write ups

BlogCamp India

2006-09-11T13:24:00.000+05:30

I attended the BlogCamp over the weekend & have posted about it in my WordPress blog. (that's where I blog now)

test post

2006-08-31T12:41:00.000+05:30

test

Being careful with your website

2006-03-01T11:06:00.000+05:30

Consider this example. You have a product offering at your website. And you have this page which says

XXXXXX provides an online office suite which allows customers to quickly create documents via a web browser. The customer types in their browser, chooses a letterhead design and receives a professionally formatted PDF file in moments. Customers do not require Adobe Acrobat, as the PDF files are created on the gOFFICE servers. The output from XXXXXX is of high quality. Have a look at this example.

Click on the example link and all you get is an error page :-( I dread something similar happening at our site.

Bloggoggle, good but ...

2006-02-21T04:55:00.000+05:30

Came across Bloggoggle from Steve Rubel's blog. Seems to be nice service but why have they made signing-in this difficult?

Compare this with what we have in Zoho Writer or Zoho Planner.

Reminds me of a recent Seth Godin's post on using 'illegible' capchas (it was ticketmaster.com that got Seth pissed off)

Njoy This Valentine's Day With a Difference

2006-02-04T19:57:00.000+05:30

Came across http://valentinehomepage.com.

Just blog about the site & get a 200 pixels spot for free. This seems to be a limited offer.

Go check this out : http://valentinehomepage.com

vtiger, Open Source CRM

2006-01-27T08:28:00.000+05:30

With Open Source, you get the product free, the code free & in case of vtiger, you get support free too. That is, till now. A blog post there now asks if the community that is being benefited can give bucks for support. A very valid request, I should say keeping in mind the point that the team that is developing the core project needs motivation & money to keep itself moving.

If you are an Open Source advocate, join the discussion there.

WordPress Splogs

2006-01-27T07:01:00.000+05:30

Google addressed the splog problem in blogger.com. & this was a welcome step for marketers advertising through Google Adwords. But seeing Google ads onWordPress based splogs causes concern. One such splogs network I found :

http://college-news-info.com/
http://www.cancer-news-health.com/
http://www.auto-info-news.com/
http://www.diet-info-news.com/
http://www.loan-info-news.com/

When is this going to be addressed, Google?

Chennai Book Fair 2006

2006-01-16T22:10:00.000+05:30

Didn't want to miss the trip I make every year. It was as usual. The fair keeps growing & they'd said there were around 250 stalls this year. Yesterday being the last day, the crowds were there & it was difficult entering many stalls. Didn't have time to visit all & had to choose prominent ones.

Had a look at Jayamohan's 'Kottravai', the much talked about book but then the kaapiyam-style writing was a little over my head. And had some faint remembrances when flipping through KiRa's Koballagrammam. Thought about buying SuRa's JJ:Sila Kuripugal but then changed my mind.

Books bought - To Kill a Mocking Bird (had always wanted to own a copy so that I can read it whenever needed) & 1984 (Orwell's masterpiece, another book I'd badly wanted to read). Bought Malcom Gladwell's 'Blink' (was impressed by his 'Tipping Point') on the platform & went to Spencers Landmark (so many blue shirted staff around!) & bought 'Guns, Germs & Steel' a book that Sandeep had recommended. Hmm, all these I hope to read atleast before the next year's event.

This is cute

2006-01-13T02:36:00.000+05:30

A Flickr enabled LCD photo frame for $250!

From the thinkgeek site :

ThinkGeek has the new and completely uniqueeStarling Wi-Fi Photo Frame ready for your hot little geek paws."Wi-Fi Picture Frame?" you respond quizzically with greatanticipation... The eStarling frame is a standalone Wi-Fi LCD photo frame that connects to a wireless networkand automatically displays photos e-mailed to it in a slideshowformat. Additionally you can specify an RSS photo feedfrom Flickr based on your own tagged keywords. You can even shootphotos on your mobile phone then e-mail them directly to youreStarling frame for display.

That's Google

2006-01-04T07:33:00.000+05:30

Google's way of celebrating Braille's B'Day! Cool :)

The first Mouse

2006-01-02T14:51:00.000+05:30

Scobleizer has some pretty pics of the first mouse, courtesy his visit of Douglas Engelbart. Here's a close-up shot

This is funny

2006-01-02T14:28:00.000+05:30

Hugh points to this funny post - Rules when dating Jack Yoest's daughter :-)

Towards a secure OS

2006-01-02T14:15:00.000+05:30

Thanks to Doc for the link, this post by Mike Warrot has some interesting points.

How do you know you've got a secure OS?

Simple...

When you can run ANYTHING on it, at ANY time, with NO FEAR.

Ifyou've got a secure OS, you'd be willing to take a CD from any randomperson on the street, stick it in, and run the damned thing because youknow your OS will only allow it to do exactly what you've specified,and nothing else.

If you've got a secure OS, you know that NOapplication can ever take over the OS, unless you explicitly given itthe capability to do so, and haven't revoked it.

If you've got a secure OS, you never have to run a virus scan again, EVER.

If you've got a secure OS, you can just get your work done, and get on with life.

Wishing Mike success.

How cable TV is the same everywhere

2005-12-01T18:12:00.000+05:30

Jeff Jarvis has a nice point on cable television.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is again pushing a la carte cable.

Like every cable customer, I resent paying for channels I don’t want. I hate sports. I cannot abide religious nuts. I don’t speak Spanish. I miss various demographic targets. I have no use for tons of channels and would prefer not to pay for them.

The set-top box offers a la carte TV to some extent clubbing channels but has got other issues. And for the Rs 100 we now pay in Chennai for the 'free' channels, we do get a lot of crap and I agree with Jeff - on demand or a la carte is the best way we can have more control over these media guys.

This one's funny

2005-12-01T16:34:00.000+05:30

Watch this : http://www.youtube.com/watch.php?v=JjvzQm4bJ8s

Thanks to Badri

testing trackback

2005-11-24T12:27:00.000+05:30

Its been tough to make the Trackback feature of blogs work for me. I reference so many sites in here & it would be good have my blog entries be displayed in those sites. About.com had an article on Trackback. Testing it out here. Let me see how it works.

http://www.shaicoggins.com/index.php/trackback/63/72DpJBmU/

Flash agitations in Chennai

2005-11-21T12:19:00.000+05:30

There was more rain today morning in Chennai & the roads got flooded as usual. Traffic on the Tambaram-Velachery strech got affected due to agitations. Not sure what their actual demands were. There were lots of office-goers walking towards Vijaya Nagar, Velachery today morning around 9 am. Anyone has more news on this?

All banks are the same across the world

2005-11-18T20:11:00.000+05:30

Seth Godin writes :

A door to door salesman just walked into our offices in Irvington.

Tough job.

A job usually reserved for people selling advertising or janitorial services.

This was an assistant Vice President at Citibank. He's wandering the halls, door by door, trying to sell business checking accounts.

We get pestered in India too by banks like HDFC, HSBC cold-calling us to offer 'free' credit cards, personal/home loans etc. Hmm, the banks have too much money. Wondering whether its the signs of a good or bad economy?

Fall & after

2005-11-17T06:39:00.000+05:30

Had the first fall from my Scooty Pep in a minor accident last week. As I turned a corner, a car hit the rear (not so fastly, thank God) & I fell over. Thankfully it was just bruises & no broken bones. I'd put the indicator & there was the beep coming but the light had failed. Apparently, the recent rains had a role to play, shorting the circuitry.

All's well now & my Scooty looks great after the service.

The BusinessWeek Maze

2005-11-16T23:33:00.000+05:30

Been to the Techbeat section of Business Week y'day. There was this article summary by Rob Hof titled "Meet the Web Smart 50". Wanted to see the companies that made up the Top 50 and gleefully clicked the link. Only to be taken to a page which had all the info except the one I wanted. There was this topic named "Best of the New Web" under the TECH SPECIAL REPORTS which when clicked led to this page. And there there was a link under the EDITOR's PICKS topic which finally had what I was looking for. Hm, nice experience. Hope I'll not be troubled to visit BusinessWeek any time soon again.

Another Microsoft in the making?

2005-11-16T05:26:00.000+05:30

Ethan Stock of Zvents is pissed about Google. Shows the increasingly visible "I'm BIG & I don't care about my customers" trap that Google has fallen into.

Amazon Pages

2005-11-09T11:26:00.000+05:30

Amazon has announced a book-scanning project ... The Amazon plan will scan copyrighted books and let readers search through them. It will offer paid online access to parts or all of the book, and the payment will depend on the book, and on how much of the book someone wants available.

There's also an option to buy the physical book, and then have access to the full text of the book online as well.

This keeps everyone happy. Copyright holders are paid fairly for their works, and readers can buy only portions of books they want to use.

With Google Print mired in legal battles, this slightly modified move by Amazon has surprised everyone. More at http://www.networkingpipeline.com/blog/archives/2005/11/amazon_beats_go.html

ps: Google now scans public domain books that were never subject to copyright or whose copyright has expired. For books not in the public domain, Google shows small snippets of the work unless the publisher or copyright holder has given them permission to show more.

Sensationalism

2005-11-08T23:44:00.000+05:30

A news article in chennaionline.com says

Production in the Neyveli Lignite Corporation (NLC) in Cuddalore district was affected as water had entered three of the mines, an NLC official said.

An NLC official said that? What crap. NLC has got open mines and there is no point of water 'entering' the mines! Water is always there at all times of the year in almost, if not, all mines - whether open or closed. When you dig earth out to depth of 40 metres & more, ground water comes out & there is a separate Ground Water Control (GWC) department at NLC whose sole job is to pump water off & use it else where. Usually, during heavy rains, the water levels rise & the GWC folks find it difficult to pump the excess water. Thats what happens whenever it rains & not as these guys report.

Update : Seems chennaionline isn't the only one reporting this. outlookindia too has the same thing to say. Now, combine sensationalism to plagiarism (who copied who?) & you have such poor journalism.

A noble gesture

2005-11-08T23:08:00.001+05:30

The organs of twelve-year-old Ahmed Ismail Khatib, a palestinian boy mistakenly killed by Israeli army have been donated to 6 Israelites.

The BBC reports:

Ahmed's kidneys, liver, heart and lungs were transplanted into Israelis including Jews, Arabs and a Druse girl, medical officials said.

The girl, aged 12 and from Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, received Ahmed's heart, bringing to an end a five-year wait for a transplant.

Her father, Riad Gadban, called the donation a "gesture of love" and said his daughter was regaining strength after the operation.

Salutations to the boy's parents.

A noble gesture

2005-11-08T23:08:00.000+05:30

The organs of twelve-year-old Ahmed Ismail Khatib, a palestinian boy mistakenly killed by Israeli army have been donated to 6 Israelites.

The BBC reports:

Ahmed's kidneys, liver, heart and lungs were transplanted into Israelis including Jews, Arabs and a Druse girl, medical officials said.

The girl, aged 12 and from Israel's Bedouin Arab minority, received Ahmed's heart, bringing to an end a five-year wait for a transplant.

Her father, Riad Gadban, called the donation a "gesture of love" and said his daughter was regaining strength after the operation.

Salutations to the boy's parents.

The Rains Return to Chennai

2005-11-07T15:38:00.000+05:30

Oh, the rains are back & this time with a vengeance. Been to Neyveli for the weekend & coming back today morning, what do I see except waist-deep water on the Madipakkam 'main' road! There is no road, Dev (colleague, resident of Madipakkam) says boats are out & most parts of Madipakkam are submerged as before. Hmm, don't know what sort of government administration we have. Its exactly like what happened 10 days before. How can they fail people twice like this? They did clean up the canals & drains the last time around (one could see lots of weed being heaped up by backhoes on the road sides) but it seems to have had no effect. Water got clogged ok but I see no activity whatsoever of the authorities taking any steps trying to drain the water even after a day.

Think this time it is worser than the first time as the ground can't absorb more water & the water has to either flow into the sea through the storm drains or evaporate. Am yet to go to my house & plan to camp in our office as before with thoughts dreading the worst - of water entering the house & spoiling everything thats there :-(

Thankfully, wife & child are still in Neyveli. Rethinking on whether they should be brought back as planned or to extend their stay there. Hmm, the rain has stopped since morning but its still cloudy with forecasts of rain for the next 24 hours. Enough God, no more rains please.

Rains get over but still ...

2005-10-28T10:30:00.000+05:30

It was a good sign seeing the rains stop last night itself (our Met office had forecasted heavy showers till today afternoon). As planned, had stayed the night at office & waking up today morning, badly wanted to return home. Walking all the way from office at 7 am was real good. But as soon I saw the Madipakkam road, all my optimism vanished. The main road is still under waist-deep water & I had to beat a retreat without going to our house.

Bought paste, brush & soap & did my morning ablutions at office itself. Don't know when the water level will recede. I plan to go in the afternoon once again. Good news is that there is plenty of Sun as of now & praying God that it should be like this all day today.

Forgot to add y'day - the MTC buses, though low in number were plying & kudos to the drivers & conductors. But today no bus entered Madipakkam - the drivers must have realised some real danger in driving through so much water, the road not being seen & what if there's a hole like the above on the way?

Rains lash Chennai

2005-10-27T19:12:00.000+05:30

Ha, what a day its been!

Depressions in Bay of Bengal are a normal thing during this part of the year. And Chennai does receive copius rain during this monsoon period. But its been a little too much this time around. Rains have been lashing for the past 2 days. And the storm is to cross the coast by tomorrow morning (Oct 27, 2005). Normally, the storms cross the coast further north but this time around it may be closer to Chennai & hence this effect.

Been ill for the past few days & that made venturing out impossible. Couldn't come to the office in the morning, being afraid of getting infected going in the storm water. But with no breakfast (except some occasional biscuits), had to come out by the afternoon for food. Bought some packets of Maggi noodles & that was my lunch. With no signs of the rains stopping, no electricity & rain water threatening to enter the house, had to move by evening 5 pm. What better place than our office?

Walked from our flat in Ram Nagar, Madipakkam to the Velachery-Tambaram main road. The rain was light but the winds accompanying it made it look heavy & chilly. It was an experience in itself as people slowly making their way in waist-deep water talked about their fears of reaching safe places & how their homes would be. My Nokia 3315 conked off, thanks to me not taking enough precaution.

The biggest fear for me now is how the house would look when I next visit it. And I don't know when I would next go there, may be tomorrow afternoon. Trichy, my hometown was one of the many districts that got affected too due to the floods in the Cauvery. Farmers have been the worst hit as thousands of hectares of crop lie submerged. With Diwali round the corner, it isn't one of the pleasant festival seasons that Tamil Nadu has seen.

Visit Chennai Help for the latest. I'll try updating the latest here too.

Gajini - A Review

2005-10-24T18:47:00.000+05:30

Saw the Asin-Suriya starrer on Saturday. At the outset, the film was a disappointment as it did not live up to the high expectations set mainly due to it being directed by Murugadoss who had earlier directed the super-hit "Ramanaa" starring Vijaykanth. The director promised a lot with his first offering but has submitted himself to the whims of Kollywood in this movie.

The idea of how a short-term memory loss patient survives was novel, the use of polaroid photoes in particular. But having Suriya to tatoo all over his body (that too in different font styles) can at best be considered a fashion statement.

Thanks to Asin's bubbly, effervescent character, the first half of the film moves real fast. Somehow, her character reminded me of Karthik's cameo in "Mouna Ragam". There was this scene where Asin helps a blind man cross the street, on the whole way explaining what's happening in the neighborhood which was a direct lift from the Oscar winning "Amelie". In one way, we should appreciate the director though, as thats how our Tamil audience will get to see a taste of French/International cinema. And in another scene Asin cleverly helps school girls on crutches to cross a gateway with animal trap pipes. Its a good scene, only that it was a little stretched & the BGM played havoc. It would have done more good if they had had the scene in silence or the screeching sound of the gate getting moved or may be a very light music in the background.

Asin helping the physically challenged & the girls in distress does come out well though the message the director wanted to convey - that of woman empowerment - comes out poorly. In these days when college students, girls in particular are asked not to wear low-hip jeans & sleeveless/tight fitting tops by the self-appointed moral police, when Kushboo's views provokes anger & the expressions of woman poets get ridiculed, I should say Murugadoss had wasted a good oppurtunity as he could have sent the message even more strongly.

The unnecessary songs inbetween slowed the tempo of the movie very much. When will our directors learn how to use the songs to good effect? May be we can follow the Hollywood style of placing part of the respective song in the BGM alone instead of showing the whole song shot at some exotic location. (but hey, according to this rediff report, may be our music directors will get offended if the songs aren't given prominence!)

While Asin's on-the-spot creativity evoked good humor initially, the director suddenly pulls the plug on her when she's alone in her house with 4 goondas waiting to kill her. A more better plot towards the end would have helped the movie. Also, showing the second twin villain at the end was a wasted effort so was that of the Police Inspector who promised much while investigating but soon dies crashing against a oncoming lorry while running face-on. Nayan Thara comes & goes with little impact. And hey, why is the film named Gajini? Any guesses?

Digicam - Can you give some pointers?

2005-10-20T14:17:00.000+05:30

Am to buy a digicam soon. This review gave a good idea on the subject & may be useful for you too. I've now decided in buying a Canon. Model's a question still - I may go with A400, A510 or A520.

Now the only problem is the varying prices. A520 is availabe for as low as Rs. 12,600 in ebay.in. The same is priced Rs. 17,995 in Canon India's website & Sify.com quotes a price of Rs. 20,395!

Most probably the price difference is due to the latest model, the accessories involved, the warranty periods etc. If any of you are sure of what a good deal is, put it in the comments please.

This illusion is cute

2005-10-20T14:14:00.000+05:30

Try the illusion at - http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

Via Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion

Becoming a Squidoo Lensmaster

2005-10-18T18:40:00.000+05:30

Just signed-up as a squidoo lensmaster. Since squidoo is in beta & the agreeement says I shouldn't disclose anything, sorry that I can't furnish any more details (believe signing up for squidoo & telling it doesn't violate any terms). Let's see how squidoo & Seth's team go about now.

The Next James Bond is ...

2005-10-15T00:10:00.000+05:30

... Daniel Craig. I haven't seen any of his films before but the guy looks ok. Need to see if he can live up to being a Bond. Cinnematical reports.

Scobleizer Excerpts

2005-10-13T22:32:00.000+05:30

One thing I totally agree with Joe on is that Apple is WAY WAY WAY better than Microsoft at coming up with names. "Apple Front Row" certainly beats "Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition 2005".

Being a Microsoft employee & still coming out like this - he has been doing it consistently. Great show Robert, keep it up. (he's been harder in the past)

Oh, and Yahoo and Microsoft announced a plan to interoperate instant messaging clients today. That's important because Yahoo and Microsoft have a LOT of people using those two products. Hey, I wonder if AOL will join in the fun?

Good that Y!, MSN (& AOL) chats may interoperate soon. How this will affect Skype needs to be seen.

From Robert Scoble

Steve Rubel & Typepad

2005-10-07T18:30:00.000+05:30

Steve Rubel posts about how he got excellent service & a freebie for the goofup that sixapart did. The whole episode could well have been a set-up - Sixapart deliberately makes that silly 'S' mistake, the CEO posts to Steve apologising & giving some free peanuts and the A-list blogger goes ga-ga about it. Typepad gets free publicity & the blooger proves a point to companies like Dell.

Sorry Steve & Barak, for posting this. Can't keep this evil thought in my mind ;-)

del.icio.us made more lively

2005-10-07T18:18:00.000+05:30

LiveMarks, a project by Alex Bosworth lets you see live the bookmarks that people are creating in del.icio.us. A very cute app indeed. Reminds me of the screen in Google which glows with searches happening around the world.

We have arrived!

2005-10-03T19:29:00.000+05:30

AdventNet's Zoho Writer & Zoho Planner have caught the attention of the blogosphere! Both being AJAX heavy, Web 2.0 apps, its lil' wunder that they made it to the front. The apps have been in the limelight ever since techcrunch mentioned Zoho Writer & the folks from 37signals commented on it. Solutionwatch mentions it here & already people have tagged it in del.icio.us. Zoho Writer also gets mentioned in Steve Rubel's Micro Persuasion.

The Zoho apps are still in their Alpha phase. These I believe would become exhilarating in the days, oops hours to come in this fast paced Web 2.0 world. Expecting much from you folks. All the best!

Another one who's got it all wrong

2005-09-30T16:06:00.000+05:30

Heather Burns writes that "Blogging is stupid; go be a human being". And much of her ire is over what Seth calls 'cat blogs' in his Who's there ebook. Another good reason you would be better writing 'Viral Blogs'. Right Seth?

And, believe Heather doesn't own a blog (yet)!

Rollyo, the customizable search engine

2005-09-29T03:53:00.000+05:30

Thanks to Steve Rubel, Rollyo 'the roll your own search engine' seems fun.

The idea is real good. It lets you search from your own custom created list of sites - basically the plural of the "site:url.com " in Google. For example, the 'News Networks' rollyo will search the msnbc, abc, cbs & cnn sites alone for your query. A novel way to do vertical search, provided you know the authorities in your domain & to get rid of spam sites from turning in your search results.

Check it out - http://rollyo.com/explore.html

Scoble's boast

2005-09-29T00:04:00.000+05:30

Robert Scoble says

Heck, you can already see that I've noticed that MSN's and Yahoo's quality has really gotten better in the past few months

Look at this post. Google is still being manipulated. And I find Yahoo's results for network monitoring software is worser than Google's. Comparitively, MSN's is better than the two. And that's not because of OpManager being No. 5 ;-)

update: and Robert in another of his posts

... even Open Source developers can make money on Windows. Jboss has about half of their customers on Windows.

Nice way of pulling down open source! open source aint 'free' most of the times, rite?

Ringo or Pete

2005-09-28T23:30:00.000+05:30

Seth Godin states,

And, yes, the Beatles were never the same after Pete Best left.

Don't know whether he means it in the positive or negative sense. From what lil' I know about The Beatles, seems Ringo Starr was a better drummer than Pete Best. Whats your say?

Ads in RSS

2005-09-28T12:49:00.000+05:30

As a marketing guy, am always on the lookout for new avenues of advertising. And one of the latest emerging avenues is ads in RSS feeds. The technology is still at an early stage & the ads won't get displayed right sometimes.

Oh, the West

2005-09-26T21:38:00.000+05:30

From Seth Godin's blog,

A recent study (sorry, I'm linkless here) by the government found that distinctly ethnic first names got fewer callbacks on otherwise identical resumes. Fair? Of course not. Not surprising, though, either.

Hmm, a name like Jim Baker or Ashley Michael here in India would work the other way round. Anyway, that doesn't stop Indian names from popping up in every nook & corner of the IT world.

Customer Satisfaction

2005-09-26T21:12:00.000+05:30

Woo hoo - this is the fifth post am making today! If you just 'see' around there's so much to write about. And this unofficial guide to creating passionate users has a good point on satisfying customers :

When widget A does not fit properly in widget B, that's a defect. When user Barry Porter cannot figure out how to do the basic thing he bought the software for, and he's frustrated and his job is at risk, that should provoke a more visceral reaction.

Six sigma, CMM, ISO or not, customer is king. The recent Dell Hell experience would show all that. And that too in the age of blogs, never underestimate your customer. Ignore her & you are soup, annoy him & you are dead!

To Code - The Best Time is Now

2005-09-26T20:56:00.000+05:30

"There has never been a better time to be in the code creation business" - so says this blog by Rick.

Can't agree with that more. Hmm, if only I'd been in coding still ... Ok being in Marketing is no excuse to not code altogether. Infact, as this site points out, its not bad to do a little coding now & then. Its only the other day had the WAMP set-up & got the apache running & 'designed' a rudimentary marketing homepage. Hafta learn CSS & HTML, followed with php/perl/python scripting (which P would you recommend) sometime soon. And the call from ubiquitous AJAX technologies is not far behind...

MyTicklerFile

2005-09-26T18:53:00.000+05:30

Steve Rubel has this link to YAW2P (Yet Another Web 2.0 App) tool named MyTicklerFile. Sure a cute tool to have to email you reminders of tasks. It would be great if they have a free version of say 15 Ticklers a month. (now there's just a 15 day trial :-( )

And the form for registration isn't of the Web 2.0 variety, as they ask too much info. Can't email ID & password do? the time zone (which is very important in this case) choosing is pretty awful, took me 2 minutes to find Asia - Calcutta.

Hunger & Art

2005-09-26T18:32:00.000+05:30

From Hugh MacLeod's blog -

Willie Nelson, on why his new songs weren't quite as [cough] good as his old ones.

"Because I wrote my old songs when I was cold and hungry".

How true! Almost every creative artist's life follows the same curve - the passionate, provoking thoughts during the early stage, the mature, sublime creations at the middle & the trite, not-so-good works at the end.

Small Ideas

2005-09-26T17:00:00.000+05:30

Eric Sink, the guy whose blogs on source control are so famous has a nice note on small ideas

I think there is a lot to be said for smaller ideas. Try it. If it fails, get another small idea and try that one. I'd bet the odds of success with ten small ideas are a LOT better than the odds of success with one idea that is ten times bigger.

come to think of it, it makes lots of sense. Thanks Eric, am gonna try lots of small ideas from now on.

the slingbox

2005-09-20T02:13:00.000+05:30

slingbox from slingmedia sounds interesting. you can access your cable TV stream from your laptop.

Transforming Windows XP based PCs and laptops into personal on-the-go digital TVs, the Slingbox™ allows individuals anywhere-anytime access to their own living room television experience with no additional monthly service fees. Enabling consumers to watch their cable, satellite, or digital video recorder (DVR) programming from wherever they are, the Slingbox turns any Internet-connected laptop or desktop PC into a personal TV. The Slingbox redirects, or "placeshifts", a single live TV stream from a cable box, satellite receiver, or DVR to the viewer's PC located anywhere in the home. If the Slingbox is coupled with a broadband Internet connection, the viewer's live TV stream can be "placeshifted" via the Internet to a PC located anywhere in the world.

http://www.slingmedia.com/slingbox/how.php
http://www.slingmedia.com/
http://www.slingmedia.com/slingbox/

when will TiVo/slingbox be here in india?

The products that are close to my heart

2005-09-13T13:46:00.000+05:30

Just thought its high time to mention about the products I work on. As you see to the left, OpManager & ServiceDesk Plus are the (software) products that I help market. While OpManager helps in monitoring networks, ServiceDesk Plus is for tracking trouble tickets & to manage IT assets. Both products offer good value for money & if you are an IT guy in need of a network monitoring/help desk/asset management software, you'll sure find 'em useful. We do offer a 30 day fully functional trial for both the products and a Free Demo Edition too. Go check 'em out - OpManager for Network Monitoring & ServiceDesk Plus for Help Desk & Asset Management.

Sorry for the marketing talk ;-)

Technorati tags : OpManager, ServiceDesk Plus, ServiceDesk, Network Monitoring, Help Desk, Asset Management

Next Gen Search

2005-08-31T10:02:00.000+05:30

Nice article in TIME about how the Search Engines are gearing up to help us in our ever-increasing quest to know. Some excerpts :

You land late in the evening in a city where you know nobody. You did not have time to book a hotel, your luggage has not turned up on the carousel--and the plane's air conditioning gave you a sore throat. What to do?

With your cell phone, you first Google your suitcase--it has a small implanted chip that responds to radio waves with a GPS locator--and it turns out that your luggage has been deposited 200 yds. away in the next terminal. As you walk over, you search for a hotel room; the screen of your cell shows you pictures of several hotels in your price bracket, with views from individual room windows. Your search engine gives you a list of pharmacies that are still open at this hour, and tells you that your favorite blues band will be playing at a festival in the city's park over the weekend. The engine can search your desktop back home, and it reminds you that a college friend e-mailed you a year ago to say he and his wife were moving to this city (you had forgotten). You decide to invite them to the festival.

the battle is on for the next generation of search, which will be smarter and more tailored to the individual, embrace video and music--and be accessible from any device with a chip. By 2010, search-engine advertising will be a $22 billion industry worldwide, up from an estimated $8 billion today

Want to know more about what you see in front of you? Boston-based Mobot has developed technology that maps the features in a picture taken with a cell-phone camera and matches it to a database of images. "Within a decade, it will be inconceivable that you lived in a world where you couldn't interact with the objects around you--taking a picture and getting back information about it or making a purchase--using a mobile device," says Mobot marketing vice-president Lauren Bigelow.

One of the fastest-growing search techniques is tagging, a grassroots phenomenon whereby users label websites with descriptive tags, building a network of knowledge dubbed folksonomy--a taxonomy of knowledge organized by ordinary folk.

One of the hottest and most controversial new areas is designing software that will get to know individuals' interests, mostly through their search history--the clickstream. Findory, a Seattle-based news-search site launched in January 2004, provides access to news stories and blogs. As you start searching for certain types of stories, the site gradually learns about your preferences, and the home page evolves to mirror your interests.

Search is "forcing us to reconsider what it means to be a public person," says John Battelle, co-founder of Wired and author of The Search, due out in September. "Search is everything and will be everywhere." Coming soon to a chip near you.

The Hindu has Google Ads now

2005-08-29T20:22:00.000+05:30

The Hindu, India's National newspaper now has Google Adwords ads displayed in every page. And it has also got (the flashy, disgusting) banner ads! Mmm, becoming web savvy by the day but still can't find an RSS or XML feed button :-(

The Landmark Quiz 2005

2005-08-15T22:39:00.000+05:30

This year's quiz threw quite a few surprises. For one, there were 2 quizmasters. As usual, Dr Navin Jayakumar started off with the prelims but after 20 questions introduced Derek O'Brien & said he'll continue! It was a lil' disappointing having Derek but then you don't have much of a choice. May be Mrs Hemu should rope in Basu for the next year.

As usual there was quite a crowd & around 900 teams participated. This was the most successful quiz for us (my cousin, my brother-in-law & myself) as we got 19 of the 40 prelim ?s rite. The first team cracked around 'late twenties' ?s (as its the regular Landmark custom never to give out the actual scores). Our performance wasn't bad by Landmark standards, I should say.

Other surprises - there wasn't no Dr Pravin Ghode as was the conspicuous absence of Arul Mani & his team. And Derek made some nasty changes to the quiz format as with the BQC. V V Ramanan was the Quizzer of the Year as expected.

Ok, the prelims Q&A below.

1. Who was the first to call Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of the Nation?
2. Which is the smallest Greek alphabet (it means miniscule in English)
3. Which islands that Marco Polo visited are named after a monkey god?
4. The rules of which game were formulated based on the front page of The New York Times.
5. Dilbert's boss is named as the PHB. Expand PHB.
6. In earlier days a part of a film was shown last for those who were late to come. How is this part of the film known as now?
7. The currency of Botswana is named Pula after the most precious thing that the nation's people consider as. What is Pula?
8. El Nino commonly occurs in which month
9. Who sang the song 'Kannum Kannum Nokia' in 'Anniyan'?
10. [Audio Clue] Answer was the English opening of Thiruvasagam
11. What euphemistic phrase (of two letters) was coined by the Lifebouy ads in the 1940s?
12. What geographic terms came into being for denoting the rising & setting of the Sun?
13. Connect question - Connect the animal that comes in 'Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets' & the colony set up in South Africa by Mahatma Gandhi (in 1912, not sure)
14. Who has been (one of) the sponsor(s) of Wimbledon since the tournament inception in 1902?
15. Which 2 gentlemen first translated Einstein's famous papers on relativity that appeared in from German to English?
16. What got created in Bombay from the debris of an explosion of a ship (in 1940s?)
17. Name the book that has the following quote as its opening - 'What is found here, may be found elsewhere. What is not found here, will not be found elsewhere'
18. What is the claim to fame of the book ''Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought" by Douglas Hofstadter?
19. [Visual Clue] Identify the Indian connected with conservation of Tigers
20. [Visual Clue] Name the film based on a cult classic - Fountain Head.
21. What constitutes almost 70% of a banana?
22. Which of these is born blind a. Hare b. Rabbit c. None of these
23. Which path breaking Hindi film was released 30 years ago, this day?
24. Name the recognised Indian language whcih would come first when arranges alphabetically.
25. Who was TIME magazine's first non-American Person of the Year?
26. Which mineral takes its name from its Greek origins meaning color?
27. Name the vegetation that covers almost 20% of the Earth's land mass.
28. Name the Italian sauce which in Italian means salty.
29. Name the Asian country formed out of the largest number of refugess.
30. How is the Fighting Falcon aircraft better known?
31. Which TV show is advertised as being watched by over a billion people a week?
32. [Visual Clue] Identify the tennis player - Raphael Nadal
33. [Visual Clue] Identify the award - Emmy
34. [Visual Clue] Identify the scientist - Roger Penrose
35. [Visual Clue] Identify the politician - Narayan Rane
36. 'The Base' as its called runs terror in the hearts of all the law enforcement agencies across the world. How do we know it better?
37. Which European city was the first to host the modern Olympics twice?
38. If our Indian flag is to be displayed vertically (officially), what color should come at the right most? (Derek's poor clue - it isn't white)
39. Who was teh most famous private the 34th Infantry division?
40. Which word come from Greek that means "running back again"

Answers:

1 S C Bose
2 Iota
3 The Andamans
4 Scrabble
5 Pointy Head Boss
6 Trialer
7 Water (Pula in the native tongue means rain)
8 December (coz Nino means son & the Christ connection)
9 Leslie Lewis
11 BO (Body Odor)
12 Orient & Occident
13 Phoenix
14 Slazenger
15 Bose & Megnath Saga
16 Nariman Point
17 Mahabaratha
18 First book sold on amazon.com
19 Valmik Thapar
21 Water
22 Rabbit
23 Sholay
24 Assamese (there was another ? on the last language - Derek must have run out of questions - Urdu)
25 Mahatma Gandhi (another ? on Mahatma - who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948? And the answer - no one, as the Mahatma was shot dead in 1948!)
26 Chromium
27 Grass
28 Salami
29 Afghanistan
30 F-16
31 Bay Watch
36 Al Qaeda
37 Paris
38 Saffron
39 Mangal Pandey
40 Palindrome

on bloggers & blogging

2005-08-05T16:43:00.000+05:30

... probably the biggest challenge to blogs are those who cynically emulate their form without their soul.

An independent blogger's greatest asset, besides wit, energy, bravery, and doggedness, is sincerity. We read them to hear a credible independent voice -- not the shills of a corporation, lobbying group, a government agency, or a party. But now it seems that every auto company, PR firm, and politician is taking up blogging -- to sell us the same old pitches in a sleek new package. Some bloggers, unfortunately, are selling out and jumping on the payroll of corporations and political parties.

Read the above from a David D. Perlmutter article in editorandpublisher.com

Are we bloggers selling out our soul? Is blogging turning into just another marketing medium? What about bloggers like Robert Scoble who though being in the Microsoft payroll & whose posts blatantly advertise MSFT products has his own views expressed on almost anything & everything and still get away with it?

Meera

2005-08-02T21:04:00.000+05:30

Hm, its another one of those days where you get upset by unexpected news. Meera, one of the first critics of my writing left our company today. Says she's going to Banagalore for a change. Our relationship of around 4 years started when I forwarded my first article to be published in Sulekha to Govind & it got forwarded to her (Govind being Meera's mentor then). The nicest & the only outing we had is when Meera, Brinda & myself formed the team named 'Match Us If You Can' & took part in Landmark Quiz 2003. Its that time of the year again & I'll dearly miss my former mate. Hopefully we'll keep in touch.

The London Bombings

2005-07-14T23:21:00.000+05:30

Its too late to write on the happenings, hence this post on the aftermath. Though it was not as damaging & dramatic as 9/11, the London bombings have made sure that the West again becomes more paranoid on its outlook on terrorism & muslims. Am not here to write on the pros & cons of both the sides' argument, but what concerned me was the way the incident is being reported in BBC World. There was and is still a 24 hour coverage that gave some real 'useful' info like the names of the suspects, interviews with whoever close to them that the reporters can lay their hands on, the 'peaceful' neighbourhood that the suspects grew in, expert analysis with maps & graphics, blames & counterblames from politicians & religious leaders, police constables saying what's being done, views of cordoned off areas, flowers being offerred in the memory of the dead, controlled explosions being carried out & of course the London bus with its top gone. But the reports were silent on why this happened & how the government let it happen. When will the West(ern media) learn?

ps: It isn't good here either. 'The Hindu' published in its front page the birth certificate of one of the suspects.

Avian Flu - A Ticking Timebomb?

2005-07-11T18:00:00.000+05:30

The reports on BBC World that I saw makes one think so (a BBC article). WHO officials warn that unlike SARS which had symptoms of high running temparature, this Flu (influenza) has got none & can be diagnosed only during very advanced stages. This allows for the virus to spread itself through say, airplane travelers.

And more frightening thing is that the avian flu virus can come in contact with the human flu virus & we'll have no clue over the mutated strain. Vaccines can be developed very fast though but still it may result in 30 to 300 million deaths & one-third of the world population may not work due to the fear of contracting the virus. A human pandemic is at hand & its fast closing on us as the disease moves to poultry farms in Japan, Vietnam & other South East Asian countries. One more problem is that the migratory wild geese in Lake Qinghai, China are dying due to this & it'll be during this September that these geese will start migrating to other parts of Asia, taking the flu virus with them.

Will countries like China take steps to control this latest threat? Will the South East Asian governements educate their poultry farmers about safe farming methods, sanitation, hygiene & about the disease's potential? Will developed countries help with more money & vaccines? Will the Avian Flu be controlled just like SARS? What are we gonna do?

Technorati tags : Avian Flu, Bird Flu

news to munch

2005-07-06T13:56:00.000+05:30

David Cook and Roger Green, the founders of SeaCode have opened up new frontiers in Outsourcing. Programmers to be referred to as "seamen" (so that they are protected by international maritime laws) will churn out code on board a cruise liner. The ship would be stationed at a distance of 3.1 miles off the coast of El Segundo in California. (3.1 miles because the international maritime waters start at 3 miles from the coast)

thanks 2 Aniruddha Dutta for the info

yet another spoof

2005-06-30T12:13:00.000+05:30

the wrangling over the governement order to quash the TNPCEE continues. with the high court ruling that the entrance examinations marks should also be taken into account, the Tamil Nadu government as expected, has moved the Supreme Court. Final sufferers - the students & their parents.

hasty decisions by both the central & state govts aren't new to us, eg., carrying of original license papers, CAS/set-top box, VAT to name a few. when will we learn from our past mistakes?

Mother of All Software Please

2005-06-29T18:02:00.000+05:30

The newsletter, Dr. Ralph Wilson's Web Marketing Today, that I subscribe to listed all the software thats being used in putting their site up. Some extracts:

Most webpages are standard HTML constructed with templates and Server Side Includes (SSIs) using HotDog 5.5 from Sausage Software and MS FrontPage 2003 webpage editors, and uploaded to the site using WS_FTP from Ipswitch. The site is hosted on a fast Sun Solaris server from ViaVerio and located in Dulles, Virginia. Since December 2003 I've been using a Perl content management system, Article Manager from Interactivetools, to handle and display Web Marketing Today Free Edition articles, producing static HTML pages and an RSS feed. If I were to start again from scratch, I'd look for a search-engine-friendly content manager to run the entire site, but to do that now would render useless altogether too many incoming links to nearly 10 years of article URLs on my existing site. A variety of _JavaScript programs attempt to make the site more intuitive and user-friendly.

Contact forms are powered by FormHandler.cgi, from the CGI Perl Cookbook, modified to plug security holes. My article syndication system runs with Botranger's Master Syndicator. I monitor search engine optimization and tweak pages using WebPosition from WebTrends. I examine linking patterns with OptiLink from Windrose Software. I study site traffic patterns with ClickTracks Pro, page tags version. I use Offermatica and Vertster to do A/B split testing to optimize conversion rates on my site.

I use SitePal animated talking heads on my site introduction pages to capture visitor attention. Site audio (sparse on wilsonweb.com but used extensively on another site) is powered by SonicMemo. (I had very good experience with Audio Generator, but switched to SonicMemo because it requires only a one-time fee.) I use pop-up windows from DPG (which appear once and only once) to increase my newsletter subscription rate. The site carries contextual text ads from Google AdSense.

Web Marketing Today Free Edition is edited in MS Word 97 (which produces pretty good, clean HTML, compared to later versions of Word) and then set up in the HTML e-mail newsletter template using MS FrontPage 2003. I send it out in both text and HTML/text multi-part MIME formats using AutoResponse Plus from ECom24, using a MySQL database backend and a dedicated server and IP address. I employ a Habeas license, with its header and whitelist, to increase deliverability, which I track with DeliveryMonitor from AWeber Systems. I monitor blacklisting using Blacklist Monitor from MailWorkz.

My subscription system for Web Marketing Today Premium, as well as database lookups in the Web Marketing Info Center and authorization for password-protected areas of the site, are powered with custom-built ColdFusion applications, which access data in MySQL databases. I e-mail newsletters to my smaller WMT Premium subscriber list using Gammadyne Mailer, a desktop mailer which is able to access e-mail addresses from and write to my online MySQL subscriber list, as well as desktop databases and spreadsheets.

I re-index my entire site every night using Swish-e, which powers my site search system. My shopping cart is ShopSite Pro which handles digital downloads for my e-book and seminar ticket sales. VeriSign Payment Systems Payflow Pro is my payment gateway and Ultimate Affiliate Software from Groundbreak.com is my affiliate program. I manage my orders -- both digital and tangible -- using Stone Edge Order Manager. My accounting system is run with QuickBooks.

But here comes the clincher :

I hope that helps you get a picture of how one siteowner uses software to manage a rather complex online business. Wouldn't it be nice to have just one software tool that would do it all while I went hiking? In my dreams! :-)

Anyone out there who's dreaming of such a single package?

aussies get a sound thrashing

2005-06-19T19:31:00.000+05:30

it was a shock reading that bangladesh has beaten australia in their ODI of the trination series which also features england. kudos to the minnows. more on this here : http://in.sports.yahoo.com/050619/137/5z0gj.html

and more happy news - our baby's doing real well :-)

the pirillo effect

2005-06-18T01:14:00.000+05:30

hey chris, got to read this seattle times article on you. and visited your lockergnome site too. saw a download section for software out there. how daya select which products get featured in ur site? u see the products am working for at the left - opmanager, a network monitoring software & servicedesk plus, a help desk & asset management software. any chance o' u (evaluating &) putting 'em out on ur site?

believe u'll turn up commenting here as said in the article ;-)

tried it yet?

2005-06-18T00:37:00.000+05:30

thanks to the microsoft geek blogger, came across this kool page which is more than an RSS aggregator. try it out, one of the better products from msft. hope they won't mess it up in the end. and hey the persian lady, sanaz, at the left is one of the 3 who's working on the project. doesn't look like a programmer, rite? looks so cute ;-)

And some good news - our baby's doin fine, as mom & child are back home after a week in hospital. praying now for her to remain outta trouble & to reach the 3 kg mark soon.

life & death

2005-06-14T21:25:00.000+05:30

oh, it was a wunnerful feeling looking at our cute baby girl for the first time. she was born on june 10, 8:16 am IST.

for the first day or so she was ok, but she was just 2 kg during birth & was diagnosed with jaundice. the poor child has since been kept under blue light in an incubator sort of. drips were given too so were anti allergic & antibiotic medicines. she's pulled thru quite nicely till now & the doctors say there's nothing to worry, but then as a dad of a baby girl only 4 days old, one can't just stop worrying.

and, in the most cruelest tragedy of life i've ever witnessed, one of my best friends for years, govindarajan died in a car accident. he got married only last friday, just when my baby girl was being born. his wife escaped though. govind, raja to his friends, was my room-mate in annamalai for 3 years. we had a lot in common, reading books in particular. just couldn't forget the days when we cycled or walked to the small lending library every other week. he was a voracious reader of tamil fiction, particularly those based on history. saandilyan & kalki were his favorites. he was a studious guy too being one of the toppers in his class. and he excelled in NCC, the high point being his long cycling expedition through many parts of tamil nadu. and govind was the one who pulled me away from L&T to my present job with adventnet.

had a memorable trip with him & his team to ooty 2 years before. will try posting the links to the blog about the trip and the pics we took there.

whoever's reading this, please pray for the departed soul & for the well being of the baby.

The Twister

2005-06-10T02:01:00.000+05:30

You have to to see this terrific account on tornadoes in the NatGeo site. Nice flash presentation with some very close photoes. Reminded me of the film "The Twister"

Technorati tags : Twister, Tornado

remembers me of something regional

2005-06-10T01:02:00.000+05:30

From Techdirt :

Not quite sure what sort of message this is sending, but a British job training school is offering free iPods to unemployed kids who take their classes. You can kind of understand the rationale. These are often kids who aren't interested in going to any kind of school -- but getting them in could help them find a job, which would be a good thing. However, as some critics point out in the article, this is basically bribing them for being lazy. Shouldn't the fact that they don't have a job be incentive enough for them to go to a program designed to help them find a job? Meanwhile, the people who actually do work hard in school and actually have found a job don't get rewarded at all. It seems to be sending the wrong message.

atleast the first part of the story resembled our own "sathunavuth thitam" where children are offered a lunch if they come to school. And it's a tremendous hit in Tamil Nadu where its being practised for around 4 decades. btw, anyone knows who was the first to introduce this idea - Bhagthavatchalam, Kamaraj or MGR?

Poor Kimi goes down

2005-05-29T22:54:00.000+05:30

Watched the F1 a few hours back. The race had a few accidents & the deepest felt one was Kimi's front right wheel going out due to vibration in the front suspension. All this in the penultimate lap with just 3 miles to go! Poor Kimi, my heart goes out for him. And Alonso had a lucky 4th win for this season. Schumi failed to impress as he went into the gravel once & finished 5th. Narain too couldn't get into the first 10 as he struggles with a poor car.

With Schumi & Ferrari outa form this season, which I think is in a way good for F1 what with drivers like Kimi & Alonso are giving a tough challenge to the master. One more thought I keep getting is what if this is all match fixing by the F1 bosses just like in football & cricket? lets see how the season progresses.

Technorati tags : F1, Kimi, Alonso, Nurburing

just returned from a trip to ooty

2005-05-17T16:20:00.000+05:30

and what do i find? the world is hit by german spam mails on right wing views that mainly lead to der spiegel. IBM's released its set of blogging guidelines. after MSFT's One Note & 32signals' backpackit, its the time of GTDTiddlyWiki which helps you remember your list of things to be done.

plan to blog about the ooty trip later.

The Hindu

2005-05-11T21:37:00.000+05:30

Been thinking this over for sometime now. Can India's National Newspaper continue to be so naive about its online edition? It doesn't have a RSS or Atom feed yet! And it updates the major part of its site once a day. A small "Breaking News & Updates" section leads to the current news section. A plain news ticker runs too. The site is still java based. Don't know whether its arrogance, ignorance or negligence. Ram, are you listening?

rape/molestation news on indian tv

2005-05-10T17:02:00.000+05:30

last nite, the indian news channels were full of rape news. a delhi female student was picked up by men in a car and was gang raped. they kept showing the dhaba area where the incident happened & the reporter repeated said that no Police patrol vehicle was there doing the rounds on the day after the incident happened. and then there was this case of two railway police constables being arrested when a 42 year old woman complained that she's been molested by these 2. they kept showing close-up shots of the 2 constables. it made a terrible site (even if they are criminals) with those 2 men covering their faces and one was apparently crying. this incident comes close on heels of another mumbai constable being charged with rape. the third case last nite was from patiala where a woman was tortured by the police to get a statement. these guys even interviewed the pitiable woman - she couldn't even speak and these guys have a headline that just said "STRIPPED BY POLICE". have to see whether these media guys have slotted late nite news for such episodes alone.

Tiger and Longhorn

2005-05-02T18:19:00.000+05:30

Apple launched its new OS for its Mac machines named Tiger. But the name Tiger is already causing problems as companies plan to sue Apple on the name usage.

MS Longhorn will still take a long time to come & is scheduled for next year. At the recent 'Windows Hardware Engineering Conference', Bill Gates gave some insights of what Longhorn had on offer.

Btw, did you know where the name Longhorn comes from? Robert Scoble, in his blog says, "Longhorn got its name from the bar that's between Whistler and Blackcomb up in British Columbia."

Technorati tags : Longhorn, Tiger

Bill Gates on H1Bs

2005-04-29T12:13:00.000+05:30

Bill Gates has always been known for his pro-immigrant policies. In his latest talk, he's insisted this again - that there shouldn't be a limit to yearly H1B visas. (last year USA had put a cap of 65,000) More on this here.

Technorati tags : Gates, H1B

Boeing Vs Airbus

2005-04-28T12:43:00.000+05:30

Air India is to buy 50 Boeing planes in what has been billed as the largest deal in Indian aviation history. And Boeing's competitor Airbus is ready with its A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft. I think Boeing is sleeker than Airbus but who's safer? It would be nice comparing the past safety records of these aircraft makers. (found this debate on Boeing Vs Airbus on googling). Months earlier, Indian Airlines had placed orders for 43 mixed Airbus aircraft. A case of Indian Govt satisfying both France & US of A?

Technorati tags : Airbus, A380, Boeing

Catching Up

2005-04-27T15:48:00.000+05:30

Some sports news. Michelle Wie, the 15 year old American Golfer can become the first woman to play in The Open at St Andrews. She has accepted an invitation to play at July's John Deere Classic, which gives an Open place to the leading player who hasn't already qualified. Golf has been one sport where 'colored' people, however talented, were not allowed to play in some clubs. No wonder it took women this long.

Dean Jones joins the club of aspirants who want to become the next coach for the Indian cricket team. Jones is remembered for his epic innings at the historic tied test in Madras (now Chennai), way back in 1986. More on this here

From the tech world, there's more news coming on collaborations, mergers & acquisitions. SAP and Microsoft will be linking their products according to this article here. Code named Mendocino, this product is slated for unveiling in the fourth quarter 2005, and will allow Microsoft Office users to access SAP applications via extended application menus. Users will also be able to synchronize information between Microsoft Exchange server and SAP systems and access the data in Microsoft Excel format.

In M&A, Juniper acquired Peribit & Redline while Cisco is bidding for VoIP hardware maker Sipura. Cisco had earlier bought Airespace, a vendor in WiFi segment.

Other than the above tech news, found this interview with MySQL CEO Marten Mickos interesting. Oracle, IBM, MSFT watch out. Here's a credible vendor who offers databases at a fraction of your prices. (Know what? MySQL has its origins in Norway/Finland)

2005-04-26T17:22:00.000+05:30

Saw today morning in the BBC World the Kiss photograph that fetched more than $200,000. They interviewed the lady who's 75 now. The photo became a famed poster & was instrumental in its own way to promote the image of Paris being the romantic capital of the world because of the spontaneity of the moment. But the photographer, Robert Doisneau had it staged.

Francoise Bornet, now. More on this here.

2005-04-22T15:57:00.000+05:30

Ok, the new Pope has been elected. If you are like me, there's every chance that you'd been immersed in info about him like his papal name will be Pope Benedict XVI, why he chose this name, why he didn't choose Pope John Paul III, that some guy had predicted it will Benedict XVI and had already booked a domain, that the Pope had been a member of Hitler Youth and he was a POW during WW II, that he's a conservative theollogian, that's he's 78, that he was born in the district of Munich etc etc. So much to the new Pope, long live him!

Some tech news, Oracle being a strong Linux backer is now releasing versions for Linux ahead of versions for Windows of its software, making Linux its primary release platform. More here.

Amazon has come up a directory of Free MP3 downloads. The download needs a sign in and there is also a 30 second sample for listening before you download.

2005-04-19T22:35:00.000+05:30

It was fun watching BBC world last night. They kept a live video shot of the Sistine Chapel chimney pasted at the bottom left corner of their screen till smoke began to come out. First it was white, then it turned black, conveying the message that a new Pope hasn't been chosen yet. Two more ballots today had again given black smoke too. More about this strange but interesting custom here.

2005-04-17T20:15:00.000+05:30

Bloglines went broke on Saturday, couldn't catch with the news stories. Some new & some old news here.

Channel 9 Forums of MSDN in what they call the inkernet has enabled support for tablet PCs.

In cricket, India again lost to Pakistan ending the series 2-4. What worries me much is the 4 straight losses & how we have become overly dependent on Sehwag (like we were on Sachin for more than a decade)

Here's a website that combines Craig's List & Google Maps. This will help you people in the US/Canada in finding houses. Btw, one of my first searches with Google Maps ended up with a page from MapQuest. Dunno what excatly is the connection between these two!

2005-04-13T06:53:00.000+05:30

Computer keyboards have always been a source of germs. Consider the publically used ones in hospitals. Alternatives are available like virtual keyboard & washable keyboards, says this article.

It was a great tragedy in India where waters from a dam were opened up wrongly on unsuspecting pilgirms. More than 50 people died due to this mistaken act.

George Soros' "reflexivity" : "people’s predictions about what will happen to the dollar end up having a major impact on what actually does happen to the dollar". This NewYorker article is one of the many which is warning of a upcoming dollar crunch.

Wanna have a fresh life to the otherwise boring Google Search page. Try this.

Intel has posted a $10,000 reward for an original copy, in mint condition, of the April 19, 1965, issue of Electronics, the technical publication in which Intel's founder, Gordon Moore, made his famous forecast. Why would Intel want copies of the old mag that too by posting it on eBay? False or true, here's Intel's page on Moore's Law.

Meanwhile, Intel says it has begun shipping the dual-core, 3.2GHz Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processor and 955X Express chip set. Competitor AMD is expected to announce its dual-core Opteron soon. Dual-core computing offers two processor cores on a single piece of silicon and improves performance by enabling the two cores to work independently.

Some news from the world of Mac. Apple has announced that the latest version of its Mac operating system will go on sale on April 29. Code named Tiger, the OS according to Steve Jobs, will be the "most innovative and secure desktop operating system ever created".

2005-04-11T17:22:00.000+05:30

Tiger Woods is at it again. The blogspace is abuzz with the incredible shot he came up with to win the Masters. Have a look at it here.

And the Webmasters are talking about Google's latest move - oops, hope they haven't made another move than the one I'm about to mention - that of answering a question somthing likw what "Ask Jeeves"/MSN do. Type "What is the population of India" and you'll get the top result in a separate band from a site like the CIA, answers.com or about.com. Many are claiming Copyright infringement though.

The Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, who is on his visit to India had said that a combination of Indian software skills and Chinese hardware expertise can take both the countries to a leadership position worldwide in IT.

French Linux distributor Mandrakesoft has changed its name to Mandriva after Mandrake bought Brazilian Linux vendor Conectiva in February.

2005-04-07T19:59:00.000+05:30

The first Srinagar-Muzzafarabad bus in 57 years crossed the LoC, ushering in a new era in Indo-Pak relationships. The plan had a huge hiccup when 2 militants, apparently a suicide squad managed to lit a huge fire near the place where the first passengers from Srinagar were to board their bus to Mzfrbd.

China says it will build 40 new nuclear reactors in the next 15 years, in a bid to solve serious power shortages.

Veteran Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani was sworn in as Iraq's president Thursday, becoming the first non-Arab president of an Arab country and Iraq's first democratically elected president in more than 50 years.

Zimbabwe's President Mugabe flies to Rome for the Pope's funeral on Friday despite a European Union travel ban. And, the Syrian armed forces are due to start the final phase of their withdrawal from Lebanon.

According to a survey by security firm Sophos, more than a third of all spam e-mails originate in the US.

2005-04-06T21:21:00.000+05:30

How do we better know Karol Wojtyla? Answer at the end of this blog.

Welcome rains lashed Chennai & other parts of Tamil Nadu in the last 2 days. A respite from the sweltering heat. But, will it be enough to take water-starved Chennai through this summer is the thought here in all our minds.

This article which says people strung themselves by meat hooks reminds me of 'aeroplane kavadi' and kavadi in general (where devotees of Lord Murugan pierce their torsos, including tongues & cheeks) in my hometown.

Iraq's parliament chooses Jalal Talabani as the country's new president, ending weeks of political deadlock. According to Western media, this will help further 'democracy' in Iraq.

Steve Rubel says, "Feeds might be Google's greatest enemy". Hey, aint he right? No need for me to visit Google anymore, if I get everything via feeds, right?

Indians are more vulnerable to HIV/AIDs than Westerners, thanks to some genes that we inherit. More than five million of India's citizens are infected with the HIV virus, second only to South Africa.

Advertisers have sued paid search companies (like Google & Yahoo!) for click fraud. More here.

Cricket : L Balaji, the pacer from TN is injured & our old seamie Agarker will jojn the India team. Marvan Atapattu and Mahela Jayawardene hit centuries on day three of the first Test against New Zealand.

Have you tried Google & Yahoo search together?

Karol Wojtyla is Pope John Paul II's real name.

2005-04-06T18:53:00.000+05:30

As promised, here's something on WiFi. Actually, I was a bit concerned about WiFi making it to the top. The term's been around for sometime and more companies are going wireless. Hotspots are mushrooming in India (esp in Railway Stations and in trains too). Somehow, I have the feeling that the technology isn't moving as fast as it should. So, what's stopping it? For one, WiFi networks are still considered unsecure (even after encrpytion). Now, broadband mobile phone service is perceived as a threat too.

A techdirt article says : "In many places, mobile broadband data services are insanely pricey. However, it does show how a decent speed and ubiquity when done right (a big if) certainly can trump higher speeds and hotspots going forward. We're already seeing this in the US among people who are using EV-DO wireless broadband access where it's available -- and claim it's rid them of the need to use WiFi. The two technologies certainly can co-exist for quite some time. There are a variety of issues (technology, business models, interference, capacity, etc.) as to why one technology is unlikely to completely obsolete the other."

And, according to this O'Reilly blog hotspots aren't that popular in Japan. To quote from it "Native [Japanese] travelers probably do not need to plug-in to Ethernet or WiFi because of the widespread availability of broadband mobile phone service."

But this article tends to disagree. "... it is clear that the growth and distribution of Wi-Fi is accelerating. This is largely the result of two essential characteristics of Wi-Fi –- speed and interoperability (e.g. standards). The Starbucks crowd and the business traveler want mobile access to data intensive applications and services. Email, VOIP, CRM and quality picture messaging require throughput that 3G is currently unable to support. These proprietary wireless networks saddle users with “application fees” to run CRM or email programs on their devices. To contrast this, Wi-Fi’s interoperability and openness encourages innovation and development, in addition Wi-Fi offers at least an “order of magnitude” more bandwidth."

And Robert Scoble, the Microsoft geek in his blog has this to say : "Let's just say I'm hanging out at the hospital this week and I'm very grateful that the hospital has free Wifi! If I'm ever sick, put me into a hospital with Wifi." For more

So, will WiFi ever make it as the undisputable leader in wireless technologies? Only time will tell.

2005-04-05T19:00:00.000+05:30

Thanks to a typical Sehwag start & a maiden century by Mahendra Dhoni (its glory time for India's new wicket-keepers!) India again beat Pakistan in the second cricket match in Vizag today.

Again a new project from Google - it is getting into Video Blogging. Google plans to collect home made digital videos that'll show up under its video search. This was unveiled by Google co-founder Larry Page when he spoke at the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) National Show in San Francisco.

This April 1 had its own share of pranks but this one caught my attention.

A survey conducted shows that China could overtake U.S. in broadband access this year, a boost to the believers that China & India hold the next big jump as far as emerging markets are concerned.

Blinkx plans to unveil the newest version of its PC search software, which combines search results from a user's hard drive and from the Internet in a single results list. (unlike Google whcih has them separate)

Wi-Fi hardware startup Xirrus Inc. last week debuted its flagship product, which combines a WLAN switch and as many as 16 integrated access points in a single circular device. My next post will deal with the threats to WiFi.

British Telecom will connect its five millionth broadband customer in the UK later this week.

Btw, Hitachi's record breaking one-inch hard drive (which got mentioned in an earlier blog) can hold 60Gb.

2005-04-04T21:32:00.000+05:30

Scientists Identify Genetic Susceptibility to Pregnancy Complication. A genetic defect, which appears to increase the risk of developing the serious pregnancy condition pre-eclampsia, has been discovered.

At least two companies are developing speech-recognition products that will let viewers change channels with voice prompts. Hey couch potatoes, its time to go barking over what channel to see!

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies plans to announce a record for storage density on a disk drive. Hitachi will report a storage density of 230 billion bits per square inch, an achievement that would make possible a desktop computer drive capable of storing a trillion bytes of information, roughly twice the capacity of today's disks. More on this here

The Bell telephone companies, SBC and Verizon, will start selling television programming in their most recent effort to crack a market in which they have had almost no presence.

The Ebola-like Marburg virus claimed 20 more victims in Angola, raising the total death toll from the outbreak to 146.

World number one Roger Federer beat Rafael Nadal to win the Nasdaq-100 Open final. Earlier, Kim Clijsters beat Maria Sharapova in the Woman's Finals.

South African observers endorse Zimbabwe's ruling party victory in polls which were rejected by the opposition parties.

Election campaigning in Italy remained suspended out of respect for the Pope's death.

2005-04-03T12:53:00.001+05:30

Pope John Paul II finally dies after a long fought battle.

Thanks to some superb catching & bowling, the Indians had a thumping win against Pakistan in the first of the ODIs at Kochi y'day. Though Sehwag & Rahul's innings were spectacular, the best moments according to me were that of Zaheer diving towards his right to take Youhana's return catch & Sachin's around the stumps fastish delivery clipping just the bail of Inzy's half stump.

Google is planning to double the amount of storage offered (from the current 1 GB to 2 GB) on its e-mail service and plans to remove limits on message capacity as it competes with Yahoo!

MCI has agreed to reopen its talks with Qwest (after Qwest had earlier raised its buy-out bid)

A Swedish security group said Friday that they had discovered erotica stored among files inside Microsoft's Office XP suite. And, Microsoft is investigating a new set of potentially serious security flaws in IE and Outlook.

2005-04-01T15:25:00.000+05:30

Terri Schiavo is finally dead. Almost two weeks after doctors removed the pipes supplying her food, the brain damaged 42 year old woman breathed her last. The Pope meanwhile has started another fresh battle against death. Earlier, a urinary tract infection coupled with high fever had put him in a 'very serious' condition. With a heart failure happening, the Vatican says it had performed the lat rites.

Surprise of surprises, the first 9 out of the 10 results in the Zimbabwe elections had gone in favor of the opposition.

Paul Wolfowitz, the America-Bush backed nominee has been finally confirmed to head the World Bank.

Tech News - Qwest with its never-say-die attitude has applied for a fresh bid of $8.9 billion even after MCI had earlier accepted a buy-out offer from Verizon for $7.6 billion.

A recent ecology report warns that humans have already used up two-thirds of the Earth's natural resources.

2005-03-31T18:31:00.000+05:30

Will be blogging regularly the filtered news that I come across.

To start off, some News from the tech world. After Carly Fiorina's outster, its time for a new Head (to roll?) at HP. Mark Hurd will takeover where Carly left. Will he be successful in turning around HP, only time will tell. My take, he'll have to first erase the losses with the unsuccessful merger that was Compaq. May be sell off Compaq & other non-performing units, focus again on HP's strengths and ofcourse reduce the workforce, the Neutron Jack way.

Kevin Mitnick, the famous hacker who was prohibited from using a computer has come up with his second book 'The Art of Intrusion'. This book is on hackers themselves. His first book, 'The Art of Deception' dealt with hacking. He'd also edited a book titled 'Hardware Hacking'.

Mark Cuban, the 'Maverick' billionaire has gotten into a new idea of digitalising the whole film industry. He wants all theatres in the US to move out of the tradiitonal projector-film way and as a first step, has embarked on a project of converting his own Landmark group of cinemas to embrace the new technology.

Zimbabwe went for polls today. With the election machinery under his control, Robert Mugabe is all set for another clear victory. Another big problem that Zimbabwe faces is HIV/AIDS. Its currently estimated that a Zimbawawean child dies of AIDS once in 15 minutes.

The life of brain damaged Terri Schiavo still hangs on a thread. Debates keep sweeping across the USA whether she should be continued to live or not.

Symantec, the anti-virus software company has accepted that its software has holes that can allow hackers to use DOS attacks. Dell released yet another 'lightest' laptop and Microsoft yet another SP (this time for Windows 2003 Server)

2005-02-16T11:07:00.000+05:30

Sania Mirza, the new Indian Icon

Loads have been written about the arrival of Sania. Here's my two paise.

Happened to watch the game on Sunday. She's moody & can lose her match due to double faults & unforced errors but the girl from Hyderabad has got talent. She's got a good array of shots, the inside-out winners being her favorite. The punch is there, she can play till the very end (even after a faux paus ace on match point, losing the game & holding on to her nerves to break the next game) & most importantly, she plays to both her strength & her opponent's weakness. The Aus Open & specifically the match against Serena must have helped her a lot.

What disturbed me much (& the players too) were the stupid cat-calls - the meows, the huchooos, the saniaaas - oh, the Indian Tennis fan has a lot to learn & should start behaving himself. The poor Ukranian girl lost her concentration once too many & sure lost some critical points due to this crazy cat-calling.

The match had a droning DD commentary. It would have been nice to have someone like Harsha Bogle or Vijay Amritraj comment on this youngster's game.

Already there's a www.saniamirza.com site under construction, have to see how this bubbly teenager satisfies an icon hungry India(n media).

2005-02-14T13:13:00.000+05:30

Happy Valentine's Day

'As Well as They Can'

As well as it can, the hooked fish while it dies,
Gasping for life, threshing in terror and pain,
Its torn mouth parched, grit in its delicate eyes,
Thinks of its pool again.

As well as he can, the poet, blind, betrayed
Distracted by the groaning mill, among
The jostle of slaves, the clatter, the lash of trade,
Taps the pure source of song.

As well as I can, my heart in this bleak air,
The empty days, the waste nights since you went,
Recalls your warmth, your smile, the grace and stir
That were its element.

-- A. D. Hope

from The Minstrels

2004-12-20T15:23:00.000+05:30

The Funny, Strange, Dangerous Animal

Which animal is responsible for most human deaths in a year? Well, if you thought snake, mosquito or shark (like me), then you are wrong. Its the Hippo! This question was asked in the last Landmark quiz. May be it concerns only Africa and not the whole world - am not sure.

And here's an article that led me believe it : http://www.hindu.com/2004/12/12/stories/2004121202602000.htm

The general feeling is that a hippo is a bigggg yawny animal. Here are some cute poems (from the minstrels) about the Hippo that show how underestimated the beast is.

"I Had a Hippopotamus"

I had a hippopotamus; I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread.
I made him my companion on many cheery walks,
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalks.

His charming eccentricities were known on every side.
The creature's popularity was wonderfully wide.
He frolicked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles,
Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles.

If he should be affected by depression or the dumps
By hippopotameasles or hippopotamumps
I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain
He was hippopotamasticating properly again.

I had a hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend
But beautiful relationships are bound to end.
Time takes, alas! our joys from us and robs us of our blisses.
My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamissus.

My housekeeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye.
She did not want a colony of hippopotami.
She borrowed a machine gun from her soldier-nephew, Percy
And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy.

My house now lacks the glamour that the charming creature gave.
The garage where I kept him is as silent as a grave.
No longer he displays among the motor-tires and spanners
His hippopotamastery of hippopotamanners.

No longer now he gambols in the orchard in the Spring;
No longer do I lead him through the village on a string;
No longer in the mornings does the neighborhood rejoice
To his hippopotamusically-modulated voice.

I had a hippopotamus, but nothing upon the earth
Is constant in its happiness or lasting in its mirth.
No life that's joyful can be strong enough to smother
My sorrow for what might have been a hippopotamother.

-- Patrick Barrington

"The Hippopotamus"

Behold the hippopotamus!

We laugh at how he looks to us,
And yet in moments dank and grim,
I wonder how we look to him.

Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus!
We really look all right to us,
As you no doubt delight the eye
Of other hippopotami.

-- Ogden Nash

"Recipe for a Hippopotamus Sandwich"

A hippo sandwich is easy to make.
All you do is simply take
One slice of bread,
One slice of cake,
Some mayonnaise
One onion ring,
One hippopotamus
One piece of string,
A dash of pepper --
That ought to do it.
And now comes the problem...
Biting into it!

-- Shel Silverstein

The next time you are near a Hippo (in the zoo or in an African safari), be extra careful ;-)

2004-12-18T17:59:00.000+05:30

Sex, Lies & Videotape

By now, most of you must have received the Kareena-Shahid clip. Was shocked seeing Aaj Tak showing the clip repeatedly Thursday late nite. Mid Day, the one that 'exposed' it might be some tabloid & TV channels like Aaj Tak are behaving like one too. Dunno whether it was shown in other channels too. It's not uncommon for film stars to be involved in controversies like this. We've had Pam Lee & much closer home, Shalini in mpeg clips. This latest one too has made waves & the actress has already denied it.

Close on heels, comes the Bazee-DPS-IIT episode. Its sad that Bajaj, the CEO of Bazee is being questioned/arrested. And having a Delhi skoolboy-girl doing the act makes it even worse.

Hmm. Hard times, baba.

2004-11-26T10:27:00.000+05:30

A Tribute to Arthur Hailey

Hailey died of a stroke yesterday. He was 84. Let his soul RIP.

My observations - his novels don't have a beginning or a climax finish like those of say Sheldon's or Archer's. Mostly they'll be like a part of some normal persons' (the hero/heroine don't have any super human powers) life & the novel ends as it starts.

AIRPORT was the first one I read. Makes one feel amazed & at the same time pitiable of the wretched life of the gifted ATCs, a feeling of awe of how a busy airport (was it New York or Chicago?) functioned, that too in the 1960s!.

HOTEL, THE EVENING NEWS, The MoneyChangers & OVERLOAD followed. Read 'Final Diagnosis' & a comparatively weak 'Strong Medicine' too. By the time he wrote DETECTIVE, think he was too old. To use the cliche, he was one real Master Storyteller.

Yet 2 read his WHEELS. Seems it aint that good (perceptions may vary).

Hate reading Hailey's books in paperbacks - you get to know how many pages are left & that in itself will serve as an anti-climax. May be reading Hailey in e-form would have helped.

2004-11-24T12:27:00.000+05:30

attempts at haiku writing

Cooum nadhiyoram
billboard -
Honda City.

Ezhavu veetil
cellphone ringtone
"vaazha ninaithaal vaazhalam"

2004-07-18T19:25:00.000+05:30

Amelie

saw this oscar winning (think in 1997) french film last nite. amelie is born into a middle class family - her dad's a doc & mom a teacher. she has a lonely childhood. her mom dies when she's young & her dad becomes reclusive after that. amelie grows into a young woman & leaves home the first time to work in a coffee pub named 'the two windmills'. thru out the film, a monologue commentary runs in the background describing events in amelie's life. one day, as she hears Princess Di's tragic death, her life takes a turn. she becomes so humane & always wants 2 help ppl around her. a series of events is then depicted - she takes all the trouble in giving back an old man a toy box which he'd left hidden as a child 40 years back, she gives a blind man a whirlwind tour o' the market place describing what's happening around in the world, she posts a fake letter as the one that was found years later to an old woman 2 make her think her hubby in exile luved her, she pairs up a colleague o' hers with a man (but this one turns soar at last) and she makes her dad who had never left home since her mom's death roam the world by a simple trick. and there is some nice humor too when she takes revenge on a boss who is so cruel 2 his employee.

finally, love beckons her as she finds a photo scratch book o' a young man. the second part of the film describes how she meets her man, gives him the book & falls in love with him. the film ends with these 2 young ppl getting together.

such a sweet movie. makes one feel how life's so easy, fair & uncomplicated ...

2004-06-04T12:54:00.000+05:30

Before telling the college story, let me try remembering what happened in the 5 or so months after we finished our +2 exams (It was Oct 4, 1993 when finally Annamalai University threw open its doors for us). The TNPCEE entrance exams came pretty late (remember it was 1993, before the Single Window System and all that). Before that, many of us tried writing CECRI. Once CECRI Entrance was over, we had joined the entrance coaching at our very own ERHSS. Nothing much happened then, it was a month long affair & it got concluded with us writing the TNPCEE.

The marks for +2 & the entance came. It was a precarious position for me then. Getting 278.95, I found myself listed in the Waiting List. My overall total of 1070 wasn't good enough for BITS Pilani too. One chance was the Other States RECs with my having an average of 95.83 in MPC. Got a seat in Civil Engineering at REC, Surat. With Dad, travelled all the way to Surat. The first ragging experience happened in the train itself. Seniors who were returning to Surat found us & it was real fun addressing a guy one year elder to me as 'Sir' and getting slapped by some guy who was a complete unknown till a few hours back but who happenned to be a senior. SVRCET as the REC was called was also known as IIT, Surat (Ichanath Institute of Technology - Ichanath was the place in Surat where it was located). Once we reached Surat, we got a call from home saying my number was there in the list published by Annamalai! Dad didn't want me to study in Gujarat while a seat in Tamil Nadu was in the offing and so we took the Navjivan back to Chennai.

Annamalai offered me quite a proposition in many ways. The prestigious University was more than 70 years old and to add to it I was lucky in other aspects also. A brother of my uncle's wife was the HOD of the Mechanical Engineering Department and Visu, a neighbour's son was there as a Mech sophomore. Coupled with this, Chidambaram was just 150 odd km from Trichy and that meant I can come over to Trichy on weekends. Also, Baskaran, a school buddy of mine was to join there in Chemical Engineering. (Its fate that BT, the third guy in the Thiruvanaikaval group joined us in Annamalai a year later)

Somewhere in August-September of 1993, I went to Chidambaram for the first time. It was just a small temple town and the whole town's life revolved either around the temple (there were some 300 families of people who took care of the temple, the Dhikshidars) or around the University. Divided by the railway line, one side of the town was Chidambaram and the other was the sprawling 1000 acre University area of Annamalai Nagar. More of Chidamabaram to come.

One very important thing to note of AU is its fee structure. Though most of the students pay an initial capitation of anywhere from 1 to 3 lakhs, the course fee itself is one of the lowest across India. I was lucky enough to get into the BE stream on 'merit'. We paid an annual fee of Rs. 2 500 and an exam fee of Rs. 50 per paper. Put together, we paid Rs. 13 000 for the whole 4 years of Engineering. But we got in return very good lab facilities, good staff (many of them were) and the joy of spending 4 of the prime years of youth at an University (as against just an Engineering College). The hostel fees was Rs 500 to 600 and it rose to around Rs 800 when we were in our final year. Taking an average of Rs 700 per month, think my total cost for finishing Engineering was well within Rs. 50 000.

Annamalai welcomed us with its reputation intact. As we were about to join, there was an indefinite closure of the University due to some strike. Just imagine how much anxiety it should have caused to the about-to-join students and their parents. After the faux paus, the college was to reopen on Oct 4. We went on Oct 3 to Mullai Illam, the Hostel for the First Years. As soon as we landed up there, seniors were there to rag us. I was lucky enough for not getting caught on the first day though. I was allocated room number 73 which had 3 other guys - Suresh Babu from Kunnathur (native of KPS!), Senthil Kumar from Muthupet & Sridhar from Trichy. Sridhar's elder bro was doing his final year Chemical and so he was with him most of the time in the Final Years' hostel. Later, he was to bring the fifth guy Sivaraja, his friend from Trichy to our already cramped up room. It was a great night to remember, talking the night away with Babu & Pettai (Senthil's eventual nick name). Didn't know then that we 3 guys will be staying all the 4 years together. (Govind was to join us 3 from the Second Year onwards)

The first few days of going to the college was like a ritual. Everyone after having breeakfast will line up at the entrance and the crowd will grow. As the time approached 8, we all walked slowly towards our classes with our eyes looking down & acting as if we didn't hear the jeers when we crossed the Seniors' Hostels. It should have been a sight to watch, right? lol.

Dozens of stories can be told of Mullai Illam & the life there. It was some half a kilometre away from the classes and we soon found it difficult to walk to and fro. I got the old cycle of Ramu Mama's (the one who is now down with the heart attack) from Trichy. My driver happened to be Anand, the Mech guy from Trichy who was my best Mecho buddy. It was fun riding with him as he knew many first year girls from Trichy. It was a time when an odd passing smile from a girl was the ultimate thing thinkable and was discussed in Hostel rooms til the next smile happened.

There were 2 messes, one each for Veg & Non-Veg, me opting for the Veg till the final year. The food went from bad to worse as the days progresed. Coupled with this, we faced severe water shortages (both drinking & bathing) from around March 94. The water cooler in the mess had sometimes worms in it. One interesting incident concerning the messes needs a mention here. Sivaraja, a funny guy that he was started along with some others what they called 'The Terminator' club. The Arnold film was such a hit then that the fellas belonging to this club gave that nude posture (the introduction posture when Arnold comes back into the past from the future). Sivaraja agreed to the bet of having dinner at the mess with just his shirt and nothing underneach. He just did that! Its surprisng that such a naughty guy is now a Pastor in some church.

We had a very lengthy college session normally. Classes started at 8:10 and went on till 4:50, altogether 8 periods of 50 minutes each. The lunch hour didn't offer much rest as we had to commute to the Hostel and back to the classes. The evenings then were a precious time to relax. Mullai Illam was closer to the Ladies Hostel, Thamarai Illam. There was a small shopping bazar nearer to the LH which for some reason had been christened by the students community as the PC (Parry's Corner). This is where we went for the evening walk and the very occassional dinner. There was an old temple too there which we visited on most Friday evenings (ie on Fridays when we weren't going home)

Speaking of temples, we did frequent the famed Nataraja temple. The best I like about the temple is a small corridor where there is a painting of an elephant with his mahoot on the arched ceiling. From wherever you look, the elephant looks back at you. Don't know how to put it in words, but the painting is really mesmerizing. Being 4 years n Chidambaram, I missed seeing the Natyanjali even once. 'Kaadhalan' shooting happened too when we were in the First Year. One regular scenario - asking 2 First Years to count the pillars in the 'Aayiram Kaal Mandapam' and, rag them over their 2 different counts.

Cinema may die anywhere else in Tamil Nadu but not in Chidambaram. The cinemas in Chidambaram have a special place in the hearts of all the students. There is Marriappa, the only A/C theatre which belongs to the wealth & power weilding family of the Vandaiyars. The theatre is well maintained and we got to see some nice films out there during our college days. There were the twin cinemas of Lena & Vaduganathan just near the Chidambaram bus stand. Srinivasa was just inside the campus itself. Blue Diamond - doesn't the name sound odd? This one showed the typical Mallu films with 'bits' inbetween. Lena and later Srinivasa joined the 'Blue' club during the later years.

Hotels - well, there was Saradha Ram with its Natya Bar and its A/Ced Anupallavi NV Restaurant. These were 'Hi-class' but the ones more famous with the guys were the AA (pronounced Double A) mess, the Nadar mess and the Idli Kadai. AA belonged to the typical brotta-chalna-chicken variety, Nadar mess was famous for its wholesome NV lunches and Idli kadai was a kai-yendhi bhavan where each idli cost 50p (not sure now of the exact cost). Am yet to eat a paratha as soft & tasty as a AA one.

Coming back to the Hostel Life at Mullai Illam, we had PG students (doing their MAs) and BSc (Agri) students in separate blocks. The PGs were supposed to protect us minions from our seniors. But then trouble erupted now and then between us & the PGs too. These were when the PGs needed us to parade during the strikes that they conducted, when some Engineering student misbehaved in the mess or some silly reason like that. Our room must have been around 15' x 10'. This had in it 5 bodies, their luggages, pillows & blankets, buckets, chappals & shoes, clothes and 4 sets of table-chairs. It was a sight whenever all 5 of us (accompanied sometimes by a friend or two) opted to sleep in that cubby hole called Room Number 73.

Studies - actually I was allotted Civil but then due to the Mech HOD being a relative, got my branch changed to Mechanical. Ours was a unique batch in that we had 2 girls for the first time in 45 years of Mechanical history. Classes were always fun at Annamalai. Whether it be the enormous Drawing Rooms D1, D2 or the high raised class rooms of the old Engineering Block, all had multiple entry doors. That meant anyone can just sneak in and out whenever needed. Sometimes seniors came and sat with us and the Masters didn't know. All this was possible as the strength of each class was well above 100. Also, typically we changed rooms every 3 or 4 hours. Guys realised the benefits of this arrangement from Second Year onwards. Details later.

Of the teachers who took classes for the First Year, the one who stands away from the rest is KR (K Ratnam). An ex-IITian from Kharagpur he was a Reader (don't know whether other colleges/universities have such a post) and took Engineering Drawing for us. He was known for his "Gentleman over there, What are you doing? Can you please take your instruments and leave the Hall?" (or "get out?", depending in his anger level)

Need to mention here the Workshop classes. We had Smithy, Carpentry & Fitting as most other Engineering Colleges have. It was always fun to stand near the furnace with the sweaty workshop khakis, lifting the red hot metal with tongs and hammering the job on the anvil with the huge sledge hammer. Was so poor in Smithy that I didn't even complete the first job (some square headed bolt) till the very year's end. Luckily, it was the other two that were given for exams. Since being a Mecho, my tryst with the Workshops continued till the sixth semester.

The weekend journey home was always pleasant. During the initial days we had to take the bus in order to avoid the seniors coming by train. But as the days passed, we got bolder and started boarding the trains. Cholan Express at 1515 hours was the clear favorite. If we happenned to have classes till 1700, we took the Rameshwaram Express at 1930. There was this Villupuram-Trichy passenger too at 2200 which was called the 'Pullukattu' for some reason. The 4 hour journey was spent talking, pulling of each other's legs and raucous laughter. If girls accompanied us, it was an added advantage.

2004-04-11T13:08:00.000+05:30

The car festivals of India are a real treat to watch. No, it is not about the automobile rallies. It is about pulling of the huge wooden structures weighing tons by hundreds of eager devotees. The car festival of Lord Jegannath, Puri is quite famous and in fact is the origin of the word juggernaut. Many temples in South India have these ‘cars’ some small and others large. Some rich temples now have golden and silver ones. They are in fact chariots for the local God usually pulled around the streets once a year.

The car festival is celebrated in my native Thiruvanaikaval too with much pomp and glory. It comes in every March or April. Our temple has Lord Jambukeshwara & Akilandeshwari as deities. Lord Shiva has got 5 prominent places of worship one each for Earth, Air, Fire, Water & Space. In our temple, he is attributed to the water form. The sanctum sanctorum has a perennial water spring. The Goddess is known to be equally powerful too.

Each of these deities have a separate chariot, a Ther or Radham. The preparations for the festival coincide with the start of the harsh Indian summer. It’s also the time when the annual school exams are over and the two month long summer vacation begins. As a kid, I’ve enjoyed being part of this gala festival and it still fascinates me being a part of it every other year.

The chariots that have been kept covered by large corrugated steel sheets for protection against dust and weather all year long, are uncovered. A religious pole is then raised up on an auspicious day conveying to all that the festival is about to happen. The bare wooden chassis is then built over with a temporary form-work which in turn gets covered and decorated with colorful cloth. Two prancing horses made of plaster of Paris are mounted in the front, just to symbolize a chariot. A long & thick rope (called vadam) is then tied to the chariot, thus completing the basic work. On the day before the festival, freshly cut plantains, coconuts and fruits are hung to add to the beauty of the already decorated chariots. One another special arrangement is watering of the muddy streets by fire engines just before the start so that it doesn’t get dusty when hundreds of people move around.

By morning 7 am, people start queuing up and start pulling the first car, that of the Lord. The arrangement is to go round the streets once, that form a rectangle adjoining the temple. Previously the huge wheels were made of wood but thanks to BHEL Trichy, they now are of robust steel.

As the crowd pulls alonmg, most of the houses serve water, sherbet and buttermilk. There is also the tingy paanagam made by mixing jaggery, coconut, lime & spices in water. These all keep the people from not getting dehydrated. Many volunteer organizations too now chip in contributing their own Thanneer Pandhals et al.

The man at the top needs a special mention. He hails from a carpenter or goldsmith family and motivates the crowd not to give up. This he does by shouting over a mic and with the vigorous shaking of a towel actioning to move forward. The shouts of "aan, aaan, izhu… izhhhuuu…” ring through the air. Its also a custom of guys to throw ice sticks and other miscellaneous items at him from below, thus teasing him all the way.

One crucial thing is that the chariots don’t have any inbuilt steering mechanism. Its steered by men who apply wooden blocks made of coconut palm logs. It’s real dangerous to be crouching right there at the bottom, with one hand on a rope and the other holding the heavy steer. Men have lost limbs & even life doing that. Don’t know why they still do it the old way.

Many things happen at the rear of the chariot too. Guys keep beating drums loaded on to the car to keep up the tempo. And there are the large Sanna Kattais that play an important role in moving the chariot forward. It is like having a crowbar and a fulcrum to lift a heavy stone - only that some 10 young men load themselves onto the huge logs and jump on them to provide the required thrust from behind. This is crucial to overcome the static friction as the chariot keeps stopping every so often.

For the children, there are balloonwalas, sweet meat sellers & merry-go-rounds to add to the fun. Stick ice vendors by the dozen do brisk business too.

Once the first chariot is pulled back to its base, its time for the Goddess to take to the road. And her chariot too gets pulled over. Some years it all happens so fast and both the cars are in their respective bases before noon (as it happened this year). But some times, its only in the evenings that all gets over. There were a very few years when it took beyond a single day for the operations to complete.

Once over, it’s a festival well celebrated and it is another year of worthful wait for it to happen again.

(April 10, 2004)

2004-03-07T20:39:00.000+05:30

Multi-Storeyed Residential Apartments, fondly referred to as flats, can be found by the dozen in any metropolitan neighbourhood. They can be considered a panacea, THE solution to many a Metro. Built vertically, the space consumption comes down, affordability for rent/ownership for the hugely fancied middle-class, their optimal size a boon for nuclear families etc. They also create problems like water scarcity etc. What we normally see as issues is after such an apartment comes into existence. Can we not see some of the issues when such an apartment is being built?

The curiousness of analysing the aforesaid thing rose as I gazed through my window and started observing one such apartment being built right opposite to my house.

Have you ever thought about the people behind them? No, not the real estate guys, not the contractors, not the civil engineers, I mean the real people, the ones who build, if I'm allowed to use the old metaphor, these concrete jungles. They are more or less gypsies. These are the very same ones who really build the nation, whether it be huge structures such as bridges or dams, or laying of roads/rails, or the construction of factories.

As one who watched such labourers closely, as the multi-storeyed structure came up, I can say, its a dog's life they lead. The first thing that strikes us hard is that there's no shelter for the shelter builders. An irony indeed. They live, cook and sleep under the bare sky while their children play all day long, never knowing what a school is. At a very early age of 10, they too start carrying bricks, sand and cement to help earn their parents a few more rupees. (the wage structure gives more to men, less to women & the least to children)

Whats the food they eat? Shouldn't it be highly nutricious for all the hard work they do? Its not so, just plain rice cooked in an open vessel placed over 3 half-bricks with whatever scrap wood they can find as fuel. So, what do they eat the rice with? Do the' side-dishes' you order at restaurants come to your mind? Is it meat, or at the least vegetables? They can't afford such luxury every day. Mostly its a sort of pickle that a man comes selling every morning, a Horlicks bottle full costing Rs. 10. They take it along with rice and are ready for another agonizing, hot day's work, sometimes going well into late night, what with the contractor's precious over time, not the double pay that the rules say, but for a mere single pay. Poor creatures, there aren't any unions for them to ask justice.

And where do they bath or answer their nature calls? Oh yeah, we really can't expect the contractors to provide them such exotic facilities for basic sanitation safety. But then, we do have every right to blame them for making the neighbourhood dirty, 'Slum dwellers, how dare they spoil our Singara (beautiful in case of other cities) Chennai's road sides?' And how dare you can think of them bathing everyday? Afterall, the city's always reeling under severe water shortage. And, whenever their women have a bath, everyone on road can see them wash themselves in the open, with their petticoats rised to their breasts.

Most of the builders use some sort of covering, be it corrugated tin sheets or thatched coconut leaves, that surrounds the whole site, so that dust and sound resulting from the construction work get minimized. But then, this particular famous builder thought otherwise. As the work started to speed up, the room I stayed, being directly opposite to the site started to accumulate a fine layer of dust. An allergic to dust, even as I started to think of health problems that I'll have to face, a more worrisome thought occurred. Imagine what this mixture of cement, sand and powdered brick can do to those poor labor souls' respiratory tracts and the bodies in general. Speaking of respiratory problems, do the contractors check their real wealth, the employees' health every month? Only God knows. As far as I know, the only extra that they gave, I still don't understand why, was a luxury bath soap every month.

Other than the suffering of the poor labourers there were other worser things happening too. One fine morning, the lush green coconut palms that dotted the compound lot, of what was once a vacant lot were brought down. Now, why would they cut down the trees for no particular reason? They were simply there not obstructing any construction activities. The reasons given, one, its always a danger when you think of coconuts/leaves falling on either the automobiles that will be parked or on passers-by and two, they had to cement the whole land surrounding the structure. Talk about Rain Water Harvesting to builders like these. How naive can they get?

In a water starved city like Chennai, where do they get all the water needed, first to build such structures and second, when it is built, to support the residents? Isn't the answer obvious? Borewells ofcourse. There has been many a suggestion to the Government to bring some sort of restriction on this unmindful exploitation of the ground water resources. With no laws in place, why then complain of the depletion of water table? So, the builders did the wise thing too. They sank as many as 4 four borewells. As there is the much larger worry of watertable, we shouldn't talk about what the continous 24 hour drone of the borewell machinery causes to the neighbours.

The above account is quite a little of all that happens when a residential apartment is being built. A kind plea to future flat-buyers and owners -- do not merely accept a flat as it is. Please do think of the many souls' struggles and the other problems that went into building your life-long dream.

(Nov 9, 2002)

2004-02-23T14:42:00.000+05:30

"To diversify or not"

Whether we should continue to work on the strength of our current products or to diversify by having new products in other areas is the thought playing into every Advee's (employee of AdventNet, our company) mind now. Pertaining to this context, let us see the histories of some well known companies, of where they started & where they are now.

First, a company this author is quite familiar with -- L&T. Henning Holck-Larsen & Soren Kristian Toubro were two Danes who set up shop in India in 1937. They started off as commission agents, importing and selling European diary machinery. When in 1939 the World War II broke out, they started to make the products that they used to import. In 1945, L&T was appointed dealers of Caterpillar, the American earthmoving machinery giant. From then on, it was no looking back. L&T now is an engineering giant which makes the things that make India proud -- from constructing buildings, roads & bridges to manufacturing heavy machiney, switchgears, earthmoving equipment etc. And it has forayed into the IT sector too.

This industrial house's HQ is the famed Bombay House. In 1878, the company began its activities with the trading and manufacturing of textiles. By 1911, it started India's first steel mill. The century old Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai belongs to this group. It now has interests in steel, electric power, locomotives, automobiles, banking, insurance, hotels and information technology. The house now constitutes 80 odd companies and its revenues of US $ 11.21 billion accounts for 2.4% of India's GDP. Its the industrial house of Tata. (as an aside, about 66% of the Tata & Sons company capital is allocated for philanthropic purposes. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore was set up in 1911 by the company's founder Jamsetji Tata.)

Do you know who owns the toilet soap brand Santoor? Its WIPRO. This Indian business group has its humble beginnings as a maker of vegetable oils & toilet soaps. Here is a short history of the company: The journey of Wipro began in 1945, when the Western India Vegetable Products Limited was incorporated in Maharastra. The vegetable products factory gradually by 1970s expanded into a consumer products group, hydraulic cylinders and then entered the InfoTech area. In 1980, in a small laboratory at the IISc Bangalore, a committed Wipro team developed the first Indian mini computer based on the Intel 8086 chip. Also in the early 1980’s when India was on the threshold of an IT boom, Wipro entered the Infotech area and tasted early success in its R & D. Wipro continued its successful journey when it tied up with GE Medical Systems to set up a Joint Venture 1992. In 2000, Wipro’s ADS got listed on the New York Stock Exchange. And its success story continues.

The House of Birla is one of the largest industrial houses in India. It owns over 500 factories in a wide range of industries such as textiles, man made fibres, cables, automobiles, industrial and textiles machines, sugar, paper, shipping, cement, jute, aluminium, copper, fertilizers, chemicals, power plants, non-ferrous semis, palm oil, insulators etc. The group also has over 40 joint ventures and management contracts in several countries such as Nigeria, Malaysia, Kenya, England, Phillipines, Indonesia, Thailand, Uganda, Ethiopia, Egypt, etc. It owns brand names like Grasim, Hindalco, Indian Rayon & Indo Gulf Fertilisers. And now after making successful forays into financial services, telecom, software and BPO, this is today one of Asia's most diversified business groups.

A young man gave up practising law and took up lockmaking. His brand became a symbol of self reliance for the generations that followed. With each new product, he changed the perceptions about industry in India. He produced the finest security equipment, and then stunned the world by creating a soap from vegetable oils. He was Ardeshir Godrej. Down the lane the successful Godrej business group started to offer products in diversified fields -- from personal care to agro & foods, real estate, insecticides, chemicals, home appliances, office equipment, machine tools & of course locks, safes & security equipment.

Coming to Tamil Nadu, we have our own success story to tell. In 1911, this company started off as a bus service in Madurai. And now it has grown into a very diversified group of 25 blue chip companies. The group operates in fields like manufactring of two wheelers & automotive components (like tyres, ignition systems, gears, crankshafts, brake linings, turbo chargers etc), automotive dealerships, finance, textiles, electronics, road transport & parcel service. Its none other than TVS, the name which stands for quality, service & reliability.

Nokia. Anyone reading its story would be astonished. The company traces its history to1865 when one Mr. Fredrik Idestam started a wood pulp mill. Its history is peppered with very different products. Paper, rubber products like shoes, boots & overshoes, electrical wires & cables, electricity generation, car tires, electronics, computers, TV sets, telephones, GSM networks and finally mobile phones. Its sales now accounts for 25% of Finland's GNP and its market value is 100% of Finland's GDP. (should Finland be renamed Nokialand?)

So Sridhar, when are we going to have AdventNet cars & AdventNet pizzas? It doesn't sound that strange after all.

ps: The thought o' writing this obviously occurred when Sridhar, our CEO commented that we shud worry only if he'd told he's diversifying into making cars or pizzas. just wanted 2 have a go at his statement.

(Feb 22, 2004)

2004-02-05T20:54:00.000+05:30

Ganesh's Wedding Reception

Hi guys,

It was yet another o' us celebrating the abdication of the much hyped bachelorhood. Just for the guys who cudn't make it, a brief narrative o' Ganesh's Wedding Reception.

As with all o' our guys' weddings/receptions (k, I've attended just two bfo'), Ganesh's reception too turned out 2 b an out-and-out fun affair. Moreover, it being a luv-cum-arranged marriage added spice. ERHSS buddies who were there were Mani, kupilapo Sudarsan, Saravanan, Gundraa Rajesh, Samalee Swaminathan and myself. Ofcourse there was the supposed-to-be-co-ordinator 'n cousin, our good ol' Venkatesh. remember, he was the one who told he's gonna 'arrange' for a gtg, and yes he kept his word by mailing 'lets all assemble in the kalyana mandapam itself at 6:30 pm on saturday' (later changing it 2 sunday) k, allow me 2 drive the last nail - he was not to be seen with any o' us guys, all evening spent with may b, special friends o' his.

There were 'first' visitiors - guys who haven't come for a gtg/wedding bfo', gundraa & saravanan. while saravanan was his usual self, with the everpresent, charming smile on his face as during skool days, with not much talking, Gundraa was xactly opposite 2 him, being as 'Bossy' as ever. Adhe nadai, adhe bavanai and adhe dhoppai. He too, like Ganesh, is having a luv affair with one o' his colleagues (client's employee actually). Much 2 my annoyment, he started rambling abo' her brother in CitiCorp! So, as told by u Gundraa, xpecting ur invitation in November then.

Now, as the evening progressed, Mani had a queer wish - of goin' on stage 'n singing a song or two (O Podu, in particular). This wish o' his was purrfectly amplified by his Pushpa Nagar mates - those kutties (I mean, guys 5-6 years younger than us) who play cricket with him. They were ready 2 shout slogans made up by Bharathram/Chari (of Srirangam Boys Hi Skool) like "Simmak KuRalon"/"Paadum Kuyil" Mani and put him on-stage, if Mani pays 'em bucks. Tho' Mani parted with 150 bucks, thank God, the mega plan didn't take-off, thus averting a major pandemonium in T Nagar, that Sunday evening.

Word came that our 'Vellakatti' Venu had been betrothed that very morning. Seems that the ponnu, Venu please pardon me, is from "Enga avan ......., (the exact words that sucha didn't want to say) nite thanni adichutu, kavunthu kadanthu, kaalaila poi thooki yaandhamo adhe Ponmalai Patti" (as told by Bharathram). destiny, makkale!

Some news, Seems that our very own yogi o' yogis, Habitual BT @ Thayumanavan sent his asirvaadhangal to the couple over phone. Samalee will be moving out o' Polaris and join INautics shortly. Saravanan and kupilapo have just returned from UK. And from Gundraa, there is no tax for World Bank employees in India.

The uniqueness o' the evening and all kudoes go for the 'ponnu veetar'. It was the 'dappankutthu' ishtyle o' dancing by all memebers o' the gal's family, age/sex no bar. The orchestra really kept upto this challenge and started playing 'upbeat' (as against melody) tunes. Mapplai Ganesh was seen, as Mani put it "Ganesha paren, palla kadichundu sirichitu irukan. idhe vera naal, vera aala irundhuthuna kaalala etti udhachirupan". Ganecha, pichu udhareetanga po, enna aatam, enna aatam!! The tempo was so much that both the ponnu 'n maaplai were brought down the stage atleast once to be coaxed into putting a step or two. I think, the ponnu obliged, while the maaplai remained adament.

And finally, what we all (Samalee in particular) had come for, dinner was served. As with any marriage dinners nowadayz, it was grand too, with 'yegapatta' items, from jamoon to poori to biriyani to sambhar sadham, to rasam to ice cream.

Thats it guys, as I was busy with work, (k, just another reason) cudn't make it 2 the muhurtham today morn'. May b someone who attended send an update plzz.

(July 8, 2002)