Aditya's Online Diary

Writing good email copy

2020-01-16T23:42:00.002+05:30

I'm amazed at how the folks at Amazon transformed a simple email template into a "Writing good email copy for dummies" so that it can be used by designers and budding copywriters as well.


Gary Provost makes Lorem Ipsum look good!

Just marvel at the image. The moral of the story? Don't write boring copy.

The conundrum of the digital marketer

2017-12-01T12:27:00.000+05:30

So, I was trawling my RSS feeds

Yes, I'm old

and guess what. I found that Matt "The Oatmeal" Inman had published something close to my heart - the conundrum faced by digital marketers when it comes to planning their onlince presence.

How do you approach it? Let's say you are a thought leader, or you are on the road towards that goal. You are present on social media, you have communities that you participate in, you have thought leadership on LinkedIn, or Facebook, or Pinterest or Instagram.

While the engagement you generate on each of these channels will be constant due to the captive audience there, do you really want to entrust the discovery of your content to the vagaries of corporate greed?

Puppy faces don't work as well. (source)

In my mind, the only solution is more engagement native to the channel you are active in. You will need a consistent branding across all channels to ensure that people find you organically with the keywords they are used to, and, most importantly, you also need to generate content within each channel that is customised to the respective platform, and not just share a replica of what you have done elsewhere. Of course, you will also share content across platforms, but you don't want to end up like the Oatmeal, do you?

What are your thoughts on this? Sound off in the comments.

How Outlook India ruined its brand reputation by not paying attention to social media security

2016-09-11T22:42:00.001+05:30

Sunday morning. Like any other FOMO person, the first thing I do after waking up is check for notifications on my phone. I usually expect to see stuff from Whatsapp (protip - mute all groups!!), some games I play, and the other social media networks. However, I didn't expect twitter to tell me about people liking and retweeting stuff that I was pretty sure that I had never tweeted!

LOLWUT

This, dear reader, was the result of extremely lax data security by Outlook, an Indian news magazine, that resulted in the tweets tagged as #SocialFsckup #ArmChairMorons which made these tags trend in India briefly.

#socialfsckup is now trending in India https://t.co/6KlseR1xJg
— Trendsmap India (@TrendsmapIndia) September 10, 2016

A little bit of "armchair sherlocking" points to the app OSM awards, published by Outlook India, that had read / write access to my twitter account, as the source of the offending tweets.

Well played, but I got you.

This was a social media engagement campaign initiated by outlook to make folks vote for their favourite social media personality in various categories, where I had voted for Arjun Mahajan as my favorite photographer. The campaign seems to be a success, as a lot of people ended up granting the OSM Awards app the read / write access to their respective twitter accounts, which eventually got hacked, resulting in the snafu above.

The moment I found out, I revoked access to this app immediately, and I'm certain that the issue has been resolved. (Fingers crossed).

Outlook is now the recipient of the ire of anyone and everyone who trusted them with their social media access.

Revoke access and report @outlook apps for posting unauthorized tweets frm your a/c. #SocialFsckup #ArmChairMorons pic.twitter.com/TctrClRBo8
— Prakash Sharma (@India_Policy) September 11, 2016

Lessons from the story? I have two of them for you, since its the end of the week, and I'm in a preachy mood.

The first lesson, is from the end user's perspective, which I will label "The law of the social media contest". This runs contrary to my marketer's instincts, and is very tiresome to implement, but if you are a paranoid type, I suggest you follow this.

Every time you participate in a contest that needs access to your social media accounts, revoke access immediately after your participation. This will prevent malicious posts from rogue applications.

Ideally, you won't need to do it at all, since social media management best practices should prevent this situation from ever occurring. (I'm referring to the rogue apps, not the contest)

The second lesson is for brands. I will call this "The law of common sense in enterprise social media security"

Use data access rules to control publishing access to trusted personnel
Do not allow native access to twitter, facebook, and other social accounts, and thus exposing your access credentials to everyone who may or may not be a permanent part of your social media team. Use something like HootSuite to control access and enforce publishing workflows. This will ensure nothing untoward happens, and your brand doesn't drown in a sea of negative sentiments overnight.

Dear Outlook India, get in touch with me and I will help you get your digital marketing / /social media back in shape.

Sync Pocket items to readability

2015-06-03T08:22:00.000+05:30

I have been a long time user of "read it later" apps, and I prefer Readability to Pocket. There have been some times when Pocket has been the application of choice for other developers, and I am forced to used pocket to queue the articles I need to read later. That being said, I *really* wanted to read it on my favourite readability app. Enter IFFT, that helps me sync all pocket items to readability, instantly!

IFFT user Devilx has created a nifty recipe that helps me add all queued items from pocket to readability. Just login to IFTTT and then add the recipe to your list of workflows!

Click here to get started.

Krav Maga and I

2014-03-15T13:33:00.001+05:30

Poser, but you get the idea. Pic by Joel

So, I have taken up Krav Maga as a means of ramping up on my fitness / endurance levels, and also as a means of knowing what to do when the proverbial stuff (heh) hits the fan.

In India, we can get Krav Maga training via the IKMF's Indian chapter which has branches across the country. In Hyderabad, we're trained by Ajit Varma, at 360 Fitness in Jubilee Hills.

In addition to the fitness benefits, I have also gained awesome friends who come from backgrounds radically different from what I'm used to. Think military (current and ex), rally navigators, aircraft mechanics, writers, data visualizers, data scientists, scientists specializing in electronics, entrepreneurs, in addition to the usual IT crowd I usually find in Hyderabad. I only wish I had met these guys earlier.

Most of these guys are fitness crazy and we also go for long bike rides before Krav Maga class.

I have clocked 6 months so far, and luckily, that made me eligible to get graded. This time, they had the camp + grading for 3 days, where we pushed out bodies to the limits. It was crazy.

Stick fighting. Seriously, do not pick a fight with us. Pic by Joel

To put it in perspective, 1 hour of training in camp felt like 3 hours when we train in the dojo! Started off with punches, then moved on to kicks, combos... it was street fighter all the way.

We didn't get to do this, though.

Our head instructor pushed us like no one had ever pushed us before, making us perform break falls, counters, and more counters. Kicks to the groin? Meh. I do have to admit, I didn't get kicked by him, just by the other practitioners, which made a lot of difference. :P

Tired? 20 more pushups. And by count 7, the count will be "forgotten", and will start from the beginning. Untimate trolling, I tell you.

Crunches? That's for wussies. We did stuff like this.

The guy on the left is doing it wrong, though. He's using his hands to support himself when he's getting up. He's also using his momentum of his raised legs to switch to a sitting position. We didn't. And we did this... 30-40 times at a stretch, I think. AFTER we were already halfway into a strenuous session. And we had kick punch combos after we got up. It's ok, the guy in the video might be a P level 0 :P

The last day of the camp was grading. And we went right back to student mode. Study the syllabus! WTH is "inside defense"? Type 1 defence? Huh? Turns out we knew everything anyway.

Level P1 was easy, P2 guys had to demonstrate a few more techniques, but, by Ares, the P3 students had to go to Hulk mode! 5 minutes of 3-on-1, after they had done 40 odd front and back rolls. Note to self, increase endurance, if you want to have a chance in hell of clearing P3.

Our instructors liked to play with us, and kept us hanging in suspense for a week, saying that we had all flunked. Turns out that we hadn't. This was the largest batch to ever get graded in India, and we had all passed!

Happy (relieved) students at Hyderabad Krav Maga. Pic via Krav Maga Hyderabad Facebook page

Here's to fitness!

Krav Maga and the journey to fitness

2014-03-15T12:40:00.002+05:30

Remember a post ages ago, where I said I really needed to step up on my fitness? Well, thank God I kept at it. In spite of a torn knee ligament + meniscus, suspected broken knee that I had no idea was broken in the first place, and a torn ankle ligament (what's with me and ligaments, anyway? Not that my doctor is complaining)

I initially went the traditional route, and enrolled at the gym next door. The folks there were awesome, and now I can confidently handle my way across any gym without a trainer to show me the ropes. Unfortunately, they shut shop within a year.

I then started with speed walking. The roads in Banjara Hills are awesome, with killer slopes that test your stamina. I averaged 8-9 minutes per kilometer, which is apparently good. Then, the rains started and that was that.

Last October, in one of my trips to Kolkata, I met my friend PK. He is an ex Asian Games medalist and generally very fit. He told me that he had started TRX and Krav Maga some time ago. Guess what happened next.

This happened.

KRAV MAGA! OMG!

Boys are generally violent creatures, and I was (am?) no exception. I grew up with He Man and GI Joe, Ninja Turtles and Jackie Chan. I was aware of this type of fighting, introduced in Israel, which was all practical and badass. I had no idea they even taught it to folks outside Israel! I signed up right away.

Cue montage.

Kick to the groin!! Thanks for the pic, Voidburger / DeviantART

6 months later, I'm at level P1! I can't believe it. I'll share my grading experience in my next post.

The coolest photo of the week, thanks to Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde!

2013-12-27T09:50:00.003+05:30

Cool factor... Taken.

I was trawling the interwebz to start off my day before I start work, and I came across this. Liam Neeson getting his shoelaces tied by Olivia Wilde. I'm a slip-on guy myself, but I couldn't help myself thinking up a caption - cliched as it might be. (Apologies to the movie, Taken)

I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you're looking for sandals, I can tell you I don't have them but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you help me now, that will be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will make you tie my shoelaces.

On that note, TGIF, for the last time in 2013!

Flickr vs. Google / Picasa vs. Facebook shared albums

2013-11-08T09:06:00.000+05:30

Tough choices.

Everybody and their camera wants to be a famous photographer. Hell, you don't even need a camera to post (~~brilliant~~) photos. If your smartphone has a good camera, you're all set.

The tough job begins after you have shot your masterpiece. Where do you post it? 500px, Flickr, Google+ / Picasa, Facebook Albums / Facebook Shared Albums, or the thousand and one other photo hosting sites out there?

In a nutshell -Wherever you think your audience is present.

This guy didn't keep that in mind. thus, his boss got a "boss sucks" pic.

For example:

If you want:

An unbiased community that provides you feedback about your photos
Want wider exposure than just your "friends"

Try :

If you want:

To share your photos privately with groups of people

Try :

Yeah.

They don't like each other. Much.

(I am assuming you'll have your privacy settings set up. Google and Facebook also allow public photo postings)

To Conclude:

If you're good enough, it doesn't matter where you host your photos. People will come to you.

What if... Alien Vs. Predator Vs. Polar Bear??

2013-08-12T19:13:00.001+05:30

I came across this AWESOME song from Eliza Marriott, who sings about a scenario that puts a polar bear fighting... a predator.

Like this, but with a polar bear. This one is from another awesome post - Die Hard vs Predator

In her own words -

This is a song about Polar Bears fighting Predators fighting Aliens fighting tigers. There is also a snowman.

Enough preamble. Here's the video.

In case you want the lyrics -

So I was looking up facts about polar bears
Trying to get some inspiration into my head
Then I discovered something quite fascinating
Polar Bears are invisible in infra-red

So naturally my first thought was
Wouldn't it be awesome if
A polar bear, one of the two largest bears on earth
Were to fight... ... a Predator

You know, like in that film with Arnold Schwartznegger
An alien warrior who only sees in heat detection
There's no doubt, the bear would have a distinct advantage
Especially if his opponent only had melee weapons

Oh wouldn't it be epic
Arnie could be the judge
A Yautja with plasma cannons
And a polar bear with a grudge

And then, depending on who won unless it was a draw
We could finish up with a tiger or a Xenomorph
But imagine if a facehugger got on a polar bear
I think a live audience would be a bad idea

Alien vs. Predator
Versus polar bear
And maybe additionally a tiger
Now who would like to place bets?

And if we're going
For a climactic, intergalactic battle
Whilst snowing
Let's get those creepy, Close Encounters freaks
To save the day
By annoying ev'ryone to death with their song
Then flying away
Alien incursion contained.....

Alien vs. Predator
Versus polar bear
Forget AVP number 3
This is clearly the best movie yet

Origin story of "Horn OK Please" in India

2013-08-08T18:06:00.000+05:30

Somewhere, a GrammarNazi got an ulcer. via Desicreative

If you're in India, you will see this behind most of the goods carriers that ply the roads. I confess that I had accepted this phrase blindly, and never thought about it's raison d'être. Well, Quora to the rescue!

Quora member Muneer Noorani has finally solved the age old question: Why was this message painted behind almost every commercial vehicle in India? Here is his answer:

The OK was used as a safety measure on the highways.

Most highways in India were single lane. Which meant there was always a risk of running into an incoming vehicle while attempting an overtaking maneuver.

The "OK" was accompanied with a bulb over it, which the driver of the truck would switch on to signal the vehicle behind it that there is no oncoming traffic and hence it was okay to overtake. This arrangement was placed in the center.

One other thing that was written was a courteous 'Horn, please' , with the placement such that the 'Horn' was on the left side and the 'please' (continuation of the same message) on the right.

Gradually the practice of using the bulb to signal other drivers faded away (probably because of the non maintenance of the bulb and also the emergence of multi lane highways), and the OK remained, sandwiched in between the horn and please.

Source: Old truck drivers who frequent our godown.

Thanks, Muneer!

I got the Liebster Award!

2013-07-31T18:49:00.003+05:30

Awarded to me by Meghna for being a lazy bum, I think

This is the heights of unexpectedness. I wake up one morning and BAM I have an award sitting in my inbox, courtesy Meghna! I wasn't even trying, for cryin' out loud.

What he said.

The Liebster award traces its origins to some German blogger (the name of the award sounds German, nein?)

Ja, absolutely. I guess.

Ok. Stop horsing around, and stick to the process of what one does when one gets a Liebster award.

These are the rules of the Liebster Award:

When you receive the award, you post 11 random facts about yourself and answer 11 questions from the person who nominated you.
Pass the award onto 11 other blogs (make sure you tell them you nominated them!) and ask them 11 questions.
You are not allowed to nominate the blog who nominated you!
Make sure the blogs you choose have 200 or less followers.

11 random facts about me

I cannot tie a tie!
My Bengali sucks, apparently.
This is the most number of blog posts I have written in a year since 2011.
I love reading comics.
I won't ever buy an iPhone. (I'll happily buy an iPod)
I first used a HTC phone in 2006.
I was a demon on a bicycle when I was a kid.
I love walking.
I wear my wrist watch on the right hand.
I can sleep on demand.
I cant think of 11 random facts about myself. Gawd.

Answers to the 11 questions I have been asked

Describe yourself in one sentence.

That's easy - I'm dependable (allegedly), stubborn (totally), overworked (seriously) and hungry (most of the time)

Your favourite colour.

Blue :)

What is your biggest phobia?

Killing cockroaches. I just can't.

Which season are you?

Winter. (Like the Whitewalkers from the Song of Ice and Fire?)

What is your favourite song? The one which you could always go back to and makes you feel good?

Any ABBA song. Yes, I'm old.

One embarrassing thing you did as a kid/teenager?

Fell into a pile of bullshit. :P

Where would you rather be...if not here?

Holidaying somewhere :D

Tell us your most unusual, unique travel story?

I got plenty. See story about Airports and Me.

What is your best gift you ever received?

Rimi gifted me once :) It was her first gift to me. I really liked that one.

Finish this sentence – “If I could pack my bags and go, I would travel to……….”

Ladakh. Please. I really want to go there.

And what is your favorite word? (In English)..it has to be one word...

Food? Sleep? :D It's difficult to choose!

11 questions for my nominees -

Favorite Place. One word why.
Favorite type of cuisine.
Favorite Quote.
Favorite piece of artwork.
Favorite piece of bad advice given to you.
Favorite Movie.
Favorite band. Yes, there is a correct answer. No, One Direction is unacceptable.
Favorite way to waste time.
Favorite embarrassing guilty pleasure.
A place you have travelled to and you now wish you lived.
If you could chose your nationality what would it be. You can’t say the current nationality you are.

So who are my nominees? In no particular order, they are

Ankit - The zany quack poet. Well, not a quack any longer :P
Pranav - My zany ex boss. (Is that a safe thing to say in public, about your boss?)
Aditto - My namesake on Twitter
Vivek - A cool marketing guy and a good friend of mine
Anita - She. Is. Brilliant.

Release the... blog posts

And we're back! Here's a dynamic look for my Blog :)

2013-07-30T23:07:00.001+05:30

Took me all of 30 minutes to decide the new look and feel.

I live again! via Pulling-toe's DeviantArt page

I wanted something which would look good on mobile, and would have a nice look on a desktop browser as well. Ergo, this look :)

The extra goodies that my blog had in its earlier avatar are now available by hovering the mouse on the right hand side of the screen. The only bad part is that it won't show any of my flash based widgets - otherwise, everything is in place.

Do let me know how you like the new layout!

Tinkering with a Blogger.com blog

2013-07-30T09:52:00.002+05:30

So it turns out that I am unable to reply to comments. I need to figure out what's happening. I'll also take a look at the blog design and see if I can improve it somehow. I'm getting tired of this template.

Step 1. Export blog to my hard disk - for backup.
Step 2. Import it to another blog - to tinker around with. Make sure that it's not visible to the general public.
Step 3. Start tinkering process. Play with template, layout, other settings. (Should I put ads?)
Step 4. Once you're sure that everything works, simply copy the new template and settings back to your existing blog.

I'm on Step 3 right now. If by some chance you care enough to give me advice about how my blog should behave, now is the time. :)

Edit: You'll need to tweet to me using this link. as the commenting system may not work.

I hope I don't review Pacific Rim like this...

2013-07-16T16:19:00.000+05:30

I plan to watch Pacific Rim this week.

This will not result in world domination, though

I have only one thought regarding this. I sincerely hope that I don't end up feeling like this guy did.


The Oatmeal's kaiju reacts to Pacific Rim. (not really)

Fingers crossed.

Spring Cleaning

2013-07-07T16:18:00.001+05:30

I have removed a heck of a lot of stuff from this blog.

Life goes on, is what I'm saying.

Over the years, I have added a lot of little snippets to this blog that shared additional meta-information about me, like the places I've been, the articles I like to read, and so on and so forth. A lot of the third party services that these snippets relied on, are no more.

What has changed?

Google Reader's Shared Items was a gem of a tool that allowed me to publicly share interesting stuff that I found, in an easy to read format. Google famously killed their Reader product recently, so off went the "Shared item" snippet. There are alternates available, but I'm really not interested in adding them to this blog.

Plazes.com was the big daddy before Google Latitude and Foursquare came along, and it was awesome. They got taken over by Nokia, and their current avatar is the social layer in Nokia's HERE maps. Again, I'm not too interested in broadcasting my location to the world at large, so off this goes as well.

Lifestream.fm was a feed aggregator, which functioned like what Facebook's timeline is now. It died a sad, lonely death, due to lack of adoption. Again, I have grown a bit more aware of what I should and should not share, so off it goes.

Wakoopa was a software / application discovery network. It also had analytics on what software I ran on the different computers that I used. They removed this functionality and went B2B. Deleted this one as well.

Did I add anything? Yes I did!

Added some follow love

Showing off some of the books I read

Well, now that this is done, I really need to start writing again. Fingers crossed..:)

The Best of Quora in ePub, Mobi and other mobile formats

2013-01-22T07:39:00.001+05:30

Recently, while wasting time on Quora, I came across the fabulous ebook "The Best of Quora" that has been compiled some of the best questions (and their answers) in a nice readable format.

Nice readable format? Yes. Convenient? I don't think so.

Imagine this. A 400+ pages ebook, and you're deeply engrossed, on page number to-busy-to-recall. Suddenly, you close the PDF reader app. Can you resume where you left off? No. Think what will you do when this happens in a mobile phone.

Don't throw the phone away in frustration, please

You don't need PDF, you need file file types that are mobile friendly. ebook reader friendly, that will support resumes after you come back to reading it.

Download Best of Quora ebook, ePub, Mobi and HTML versions here - http://sdrv.ms/V1Zxsi

New year resolutions! (again)

2013-01-08T13:35:00.000+05:30

ZOMG, its another year, and again, you see people making, and trying not to break, their resolutions.

Unlike a certain someone who broke it at the first chance.

So, I have figured out what my resolutions are, and I thought I should note them here, so that I can come back later to see if I have kept them or not.

So, here goes nothing.

Read more books.
Yeah, I do read books. I read comics, novels and what have you. But lately, these have tended to take the form of ebooks and digital comics. I have decided that real books (the paper kind) should increase their share of the pie. To this end, we got ourselves signed up to Just Books with an Avid+ membership. These guys will let us read 4 books and 2 magazines of our choice at a time. There's no time limit on keeping the books, unless it's a book in demand, in which case they'll call up and ask us nicely to finish the book fast, bro. They even have free home delivery! (Conditions apply.)

I have set myself a target of 12 books this year. Let's see how many books I end up reading. You can also track me on Goodreads and keep checking what I'm up to.

Hit the gym.
So I'm already the mayor (in Foursquare, duh) of the gym I frequent. What can be the problem here? Consistency, that's what. I have peer pressure (my friend Ramu keeps asking me if I go to the gym), I have emotional blackmail (Rimi) and last but not the least, I actually enjoy working out. The only problem is I'm like this guy -

I'd rather eat, is what I'm saying.

It gets difficult to wake up and hit the gym. But, I'm trying, I have setup a Gymwolf account to track what I do, and Endomondo to get some social cheerleading from my friends who follow me there. I'll try to work out 4 days a week at least. Should be easy to maintain.

Blog a bit more.
Dude. Seriously. I have been scolded by Meghna and I have seen my sis Nitu occasionally post stuff to her blog too, taking time out of her crazy schedule. And look at me. No posts for.. ever, it seems to me. So, this year, prepare to be.. not spammed, but you will get to read more posts from yours truly.

I promise :P

Until the next post.... See you around!

How to make Curd in 90 minutes (using a microwave oven)

2011-07-23T16:07:00.001+05:30

Disclaimer. I am a cooking noob. I am not even at level 0 when it comes to cooking.


I'm totally a black belt ninja dragon warrior when it comes to eating though

Anyway, getting back to the topic - Rimi told me about this one.

Cook something in the microwave for a long time (so that it gets hot). For example, bake some chicken.
While the baking is in progress, make sure you have the raw material of curd ready (warm milk mixed with a bit of curd in a ceramic bowl)
Take out what you were baking and put it some where like your mouth and enjoy the taste.... I'm not responsible for burns ;)
Put the bowl mentioned in point # 2 into the microwave. Shut the door and turn it off.
Go watch a movie. May I suggest Kung Fu Panda 1 & 2? They're brilliant.
Come back after 90 mins / when the movie is over (whichever is earlier). If the movie is not over, wait for a few minutes more, pause the movie if its not over (seriously, do you watch documentaries or movies?) and take out the bowl from the microwave.
Curd is ready to eat! Put it in the fridge to cool it down and serve chilled :)

Voila! I am not responsible for explosions, alien abductions or pandas assaulting you.

Headaches vs Electral

2011-07-19T18:12:00.001+05:30

Its one of those rare days when I finish work early and Rimi is still stuck at office. She told me to leave for home while she'd take the 8pm bus. I'd be home alone for 3 hours. Enough time for me to complete a mission or two in World In Conflict - Soviet Assault.


If you haven't played this RTS yet, you're missing something.

I'm making my way back home, through the inevitable traffic jams, and I reach home within reasonable time. There's a slight headache, but no big deal, I think. Except, I was wrong. Oh, so wrong. The headache struck me like a ton of something heavy. I couldn't think, couldn't play. Worst of all, I had told Rimi to get me something to eat (apart from the awesome things she cooks) from her cafeteria. I simply couldn't have that. I couldn't even go to the balcony to clear my head.

When Rimi got back, the first thing she asked me: "Did you drink water?".

Eh. What has water got to do with it?


A lot, actually.

Good thing that I'm not a doctor.

The first thing she gave me was a cup of that magical salt, Electral. Have you ever seen that ad where the person drinks glucose and seems to get bigger and stronger? I felt the exact same way, within seconds of drinking it. It felt so good, that I had another cup. Headache gone.


This shit's magic.

Guys, I tell you. If you have headache, eliminate the dehydration factor by drinking electral. It totally helps.

Gadgets and me, an ongoing experiment.

2011-06-21T19:52:00.001+05:30

I always thought I liked blue. I still do like blue. Except if they are hyperlink colours. None of my gadgets ever had the colour blue, though.

Except one.

I love gadgets that allow me to keep in touch with people, and look good while doing it. I started off by.. errm.. "borrowing" (permanently) my dad's awesome Nokia 8210. It was ultra sleek, fit inside my palm and had a yellow backlight! In my defense, the other models of that age had boring green backlights. The larger screen didn't hurt, as well.

It was RED and it was AWESOME.

Now that the टशन and novelty bug was satisfied, I needed to move on to bigger and better things. When one starts working, one pays attention to daily agendas. Enter my first windows mobile phone, the HTC TyTN. This reflected my priorities at the time, i.e. a better user experience, integration with my personal and office calendar and better "James Bond"-fication.

It's got Windows Mobile 5 and can cause serious head injuries if I bash it on your head.

Boy, was the TyTN big. I then came across the HTC Diamond, a sweet and sexy phone that did everything the TyTN did, and looked good at the same time! I was hooked. I was in touchscreen heaven for a year, before the phone conked off. I will miss that phone.

Just look at it. Beautiful. All glowy and cool.

My fascination with touchscreens died with my HTC Diamond. I just wanted something that worked, synced perfectly to my online social presence, and whose didn't die in an hour if I switched on GPS and GPRS. Both my HTC phones are guilty of pathetic battery life. Enter my Nokia E71, the old warhorse. I had got it for my Dad for once (instead of the other way round) and then got it back since my dad started using a Blackberry.

This phone rocks.

As I have got older and wiser, I have gone from flashy to functional for my mobile phones, but still cannot resist a little flash. That's why my laptop is a kickass red Dell XPS, which was top of the line when I got it, and still gets envious glances when I take it out of my bag.

Yes, it plays Crysis. (Haven't tried Crysis 2 though)

Notice that this one is red again, just like my first phone. I keep wondering whether I should change my favourite colour from blue to red, officially. :P

Now you have got to the end of this post, do vote this blog post up from the depths of obscurity into instant fame... Click the pic below to vote on Indiblogger

I'll give you cake if you vote.

This post is part of a competition by Indiblogger and Dell. I was supposed to write about how my gadgets reflect my personality. If you liked this post, do share it and comment!

How to get rid of AVG search

2011-06-02T08:04:00.001+05:30

After updating my AVG, I suddenly found that the default Google search had gone away, replaced by the VERY irritating AVG search, powered by Google. Disabling search add-ons, browser extensions didn't seem to work. AVG forums didn't tell me how to remove it.

my life was ruined, melodramatically speaking.

Then, I found out about Firefox's about:config. And the solution presented itself.

Type about:config into the location bar and press enter
Accept the warning message that appears, you will be taken to a list of preferences
Locate the preference keyword.URL, double-click on it and change its value to the link shown below

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=

Tell me you're not grinning, now you know what to do :D

The legal stuff: If you don't follow the instructions above TO THE LETTER, I won't be held responsible for anything that happens. (for e.g. you winning the lottery)

I am one LAZY blogger!

2011-03-11T11:59:00.005+05:30

OMG! I just remembered I have not updated this since petrol was cheaper than a bottle of Grange!... You would not believe that I'd been abducted by aliens. I prostrate myself in sorrow and beg thy forgiveness..

(wink)

I am so busy with my tan, learning to fart the theme to neighbours, just generally being asleep, dreaming and chancing to anyone unfortunate to cross my path, my day is filled with fluorescent light from the second I am woken by murderous Teletubbies to I run out of alcohol. I am not being a whinging Pom or anything. life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get.

I will try to remember I promised you I will update you with my nefarious activities as soon as I get a chance. Well, I'll try. Assuming I don't get distracted by counting my chest hairs..

The fine print:
I haven't been blogging for a while, and as my good friend Meghna pointed out, I really needed to do something about it. Finally in desperation, she showed me this link that can blog for me. You see the results :D

I agreed to post this ONLY if she used the same link to generate something equally funny... so go to her blog and let her know that you're waiting for her post!

STOP THE PRESS! She did post it :D Now go to her post and comment! :)

I'm back! (Again) (I Hope)

2011-02-11T19:00:00.000+05:30

How long has it been since I last posted? A heckofalot of things have happened in the meantime. I got married, (as the last few mugshots would have undoubtedly told you so already), I fell down and injured my knee (which the mugshots don't show... how stupid of me), I sold my bike (for a good price too, if I may say so myself, but i do miss it ) and I got a Nissan Micra (best small hatchback evar)!

So this is the 20-20 version of my status update. I want to write but I never seem to have the time. Today I found Meghna write about her MBA times, and that spurred me to write something as well. I hope I write a post a week. I have some ideas stashed up in my head, so let's see what my time has to say about it. :D

The Bro Code

2010-06-22T07:22:00.000+05:30

Kaustubh, my bro posted a series of photos on facebook, which I <3 so much, that I simply had to put here. Left to Right - Kaustubh, Rishi, Ankit, Moi. This was taken within the last few months.

The evolution of telephone usage

2010-06-19T15:33:00.003+05:30

My HTC Diamond, well, actually it was Dad's, before I borrowed it permanently, was just over a year old when it conked off. I think these phone manufacturers arrange for such things to happen, and milk their customers on after sales support.

The loss of a gadget you come to take for granted, has given me superhuman powers... of contemplation. Sheesh. Some superhuman power. Anyway, this blog post is the result of that. Power, I mean.

Why didn't I get... The batmobile or something

Someone's uncle once said that with great responsibility comes great power, or something like that. I sure am a responsible guy, and as I said, I have attained this power of... contemplation (dammit.. I really wanted something else), so we see that the uncle was not taking through his hat. So, what do we do with this superpower? I will turn this awesome power towards the history and evolution of my phone usage. It's pretty interesting, in a way, to see how my needs and wants keep increasing to match the telephone's functionality.

The first time I saw a telephone, it looked like a tank, compared to the wussy things we have these days. It was a rotary phone, and had a nice curly wire which I could play with. (I was a baby back then). I spent most of my time playing with the dial and pretending to call people, and accidentally calling them once in a while.

As the years went by, telephones evolved - the dial was replaced by a push button keypad. I evolved from a baby to a schoolkid - and my usage correspondingly involved to communicating about homework, movies, coaching classes, parties, etc. Still quite basic.

The mobile boom came to India in the early 90s. We used to pay for incoming calls in those days. Crazy. The only utility of a mobile phone was to give missed calls - I hear we Indians invented that concept - to transmit information.

Or take hilarious pics of sleeping classmates. This is Deepti, by the way :P

I really liked that phone, my Nokia 8210 was small, sturdy and awesome. It lasted a week without charge, had a really loud ringtone, and thought it was Wolverine in disguise. It could work when it was broken and had rubber bands to stick it together!

It was smaller than my palm and could easily get lost too

Anyway, I stayed in this mode, till one day, Pranav, my boss, suggested "Adi my boy, get a touch phone."
And this catapulted me to the next stage in the evolution of phone usage... Combining office usage with the regular phones.

The HTC TyTN I took had 3G features which I couldn't use at that time, but I was able to sync my office and google calendar to it. This gave me the power to add friends birthday reminders, which I was really bad at remembering.

Missed out on the break-egg-on-the-bday-boy's-head ritual again. gaaaaah

I could also sync my travel information to my google calendar and get reminders. I still missed flights, though. But, while pondering the futility of syncing calendars and still missing flights, I could read ebooks on the phone - I devoured a lot of ebooks.

Then, came the Diamond. Aaah, the Diamond. It was greased lightning compared to the TyTN, and the interface was simply amazing.

And it could tell me that it was hot outside. It could also clean my clothes.

When I came to Hyderabad, I didn't know most of the roads, except the few main roads, and this phone's GPS saved my sorry backside quite a few times. I don't know why, but this phone died within a year.. and I'm back to the TyTN.

Going back to a phone with limited functionality after you have seen the potential of what "can be" is really quite frustrating. I will get a phone soon... Which one should I go for?

~ flexiPoll: free online web poll ~

Aditya's Online Diary

Writing good email copy

The conundrum of the digital marketer

How Outlook India ruined its brand reputation by not paying attention to social media security

Sync Pocket items to readability

Krav Maga and I

Krav Maga and the journey to fitness

The coolest photo of the week, thanks to Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde!

Flickr vs. Google / Picasa vs. Facebook shared albums

In a nutshell -Wherever you think your audience is present.

If you want:

Try :

If you want:

Try :

To Conclude:

What if... Alien Vs. Predator Vs. Polar Bear??

Origin story of "Horn OK Please" in India

I got the Liebster Award!

These are the rules of the Liebster Award:

11 random facts about me

Answers to the 11 questions I have been asked

11 questions for my nominees -

And we're back! Here's a dynamic look for my Blog :)

Tinkering with a Blogger.com blog

I hope I don't review Pacific Rim like this...

Spring Cleaning

The Best of Quora in ePub, Mobi and other mobile formats

New year resolutions! (again)

How to make Curd in 90 minutes (using a microwave oven)

Headaches vs Electral

Gadgets and me, an ongoing experiment.

How to get rid of AVG search

I am one *LAZY* blogger!

I'm back! (Again) (I Hope)

The Bro Code

The evolution of telephone usage

I am one LAZY blogger!