First things first redux

The new year is here!
It's the time to cheer!
Life begins a new,
I wish good things for me and you.

Well well, I seem to have a poetic bent (maybe more bent than poetic).

A very happy and successful new year to all of you out there!

My first thoughts in the new year went out to God - thanking him for all the dreams he made come true (and begging to make more of them come true).

Then I sent the first email of the year.

And then I thought about "New Year Resolutions". I made up two - and they will remain a secret till I fulfill those goals.

Then I successfully completed the first tooth scrub of the year.

A new day has come.

First things first

Hold on a second. I have some work to be completed. BRB.

Gmail invites anyone?

Is there still anyone left that doesn't have a Gmail account? I have around 10 Gmail invites that are lying unused for quite some time now. If anyone needs one just leave a comment here and don't forget to let me know your email account where I should send the invite. If you are worried about spam-bots picking up your email from the comment, then munge it e.g. santoshAThotmailDOTcom

The Hitch Hiker and other such things

I'm reading the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This book has gained "cult" status over the years but I am reading it only now - so sue me. Douglas Adams' language has this distinct "British" touch to it. You can always tell a Brit's English from the others. An example from Douglas Adams:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very
ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

To the trained eye, language of such sorts comes across as distinctly British. I don't know how to explain it but I think you'll understand if you read stuff from British authors or listen to British comedy or speak to the many Brits floating around this world.

That apart I watched Night Shyamalan's "The Village" yesterday evening. Nice theme, though Shyamalan's treatment makes it unpalatable for everyone except those that enjoy Mani Ratnam movies (such as myself). The idea of a village far removed from the maddening world sounds nice, atleast to me.

The day after yesterday

Sunday 26th December 2004, 06:40

I woke up, shaken out of deep slumber. "Where am I?," I thought to myself. I was not thinking clear. Someone was shaking my bed. I looked around, dazed, trying to focus. I jumped off the bed, fists clenched, ready to take on my assailant. But no one was there in my room. I must have been dreaming. I sat on the bed, pulse pounding. Suddenly I felt the bed shaking again. "I shouldn't have stayed awake till 1am watching TV, I am hallucinating," I thought to myself. One more shake. This time around, I knew that it was not a hallucination. The earth was shaking.

I was thinking clear now. I looked around, grabbed my specs and rushed out of my room. I found my mom and dad rushing out of their rooms as well. The clock on the wall was swinging from side to side. We rushed out of the apartment. "Don't use the lift," my mom told us. We started climbing down the stairs.

One floor down, I paused a bit and caught a glimpse inside one of the apartments. The door was wide open, everyone had fled except for the old lady of the house who was in the 'pooja' room praying. Her prayers had not been shaken by the quake. "One more floor to go," I thought to myself.

We reached the ground floor and rush out of the apartment complex. There were people everywhere, it looked like a big carnival except that many were in their pajamas. People were talking excitedly on their mobiles and to each other.

After waiting outside for about 15 minutes we decided that it was time we went back inside.

After coming back home, I switched on the TV and watched reports pour in. The quake originated from Indonesia where it measured over 8.9 on the Richter scale. Places like Andaman & Nicobar, Sri Lanka and parts of the eastern coast of India (Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu) were hit by tidal waves that were triggered as a result of this quake. Over 500 people dead in Sri Lanka, with most of Colombo submerged under water. 108 people dead in Chennai as tidal waves, 50 feet high, washed away those sleeping in makeshift huts in slums that were scattered along the coastline of the city.

"It makes you 'feel small'," said someone who witnessed the huge tidal waves rushing in.

Sometimes, I think, we take life for granted that we never realize how insignificant we, as humans, really are in the grand scheme of things. We build stone walls around ourselves and think we are "secure". But it just takes a second for those walls to be broken to bits.

Podcasts rulez!

OK so you guessed my drift.

I've been spending the last couple of days download gazillion megabytes of podcasts. This is what I have on my ipodder list as of now.

1) Adam Curry: Daily Source Code
2) The Laporte Report
3) KenRadio (this I have been listening to even before I came across podcasts)
4) Engadget Podcast
5) IT Conversations
6) Web Talk Radio
7) KevinDevin.com
8) RasterWeb! Audio

Podcasts make for interesting listening. However, the podcast receiver software (such as ipodder or doppler) still need lots of work - they are still rough around the edges.

Stay tuned for more.

Broadband to the masses?

It is interesting to note the flurry of activity happening in Chennai (and probably elsewhere in India) on the broadband front. Several companies (many of them unheard of until a couple of days back) are promising to bring "high speed Internet" to one's doorstep. There are some established players as well jumping in - such as Reliance Infocomm (which has finally decided to offer broadband after laying the foundation for this more than a year back) and BSNL (the babu driven telecom behemoth sponsored by the Indian Government).

This is all very good and commendable. But most of their "packages" seem to have been crafted at a time when Lynx was state of the art - "Rs 200 per month for 100MB of data transfer at an incredible speed of 256kbps!" claims a flyer. I'm wondering how long it would take for one to use up this 100MB of promised utopia...

Give me a minimum of 512kbps (preferably 1mbps or more), no data traffic cap, for Rs 999 per month and then I would buy the mantra of taking broadband to the masses.

By the way, I recently switched (yet again) my broadband provider. I now have Touchtel that provides me a 128kbps line with no bandwidth cap for Rs 999 per month. This is good but not good enough. The advantage with the Touchtel line is that it just works and I have had absolutely no downtime. Perhaps the competition will force Touchtel to upgrade the 128kbps to 512kbps across the board.

Watch this space.

Death of a blog? Nope.

Yet again, its been over 15 days since I blogged. Does this mean that I am going to stop blogging? Nope.

I'm exploring the exciting world of podcasting and downloading several podcasts to get a feel of this "thing". Sounds interesting. Check out www.ipodder.org to learn more.

In the meanwhile AudioFeast seems to have improved quite a lot. Unfortunately I am not able to subscribe to their audio feeds because their payment page insists that I use a US state for my credit card billing address! So for the moment I am stuck to their free feeds - Wall Street Journal This Morning, Marketplace PM and HitzRadio.

As another year winds to a close - the time to reflect and look forward is here. Looking back there are several things that have happened over this past year that I wouldn't have imagined would happen to me. Some dreams came true, some didn't and then some are perhaps reserved from the year to come. The new year brings with it anticipation and apprehension.

Watch this space.

The G factor

Perhaps these two weeks have been the longest I've been away from blogging since I started several months back.

I completed reading Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code (interestingly I could never completely read the printed book, but managed to zoom through the e-book). I've now started reading Digital Fortress by the same author (again the e-book and not the printed version). I see some common threads in all of Dan Brown's books - crypto, conspiracies, and in his last two books the religious angle.

The past few weeks have also been witness to several shocking incidents involving revered people that are currently heading institutions that have been over hundreds of years presenting us with a human face to God. There have been both positive and negative reactions - some claim all this is a conspiracy and while some others smugly say "I told you so".

My thoughts on this are that - if the claims made were true - it simply goes to prove that when the world is full of crooks you cannot expect a few institutions to be spared. I am sure there will be those that are shocked.

Perhaps all of this can be summarized in one sentence - while God made mankind, man made religion.

God is with us at every step of the way (in fact He's just sitting near me watching me type this blog). Our very fabric of existence depends on God. However I believe a select few among us may have taken advantage of our weakness to put a human face to God.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions - we follow today principles and practices that were established several thousand years ago BUT that have been subject to interpretation over the years. Like they say, history is always written by the winners (quote courtesy Da Vinci Code). Does it look like I am overly influenced by the Da Vinci Code? :-)

In other news, the last couple of days witnessed several disastrous data losses in my personal as well as professional sphere. Several hard disks crashed mysteriously taking with them data that was not "backed up". Moral of the story - the real saviour is a terabyte portable hard drive. :-)

Ask Google - effects of music on the mind

With nothing better to do - I decided to ask Google what were the effects of music on the mind.

Here're some links I got back in reply.

http://www.bobjanuary.com/musicmnd.htm

http://cms.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20000901-000029.html

http://www.ufoc.org/michaelballam/intelligence.html

http://www.wshu.org/matinee/2004/sm040314.asp

http://enchantedmind.com/html/science/creative_harmonics.html

http://www.gemstories.com/music_b.html


I also stumbled upon this article that says we need 4 hugs a day for survival, 8 hugs a day for maintenance and 12 hugs a day for growth. Munnabhai MBBS? (visit this link)

Flashback - a blogger is born?

First off - Happy Deepavali to all those that celebrate it!

I was rummaging through some of my old stuff (as a result of shifting our house, I had tons of old stuff that were now out in the open) when I came across a printout of something I wrote some 6 or 7 years back. It was interesting reading thoughts I had so long back. I'm thinking maybe such writings were the seeds that sprouted (!) several years later into this blog. So here it is and I will let you decide.


===8<===[cut here]=============================

Recently I was reading an issue of the TIME magazine and read an article titled "The Queen of Clean Air". It talked about the chief of US Environmental Protection Agency who was enforcing new laws to prevent pollution, so much so that they may even ban fireworks and barbecues in certain places. The article talked about how she had faced strong protests from different parts of the government, companies, media, etc but still stood firm to enforce the newly introduced law.

Now, from this I am made to believe that elsewhere in this wide world of ours, we have the media actually covering to the acts of good people. The officials who foster environmental issues, animal rights, human rights and so on.

But in India, I find that our illustrious free press decides that it is not a waste of time and trees to cover things about escaped convicts, corrupt politicians, etc. "200 crores swindled in Shoe Scam!" looks more appealing to them (and maybe to a wide majority of readers) than something like "Citizens of xyz district save a forest from being cut down by ABC company". I am sure the pressmen can come up with nice catchy headlines for even mundane things like preserving natural resources.

My observations of media coverage are:

* The good - that is coverage of people doing good, be it honest policemen, politicians, officials, and other such constructive things.
* The bad - that is coverage of riots, bandh, etc.
* The ugly - that is coverage of unethical politics.

Now I would like you to guage how much percentage of coverage each of these categories gets in the media.

Does anyone know what happened to Ramar Pillai? Last time someone checked he was doing brisk business in some little known village supplying herbal petrol that actually works for about half the cost of normal petrol. Our media splashes his photograph on the front pages, and for reasons best known to them they give him a decent burial much before anyone realises what is going on. Let us all rush to that village with empty cans. Atleast even if we don't solve our country's economic situation, we can atleast balance our domestic budget.

So what does media cover well? The escaped convict, the tunnel digging naxalities, the sandalwood smugglers hiding in forests, the corrupt officials and politicians. They do it so well that they even print step by step instructions complete with photographs on how to dig your own tunnel out of Vellore jail. How was it done? Front page news on leading newspapers and magazines. Analysis from experts on how it could have been done better!

Then does media exist to glorify all things illegal and corrupt? Why does it show in big bold headlines things like convicts who escaped life sentences by resorting to some little known loophole in not only Indian law, but also international law. Not only do they educate us on how convicts escape by using law against the lawmakers, but it also pays him a huge royalty to make a movie out of it. Glorification of all things illegal.

I agree that you have to expose the news as it happened. I came to understand that in some countries like Sri Lanka, the media doesn't go into the specifics. They say that ABC was given bail, or tht XYZ escaped while in custody. They don't go into the minute details like why ABC was given bail even though he was charged of murder or how XYZ escaped while in a maximum security prison. They don't give you detailed maps of the prison, the dimensions of holes dug, and so on. That way you don't educate people on how to do illegal things. Agreed that it would not be fair on the part of our free press to give incomplete news, but under the guise of exposing them they are educating the people on how criminals can escape from the law.

So why can't our media too adopt the same strategy? Why do they have to play the part of a manual publisher for the criminals? I am sure all the corrupt politicians in this country would have already reserved AC rooms in prestigious hospitals in anticipation of CBI charges. I am also sure their hearts would suddenly get an attack just 2 hours before the CBI presses charges.

So, media coverage for the good guys ... the honest policeman, the now decreasing group of honest politicians, truthful government officials, the concerned citizen, ... If only media covered this section of people who uphold true values and gave them atleast their rightful 15 seconds of fame -I believe we will have more people turning out to fight for things like environment, human rights, animal rights, etc.

We have to accept it - everyone needs some sort of incentive for doing things. This can be either in the form of money, or atleast recognition for the work they have done.

Now if a vast majority of media is focussed on things like fodder scams and pulling of the chair at the centre - people will naturally not feel it worth their while to fight for the poor animals. Feed the animals inferior food, create a fodder scam and get color cover page photograph! That will be the line of thinking. Ok, even if they don't think of creating yet another scam - lack of media coverage on the good guys will definitely discourage the good guys from doing any good. Unless of course the good guys are of the likes of Mahatma Gandhi.

In any field of activism be it human rights, environment, animal rights, political, ... Give the good guys enough media coverage.

Media like print, TV, films etc are powerful. They can shape an individual's character. Wouldn't it be nice if they could shape individuals in to caring, concerned citizens of tomorrow...

D1 to H8

No, I'm not trying to make illegal chess moves. I'm referring to the move we (parents and I) made from our old apartment (Flat no. D-1) to a new one (Flat no. H-8) on 27th October. The place is in the same apartment complex but in a different block. All of last week was spent first packing and then later unpacking into the new house. The new place is bigger and is on the second floor (yes I get some much needed exercise climbing up and down the stairs!).

When something new comes into one's life, one tends to view with a certain amount of anticipation and excitement. Whether this be a new house, a new piece of equipment, a new person and so on. You tend to associate new entries into your life with new beginnings - a chance to do things differently. A new entry brings with it renewed hope (one is like "Hey, see this new --- is now in my life. I know things will be ok now.") and enthusiasm ("Hey, I have this new ---. Its so cool I can't stop talking about it.").

I think everyone, once in a while, needs something completely new to remind us to shake off the mundane routine.

When it rains it pours. Chennai has been the focus of the Gods for about a week (or more). Rains going on and off every half hour. Rains, according to me, are a "speed-breaker" to life. Last week while driving to office, I was observing the rains and the people all around me. It was as though the world was moving in slow motion. I watched a bus take a slow turn into the nearby street. I watched a man walk in the rain with a basket hanging on to the hook of his umbrella. I watched a poor guy, both legs paralyzed, crawl along the water filled roads...

That brings me to another thought. What is it in a person that gives them the urge to live, to fight and to survive? I know this has been debated several million times, but I still can't figure out the "real answer". Perhaps you could post your thoughts here or send me an email.

Check mate? :-)

Happy birthday to me

Ah yes, October 23rd was my birthday. Thanks to all of you who wished me (and to those that didn't - better take note!). Birthdays are nice and awful at the same. Nice because you get to feel "oh so special" and get presents. And awful because its a reminder that you are a year older now and "youth" is slipping away rapidly.

Anyways, my birthday was peaceful and incidentally 23rd was also "Vijayadasami" day. This is part of the "Navratri" celebrations in India. Have a look at this description of the "Navratri" festival.

I am suddenly seized with the notion of becoming more "productive". Maybe its a birthday thing. So I'm scouring the Internet for productivity related software and sites. I'll post some links here soon.

I'm Skyped

What can I say... Having tried several VoIP services like Net2phone, Dialpad, Yahoo/MSN to Vonage - I rediscovered Skype today (for which I am thankful to Nikolai). The Skype website says "Free Internet Telephony that just works" and it does!

It is absolutely amazing how clear the VoIP conversation was (I spent over 45 minutes talking) on the poor quality Internet bandwidth that we "less fortunate mortals" in India have come to loath and accept - no breaks in audio and no wierd sounds except for when I tried to balance my laptop on one hand and move to another room and ended up accidentally pulling out the mike and generating noise that sounded "like I had my mike near the wheels of a car" (I didn't quite get that expression properly, Nikolai could you please post that comment here, it was hilarious!).

The final verdict - Skype gets a 9 out of 10 from me. I wish they would do a Trillian, so I could use Skype for VoIP as well as to connect to Yahoo/MSN/AIM.

It just works so got get it - Skype

My new Sony Vaio V505 laptop with the incumbent desktop monitor and the Creative Zen Xtra in the background. My desktop PC should soon be at the disposable of my parents who are looking forward to having a full-time PC on their hands. I guess this photo does not do full justice to the Vaio. Check out www.vaio.net

Blog Search Engine

Here's a blog search engine that I found today: Blog Search Engine. It is sort of like a Yahoo for blogs.

Random thoughts

OK, what made me going "hmmmm" today? Well, I read in the papers that Tamilnadu is all out to stop pirating of movies (VCD and DVD piracy). The Government has decided that video piracy (and people watching pirated movies) would be dealt with under an act that is used to deal with hooligans / troublemakers. The news item goes on to say that the producers and directors of the Tamil film industry are cheering the Government's decision and rubbing their hands in glee as they anticipate the crowds that will now rush back to the theatres.

I'm wondering why is it that producers don't wake up and start smelling the coffee (this is j2deep's favorite expression, I think?). Video piracy is rampant not because people want to pay less for watching new movies. Video piracy exists because people are buying into the convenience of watching movies at a time and place of their choice (and getting it cheaper in the process).

Confession - I hardly ever go to the theatres these days. I watch movies on DVD and on TV. My reasoning is that its just too cumbersome (even with Internet booking). Ofcourse a special occassion may warrant the trouble but trying to go to the theatres every weekend (putting up with the traffic, noise, pollution and what not) is just too beyond me.

So what the pirate market does is to really provide a convenient means of watching the latest movies from the comfort of one's home (or wherever you choose to watch it).

Why can't the movie producers do that? Why this fixation with the theatres (and trying to go back to the good old days?). Why can't producers release DVDs of the latest movie as soon as it hits the theatres? With digital delivery here (even for many theatres in India) it should be far easier to do than imagined. Release the digital version via the satellites that beam them direct to the theatres and at the same time release it for the home market via DVDs.

I'm sure that will not only kill video piracy immediately but will also mean that the viewer gets to enjoy the movie in the medium of their choice (and not how the producer wants them to watch it). And one day if we all get 2mbps broadband connections to our homes they may even choose to stream the movie down the Internet to our flat panel 40" LCD displays eliminating the DVD altogether.

In other interesting news - I switched broadband providers this week and got myself a broadband connection from Iqara Broadband. The deal gives me unlimited time and unlimited bandwidth (no cap) access to the Internet - and freedom from using the Sify Broadband connection which bills me by the minute (and forces me to install McAfee ViruScan which now gives me wierd errors such as saying I am no longer entitled to get virus updates). The Iqara connection is pretty fast (9kbps or more on a link that is rated 64kbps) - which is good by Indian standards.

Countdown to Sony Vaio V505 - 1 day.

AudioFeast

Here's a portable audio download site which is sort of like audible.com

AudioFeast

Guilty as charged

Yes, I am guilty of not blogging for over ten days now. I guess the mundane world is swallowing me up. What happened to the promised land of long one sentence paragraphs, ramblings and other such things? Well, they took a backseat while I went about putting out one fire after the other (figuratively, not literally).

But I guess I can now afford to look back and say that every problem is a blessing in disguise. Here's something I learnt - if there's a problem looming (not necessarily for you but even for someone else), go right ahead and get into the thick of it and solve it. You'll earn the admiration and respect of all involved. And when the time comes someone will help you out of yours.

I have this crazy feeling I can sense the thoughts and experiences of other people. Just one of those wierd things that I keep thinking about. Sometimes even without anyone telling me anything I seem to "know" how they feel or what they are going through or what they intend to say.

Countdown to Sony V505 (yes I am finally going to get one) - 4 days to go.

The past two weekends I saw "Munnabhai MBBS" and "Lakshya". Both are good. Munnabhai MBBS was pretty hilarious and at the same time thought provoking (especially when it comes to the thought of caring for others).

I watched "Ayutha Ezhuthu" today. I liked it a lot, though that couldn't be said for some others (especially my Dad) who saw the movie with me. Mani Ratnam is the best director around (in my humble opinion) and he is not afraid to experiment with new formats when it comes to presenting a movie. This movie goes back and forth in time while it chronicles the events in the lives of 3 persons (sort of like "Alaipayuthey" - another good movie from Mani Ratnam). I will watch it again, especially to understand the elements that went into making the film (editing, direction, photography, sound, screenplay, etc).

By the way, we host the Ayutha Ezhuthu website (as well as other Mani Ratnam movie websites like Kannathil Muthamittal etc).

Sometimes I feel that seperations are inevitable so why should one be afraid or disappointed by them? Which is why perhaps now seperations are not so hard to handle (regardless of which aspect of my lifeit affects).

I am thinking if I should change the overall layout of my blog. I've had some people (like j2deep - who wants me to help him redesign his blog) tell me they get inspired by my blog layout and elements in this page. So perhaps its time to raise the bar a bit. :)

I stumbled upon this site called StumbleUpon. Check it out - its pretty interesting if you have a lot of time on your hands. :)

More downloadable audio

I was sitting up late debugging a MovableType installation for a friend (diagnosis: the Berkeley DB which stores the blog data seems corrupted).

In the process I was browsing the links from IT Conversations site (see previous post) and got more downloadable audio sites. Here they are:

BOPRadio
CIO Radio
Dr Dobb's TechNetCast
Massive Change
Technology Bytes
WebTalkGuys

Goodie! :)

IT Conversations - new ideas through your headphones

This is audio Mecca - IT Conversations. I discovered this site while reading Jon Udell's blog. There is tons of audio content (of a technical nature) that could be streamed or downloaded as MP3. My Zen Xtra will soon be filled up. ;)

Gmail invites galore

I have 6 more Gmail invites to give away. If anyone needs them please leave a comment here. And please include your email address so that I can send the invite! If required you can munge the email address so that bots can't pick it up (e.g. myname_at_hotmail_dot_com).

Downloadable audio books

After searching far and wide the only alternative I could find for audible.com was the payperlisten.com website from audiobooks.com. Though it isn't half as comprehensive compared to audible.com, it will have to do for now. I bought a Spanish vocabulary audio book from that site today to help me with my Spanish (which I've been trying hard to learn for some time now, by the way). And if anyone knows of a good downloadable audio service do send me a comment or email.

De nuevo a mi Espanol. :)

Goodies galore!

Thanks to Ram, I was finally able to lay my hands on the Creative Zen Xtra mp3 player. I admit its not so cool as the iPod but its extremely functional (and I seem to be leaning a bit to the side of function than form, perhaps for the first time). The sound quality is awesome (though I haven't listened to the iPod to do a proper comparison). Plus when coupled with the Creative Travelsound (yes, got this as well) it is completely out of this world. The Travelsound packs a mighty punch in a very small space. I am impressed - I'd give a 8/10 to the Zen Xtra+Travelsound combo.

BTW if you plan on getting any of Creative's mp3 players - junk the Creative MediaSource software that comes with it. Instead do this - update to the latest driver from Creative's website. Then go and get Notmad Explorer. It costs $25 but it is worth every penny, plus it is much better compared to the clunky MediaSource that comes with the player. I'd give this software a 9/10 (and I think that recommendation would get bumped up to 10/10 once I use it some more). I did try using Windows Media Player 10 to sync my audio but it doesn't work with the Zen Xtra (as yet or maybe not permanently?).

I was disappointed to find that audible.com doesn't support the Zen Xtra yet. A reply from Audible tech support indicates that support for the Zen Xtra is in the pipeline but no date has been fixed. If anyone knows a good audio service (like audible.com) please drop me a mail or post a comment to this blog.

And to round off all this I also got a Concord 3040AF digital camera - nothing fancy, but a pretty good deal ($63) with 3 mega pixels, 4x digital zoom, SD/MMC card slot and video recording. I'm going to try and post a photo I took with the 3040AF using HelloBlogger as a preview of my photography skills. :)

There's more in the goodies bag - I plan on getting a new laptop. I'm debating with myself on whether that would be a Sony, Acer, Thinkpad, or Toshiba. Stay tuned.

My first photoblog - featuring the Zen Xtra and Travelsound. I used the Concord 3040-AF to take this pic.

So near, yet so far?

Just a very short note - sometimes I think God is being cruel by creating a situation that brings something (could be just about anything that you want/need) so near, but keeping it just out of reach . . .

Slow news week

Well, its actually been a "too much work" week.

I'm suddenly in the middle of so much "healthcare" stuff. We completed the website redesign for The Heart Institute a couple of days back. We're also currently working on an electronic medical records management system called DGFile which is due for launch in a couple of months time. I was also "researching" (as in - going crazy googling) methylcobalamin and adenosylcobalamin for one of my relatives.

I'm beginning to understand how delicate and precisely constructed a human body is. Its fascinating - each and every little bone or nerve in one's body has a pre-determined function and if that bone or nerve was just a little bit off the original "specifications" it would lead to the collapse of the body. I must do some background reading on this some day soon.

Over the weekend I wifi-enabled my home. Its cool and cheap - I remember when wifi access points costed over RS 1 lakh (just about 3 years back actually). Now its around Rs 5000 for the access point and USB wifi adapters (ideal for desktops) cost around Rs 2000. Wifi pcmcia cards for laptops cost a little bit more than that. Its not as cheap as it is in the USA or elsewhere but it is getting affordable.

I was watching "Gayab" on DVD this Sunday. An oft-repeated movie concept - guy becoming invisible and then wrecking havoc on the city. I would give it a 3/10 - mostly for the background score and songs. Prawaal Raman (director) did a far better job in "Darna Mana Hai" (a collection of horror short stories).

I'm in the market for a new car, by the way. If you have a suggestion, please feel free to post a comment or send me email. I've been looking at the Hyundai Accent, Tata Indigo, Honda City, ... and many more. My current car (a Santro) has served me well for more than 4 years now and its not even lost its "new car smell" (thats what mom tells me). I guess I have this urge to "preserve and protect" - I still have stuff I got when I was a kid with not a scratch and mostly as good as new.

Gmail invites

OK I finally get to invite people to Gmail. :) I have 5 invites left, if anyone wants one please email or leave a comment here.

Blog housekeeping, etc

I've been doing some blog housekeeping today (now you know how addicted I am). I added a reading list, a gizmo wishlist and also updated the list of blogs I read.

The reading list is basically a list of books I'm reading (or would like to read soon). A neat feature of allconsuming.net allows me to display the book covers etc as you can see under the "Reading list" section on the right.

The gizmo wishlist is a list of cool gadgets I'd like to have (hint hint!). The items with a "-vs-" on them mean that I haven't made up my mind which of the two has the better form (the function being more or less the same - again this is debatable). And if you didn't know already - I'm gadget crazy.

BTW I discovered Dave Barry's hilarious column today. You can read it here (you'll have to go through a free registration). Here's a preview of his recent column:

Competitive weightlifting is hugely popular in Greece. This dates back to ancient times, when the Greeks had to be very strong because pretty much all their possessions were made of marble. A single salad fork could weigh 50 pounds. Just to get through a meal you needed biceps like basketballs.

You can also subscribe to his blog - check the "Dave Barry" entry under the "Blogs I read" section on this page. I've recently updated the blogs list with several good blogs (actually there's too much, I must prune them some day) like Dave Barry, Gizmodo, Hobotraveler etc. Have a look, maybe you'll find something that interests you.

Before I forget - don't watch "The Butterfly Effect". The movie gets a 0/10 from me. I watched the DVD on Sunday and the only consolation were the features on the chaos theory and time travel that came as a part of the DVD. The movie basically is about a guy going back in time and trying to set right the wrong decisions he took along the way. The concept is good but the implementation is shoddy.

The name "Butterfly Effect" describes the phenomenon where a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere, e.g. a butterfly flapping its wings might cause a typhoon half way across the world. Google it and you'll find several interesting articles on the topic.

There's this guy in the DVD featurette that talks about the choices we make in life. And about how one's life may change if something were done differently along the way. Interesting thought...

And there's a caption some place on the featurette that says something to effect that while nature intended life to be in chaos, mankind struggles to bring order to it. So I guess its ok to be chaotic. :)

Movie: Phone Booth

Watched "Phone Booth" on Star Movies yesterday night. Filmed in ten days, no special effects, limited budget, just one location (the phone booth itself) - but none of that stops this movie from being extremely engaging. Colin Farrell does a great job with his acting - his desperation at being corner in the booth and later his confessions makes him big time material. And Keifer Sutherland (the voice on the phone) is deadly even though we get to see him only at the end of the movie for about 30 seconds. There are some loopholes in the story (Google it and you'll find many thoughts on bloopers) but I rate it 9/10.

"Send to a friend"

*UPDATE:* I stand corrected - amazon.com does have a "Send to a friend" option. But its so far down in the page that you would need to look real hard to find it! Why not put it as an icon next to the book cover, I wonder. Read on for my original post . . .

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I was browsing barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com today and found that both these (extremely popular) websites did not have a simple "Send to a friend" option that is found on any self-respecting website that claims to be a resource for anything.

I browse through books, I find something interesting, I want to recommend to a friend - but I can't (or atleast I have to take the long route of copy/pasting the URL into an email and sending it out). This is something which will deter me from doing it often. And I guess I don't not need to emphasize that the best publicity is word of mouth.

Maybe I'm missing something (time to get my eyes checked?) but I seem to have searched through most of the book listings pages and did not find the "Send to friend" option on any of them.

Amazon.com allows me to see the front cover, back cover, flap and excerpts of the "Da Vinci Code" up close and personal (they provide a "zoom" function!) - but they don't seem to provide me a simple "send to friend" icon that I can use to recommend that book to someone else.

Is technology ignoring the simpler (and more valuable) things in life?

BTW go read the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown!

WEBoggle

Here's an engaging web-based game that I discovered today!

How to Play WEBoggle

Independence day, some thoughts

Happy Independence Day!

This day, 57 years ago, the subcontinent freed itself from the notions of oppression. It become free from those who were trying to make decisions for it. Today I saw several documentaries on the suffering and pain that our forefathers had to undergo under foreign rule and how finally good triumphed over evil.

If pain, suffering, evil, oppression, ... are all so bad - why do we have so much of it in this world?

I believe - without suffering we will not cherish joy, without evil we will never appreciate the good, without oppression we will never appreciate freedom.

Would the world be a better place if there was peace, happiness, prosperity and plenty all around? If people went around smiling, holding out their hand and saying "Live long and prosper"?

No.

We need to suffer in order to progress. Or atleast thats what I think. And if you disagree - well, let me remind you this is a free world. :-)

Mankind cannot florish unless there is resistance. "Survival of the fittest" said some wise guy. "Evolution" said some other (or maybe the same guy?). Why would we need to evolve if we had not a care in the world, were smiling away to glory and had plenty of everything? We would still be roaming the orchards eating apples.

Even God acknowledges the presense of "evil". I'm sure God would get pretty bored if He didn't have evil to fight against.

Evil balances good. Joy balances suffering. Sadness balances happiness.

But what about world peace? Do I think that world peace is not achievable?

Well, if world peace did come about I am sure we would find alien life with whom to fight against. And then the story would start all over again but this time around, Earth as a whole would be the "good guys" and the aliens would be the "bad guys". Star Trek, any one?

There's so much going on in this world which seems absurd, but it can all be explained away by the fact that we need conflicts. Conflicts could be with another country, with ideologies, with your neighbour, with yourself, ... If conflicts went away, evolution would stop.

I was rummaging through some of the old stuff (and I have plenty of it) in my closet today morning. "Let me clean up this mess", I thought to myself. So out went old magazines, sticky jumbo rubber bands, manuals for equipment I no longer used, ... I must say I am pretty content with my cleaning spree. My closet seems cleaner for the effort.

Most important of all I discovered, in the junk, a cool "noise cancelling" headset with mic which had a USB interface! I never knew I had this gem of a noise cancelling USB headset and was out to buy one for myself ever since I discovered VOIP (voice-over-IP, for the uninitiated, is the ability to place phone calls over the Internet). And this one was good - I tested it out by playing some music out loud while using the mic to record my voice, and the noise cancelling feature worked flawlessly - no music, just my (sweet) voice was recorded.

I realized that even junk could be useful some day. At one point in time that headset had seemed junk to me. But today, its a gem.

Unless we have the need, we wouldn't appreciate something.

"Want to know the value of a milli-second? Ask the athlete that came second", said some interesting email that was forwarded a billion times.

Want to know the value of freedom? Ask the country that spent hundreds of years in oppression and humiliation.

And acknowledge that without oppression freedom is not worth the paper its written on.

BTW some other stuff I discovered in the junk (warning - shameless self-promotion ahead!) is a news clip from the London Sunday Mail written years back about our "email to post" service. Here's an online link to that article. And also a book released by IDRC Canada that features our "E-marketers" project. Have a read if you will. For those wondering what "FOOD India" is, look at our home page. I'm the project coordinator at that organization in addition to doing several other things like write this blog and run websites, not necessarily in that order.

I think Eminem's recent "How Come" is a cool song. He doesn't just rhyme, there's also some rhythm to the rhyme. Perhaps D12 did some good. "My Band" also sounds good.

One last thing before I go - if something is too good to be true, is it?

Business 2.0 - Web Guide

Tons of links to websites on Business and Technology.

Business 2.0 - Web Guide

Six Technologies That Will Change the World

I read this article at Business 2.0 on six technologies that will change the world. Makes interesting reading. Who knows - ten or twenty years down the line all this may be part of daily life.

Six Technologies That Will Change the World

(and for those that don't have a Business 2.0 subscription click here for the same article)

Thanks, random thoughts on change

First off thanks to "dimbu" for helping me find something that I had been searching for quite some time now. :)

I watched "Main Hoon Na" today. Nice Hindi movie directed by Farah Khan (she's a choreographer and this is her first film as director and I hope its the first of many more good films from her). I would give it a 7 out of 10.

While I was watching the movie (on DVD) I realized suddenly that I'm holding 3 different remote controls ("clickers" as the cool guys call it). And I remembered a time when all we had at home was a radio (I must be ancient!). I used to fiddle around with it and even got it to receive some strange morse-code like transmissions from ship-to-shore communications! Then I got a multi-band (or is it universal band, whatever) radio that could receive tranmissions from "far off countries" ranging from the BBC in London to interesting stuff from Australian shores. That was fun! I spent hours with that radio - but try as I might I could not make it receive any alien transmissions from Mars.

Then there was the TV. Our first was a black and white Dyanora TV (ancient, ancient, ancient!). And we had exactly one TV channel to watch. Not satisfied with that, Dad and I used to fiddle around with the antenna and the TV tuner and finally one day managed to "catch" the weak TV signals from Roopavahini (I think thats what it was called) TV channel from Sri Lanka! Wow, that was celebration time!! All we got was a faint ghost image with lot of static and somewhat passable audio. But we were happy with the fruits of a job well done.

Twenty years down the line (see, I may not be so ancient) we have a hundred free channels, dozens of "pay TV" channels, DVD, broadband video on demand (and the lucky guys in the USA and elsewhere have TiVO, interactive TV and many other interesting things to waste time with). And I'm holding three clickers.

Times change - the world changes with it. Which is why perhaps we should always look at the big picture and not get bogged in the past or the small problems (they will be small - ten or even five years down the line) we may have to face today. Looking around me I see testimonies to the undying spirit of mankind - the urge to explore and succeed. Regardless of the fact that we still do not know how we came to be and what the heck we're doing here.

So why I am preaching? Well, I need to do something other than talk technology and business. Have fun and enjoy!

This is my thirteen blog post (and no, its not a Friday).

A history lesson, big companies / bad decisions, and other such stuff

Hello there! :)

Continuing with my "blog evangelism" here are some links to sites that tell you about the history of blogs - look here, here and here. And if you are the bookish type check out this book.

I'm wondering what makes big companies make bad decisions? The type of stuff that is absolutely detested by customers but which "big company" makes any way because it feels so grandiose about itself and doesn't bother what customers think? Let me give you an example to help you along.

I subscribe to Sify's Broadband service at home - for those that are reading this from the other side of the world (yes I am a well-read blogger now and on the verge of winning a Bloggie) Sify is one of India's (few) national ISPs that provides dialup and broadband (in addition to esoteric "corporate offerings" such as IP based VPN, VPN based IPs, and whatever).

Right from when I received access to my broadband account I have been very happy. In fact I was estastic initially because they had no bandwidth or speed cap and it costed just Rs 1000 per month all you can surf. Which meant I could like download 20GB every day at speeds ranging from 512 kbps to 1 mbps (and at 2am in the night even more), which is a boon by the way to the starving, poor, Internet-impoverished Indians like me. But Sify soon realised that I (and many like me) were a hazard to their bottomlines and hence promptly put a bandwidth and/or speed cap based on which one had to purchase the "recharge packs". So now I've settled for a paltry 64kbps connection with no bandwidth cap (its based on hours I use, and comes with no metering on Sundays which is when I hog). But I was not complaining - until now.

A few weeks back the powers-that-be at Sify Broadband decided that all its users are computer newbies and hence needed divine assistance. So over the weekend they made it mandatory for users to download some sort of program that provides you an "easy to use interface to login to your Sify Broadband account". Well, I had no problems with that either. Earlier I would get a login page whenever I tried to browse without first signing in and once I was signed in I could browse. But hey, this program was supposed to be easy to use! So I decided to give it a try (I had no other choice, as I was about to discover).

The problem started when after installing this easy to use program I was asked to uninstall my existing antivirus program (I use Grisoft's AVG an excellent antivirus program, by the way). The easy to use broadband sign-in refused to work till I uninstalled AVG (and prayed that tons of viruses not hit my system at that exact point in time, but I had insurance in the form of ZoneAlarm which is another great product). Then, to my surprise, the easy to use program went ahead and installed an outdated copy of McAfee's VirusScan program which it claimed would protect me from the evils that lurk out there.

OK... what's happening here? What good does it do to Sify to force McAfee VirusScan down the pipes to each of its customers? Maybe McAfee was in cahoots. But I failed to get the idea behind an outdated copy of the scanner. So I thought while I'm stuck with VirusScan I might as well update it so that its current - trading AVG for VirusScan, no big deal as long it prevents those creepie crawlies from getting into my system. Now comes the best part - the copy of VirusScan that the easy to use broadband sign-in program installed refuses to be updated. The "Update Agent" always quits with a cryptic "unspecified error".

I called up the "customer care" and got an answer that due to various reasons all users had to install the new sign-in program, remove their existing antivirus software, and install the (outdated) McAfee VirusScan program. I asked the tech support guy what would happen if I wanted to use an antivirus software that I already had - and he replies "Sir, have you purchased the antivirus software?". Does Sify think that we are all software pirates or that quality free software does not exist? I gave up trying to explain to tech support that Grisoft's AVG was an excellent freeware antivirus software.

So now I am stuck with an easy to use sign-in program and a vestige of an antivirus program that is over two weeks old. I'm praying for some real divine assistance. I'm wondering what it takes for big companies to make bad (or suicidal decisions) like this one. And I'm waiting for Reliance Infocomm to start offering its broadband-to-home service and hoping better sense prevails with them.

I read today in NewsWeek's cover story that Estonia is the country which is considered the software developer haven. India better look out - Estonia is valued for its cheap, high quality developers that are on a nearer time zone to the West.

And according to the same cover story (which cites an impressive sounding "index") Nigeria has the happiest people in the world. Looks like we'll have to look hard at what happiness is really all about. So get jiggy with it.

A week after, and thoughts on "selling an experience"

Happy friendship day!

Its been a week since I started blogging - some of you have called me a "blog addict" but I would say this is now officially my "hobby". It also allows me to put my thoughts in writing and preserve it for eternity. I'm rediscovering my passion for writing.

I've been working at making this blog page easy to use as well. There's a search option (but I am waiting for Google to index these pages before its usable), an email alert for those that need to be reminded when this page is updated, the XML feed for those that use news readers like Newsgator or Bloglines, and a blog rating service from eatonweb (rate my blog using the "1" through "5" buttons on the right!). I'm getting nice and comfy with this blog thing. If you have an opinion to share please use the "comments" link at the end of each message to post your thoughts or suggestions.

By the way, the audioscrobbler.com service is cool. It shows you what songs I'm playing right now as well as my favorite songs/artists etc. Have a look at it under the "Music" section on the right.

Speaking of music - I think Pakistan is slowly opening up a jewel box of talented musicians who have been hidden away from the limelight for too long. Groups like "Junoon", "Strings" and "Fuzon" are making their way across the border to India and receiving international attention as well. "Strings" has two good songs which I like - "Dhoor" (released long ago) and a more recent one called "Na Jaane Kyon" (the original soundtrack for Spiderman-2). "Fuzon" has one called "Mora Saiyan" that I like, the lyrics of this song are in Urdu but there's a very good melody that is enjoyable regardless of language.

I'm wondering why record labels don't allow me to select just one or two songs from each album that I like and then roll that into my own custom CD? Or even download it as MP3 files - if I want them "now". This is relevant because typically each album released has only a few songs which any given person likes - you're forced to buy the entire album just to listen to those one or two songs.

Before you protest - I am talking about sites specific to Indian (or even "sub-continental") music. There are tons of sites, like the iTunes Music Store or allofmp3.com (check this one out, I'm sure many of you have not seen this gem of a site that allows legal mp3 downloads for a very low price - just make sure you select the "English" link, the site shows the Russian language version by default!) that cater to the music requirements of those that want English or even some other "phoren" language music. But what if I want to legally download Kumar Sanu's latest single "Tera Mera Pyar" from the album "Partners in Rhyme"? I don't want to go and buy the full CD - I just need that one song. No option but go download the MP3 from one of the millions of illegal MP3 trading sites.

And the record labels crib about music piracy?

OK to be fair, HamaraCD.com is a beginning in that direction. But I think they are not serious about it. One look at that site tells you that you can never get Strings, Fuzon or even Kumar Sanu's latest. The site is pretty restricted in its offerings.

Why not a site for Indian/sub-continental music that will allow you to either create a custom CD or even download a MP3 file (with appropriate "digital rights management" ofcourse) of any song you can think of (within reasonable limits)? Record labels should get out of their preconceived notions and realise that if they want to stay in the game they have to be nimble, quick and partner with each other (and with the customer). Which means seperate singles from albums and letting the customer choose what they want.

The other day I was watching the "Lessons in Excellence" show on CNBC-TV18 that talked about creating an "Experience Network". The topic itself was pretty hi-funda and the presenters made it even more difficult for the layman to understand by using the "American twang" weapon. The "American twang" weapon, by the way, is the use of an American accent to impress upon the audience that you are "MIT material". It is very effective in getting you keynote speeches and speaking opportunities attended by top CEOs (all of whom will hang on to every word you say but will not remember a thing five minutes after its all over). The "American twang" weapon is further enhanced if you throw in words like "customer-centric", "co-creation of values", "intellectual backbone" and "experience transition". In that sense the "Lessons in Excellence" episode was the guru of them all. They had the twang and the jargon to go with it.

But they had an important thought-provoking idea as well - the customer wants to buy an experience and not a product.

What does that mean in terms of music? Well, the basic of idea of allowing selection of single songs (which could then be put on a custom CD or downloaded as an MP3) itself is a step in the direction of allowing the customer to buy an experience. This needs to be further improved by making sure there are a variety of songs available for selection ("enhancing your supplier network" is the jargon for this). The entire experience could then be made available on a website (cheap to deploy, easy to maintain) or there could be brick-and-mortar stores that provide this as an exclusive service.

For example, how about walking into a MusicWorld store and going up to a jukebox that will let you search and listen to songs (there could be buttons for "whats new", "whats cool", etc on the jukebox that allow you to explore) and then select some of them. Once you've made your selection you pop in your credit card and out pops a CD customized with just the songs you selected! The store may even decide to hold competitions on the best CD compilation and have it judged by the music industry elite.

Wouldn't that be a wonderful experience that you would love to buy?

Audioscrobbler, a blog preview and other thoughts

I signed up for audioscrobbler.com and got myself their iTunes plugin today. Its pretty neat, audioscrobbler will send info on the songs you play to its server which then displays it on a page for others to see. See my audioscrobbler page here. You can also get this page by using the link under the "Music" section on the right. That "Click here" link will have to do till I find out how to display my last ten songs on this blog page itself. Audioscrobbler also promises to show you music recommendations based on songs you've played (sort of like how Amazon.com shows you "Customers who bought this book also bought" items).

People are actually asking me what I am going to write about next in my blog!! Ok so for those that can't wait, here's a preview of what's going on in my mind:

• I'm thinking music (like I always do!) and thinking of selling an experience instead of a product

• I'm thinking project management and how hard it is to "under-promise/over-deliver" versus "over-promise/under-deliver"
  

• I'm thinking viruses (the computer variety)

• I'm thinking about the Indian Government's budget offer of education loans without collateral
  

Some or all of this will come out in the open on this blog one day or the other.

Its funny but I think Indians are now colonising the English language (sweet revenge?). This news item says 80 new Indian words including words like "filmi", "bhelpuri" and "swadeshi" have been added to the Oxford Dictionary (taking the total of Indian words in the venerable dictionary to 700). I wonder why they left out out "pav bhaji" (my favorite junk food). How would you like your pappodums today?

Night Shyamalan's next movie "The Village" is out today! There are a range of reviews, but I will have my own opinion to share once I watch the movie. I loved his Signs, Unbreakable and Sixth Sense, by the way.

HTML to Plain Text Conversion in PHP

This PHP class allows you to convert HTML content into formatted plain text - PHP Class: HTML to Plain Text Conversion. This is useful for my team in their web development work, and I thought someone else might find it useful as well.

Microsoft's answer to Google Labs?

Check out MSN Sandbox for technologies and new ideas that Microsoft (via its "MSN" brand) is previewing. The popular "Lookout" email search plug-in for MS Outlook is now part of this Sandbox.

Where is Apple going?

I saw an ad from Apple for its iLife suite on TIME magazine. In summary, the ad claimed that while you had Microsoft Office for your office, you needed an iLife for the rest of your life. The punch line was very good and in "Apple style" (only subtly rebellious this time though). This ad set me thinking...

Apple, for ages, has been promoting its hardware and software bundle as competition to the Intel plus Windows combo. If you wanted the eye-candy and cute OS of the Mac you either got an expensive Apple Mac system or settled for one of the Mac desktop themes that programs like WindowsBlinds offer (and sigh over your bad luck). You cannot get the Mac OS for your Intel PC.

This has allowed Microsoft to dominate the desktop PC market (Apple does not even call its Macs as "PCs" if I am not wrong). And Microsoft has been copying liberally from the Mac OS (one of the posters that Apple used to popularise its newest version of the Mac OS X Tiger says "Start your photocopiers, Redmond"!).

Why is Apple so fanatical about the Mac HARDWARE???

Why cannot Apple reinvent itself as a software company and sell the Mac OS (in addition to bundling hardware and software as proper "Macs" in case they feel sad about letting go of their flagship product)?

Basically the problem here is that Mac hardware is expensive. Like it or not, Intel PCs are far cheaper and more abundant than Macs. But the software that comes on Macs including the Mac OS, iLife, etc is all world-class and stuff that people would drool over and love to buy.

Please don't tell me that the cute graphics, excellent user interface and stability of the Mac OS can be achieved only on the Mac hardware.

As far as I can see, Apple has a great product - Mac software. But its somehow reluctant to make the jump from being a hardware manufacturer to a software provider.

Lets take the example of the Apple iPod (MP3 player, in case you didn't know) and the iTunes software (used to play music files). The iPod has become one of the fastest selling pieces of hardware that Apple has ever released from its stables. Though the initial versions of the iPod/iTunes were only for the Mac, Apple soon realized the broader market that it could access by making it Windows-friendly. So now we have the iPod hardware and iTunes software which work on the Windows platform as well.

In the process Apple is building a cult following (Apple is good at this) that swears by the iPod - and this has not only its traditional base of Mac users but also includes now a large number of Windows users as well.

There are also some isolated instances like the AirPort Express wireless hub (and the bundled AirTunes software) which Apple has released for the Mac as well as Windows platforms.

What prevents Apple from taking that big step and releasing Windows versions of all its software? I would love to get the iLife suite if it were available for Windows (don't Windows users need an "iLife"?).

Let Apple go one step further and release the wildly popular (but rarely used) Mac OS for the Intel platform. I am sure Microsoft will start feeling the heat almost immediately. This is really possible now since Apple has made the move to using a Unix-flavor operating system as a base for its newer Mac OS's.

Over time Apple could even start prescribing hardware standards for the Intel platform like how Microsoft does at its WinHEC conferences (ofcourse Apple already has the WWDC for its Mac hardware).

I think this is a perfect plan and we would then have a world full of color, creativity and fun. Did you know that most people that use the Mac do so because they feel they are more creative when they use one?

A first look at Gmail, plus some memories of the good ol' days

I got Gmail!!! Thanks to a kind soul (who I will not name here, for fear that they'll get mobbed by others to whom they did not send an invite!). Here are some initial thoughts - I have used it for just about one day.

The interface is fast (Google style) but the elements are confusing to start with. The first thing you see is a mail from the Gmail team in your inbox that welcomes you and states that "Gmail is different". It goes on to explain some new features.

I tried archiving the Gmail welcome message and it just disappeared. There's no "Archive" folder. But your message is there (you can check by clicking "All Mail").

You don't have any folders other than "Inbox", "Starred", "Sent Mail", "Spam" and "Trash". Which means all mail you get either remains in your "inbox", gets "starred" (sort of like flags on Outlook), goes into the "spam" box, is "trashed" or is "archived" (in which case it disappears into a blackhole but is still around if you search for it or click "All Mail"). As far as I could see there was no way you could create any new folders. This is a new paradigm to managing your email (atleast I haven't seen this in any desktop or web-based product). And it would take some getting used to. But once you get used to it, you don't need to pull your hair out managing folders and sub-folders. Just archive or star it, don't bother where it is stored, its available for you when you search. And the search is good (Google style, again). BTW there's no "Empty trash", if you want to delete a message or a "conversation" (sort of like Outlook 2003) you need to select that message or thread and then use the dropdown to delete. Once deleted it goes to "trash" from where it is not emptied, unless you really want to remove it permanently (which is "Delete forever").

And if your inbox is empty there's a neat link to "Google News" (got no mail? read news!).

One thing you notice here is that Gmail discourages you from deleting messages. OK so why not delete? Everyone likes to have an clean desk or inbox. But Google's strategy on ads depends mainly on you having as much as mail as possible in your account. This allows Gmail's programs to scan and deliver relevant ads to you over a period of time (like the Adwords ads you get when you search for stuff on the Google site). This also explains why the 1GB - more email for Gmail to munch on, the better the ad targeting that it can deliver.

An interesting thing I noticed was that when I was reading the Gmail welcome message it showed me ads for other services that were offering 1GB (and in one case even 10GB) email space. Ofcourse in this case the ads were all for priced services whereas Gmail is free. But imagine sending a quote to a client that has a Gmail account and that client sees an ad for a competitor's product or service?

Being a new user to blogs as well, I see some similarities between the way the Gmail messages and blogs are displayed (atleast on blogger.com). Some things I find in common are that both Gmail messages and blogger message talk of message times in terms of "x hours ago" (e.g. "1 hour ago"). Which is probably more easily understood than the "mm/dd/YYYY, hh:mm am/pm" that we normally get to see. And when you an email it shows the subject line of that email on the browser window, which probably makes it easier to locate when you have multiple messages open (the "New window" option next to a message is neat, it allows you to detach the current message and display it in a new window so that you can continue browsing through other messages in the main window).

Google's strategy for Gmail seems good. They're first of all making it a privilege. I remember long ago when American Express cards were available only to a select few. You went through strict scrutiny and it was something of a status symbol to flaunt an AMEX card. Ofcourse its different nowadays, I get new credit cards in the mail without even having to ask for it. "Just complete up the form and mail it back to us stating that you wish to use the enclosed card".

So Gmail is by invitation only. That allows Gmail to also test the waters and ensure they don't overload their systems - overloading happened at Yahoo when it recently announced an increase in the email space. But I basically believe web-mail providers should not rush into this "GB" race without analysing why Google is offering so much space for free (see above for my thoughts).

So Google now has search, blogs, email and social networking (orkut.com, is again by invitation only) covered. And it has tons of technologies in its lab. Could it be the next Microsoft? It could be perhaps. The $105 to $138 for the IPO they are contemplating could be the start of it all.

I'm wondering - blogger.com does not seem to say anything about the total space alloted for my blog. Does that I mean I could use unlimited space? (maybe I'm missing something) I could then create private password protected blogs for each person or persons that I want to communicate with and use that instead of email. I would then have gazillion GBs of space plus the other neat stuff that blogs offer. Hmm, thats something that I will experiment with soon.

All this talk of blogs takes me back to the "good ol' days" (someone who will only be known as "dimbu" just set me thinking on this now)

My first brush with cyberspace started in 1991 (or thereabouts) when Compuserve started offering access to its online service in India. I used to visit this book store in Chennai that had access, and download stuff from Compuserve on to floppies (CD-Rs were a distant dream those days!).

Then came the flurry of Bulletin Board Services (BBS) that set up shop to serve modem enthusiasts (Alok Chitnis in Bangalore, Kishore Bhargava in Delhi, Suchit Nanda in Bombay, and so on). PC Quest magazine came out with its own BBS in Delhi. Back then, I got myself a 2400bps US Robotics modem (a gift from my uncle when he came to visit us from the USA!) and started cranking up the STD bills dialing into Bangalore and Delhi.

Then Suchit established the LiveWire! BBS in Chennai sometime around 1993. And I was on it as one of its first users, and soon I found myself managing the BBS node at Chennai. BTW that BBS has transmogrified over time into what I now do for a living.

On these BBS's we had message boards where one could chat on different topics. I cherish those BBS days - chatting and debating stuff with tons of other (interesting) people! Well, now you have websites and we are all zombies browsing from one page to the other - to a large extent the Internet has replaced the TV rather than provide an engaging medium for people to interact and debate. I hope blogs change that some day.

And if you're wondering - I don't have any Gmail invites yet. You can be sure I will announce it here when I do!

A day comes to an end

Well, the day is coming to an end. And I end it the way I do most other Sundays - listening to music (did I tell you I'm crazy about music - music is my soul, blah blah blah?).

BTW if you're into music (who isn't?) then check out the Audioscrobbler. It builds your music profile and then matches it with others who share your musical taste. You can also link to your scrobbler page from your blog.

What is Blogger?

OK so I'm sold on blogs and blogger.com. Here's an article that explains it all in a simple terms:

The Amazing Web Site Machine

Daily Rotation

This is where I get my daily dose of tech news: DAILY ROTATION

What I did yesterday

I'm back from a short 24-hour trip to Vellore. The occassion was inaugration of an e-governance initiative by the Vellore Municipality which we helped develop. The site's not too artsy, but then it is information-oriented and not trying to win graphics design awards (also you'll need the Bamini Tamil font to view the Tamil text). It was fun (and a welcome break from the daily routine).

Check out this site for some creativity jump-starts: www.innovationtools.com

The birth of a blog

Its a Sunday -- a time to sleep, relax, reflect, enrich my knowledge (oh yeah!), and enjoy mom's cooking.

But I get up at 8am and have this urge to visit "the life of an econ junkie" - maybe the author of the blog planted a sublimal suggestion when I was IM'ing him a couple of days back?

OK so I go read his blog and think - "Hey, if this guy can have a blog - I can do better. I can have a blog that will be read by millions of people!". I was helped along in my thought process by the fact that Andy Abramson credits being featured on CNN International to his VO-IP blog.

I could be famous too, let me create my blog!!!

So off I go to BlogSpot.com and started off with the first of the 3 easy steps.

Creating an account was simple enough, I just need to select a username, password, display name and agree to the terms. I've done this tons of times, no big deal.

Then came naming my blog. The Internet has made linguistic jugglers out of all of us. I quickly realized that I could not get san.blogspot.com, santosh.blogspot.com or other nice sensible variations. "Sorry, this blog address is not available".

"Google to the rescue", I thought to myself. So off I went to google.com and typed "name generator". Well well well, tons of sites. I guess I am not alone.

"Drogo Brandybuck" is my Hobbit name, according to this site. But drogo.blogspot.com was not available, someone had the same idea that I had. And drogobrandybuck.blogspot.com was too long.

This site told me that "messiah", "lord" and "poonen" are all related to the keyword "santosh".

And this site gave an interesting expansion for my name - "Synthetic Artificial Neohuman Trained for Observation and Scientific Harm". But I couldn't use such a long name for a blog that I wanted read by millions.

So I finally settled for Nuranto as suggested by The Middle-earth Name Generator. It was short, mysterious and still available on BlogSpot. So off I went back to the registration page and completed step 2 in a jiffy.

The final step wanted me to select a design, which I did quickly (I liked the colors and the layout of this template a lot).

There it was - my very own blog! Now to fill it up with something. So I started writing this - my first blog ever.

So now I have my very own blogging style - long, complicated (often single sentence) paragraphs full of links, my thoughts on thoughts (enclosed inside parenthesis), hyphens, commas and other assorted punctuations. And don't forget the footnotes.


FOOTNOTES:
(yes, this makes it look like an academic paper but I really want to impress you)

(1) I referred google.com gazillion times while I wrote this post - from finding sites, to researching facts, to getting definitions and checking the spelling of words (which I wanted to use to make that favorable impression on you). This is sufficient proof that Google has now become more indispensible than toothpaste (atleast to me).

(2) Note to Google: Please buy g.com, it will make life easier for all of us.

(3) Note to BlogSpot.com: Link to good name generators (or create one yourself) from step 2, follow the example of Network Solutions and other domain name registration sites.

(4) Note to you: You can expect to see random ramblings, notes to myself, insights into me, cool links to websites, suggestions for books/music/movies, my thoughts on technology, info on my work and other odds and ends here. I may post infrequently, it all depends on my mood. I am in a very "creative" mood right now, by the way.