Yahoo! Oops.. I mean Google!!
Continuing my previous post.
I have the Gmail chat enabled in my account! And it just rocks :). This thing is sooo cool!
They have designed it so perfect :-). Oh. Guess they must have hired some expert in UI. Probably a Phd. ;). Now this is what I call a communication system. There is no VoIP (*yet*), but I’ll keep my x*fingers crossed*x. You never know what these guys are upto or what they can do.
Just to give an example: Whenever you get an IM from any of your contacts, the color of the title bar of the window that appears is the same as the highlight color of that contact’s name in the contact list on the left. Neat.
Another thing is the dancing (rotating) emoticons. Although there are only a few of them. The dialog which appears on hover over a contact’s name is also neat.
In short, I love it! Although, I’d like the window’s name to blink in the taskbar when I get a message and I am working in some other window. Just like Yahoo! messenger or GTalk for that matter. Some people might find it annoying, but I guess its needed. Not the sound. Just the visual.
Google rocks!
They have done it again
Everything was fine befoer I went for lunch. After coming back, I unlocked my workstation and opened Gmail home page (I usually log off my mails accounts when I leave my PC for long). There it was. Something new from Google. After a long time, it was good to see something innovative from the ubiquitous owner of the web.
Gmail chat. No its not Google Talk if you are smart enough to use it already. This is a new concept altogether.
Picture this: Whosoever in your Gmail contacts is logged into his/her mail account, you can see them online! That too in a neat block on the left side of the page (Where the Invite thing is there). Ofcourse you will have an option to choose which ones should be displayed. Now this block (or whatever they call it) will be so dynamic (using AJAX) that it will give the look and feel of a regular chat IM. Isn’t that cool? Also, the PMs you send will not be nagging pop ups from the window, but another small block on the bottom right corner (You have the option to pop it up if you are so used to it). Now that’s what I really call cool.
All said and done, it seems that its going to be a hit with users. Atleast I am gonna love it. Not because I am a fan of Google, but because, its really an innovative concept. Really helpful in situations where the IM softwares are firewalled.
They still have not activated it on my account. They better do it fast else… Leave it, I cannot do anything anyway.
Rang de basanti
Last week I watched Rang de basanti. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the tickets on 26th of Jan (Yup, the movie was released on Thursday, the 26th of Jan 2006). Well, that’s no surprise as its really a tedious task to get tickets here in Bangalore.
Anyways, after watching some of the disasters like Zinda, Shikhar etc. (which were expected to be hits owing to great directors who directed them), I was skeptical about watching any bollywood movie. Seriously speaking, I had lost the hope of watching a good bollywood movie.
The only thing that forced me to watch this movie was Aamir Khan.
Well, as expected, he did it. Aamir was excellent in the movie. And the movie was perfectly perfect! Everything was so perfectly woven together that the audience were wowed. The first half was full of humour and reminded me of my college days. The second half ignited a feel of patriotism in me (and everybody else for that matter).
There are two things I noticed while watching the movie. Firstly, the writer had this perfect sequence in his mind while writing the script. There was nothing jumbled up. Every scene, every dialog was perfectly in place and complementing the previous one.
Secondly, the director knew what he had to do. I mean, he knew from where a certain scene should be shot to get it best on the screen, where to place the camera, how to move the camera etc.
All of this complemented by the legend’s music. Yes, AR Rehman did it again. With “Pathshaala”, he reawakened the college youth in us and with “Lukka Chhuppi”, took us deep into an emotional dive. Hail AR Rehman!
Many viewers did not like the end. But I guess, the movie wouldn’t have been powerful enough to create an impact, had the end been a typical bollywood end.
I recommend this movie to everyone out there.
Keep your fingers crossed!
If everything goes fine (and there is no natural disaster in India), you might just get to here a good news from me in the coming few days!
Well, I cannot give a hint right now, but I guess most of my friends know what it is. Anyways, its always good to have a formal announcement of such news. Patience.
For those of you who don’t know me, don’t even think about that. I am an Indian and only 21 years old ;).
Equilibrium
Upon recommendation by my friend Chirag, I just watched the movie Equilibrium. And I am stunned!
Its the second best Sci-Fi movie I have seen after The Matrix trio. Although the SFX doesn’t match up with that of The Matrices as such, but the concept and the direction is marvellous. As with The Matrices, every frame and the sample in this movie was important to understand the concept.
I guess I will have to add it to my orkut’s favourite movies’ list!
I recommend this movie to every geek out there.
Airtel Broadband
I read about this somewhere at http://www.aalaap.com (One of my favourite writers). Airtel broadband now offers double the speed during night (10:30 pm to 6am).
Aalaap wrote that he had enquired only in NCR region. I am a subscriber from Bangalore. Yesterday night, I got 256 kbps speed from my 128 kbps connection! Isn’t that cool? I mean, most of the people put their downloads in the night and sleep. This is really cool!
Although, there can be many reasons for the same. Either Airtel isn’t getting enough customer base to meet the bandwidth it has, and is hence, distributing it to the subscribers. Or, probably this one is more sensible: many non geeky subscribers just shut down their PCs at night and sleep! Hence, the available bandwidth increases and instead of just letting it go waste, they are distributing it among the geeky subscribers. Now that’s some geeky move!
All in all, the move is really appreciated and will surely help Airtel to retain customers and lure some more. Apart from this, I think its one of the businees strategies of Airtel to capture the market extensively before other major players ike Reliance and Tata start their services.
Speaking of Reliance, I have a gut feeling about the Ambanis and the Tatas not entering the broadband bandwagon. I think its the calm before the storm. Probably they are planning for another revolution. The broabband revolution in India. Just like the mobile revolution (Remember the ads “Roti kapda makaan aur MOBILE”?). Probably Reliance is planning to launch its broadband using WiMax.
Whatever it is they are planning, until they launch their services everyhere, Airtel broadband rocks!
Update: The speed during normal working hours (6 am to 10:30) pm has reduced significantly! Infact, its pathetic. Now I know, nothing in this world is free 🙁
I would be writing soon
It has been a loooong time since my last post. I couldn’t write due to certain personal reasons. Although, all the issues aren’t resolved as of yet, I cannot keep much stuff in my brain for long. I will have to drain it here.
Apart from this, making such a commitment would surely drive me to find some time and write. Oh god! where have I come!
Keep checking!
Its high time
I am a proud user of Airtel’s broadband & telephone services. Previously I was using the services in Northern India. Currently I am using it in a Southern part of India.
While in the North, I had subscribed to the Home 699 plan. The plan was newly launched then and promised the user 128 KBPS with unlimited data transfer. I, being a CS graduate and a RIM user, knew how companies make fool of customers. Hence, before subscribing to the plan, I did my home work. I enquired the Airtel customer care whether the speed is 128 Kilo BYTES or 128 Kilo BITS per second. Thankfully, I was told that its indeed KBPS(Kilo bytes per second: for kilo bits, “kbps” is used). I also double checked the same with the marketing person who was striving to make me an Airtel customer.
Although promised to be installed within 2 days, it took them 4 days and INR 200 worth of my phonecalls to get it working on my apartment.
Then I started downloading stuff! I was getting around 60 – 80 KBPS speeds. Although my room mates were satisfied with the speed, I was not. I wanted every bit for what I was paying for! Hence, I dropped a mail to the customer care saying that I am not getting the promised speeds. They called me up. After the usual on the phone stupid tweaks (like disabling anti virus, anti spy wares etc.), when I was still not convinced the sweet lady on the other side told me that a representative will visit me. I tried telling the sweet lady that there is no problem from my side, but she still insisted. I could not contradict a sweet lady like her!
The representative came the next day. He saw the download speeds and was surprised! Not because I was getting lees than what I was promised, but because according to him, I was getting more than what I should get :|. According to him, the speed of the plan was 128 kbps (kilo bits per second) and ideally, I should have got only 16 kilo BYTES per second!! WTF X-(.
1 Kilo Byte = 8 Kilo Bits.
I showed him the mail I received from the customer care. He immediately noted down the name of the poor chap who replied to my complaint and called up his boss that this fellow is giving wrong information to the customers. I was speechless. What could I say? He told me that he cannot help me and left.
My room mates convinced me to leave the subject as is.
Coming down:
In the ubiquitously denoted as the IT city of India, I live at my relatives house in one of the posh localities of the city. Here, before my arrival, my younger brothers had managed to get a broadband connection. Of course Airtel broadband. It was a 256 KBPS or kbps (I don’t know) plan. We were getting a maximum of 30 KBPS download speeds. So i guess it was the latter. But it had a 1 GB data transfer limit attached to it.
I called up the marketing executive here to migrate it to the unlimited data transfer plan. he gave me the customer care numbers and asked me to place my request there. The Airtel land line was out of order (But surprisingly, the broadband was working!), hence I called up from my good old RIM. After the usual keypad pressing to get to the right department, I pressed the required key to express my interest to talk to an Executive, who, according to the sweet lady’s voice coming from the other end, were dying to help me.
1 minute… 2 minutes… 3 minutes… I waited for 15 minutes! I guess the sweet lady was lying. WTF! I even wasted all my call charges.
I then dropped a mail (after hunting for the customer care address) to them expressing my interest for the subject matter.
1 day… 2 days… I waited for 3 whole days for their replies! I guess their mail server was down or everyone was busy bursting crackers. WTF!
Then I called up the marketing person again and expressed my concern. The decent guy understood my concern (and probably smiled!) and said that he would do the needful. The next day I also received the replies to my mails (along with the apologies for the late reply, of course!) and the plan was migrated in another 2 days. Marketing people do have powers!
The difference was noticeable. I was able to get download speeds of up to 40 – 50 KBPS, although, not as fast as the northern India. So, I guess that the technical person who came to cater my complaint in northern India was a fool. He himself didn’t know about the services offered by the company.
I went to the site to check about the status of my plan. Although, there is nowhere a subscriber can find out what plan is he subscribed to (WTF again!), there is an alternative way to find it. One has to check the usage of ones plan. For unlimited plans, there is no usage displayed. hence, one can know whether he has subscribed to unlimited plan or not.
I saw a link flashing on the website regarding some new tariff plans introduces. Like a typical Indian customer who always hopes that the tariff of his subscribed plan be reduced, I clicked on the link. A pop-up sized window appeared with one of the worst Flash based forms I have ever seen. After filling up the very slow form (Phew!) asking about my usage and speed requirements, I clicked on submit. The plans and tariffs appeared in a matrix like structure. The window was so small that only the row and the column headers were visible. To make matters worse, the stupid website developer did not keep the option to re size the window! WTF!
Its getting lengthy, lets get to the conclusion fast:
What I mean to say is that its high time now that the Indian telecom companies put some time in improving their websites and customer services. With more and more people going for broadband connections, it is really a pity that customers are fooled this way. When the company representatives themselves do not know about the schemes and the services of the company and have such poor websites, what can the poor customer do?
College days
Following is a forwarded message I got from my friend today morning. I liked it so much that I am putting it here. Hats off to the person who wrote this text…
Its 7:15 AM and I stand here in the bus stop waiting for the office bus to arrive. I stand here in the same spot as I did a few years back waiting for my college bus. Little did I know then that things would change so much in 2 years; the tree under which I was standing seemed to be looking at me and smiling, perhaps the only living thing that stands as a testimony there, watching the transformation of a loud and bubbly person into a quiet professional. I wouldn’t blame the professionalism for the change though. It is destiny, or may be you could call it life. Yes Life, esoteric in the true sense, for one does not understand why you meet hundreds of people everyday, work with so many, and still remain lonely.
I am now in one of the corner seats in the bus, looking out of the window watching people trying to catch up with “life”! It’s an hour’s journey and the only company that I generally have is the chatter of the RJ. I seldom notice the person sitting next to me, for its going to be yet another stranger or may be you could say another acquaintance. It is annoying at times when the radio is switched off, not because I am cut off from the melody (?) but because I would now be thrust with the thought of the solitary travel ahead. I can’t help thinking about the short bus journeys to college, well it’s a paradox to call a distance of 40 kms “short”, but that is how it always seemed. A typical college day always begins in the bus with all the familiar faces; you look forward for all your friends to get in from the various stops, the reasonless giggles, the loud laughter that were stifled to avert the eyes of the lecturers and professors who would watch on us as if we were their prospective prey for the day, well as I said it was a different life then.
The pleasant memories of college are in itself good enough to save me from the misery of the bus journey. I notice that it is time for me to get down and flash my smile of acknowledgement to all the known strangers that I see as I walk towards my cubicle. A few of my project mates greet me with their morning wishes and as always, we exchange our pleasantries. Discussions jump to the weekend plans and I wonder what I’d do over the weekend. It would be just another day staring at the mobile, wishing it would ring and bring back some wonderful moments that are now missing in life or maybe the safer option would be to come to office, for it’s my new founded asylum these days. A few years back, weekends or weekdays didn’t matter to me, I was always busy. I always stood doubting the authenticity of the wall clock that seemed to be in running too fast to perceive its movement. Alas, now it seems as though my clock is suffering from some kind of paralytic attack.
There is a time in life, where one needs to go ahead, leave behind all your friends and carry along only memories. You do make friends, but then you never get back the same old close ones, you do meet people who’d be so good to you that you could tell them anything and everything, but you’d not find a person, to whom you needn’t say things, friends who just know you. Occasional calls from such friends, has been the only thing that I seem to look forward to, but I cant help but notice the uneasy pause that lingers around the conversation, pause not because of the relationship, but because it is too short a duration to say everything, and of course you cannot completely rule out the paucity of words!
As I sip coffee from the ubiquitous coffee mugs, watching the drops of rain, trickling down the tinted glass panes, veiling the scenic beauty outside, I tell myself, may be there’d be a day when things change, when life offers a rewind, a recap of all the events, and I’d just have to wait.
Capricious are the ways of life, for I know there would be many who’d be able to empathize with me, ironically, even the dear ones that I miss this moment, waiting perhaps.
Life goes on…
There are very few people in life for whom respect comes from within the heart. Your head automatically bows out of respect upon meeting them.
I remember it was a bright and sunny day. We were sitting in the computer lab enjoying the air conditioning. Suddenly some of our juniors came up with a news. Sir, there is a new teacher in the college. He’ll teach us C programming. Great! we said.
Thats how we came to know about him. After some time, the scene was repeated. Us sitting in lab and same juniors coming to us. sir, they said, that new teacher is a mechanical engineer! He has done PGDIT. How can a mechanical engineer teach us C?? This point even left us thinking for a while. But later on, the same juniors told us that he is a very good teacher and explains the subject very well.
Later on when we proceeded to next sem, he taught us OS. Towards the end of the course, we implicitly developed a feeling of respect and friendship towards him.
I remember how much dedicated he was towards the course.
I remember that he was more accountable to the labs and lectures than we were.
I remember that he was always ready to clear the doubts of students. No matter what time it was, no matter what he was doing.
I remember how he guided us in choosing the electives.
I remember how well he guided and supported me in my projects.
I remember how restless students were when he was absent from college for a few days.
I remember he proved that a teacher can be a great friend too.
I remember how concerned he was about our placement.
I remember how he survived a stampede at pragati maidan just for the sake of our placement.
I remember how he was awake all night encouraging us during the first campus interview.
He proved that knowledge is no one’s monopoly. Mere words like “branch” cannot stop someone from gaining expertise in some subject.
Today, he left the college.
Yes, life goes on, but we will feel the absence.
I attended the meeting in lecture hall today. Although, sitting at the last bench, he was not audible properly, but i know that he was sad. His future will bring him the best things in life. But our past does affect our future life to a certain extent.
Any feeling whether jolly or sad is not felt immediately. Its when you go home and think about it, it affects you most.
He is a great person, a great teacher, great friend and above all an excellent human being.
I wish him all the best for his future and can only say the following line…