Pro-bloggers generally don’t have an issue writing about or finding new content for their blogs. How about starters? Do you have trouble finding new content/topics to write about, unless down with writers block? Here’s a tip that works most of the time. Try out Google Reader Play!

All you need to do is select the categories of interest, and start exploring a new world of interesting content – and it’s fresh too! Well, the unique feature is that you’re not presented with a conventional layout with a list of news items. But this – see screenshot below…

You can star, share and like an item, and jump from one news to the other with the help of interesting thumbnails at the bottom of the page. I’ve been getting new news items that are not just fresh, but unique in most ways.

So, grab the juice, add your flavor. Happy blogging!

Another aggregation tool (magazine-like syndicated news) that works with Google Reader as the back-end is Feedly! You might wanna try it.

Please share if you liked this post..

So what will be the total user count on Twitter today? 102 million? 105 million? I know not. But Twitter has given the flexibility to its users to broadcast anything they do, and wanted to do – via their mobile phone, PDA, desktop and notebook.

I’m going shopping.. #yippee

I’m gonna take a shower in 2 mins..

LOL, I lost my pink lipstick..

Welcome @x, @y, @z, @a, @b… thanks for following me..

I just burrped after gulping down a pitcher of beer..burrp!..

The girl on the left corner table likes me..she’s still ogling at me.. (dude, I think you’re losing an opportunity. Just go tweet, sorry, talk to her..)

My left ankle is itching, ‘think some bug has buried its teeth under my skin..

Oh my, I just can’t believe he did this to me.. (he, who, what?)

Hi tweeps!

Morning tweeple!

I’m gonna sleep.. (OK, that’s an open ended tweet..)

sbo.. (where you expecting some expansion of some kind for this tweet?)

TGIF!!

I know what you’re talking about..

Yeah right!

Wassup?

I wasn’t wearing glasses before I joined twitter.. hmm, now I am… bloody interesting

I love my new cell phone.. (well, what’s the make and the model?)

Well, ‘m not offending any tweeters or the Twitter community. I’m a twitter user, and I’ve tweeted a couple of the aforementioned tweets too, when I was new to Twitter. Having said that, there’s tons and tons of useful pointers to various tips and tricks, articles, flash news, gadgets, how to articles, and so on – on anything and everything on the planet. Twitter may present us with a lot of other opportunities too. Now with the possibility to create groups (a.k.a. lists!), one can tweet about the traffic conditions at a particular locality, a nice music concert that’s gonna take place, sports meet, spotting an eminent personality at the grocery store, discovering a new restaurant/pub, etc.

Sometimes, people that can’t acknowledge a simple HI! plus a smile (the real gesture that’s limited only to humans!), tweet a lot. They prefer talking to computers than with real humans. Weird, but true!

Some people protect their tweets. Some one please throw some light on why people do this. I’m not getting the big idea.. may be there’s a lot of intellectual property being tweeted?!? Well, No. It’s a just a closed group tweeter.

Oh well, some people can post 200 tweets a day! That is about 8 tweets an hour, if they are tweeting all 24 hours. If they sleep for 8 hours (obviously, no tweets during this period) they would be doing about 12 tweets an hour. Phew! They eat, sleep and breathe Twitter! Will they ever get bored?

Hmm… looks like more and more people are playing an ‘unreal tournament‘ that is lacking real-human connections!

Technology enables a lot of things..we ultimately take an overdose of it and disable ourselves. What do you think?

This is the beauty of WordPress, which is missing in most other blogging platforms – you keep stumbling upon new plugins or themes for your blog, almost everyday. I don’t need to explain the need for a social bookmarking plugin, given the craze for Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz, and so on. Having said that, there are quite a few plugins that carry out the task efficiently – but without much style or presence.

Following are three good-looking and functional social bookmarking plugins that you may wanna try on your blog:

1. Drag to Share eXtended

As the name suggests, you have to do a drag gesture on an image in the blog post, and you can drop it into one of the three social networking websites – Twitter, Facebook and Delicious. Useful if your posts flaunt a couple of good quality images.

Requires WordPress Version: 2.8 or higher

Download | Demo and info

2. GetSocial

Most bloggers drool at Mashable’s cool floating social bookmarking panel. You can have it too, without compromising on the load times. Here’s the best part – if the screen resolution is a dismal 800×600, the panel is hidden and you see only the vertical SHARE area. Mouse over, and you get to see the panel. Pretty neat!

Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher

Download | Demo | more info

3. SexyBookmarks

Don’t get carried away by the name, it’s just another name for a bookmarking plugin. It’s quite unique ‘coz it does not have the drop down alignment. The little icons pop up, and it’s rather cute than sexy. This should get more of your readers share content from your blog.

Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher

Download | Demo

Tip me (use comment section) of any other good-looking and functional WordPress plugin. I’ll update this post with a do-follow link to your blog!

Please share if you liked this post..

Google Reader has done some extra coding to enable us see more content on the screen. This is a nice little move from Google that has uncluttered the classic layout with too many information to digest.

All you have to do is press ‘f’ for full-screen mode. You get to see a collapsible navigation bar on top that expands on mouse-over. You can bring up/hide the navigation sidebar panel by using ‘shift + u’. I’ve always been a fan of viewing as list (top right corner), and this full-screen mode just makes it even better to glimpse and explore.

Try it out!

Please share if you liked the post..

The WordPress theme that decorates your blog can be swanky, chic, with slider pages, and flow-in thumbnail images linking to the posts. But, nothing beats the simplicity of a no-frills, straight forward layout; the one that is easy to navigate and fast to load, for the ever-impatient visitor. I’ve got just the right one for you – Outline WordPress theme.

Well, this is actually a child theme built on the Hybrid framework – meaning, you must first install (but not activate) the Hybrid parent theme.

Key features I like:

• Typography – I just fell in love with it!
• Elegant primary and secondary menus – you must have WordPress 3.0+ to exploit this feature
• Customizable background – brand it as you like it
• No-frills fast loading theme – keeping it under 4 or 5 secs
  
• Built-in SEO – though not straight forward, you can play around a little, or use the All in One SEO Pack

Demo | Download | more info

Enjoy the theme!

Please share if you liked this post..

It’s purely based on preference, but at the end of the day one tries to see some sense in following someone on Twitter. It’s not a perfect world, nor am I gonna propose that the ones you follow must satisfy certain criteria. Frankly, who’s gonna care if you follow or unfollow someone?

However, ‘m just listing the top ten tweeter-types that you must avoid following on Twitter.

1. People promoting pyramid and multi-level marketing techniques or offers

I immediately decide not to follow these type of tweeters. They are annoying to the core. I’ve already written about my experience about multi-level marketing some time ago, and I just hate that very term.

2. Fake affiliate marketers

At first glance, it would look like a good affiliate marketing tool. But once you click on their homepage, you’ll be greeted by messages written on huge bold font-types asking you to buy an e-book on how to make more money via affiliate marketing for $99.

3. Fake SEO experts

As soon as you choose to follow someone who claims to be an SEO expert, you get a direct message (DM) from him/her that super cool SEO techniques are available at their website. Well, you click on them only to see messages and articles that are surrounded by Google ads! Most of these articles will be overflowing with Google, Facebook or Twitter as the key terms. This is not the way you do SEO. You’d end up looking like a fool for following them.

4. The secret un-follower

Lately, I’ve been coming across this seemingly ridiculous thing. Someone follows you, and you follow them back. After a couple of weeks if you do a check, that someone would’ve unfollowed you, and you’ll still be following them. Sometimes, these unfollowers are credible people and they would have pretty good websites – very genuine. Well, if they have chosen to unfollow you ‘coz they didn’t find you or your tweets interesting/useful enough, that’s a totally different issue. But, they chose to follow you first..

5. More Twitter followers for free

I don’t follow them. I visit their Twitter page and see the kind of messages they post. And, if I find a few tweets saying get more twitter followers, I back off. However, at times they are genuine people who had fell victim to these spammers that tweet incessantly via their Twitter ids. So just check their tweets before you choose to unfollow them.

6. Tweet-bursters

Ah, you know what! They tweet continuously asking you to visit some link. I’ve seen 10 or even 14 continuous tweets from these tweet-bursters, completely masking my timeline with their tweets. Phew! You end up missing the other interesting ones.

7. Too many & too little

It’s simple. Some have 10 followers and they follow 5000 people? Some kinda’ bot!?

8. Politicians

OK. I’ve decided not to follow Indian politicians. They are unwanted dirt, no matter how highly educated they are. Just leave Twitter at peace.

9. No-follow

This is the difficult part. You choose to follow someone, and they don’t follow you back even after a considerable time of 3 weeks? Do you need such people in your timeline, unless otherwise they are scientists or revolutionaries or celebrities? One might argue that it’s a free world. True. And that’s why you can choose to unfollow them.

10. No response

What if someone doesn’t respond to your @replies, and DMs, yet they are still active minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour? One must speak when spoken to. Would you still be following them?

So, how could you keep track of these things? I use FriendorFollow or JustUnfollow. It’s easy, but a manual task, depending on how many you’ve got to analyze and follow or unfollow them. There might be automated scripts available from some developers, but at a cost. I prefer to keep my Twitter community free from weeds by myself.

Let me know your thoughts on this topic. Do you really care if someone follows or unfollows? How do you react to tweet-bursters, and fake SEO experts, and the like? More importantly, what tool(s) do you use to weed?

Happy Twitter weeding!

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I was having ambiguous views on Twitter and SEO; and how Twitter links and profiles affect a blog that it’s connected to. There are quite a few pointers on Twitter, explained by Matt Cutts – the guru of SEO. He answers the following interesting questions:

1. Links from relevant and important sites have always been a great way to get traffic and acceptance for a website. How do you rate links from new platforms like Twitter, FB to a website?

2. I’m seeing Google PR for some Twitter profiles, even a PR of 4 for someone with less than 50 followers and 100 tweets, whereas for some more meaningful profiles there is no PR. Does PR of Twitter profile pages matter?

Well, now that you’ve seen this video, do you wanna check your Twitter page rank? You can use PR Checker for your Twitter profile page, and for your blog.

3. Any reason why Google search does not treat the @ Symbol differently given the rise of Twitter? For example @mattcutts and mattcutts give me the same results

You may also wanna check out these two videos to improve your blog’s SEO and ranking. I can see the ranking of my blog increase to a good level after implementing some of the changes suggested by Matt Cutts in the videos. Try it!

Please share if you liked this post…

Do you have a photoblog or a basic portfolio website powered by WordPress? Are you looking for a refreshing theme that would make your website look even better – much more appealing? Then you must try Shaken Grid.

The attractive feature that powers Shaken Grid is jQuery Masonry. All components fly into place with style – quite swanky, I’d say.

Demo | Download

Let me not stop with the demo projecting a limited scope – take a look at a live site running this theme.

I’m getting new ideas looking at this theme. I may wanna restart my old photo-blog with this theme.

Have you created lists on your Twitter account? Well, how do you keep tab of the key tweets from the tweeters in your list?

There are two ways to do this:

1. Keep your eyes glued to the Twitter/Twitter-client page, and keep refreshing
2. Try Paper.li

Paper.li helps you create really good-looking newspaper like page that could be built with your Twitter username, #tags and friend-lists. I discovered this today – thanks to Dhruva!

Pointer: The Web application, Paper.li, is from a budding Web 2.0 company called SmallRivers, based out of Switzerland.

Cool features of Paper.li:

1. Create twitter-newspaper with your @username, #tag or twitter-list (@user/list)
2. Newspaper will be created in 24-hour cycles, with the above defined variables
3. News items are cleverly categorized – though, still in alpha stage, this will only get better!
4. Reply, retweet, follow, unfollow and favorite options available right within the news item for the respective tweeter

Sample daily generated with username – @ubiquitense

Sample daily generated with twitter-list – @ubiquitense/local-tweepals

I see a couple of Google ads here and there. Not sure if they are thinking of creating premium account feature that will strip the newspaper of these ads. Just my thoughts!

Give it a try. Hope you enjoy your daily Twitter Newspaper!

Please share if you liked this post..

Conventionally, bloggers and blog themes have adopted the left side for content and the right side for widgets, snippets, badges and navigation. Well, I stumbled upon two unique themes that were a little outside the blogging conventions, yet aesthetic in design and functionality – suitable for casual blogging.

BlueBubble

Key features I like:

1. Sport your own logo without wasting time figuring the PHP code
2. Automatic image resizing – WordPress Post Image Thumbnail option
3. Cool jQuery image fade-in
4. Separate/customizable widget ready sidebars (2 Nos.)
5. Social media icons – integrated

Demo | Download | Install guide

TheSevenFive

Key features I like:

1. Logo customization made easy – both image and text
2. Full control over content style, fonts, background colors, etc
3. Tight integration with social media – Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, etc
4. Google analytics included
5. Control your branding – footer customizations possible
6. Cool widgets to further beautify the theme

Demo | Download | Video Tour

Hope you like ‘em.

Please share if you liked this post

Year 2018

Newspapers around the world scream:

Twitterculosis – a disease with no medicine

NEW YORK — Twitterculosis or TW (short for twitterus wackus) is a common and often deadly infectious socio-breed disease caused by various strains of tweets, usually @reply twitterculosis in humans. Twitterculosis usually attacks the brains  but can also affect other parts of the body – like eyes, fingers, spine, wallet etc. It is spread through the air and via cables, when people who have the disease tweet, hashtag, or RT.

Finding a medicine is even more challenging than the AIDS. Health ministries around the world block Twitter from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The capitalists (oh no, not the United States) help hackers make new business by breaking the 9-5 barrier at $100 per handle (or 3 for $250). Those with more than one handle are punished severely – disabling their Twitter account every hour for 5 minutes or remotely disabling the F5 button.

Indian finance minister imposes 40% income tax on people with Twitter accounts. An ex-finance minister proposes the idea of linking Twitter accounts with PAN numbers – the bill is passed in the parliament by the ruling party.

Obama signs Twitter-liability bill with the Indian government which will enable hiking of H1B Visa fees to $5000 for an Indian with a Twitter account. This additional income will be used to fund security along the US-Mexican border.

In the US, Twitter maniacs take to the streets and shout slogans – adhering to 140 characters or less.

Journalists around the world demonstrate their support to Twitter by restricting all news items to 140 characters.

Smartphone sales take an all time hit because Twitter doesn’t work anymore. Android becomes void. iPhone is cacophonic. Motorola is off the hook.

No more “gave birth to a baby girl #happy #mom“ tweets
No more “10 beautiful motion blur #photography“ tweets
No more “First class is not cattle class” tweets
No more “I’m yaaaaaaaawwwwwwwning #sigh“ tweets
No more “This coffee is yuck #fail“ tweets
No more “Is she looking at me? #NO “ tweets
No more “Following people who do not follow you back .. is called unconditional love on twitter #Perkytweets “ tweets

No nothing!

A new Hollywood movie I am #Legend (Pls RT!) becomes a box office hit. After all, who would come for help when the whole world is in danger? Didn’t you see Independence #Day and The #Day after #Tomorrow?

Blogs around the world post polls like this..

Please share (and RT!) if you liked the post.

You might also like this post – How will the new Twitter button look like when overloaded (POLL)

Pic source

Motion blur photography is a technique that adds a certain focus on a subject, while the objects around shy away into an artistic blur. You might have created some motion blur photos, accidentally; check your photo albums. But, how to get this blur and focus? I follow one of the below mentioned techniques:

a. Camera Panning: With fast shutter speed, panning your camera along the direction of a moving object creates excellent background blur. This way, the subject stays sharp. This technique works well in good natural light.

b. Timer Value & Shutter Priority: You can increase the timer value (typically between 1/60 – 10 seconds), and adjust the shutter to wider openings (typically f/2 – f/4) to control the amount of light – in most cases, based on trial and error. This works well in night photography – you should have unshakable hands (you gotta be a statue) or a tripod.

Now, some cool photos with the blur..

1. Mother and daughter

2. I’m running

3. Waiting in the rain

4. Full Throttle

5. Ben blur

6. Falling leaf

7. Dandelion

8. Still motion

9. Close call

10. Cycling..

The following are mine, taken from my good old Canon A520 point and shoot camera. The camera handled these shots with surprising ability.

Prague Metro

Alight

Wenceslas Square

I like 1, 4 and 5. How about you?

Please share if you liked this…

All pics are linked to the source page!

Igloo from BizzThemes, is a highly customizable WordPress theme that packs a ton of features. This is one of the earliest themes that I tried from BizzArtic, and I just came to know that it has been bizz’d up. Well, what are the key features?

1. The moment you tour the theme, you can’t help but notice the smooth transition effects – be it the jazzy slider on the home page or the attractive tabbed sidebar widgets.
2. Inbuilt widget sets – like Twitter updates, ad banners, tabs, contact-form, popular posts, search widget, Flickr, rich-text area, etc
3. Integrated Feedburner Feedcount at the top – nifty balloon format!
4. Fast loading – yes, you won’t fail to notice this
5. Nice typographic font – really liked it; easy on the eye
6. Cool short codes – this is the best of all. You can add tabs and toggles with nice transition effects, column layouts, box codes, etc

Well, I won’t do justice trying to explain everything via text over here. Why don’t you see it for yourself?

Demo | Download starter edition

Please share if you found this useful..

Today, I stumbled upon the official Twitter button. I’ve been using the Tweetmeme Retweet button for quite some time, and I’m happy with it. The moment I saw the official one from Twitter, I wanted to implement it on my blog, but something at the back of my mind told me not to do so. Well, it’s just that I’m used to the Twitter over capacity Whale image – too very often.

I wasn’t the only pessimist in this context, Chetan R tweeted about it..

Exactly! @cheth The Not so good part about Official Twitter button: Don’t expect it to be working when twitter is overloaded!

Wondering, how the button will look like in such a situation..may be one of the following? Just for fun..

Twitter button 1

Twitter button 2

Twitter button 3

Twitter button 4

Please share if you liked the post.

Selective coloring is yet another flashy post-processing technique like fake-tilt-shift that virtually increases the depth, and focus on the image. Following are some cool selective color photographs.

So, how to create selective colored pictures?

Step 1: Download and install GIMP for Windows (comes preloaded in Linux)

Step 2: Follow this step-by-step tutorial on creating stunning selective color pictures

Step 3: Well, there’s no step 3!

Scroll down to the end of this post to know another FREE, but basic, photo-editing tool for selective coloring. Now, to the pics..

1. In frame

2. Bower 8mm fisheye

3. Spring stones

4. Dreams in digital

5. NYC Taxi

6. Mach five-ish

7. Colorless reflections

8. Selective colors

9. Ashlee in the dirt

10. Coloreando Granada

Asides

The following are mine, processed with a free but functional photo editor called PhotoScape.

Sunset in Bavarian Alps

Beauty and the beast

My favorites are 1 and 6. What about you?

If you enjoyed the post, please share.

Every now and then, Matt Cutts answers questions from webmasters, bloggers, and website owners and gives them tips on what may affect a blog’s/website’s SEO, and what doesn’t. The following two videos are aimed at clearing up the myths about the two often used features – tag clouds and Twitter stream (or lifestream).

1. Do tag clouds help or hinder SEO? Or, do they have no effect?

2. An SEO suggested that I take all the content on my Twitter page and auto-feed it into a section on my website. Will this really help my site’s PageRank? Does simply duplicating my Twitter page really earn any juice? How can we capitalize on Twitter?

I hope these two questions tend to have an influence on your decisions, on whether to retain or remove those swirling, flashy not-so-useful tag clouds, and unwanted twitter-stream messages from your blog pages.

Please share if you think others might benefit from the videos.

Guest post by Aditya Raghavan.

My mobile buzzed at least ten times before I opened my eyes and reached out to shut it up. It was 7.15am, and I realized I hadn’t slept for even six hours. I did the same thing that I usually did practically everyday. I went back to sleep. I was pretty good at that. But I had expected this kind of behavior from….well, from myself and so I had set multiple alarms to make me wake up. The only thing that was making me torture my body and my mind was the fact that I was scheduled to go for football early in the morning, and the faint glimmer of hope that at least today I would score a goal. But I sensed something was wrong, considering that there were no missed calls on my phone to wake me up from my dreams (my friends knew I was a DEEP sleeper with an underline on ‘deep’). I called up one of my friends and even though he was sleepy he was awake enough to tell me that plans have been changed and the match had been canceled. I cursed under my breath.

Well, I was too awake now to go back to bed. So I decided to help mom, for a change.

After struggling my way through the morning chores and errands, I decided to accompany mom to the doc’s dispensary, as I had nothing better to do at home. Mom, reasonably surprised, and I went to the place and had a seat in the waiting room. I took in the surroundings at a glance. The clerk, obviously bored of sitting alone, was chatting with anyone who would care to listen. Mom was sitting across me. She was quiet, probably deep in thought.

My eyes wandered to an old, poor lady sitting beside my mom. She was wearing a green sari in tribal folds. Something made me look into her eyes and what I saw in them surprised me. They were full of sadness. They had a kind of pained expression in them, which were probably the results of loads of insults and hurting from her loved ones. Merely looking at them made me want to tell her that everything would be ok. My eyes shifted to my mom. She looked beautiful for her age. My mind started whirring as I imagined a scene 10-15 years later. Quite possibly my mom would be sitting here, on her own even though she had trouble walking. All alone. I could almost see her eyes then. A black sea of sadness and pain and hurting, and God knows what more. She would be crying on the inside as she recollected the words that her son had said to her, the words which had been like a thousand pins being driven into her flesh.

I thought of my granny. I thought about the things I used to say to her in anger. I thought how she used to bear all of them without batting an eyelid. I thought about how I used to get irritated when she used to snore in her sleep. And I realized that sometimes it was just the snores that I needed to tell me that she was still hanging on. That she had not yet left me. That she was just there, by my side.

I suddenly felt as if I wanted to cry. I choked back my tears. But I couldn’t control the fact that my eyes were damp. I rubbed my eyes as though I was sleepy, and I drummed my feet to show that I was at ease. I don’t know what made me do that, but I felt I should. On that moment I promised myself that whatever happens I would never hurt my family again. And I promised myself that I would keep my promise. I looked at my mom again and asked her, “Is that a silk sari that you are wearing?” She looked startled, and I didn’t blame her. I don’t know what made me ask her that but again I felt I should. I wanted to care for her in every way, possible.

My reverie was interrupted as the poor, old woman got up and hobbled into the waiting room. I was amazed at how much I had understood from that woman and she hadn’t even uttered a single word. I usually like to think that I am quite composed. Well, what can I say? I stand corrected.

I don’t know much. But I certainly knew one thing that day. I could live without an iPod, a decent mobile, new sneakers, a pair of studs, a decent computer, and lots more. But I couldn’t live without my family. I wouldn’t last a minute without them. Starting from a cup of coffee in the morning till the good night kiss at night, I need a family to share it all with.

Pic source stock.xchng

About two years ago, when I started this blog, the first theme that I used for quite sometime is The Morning After (TMA) WordPress theme by Arun Kale. The striking feature of this magazine-type theme is that it has one of the best uncluttered layout. And, it’s FREE!!

Though I loved this theme, I had to move on to other themes due to the lack of proper support when WordPress came up with newer versions, with newer functionality. Probably, Arun, being the mastermind behind this theme, didn’t find enough time to nurture it. Nevertheless, I shouldn’t leave out the fact that he provided the WordPress community with an excellent support forum when he released the theme.

Recently, when I discovered from the Woo Themes website that this classic magazine theme is now available through them, I felt relieved. At last, this theme will not be lost forever.

Striking Features

There a quite a few features that will impress you. I bet you can’t take your eyes off:

the Featured Posts section

and the Updates (previously Asides – liked it better than updates) section

Other features include widgetized home page, latest posts, thumbnail-enabled recent posts, custom widgets, SEO and so on. Well, if you are the type of blogger with an eye for elegance, head straight to:

DEMO THEME | DOWNLOAD | FEATURES

Please share your thoughts on this.

It’s a good practice to use XML sitemaps to notify important search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing about the recent changes in your blog. It not only improves the speed at which the site-pages are indexed, but also improves the relevancy and ranking of the pages in Google, and other search engines. Text is always easier to index, and you can install this nice plugin.

Well, what about images?

… if a page on your site has multiple images, Google may have a problem identifying which among them is the most relevant image for the content of that page. Amit

Amit Agarwal has just released a nice and functional plugin that addresses the image-indexing issue. Improves the visibility of your site in Google image search results. Click to enlarge the screenshot above.

Just install, and include the XML sitemap in your Google Webmasters profile. That’s it!

Sometimes, it just feels good to focus your eyes on the green things in life. Gray out the troubles and misfortunes, even if they stand sharp in your line of sight. Easier said than done. But, give it a try – the blurry things are sometimes beautiful, and we will all get there. One fine day…

… the monochrome trunk will give way to greener pastures. Hope!

Contact me if you want a HD version of this pic.

Picture © Ubiquitense

Taken at Sunset Point, Yelagiri, Tamil Nadu.

Camera: Canon S5IS

Mode: Super Macro, with continuous image stabilization (IS). The same was tough to focus on to with shoot-only IS. Click on picture to enlarge.

Contact me if you want a HD version of this pic.

Picture © Ubiquitense

Good news for Firefox lovers and IE haters. Firefox 4 beta 1 is now available for download – promising us with a lot of new goodies, and improvised browsing experience. As always, I wanted to try it out to honor the tech-curiosity in me.

Installation:

Takes about 10-15 seconds, and doesn’t alter your current stable version of Firefox (v3.6.6).  All settings, including proxy and bookmarks are seamlessly imported during installation (you won’t even know!).

New look:

I’ve got Google Chrome, and was expecting something similar to it when I was installing Firefox 4 beta. My expectation was right, after all. Take a look at the new tab feature (click on screenshot to enlarge):

Now, the menu is condensed to a Firefox button on the top left corner of the browser window. Gives you an inch of more space to the browser body. However, if you want to have to conventional menu styling, you can click on Firefox button–customize–menu bar.

Note: You won’t be finding the start private browsing feature in this condensed menu.

So far, no glitches with the tabbed browsing experience. As smooth as honey! Checked the memory usage with about 15 active tabs – 180 MB, acceptable limits.

Add-ons:

Nothing available now. Incompatible add-ons/extensions are safely disabled, automatically.

Feedback:

The beta version of this browser has a feedback button on the top right corner. Looks like they are serious about incorporating your feedback/suggestions before rolling out the final version.

Key features:

• New tabs look
• Condensed menu
• New add-ons manager
• HTML5 video standards – WebM and HD video support
• Improved privacy
• Crash protection, and so on..

A comprehensive feature list, comparing it with the previous versions is available over here.

Download the beta version, and have fun!

Please share this with your buddies.

eConsultant from BizzThemes is a highly customizable, SEO optimized, premium business theme. With most of the good features found in Enkelt and Kreera, the flashy new slider enables you to add multimedia content with ease and style (with nice cool buttons!).

Key features:

• Excellent design control
• Flashy featured slider
• Typography control
• Very fast loading times
• Built on hooks
• Custom and built-in theme skins
• Branding options/controls
• Pre-defined page templates
• Integrated PrettyPhoto script (images pop-up elegantly)
• Fully widgetized layout, and much more

Useful links:

Demo this theme.

Download free version.

Other theme details.

Before you feel elated by the headline, let me tell you that this offer from Bharti Airtel is only for 2 months (i.e. 58 days) – until 31 August.

For the 2-month period, the partnership enables Airtel customers to access Facebook’s full mobile site faster and at no data cost from their Airtel mobiles via m.facebook.com. For the first time, Airtel customers who are Facebook users will be able to post status updates, comment and write on walls, message others, and also be able to view or upload photos – all without any data charges! – Bharti Airtel

No sooner did I see this press release than I scrambled for my mobile, and typed m.facebook.com in the Opera Mini address bar. Facebook came up, with a header message that echoed the above statement from Airtel. Half way through my experience with Facebook mobile, I was interrupted by a service message

Thank you for using Airtel Mobile. You’ve been charged Rs. 0.30 for browsing 14.40 kilobits.

I read the press release again, and found this statement

Customers are accessing the mobile internet for the first time need to simply SMS ‘FACEBOOK’ to 54321 to take advantage of this special offer. Free access to Facebook Mobile on Airtel is available for the entire months of July and August, 2010.

Firstly, there is an error in the statement that misses a ‘that/who’. Secondly, it made me try this 54321 thingy. I received the Facebook link via an SMS message (which said that I can access the same free for 2 months!), and clicked on it. Well, this time I was charged Rs. 0.60 without even getting a notification!

Imagine all 130 million Airtel customers doing the same? Or, at least 30% (around 39 million) of them losing around Rs. 1.50 on an average trying this out?

That’s a lot of money Airtel can earn in a day!

May be this offer is not valid on pre-paid mobiles? The press release makes no mention of it though. And, you have no way of ensuring the same on a post-paid account until you get the monthly bill.

So, all Airtel customers – have fun losing money for free! Or, may be I’m an exclusive customer!

It was Twitter then, now it’s Facebook.

Came across a cool infographic that gives a flow-chart type infographic on how Google actually works. You can see the tight integration of search results with the advertisement keywords (Adwords). This is one of the best both ways, ‘coz we get to see relevant ads, and Google gets to see $20 billion (US) per year in revenues.

It’s always fascinating to see your blog post getting indexed in less than 15 minutes of publishing it. Well, a lot of factors like search engine optimization, permalink structures and category names play an important role in making the post Google friendly.

Via PPCBlOG

These are some of the unique, cool and unconventional road signs that I stumbled upon on Flickr. Hope you like ‘em.

1. Escape Route?

2. Gas – just around the corner!?

3. Cyclists, watch out!

4. Before and after, what? Pregnancy??

5. Beware of boars

6. Hi-jackers’, mark this place

7. Vehicles will be towed – by Carmooers!

8. The joy of sharing? tell me about it…

9. Drive slow – people fall from the skies

10. No. This is not from some stupid Spielberg sci-fi movie

11. Domesticated bears, roaming free

12. An exclamatory turtle?

13.Non-exclamatory turtle – going the other way..

14. Well, on a serious note – save wildlife!

1 and 4 are hilarious!

This is a cool video of the evolution of Apple’s flagship computing avatar – Mac. Thirty years of innovation, compressed and highlighted in a two-minute presentation. Take a look..

This is one brand of personal computers that I’ve always yearned to own.

Via Webphemera

This is just one of the many challenges people face when categorizing a blog – especially, if it’s a multi-topic blog. There are numerous articles out there that write blah in not less than 500 words, on choosing category names. I’m not gonna do that.

Instead, I’ll give you a couple of pointers which will make you choose SEO-friendly category names, resulting in an SEO-friendly permalink structure. Just grab some of these category names (from Digg) from the following screen-shot (click on pic to enlarge), and apply it to your blog.

This is a comprehensive list catering to the many genres of blogging. Also, these category/sub-category names are commonly used across many content aggregators like Delicious, Mixx, Yahoo Buzz, and so on. However, it’s advisable not to have too many sub-categories, as this might have a negative impact on the realization of optimal permalinks. You may wanna read this article for tips on creating SEO-friendly permalinks for WordPress blogs.

Hope this tip (in less than 150 words) helps you in improving your SEO scores.

This is a wearable solar neck strap, designed by Weng Jie, that can power your camera on the move. Well, you don’t have to worry about the batteries dying on you at the crucial moment, do you? However, make sure you’re in a sunny landscape, and not in some godforsaken cave North of Europe.

Anyways, it might just be for the geeks out there for the moment. Mass adoption will significantly decrease the power used to charge the batteries every now and then – and call it going green.

Hey, why not make a backpack and cap with solar cell inset?

Via Yanko Design

Framing a scene with very few people is always fun. It gives new ideas on playing with the depth of field, be it high dynamic range (HDR) or normal landscape photography. Given the correct natural lighting, coupled with HDR techniques, results in surrealistic results. Following are some of them:

1. Fountain of Youth

2. Grave Robber

3. A Delicate Morning

4. Die Bahn

5. When Size Differs

6. Surface Tension

7. Winter Church

8. Earth Hour

9. The Halo

10. The Missile Launcher?

Well, my favorites are 4, 8 and 9.

All pictures are linked to their original sources.

Brand marketing and advertisements are always a fun thing – especially when the message conveyed is bang on target. They not only make you think about the illustrated graphics, but the capability of the product advertised.

Following are some of them you will like for sure:

1. Bose noise reduction headphones

2. RSPCA

3. Narcissist taps

4. The starving frog

5. Ain’t no sugar

6. Bad food = bad dog!

7. Remember me?

8. Dog bored

9. Airtel

As usual, the top three I like are 7, 6 and 3. What’s yours?

More ads over here

Every country has a growth plan to meet or sustain its energy needs. Europe invests in energy generated from renewable sources, instead of blaming developing nations for the depletion of fossil fuel and increasing green house gases.

In the latest environment-friendly initiative, hundreds of megawatts of electricity will be generated across the sunlight-rich Sahara desert, and brought to Europe via undersea cables – within the next 5 years. This is just a part of the 400 billion dollar Desertec solar project that would increase the capacity to thousands of megawatts. This project is unique in way owing to the two-way partnership – Europe partners in exporting the technology, while North Africa enables the import of electricity generated over there.

We in India, are busy converting arable lands into swanky apartments. What’s the plan to generate more electricity without falling at the feet of Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), and the United States?

Without a long-term renewable energy plan, looks like we will all be facing two big problems by the end of 2040 – synthetic food, and imported electricity. We can only hope that at least the food is not made in China.

EU news source. Pic source (not related to the news).

WordPress 3.0 is out, and most bloggers out there are looking for new themes that are compatible with this new stable version. WordPress 3.0 features custom menu administration, and not many themes are geared up for that.

Kreera, from BizzThemes, is a fully customizable WP 3.0-ready theme.

Some of the key features of this theme include custom navigation menu administration, dynamic image slider, Google fonts (get that unique look your business page deserves), customizable front page, fully widgetized layout, and so on.

This theme is based on hooks, just like Enkelt, and features one of the best in-built SEO and design controls.

Useful links:

Demo this theme.

Download free version.

Other theme details.

I thought this was some kind of funky yoga center when I came across this name for the first time.

Tucked away in the far corner of a street in Gandhi Nagar, Adyar, this restaurant creates a nice first impression with the ambiance. Once inside, you may think that it’s raining outside. It’s just the sound from a micro-mini waterfall outside. It’s a bungalow modified into a restaurant – some say it’s Chettinad style; never found any traces of that type of architecture. Once you sink in to the cane chairs, you’ll immediately realize how comfortable they are.

The food menu features Chettinad and Continental, with a bunch of unique starters. Though the tomato soup was sour (and as thick as a purée), the couple of veg-starters that we ordered exceeded our expectations. The main course was good, but nothing to write home about, especially when you see the pricing of each of these dishes. It’s a big turn off. I was reminded of Little Italy. Actually, if the pricing doesn’t match the taste or quantity of the food served, I would think twice before recommending this place to my friends.

Rate card:

Ambiance: 4.5/5

Food: 3.5/5

Price: 2.5/5

Staff: 3.5/5

Serving time: 4/5

If you are a big gourmet group with a fat wallet, this is the place for you – every week. Otherwise, it’s just once a quarter.

Pic source Crimson Chakra

Here is what I found out via Compete:

Unique visitors, monthly data

This translates to the following number of unique visitors:

4,121,651 per day, 171923 per hour, 2865 per minute

Visits, monthly data

This translates to the following number of visits:

102,752,022 per day, 4,281,334 per hour, 71,355 per minute.

So, does this mean that 2865 unique visitors generate 71,355 visits per minute? If yes, 1 unique visitor contributes to 25 visits per minute?

Well, if we take the page view numbers from this report as standard, and apply the same number, we get from 260 billion page views per month:

8,666,666,666 per day, 361,111,111 per hour, 6,018,518 per minute. Six million page views per minute!

So that translates to 2100 page views per unique visitor? Well, it’s quite hard to believe that, ain’t it? If this is the case, then I think that these unique visitors and visits include bots, apart from humans. Facebook, at times, drags its feet not just because of those humans who are glued to it, but those bots that are pinging the servers incessantly.

By the way, where’s this MySpace heading to?

“Nihu…..Nihu!!! Wake up!! How many times do I have to come and wake you up?!!!”

“Getting up mom..”, mumbled Niharika. Oh it was heavenly curling up in bed, after so many Sundays. For the last three months my Sundays have been very hectic, and I hardly had time for lazy indulgences.

Getting up, I slouched towards the window and pushed aside the curtains. It was a bright and sunny morning…oops bordering on noon. Humming a gay song in tune to my mood I rushed off to finish my morning rituals – like brushing my teeth, making faces at the bathroom mirror, etc.

“Mom..Coffee please”, saying so I plopped down on the granite platform beside the French windows; my favorite spot with the Sunday special Mumbai Mirror to catch up on the latest Bollywood gossip.

“Oh, Nihu….stop reading the paper and take this coffee. I want you to come inside in the kitchen. I have to tell you something. You can listen while I go on with my cooking” said my Mom.

‘Oh oh! now what have I done. Mamma usually “talks” to me when something is really serious!’. Imagining the worst I went inside the kitchen to listen to Mamma.

“You remember the boy whose profile you saw in the internet last week?”, seeing the negative shake of my head Mom continued,“arey that same hot-shot guy who has done his MS from the UK! Remember, last week you had okayed his profile?”

I rolled my eyes upward, amused by my Mom’s description of the boy! Well I did remember him. Something in his picture had caught my interest. Charismatic!

Seeing the look of recognition on my face Mom continued, “Well his Dad called up Dadda. Apparently your horoscopes have matched and the boy wants you to speak with him. Well his dad has given us his number and has asked you to call him up today after 4:00 PM. Well I suggest you to call him up after 6:00 as 4:30 to 6:00 is Rahu kalam.”

Clucking quietly at the idiosyncrasies of the yester generations over the auspicious times, I mumbled a small yes and rushed in to my room.

Well lemme tell you this… I am a very lively person and can strike up a conversation with anyone. Still, the thought of calling up a prospective groom put a damper to my mood. I lazed around the whole afternoon worrying about the evening phone call.

“Nihu…its 6.30 already. Here, take my cell and call him”, dad shouted.

Resigning myself for the inevitable, I took his cell and went down the stairs to talk to the guy – thinking that I shall at least have some privacy in the secluded by-lanes of the area I lived in.

Triinngggg…went the ring…I was walking with a palpitating heart….

“Hello”, heard his strong voice….“Hello?? Who’s this?? Hello…”

“Hello”, I managed to croak…“Hi..this is Niharika from Mumbai”.

“Well hi! Dad told me that you will be calling!!….how are you?”

“I am good and you?”

“Good, thanks!”…

Silence…..

I was just walking down the street thinking of what to say next to burst the silence when all of a sudden a small puppy barreled down to me nipping at my leg scaring me to bits. I let out a huge scream…loud enough to shatter the silence in our conversation. Our first conversation!!

Well, the rest is history. I married him exactly six months after this incident.

He never fails to comment to his friends how I managed to render him deaf in one ear by displaying him my vocal capabilities on the first day of our talk.

Now, this is what I call an ice breaker! Thank you puppy!

Pic source

How so boring, walking down the stairs or standing behind people in escalators. Volkswagen has installed this nice little slide so that those fun loving people could just zip down in style. Watch the video.

Looks like the Berliners would just slide down, and run for their trains. Don’t forget to try it out when you get into the U-bahn at Alexanderplatz.

Viel Spaß!

Via BuzzFeed

Probably it’s a little too late to be writing a review about this heavily customizable WordPress theme – Enkelt. However, it’s only after playing with it for the past month or so, did I realize the potential of this theme that is built on hooks.

I’m sure you would have come across many premium WordPress themes that claim to be high on functionality. Well, in most cases they are good, but at what cost? Would you be willing to shell out $50 for a theme that is high on graphics but low on SEO (search engine optimization)? Nowadays, people who buy premium themes are very much worried about SEO, in addition to having a rich-media blog. OK, it’s not just about buying a premium theme, or downloading and using a free version. It’s about empowering the blogger to make the most out of the theme. Enkelt meets these expectations, both in premium and free versions.

Enkelt page templates

A wide variety of templates just to give that look a page in your blog desires. I liked the FAQ and no-sidebar templates.

Enkelt theme and design options

This is where you see how much the developer of this theme is empowering you to change the design parameters, SEO options, slider controls, and other functional/cosmetic options. Let the screen-shots below speak for themselves.

With many other themes, I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to place the logo image, and getting the favicon right. With Enkelt, it’s quite snappy.

The above screen-shot is just a teaser, and each of the options when clicked on reveals a plethora of options for you to tweak.

Again, the design options enable you to add those beautiful colors and styles that can make your blog look good – in a matter of minutes. No more opening the PHP or CSS files and meddling with the codes in there.

My blog is image heavy, and it’s hosted in a cheap server (dirt cheap, actually). Still the load time of my blog page is minimal, thanks to Enkelt. With most of the themes that I tried before, the average load time was around 9-12 seconds. Now, take a look at the load times from the screen-shot (from pingdom) below.

To me, these are impressive load times, given the number of images on my blog. Note that a lot of other factors like third-party widgets and java scripts influence the load times. The above tests were done with my fully loaded blog.

No developer can create a good theme out of the blue. It’s only after numerous interactions with the users, and periodic updates implementing the suggestions and bug fixes, a theme becomes solid and functional. Now, how many developers out there are doing that? Not many!

You may download a FREE version of this theme. The premium version packs a punch though. See it in action here.

Please note that this is not a paid review. The developer of this theme is totally unaware that I’m writing such a review. The thoughts expressed are my own.

It has always been a delight to play Super Mario, be it the pixellated version on the old video game console or the newest online versions. Now, I stumbled upon this cool stop-motion sequence of Mario, apt with the characteristic in-game sound and music.

By the way, it’s astonishing to know that this is the outcome of a students project in Japan. The best part is, sticky notes were used to construct the characters. Cool, ain’t it?

Via BoingBoing

Your imaginations can run wild, with occasional goosebumps, and a sense of Déjà vu when looking at the pictures below. These are examples of creative photography that bring out the creepy/spooky feeling of a place, with good natural lighting, framing and image editing.

1. Beelitz surgery

2. Hell-hole with a ‘glory hole’

3. Creepy no bed

4. Furnished room for rent

5. Hard day at the orifice

6. The spiders lair

7. Hope

8. Up the Wooden Hill to Bedlam

9. The house

10. No class today at school

Which three photographs you liked the most? Here goes mine – 7, 1 and 3.

Hope you don’t see them in your dreams.

P.S. All pics are linked to their original sources. Click on a pic to explore more of it.

The oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico is the most talked about environmental disaster by the USA (it’s the US ‘coz it has happened very close to them). The infographic below gives a lucid view of the amount of oil spilled since 1967, and how long it takes for a spill to clear up.

The figures are alarming. I like the contrast in this infographic, with the green background for the seas, and the black droplet for the disastrous spills.

Infographic via Gavin Potenza

So, you’ve just set up your WordPress blog on a hosted domain? Well, I believe the next step is to get your blog indexed by those numerous search engines out there. I’m not gonna talk about submitting your blog URL to search engines, and directories that would increase the chances of including your blog faster in them.

The first step is to get your permalink structure correct.

Before I get into letting you know the optimal permalink structures, let me give you a couple of hints about choosing your categories. Always choose unique category names, and avoid creating child (or, sub) categories. You will get to know why in a while. Also, keep the category slug as simple as possible. For example, if your category is WordPress Plugins, keep the slug as wp-plugins or simply plugins.

Now, go to your WordPress admin panel, expand settings, and click on Permalinks.

In most cases, the default setting would be either Default or Day and name. The Default one is definitely neither user-friendly nor SEO-friendly. The other settings, like Day and name, Month and name and Numeric, perform well with the search engines, but still not optimal to be SEO-friendly.

Now, click on Custom Structure, and enter the following code in the text box

/%category%/%postname%/%post_id%/

The resulting permalinks will look like this

http://www.yourdomain.com/category/sample-post/1234/

The above one is a very SEO-friendly permalink structure as it also carries with it the category name, along with the post slug. If you’ve child categories, then the permalink will end up including one of them – unnecessarily increasing the length of the URL. You may or may not include the post-id tag, in which case the trailing unique ID 1234 will not be included.

Click here if you want to know more about permalink codes.

WARNING: Changing the permalink structure will break the already indexed links on various search engines, and will return the famous 404 PAGE NOT FOUND error. Need a workaround for this? See below..

For all those WordPress bloggers who didn’t choose the correct permalink structure, please install this awesome 301 redirect plugin. You will not end up losing valuable search engine traffic and your beloved users.

Good luck with your blog!

I stumbled upon a nice Google Maps mash-up application, WordPress World Map. If you’re a WordPress user, blogger, developer or fan, you can register with (or without) your twitter ID, and geo-tag yourself on the global map.

I guess it’s quite a new mash-up app, and needs some big numbers to establish itself as a one-stop geo-tagger for WordPress. Since it uses the maps API, the speed of the application is directly related to the load times of the Google map – patience required if you’re jumping profiles.

You got to see the two-hour long, sensational iPhone 4 introduction to appreciate the depth of innovation that has gone into the making of this little gadget. As and when Steve elaborated on the specifications and features, he gave a hint to the developer community to spruce up applications that would take advantage of the new capabilities of iPhone 4.

The two most important features that will add up more juice to the developers’ apps are:

Retina display

Apple has come up with 326 pixels per inch LCD, instead of the conventional 300 pixels per inch – adding extra-punch in sharpness, contrast, text readability and image resolution. The developers would have to do something to their apps so that they add this little line in their product description – Retina-display-ready app!

Gyro + accelerometer

A tri-axis gyro coupled with the already existing accelerometer to sense angular velocity, acceleration and rotation rate? Impressive. So, y’all game developers got to make a mad rush to create chart-buster gaming apps to take these iPhone geeks to the next level.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic – Arthur C. Clarke

Oh, this Apple!

Image via CrunchBase

You know why Apple products, be it the iPod or the latest iPad, are immensely successful? It’s not just the innovation and sophistication that are incorporated into these products, but the sensational marketing by Steve Jobs. If you look at the video below (it’s about 2 hours, but it’s thoroughly enjoyable for Apple/gadget geeks), you can easily see that iPad gets a brilliant ovation – well, actually the session was to introduce the new iPhone 4.

There are lessons to learn from innovative minds. Steve had no pressing need to flaunt the iPad, but used that opportunity to list down the number of units sold, the number of applications developed, and the number of applications downloaded. Impressive numbers! Steve is not gonna get complacent, given the umpteen number of iPad-like gadgets starting to flood the market. But, he sure gotta watch out for Google’s Android eating into the iPhone market!

I love trams! May be because the city that I live in is devoid of them. They are slow-moving, and adds a certain charm to the streets that they snake through.

The trams in Prague, unlike the ones in Germany, are hardly occupied. It adds to the laid-back lifestyle of the people of Prague.

Wish the Indian government could clear up its cities off cars, and install a comprehensive network of trams. I wanna just lay back, and enjoy the sights and sounds of the city – not the continual blaring of horns of the cars, be it nano or mega. I wish…!

Photo © Ubiquitense

There are zillions of how-to articles on creating 301 redirects. However, this brief article will focus on creating a redirect for non-WWW queries of your domain name to WWW, by editing the .htaccess on a WordPress blog. You may ask, why should I do this? Because, all search engines treat www.yoursite.com and http://yoursite.com as two different sites. Also, one of these two will be penalized by the search engines for duplicate content. It might sound silly and stupid, but it’s 100% true.

Just to quote a piece from Google Webmaster Central

People access your site through several different URLs. If, for example, your home page can be reached in multiple ways – for instance, http://example.com/home, http://home.example.com, or http://www.example.com – it’s a good idea to pick one of those URLs as your preferred (canonical) destination, and use 301 redirects to send traffic from the other URLs to your preferred URL.

Here are the steps:

1. This .htaccess is super sensitive to syntax errors, with the potential of rendering a site inactive. Before you edit, make a backup of the file
2. Open .htaccess, and copy the following code just after the # -FrontPage-

That is it! Upload the .htaccess file back to the root folder, or where ever it was, via FTP. Check if your site redirects properly.

Like I said, though there were a lot of articles on 301 redirects, I was clueless with the WordPress .htaccess file. Hope this little tip helps you in getting better with search engines.

Do share your thoughts on this.

A couple of days ago, there was news about the inclusion of a new fancy feature on the plain old Google’s search page. Well, couldn’t call it a feature – just a splash of color to your search home page (no, not on the results page). Look to the bottom left corner of the Google search page (as of now, only on .com, and not on .co.in, or similar), and you will see the Change background image link. Once you click on it, the rest is intuitive.

I just did a small diagnosis with the Page Speed add-on for Firefox, and found that:

• the page speed score for the plain old Google search page is 89/100
• the page speed score for the splashed Google search page is 84/100

Well, not much of a difference. But, the question is, why should Google try Bing’s fashion statement? For serious surfers, Google is still the king of search – so, big deal with the background image.

What say you?

Thursday, 26 June, Bandra station. 9:00 AM

There was nothing different that day. It was raining as usual. People were rushing like a herd of… whatever, cursing everything in general, including the rain, the trains, the crowd, and themselves.

I was moving towards the station with a sprint in my step. Today was D- Day!

Finally, I was going to tell her that she was the one. She was the special being one who I was searching for a long time. She was the one without whom I couldn’t imagine my life. She was like a fresh breath of air in my monotonous dull life – the lively, colorful dance sequence in my oh-so-boring sad songs.

The rainy day was like a blessing, a sign from God !?

We had actually started talking a year back, on such a rainy day when I had met her at this station. I was eagerly waiting for the train as if it was going to be the means of ending my life filled with darkness. She was waiting for the train as if it was the beginning of a new life for her as she was joining her new job after recession. A wonderful beginning, as she later told me – it made her find the two very best things in her life – her job and me, her good friend. Our friendship had bloomed with our meetings at the Bandra Station. She added a smile to my face, and a tingle to my life. I never asked her out, never exchanged numbers, still I knew everything about her – her moods, her likes, dislikes, etc. It was as if we discussed our life story in that half-an-hour we waited for the train to come – always delaying the time to say bye.

Finally reached, I thought, my eyes scanning the crowd for her.

“Crap, she is late? May be the rain has deterred her, or is that Murphy’s law playing with my d-day?”. Resigning myself to wait some more time to profess my undying love for her, I managed to find a un-drenched bench and sat down. “It’s been ten minutes already, what’s delaying her?”.

I was getting worried and restless as time and trains passed. The rain slowly increased in strength. Damn, why can’t these Thackerays impose some restriction on the rain that it isn’t complying to Marathian manners?

Half an hour …an hour…2 hours passed. She was nowhere to be seen. I finally got up from the bench, my mind ricocheting against a thousand different thoughts that didn’t make sense. She was in no way answerable to me, but somehow my mind wasn’t ready to accept a negative answer.

Just then my cell phone rang, and my face brightened up seeing her number flashing on the display.

“Hello“,  said I with a 50-50 tint of softness and relief.

“Hey, wassup? Why didn’t you turn up at the station today? Are you alright?”, her voice was sounding with concern. I could picture a cute frown just above her beautiful eyes.

“I did. In fact, I was waiting for you for two long hours, you know?”

“What? Really? Which platform were you in?”

“The same one, where we have been meeting for the past 12 months or so. Platform 2″

“What was in your head today? Didn’t you hear the announcement that the train was diverted to platform 4 ‘coz of the rains? The announcement was so loud and incessant that it’s still ringing in my ears”

“Err, no I didn’t”. I felt like slapping myself, and looking at the mirror cursing.

“Dude, don’t tell me you were day dreaming”

Well, actually I was. “Well, probably the announcement got drowned in a sound of thunder”. How so lame.

“Some were talking about a man in platform 2 who didn’t seem to care when a dog that took shelter from the rains pee’d on his boots. I’m starting to think if that were you?!”

Damn, was that why my left foot was warm for two minutes, some time ago?, thought I, looking down at my foot.

It can’t get better. It was the day I wanted to propose to my sweetheart. It was the day when I lost my mind. And, it was that day when a dog pee’d on my boots.

So, what’s the moral of the story?

P.S. The latter half of this story, and the dog-pee concept are by Naren Ubi.

Picture source: daylife

How do you know if your blog has been hijacked by a bunch of unwanted links? These unwanted links may relate to the content we receive everyday in our spam folder on Gmail. I’m not going to list out those keywords that make up these unwanted links, instead see the screen-shot below (click to enlarge).

My blog is about two years old, and lately I saw a decline in the search engine rankings. Usually, my blog gets listed on Google within minutes of me publishing a post. But for the past four months or so, it’s been taking a very long time to get listed. I tried all SEO options, but still no luck. I knew something was wrong, but what I didn’t know was where to start. I googled for all possible questions and searched for answers. No luck!

It was then I noticed that my blog is getting hits (thanks to WP-Stats) for specific search terms or keywords that reflect many in the screen-shot above. This was when I realized that something is wrong with my blog pages that may contain these embedded keywords. Well, all negative thoughts come true, ain’t it? Again, the screen-shot speaks for itself. Mind you, it’s just a small part of what was actually embedded in my blog page.

After scrutinizing in vain a few PHP files, I searched for tips on cleaning up hijacked WordPress installation. The steps are exhaustive, but no guarantee on whether the resulting installation would be free of the scum scripts. What a pain!

Not wanting to re-install WordPress, and not wanting to deal with the side-effects of the same, I took a different approach. This time, no googling!

I analyzed the source page again on where the scripts are getting inserted. Some idea about disabling the plugins struck me, and I disabled them. Checked the source code, and all the scum scripts disappeared! So, going by the best practices, I re-enabled each of the plugins. More than four plugins were compromised, and I removed them immediately.

Phew! For the time being, no dirty scripts on my blog.

So bloggers, keep your eyes open for such hidden scripts. Don’t be lazy like me, and wait for your blogs’ demise from search engines.

Let me know if you’ve had similar experiences, and how you tackled them?

This is the limit of night photography with the Canon A520 digital camera. With the apparent lack of image stabilization, you need to have a tripod and a timed shutter. Well, I used neither. I just placed the camera on a slightly slant concrete surface (with the awful thought of scratching my camera at the back of my mind), and placed my index finger on the other end of it to compensate the offset slant. Too much for night photography, huh?

Aperture: f/7.1

Timer value: 5 seconds

White balance: manual (set to bring out the actual colors as close as possible)

Five seconds was long enough to capture this streak of gold..

Photo © Ubiquitense

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The hope of solar-energy revolution has been bouncing around for many decades. My science teacher in seventh standard taught me about solar cookers and solar water heaters. But all these appliances and methods never became completely successful owing to the huge maintenance costs. These costs could be acceptable if it made us completely independent; even if we implement these methods, we had to rely on the electric water heaters and gas stoves, which make maintenance costs an overhead.

However research has been going on for ages, and researchers have come up with the seductive idea of utilizing the sun’s rays for producing electricity – directly. Imagine producing electricity yourself, free and not having to pay for it. Managing your needs of electricity without any power-cuts and electricity fluctuations is irresistible, isn’t it?

So, what actually are the researchers talking about?

Remember the small light-sensitive cells which are used power calculators? Well the same cells and technology are used in a large scale for the generation of electric current. These cells are, as the name implies photo- light, voltaic- electricity, which convert sunlight directly into electricity. They consist of semi-conductors like silicon which are generally preferred. They absorb the light which strikes the cell, thus transferring the light’s energy to itself. This burst of energy makes the free electrons to move freely, under the influence of electric fields already present, in a certain direction. This movement of electrons in a specific direction creates current and by placing metal contacts below the cell we can draw off the current and utilize it for external usage. This is the basic working of the cell. There’s more to it. We can make use of mirrors and lenses to catch maximum amount of light and put it to use. This is the most successful attempt at reducing the usage of electricity generated by expending fuel, thus controlling their exploitation.

This doesn’t end here. This process involves a lot of start-up costs. Again, this brings us down to where we started – the costs in installing and successfully using this technology is very high. Although this system does promise us free electricity, it does not always guarantee free electricity. Nevertheless, we can be sure of electricity bills moving southwards upon using these photovoltaic cells.

Efficient operation of this system depends on many factors like the brightness of the sun or the weather. This can be solved by the weatherman’s predictions. But living at the whims of the weatherman’s fancies doesn’t excite us. Imagine deciding our electricity requirements on the basis of met-department’s predictions (well, sometimes their predictions are correct)!!!

Having said that, this technology is successful in cities abroad where most of new age green buildings are utilizing it. They are now standing examples of being one of the most intelligent buildings in the world.

Well, let’s hope that researchers find solutions to all the hurdles (optimizing cost being the major one), and make it possible for everyone to make use of these cells, thus reducing the usage of carbon-based resources we have in hand.

Excerpts taken from the paper written by Jessika Toothman and Scott Aldous published here.

This picture was taken from the banks of the famous Vltava river (movies like Mission Impossible, XXX, etc were shot on this river). The place is Prague.

It’s quite difficult to get the desired perspective when too many beautiful things occupy a single frame. In such circumstances, one just needs to blur the not-so-desired portions, and focus on the most beautiful thing at that moment. Ain’t this true in our lives too? Well, just wondering..

Photo © Ubiquitense

Imagine a quiet market place on a lazy cloudy day! With the cool breeze on your face, with the ice cream vendor in sight – irresistible.

This is the scene at a market place in the heart of Prague (or Praha). Hardly talking, everyone just minding their own damn business. You may think, how so boring… but this will be a blissful solitude for those used to the noises of the Indian market place.

Photo © Ubiquitense

Image via Wikipedia

This is a true incident that happened about three decades ago..

The afternoon sun was having a field day, gleaming with a fiery smile all along the roads of Madurai..

“Damn this scorching heat, am not able to peacefully enjoy my pilgrimage trip”, thought Ramachandran as the walked down the street towards the famous Meenakshi Amman temple. Ramu, as he was fondly called by his friends, had just retired from his 40 years of service with the India Post, Chennai. He was touring the holy places in Tamil Nadu before biding a final goodbye to his place of birth, to join his wife and children in Nagpur.

“Sir, good quality Madurai-Jasmine and Archanai basket for Meenakshi Amman”, shouted the shopkeeper from his small thatched roof home-cum-shop.

“What’s the cost of this archanai basket?” asked Ramu. “Rs. 10 only, Sir”, replied the shopkeeper, with a smile-and-a-frown combo.

‘Rs. 10 only?? This is so expensive, and I got to visit a lot of other temples. Can’t spend that much..’. Thinking so Ramu said, “Well, just give me the flowers for Rs. 2″.

Taking the flowers, Ramu rushed towards the temple, running across the road that had already turned scorching hot due to the afternoon sun.

‘Phew, finally. Blissfully cool’ thought Ramu, entering in the temple sannidhi. He advanced towards the Meenakshi Amman idol among the throng of devotees chanting holy slokas.

Reaching the priest, Ramu extended the flowers asking him to do archanai and place it on the goddess.

“Where’s the coconut? It’s a practice to do archana with coconut, flowers and a fruit. Can’t do that with just the flower you’ve got”, said the priest.

“I haven’t got the archana basket with coconut and fruits, Swami” answered Ramu.

“Hmpf..then it’s not possible with just the flowers”, muttered the priest, and rushed into the sannidhi to perform pooja to the goddess.

Ramu prayed to the goddess and moved out with a heavy heart, berating himself for not having money to spend for the goddess. Dejected, Ramu moved towards the shopkeeper..slowly, not caring the blistering heat on the floor.

All of a sudden, he felt someone tugging his shirt. Shaken up from his lost feeling, Ramu turned back and saw a cute small girl. She was wearing a torn dress, and her long black hair was beautifully braided into twin-plaits.

“How may I help you little girl?” asked Ramu.

“Who’s this flower for?” asked the girl.

No sooner did Ramu replied “This was for the Mennakshi Amman” than came the gesture, “Oh, is it? Then why don’t you give it to me?”. Ramu’s face sported a frown, involuntarily.  The girl continued, “My name is also Meenakshi. Won’t you give them to me?”.

‘Well why not?’ thought Ramu, ‘the real goddess couldn’t have it. So, I might as well give it to her namesake’.  Devoid of any second thoughts, Ramu gave the flowers to her. “Thank you so much, Sir” said the girl, and happily skipped off with a childish smile.

Ramu felt very happy that his money had not gone waste, at least.

A couple of seconds later, though he resumed his walk towards the shop, Ramu couldn’t forget the little girl’s face. Wanting to catch another glimpse of her, he looked behind. And lo, there was no one!

It was as if the girl had vanished into thin air.

Surprised, Ramu asked the shop keeper about the girl. “What girl, Sir?. There is no small girl here. You must have been mistaken!” answered the shopkeeper.

Ramu, with an inexplicable smile, wondered what you’re wondering about right now..

So, never make your rules in the name of god, and label it a religion.

Image by bryangeek via Flickr

I can save around 30,000 INR a year, or 2,500 INR a month if I telecommute.

I can create a profit of at least 5,000 INR a year if I invest the savings on some infrastructure mutual fund.

I can prevent 0.9 metric tons of CO2 (carbon dioxide) from polluting the air.

The above is just an approximate figure that I arrived at:

• considering the conservative mileage for my car per year, and
• the present gas prices

Do your math for non-conservative mileage figures – well, there are people who do 20,000 kilometers per year. If multiplied for twenty years, their savings will sound like a retirement plan! Enough of the math and finances. I stumbled upon an article that says how the Chinese telecom sector saved 48.5 million tonnes of carbon in 2008 – telecommuting being one of the major factors.

Applying the same case here in India, there will be a few billion tonnes of carbon savings every year. The question is, how open are we to telecommuting? Well, not very confident of anything like that until the following pain points are addressed:

• inability to meet the electricity demand-supply exponential curve
• unscheduled power cuts
• manager-reportee trust factor – one need not be present in the office to indicate working on a project
• perks from the employer that would enable the employees to manage the costs for broadband and a computer – can’t call it an overhead, and a subject of cutting costs
• abysmal internet speeds – we call 256 kbps a broadband, huh
• ethical responsibility of the employees to utilize the telecommuting benefits provided by the employer/manager

So, do you still think telecommuting is not our cup of tea? We don’t lag in the necessary technology to enable telecommuting, do we?

Are you a WordPress enthusiast? Have you tried video blogging? Not yet? Grab a funky domain name for yourself, install WordPress and power-up your maiden video blog with the Selecta theme from Obox. This is by far the best free theme that I’ve come across that enables attractive, uncluttered video blogging.

DEMO NOW | DOWNLOAD NOW

No sooner you demo this theme than you will notice the smooth transition effects listing the top video posts on the front page. Since the moment I saw this feature, I’ve been thinking of starting a new video blog. Having said that, I really don’t have the time to cater to this primary blog of mine.

The thick bold borders around the thumbnails adds a bit of sophistication that is seen only in professional video blogs. The theme features six beautiful color options, and I like the blue and black combination the most – optimal for viewing videos on black background.

Well, this theme is worth a try!

This photograph was taken with my old Canon A520 – a camera I cherish the most, as it’s my first digital camera. Canon, as always, is known for its enhanced blue colors. I added the progressive blur effect to this photo with the help of my favorite photo editor PhotoScape. This is a fast motion scene of the change-of-guards ritual at Prague Castle, Prague.

I’ve never preferred the settings of the camera in auto-mode, so used the following parameters in getting the shot right without shakes, in the dull afternoon light:

• F-stop – f/4
• Exposure time – 1/160 sec
• ISO speed – minimal
• Focal length – 6 mm
• Aperture – 2.75
• White Balance – cloudy
• Color choice – normal

Generally, it’s not advisable to have vivid as the color choice when the white balance is in cloudy mode. This adds unwanted contrast, and makes the picture too deep and dark – but overflowing with colors. This also adds a lot of noise in the picture, which looks bad when blown-up at wall hanging resolutions.

Canon’s blue is always inspiring when planning for shots with the blue sky as background. Here is an example..@ Church of Our Lady before Týn, Prague

Parameters:

• F-stop – f/4
• Exposure time – 1/1000 sec
• Focal length – 6 mm
• Max. aperture – 2.75
• White balance – cloudy
• ISO speed – minimal

I continue to experiment with different parameters – even if it costs the best moment. Photography is a constant learning process and all the how-to tutorials just help you in getting the shot right by 40%.

Image via Wikipedia

I thought Nokia did false marketing only for its 2730 Classic 3G phone. Well, looks like it’s a trend Nokia has followed for all of its, so-called flagship models. Take a look at the Nokia N97 video below, and you’ll understand why. My trust in Nokia is fast declining, and I guess the day is not too far when people will prefer even Chinese made nameless mobile phones over Nokia.

Even the marketing guys at the Nokia shops are well-trained to fool the customers. Once, when I was inquiring about the new Nokia 5233, the marketing person showed me another similar looking touchscreen phone from Nokia and claimed the user interface is as fast this. Well, to me it looked sluggish. Immediately, he said that it’s running in old firmware, and if we upgrade it to the newer one it will be super fast. I asked if he would accept 50% of the money now, and pay the rest after I upgrade to a newer firmware for smoother and faster transitions.

All he did was sport a grin at me.

So, Nokia is making false promises, and misleading marketing campaigns. What a shame!

Image by rintakumpu via Flickr

Are you the type that creates to-do lists on a notepad? Well, how often do you remember to click on the to-do notepad and see the task list schedule for the day? Quite cumbersome, it is. Some people use Outlook calendar or the one on their mobile phones to create task lists, so that they can manage them a little better. These methods are good, but let me suggest you one better application that integrates seamlessly on Google Chrome and Firefox and pops-up when you log on to Gmail – Remember the Milk.

It’s a funny name for an application, but what the heck, it’s good. You can integrate this to your Gmail account by downloading the extension from Chrome Extension Gallery. Of course, it’s not just about Gmail integration – there are various free and paid (PRO) services available.

What’s free: Extensions for Gmail, Twitter, Google Calendar, Netvibes, Mobile, etc.

Pro versions for: iPhone, iPod Touch, Adroid, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, etc.

It’s quite simple and straightforward to use, and handy tips available to get started. Try it out and schedule your tasks efficiently. Most importantly, don’t forget to get milk tomorrow.

We all work for various organizations. How many of us work for money, and how many for the satisfaction the job provides? Well, the percentage for the former would be 98%, and the latter would be 4% – well, 2% of us simply lie or don’t give the right answer!

Here is a video, by Simon Sinek, that talks about the inside-out and outside-in views of our life, and how it’s directly related to successful businesses or leaders worldwide. Apple Inc., is an example here..

Actually, when Simon talks about the golden circle, he feels that there are more people who are influenced by what than by why. Well actually, that’s the way it works in this capitalistic world. We all buy items for what they are, don’t we? The vendors always sell what they have made for the mass market, don’t they? We, the consumers, always buy only what we can afford, don’t we?

Not many companies make products based on why the consumers need such products. If that’s the case, none of the notebook PCs will be sold with Microsoft Windows pre-installed. And that’s why we are infested with MS Windows, and not Apple Mac or Linux matter-of-factly. And that explains why Bill Gates, and not Steve Jobs, is the richest man on earth. You agree?

Apple Inc., is a strange capitalist. They are bent on making strides in innovation – based on why. Unfortunately, only 30%-35% (in developed countries, may be) become early adopters and early majority. Having said that, Apple Inc., is clever enough to have gauged the creamy layer of the market. That means, only 30%-35% of the population that is very rich can afford it’s products – giving Apple the ‘prestige’ / ‘one of a kind’ status that invites stares, raised eyebrows and what not?

Coming to the HOW part…we don’t need to ask these capitalists how to do something – for example, marketing? Well, they hire MBAs. What say you?

There are quite a few applications that enable you to have your own social start page. Applications like iGoogle, Netvibes, Pageflakes, etc., are the most common ones you would’ve come across. If you are using Firefox or Google Chrome, you must try Feedly – a simple and efficient browser extension. Feedly creates a lovely magazine-like start page, which is heavily customizable.

You can log on to Feedly with your Google id, and start customizing the various page views (or category views) like cover, digest, latest, buzz, shared, history, and so on. If you’re already logged on to Twitter, Feedly is way too happy to grab all the happenings pertaining to your Twitter id, and display them on the start page.

Feedly’s search feature is worth a mention. The results for the search terms are quite relevant, though not extensive – it might improve over time. You can also get a gist of the news/article within the same page by clicking on the link – then decide whether to take that on to a new page/tab.

I’m using Feedly to organize my most visited news-science-technology sites, along side Twitter and my blog – I’m liking it. Why don’t you give it a try?

Are you a prolific blogger/writer, not wanting to worry about the look and feel of your blog? Here is a clean and straightforward theme which lets your readers focus on your writings rather than on the sidebars and advertisements.

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One strong feature that is noticeable upfront is the nice bold font – easy on the eyes of the readers if you’re writing a story. Install this and start a short story blog of your own. You can insert Google ads in between the paragraphs once you start getting a steady stream of readers.

I thought this is just another cafe/restaurant in town trying to make or present conventional food in a different platter – just like the stupid Dosa Calling. I was wrong. The moment I stepped in to their Adyar outlet, it was a good feeling to smell the great aroma of fresh food. Nothing obnoxious or stuffy with garlic infested air.

The ambiance is good, though the facility is quite small. The service is good, and the staff courteous – at least, they have a smile on their face, different from the usual frown that I meet in most cafes/restaurants. May be they are paid well!? Well, may be…

The menu is quite simple and straightforward – and thanks for not having funky names (as if the cooks are straight from Mars). I liked the creamy tomato soup with a tinge of spice, and the spinach macaroni soup.

Overall, it’s a nice no frills experience to spend the evening. And, it’s not that costly when compared to the other few cafes. Is it because they are new in the market? Well, may be…

P.S. They don’t accept Accor ticket restaurant coupons. Sodexo coupons accepted.

In about two hours, Kasab will get to know if he’s gonna live or hang by the neck. I would say death penalty would just make his life easier. Having said that, sentencing him to life imprisonment is a overhead for tax payers like us and the government authorities to execute the life long act.

Implications of pronouncing life imprisonment for Kasab:

• There might be hostage situations or bombings demanding the release of Kasab
• Enable Ram Gopal Varma to make a movie outta Kasab
• Kasab becomes a role model for all the young trainees in training camps across Pakistan and Afghanistan
• Kasab might become fluent in Marathi and win the sympathy of the Thackerays. The Thackeray goons will demonstrate violently demanding the release of Kasab, forcing the government to provide political asylum
• Kasab raises like a phoenix and becomes another don, Dawood Ibrahim II

Phew, umpteen possibilities, huh? Do we really need this headache?

If I were to have the powers to punish Kasab (and the like), I would banish him to a place with the most inhumane conditions infested with rodents. Tie him up and feed him just enough so that he could feel the pain when the rats feed on his flesh. Well, all this must be done in secrecy – not a hint to our stupid Indian media. I’m sadistic? I don’t mind being for a mean, yet another creation of Kasab’s God.

Thinking of any other form of punishment? Use the comment section below..

Who wouldn’t be happy if social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter work seamlessly on a ultra-low-cost phone like Nokia 2730 Classic? I discovered Snaptu via Nokia Ovi Store, decided to give it a try. I downloaded Snaptu directly on to the device, and fired it up.

I’m awed! Excellent speed (partly ‘coz of the 3G data capability of the device), and the loading times are so low that you won’t have time to take your eyes off the screen. There are lotta apps that you can add or remove on Snaptu – cool feature!

List of apps (default):

• Twitter – super fast!
• Facebook – super fast – option to hide/show profile pics is well thought off!
• Picasa
• News/RSS
• CricInfo
• Weather – Accuweather app is too good – auto-senses the locale (good localization!)

Additional apps / web links:

• eBuddy Messenger
• UC Browser
• Trivia
• Sudoku
• Live Football Scores
• Nimbuzz
• Getjar
• Mobango
• Nazara
• Endgadget
• Jezebel
• Gawker
• Gizmodo
• Lifehacker
• Techcrunch
• TheSportsCampus
• Reuters News
• The Big Picture
• London Tube
• Flickr
• The Guardian News
• Google Calendar
• MyMovies
• Dictionary

More apps are added every now and then. Overall, I’m liking Snaptu, and would continue to use it when I’m on the move. Good job Snaptu, and thanks for keeping it FREE!

It all happened in a flash, in May 2008. I was in the process of registering my personal blog on the internet domain name space, and was looking for names like narensblog.com, thoughtsunlimited.com, blahblahblah.com and the like. All were taken!

Huh, chucked these common names outta my equation. I tried one word, that even today is quite difficult to comprehend – Ubiquitense. Even to me! I was stuck in the about section as I didn’t know what meaningful sentences I would wanna write for this blog name. I didn’t wanna be conventional. Anyways, the name got stuck to my blog.

Then started my long fetish with logos, and the image above is the latest one. Some may call it waste of time. Some may call it waste of energy. At the end of the day, these mundane things make me happy. What matters the most is that I can create an identity for my blog, from my imagination.

I’ve already lost one good tech blog of mine in a fit of anger and frustration. I don’t wanna lose this one, and so is the choice of colors – to pacify me that this is good!

So, cheers to me!

There are umpteen websites that you can stumble upon for a review on this new Nokia 2730 Classic phone. Well, you end up getting a mixed review on this product. This is not a high-end phone for you to be relying on what the reviews say… Thought I would just list out some of the important features in this phone that you would wanna know about.

Let me get to the point..

Who’s the target market for this phone?

• those who got fed up with low-tech touchscreen phones
• those who got fed up with abysmal quality of Samsung phones
• those who don’t have money for Sony Xperia
• those who think that it’s not a strategic investment
• those who got married recently (:P)

What’s this phone capable of?

• handling voice calls, SMS, MMS and all other basic phone functions – excellent
• improved voice clarity – a little hollow, but very good

What’s unique?

• Quad-band GSM 850/900/1800/1900
• WCDMA 850/900/1900/2100
• Opera mini pre-installed
• 3G internet access – very good

What’s bad?

• Nokia Ovi Suite to phone sync functionality – very bad (the old Nokia PC Suite was good)
• Video quality – very bad (can’t take clear videos of traffic cops accepting bribes)
• Display options – average (what was Nokia thinking about providing options for display brightness?)

What’s worse?

• False marketing – very very very very bad (the user manual and Nokia website talk about pre-installed Nokia Ovi Maps, but not a trace of it anywhere on the phone)
• Can’t install Ovi Maps – very very bad online help/support

What’s the price? Well, this is quite a phone for Rs. 4000 (US $90)

Would you be satisfied with this phone? Yes, if you want a dirt cheap, no-frills mobile phone with 3G internet access.

Please tweet this review if you think it’s different from all those rhetoric ones…

Place: Mumbai food Junction, Nandambakkam, Chennai

Landmark: Next to MIOT Hospitals /diagonally opposite Chennai Trade Center (CTC).

This is the first time when I had a sweet Vada Pav. It tasted good to me, but it’s not Mumbai-style; definitely not the one that sells for five or six rupees in Mumbai. The same goes for Pav Bhaji that’s available at Rs. 50!

Well, didn’t want to try any other sweet chaat items, and I jumped to the main course; ordered Mumbai Thaali @Rs. 75 (value add: stale onions and tomatoes). This was slightly better, but no way close to the taste of the North Indian Thaali from Sangeetha.

The ambiance is just OK, with very poor air conditioning. The evening air outside was much cooler than what it was inside the restaurant. Probably, they were reminding us that the Mumbai weather is no better than Chennai – hot and humid. The menu didn’t stop with pseudo-Mumbai food, but included some Chinese too. Actually, the number of items in the Chinese carte’ was on par with the Indian/Mumbai ones. They should have named it Chino-Mumbai food junction, or something like that.

It’s now a fashion to fool people in the name of Chinese, Mumbai, Rajasthani, Italian menu, and they add the word authentic just to give us a hint that it’s no way near that word. Well, they are not to be blamed. Everyone, right from the autowallas to our MPs, want to make some quick bucks fooling people like us, and this restaurant is nothing compared to them. At least, I got to chance upon Mumbai Inglees, and some quick facts about the city. Man, they’ve put Wikipedia to shame!

Food quality: 2.5/5

Ambience: 2.5/5

Cold coffee: 0.1/5 (wyaaaaak!)

Will I go there again? I don’t think so..

It’s just about 2.34 seconds, but this video is quite provocative. Throughout the video, I’m reminded of all those pixelated pacman,  badminton, brick games, and others. A sense of Déjà vu!

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. – Independent web videos.

I’m sure you’ll hit ‘play again’ after you watch it for the first time. It’s awesome to watch the world turn into pixels and cubes on high-definition. Very nice imagination by Patrick Jean.

Not sure if anyone has written something like this on a blog..such an uncanny blog topic!? This topic is for people who always mumble about the progress of others, who are seemingly less intelligent than they are.

So, what are the ten-reasons (not top-ten!) that make bird-brained people more successful than they ought to be? Here you go:

1. They come under the 80-20 relationship (Pareto Principle). 80% of their success comes out of just 20% of their effort
2. It’s their past karma, if at all you believe in it
3. They’re very good at the art of shameless toadying
4. They are the least concerned about others
5. They are always at the right place at the right time
6. They are more religious than spiritual
7. A trivial 99% luck factor adds to the huge 1% of hard-work in anything they do
8. They are politicians in India
9. Every time they come across a rectangular wall hanging mirror, they think it’s George W. Bush smiling at them.
10. Well, they are bird-brained! End of story.

Having said these, at the end of the day, the winner keeps winning. Ain’t that true? Well, George W. Bush ruled for eight full years, damn it! And, we have people like Laloo, Mayawati, Karunanidhi, and all other politicians making a fool of us, enjoying life and securing trillions of Indian Rupees for them and their great great grand children. Here we are paying tax for whatever we buy – be it essential or trivial.

God save us!

If you are looking for an authentic adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (2009), then you will be disappointed. The lead character, along with the legendary Dr. Watson, is portrayed in a typical Hollywoodish style. However, the strong British accent keeps you reminding that the movie is about a British detective and all the happenings take place in Imperial Britain. Ah, at least the origins of Doyle’s characters are preserved.

There’s nothing much to the story, as it always happens to be good versus evil. What is important is how it is presented on the big screen. Top notch cinematography and music. Talking about music in this movie, Hans Zimmer never ceases to impress us with his magic. Apt rhythm at the apt moment – how very fitting to every scene. This is one good reason why you must watch this movie in a theater or a home theater system with 5.1 channel DTS sound.

Coming to the characterization, Robert Downey, Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson are impressive as Hollywoodish British characters – too much of style borrowed from Hollywood. Robert Downey reminds us of his semi-comical character he did as Iron Man. Now, why I’m I reminded of Iron Man when ‘m watching Sherlock Holmes? May be, there are similarities.

Portrayal of Britain with the tower bridge under construction is very good. No dearth of visual effects during explosions and fight scenes. Keeps you glued to your seat, until the end. Even the start and end credits are a treat to watch.

Some pics..

Overall, a good entertainer!

Movie: 4/5

Music: 4.5/5

Visuals: 4.5/5

Story: 2.5/5

Sometimes, photography can be dramatic!

Not very often do we come across such a symbiotic relationship in our concrete jungles. And, we call ourselves humans, and the barbaric are branded as animals. I guess it’s otherwise. The animals in jungles are more civilized and well-behaved than the so-called humans who live at the expense of their fellow men. What say you?

Photo © Ubiquitense

I didn’t realize that this elephant was staring at me with fear and anger in its eyes. At least, that’s what I deduced when I blew this pic up on a large screen display. It’s probably thinking if I’m the land mafia that cuts down trees and plants small granite stones in the corners, marking the plot numbers of area 1800 sq.ft each?!? Or, some remnant group of the famous Mr. Veerappan trying to get hold of the tusks and sell it to the rich and filthy Americans/Europeans that think Indians still commute on top of Elephants!?

Well, what ever be the reason, this elephant doesn’t want me strolling in its territory. I can hear the faint words from its long trunk that goes like “What? Get the heck outta here”

Over and out!

Photo © Ubiquitense

The streets were deserted in the still gray morning light. I’d been here in Pondicherry 8 days now and I’d begun to skip my customary early morning walk the lasts few days. I had enjoyed it so much last week. Then why didn’t it enthrall me so much this week? It probably was the novelty wearing off. It was no longer so much an assertion of my independence. Its symbol so to say. The liberation of doing as I pleased with my time. All this while I was defying convention as I knew it by rambling all alone by myself, losing myself in the by-lanes and walking in the first morning light to sit by the sea. For a week, I’d managed to do whatever I pleased. I’d been there….done that. So I’d accomplished. However, today after two day break, I resolved again to take my treasured morning walk. I wanted to safeguard the romance of it, all over again. And am I glad I did!

Beach road is not as crowded as it was the previous week. This was a casual observation though not an insignificant one. The previous week saw more holiday makers what with the slew of public holidays. But today, they had all gone back to their busy routines. This evoked a sense of expansion for me. The sound of the waves seemed perceptibly louder. I could also discern the difference in the weather. Last week had been cooler, to the extent that I had wished for a lightly warm covering when I ventured out on my walk. But today the weather was balmier. There was a light coolness to the seaside breeze which was welcome. Today there was no stiff breeze like last week. The breeze just caressed the waters so that the waves came in as gentle rollers. And that told a tale.

Masses of water slowly gathered in weight as they came in to release their load on the rocks. In contrast last week the waves were smaller as the breeze was stiffer. They seemed to be in a hurry. Small surflets broke in the water itself. Today’s waves looked as if they were contemplating something very carefully before stating their intent. More mature they seemed, heavy with the weight of experience. The smaller waves of the week gone by were more impatient, much like youth. Youth and the energy that youth seeks to dissipate. Youth does not have time to contemplate. Youth acts.

The only dampener that today’s sortie held was that I would not be able to see the brilliant sunrise. There was a cloud cover which persisted right across the horizon which denied me the vision of the sun rising in all its orange splendor. I would not see the orange ball rising and slowly turning golden, carving upon the limitless expanse of water, a golden path leading to itself. I had been seeing this phenomenon all through last week and the thought that came unbidden each time was whether the waters would part if I stepped into that golden radiance.

The mildly golden sun hung in the sky. It was time to go. I was content. I had renewed my romance with nature. Nature always inspired me to aspire to loftier ideals. Nature reminded me that one needed to stop and stare even in this age and time, if nothing, to restate that Life is beautiful after all!

Not very often do we come across our glorious past. When the majority of Europe was in dark ages, people eating people, Tamizh kings were promoting arts and technology through a rich cultural spectrum. The picture above is just an example of what our ancients were capable of – when they didn’t have pesudo-tamizhs and other institutionalized religions.

Photo © Ubiquitense

Do you think Philips’ tag line ‘Sense and Simplicity’ stands true in India? Well, NO!

Philips’ product strategy in India:

1. Bring a bull-crap product made in China
2. Brand it with Philips
3. Sell in India, and
4. Leave all the spare parts far, far away!

Far, far away! How far? As far as Pune! Every time my TV goes kaput, I register a complaint. The service person comes araam se after 2 days (this after repeated calls & reminders).

I could guess the problem before the service could open the cabinet. Voila! It’s the same power supply problem – and ‘was I ever wrong with Philips’ problem and pathetic customer service? NO!

It’s been a month, and the spare part is still arriving from Pune…probably by walk, or may be Philips is conducting a marathon event, passing the spare part – town by town, down to Chennai! Wow, what an event!!

I try their toll free, and I never get through in less than 5 tries.

I open a chat with their support personnel, and they simply say a senseless (read, sense & simplicity) sorry and close the chat session (screen-shot below, click to enlarge!).

In my opinion, we must read in-between lines of Philips’ famous tag line. May be it’s an Anagram (with hidden letters) for Nonsense and Complexity!! Well, is this the first time ‘m behind them for the power supply problem? NO!

If Philips can’t provide proper support to a product marketed in India, why the heck should they be here? Chinese dumping ground, may be!

What say you?

There’s a price for everything. These lampshades are hand crafted, and quite pricey! Well, it’s understandable. These people target their products for Westerners who have money, not the locals.

Photo © Ubiquitense

There are zillions of free, premium and freemium WordPress themes out there. Some bloggers pick some good looking theme, and install them, whereas some look at the functional aspects of the themes before installing them.

Following are three exclusive themes that I stumbled upon – packing a fair mix of good design and functionality, yet keeping the layout minimal and uncluttered…

1. STRUCTURE THEME

Structure Theme Demo | Structure Theme Download

2. GOOD THEME

Good Theme Demo | Good Theme Download

3. ZEXEE THEME

Zexee Theme Demo | Zexee Theme Download

Place: Dakshina Chitra, Muttukadu, ECR, Chennai

Inside one of the many old, architecturally intriguing Tamizh houses @ Dakshina Chitra. I guess this is the Naidu’s house. However, the innovative double burner technology, pictured below, is not limited to this kinda’ house.

Photo © Ubiquitense