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Behind Enemy Lines

2011-07-20T09:36:00.002+05:30

Behind Enemy Lines, originally uploaded by Rakesh Ashok.

A picture taken a very long time ago during the initial days of the Coffee Central madness when myself and my friends used to hang out for more than half the day playing chess and other games. Looks like I have to get back to taking pictures with my Film SLR. After getting my DSLR I've absolutely forgotten that I have another gem of a camera :(

Today also happens to be my birthday :) So yet another day in the life of martian hoping for a fun day :)

Where are my blog readers?

2011-07-16T23:01:00.001+05:30

Me: Well even though I haven't blogged that regularly I still seem to find a number of visitors visiting my blog all thanks to Google. Beyond that there hardly seem to be any regular visitors!

Myself: Once upon a time your blog had less number of visitors but many regulars who read everything you posted and offered their critics and comments.

Me: I think I finally found the reason. A blog can be considered read worthy only if it has anything new to read unless of course my blog post is a copy of the Bible. :)

Myself: So looks like you found your solution. New content is a must.

Introspection is the key to all answers :)

P.S: Watched Harry Potter 7 and looks like the saga has finally come to an end. We will all miss Hermione Granger thats for sure :D

Eating Ramen with chopsticks

2011-06-04T18:48:00.000+05:30

Long ago I bought two sets of plastic chopsticks. I have no idea why I bought them that time, but I did. Today after watching 3 hours of Japanese cuisine and Japanese food and culture I also decided to try and use a chopstick. To use that I needed some noodles or ramen as they are called in Japan. Went and got some Top Ramen from the near by local shop and two eggs. Well what I finally made out of these two wasn't a total disaster but tasted really bland though. Making the ramen wasn't difficult since all I had to do was boiling and stirring. The fun part started while eating. I decided to use a chopstick the ones which I bought ages ago. But in my life I've never used a chopstick before. So I take my plate sit in front of youtube and search for a video for using chopsticks. I did learn the basics of holding the chopsticks properly but eating with it was a totally painful experience. By the time I finished eating the ramen my hands were totally numb. Guess I need to use the chopstick more often. Next task eating rice with chopsticks.

Deactivated my facebook account :)

2011-05-30T07:08:00.000+05:30

After much thought and minimum effort I have deactivated my facebook account. Lets see how long it stays deactivated :D. People contact me by mail or mobile.

There's no certainty — only opportunity.
- V For Vendetta

What happened to the blogs

2011-05-29T11:59:00.000+05:30

Started blogging when I was in college and then eventually I have seen myself shifting from blogging to twitter, facebook etc. What happened, why this sudden change, why does everyone these days prefer the short version of everything? IPL seems more popular than the original format, twitter even with its 140 word limit seem like a expansive canvas to express and share your ideas. Facebook status messages is something thats still something I haven't understood. I remember the number of times I've promised myself to update the blog regularly. The only blogs which I see being updated regularly are tech blogs. Looks like personal blogging is on the decline taken over by the likes of twitter and facebook. Guess I have to just keep reminding myself that I still have a blog.

Posting from the droid

2011-02-23T10:39:00.001+05:30

Hey I can now blog from my android phone via the new Blogger app woo hoo :)

Peepli Live - The circus of life

2010-12-17T12:46:00.004+05:30

I loved this movie. The news we get from the media these days are mostly half truth wrapped in media masala which is what the people prefer. So I can't go about blaming media for doing what they do. But this movie is definitely a slap in their faces for sure. In this whole media circus we should not forget the real issue which is that the number of farmers in India are decreasing. Should I take up farming instead of being a software engineer? These questions trouble me. Here are a few more questions which popped up in my mind. The farmers produce a lot of things which finally ends up in our homes but the price of these produce keeps increasing in the whole logistics business. So the producer gets the least whereas the middlemen enjoy more by adding the price of the logistics to the products. As the consumer we pay a lot more than it was originally bought from the farmers. As you can see as we look at the bigger picture things get a lot more confusing. The best thing about this system is that we really can't blame anyone for anything, even though we end up blaming someone.

I would like to congratulate the director Anusha Rizvi for this wonderful creation. Guess her journalist experience helped in filming this movie. A movie with some meaning at last even though the meaning is once again covered in too much media. I think Naseeruddin Shah's role was a wasted effort. The highlight of the movie was the role of two person one was Rakesh not because it is after my name, but amongst all this he felt sorry for the farmer Hori. The other character was the farmer Hori the actual victim in the movie. The screenplay is excellent and great camera work capturing the circus of life. I would rate this movie a 4/5, it lost a point for the meaning being too subdued. Other than that it is a wonderful movie.

Photography & more

2010-11-07T20:49:00.002+05:30

Portrait at Mint Street, originally uploaded by Rakesh Ashok.

Yes I have been taking lots of photographs during the past two years but I have hardly shared those pictures with anyone. Only now I got the time to upload them to flickr/facebook. So expect more pictures from me. I also got opportunity to take photos during few of my friends and relatives marriage. It was fun when I did do those photo shoots. But one thing I did learn is that I am not that great while shooting events where things move quickly. If you lose a moment it ain't coming back. So I mostly miss many of the good shots which I have seen in other photographers portfolios. But I did manage a few candid ones though. My learning in photography continues ... :)

The above picture was taken more than a year ago during one of the many Chennai Photowalk I did attend. This one was at Mint Street. In my post processing of the picture first converted the picture to Black & White using Channel Mixer. Then increased the contrast. Then added a vignette to give more focus to the portrait of the rickshawala.

Winamp for Android Beta

2010-10-24T11:03:00.007+05:30

I'm a really big fan of Winamp, primarily because of the lite version which was the best thing when I had just 256MB of RAM in my system and it still used very little of that. Now winamp has jumped on the android ship. I think by the time I actually buy my android device they would have released the final stable version. :p With this post I'm going to start posting about all the apps which I will be installing on my android phone as soon as I get one. Some of the highlights of this app

Wireless desktop sync* (requires Winamp 5.59 Beta)
Scrobbling via Last.fm app (something I was really hoping for)

Currently available for Android Version 2.1 and above.

Swype for Symbian

2010-09-01T22:01:00.005+05:30

Touted to be the next best input method (which I'm not entirely convinced yet) finally comes to Symbian S60 platform. In case you are still wondering what swype is? then please visit the swype website. It's available via Nokia betalabs. Also it's available only for Symbian S60 5th edition handsets (obviously!). I have installed it in a Nokia 5230 and seems to work pretty well. But this app definitely would be easier to use on capacitive touchscreens. I have been using it for quite a while now (30 mins) and it certainly needs some getting used to. Often while typing I got confused what I was typing especially for bigger words since I kept forgetting the key positions. Other than that it was fast. But I still can't think of it being better than the T9 dictionary mode from the old Nokia or the normal qwerty keyboard. Also this is much better to use in portrait mode than in landscape mode.

Pushpanjali

2010-07-13T21:53:00.002+05:30

Pushpanjali, originally uploaded by Rakesh Ashok.

Since the time I last posted one of my pic, I have taken thousands of photos. But only a few of them are really good. This is one of them. This picture was taken at the Saibaba temple in Neelankarai, ECR road. And I haven't processed this photo much either. The colours are exactly as they came out of the camera. I might have adjusted the brightness and contrast thats all. Seriously one thing that I have learnt after taking these photos is that, you are to have your camera everywhere you go. Else you will miss these moments :)

Browsershots

2010-07-13T18:16:00.004+05:30

Today after I changed the template of my blog I wanted to see how the blog looks in different monitor resolutions since my monitor's native resolution is 1920 x 1080 :). I was actually going to ask one of my friend to see in his system which has a 1024 x 768 resolution. Then before doing that I thought of checking in google. I searched for quite some and got to browsershots.org. What the site does is, it takes screenshots of your website in different browsers. Not only that you also have five other different parameters which you can vary like the monitor resolution, colour depth, javascript, java and flash. Not only that you also get a URL where the images of your website is stored. You can check out my blog's new design in different browsers.

Give it a try :)

F5 - Time for a refresh

2010-07-13T11:13:00.004+05:30

It's been sometime since I changed my blogger template. So I have changed it. But it's not my custom design or anything. Just the one available in blogger as a template. I think I will be a little more regular in blogging. I think I have said the previous statement time and again, haven't I? The various reasons keeping me away from blogging in recent days are Office, Facebook, Google Reader, Movies, Travel and Photo editing. Hope I can do a little bit of blogging along with the above mentioned things... :)

1 4 6 2 3 5

2010-05-03T21:32:00.000+05:30

A little secret. :)

Tomoyasu Hotei

2010-04-13T09:39:00.004+05:30

Every now in a while I try listening to some new artists. Some of them are suggested by friends, others by last.fm (a great way to find out new artists) or youtube. The artist I have been listening to for the past one week is Tomoyasu Hotei. It's not ottai its hotei, I know if he were born in Tamilnadu with that name he would've been kalachified(kalachify - to make fun of) like hell. But his style of music is on a entirely different level. So far if someone were to ask me to name a few guitarist, I would have happily named the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, Robert Fripp, Tom Morello. But now I would definitely include Tomoyasu Hotei's name in that list.

I listened to one of his song long time ago in one of my favourite movie Kill Bill. But I never knew who the musician was then. After a long time when I heard it again, I definitely wanted to know as to whose work it was. And now I know. Apparently Tomoyasu Hotei is a famous actor as well, has acted as villain in many Japanese movies and TV shows. It's hard find his albums. So been listening to all the live videos uploaded in youtube. Try listening to this song Battle without Honor or Humanity, thats the song which comes in Kill Bill. If you know any artists similar to Tomoyasu Hotei, tell me :).

The Blind Side

2010-04-10T20:49:00.003+05:30

Just saw this movie today, it's truly a wonderful movie. A wonderful movie for the entire family. This movie shows how a little love and affection can change a person's life. The character that really stood out in this one is that of Sandra Bullock.

Time to clean up

2010-04-10T11:00:00.004+05:30

I think I have not been treating my blog properly. I was just reading the google webmaster blog, especially this article, "Using site speed in web search ranking". The impact of the article may or may not be that huge for me. But other websites which are trying to come up in the google page ranking should definitely take notice. What the article tells you is that making a dashing website isn't that great if it takes too long to load in your browser or other browsers.

After reading this I checked my websites performance and its bad. Apparently my blog loads slower than 90% of the websites out there. Thats like just above the bottom. Reason my blog has become too image heavy. It is loading around 1MB of images every time you visit my webpage. So visitors of my website especially those who use the attractive but limited download packages, should be made aware of these things. So I have decided to axe down the number of images hence forth or at least use images which takes lesser time to load. Well the other optimization which some of the tools suggested for my site has to nothing with the content but rather the blogger's own code. Which sadly I can't change.

Lightbulb Sun

2010-04-04T23:05:00.005+05:30

I have heard this song atleast a hundred times in the past two week. But I'm still not able to stop listening to it. I think the songs got me. The song is Lightbulb Sun by Porcupine Tree. Every once in a while I get stuck to a song.

Lyrics

The sun is a light bulb
A candle's a treat
The curtains stay closed now
On my little retreat
And I'll only take medicine
If it's followed by sweets
A sickly pink liquid
That puts me to sleep

My head beats a better way
Tomorrow a better day

And I can watch TV
While I'm wrapped up in bed
And mother makes sure that
I'm watered and fed
My best friend from school will
Come over and stare
At me in my bubble
Of germified air

When I'm asleep the smoke fills me
I feel the heat
My illness leaves me

The sun is a light bulb
A candle's a treat
The curtains stay closed now
On my little retreat
But after a while
The noise from the street
Is making me wish I
Was back on my feet.

Its Spencer Plaza not Tiffany

2010-04-04T00:02:00.003+05:30

Its Spencers not Tiffany, originally uploaded by Rakesh Ashok.

Well I have roamed in Spencer Plaza many times since I came to Chennai. People who come to Chennai definitely come here since it is still one of the biggest shopping mall in India and you can buy just about anything in here. But it is still the one place where I haven't taken much photos. There hardly isn't much photos of this place inside and outside. I think it is time for me to do a photowalk in and around this place. This photo was taken a long time ago, when I had gone there with aparna, ajit, avijit and niranjan. This particular shot reminds me of Audrey Hepburn's movie Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Hindu needs a better Designer

2010-03-29T23:25:00.005+05:30

I am an avid reader of The Hindu, the reason being it offers news without the extra masala and stuff. Their print medium is the best in the country. It even got a makeover by the Garcia Media in 2007. But it's not about their content I'm worried about. A good newspaper can never run out of stories or readers. But in the world where content is being digitized and brought to you right to your desktop or laptops or Ipads (from April), Hindu is doing a really bad job at maintaining their website. Well the page below is what their current website looks like.

It's been like this for a very long time. They have started a redesign of the website, a beta version of the website. I'm not sure who the designer is of the beta website, but they definitely need a better designer. You can see the picture and decide why. Well the new beta website resembles so much like the guardian.co.uk website. You can see one of the pages below.

Seriously Hindu get yourself a better designer.
A loyal reader.

My New System - II

2010-03-16T00:07:00.003+05:30

OK I thought the first post was long enough as it is, so here is the second part of my rig building process. The next component in question is the Power Supply a.k.a PSU. I never really thought I have to invest in something like a PSU. I didn't quite expect the choice of PSU to be of high importance and now after enough enlightenment from my fellow PC assemblers, I have learned to respect them. The choice of the PSU can either power your system or can blow your rig sky high or it can melt your motherboards beyond recognition.

Power Supply Unit

Corsair VX450W

My New System, originally uploaded by Rakesh Ashok.

As I was saying above the PSU is also a very important part of any rig. This wasn't the first choice that came to the mind of TE members when I asked for suggestions for PSU. The first was the Gigabyte Superb 460W and the second was Seasonic S12II-380W. Both these were really good products from what I read from reviews elsewhere. Then after assessing that the Seasonic was better than the Gigabyte product I decided to go with it. But unfortunately the place where I went to seek out this product haven't even of the name Seasonic. One guy even took and gave me a zebronics PSU. Zebronic and Seasonic does sound a lot similar don't they. Again I had to look out for alternatives. Thus I came upon the Corsair VX 450W. Well it was a bit too costly for me though. Nevertheless it is the perfect fit. Best features of this PSU are really quite fan and nylon sleeved wires for better wire management in your cabinet.

Bought this PSU for a princely sum of 4050Rs in Richie Street. Though right now its an overkill for my current config without a GPU. But it definitely is a good choice considering the fact that I would definitely get myself a GPU probably the ATI Radeon HD5770 or the 5750. Here are some reviews to help you along with your decision.

Corsair VX450W: Quiet Value PSU
Corsair VX450W power supply review

Will be continued...

Updates

2010-03-14T12:25:00.005+05:30

Just finished adding the motherboard section in the review of My New System.

Dil To Bachcha Hai Jee

2010-02-08T21:20:00.006+05:30

This is the song which I just can't seem to stop listening. I slept while hearing this and it was playing till morning :). The song lyrics are too good even though I had a hard time understanding most of the words since they don't seem to be the regular hindi words which I usually hear or some other kind of dialect, not really sure which one. But I love this song. Just this song alone has made me want to see this movie. So I'm definitely watching this movie. Also the picturization of the song is also too good plus the voice of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and the laid back nature all makes this a song a super hit. Have to thank Vishal Bharadwaj for this beautiful music.

Enjoy the song Dil To Bachcha Hai. I don't ever remember writing a post for a single song. But I haven't written about that many things either he he ...

My New System

2010-02-06T15:19:00.010+05:30

My New System, originally uploaded by Rakesh Ashok.

After nearly 9 years I have finally upgraded my system. Till now I was using a Pentium III computer which has survived well past its shelf life. I was also getting annoyed using that system since I can't watch HD video in it, I can't play some games if I get bored, I can't even multitask since it hangs if I do so. So I decided it is finally time to upgrade my system. And this is it.

I assembled the entire rig on my own. I took liberal advice from my Tech Enclave friends to decide upon the components. Here are the individual components.

Processor

AMD Athlon II X4 620 Quad Core

Image Source: bit-tech.net

I remember myself hating AMD in the early days since it was dead slow and never performed as advertised (experience from using my friends computer). But what I hadn't realized is that AMD put away all those things behind them and have started delivering better goods for cheap and is right now giving Intel a run for its money. Now my CPU i.e. the Athlon II X4 is a Quadcore processor meaning it has four processors built in one chip. This is the first Quadcore in the market that sells at around 5K. The Intel Quadcore is nearly double or more. I was initially planning on a Intel based system but was blown away by the AMD offering. Here are some reviews about this CPU.

AMD Athlon II X4 620: Quad Core For The Masses At $100
AMD Athlon II X4 620 & 630: The First $99 Quad Core CPU
AMD Athlon II X4 620 CPU Review

After reading all that review I'm sure you can imagine why I switched to AMD. I got it for 5200Rs in Chennai. The CPU doesn't get very hot so the stock CPU fan is enough for cooling it. It's totally unnecessary to waste money on CPU coolers for this CPU. The maximum temperature I have seen is around 40 degree but usually runs at around 32-34 degrees.

Motherboard

Asus M4A785TD-V EVO

Image Source: unitycorp.co.jp

Choosing the motherboard was the toughest decision I took while building my rig. For starters I had absolutely no idea about the various technologies involved. The brands, features it was mind numbing. So after hearing the first two or three suggestions from the TE gang, I started exploring those motherboards and their features. Almost all suggested the Gigabyte board, Gigabyte 785GMT-UD2H. This is a micro ATX board meaning a smaller sized board. I had decided to go with this board. When I reached Richie Street I was not able to find this board. Since I was at that time impatient I decided to go with an alternative having the exact same features. Thus I bought the Asus M4A785TD-V EVO. Well the name Asus is not new in the motherboard, infact it is among the top contenders in the market. The highlights of the board are Full ATX board supporting AM3 CPUs , DDR3, IGP (ATI HD4200), 128MB of DDR3 sideport memory, two PCI-e 2.0 slots lots of USB slots and lots more. The real plus point is that I can fit bigger GPUs in the future when I buy one. :)

This board is quite heavy and it fills your Cabinet, so make sure you buy a bigger cabinet for this one. This is also the costliest component in my Rig excluding my monitor of course. It cost me 6600Rs.

bit-tech.net Review - Asus M4A785TD-V Evo review
Overclock3D :: Review :: Asus M4A785TD-V EVO 785G ATX Preview

Read the second part of my rig building process

Trisha Mobile Wallpapers

2010-02-06T13:31:00.007+05:30

Its hard to come by wallpapers for my E51. So I have started downloading photos and making wallpapers by cropping them and editing to suit the looks. This one is actually a picture of Trisha from her upcoming movie Vinnaithandi Varuvaya. You can use this wallpaper for other Mobiles with 240 x 320 resolution too.