In last one week I have come across atleast 2 bits of news about web 2.0 services closing down. This made me wake up to a possible reality that jus might hit us soon!! what about free services like blogger, picasa etc. are forced to stop !!!
It just might happen soon... for sure there is no bail out plan out there for these web 2.0 services.
So I have decided to make a list of services closing down or bought over (closed anyway).. and hope against the hope that my favourite services dont end up in this list.. ( so far so good!)
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Moral Responsbility
Congress final got rid of its biggest liability, in the name of moral responsbility, Mr. Shivraj Patil. I hope this brings some sensible changes in government's approach and people's approach.
Opposition's approach though doesnt seem to change as much after what all we have witnessed. Mr. Rudy comments as spokesperson of BJP couldnt have been any less opportunistic at a time like this. He seems to think that asking government to resign is more important than trying to create a collaborative effort to set things right in our internal security system.
I think all the MPs should resign and take pledge to not fight elections if they really want accountability debate in the country!! Mr. Rudy included.
Opposition's approach though doesnt seem to change as much after what all we have witnessed. Mr. Rudy comments as spokesperson of BJP couldnt have been any less opportunistic at a time like this. He seems to think that asking government to resign is more important than trying to create a collaborative effort to set things right in our internal security system.
I think all the MPs should resign and take pledge to not fight elections if they really want accountability debate in the country!! Mr. Rudy included.
India in Mumbai
Finally Taj is free and world is back to normal. We can now safely switch from news channels to our daily dose of soaps and cooked up reality shows.
It took a Shyam Benegal to remind our news channels that this tragedy was not limited to 5 star hotels, elites, foreigners and slain police officers... it involved hapless unfortunate people at VT station or those police constables who had nothing but a wooden batons to shield themselves from volley of bullets. It was a tragedy of bystanders.
The loss to economy is getting calculated for big businesses but spare a thought for Mumbai's millions who live from day to day and whose life is tied to streets. For them loss of a day is question of life and death. Terrorists didnt need bullets to kill them.
Of all this I hope now Mumbai would be free from the parochialism of Thakres who seem to think that they own the city. Whole of India converged on to Mumbai, for 3 days Mumbai was India and I just hope it remains so forever...
It took a Shyam Benegal to remind our news channels that this tragedy was not limited to 5 star hotels, elites, foreigners and slain police officers... it involved hapless unfortunate people at VT station or those police constables who had nothing but a wooden batons to shield themselves from volley of bullets. It was a tragedy of bystanders.
The loss to economy is getting calculated for big businesses but spare a thought for Mumbai's millions who live from day to day and whose life is tied to streets. For them loss of a day is question of life and death. Terrorists didnt need bullets to kill them.
Of all this I hope now Mumbai would be free from the parochialism of Thakres who seem to think that they own the city. Whole of India converged on to Mumbai, for 3 days Mumbai was India and I just hope it remains so forever...
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Farewell Anil Kumble!!
I think a dead test match was made memorable finally made memorable for better reasons than those missed catches and physical contacts etc.. I couldn't help but get all emotional seeing the heartfelt farewell given to Anil Kumble.I am not sure if I will be as emotional when Sourav gets his farewell in Nagpur.
Anil Kumble, despite his waining striking powers in last few years, was one of the few reasons I felt good about cricket as a sport. Now with him gone, I think one of the few remaining gentlemen is leaving the game. In the times of 20-20 gentleman's sport is losing good old world gentlemanly values and if incidents involving Harbhajan and Gambhir off late are anything to go by, there isn't much to look forward to in this game of glorious uncertainties.
Farewell Jumbo, may you fly even higher, stronger.....
Monday, October 27, 2008
That elusive device
For last one year I have been a regular visitor to Engadget and Gizmodo. Tech news is also some kinda addiction. We are looking for that dream device all the time. We are easily aroused by the news of Apple's latest events ( thats a loss for the porno sites) and easily deflated seeing that design wizs at apple have decided not to give us all they can.
It is amazing how apple can get away with it, each time they announce a new device they don't fully load it. Then come their annual improvements giving us same things which could have been there at the first place already. Consumers should make a statement by not buying these half loaded devices on initial launch so that apple would someday relent. Then who am I kidding..!!!
Seriously for last one year I am looking for one device which would not be as unwieldy as a laptop, would be as easy to operate using touch interface like ipod/iphones, would have bigger screen sizes to fit a normal webpage or a document page, would have wireless Internet connectivity and someone please throw in mobile phone capability also. All that should come in at around rs. 20000 price band, a combination of ipod, iphone & kindle.
Closest is again ipod or iphone but prices are somehow not inviting enough as yet. I saw ASUS R2E also as an option but I think, like Apple ASUS also is trying to skim the market first. Archos has a device on their website but i think in India we don't have a reseller for it as yet and I am not sure if the device will last me even a year.
So the search is on ...!! Any suggestions??
It is amazing how apple can get away with it, each time they announce a new device they don't fully load it. Then come their annual improvements giving us same things which could have been there at the first place already. Consumers should make a statement by not buying these half loaded devices on initial launch so that apple would someday relent. Then who am I kidding..!!!
Seriously for last one year I am looking for one device which would not be as unwieldy as a laptop, would be as easy to operate using touch interface like ipod/iphones, would have bigger screen sizes to fit a normal webpage or a document page, would have wireless Internet connectivity and someone please throw in mobile phone capability also. All that should come in at around rs. 20000 price band, a combination of ipod, iphone & kindle.
Closest is again ipod or iphone but prices are somehow not inviting enough as yet. I saw ASUS R2E also as an option but I think, like Apple ASUS also is trying to skim the market first. Archos has a device on their website but i think in India we don't have a reseller for it as yet and I am not sure if the device will last me even a year.
So the search is on ...!! Any suggestions??
Aarthik Manddi
Diwali normally is the time when people invite Laxmi home and hope she stays through the year with them. I think rich do it more feverishly than the poor ( who actually need Laxmi more).
This year its same for rich and poor, given that Bushonomics has brought us all down to earth. Stock indexes around the world are being monitored for newer lows. Stars of last Diwali may find it hard to smile this time around.
Failure of market economics somehow has cheered up the government wallahs and leftists more than anyone ( they are in minority always though). I have heard such absurdly funny comments from some corners like look what have these IIT and IIM wallahs have done :)
It will take some time for the MBAs to recover from this stigma!!
Some bad rumours and people with half knowledge arent helping the situation though:
1. Even kids are talking about as to how ICICI Bank will soon close down. If it wasn't, it just might now.
Though few examples of slowdown around us are not bad for a chuckle or two though :
1. Diwali Card games have now a limit for maximum "chaal" :)
(share if you have some nice examples)
This year its same for rich and poor, given that Bushonomics has brought us all down to earth. Stock indexes around the world are being monitored for newer lows. Stars of last Diwali may find it hard to smile this time around.
Failure of market economics somehow has cheered up the government wallahs and leftists more than anyone ( they are in minority always though). I have heard such absurdly funny comments from some corners like look what have these IIT and IIM wallahs have done :)
It will take some time for the MBAs to recover from this stigma!!
Some bad rumours and people with half knowledge arent helping the situation though:
1. Even kids are talking about as to how ICICI Bank will soon close down. If it wasn't, it just might now.
Though few examples of slowdown around us are not bad for a chuckle or two though :
1. Diwali Card games have now a limit for maximum "chaal" :)
(share if you have some nice examples)
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Is it tough to say goodbye to windows?
Most of my work is done on MacBook these days and I am typing this on Ubuntu machine. All that said, it still is tough to get away from Windows world. Every electronic footprint all around us is most likely to be a windows based one.
So it was natural for me to ensure that I have options of windows on my Macbook when it came to me, thanks to generousity from Brij. I used parallels and kept windows running on my machine. Slowly i kept using less of windows and soon it became irritating space hogging entity. Last week to my horror i realized that I was reduced to 2gb of balance space on my Macbook. Little did I realize that i had racked up almost 6000 photos on my iPhoto!!
So it was now survival of the fittest for digital entities on my machine. First casualty were freely downloaded stuff which didnt help me much. Now there was a toss up between 20 gb locked up space for my parallels virtual machine for windows XP and my multimedia assets. It wont take much to guess what happened next!!
I did this partly with the knowledge that I have windows machine at arms length in office and other places if I need to bow down to Billy the kid again. But its a long way to road to freedom still :)
Just wish for the day when our accessories wouldnt be tied to a platform circa windows days!!
So it was natural for me to ensure that I have options of windows on my Macbook when it came to me, thanks to generousity from Brij. I used parallels and kept windows running on my machine. Slowly i kept using less of windows and soon it became irritating space hogging entity. Last week to my horror i realized that I was reduced to 2gb of balance space on my Macbook. Little did I realize that i had racked up almost 6000 photos on my iPhoto!!
So it was now survival of the fittest for digital entities on my machine. First casualty were freely downloaded stuff which didnt help me much. Now there was a toss up between 20 gb locked up space for my parallels virtual machine for windows XP and my multimedia assets. It wont take much to guess what happened next!!
I did this partly with the knowledge that I have windows machine at arms length in office and other places if I need to bow down to Billy the kid again. But its a long way to road to freedom still :)
Just wish for the day when our accessories wouldnt be tied to a platform circa windows days!!
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Bombs and us
In last 2 days We have been jolted by serial blasts. This time the new set of people are dedicating themselves to make these blasts really serial in nature.
It is dreadful but somehow the impact of the blasts doesn't seem to register in our minds. As long as it is a news we watch on tele, we dont seem to get affected by the shock and grief of it.
The slack law and order gets away every time behind this propaganda about spirit of the city and spirit of people. Why we get these bomb blasts almost every year now? Why people are not vigilant and above all why the police of our states is not vigilant at all.
I remember my early days in Delhi when we were reeling under the Punjab problem, everytime we used to board a bus we would sure look under our seats just to ensure that there was no strange thing lurking out there.
The day Bangalore blasts happened I called my friends and relatives in the city and to my surprise none seemed to be shocked or scared.. have we learnt to live with Bombs.
Is it that like all other ills that plague our nation.. be it potholes on the road or mockery of democracy..bombs have become just another thing to avoid and live with??
It is dreadful but somehow the impact of the blasts doesn't seem to register in our minds. As long as it is a news we watch on tele, we dont seem to get affected by the shock and grief of it.
The slack law and order gets away every time behind this propaganda about spirit of the city and spirit of people. Why we get these bomb blasts almost every year now? Why people are not vigilant and above all why the police of our states is not vigilant at all.
I remember my early days in Delhi when we were reeling under the Punjab problem, everytime we used to board a bus we would sure look under our seats just to ensure that there was no strange thing lurking out there.
The day Bangalore blasts happened I called my friends and relatives in the city and to my surprise none seemed to be shocked or scared.. have we learnt to live with Bombs.
Is it that like all other ills that plague our nation.. be it potholes on the road or mockery of democracy..bombs have become just another thing to avoid and live with??
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Is it the day davids got goliaths ?
As i write this India has floored Australia in Perth and an unknown Tipsarovich has taken Roger Federer to 8-9 in fifth set!!!
Roger might get out of this one but surely we are seeing another Serbian stake his claim to world fame in Tennis. There is this steely look in his eyes and has a game to match. He has unnerved federer like no other ...not even Nadal.
As for Aussies, I think this win has meant a comeback for so many in indian team that it must be a collective come back of sorts. For last few years I have been wondering when we would see Ricky Ponting loose that amzing form( it looked just like Federer's reign) and finally in this series he has been made to feel human again.
Update: Roger finally made it through!! But bravo Tipsarovich!!
Roger might get out of this one but surely we are seeing another Serbian stake his claim to world fame in Tennis. There is this steely look in his eyes and has a game to match. He has unnerved federer like no other ...not even Nadal.
As for Aussies, I think this win has meant a comeback for so many in indian team that it must be a collective come back of sorts. For last few years I have been wondering when we would see Ricky Ponting loose that amzing form( it looked just like Federer's reign) and finally in this series he has been made to feel human again.
Update: Roger finally made it through!! But bravo Tipsarovich!!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Living in the times of 9% growth...
Actually when one is trying to settle down in a smaller town in these times of heady growths it is difficult to find the right mix between optimism and frustrations.
Ever since we have come to settle down in Dehradun it has been a mixed bag. Everytime we get our hope balloons up there comes a frustration puncturing it flat.
Maybe it is just that we expect a lot but things are not changing quite as fast. Real estate prices may sky rocket but facilities seem always spiraling down. Just to list a few of our frustrations :
1. BSNL can not provide a landline in our area, we want one to get a broadband.
2. There is no regular garbage collection from the area. Some bloke is running a service under the garb of NGO but it seems to be controlled by the garbage collector who is as rude as BSNL employee :).
3. Shops seem to be full of people who thinks csutomers grow like grass under their feet and treat them same as well. Other day my brother's family had come to visit us. Seeing size of our kitchen utensils he declared that we would need to grow up and move up in size. So both of us went around scanning the market. We landed in a shop where bloke showed us a few pots of steel. Things went on to price enquiry and as steel sells by weight we asked him to weigh the thing. He started putting the polycover back on the piece so we asked him if he was planning to weight with the cover on?.. lo and behold he said yes ...:)
Ever since we have come to settle down in Dehradun it has been a mixed bag. Everytime we get our hope balloons up there comes a frustration puncturing it flat.
Maybe it is just that we expect a lot but things are not changing quite as fast. Real estate prices may sky rocket but facilities seem always spiraling down. Just to list a few of our frustrations :
1. BSNL can not provide a landline in our area, we want one to get a broadband.
2. There is no regular garbage collection from the area. Some bloke is running a service under the garb of NGO but it seems to be controlled by the garbage collector who is as rude as BSNL employee :).
3. Shops seem to be full of people who thinks csutomers grow like grass under their feet and treat them same as well. Other day my brother's family had come to visit us. Seeing size of our kitchen utensils he declared that we would need to grow up and move up in size. So both of us went around scanning the market. We landed in a shop where bloke showed us a few pots of steel. Things went on to price enquiry and as steel sells by weight we asked him to weigh the thing. He started putting the polycover back on the piece so we asked him if he was planning to weight with the cover on?.. lo and behold he said yes ...:)
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