Train of thought

Sanhiti's Endrendrum Kadhal - Portrayal of love that transcends time

2010-09-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

Sanhiti hosted their annual production "Endrendrum Kadhal"(Forever love) on Sep 25 and 26, 2010 at the Woodside high school auditorium at Woodside, CA. This was a charity show for a well known non-profit organization called Udhavum Karangal. Its no surprise that they helped sponsor over 100 kids from these 2 shows and its a great achievement in itself.

The show itself started off with a grandeur enactment of a battlefield which depicted the loss of a king in the battle who was also a true romantic. The emotions in the battlefield and thereafter made one wonder if they were transported to that era. The artists portrayed their acts amazingly well and were flawless in their delivery. This set the expectations for the coming acts at a very high level and challenged them to live up to it. The production design for this act was equally majestic and literally stole the show.

The show was divided into 4 different acts and each one depicted a separate story of love. This concept was new and has been attempted for the first time by Sanhitians. A valiant effort and a job well done.

Acts 2, 3 and 4 were more contemporary in style and jolted the audience back to their seats reminding them that they were in 2010 and not in 1020. I felt that the transition between acts 1 and 2 could have been more smooth with Act 2 portraying the love of the 18th and 19th century. Act 3 could be the present day state of affairs(figuratively) and Act 4 could have been a really wild imagination of how it would be in the future. That was the critic in me peeking its head out.

Some really creative bits that impressed me were the following:

1. The railway station backdrop was so real and was so apt for the song.

2. I loved the way how Hosana song was choreographed with the song set in a railway station and the reverse gear half way through. Creative thinking. I am not sure how many in the audience got the (not so) subtle humor on AT&T. Nicely done.

3. The 2 guys dancing on a pole bit was just awesome. Again, creativity at its best.

4. The sets for Act 1 and Act 3 were captivating and shared the top spots among the 4 acts.

5. Portraying of Kamal Haasan in Devi-Sridevi song was done brilliantly. Nice homework. The trolley effect was also well thought of.

6. The voice-over was nicely done. I loved this format since it blended well with the songs and the theme. Did not miss the skit, surprisingly.

7. And finally all dancers did a fantastic job. Months of practice showed on the stage and it was a feast to watch so much so that my 2 year old was glued to my lap for the entire show, except for the speech bits(This has never happened before).

All in all, it was a great production for a wonderful cause. Wish they would do this as a road show in different cities like a broadway production. I am sure that day is not far away.

Amazon introduces PayPhrases

2010-01-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

Amazon has introduced Pay Phrases by which one can complete a purchase by just entering a phrase which is pre-configured to a specific credit card and a mailing address. This looks like an extension of the 1-click purchase that Amazon had with more flexibility. This feature is very useful for folks who make a lot of purchases on Amazon. They have also teamed up with other websites to integrate this Pay Phrase technology for online purchases. I like this one!!!!

Goodbye 2009

2009-12-31T18:22:00.000-08:00

Everyone is writing a "Looking back at 2009" post today. So I decided I will come up with one as well. I had written exactly 3 posts this year(Including this one) so I can claim that my blogging has been very light. I don't want to list the reasons for that but I just hope that I can be a little more engaging through blogs in 2010. On the brighter side, my twitter and facebook updates have been more active and I guess thats going to maintain the trend in the coming year as well.

So how was 2009 for me? Nothing earth shattering happened this year. But nothing to complain as well. It has been a good year overall both on a personal and professional level. Some highlights of 2009 are the following:

1. Ran my first 5K for a cause.

2. Got a netbook.

3. Became active on twitter and facebook.

4. Broke a 50mm prime lens.

5. Visited one of the seven wonders of the modern world(Chichen Itza).

6. Started to train for half marathon.

7. Bought our first mini-van.

8. Got an iPhone.

Looking forward to a fun-filled, joyous and exciting 2010. I am hoping I would have more than 8 things to list on Dec 31 2010.

So wishing everyone an exciting and adventurous 2010!!!

Netflix Instant watch

2009-01-03T18:16:00.000-08:00

We used to be a member of Netflix and we cancelled our membership for a couple of months since we realized that we are not watching and turning around the movies effectively. We also had other pressing priorities lined up which led to that decision. I was also bummed by the fact that I could not watch the Instant movies from Netflix on my television. They used some rather bizzare DRM from Windows media player which prevented those movies from playing on my television which was connected using a component output from my desktop.

With the onset of new year, we decided to give Netflix another try. So I enabled our account with the very basic version which will let us have 1 DVD at a time and we could also watch unlimited Instant watch movies for $8.99/month. With very little hope I decided to give another try to play the Instant watch movies on my television. I came to know that they have now started using the Microsoft Silverlight techonologies to stream the Instant watch movies. That gave me a little more hope. But the initial trial of installing Silverlight from Microsoft website was a bummer. So I called Netflix support and they gave me another link to install Silverlight from and that did the wonders. I am now able to watch the online movies from Netflix on my television. Watched Outsourced and Transsiberian and I was very impressed with it DVD like quality. I did have some glitches in between where my IE browser would freeze and I had to wait for about 5-10 mins before I could kill the browser and start all over again. But again Netflix has this cool feature of saving the last viewed frame from where it will restart if there was a disruption. Also when there was some disruption in the Internet connection, the movie would not restart after the connection has been restored. These are some annoying glitches that Netflix can work on to improve the user experience

There are still room for improvements but overall I am quite satisfied with their online streaming technology and also their collection of movies that could be watched online. Looking forward to more online movies from Netflix.

2009 - A New year and a new post

2009-01-01T18:41:00.000-08:00

Welcome new year 2009. With it comes a few resolutions, a few absolution and an oath to revive this blog yet again. No promises like last time and no listing of resolutions like last time. Just a note to myself to visit this page atleast once a day and try to pen some thoughts if possible as often as possible.

In preparation for 2009, I entered the world of Facebook. Invited a few friends and colleagues. My wife cautioned that I would get addicted to it and I must agree that I was the first couple of days. Its starting or wear off a bit but its been one of the most interesting social network I have come across so far. So I am hoping its going to keep me engaged for a few months.

Looking back at 2008, I am glad that it was a great year and a memorable one for us on a personal level. The one we would cherish for a long time to come as a family.

I am getting into 2009 with a lot of hopes and promises to myself as always. I also wish each and everyone who comes across this post a very happy, prosperous, eventful, engaging, surreal and a dream come true for each and every one of you.

I supported earth hour today...

2008-03-29T20:37:00.000-07:00

Well partially... I am composing this blog during earth hour. I remembered about earth hour when my mom reminded me of it at 8.20PM on March 29, 2008. I am proud to support earth hour and I wish this would bring more awareness to people around the world of the impending effects of global warming. I am hoping to set a reminder next year so I could support it fully..

Finally, One stop flight to Chennai, India from SFO...

2008-03-07T10:36:00.000-08:00

Three cheers to Cathay pacific for introducing a direct flight from Hong Kong to Chennai starting June 2nd 2008. Today, there is no way to get to Chennai, India from San Francisco in less than 2 stopovers. With the introduction of this direct flight from Hong Kong to Chennai, Cathay Pacific has finally won the hearts of thousands of Chennai going folks like me. Even though I have to wait at Hong Kong for about 4 hours to catch my connecting flight to Chennai, this is a boon to travelers like me who had to go through multiple airports before reaching our final destination. Initially, the Hong Kong-Chennai flight runs only 4 days a week but I am sure this will be made a daily flight given the traffic to this buzzing Indian metropolis.

A Tamil stage play by "The Avatars"...

2008-03-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

I recently came to know about this very talented group called "The Avatars" who are gearing up to an upcoming production of a comedy stage show in tamil called "Ninaithale Nadakkum"(Think and it will happen). This is the first time I will be watching their stage show but I am very much acquainted with the crew behind this show. "The Avatars" is a brainchild of Mani Ram who is a multi-talented personality with a passion for dance, acting, story writing, screenplay and direction. In this latest venture, Mani is writing the script and directing a cast of very talented individuals who are making sure that the audience should come watch the show for their talent and creativity and not because they were driven by guilt to buy the tickets with a promise of their contribution going to a non-profit organization.
The acting crew consists of multi-faceted individuals who have already been part of many such theatrical shows in the past. They have gained the respect and admiration of many such audiences with their amazing talent and timing which I believe is a key requirement in such comedy productions.
This upcoming show not only has a talented crew of actors, it also has a highly skilled veteran backstage production crew that has produced the backdrop and sets for a variety of dance and drama stage shows around the country. So the audience can be guaranteed to be awed by not only by the content of the show but also by its very professional theatrical production. This show seems to have a single motive to entertain the audience from start to finish. From the bits and pieces I have heard so far about this show, it is surely creating a lot of interest in me to go watch the show. I will have to be honest and say that I am not a big theater person. I am hoping that this show turns me around and lives up to its expectations.
For "Ninaithale Nadakkum", Mani seems to have come up with a brilliant script with some surprising climax. I was even advised that this will probably be the first time, I would see such an ending for a comedy show. From what I have seen and heard in the past few weeks, I am eagerly looking forward for the show on March 29th and 30th. Details on the timings and venue of the show can be found here.

Google Reader enhancements...

2008-03-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

I love it when they make enhancements to Google Reader. This is my primary source for tech news and blogs and use the keyboard shortcuts quite a bit to browse through the feeds. One of my gripe was not being able to "tab" to the "Send" button when sending out an email from the Google Reader. I use this feature quite a bit and I was relieved to see that they fixed this in their latest enhancement release. They also have a "Show Details" link for each feed where we can get the details on the number of feeds published per week and the number of subscribers for the feed. Looking for some more cool feature enhancements in the near future.

When did an iPhone sell for $599?

2008-03-05T16:23:00.001-08:00

This is a screen shot from the online Apple store taken today. I am wondering when did the original price of an 8GB iPhone was $599 ever? The website also claims that we get a 42% off original price for this refurbished item. A new 8GB iPhone today costs $399. So I am wondering how can one save 42% when the refurbished cost for the same 8GB iPhone is $349.
Here is a screen shot for a new 8GB iPhone on the Apple store website for today. Now I am not sure what kind of a marketing technique is this.

Youtube down.. Pakistan responsible for it..

2008-02-24T17:46:00.000-08:00

Youtube was down for a couple of hours this morning. And I was taken by surprise when I came to know the reason. OpenDNS reports that Pakistan was responsible for it and it was able to hijack the IP address of Youtube making it unavailable for millions around the world. Although the problem is now fixed, it still amazes me on how a third world ISP can hijack the IP address of such a well known website. Are these websites so vulnerable that it cannot prevent such an outage. This opens up a lot more possibilities for such websites to become unavailable going forward. I only wish that the identities of some many online users do not get compromised because of such unruly activities. God help the Internet!!!

Back after a small break...

2008-02-24T16:52:00.000-08:00

I wanted to blog a bit more regularly starting this year but have not been able to, given my work commitments. But I am going to try a little more harder now. Let us see how this one works. I am also planning to dust off my Canon 30D to start working on my photography. To motivate myself to do that, I have installed GIMP and the Ufraw plug-in to detect my Canon RAW files in my GIMP editor. I am planning to take more RAW images and use GIMP for my post processing. I have been putting this off for quite some time. 2 reasons. Laziness and lack of time.
Next in my wish list is a good flash for my 30D. I am leaning against the 430EX. But I wanted to buy this flash using my stock photography proceeds. Lets see how that works out. I am also planning to blog on how I use GIMP to create my stock photography portfolio. Hopefully, I am able to create a good How-to guide on it.
Wish me luck!!!

Happy New Year and what I would like to accomplish this year...

2008-01-09T21:57:00.000-08:00

A very happy 2008 to one and all. I wanted to get this in before January gets into double digits. I was thinking on what I would like to do this year. Not really a resolution. Just a list of 10 things.

1. Hike the Kilimanjaro
2. Take part in an expedition to the south pole
3. Cross the Panama canal.
4. Experience the northern lights
5. Fly the A380
6. Drive from San Francisco to New York
7. Vote in the US Presidential elections
8. Bike on Route 1 from Monterrey to San Louis Obispo
9. Visit Machu Pichu in Peru
10. Blog more frequently.

Happy new year everyone and wish me luck!!!

Today is the shortest day of 2007..

2007-12-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

But I did learn an important fact that this is not the day with the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset time of the year. The latest sunrise time in a year is sometime during the first week of January and the earliest sunset is sometime in the first/second week of December.

Left turns contributes to global warming...

2007-12-12T20:55:00.000-08:00

At least that is what UPS has found out. According to this NY Times article UPS uses a software program that clearly maps out routes for every driver that reduces the number of left turns drastically. This results in huge savings in gas consumption which in turn reduces the CO2 emissions dramatically.
I have never been a fan of left turns and I always try my best to reduce left turns in my driving. I have always looked at it from a time saving perspective but never from a gas saving and global warming perspective. I am glad that my driving habit is contributing to reducing global warming in some small way.

Crap powering street lights in India...

2007-12-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

Yes. You read it right. A community near Chennai, India powering their streetlights using human waste. Link via National Geographic. I only wish more and more communities adopt this technology and make this part of a mandate while building communities like this. Rain water harvesting was one such successful initiative and given the power situation and growing population in India, it is only a matter of time when power would become scarce like water.

Amazon.com customer service phone number...

2007-11-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

I was faced with one of those unfortunate moments where I had to cancel an order from Amazon.com. I have had no complaints about them so far. I had ordered a DVD which was supposed to arrive before Nov 21 but then I realized that it will not even be shipped before Nov 23. So I decided to cancel the order. I log on to my account hoping that it will be a click of a button to cancel the order since it has not even shipped from the location yet.
To my surprise, I get a message saying that my order cannot be canceled at this time since it was in the process of being shipped. The estimated ship date still says Nov 23 to Nov 28. Today is Nov 16 but I still could not cancel my order. My next instinct, as would anyone else's be, was to look for the customer service phone number. I go to the search box in Amazon.com website and search for "customer service phone number". True to the spirit of Amazon.com here is what I got. I was literally dumbfounded. I then start my manual search process and no where in the entire site could I find a number to call them. I started feeling really stupid thinking that such a reputed company like Amazon.com would not publish their customer service phone number on their website.
After searching for about 15mins, I gave up on the Amazon.com website and turned to our dear friend google. The first link gave me the numbers I was looking for. Someone (bless your heart) was kind enough to create a web page to provide all the necessary phone numbers to get through to Amazon. Once I got hold of the number, I was able to reach a live agent, explain the situation and got the order canceled in less than 2 minutes. I just cannot comprehend as to why they would not have this information on their own website. This is not going to make me stop buying for Amazon.com but will definitely make me think twice before I place my next order.

Below is an excerpt from this web site of all the Amazon.com customer service phone numbers and contact information:

US Customer Service
Phone toll-free in the US and Canada: (800) 201-7575 or (866) 216-1072
Phone from outside the US and Canada: (206) 346-2992 or (206)-266-2992
Another direct line: (206) 266-2335
E-mail: orders@amazon.com (I think this will still work, but no guarantees)

Amazon's rebate center: 1-866-348-2492
Amazon Corporate Accounts:1-866-486-2360

Snail mail to customer service
Amazon.com, Inc.
Customer Service
PO Box 81226
Seattle, WA 98108-1226

Service for Amazon Sellers
877-251-0696
They also have special e-mail accounts for spoofing and abuse:
stop-spoofing@amazon.com
reports@amazon.com
(This information was provided by a reader! Thanks!)

Canadian Customer Service
Phone 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern time, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific: (877)-586-3230

Corporate Offices, Seattle
(206) 622-2335
The fax number has changed. 206-266-1832 is no longer a fax number.

New! Fax for Amazon's legal Department: 206-266-7010

UK Customer Service
Phone: +44.208.636.9200
More UK numbers, from a reader:
Freephone (only from within the UK): 0800 279 6620
Phone (outside the UK): +44 20 8636 9451
Fax (free from within the UK): 0800 279 6630
Fax (outside the UK): +44 20 8636 9401

Bout with vonage...

2007-11-12T18:56:00.000-08:00

Vonage with all its woes in the VoIP space should be very much customer friendly. But that does not seem to the case. Below is their policy.
1. You sign up for Vonage service as a new customer.
2. Vonage ships you a defective router.
3. You plug it in and find that the voice service does not work.
4. You call Vonage and you are with a customer service agent for 1.5 hours and follow all their mundane reboot processes only to be declared at the end that the router is defective and needs to be replaced.

Here comes the best part...

5. The customer service agent goes through the process of ordering a replacement unit and gives you a RA# for the defective unit.
6. She then tells you that it is the customers responsibility to ship the defective unit back to them within 14 days. Vonage does not send a pre-paid shipping label to ship the defective unit back to them. This is their policy.

If I understand this correctly, Vonage ships you a defective unit, make you go through troubleshooting over the phone for 1.5 hours on a defective unit and then make the customer pay to ship that defective unit back to them. In the entire conversation, never once did the customer service agent accept that it is Vonage's mistake and would take the entire responsibility to replace the unit and make the customer happy. I do not see how Vonage can retain customers when they have such customer unfriendly policies.
When I demanded to speak to the supervisor, I was put on hold for 10 mins and the agent came back saying that they are making an exception in my case and as a goodwill gesture they will send me a prepaid shipping label which I can use to ship the defective router back. It was as if, Vonage would like to push the customer as much as they could to get them pay for the shipping charges and when they realize that they could loose a customer, they do everything to retain them back. Now what do you call this policy? I call this BS!!!!

Resurrected...

2007-11-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

This space has been officially resurrected. Watch out for more frequent updates.

Music to my ears...

2007-08-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

It had always been my childhood craving to listen to my favorite music collection in a powerful audio system with stereo speakers(5.1, 7.1 and THX were still in development) with loud volume. I still remember vividly how I convinced by dad to buy me a Philips Powerhouse Stereo music system with 1100 Watts of PMPO(Peak Music Power Output) when I was 17. I was on the phone with him, trying to convince him that I would get into a good college and he need not worry about paying a hefty college tuition and that I can use some of that money to buy this dream machine of mine so I could listen to my music collection, the way I always wanted to. I still cannot believe how all the stars aligned that day, he actually agreed to shell out about Rs.6000+(about $130, which was a huge sum those days) for that music system. Somehow I could remember this incident vividly because that was probably the first time in my life my dad had agreed to spend such a hefty sum for something I wanted so badly.
Why am I reminiscing that today? Here I am sitting in front of a 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound system listening to some of my all time favorite songs(thanks to my wife for getting me those wonderful songs) with a volume that I had always wanted to listen those songs in and having the whole house to just myself. It got me thinking as to when was the last time, I got to listen something like this and only thing I could remember was that Philips Powerhouse music system and the umpteen number of songs that I had listened on that.
I don't get those cravings these days because I know I can feed it just by click of a button. But I am reliving those cherished memories now as I am typing this. I wanted to capture this moment and the only way I could think of doing that was to blog about it. Thanks dad!!!... For those moments and the one that I am cherishing now.

Father and son...

2007-06-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

I was reading the blogs to catch up on "The day after iPhone launch" buzz, when I came across this blog from Thomas Hawk, the CEO of Zooomr. One piece that struck me in that blog was the following paragraph:

Hanging out with Robert and Patrick Scoble. Two of the best people you'll ever know. What an amazing experience for a father and son to have together. You should read Robert's quick recap of the event. What a great thing for a father to do with his son. Patrick was so proud to be #1 in line. They made a big deal about it when they let him into the store first. That's a memory that he'll have the rest of his life. What a great dad to make that happen.

I am not sure how Patrick Scoble feels about this but I feel that Robert Scoble has done something to his son which not many dads would even dream of doing. Think of spending 36 hours in a line with your son, who BTW is just 13 years old, to get an iPhone. That iPhone may become useless in another 2-3 years but the memory of that 36 hours will be there forever. Whatever maybe the motivation for Robert to spend 36 hours outside the store, but the thought of sharing those moments with his son was just wonderful.

As I was reading that piece, I was reminded of this beautiful song from Harry Chapin. In this time and age, every moment you spend with your kid is to be treasured. It may not be a big deal for the father but it makes a big difference in that child's life.

Robert, you made a big difference in Patrick's life in those 36 hours....

The iPhone experience

2007-06-29T20:46:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe myself that I am posting another blog about iPhone. I happened to be watching the live feed of people waiting outside the Palo Alto Apple store on Zooomr TV and I could feel the excitement and a sense of "I am going to be one of the first to make history in owning an iPhone" among the crowd. I also felt that it is the experience that counts more than the actual purchase of the iPhone. Folks like Scoble have been waiting in line since 9.30AM on Thursday for buying an iPhone at 6PM Friday and I can guarantee that he would have gotten more PR in this 36 hours than in the last 36 weeks. It was an excellent platform to pitch portals like Zooomr, Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Digg, Pownce and many other startups that are into social networking and those that support the social networking space. I could see them distribute T-shirts, hats and jackets for their PR campaign and made sure that their company was recognized for it.
Ustream.tv also took this opportunity to drive traffic to their site by doing two things. First, they hosted the live show of the Apple store line in Palo Alto and second, they lured new users to sign up by giving away an iPhone for a lucky one signing up before 6PM on Friday, July 29, 2007. They really used this event to bring their company to mainstream audience. Great job guys!!!.
I am still not convinced that this phone is for me. For one, it is tightly integrated with iTunes which I hate and everything in it is proprietary. I am sure I would be blogging more about this.

iPhone releasing today...

2007-06-29T03:52:00.000-07:00

The much hyped about iPhone is releasing today at 6PM nationwide. People have camped out since yesterday morning outside the Apple store and are using live streaming video technologies like Ustream.tv and Kyte.tv to show the world their perseverance. Bloggers like Robert Scoble along with his son is camped outside the Palo Alto store and is broadcasting his ordeal live here. Zooomr CEO Thomas Hawk and his team is broadcasting it here. There are people camped outside the stores at SFO, NYC and Chicago to be the leaders in the pack to hold an iPhone.
I for one, never really understood what all this hype is about iPhone. I purposefully did not put up a picture of iPhone, which I normally do when I write about a new product. I have nothing against Apple products. I always thought they had an excellent design team and that's about it. I can get the same meat in Apple's product, in most cases more meat in other similar products from other vendors for a price that is usually less than half of what Apple sells its products for. iPod and iShuffle are classic examples. I still do not own one of them and probably never will. The same goes for iPhone also. AT&T and Apple are trying to squeeze out every last bit of curiosity that they could get from those people waiting in line for the iPhones and the million others who are waiting for the next version. $600 with a 2years contract and a phone that does not have a physical keyboard and one that I cannot use with other SIM cards when I travel overseas? Why would anyone in their right mind would want to plunk down so much for such a tightly controlled product. Well, as long as there are those million plus people eagerly waiting for such a product, companies like Apple and AT&T will thrive.
Oh!! By the way, Apple did piss of Stephen Colbert. Here is his review of iPhone..

T-Mobile Hotspot@Home service

2007-06-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

A lot has been reviewed about this service here, here and here and in many more blogs and forums. This is the first of its kind in the US and to be honest, I am pretty excited about this. If Cingular had this service, I would have subscribed for it without a second thought. I wanted to find out what the cost would be if I were to sign up for it today and it was not very expensive for such a "first of its kind" service. Total initial cost would be $50(for the phone) and Linksys wireless router is free after a mail-in rebate. This makes it very affordable for the features and the Nokia phone that comes with the plan is an international tri-band phone. The minimum monthly plan should be $39.99 plus a $9.99 for the hotspot@home service.
I look at this as a desperate attempt to get back the customers that T-mobile lost to Cingular. If they are ready to pay up my early contract termination fee with Cingular, I may even consider switching back to T-mobile. For now, I can only hope that Cingular comes out with such a service soon.

Drive Speed limit day on Friday 06/28/2007

2007-06-28T05:48:00.000-07:00

Just like spare the air days, there is a new initiative by the San Jose Mercury News Roadshow host Gary Richards to designate this Friday 06/28/2007 as the Drive Speed Limit Day. I think this is a great initiative and those driving on Friday, please stick to 65mph. Lets see if it makes a difference in driving as well as the number of accidents on bay area freeways. Given the gas prices these days, it will not only save precious life but also our environment.