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Firefox

Neruppu Nari ..as my web dev colleagues funnily call it.

I hadn't much known about the resourcefulness of this browser till I was a tester. But this post is for the non-geeky casual users of browsers.

If you want a browser that can do a lot in a Single interface without crashing down frequently, then firefox is known for it.

Apart from the tabbed browser(which IE has stolen) concept, there are plenty of useful add-ons, which will make ur browsing a rich experience. The bookmarks facility is very very helpful, but it consumes a bit of RAM, but there's an alternative in case you have lot of links to bookmark by adding del.icio.us as plug-in to replace the conventional bookmarks provided by firefox.

Being a bit lazy in calculating time differences between other countries and India, I used foxclocks plug-in which shows different timezones on your taskbar while you have firefox open.

A sticky reminder you want. Use internotes plug-in.

Do not bang firefox with loads of plug-in, I cannot help you from its nasty behaviour towards you.

Do you think BIG?

Google docs - a kalasal demo

Philosophy

Slowly I'm turning on to Zen-ism as I grow older.....

Some of them I recommend

http://zenhabits.net/2008/03/flip-your-karma-8-tricks-to-turn-the-bad-into-the-awesome/

http://zenhabits.net/2007/09/simple-living-manifesto-72-ideas-to-simplify-your-life/

http://zenhabits.net/2007/09/how-to-learn-more-and-study-less/

At 8th floor

Wondering curiously how #8 often comes along with me. The tallest building in Philadelphia hosts me on the 8th floor. Saturn smiles at his son!

And have a look at my residence from google maps:


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Jab we met

A beautiful movie with many takeaways on handling disappointments and failure. Must watch! Kareena has played a wonderful role and is very impressive on the first half of the movie. Anyone watching this movie will love her.

time differences

I too got online at odd times. The reason - simple, vacuum inside.

Taaren zameen par

Brought out a view of world from a child's point to view...

Cubicle Art

Reading one's art brings to you the person's inner mind. A creative mind is truly reflected in art. A confluence of creative minds will merge everyone's individual thought together. In an attempt to bring this together, our team has started attempting to express our minds in the form of an art. Watch this space for our artistic expression which we sprinkle while at work. The collection is indeed gonna be interesting and thought provoking.

Geeks galore!

The logo which Jimmy wales would remember on hearing "India"

Unconference is an ‘un’happening event which works in an unorganized way. “The day was sculpted!” as I borrow the phrases from the kick off session by Kiruba Shankar. Indian blogging legends like Kiruba, Amit Agarwal, wikipedians like Bhadani were present and last but the great Jimmy Wales whom I could shake hands with and capture a photo of his in my mobile.

Web 2.0 or collective intelligence would have been more appropriate name for the occasion as all the presentation and workshops were on wiki, 3D gaming, envisioning computing et al.

Things that caught my attention:

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the SUM of all human knowledge – quote by Jimmy
How twitter works? - From a side talk with Jax

Veni, Vedi, Wiki - a creative caption for Wiki by TKF
Liveblogging - by participants

We, the audience, were also provided with a stress ball to hurl at boring lecturers!

for photos: Search using tags "Wikicamp" in flickr or YouTube.

Online Journalism

There is a widespread view among my friends and colleagues that blogging is a “waste of time”, “it is jobless people’s job”. Ignorance results in such views. To wipe out this ignorance, read further.

Blogging in its true sense is online journalism. But it means different to different people. Some use it as online diary or a travel log and some as a collation of expertise in their area of interest. The secondary benefit of blogging, I consider is the associated learning of cutting edge web technologies. In general, it could be seen as a portal to voice one’s concern/views.

From quite sometime, I have been wondering how money is generated from blogs by using adsense. Digital inspiration shows staggering statistics how much money Amit Agarwal, a blogger generates per day/month. The concept is like, put up Google ads on your blog and get paid. The amount you get paid depends upon the number of visitor hits to your blog. By attracting more people to visit your page, you can make a huge sum of money. Attracting people to your page necessitates one to write quality content.

There are many other channels of making money through blogs like donations, blog consulting, Affiliate programs etc. This month’s Digit is giving away a supplement on blogging which covers all the aspects of this online log. A must read!

Bloggers around the Globe babble

A very good news for Bloggers around the Globe!!

www[dot]blogger[dot]com has gone out of Beta phase and is into production. Its lightning fast after this upgrade and quite easy uploading posts. Has got few web 2.0 features added. Sivakani and Amjathkhan are quite lucky fellow bloggers, long time college buddies of mine, who recently started blogging needn't experience the long waiting time anymore while uploading posts.

Coming back to the point,

Not everyone is blessed with the gift of the gab, but few manage to talk senselessly. Not everyone can use words as swords, but few manage to blog :) Let alone this post. But there are really quite few extraordinary people who are making a difference with their blogs and this space wont suffice making a list of them. For those who wish to meet these extraordinary people gathering at a single place in Chennai may attend the wikicamp, an unconference, by registering themselves at http://wikicamp.in/wiki/index.php?title=Participants.

But why bloggers are required for Wikicamp:

Is it because bloggers access Wiki most of the time? Or
Is it because most of the bloggers are technical wizards who would help enhancing Wiki? Or
Is it because bloggers are the only creative people? Or
Is it because bloggers spread news faster? Or
Is it a blogger's meet like 'blogcamp' again?

Lot more questions, have to find out.I would be quite happy to see Jimmy wales, the founder of wiki at the meet.

The event is to be held at Tidel Park,Chennai on the 25th Feb.

Freud on 'Decision making'

A recent read in a local magazine that would help in making decisions, suggested by Freud.

This technique is applicable only when there are only 2 likely outcomes.

If you are not able to really decide between two choices in hand, toss a coin. This is a normal technique which almost any layman would know if he had watched old Amitabh or Rajini movies. Freud would have remained a common man if he would have stopped here. But Freud went further to say, Based on the outcome of tossing a coin, your inner mind is likely to know which decision you would really like to make. Go Ahead with the one!

You will thank me for this post if you use this approach in making some of your life's vital decisions.

Hedonist's habitat

Racing up with the sun along NH4..vrrooommm

Its a delight to be at the right and happening place at the right time. My friends and I were determined to savour all the delightful moments of a peak season at a tourist spot, and chose the "Christmas" @ Goa. Where else would one like to be during Christmas?

The cab from Bangalore moved slowly forward without an accelerating sound. Those missing the vehicle's roar must know that the vehicle moved as we five guys had to push it forward to start it. :) Thus started the eventful journey to our dream holiday destination, Goa.

The thoughts of 'Goa' would flash 'Beaches', 'Europeans', 'Sea food', 'Beer', 'Party', 'Music' and 'revelry' to the mind. My mind started weaving webs of celebration and partying we would have during the 2 days planned.An 18 hour spine breaking journey along the NH4 through karwar took us to Anjuna palm guesthouse at 4.40 am where we had made bookings for our stay. We, the honchos, could manage to get accommodated in a dorm where we shared rooms with some foreigners though we had made advance booking before a month. As bachelors, we did not have any concern in staying in a dorm and what more does one requires for their temporary stay at a tourist spot. Also it did not feel like an alien place as the house owner and family were very warm and friendly and made us feel 'at home'.

Mullu took the role of a navigator and guided all the way thru' Goa with his little knowledge of the place and making use of the sign boards at important junctions. As a result, we often ended up in taking the exactly wrong direction. As usual it didn't require too much effort for me in switching off the senses which take upon much strain on hectic days except for the eyes and ears which have drawn me to this place with advance planning. With sea food available aplenty and an aversion towards those dead, smelly creatures, I had given rest to my tongue too.

Basking Beheaded Bohemians

Anjuna, Vagator and places nearby brought me a feeling of coming to alien land seeing foreigners speeding in bikes without wearing shirts giving a hippie(not hip) look, people speaking English and Hindhi in strange foriegn accent and many other scenes which widened our pupil.

Though the time was less spent it was decided to cover all the important places of North Goa hour by hour. We spent half day strolling along the Calangute beach bathing in the Sun at the same time. Mullu had decided to hide his digicam on hearing from locals about the foreigners becoming aggressive and throwing the cams into the sea when they were being digitally shot without permission. We had an illuminated evening when we were in Baga to spend the Christmas Eve.

Bathing infront of water.

The final evening became memorable having spent sometime in the capital city, Panaji and going around in a cruise at Miramir beach watching the Goan folk dance and dancing on the cruise.

1 Birth isnt enuf :-(

This blog is going to be the longest one comprising of more than many thousand words.......Wait !!before you close this browser!!

For those who are bored reading only text so far there is a relief of course! And how?
This is gonna be a picture blog and a picture is worth thousand words. Ha! Ha!!

The most beautiful picture in my collection. The beauty of the Humayun tomb is amplified by the presence of the charming baby(or babe??) in the front.For my closest friends, suspecting about my real intentions, the truth is "I honestly claim that only the baby was in focus".

This structure was raised to honour the martyrs who died in battles in Afghan, Persia, Panipat.Needless to say it is India Gate, Delhi.

I liked this pic much. No specific reasons, except for my appearance as a local Delhiwala guide.With little practice, I too can become a good guide, I felt.

A Camel and a Lion in the pic. he.. he..
To prove I was in Jaipur, Rajasthan I had to look out for a fully decorated Camel.

These pictures were few snapshots of my family trip to Delhi. For those missing Agra in these photos, there is a note. I did not go to Agra as I reserved that place for a special occasion. Bye Fellas!! Im busy planning for my next trip to Goa in Dil Chatha hai style with Friends!

Band S.i.L.K

Me, Figaru and karadi, the guys in Chennai, for the first time did really a thing worth mentioning last week. We gathered at Music Academy, Royapettah to watch Band SiLK performing. An Indo-Jazz fusion musik troup which had big shots like Shankar Mahadevan, Sivamani, Louis Banks, Karl Peters and Sridhar performing. The captivating three hour programme, kept us guessing which instrument produced the lub dub of a heartbeat, birds chirping, breeze blowing and other acoustical aura. I got to hear Breathless in Live, Varaga Nadi karai Oram from Shankar on his finishing note. The greateesssst percussionist Sivamani entralled and stunned me n rest by his superior performance. A man with jus two hands who cud handle more than 30 instruments around him. He was AWESOME!! Figaru and Karadi were engrossed in Karnatic while I was unable to overcome from jazz spell coming from Karl Peter's instrument. That was a time and money worth spent and worth mentioning it here.

Search never ends...

Have you observed we all keep searching one thing or the other in life?When we get hold of one, we search for the something better. The search parameter differs everytime though the search window remains the same. If at any point in life, we ask ourselves why do we go for it and what happens if I get what Im searching the answer remains the same....'Silence'. No one ever has accomplished his dreams as it grows bigger and bigger till he stumbles upon a small failure which whips harshly to remind, U need to improve. Our Search never ends!

Everything will seem to be funny when you assume yourself to be a third person and watch things happening to you and around you. I have observed it personally.It makes things look at ease when you become the third person instead of first unless you are extremely sympathetic about other people, which rarely one is.This reminds me of a quote I read at a Sify iway.

"Don't tell your worries to others, 70% don't care and 30% are happy that you are worried!"

F.g.R.i.I.r.E.l.N.D.S

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Quite relieved...I m

Quite reLIVEd...

This was one of the gruelling extensions of my study life, Shrinivasan.stu. I had to again dust the books filled with technical details and clear an exam, not to be taken easily, it was a J2EE exam. An exam 'meant' to decide my ratings n hence career. Really? I wonder.

My seniors, in college, used to tell "jollya padira". Does anyone know how to do that? Isn't it an oxymoron? I devoted my four precious weekends entirely preping, quit writing blogs, and stopped thinking about writing, suspended going to gym for a week, paused reading novels for two weeks, spent relatively less time responding to calls, messages, scraps. I found it difficult convincing my friends n relatives saying I couldnt spend time with them becos of this exam.

I abhor, detest, hate, dislike(though all mean the same, stressed to denote my extreme hatred) activities which prevent my free flow, my lazy being, in the sense, preventing from doing activities of my interest at my own pace. I had to run with time, catching up with it at its astronomical speed from getting lost in the crowd.

I frequently thought "Which sadistic mind would have come up with this cruel way of torturing masses?" by coming up with a way of judging/differentiating through exams. When you cannot achieve some target, you start blaming the game is flawed. That was what my mental state was, and no regrets for such thought as it was torturing to the extent uncomparable to any form of pains which I have encountered.

Finally, I cleared off Shrinivasan.stu.

Lesson I learnt : There are many ways of doing things. Do it in a smarter way!

You see its easy guys ;-). ReLaXXXXXXX!