. The Secunderabad railway station has seen a lot of improvements in the last few years & the most recent ones include introduction of and the engine powered luggage trolley and the "sweeper machine" (as I call it). Most of you might remember the hand pulled luggage trolleys which is operated by at least 2 people. A machine now replaces this arrangement but is thankfully driven by a man! We see a direct 50% cut in jobs (in the railway station - luggage trolley segment) here! Similarly, at least 3-4 people would be employed to sweep a railway station platform. Even this has been replaced with a sweeper machine which is driven by a man. It has wipers and a water tank attached to its bottom and it goes from one end of the platform to the other cleaning it. More jobs cut here! I saw this machine in operation two days back and let me tell you, it didn't do a that good job as a man would have done it. It can at the most clean up dust on the surface and it doesn't do a good job at the corners either. My imagination went wild when I thought what would happen if a sleepy driver drove it over the platform's edge on the tracks below! That would indeed result in a lot of time waste disturbing train schedules.

If you have been thinking I am against modernization or adopting new technology, you got me wrong! Its just that technology should be introduced in the right amount and only in select avenues. Of course, we see these machines in airports and stations at many places in the world, but I feel railway stations are not yet ready for this change. That cleaning machine on the railway platform made all the people get up from their places, the driver had to blow horn as he went by to avoid running over someone and people got away just in time to save themselves! It reminded me of the traffic on the road outside. A platform is a thin strip of concrete just enough for people to walk on. With this "traffic" around, it just became different altogether!

These cleaners also found their way to the roads of Hyderabad & Secunderabad! We now see machines (there are two currently: a small one and another big one) cleaning the roads. Roads have been traditionally swept by sweeper at night. If these machines grow in number, it could mean that the sweepers lose their jobs. These machines are diesel powered, adding to the already excess demand of petroleum fuel and also increasing pollution.

On the one hand it is really appreciative of the authorities to introduce modernities, but on the other, we have a lot of ramifications to worry about!

My N73

2008-05-26T09:14:00.006+05:30

It is just over a week since I bought my new phone & I thought this is the right time to write a review. I have always wanted something like this, a phone with a good camera for taking pictures on the move. It is the Nokia N-series N73 Music Edition that I finally landed on after a serious study of various models in the market. I know a lot of them are already available, but wanted to tell you how I feel about it...

The first look is impressive. The N73 sports a decent 2.4 inch clear display which is good enough for most functions (except browsing which won't be used much on this phone). Exactly above the screen on the right is a small VGA camera that can be used for video calls or even as a still camera. The home screen offers two views: one with a standard set of icons for common tasks with the list of applications currently running under it, the other with a normal screen & the joystick can be configured to open configured applications upon movement. On both sides of the keypad are four shortcut buttons: Menu, Edit, Music, Cancel (Delete). Menu button opens up the menu where all features are presented as icons. Edit button is used mainly in text functions enabling copy/cut/paste. Music button opens up the music player (similar to walkman button in sony ericsson phones). Cancel button is for deleting entered text. Though these are a bit small, you get used to it in no time.

Another handy feature is the nifty gallery button present on the right side of the phone, just beside the camera shoot button. This shortcut button takes you directly to the photo gallery on the phone & opens up the last shot image by default. On the same side is the volume control/zoom button. I feel this is pretty well placed as compared to many phones which have it on the left side. This especially feels good for users who handle the phone with their right hand. The left side of the phone is plain except for the IR port.

The phone sports two powerful speakers: one above & one below the phone. I especially like the perforated brought to them. They bring a good look to the phone too. The sound is pretty high when in full volume. On the top, in the middle of the top of speaker is a shortcut button which can be used for turning on/off the phone, locking the keypad, selecting a profile, switching to flight mode (its labeled "Offline"). On the bottom is a ultra thin charging port, a serial port for charger, the smaller speaker and memory card slot. On the back is the 3.2 MP camera with cover & below that is the battery slot.

Only one game came preloaded with it, Sudoku. I don't really care much about this as phone is not the best device to play a game. Adobe PDF reader is another notable application installed. A lot of other good applications come preinstalled. The phone comes with a 2GB card which is good enough for storing songs and audio files. A noticeable feature is that songs can be stored in optimized format (eAAC) which allows high compression ratio without loss of clarity. I saw that a file originally about 5+ MB was compressed to around 1.2 MB, which is awesome!

The battery life is amazing too. With full charge & lot of use, the battery lasted 3 full days. Next time, the battery lasted 5 days with less use. Of course, the camera consumes a good amount of power but yeah, even taking a lot of pictures shouldn't reduce battery life to less than 2 days. This is quite satisfying to me...

Pros:
1. A very good 3.2 MP camera with different preset modes
2. An excellent music player with good surround (that's what "music edition is all about!)
3. Good features and applications
4. Ease of use of features
5. Good voice clarity
6. A front side camera (VGA) for video calls using 3G.
7. Easy to use PIM
Cons:
1. A bit on the bulkier side
2. Camera's shutter speed is slightly slow. You need to hold the button down for a few seconds before it actually captures the image.
3. The keypad buttons require you to press hard. This is a bit difficult for those who type in a lot of SMS, etc.
4. Camera cover (lid) is lose & moves even with the slightest touch of a finger! (not sure of the long term implications of this)

All in all, the phone has a great store of features with decent visual appeal & most importantly is a great value for money!

Life...

2008-05-10T22:54:00.003+05:30

This is an attempt I make to put down my view of a happy life...I would be overwhelmed to receive comments on it & of course your views of a happy life.

Anybody's life has these major contexts where one spends time in: family, work, friends, etc. What is it that makes one's life happy? Is it a great atmosphere at home? Or a satisfying workplace? Is it wealth? Or a good circle of friends who really are friends? It is just not possible to be happy with any one or two of these...it has to be the best of all those worlds for the ultimate life experience. Above all, I feel it is the family that is the most precious treasure one can get in life. Everything else comes only next to family...

The inspiration for this post comes from some movies I have watched, American Beauty in particular. Here is this man, who is confused about his life. His wife & daughter don't like him & he tries his best to win them. What a tragedy! How nice it would have been if all members in the family have love & affection for each other, support, cooperate & encourage one another. This is definitely a real ideal condition & quite a lot of people are blessed with an atmosphere like this at home. A healthy family life implies a better professional life, better health & a great life all in all.

Children should first learn to respect parents & elders at home. This is vital & essential for a good future. Parents shouldn't need to persuade & impress their children...the respect should be natural (the father in American beauty tenses up thinking about how to impress his daughter & win her love!). When people, especially mature, in a home fight, its just disgusting. There is nothing to be gained from that. Some people are so much obsessed with their career and work life that by the time they realize what they have lost in life, its just too late. Hence, proper importance should be given to personal life too. At home, members should be open, not hiding things at least most of the times...home should be an open forum.

This is my view of a happy life & I try to implement this. I am sure I am still in the process of achieving this & hope this helps other people improve their lives...

The Day of the Jackal

2008-04-28T10:54:00.007+05:30

"The Day of the Jackal" is a book that has been on my 'must-read list' for very long, it being my father's recommendation! He had read the book back in the 70s! This book indeed has been one of the best books in its genre ever written till now. Frederick Forsyth spins magic with his plot & narration.

The book is centred on a plot to kill the then president of France, General Charles deGaulle. Though the central plot is fiction, the book starts off with some real events that occurred in that period like other groups trying to assassinate the president, the popular attempt being the one made by Jean Bastien Thiry & his men. The main group behind the assassination attempt was OAS (Organization of Secret Army) which demanded that Algeria was French & should remain so. After all the unsuccessful attempts made to kill the president, the OAS hires a foreign professional killer to carry out the task for them. This killer is code-named "Jackal", and it is about him the whole book is about.

The book is not really huge but I read the first part quite slowly, taking about a month to do it! The second part, very interesting and binding, I finished in a single day! The way the Jackal plans his moves & how the police miss him narrowly always is very well put. The two heroes here: the Jackal & the police detective chasing the Jackal gain mutual respect for each other due to the manner in which they carry out their job. And in the end, ................. (read for yourself to know if the Jackal succeeds in his task!). I don't know why, but throughout the read, I had my mercy with the Jackal! Do tell me how you felt about it when you read yourself!

A coincidence...the day I finished reading this book, I had watched a telugu movie "Athadu" where the hero is a professional assassin too! He too attempts killing of a political leader...and the shooting spot used by both of them was very similar! Both are snipers too! Anyway, this hero no way comes near the Jackal in his skill, planning, etc. Don't miss the Jackal's adventure!

Y! Answers

2008-04-23T09:19:00.005+05:30

Web 2.0 is around the block for quite some time now & we have witnessed big industry players contribute their best in the effort. The new world is all about sharing content. Web 2.0 is a paradigm where the users (we!) own content unlike traditional world where content was just viewed by us...this effectively means unprecedented level of user interaction. Some of the pioneering examples are YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo Answers, Orkut, bookmarking sites like Delicious & StumbleUpon, etc. I know I missed a lot but the list is, believe me, endless! It was in news recently that organizations throughout the world would appoximately invest about $5 bn in the next few years on Web 2.0!

Ok, I know this post should be speaking about Yahoo answers & it is because I have fallen in love with it! We live in a world of questions and answers, we have since childhood learnt that way...isn't it great with this type of learning available on the internet with a huge user base like Yahoo? Yahoo answers is a portal where you can ask whatever comes to your mind & be assured of some answer from someone & in most cases the answer you are looking for! As a member, the best part is to be able to look at questions asked by people around the world & providing an answer on the question that interests you. The whole thing is very well organized & you get to choose from different topics into which questions get classified.

For every question you answer, you get 2 points and if your answer is chosen as the best, you get 10 more points! Getting more points promotes you to higher levels. Of course, the points are just points, period. Do not expect Yahoo to send you a cheque for those points! It is just a portal for information exchange & one of the best options to pass leisure...check it out for yourself & "get glued to it"!

For coin collectors!

2008-03-14T11:53:00.009+05:30

Yesterday I happened to go to Patny for some work. I was walking past the Chandana Bros. showroom towards Ranigunj when I was suddenly attracted by something being sold on the footpath. I normally do not give importance to such glances, but I could not get away with this one...

The coin seller was sitting squat on the floor with a nylon sheet on the floor in front of him. On the sheet was a treasure...coins of foreign countries, old Indian coins, coins from the Mughal period, Hyderabadi Nizam period, etc. They were all in small heaps with a small card indicating price of each. They were priced Rs.10, 15, 25. Old Indian coins were a bit costly (and I must agree they are worth it!) and they obviously are a rarity. My attention immediately went to the old Indian coins there and I picked up some coins. One was a one quarter anna of the 18th century, one was 1/12 anna, one was a 1 pice coin with a horse on it with a 1954 imprint on it...it was really exciting to see them! I also bought one coin from Spain & one from Polska which I thought to be a bit rare. He also had a lot of other coins but I wanted to limit my budget on my first coin buying experience. I have 50+ coins in my collection none of which was bought. When I was about to leave, he told he also had some foreign currency notes and I asked him to show them too. From that too, I picked up a note from Polska (this selection was purely based on appearance!). The notes were mostly of our neighboring countries otherwise. He lastly took out a coin from inside one bag & showed it to me. It was Hyderabad Nizam coin made of Silver with the Charminar on one side & a lot of Urdu in concentric circles on the other. He quoted the price a stunning "500"! This one surely stole the show! Hmm, let me see, I might buy it some day if you don't now! Finally, I ended up spending Rs. 65 in all.

Overall, it was a thrilling experience looking at such a collection. When at school, collecting coins & stamps was fun & something I very often thought of. For those who want to have a look for yourself, this guy is Manohar Lal, an aging man with a white beard. He sits on the footpath beside Chandana Brothers showroom at Patny centre on the R.P. Road side. Oh coin collectors & enthusiasts, go & grab your treasure while it lasts!

iStore Hyderabad...now open!

2008-03-05T09:50:00.005+05:30

I wrote a post on iStore Hyderabad sometime back at a time when it was still under construction. This post is here since the store is open now! Very well located at the intersection of Road No. 1 and Road No. 12 of Banjara Hills, the iStore surely catches one's eye. On display on the show case are the very elegant looking white mac machines. From the road outside, some stands (I guess with iPod accessories, etc.) are seen. The store is all set to debut the iPhone here in India probably in May this year.

The store occupies the left front of the mall facing the road, the other half taken up by RPG group's Music World, the biggest chain of audio stores in India. Work is still under progress in the upper floors as I write this post. Going to the mall would mean a lot of time to pass even at this stage, with two cool stores to visit!

SunTech Days...

2008-02-26T16:54:00.007+05:30

I am really looking forward to the big tomorrow. Being a part of the Java world, watching "Java Gods" would be very exciting & satisfying. I am talking about the Sun Tech Days 2008, being held at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad on 27, 28, 29 February 2008. This would be the first time to attend a worldwide conference (Sun calls it a worldwide developer conference). It is a three day event starting tomorrow...and this year Sun is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Sun Tech Days! So, something big to expect this year. It would showcase cutting edge technologies in seminars & also as hands-on! This is the place where you can expect to see all latest developments at one place.

I don't have much to write at this stage...just looking forward to the big day. You can have a look at the agenda here.

I promise to be back with more details after the event, so watch out!

Delete Recycle Bin??

2008-02-15T23:51:00.003+05:30

Yes! In the flurry of features added to Windows Vista, it now allows you to delete the recycle bin too! Don't believe me? See it for yourself below...this is a screenshot of my desktop Windows Vista Home Premium. Special thanks to my sister who "discovered" this for me...she did it, then was a bit shocked on deleting the bin itself...and I was finally successful in restoring it.

Philately

2008-02-13T22:54:00.002+05:30

Philately…one of world’s most popular & favorite hobbies, I am proud to be into it myself. It all started at school, when I was in class 6 I guess…started off with a few Indian stamps at first. My interest then was propelled by some of my school friends who had started it too. We would take stamps to school, discuss each of ours, exchange if we had extras. My friend even gifted me a stamp stock album on my birthday once!

Then the next year, my father gave me some foreign stamps. That marked my entry into the realm of foreign stamps. Some time later, my cousin brother gave me some more…this really enhanced my collection. Soon me & my friends started showing off our foreign stamp collection & exchanging which ever we could. Exchanging stamps was fun. You could sometimes get 2 stamps from your friend for 1 stamp of yours. On the other hand, if you really loved something in your friend’s collection & you wanted it desperately, you could ‘buy’ it for some high ‘price’! It was actually a mini-trade.

My focus has always been on collecting stamps of different countries, rather than stamps of a single country, like many do. Some like collecting stamps on a theme, some go by looks, etc. I proudly announce that I have stamps of over 105 countries in total of about 350 stamps. I just love my stamps.

Discussing stamps would surely take a lot more than this…but I would not like to bore you with my over enthusiasm. By the way, if I am lucky enough to get a philatelist reading this post, do comment & let me know what you own! Of course, non-philatelists can comment too!

I would be delighted to hear from fellow collectors. It would feel great to go back to school days!

The Google effect!

2008-01-21T11:44:00.000+05:30

"Google here, Google there, Google everywhere!". This is how I would describe Google in a sentence. Google really has been very successful in establishing its brand as a leader in the internet industry - be it search, maps, documents, etc. and of course with some very good acquisitions like orkut. The brand Google has been successfully instilled & etched on the minds of internet users throughout the world. The word "google" has become synonymous with the word "search". We often listen to people saying "Google it" instead of "Search it"! Achieving this level of popularity is of paramount importance to any product as it shadows the product's technical value to some extent. These days, users hardly care what Google search actually returns. All they care is how easy it is to access & how clearly the results are displayed. I don't mean to say that its technical implementation, etc. is not of value; I just intend to say that branding is a very important thing. I am no branding expert to say this, but I write this as a regular user of products on the internet, mainly content search.

Google faces strong competition from its rivals - Yahoo & Microsoft. Both companies have been trying really hard to get a share of the internet search market. It is no doubt lucrative with revenues coming in from advertisements on their sites. Yahoo came up with an improved & exclusive search (http://search.yahoo.com - url a bit long for convenient access) featuring an improved interface & speed. Microsoft too has come up with a new offering "Live" (http://www.live.com). It without any doubt is a vast improvement over its predecessor msn search, but is at the moment not popular. The brand "live" is not that well known apart from regular internet users. I feel Microsoft should have included its brand more strongly into "live", maybe something like "mslive". "Live" is not just about search, its an umbrella of products including mail, spaces, documents, etc. Even more than Yahoo search, MS live is more into the race with Google now. Once "live" gains popularity, Google will have to rethink its strategies to hold on to the throne! At Microsoft, I believe it is a bigger challenge that the marketing team faces compared to the developers actually working on the engine!

Rebranding does help!

2008-01-05T11:16:00.001+05:30

Among the Indian public sector banks, it was Canara Bank that went for rebranding after the very-well-executed rebranding exercise of UTI Bank to Axis Bank. UTI Bank in fact did more than rebranding, to even change its name! Canara Bank on the other hand just came up with a new logo.

I strongly believe rebranding helps an organization do well in its business if well executed. It is also important to continue the spirit after the exercise. Rebranding involves heavy investment in the form of advertising & marketing. It surely helps the organization come back to lime light. Take the example of UTI bank. Hardly anybody cared about it before it became Axis Bank. After the heavy advertising in all media, it became very popular even with women at home! Of course, the advertisements were catchy. But I must say that nothing much is being done after the initial branding of Axis Bank. It is no more seen in advertisements of any kind, nor is it promoting any special schemes to attract depositors. If the marketing team acts with the same intensity even after, it surely can boost its organization's growth very easily.

Canara Bank on the other hand is a well established bank & its current exercise will definitely attract more depositors especially from the younger generation. Of course, these banks need to go a long way (provide internet banking, more ATM service, demat services, etc.) to be able to compete with the private giants like ICICI & HDFC banks.

Fined! :(

2007-12-28T15:07:00.000+05:30

A day to remember...no, not because I won a prize or something, but because I broke a rule, and even worse, was fined for it!

Yes, I never broke a traffic rule till then. I am a guy who would stop for the red signal even at midnight when no one is on road! The first, and hopefully last, time was on 26 December 2007 at Abids traffic signal. I was just thinking something...the color amber was on and I was about a metre or two from the line. I thought I could make it. I reached the line just when the signal went red and I stopped. The traffic police signalled stop. I observed I had crossed the line and would come in the way of vehicles coming from other roads...I didn't find enough space to move back, so I decided to cross it. The cop signalled me to stop the vehicle and came running. I crossed it anyway and stopped it. He gave me a challan for Rs. 100!

At least now I would be very careful on the road and especially at a traffic signal! I am sure I don't want to contribute again to the government in this way! Yes, I never would...

Cars & Money

2007-12-13T10:15:00.000+05:30

The two words "car" & "money" are very tightly bound, if you know what I mean (picked up this phrase from one of Agatha Christie's books!). The more the money, the better car you can buy. And I must at this point introduce a third word, "time". Yes, time decides what car you get for your money, I hope you agree. The inspiration to write this post came from a recollection of my childhood days in Delhi.

Delhi, being the nation's capital, has been the centre of activity in most of the avenues of life, including cars. Many new cars make their India debut in Delhi. Just being in Delhi is thus, a treat for car lovers. When I was in 7th or 8th standard (year 1995-96), Daewoo's Cielo was ruling Delhi roads. It was worth Rs. 5 lakh then and it was surely a luxury. I quite remember the affect it made when it zoomed past me. It had a smooth back & very bright tail lamps and when brakes were applied, you couldn't resist looking at it. I was really fascinated & wished to buy it one day!

Now, look at the irony...Cielo is out of the road totally now and a 5 lakh car is no more considered a luxury! Now, kids (and many of us) might dream of a Toyota Camry (I do) or Honda Accord or a BMW or an Audi, but let me tell you, things will change very soon. When you reach a stage where you will be able to buy one of them, more superior cars will make an entry & make your car just one of those one the roads! One part of my mind still says transition from now to bigger/luxurious cars will be a very slow process now and the above mentioned cars will rule for a minimum of 5 years from now.

And since we are speaking of money, I would like to add, be wise with your money, invest it wisely in instruments where it will grow well. Never forget the devil of inflation...it would kick you hard when you least expect it to!

Warren Buffet

2007-12-07T10:48:00.000+05:30

Here is a man I admire very much for his character & achievement. He is "Warren Buffet the great"! The following is from an email that I received from a friend of mine & I thought it worth publishing here.

There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity here are some very interesting aspects of his life:

1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.
3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.
4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.
5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year.
He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO's only two rules.

Rule number 1: Do not lose any of your share holder's money.
Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.
8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.
9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.

His advice to young people: "Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and Remember:
A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
C. Don't do what others say, just listen them, but do what you feel good.
D. Don't go on brand name; just wear those things in which u feel comfortable.
E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on them who really in need rather.
F. After all it's your life then why give chance to others to rule our life."

Launching: "iStore Hyderabad"!

2007-12-04T11:24:00.000+05:30

Some good news finally for all Apple fans/enthusiasts/maniacs/admirers/lovers/...the list simply goes on! Yes, I am talking about the Apple iStore in India, and particularly in Hyderabad! It has been the moment the above category (includes me) has been praying for...

Looks like the computer giant Apple has finally realized it has takers outside US too and this comes right before the launch of the much awaited iPhone sometime in May next year. With the iPhone and of course the iPod, Apple is a brand that spread fast in India.

The iStore in Hyderabad is located right at the famous intersection of Road No. 1 and Road No. 12 in Banjara Hills at the front facing ground floor of the new Ashoka Metropolitan shopping mall which is still under construction. I was passing that way in my office bus yesterday and that was when the word "iStore" just reflected on my eye in a glance, and I just turned back immediately to look at it. The Apple logo immediately caught my eye and invoked excitement in me. The store's partner here is Reliance Digital.

The new Leopard (Mac OS X) is in a country wide demo from 7 to 9 December at all Apple stores in Asia. Unfortunately, the store in Hyderabad willn't be ready by then. Anyway, Apple always has cool stuff to offer always...there is still a lot to come!

A decision that changed my life...

2007-11-30T21:47:00.000+05:30

I was just discussing this today with a friend of mine on my daily 'one and a half hour journey' back home. We currently are in the same state of mind - looking out for a change, maybe some educational opportunity or a change of job.

My friend was telling me how he was at school (lazy, taking life for granted,...). If I turn back and see myself at school, this was how I was till I reached class X. Then we went on to speak about intermediate & that was when I remembered the "decision" I had taken, which I realized worth putting down here.

I studied class X at a school in Nizamabad, and somehow it had proved to be a start. I did really well that year, teachers were happy, I scored well & got that confidence. Nizamabad didn't offer that good education at the Intermediate level back then (this was year 1999). Though I had never stayed away from my parents till then, I felt it important to do a good job the two crucial years, as people put it. I told my father I would like to study in a good college in Vijayawada or Hyderabad. People from the colleges Nalanda, Sri Chaitanya, etc. had visited our home before the Xth board exams offering attractive packages & inviting me to join their college. This was how I had got the idea of moving out of Nizamabad. My dad was OK with my request & my mother was OK too. I finally decided to join Nalanda Jr. College due to its reputation & more than that, my mother's family had known its director (Sri I. V. Kameswara Rao, Mathematics professor) personally. Even my cousin brother had took tuition from him when he was in Intermediate.

Nalanda had just introduced IIT coaching in its college and I took it. We even paid more fee for it compared to the EAMCET stream. The first year was really a disaster. I used to attend classes regularly, attempted the exercises given to us, occassionally raised a few doubts in class; but ultimately I realized in the middle of the year I was going nowhere. Of course I had nothing to do in the middle of the year. I took it easy, relaxed a bit, continued to go along with the class for the time being. Tests came, and a select population of students only were scoring well. I just went on collecting assignments. Exams came, and I managed to do well in the regular intermediate.

I discussed things with my father in my vacation and proposed to move out of IIT into the EAMCET stream. Though my parents thought it unnecessary at first, they were convinced finally looking at the quality of coaching and my chances of making it. I jumped into the EAMCET stream finally. Here, I did really well, things looked simple, achievable and clear to me. I was confident right from the beginning of second year that I would make it well. And I made it very well indeed! This decision really proved vital and I must say it shaped my career to a great extent.

My Nikon...

2007-11-14T18:40:00.000+05:30

Exactly two years back on this date, I received my camera by post from J.J.Mehta, Mumbai.

I very much remember the excitement I felt when I first felt it in my hands...after about 4 months of joining my first job, I had spent about double a month's salary on this beauty! I have taken some astonishing pictures with it.

...and this is my first "big investment" & property!

Jugalbandhi

2007-11-03T13:16:00.000+05:30

Indian classical music is one of the most ancient forms of music on earth. With its numerous ragas, talas, composers, artists and audience (!), it has formed a concrete base for its itself in the world of music. Indian classical music, both hindustani and carnatic forms, is popular throughout the world, religion/region/caste being no par. I dedicate this post to one of my favorite genres of classical music - the Jugalbandhi.

A jugalbandhi ('Jugal'=dual, 'Bandhi'=performing), as the name suggests is the confluence of two artists performing classical music. Traditionally, jugalbandhis were limited to artists performing the same music (hindustani or carnatic). Later, its scope has changed to accomodate one from hindustani & one from carnatic, and even a vocalist & an instrumentralist.

Jugalbandhis are a blessing to people who enjoy both hindustani and carnatic. I equally love them both! The cool thing with jugalbandhi is that you get to hear to two great artists perform simultaneously on stage, which would not be possible otherwise. This also offers a platform for exchange of ideas, styles, positivities, awareness, etc. To me, instrumental jugalbandhis are very enjoyable as compared to vocal. I have a decent collection of jugalbandhis with me at home. Even as I write this post, I listen to a jugalbandhi compilation called 'Sahavaadhan' performed by Ustad Sultan Khan (Sarangi) & my very favorite U. Srinivas (Mandolin). Two tracks are based on raga Dharmavathi & the third is a bhajan.

My favorite jugalbandhi pair is that of Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt (Mohan Veena) & Pt. Ronu Majumdar (Flute). Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt is my favorite; he introduced hindustani music into my mind & since then I have listened to a lot of it. I am very much longing to dedicate a post to him! Other jugalbandhis worth mentioning are Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna (carnatic vocal) & Pt. Bhimsen Joshi (hindustani vocal), Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna (carnatic vocal) & Pt. Jasraj (hindustani vocal), Raghunath Seth (hindustani flute) & Prapancham Sitaram (carnatic flute), Kadri Gopalnath (carnatic saxophone) & Narsinhalu Wadvati (hindustani clarinet), Kalpana Venkat (carnatic violin) and Ramakrishna (hindustani sitar).

Charlie Rose

2007-11-02T23:40:00.000+05:30

Charlie Rose is an American television interviewer and journalist...you might call him America's Karan Thapar!

Watch these very interesting videos of Charlie Rose interviewing people. Just go to youtube or google video, and perform a search for 'Charlie Rose'. From the list of results, click on the user's link that appears beside the first video result and you are taken to the vault!

Henry Kissinger's interview is my top priority! Also check this link and this one.

The Painted Veil

2007-11-01T11:51:00.000+05:30

Edward Norton...one of the best in hollywood, though not known to many of us here. I first saw his movie about 4 months back, when Murali, a friend of mine, gave me 'Primal Fear' to watch. Later on, he also gave me others like 'American History X', 'The Italian Job' and then most recently 'The Painted Veil'.

When you watch a Edward Norton film, all eyes are on him throughout the movie. He just captures your attention like hell. But this one was different. In 'The Painted Veil', Naomi Watts store attention & gave Edward Norton 'a back stage' with her stunning beauty and action. All through the movie, I just didn't care much about Norton. She puts up an awesome exhibit of expressions without which the movie simply loses its charm.

In the beginning of the movie, she starts off as a head-strong lady, confident of her looks and actions. She then marries Edward Norton, a doctor by profession, after he proposes to her at a ball. Norton is posted at Shanghai, China and after their wedding, they move on to China. Norton loves her deeply. Naomi doesn't really love the doctor, she just wanted to get away from the control of her mother. She falls in love with a friend of Norton, and Norton catches them red handed.

Later, the doctor volunteers to go to a cholera-affected village and serve there. Initially the doctor's wife feels crazy on the idea that she should accompany him there, but after her paramour betrays her, she feels her insides out, and realizes her guilt, and prepares herself to accompany her husband on his mission.

In their new home, which is a house where the whole family had died of cholera, she faces a very bad time with no one around, and even more, very less women around. Their only neighbor, another english man, tells her 'this is no place for a woman!', making her even more miserable. One day, she learns about the orphanage run by nuns in the village & decides to pay a visit. There, she is moved by what she sees and what she hears about her husband from them. She realizes her husband's true self and detests herself for being so rude to him all these days. Gradually she expresses her love to him...the doctor learns the change in her & starts loving her again. She starts spending full day in the orphanage while the doctor dedicates himself to serving the patients affected with the dreadful disease. In the end, the doctor himself dies of cholera; the doctor's wife goes back to England and lives with her parents.

This is a very moving story and an outstanding piece of action from Edward Norton & especially Naomi Watts. It is a must watch movie!

Online music stores - a blessing...

2007-10-27T14:12:00.000+05:30

Many of us music lovers feel delighted & 'satisfied' by posessing a physical CD pack. When we download a song from the internet or from someone else's CD, the neat CD cover with its brilliant album art misses! This is one of the reasons why many of us do not prefer buying music online. In fact, I must confess I felt under that category, till recently.

Last year, I had come across eMusic which maintains a gigantic music library that is continuously updated. Back then they had offered me about 50 downloads for free just for registering. Of course that involved giving out your credit card number! But I dared it & felt the risk worth it after performing some searches on my favorite genres & artists. I was finally convinced this place was the best store I could find on earth. A fact to notice is that it also has a superb collection of carnatic & hindustani music. I had also downloaded the LOTR soundtrack from it then.

eMusic doesn't allow you to purchase a single track. Its packages include paying for a whole month/year and you would be allowed to download a fixed number of tracks. Other stores like Yahoo music (I just know) allow you to buy a single track also. But the Indian music collection is pretty small.

The best part of online music stores is that if you don't like the whole album, you can just buy tracks that you like! This way, you can get the best at the best price! Just copy them to a CD and you can play them anywhere you want!

All this, just sitting at the comfort of your home! Not convinced? Explore & exploit the treasure for yourself!

Dragon in my Dream

2007-10-12T20:49:00.000+05:30

I am a regular dreamer, not day but at nights of course. I normally forget almost everything by the time I get up & am conscious, but today I was lucky enough to remember it! And hence, you get an insight into one of my dreams...

Some temple in Tamil Nadu, it seemed. It was not very busy, but very clean & well kept. The sky was clear, the atmosphere pleasant...but wait, I suddenly see something. I see a ridged stretch, a dragon's tail (!!!) just behind one of the minarets (gopuram) and whoa, the dragon takes off into air. It had soft fur purple in color. Adding to the surprise is the large number of people travelling on its back, some hanging to its tail, very tightly holding the ridges on its back (very similar to RTC buses in Hyderabad!). It is as if the dragon is some means of transport here in these days.

And then my vision directs me to the temple in my front; this particular one is a smaller one within the big temple complex but outside the main shrine. The God is Lord Rama with Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman. I pray here and start moving into the main shrine leaving the open sky behind. Just as I enter the main shrine, the dream ends!

I was reading an article on Rama Setu the previous night...could it be the reason for the above 'fantasy'??

Car's front seat...

2007-08-27T00:12:00.001+05:30

We see a lot of auto advertisements on TV. Many of them portray a happy family or a man & woman on a drive, or a kid & parent enjoying the car. The ones with kids in it, show them sitting in the passenger's seat in the front, watching their father driving it.

There was a program on TV some days back where they highlighted the importance of the precaution that we must all keep in mind. Most of the cars are not designed for children to sit in the front seat, even when wearing a seat belt. The program also made an appeal to all car makers not to make their advertisements that way...but this somehow is not being acted upon yet as we might observe.

It is thus requested that we follow our own precautions. It is ok if the child is big enough or is accompanied by an adult in the seat, but not alone. Please pass this on to your friends too. Thanks for reaching this line, with patience!

Defeating a trojan, but without a horse!

2007-08-27T00:11:00.000+05:30

Recently I had a problem with my Windows XP at home. At startup, it displayed a message “temp2.exe cannot be found. Send error report?”. A supplement to this - the light indicator of the floppy drive would turn on & off every 5 seconds. Though this didn’t affect working of the PC in anyway, it was a bit irritating…I was wondering what this could be; some suggested the OS got corrupt; I even raised query at the famous www.techguy.org site where you can raise & get answers to any of your problems related to software/hardware. Even there they could not guess what this was & had asked me to do some things like starting my PC in safe mode & run a program called hijackthis and give them the error log. Ultimately, it came as a surprise when I discovered that this problem was nothing but a Trojan that infected the WINDOWS directory of the OS. The credit for this goes to the famous free anti-virus software AVG (Anti Virus Guard). Thanks to AVG! I had even used McAfee prior to this & that didn’t detect this trojan…you can take this as an advertisement for AVG!

Anyway, the story came to a good end…my PC is healthy now, and that keeps me healthy too! After all its my best friend…

Ganesh Darshan

2007-08-27T00:10:00.000+05:30

About 3-4 years ago, when in engineering, I had created a space on msn.com dedicated to Lord Ganesha. I had time, had interest and mainly extreme devotion back then (I sure have some left), and the result was this space. Of course, no original content written by me, but collected a lot of pictures, articles, etc.

What are you waiting for?? Go to the abode of Lord Ganesha on the internet!

Headlines - year 2020

2007-08-23T21:34:00.000+05:30

Amazing headlines really...each of them is just funny. Hope I could see this in real!!!

(only if you have noticed...the date on the top is left 2007!)

Factories of Death

2007-08-21T22:01:00.000+05:30

I just watched a documentary on concentration camps used by the Nazis given to me by a friend of mine...it was called "Auschwitz". It referred to the camps as "killing factories capable of murdering millions"!

The Germans believed that the Jews were the sole reason for them losing the first world war. The Nazis led by Adolf Hitler started inducing hatred for the Jew community among Germans. It is a bit nasty to know that not only did the Nazis target Jews in Germany but also Jews from Poland, Slovakia, Russia and other nations. They started invading Russia, which was one of their rivals, and worked on sending the Jews in the captured lands to concentration camps in Poland & Germany. The Nazis hated the red army of Stalin. Down south in Slovakia, a newly upcoming nation, had formed its government led by two religious men for President & Prime Minister, but were on friendly terms with Nazis. Even the Poles detested Jews. They wanted to eliminated Jews from their country too. Now this is funny - a Nazi general visited the Prime Minister of Poland to discuss Jews. The PM agreed to give the Nazis Pole Jews and pay them money for accepting them in return! And these Jews were assigned to the work of constructing new concentration camps!

We have heard of concentration camps being used in Germany mostly, but the fact remains that Poland, Germany's neighbor served to host the biggest concentration camp for the Nazis, and this was in Auschwitz. Initially built for the Russian Jews & captives, it transformed itself into the biggest for the Nazis. About 1.1 million Jews were mass murdered there! This number exceeds the casualties of America & Britain together in the 1st WW!! Jews were murdered and dumped into deep pits. These pits were also dug by Jews on Nazi order.

This is just one of the ugliest, gruesome, inhuman crimes mankind has seen.

Carnatic downloads

2007-08-20T23:46:00.000+05:30

This link here has, I believe, one of the best dumps of Carnatic music content on the net...go ahead and download stuff for yourself!

Book: And Then There Were None...

2007-08-16T23:09:00.000+05:30

I am sure this title itself gives you a queer feeling!

Agatha Christie...indeed the queen of crime! Intricate plots, suspicious characters, genius detectives, rich language...that's Christie.

"And Then There Were None", first published in 1939 is an Agatha Christie masterpiece. Ten people from different walks of life, each of them accused with a crime they say they haven't committed, invited to stay on a beautiful, palatial but bizarre island house, no way of going to the main land unless someone arrives, and all of them finally killed without any clue to who's the murderer...that's Christie. It is funny to note that this book is a bit strange in the sense that it involves no detective like Hercule Poirot. Rather, till the end, its just crime!!! That is what makes it special among all other works of AC. Terrifically woven around the nursery rhyme "Ten Little Indians" (by Frank Green, 1869). The murderer very sincerely follows this poem in his killings - very intrigue!

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were Nine.
Nine little Indian boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were Eight.
Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and then there were Seven.
Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks; One chopped his own self in halves and then there were Six.
Six little Indian boys playing with a hive; A bumblebee stung one and then there were Five.
Five little Indian boys going in for law; One got into Chancery and then there were Four.
Four little Indian boys going out to sea; A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.
Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo; A big bear hugged one and then there were Two.
Two little Indian boys were out in the sun; One got all frizzled up and then there was one.
One little Indian boy left all alone; He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

The title of the book, this poem send a shiver along your spine! The reading is made further captivating by the murderer who uses 10 little solider boys of china clay to represent each of the 10 guests on the island that are put on the dining table. As the guests are murdered one by one, the china dolls disappear mysteriously! It is just very hard to guess throughout who the murdered could be, and ultimately when you know it, you feel oh, this was pretty much possible.

Photography

2007-08-14T19:27:00.000+05:30

I like photography. Even more than people, I like capturing nature & objects.

A recent picture I had taken (see below) was selected one of the best wallpapers by PC World magazine. This picture was published in PC World's DVD of August 2007. This wallpaper is exclusive for all my blog readers & dedicated to you! Enjoy!

Byomkesh Bakshi

2007-08-12T20:56:00.000+05:30

Those were the days when, I must say, DD was at its best. Amazing viewership it had. Great programs it telecasted, most of them extraordinary; and Byomkesh Bakshi was one of them, maybe the best among them!

I was in my school, and it used to come on TV every Wednesday night at around 9. I don't reckon I ever missed a single episode of this TV masterpiece! I really feel so surprised at the fantastic quality of the seat binding work made more than 10 years back...Even today, with so many digital channels around, I still feel the serial (and many others of that time) has its charm.

For those who haven't heard of Byomkesh Bakshi before, it was a detective serial that used to be telecasted on Doordarshan TV in the 1990s. It is a great work, I believe, because everyone involved in it contributed their best. Great stories by Saradindu Bandopadhyaya, superb background score by Anand Shankar, outstanding screenplay & direction by Basu Chatterji, etc. On the screen, terrific action by Rajit Kapur (as Byomkesh Bakshi), K. K. Raina (as Ajit Bannerji, Byomkesh's companion in investigation) and every other actor has made it one of the best TV serials of all time. Even in spite of the very simple settings & costumes, it is very much contemporary! It is an achievement of a lifetime for all involved in any way with this serial.

The stories are very original and mind blowing. As an ardent music lover, I would like to stress a bit on Anand Shankar's contribution to this. The title music itself, gives me a different feeling! It is never boring to hear even after so many times of hearing...and what can one say of the background score throughout the serial? I would say about 40% of the contribution to the whole thing is by music alone. All the scenes where the crime occurs, the detective investigating, catching the suspect, the comedy scenes, etc. are simply very captivating because of the music. The screenplay of course needs no comment. The dialogues are just superb & the direction is perfect. I whole heartily bow fully to all of them involved with Byomkesh Bakshi & above all to the three artists mentioned above.

I recently (about an year back) discovered Byomkesh Bakshi on YouTube and have watched all the available videos (about 20 episodes till date) and am hungry for more! I really thank the way the Web 2.0 technology is catering to users around the world.

These links here are exclusively for my blog readers! Get the Byomkesh Bakshi videos on YouTube at the following users: Ottawa and Jatinder. The latter has a lot of Malgudi Days videos too! And...using the steps in my other post (Gyan Item 1: Saving You Tube Videos), you can even save these cool vidoes to your PC!

Its time to party! What are you waiting for?

Classical Music

2007-07-17T10:25:00.000+05:30

I love music. Music triggers devotion (to God) in me. To me, all saints who wrote & composed all the fantastic songs we have today are great scientists. They are unparalleled! There is just no way we can thank them. Whatever they did, came from their heart. Thus the quality. I only wish we were able to see them sing today…

All ragas are great in their own accord. Each one has its own melody, a different mood to itself. Now I say I like this raga, but the next moment I listen to some other, I find something different & appealing in there! Of course, some specific ones do make a big impact on you. I also listen & enjoy various genres of music, including English pop, rock, instrumental & Indian film music.

I learnt music for quite a long time; but yes, I have not been practising for quite a long time now…but I always enjoy listening to music. I feel very lucky to be born in a family of musicians. I feel really lucky even to be able to appreciate music. Music “fills” your life. Its a different world altogether!!!

Jobs...the ultimate guy

2007-06-29T01:07:00.000+05:30

Steve Jobs is undoubtedly a living legend. His life is an open book teaching us different aspects of life. Its simply amazing how he fought difficulties to become what he is now. Converting failures to successes is just one of the 'features' one can look at. The moment I first read about him, I knew I was going to be a great fan of him. The way he has pioneered Apple to becoming an industry leader is just wow!

Visit this site to know everything about Steve. I personally thank Romain Moisescot, the creator of this wonderful site for giving us so much about Jobs.

Watch Steve Jobs speak at Stanford on this YouTube video. Superb!

Love you Steve!

e-seva, now online too!

2007-06-08T13:51:00.000+05:30

This is just for those staying in the twin cities of Hyderabad & Secunderabad.

Ever felt lazy going to the e-seva centre near your house on weekends?? I am sure you would have...at least I have! Ok, let me break the suspense now.

You don't need to do it anymore! Just log on to e-seva from home and pay your bills. Just sign up there and you can pay either by logging in to your net banking account or by your credit/debit card (transaction charges extra with the card). You will need to know some of your details like your consumer no., etc.

Make your weekend, a weekend...

Gyan Item 1: Saving You Tube Videos

2007-05-28T22:06:00.000+05:30

Hi guys, first of all my sincere apologies for not posting on this blog for about a month! However, I am happy to be back with something I would be calling "Gyan Items" now on...

I proudly present my first Gyan Item here, which is one of my favorites & something that I use very frequently.

Gyan Item 1: Saving You Tube Videos to your computer

Follow these simple steps and you would be able to view You Tube videos offline (you have to download them first of course :)). Please note that this works only with Internet Explorer browser. This basically goes to your IE's cache and picks up the videos for you.

What you need:
1. A working internet connection
2. and these softwares: CacheSort and FLV Player.

Steps:
1. Open You Tube in Internet Explorer.
2. Go to the video you want to download and play it (or just wait till it loads completely). Now that the video has been loaded completely by IE, it will be stored in its cache.
3. Double click on CacheSort.exe. You will now see a icon in the task bar displaying the status of items copying from cache to the location C:\CacheSort (this is where your videos will be saved). Done!!

There is some 'post-save' processing to be done now...the saved videos don't have their file names in the way you would expect. They are of the format "get_video[1]_20070529222355". Now, rename the file by using your own filename and an extension "flv".

IMP: The last line is really important. Rename the file as .flv which can be played by the FLV player once it is installed.

Watch out for more gyan!!!

My first post...

2007-05-01T21:37:00.000+05:30

This is my first ever blog!!! Created - 1st May, 2007, 9:39 PM...

Well, there are a lot of thoughts wandering in my mind about what to post here, but I 'think' I concluded to put anything & everything that comes to my mind, not just one single theme...

So, my blog would consist themes like music, books, movies, hobbies, technology, money and...me.

I really don't know at this point where to start, but I will make sure I keep it interesting for my readers. So, what else??