May 31st

Today, one of my friends who had been recently inducted in a company got her first salary and she was very excited about the whole thing! I cant wait to get my first salary too!! The first fast bucks in our hands, which we can spend or save or do anything that pleases us!! But I guess it makes us feel more responsible the moment we get some responsibility such as accountability of money!

Now, after getting their own salaries, people should begin to understand the true meaning of hard earned money, where each rupee spent is properly planned and executed. I got my first money when I started professional web development freelancing way back when I was in the eleventh standard when I designed a website for a school called Geetanjali Matric. The order was an outsourced one and I had received seven hundred and fifty as an advance payment!! My joy knew no bounds when I took the money home and gave it to my mom - "Keep this for your expenses!"

She refused to take it, but I cannot forget all the times when she spoke with relatives and other well-wishers when they came home or over the phone of how her little boy had started helping out with some money!

Now, five years and dozens of projects later, I doubt that I would have the same excitement when I receive my first salary, though it would be just as special!

The Right to get a reply????

One of my juniors had mailed me about four times and seeing that he hadnt obtained a reply(within an hour) immediately took to my blog, commenting in it and asking me whether I "dont receive any email" and that he was waiting for my reply and that he had mailed me four times(some duplicate mail since he did not get a reply).

Is it an obligation to respond on time to email received? Email is something that just makes communication a whole lot faster and easier. But when you possess a personal email and somebody emails you, I know it would only be polite if you replied, but if it was someone whom you dont remember meeting and he/she was asking some questions irrelevant and not logical to you, would it be an obligation to reply??

Is anybody paying me to do that??? Hrrmmph! Somebody ought to teach him to be polite.
I can just tell balls to you and continue with my work, but I know better to be polite. These days, people need a lot to learn.

One of the things he wanted to know was whether I was the first mark in my class and he wanted to satisfy himself that I wasn't! Who cares more anyway!!!

Results out!

The results were out two days ago and I didn't fare bad! Mailed my result details to my prospective employer and hoping that I would get a favourable reply from them. It was raining all afternoon, drizzling rather, and the weather was very pleasant compared to the days running up to today when the days were blazing hot! Better days now, and more than that, most of my classmates have cleared their exams too.

The days are rushing by and I have all but a few days to spend here at Coimbatore. I must make the time here worthwhile!! Hmmm..

Cricket after a long time!

I was just relaxing back home in the late afternoon and planning to take a nap when Ashakir and the other guys called me and asked me to come over to Anvar's house immediately as all were there. I reluctantly got ready since I wanted some sleep, the weather was cloudy and nice and just as soon as I started on my two wheeler, it began to drizzle!! I thought of turning back, but since it was windy, I figured the rain would abate soon. But it didn't and by the time I reached the place, I was soaking wet! But my back was dry! Made me think of day and night on earth! Ha ha!

Then these guys were all laughs at seeing my predicament. Then they suggested that we play a game of cricket in the parking lot of Anvar's place that was big enough to play a decent game. It was still drizzling, but by the time we had the stumps up, it had stopped and the sun showed up brilliant than ever! We had quite a nice time making fun of Anvar who was the butt of all jokes that we made! Then we decided to have a snack outside and also to have a "Gola" which is a slush, made from crushed ice and topped with some essence and some spices and condiments, with a stick to hold it as we relish its tasty goodness!! My mouth is waterings as I type!! You should try it out some day. We had some snacks and then, we decided to book tickets for a movie, Pudhupettai which was releasing tomorrow. We reached the place after a small hiatus on the road and we were disappointed to know that only second class tickets was available, but considering the small size of the Senthil-Kumaran theatre, it wouldn't make much of a difference!!

But by the time we responded, even those tickets were sold out! Drat! We aren't exactly great fans of Dhanush, the protagonist in the movie, we just wanted to spend some time tomorrow when it will get so boring in the afternoon. Then we started again to have our delectable "Gola"

But surprises of surprises, the Gola Guy wasnt there!! He is a small vendor at the side of an eatery who was missing now! It has been quite some months since we had a Gola there and we had no clue where he was, sadly. Might be he packed up for the day or perhaps moved to a better place, and we returned home, minus our Gola!

The time has arrived!

News has been out that my college results will be out anytime! Once the results are announced, a company which will become my employer soon will send me their offer letter and pretty soon I'll be headed to Bangalore. Earlier, when classes were still going on, I wished that I should be at home as long as I liked before I left for my job.

But a month after staying at home and doing nothing much productive, and since my sweetheart has left for her job at a place far away from here, my job has become an obsession and I can hardly wait for them to call me and to join there! So much so that I mailed them and asked them when they would be sending anything to me! The person was kind enough to say that he "understood my concern" and that he would mail me the offer soon and not to worry!

I am also in a dilemma, having been placed in two companies and having no clue which to join! There are an equal number of people favouring one to the other and this adds to the headache, of choosing, and hoping that it will be the better of the two!

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood...
And I am still waiting for directions!!

Any views?

Yahoo Answers, whats all the din about?

I have noticed that Yahoo has begun advertising Yahoo Answers in a major way with a link or an ad appearing in most of its services like mail, groups etc. What will they get out of it!! I mean what is the use of advertising this service in such a great way!

Flickr, the photo service from Yahoo is good, but I haven't seen a lot of ads for that on the Yahoo Network. But Answers, its nothing to create all the ruckus about! The service is great and interesting, but the users tend to ask stupid and non-sensical questions that may not be of any interest to the third person reading, Ask Yahoo! is a lot better when it comes to gaining some knowledge as the questions are all logical and reasonable instead of nerdy user questions on Ask Yahoo like

• wats the average weight for a 15 year old female?
• What Do You Like To Add To Ramen Noodles?
• how do I make a long distance phone call from Tijuana to Monterrey, Mexico??

A boring way to waste time?? Also, they give you points for answering questions and choosing answers. I admit that I was hooked for about two days when I wanted to be the first one to give reasonable answers to other reasonable questions, but I lost interest pretty fast!! I dont see ads on the pages too, I wonder what Yahoo gets out of this?!

My only question on Yahoo Answers!

The Da Vinci Code Issues!

The controversial movie, The Da Vinci Code has run into a lot of trouble here in India with representations from Christian groups that the movie offended their faith. They have even demanded that a disclaimer be put up before the movie saying that the movie is a work of fiction and not based on actual events.

Now the point is, they have brought undue attention to this issue and people would very well know of the issues involved when they go to the theatres after the movie premiers. Was it worth the publicity. I personally feel that the movie benefited from all the negative publicity it gathered and hence more people would want to see the movie just to find out in what way the movie offends the faith of the people. People could have just ignored that as a work of fiction, But by voicing their concerns in a big way instead of just boycotting the movie, it is like a negative denial of sorts on their parts of something that is just pure fiction, but something that is needlessly blown out of proportions and as if there was some cover up right through the centuries! This could indeed work against them.

Coldplay - Warning Sign

A warning sign,
I missed the good part then I realized,
I started looking and the bubble burst.
I started looking for excuses.

Come on in,
I've gotta tell you what state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.

When the truth is,
I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.

A warning sign,
You came back to haunt me and I realized,
That you were an island and I passed you by,
You were an island to discover.

Come on in,
I've gotta tell you what state I'm in,
I've gotta tell you in my loudest tones,
That I started looking for a warning sign.

When the truth is,
I miss you.
Yeah the truth is,
That I miss you so.

And I'm tired,
I should not have let you go.

So I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms.
And I crawl back into your open arms.
Yes, I crawl back into your open arms...

Miss you maddy...

Its raining!

Its raining outside!! Makes me wanna break out in song! :-)

Oh, and it's raining again
Loud on your car like, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in

Moby - Raining Again (Hotel - 2005)

There are a lot of people praying for rain in India and elsewhere, in the recent news and in the past, to help them survive drought or even sustain crops and their livelihood. But, many of the urban people, in the cities and suburbs, though we like rain as a respite from the heat, would curse the rain if they are stuck in a place when it rains and they want to reach someplace elsewhere. Wierd people! Like they say, we realize the importance of something only when we lose it!

Honestly, I like getting wet in the rain, so I wont complain, if you were wondering. :-P

Cut down on mobile phone bills!

Visit YourBillBuddy.com, a website that helps you choose the best plan from a host of other plans based on your mobile phone usage patterns. Yeah, you have to upload your bills and YourBillBuddy will let you know which plan is appropriate for your usage. It just analyses the number of calls/smses you make/send and selects the plan with the lowest tariff in your network. It supports most of the Networks in India and monitors them too, to track any changes.

I haven't tried it out, because I know to analyse my usage and select my plan myself and I suppose most of you do as well. But it sure is a novelty and may perhaps help some of the 'move-by-the-book' users! But it sure helps if you do not have the time to sort through all the pamphlets looking for the right mobile phone plan when Your Buddy can do it for you! :-P It supports prepaid plans too!

Address Harvesting Scam

I got an email from a close friend of mine that had the following subject.

Forward this message to any 10 of your friends and you will get free bonuses worth Rs. 5,995/-

The bonuses might have been real, because all the said bonuses were eBooks such as the "Hacker's Black Book", "100 Google Hacks", ".NET codes" etc. and were promised to be sent as soon as the messages were sent.

I guess you are thinking how the person issuing the bonuses can track the forwards being sent. Thats easy if you fall for it, the email goes like this...

Its simple. To get your free bonuses worth Rs. 5,995/-, all you need to do is forward this message to any 10 of your friends (write their email in "To" field) and as 11th email, write our address, vyom.gifts@gmail.com. We will send you free bonuses worth Rs. 5,995 (to see your bonuses, scroll down this mail.) Please note that we check all the mails and your free bonus request will be processed only when you refer 10 of your friends.

In turn, your friends can also forward this mail and get all the bonuses.... its a great win-win game!

So now, you have sent an email having 10 legitimate email addresses and with a Carbon Copy to the scammer. The scammer can turn into a spammer any time! And what a way to collect email addresses. After a few hours after getting this forward from my friend, Some one totally unrelated to me sent me a copy. She got it from the copy that my friend sent and just copy-pasted the addresses again. Damn.

The also have an FAQ in their mail and one of them goes like this!

3. My friends might be annoyed by this mail.
A. No. Your friends will thank you for this! Believe me. They will love all the free bonuses, because they will also get these, absolutely free of cost. Its a win-win game. So, forward this mail now to 10 of your friends.

We try our best to stay away from the inevitable spam that is likely to be generated by signing up for newsletters at websites who do not prominently display their privacy policy by not registering our email addresses with them. And our friends do the stupid part and help the spammers in their adress harvesting methods by following such lowsy instructions. Damn.

Airtel Telephones Customer 'Dont' Care

I had a few issues with my Airtel telephones account and I logged into my Airtel Account and tried to send a complaint through a form provided onsite. Apparently, the form was just a mailer of sorts and guess what I got as an instant reply!

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at airtelbroadband.in.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

<care.tamilnadu@airtelbroadband.in>:
The users mailfolder is over the allowed quota (size).

So much so for instant customer gratification! They are quite popular too judging by the full mailbox! Ha ha ha ha! And by the way, my current posts are mostly about customer care escapades, should write something more interesting! Ha ha ha!

Looking for a good blog software?

Try Wordpress.com, its a very good publishing platform and is the freely hosted option of one of the largest self hosted blogging software in the world. Go to Wordpress.org to download and install on your own server!

It has a lot of built in features that Blogger(this blog runs on) doesn't possess! Such as built-in trackback and categorisation of entries. You can also add pages to your blog, making it a small website in the progress!! There are also templates that rock onsite!!

This is from the Wordpress.org website!

WordPress was born out of a desire for an elegant, well-architectured personal publishing system built on PHP and MySQL and licensed under the GPL. It is the official successor of b2/cafelog. WordPress is fresh software, but its roots and development go back to 2001. It is a mature and stable product. We hope by focusing on user experience and web standards we can create a tool different from anything else out there.

2005 was a very exciting year for WordPress, as it saw the release of our 1.5 version which was downloaded over 900,000 times, the start of hosted service WordPress.com to expand WP's reach, the founding of Automattic by several core members of the WP team, and finally the release of version 2.0.

Best of all, its open source!

Some Wordpress blogs in action:
Xavier Roy's Journal (Self-hosted)
All in a day's work! (Kishore's Blog on Wordpress.com)

HCL Infinet Nokia Customer Care sucks!

I got back my mobile phone that got screwed today after waiting for nearly an hour and a half in the waiting hall and two weeks in total. A bluetooth problem that had to be rectified at Hyderabad. Baa.. What a day!

The estimated time for delivery was "1 day" in the Job sheet. They informed that it would take more time as they had to send it to Hyderabad to meddle something and see if they could get it to work. Today, I went over, after nearly fifteen days, and waited half an hour to get the mobile. And surprise of surprises, the software hadn't been updated and they just gave it to me just like that! Imagine! They did the same thing the previous time when an Ass by name Madhu was there. He came out and started shouting when I opposed without even trying to find out the reason. That time around, I wasnt sure about the latest software version. But this time around, I had a few friends of mine who had recently purchased the same handset and hence could compare the version with theirs and could find that mine was old, over a year old.

Then I had to wait for another 45 minutes to get the software updated and they apologised saying that they overlooked it since the handset came from Hyderabad.

Now here is the funny part. They had a notice of sorts stuck near the delivery counter that had the numbers and email addresses of The Regional, Zonal and National Managers for any grievances. I noticed it the first time I went there, but now it was missing. I requested that information, but the Girl at the counter said that type of information cannot be revealed!! Ha ha ha! I tried visiting the HCL Infinet site, but there is no way to connect with the managers, Maybe I am looking at the wrong site, who knows anyways!

Flickr Toys! (Non-flickr users too)

I came across fd's Flickr Toys during one of my sojourns online! It has a lot of tools for everyone(including non-flickr users) like creating Calendars, CD Covers, Magazine Covers, Motivators etc from your own photographs! You can even make your own Movie Poster with correspoding titles and credits! Pretty cool huh? :-) Though you can do all of them yourself with an image editing program, these tools do the work in a jiffy! Its fun!

And for flickr users, it has tools such as Scout - used for finding your photos in the explore pages, A Favorite Finder - used to find a user's photos faved by another user and more! Visit http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr for the complete list!

I rule!

Well, atleast indirectly! i made my choice and voted today! It was over in a minute with the Electronic Voting Machine letting out a loud beep which I wasnt expecting! I assumed that it would be a small, discrete beep, but apparently, the polling officers in the whole area too are supposed to hear I think... :-)

But anyways, and they kept a big stripe of indelible ink! To prevent me from voting again! This one looks ugly and draws from the first joint in the finger right upto the nail tip! Talk about art! Then I was on my way back home! Contented and rather satisfied to exercise my right! I feel great!

I got the power!

Finally, I will be allowed to vote in the general elections to be held tomorrow!! Though the legal age permissible for a Citizen of India to vote is 18 and I'm 20. This is the first elections that are taking place after I have reached the magic age!

The funny thing now is, I have to decide on whom to vote for and I dont have a clue! I dont know what each one of the parties will do?! Call this plain ignorance, but frankly, I have to devote sometime from now on to decide on the right party(from all of the wrong ones) to cast my vote for. Or I can chose not to exercise me vote but that would be a shame! I have the right to vote! And I should exercise it!

It has become more of a marketing gimmick than a legitimate show of care for the citizens with all the parties competing to give the citizens their share of perks! All of that can be left out and instead, education, a much needed service for the lesser few must be provided free of cost right upto college. Its only because of the lack of free education facilities that poor people tend to drop out of school and go to work. So what about their children, they may study for a while, but will be eventually sent off to work to support the family, so the end result, The rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer! This can be avoided by letting them study as much as they want to and to be able to support themselves in a more rewarding way.

According to Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961, if an elector whose roll number has been entered in the register of electoral rolls in Form 17A, decides not to vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry by the Presiding Officer and the signature and thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark

As for my decision to vote, it depends on whether the "no-vote" option too is by ways of a secret ballot.. Sigh!

You can decide not to vote - from The Hindu dated Apr 04, 2006.
'O' Podu - Social Awareness Movement about the 49-O Rule.

Check your Spam/Bulk folder before trashing it!

With reference to my previous post on spamming, though Yahoo's SpamGuard does an excellent job in identifying spam and moving it to a bulk/spam folder. Occasionally, some legitimate mail gets marked as spam.

One of my friends, who has been co-placed with me in a company was supposed to have been intimated by the company. I got a phone call and my part was through, but he apparently never received either phone call or email. It was only after about a week that he found that the mail which required an immediate response and of which he thought had never been sent was lying in his spam box! He sent an immediate reply and luckily, it wasn't too late!

So, its always best to atleast go through the senders and subjects before emptying your spam box! As you never might know, something very important may be lost!

PS:- Yahoo marked its own notifier from Yahoo groups as spam! Way to go!

Do people read spam?

After reading about the recent attack on an anti-spam website, I have begun to think whether the fight against spam is worth it. I agree that spamming is a pain in the butt, on the other hand, do people read the spam that they recieve? I personally just trash email that I identify as spam and most of the time, they are so obvious. And especially, the Spam Filter on my Yahoo Box does a pretty good job of identifying the spam and 'frying' them as promised! ;-) But still, its pretty annoying with all the time wasted in identifying and deleting unsolicited email.

What do the perpertrators actually get from these? When people stop responding to spam email or ignore it all together, would the spammers get what they wanted? Business? I am of the view that spammers will thrive only until gullible users endorse or fall into the traps that the unsolicited emails announce, such as medication or instant money. Once everyone starts ignoring them, maybe the spammers would pack up and go home.

Retaliation for Antispam Success?

Money or Interest?

With the next academic year starting in a month or so, parents are rushing towards premier institutions to apply for programmes. But do they have a word from their wards. I have seen a lot of my fellow students being 'pushed' into doing a degree that they didn't have any liking for, due to peer pressure. I agree that money does have a role to play as eventually, everybody wants to earn a quick buck and settle in life, But is it worth it to sacrifice individual interests just for the sake of making money?

The most likely degree that parents would want is for their children to become a doctor. Mainly because of the fast buck that is likely to be made. Most of the children give in to peer pressure to take up the course that is decided by their parents, leaving little way for interests to come in. Can this be agreed upon? Let people decide what they want to do! Counsel with them, give them their likely choices. And then let them decide. This will make them more responsible, instead of disinterested students faring very badly in studies.

Money is the root of all evil.

Microsoft - Yahoo merger?

Microsoft is apparently on the talks with Yahoo for either a tie-up or an acquisition which would place it competitively on the Search Engine market against Google. Microsoft has invested a lot of money in its search technology, though not very successful in its hunt for the Google's share of Web Searches. With its new AdCenter advertising service, it hopes to close the gap with the competition and with a merger with Yahoo and the combination of technological advances, this would mean a system that is better able to meet the challenge of Google.

Check this out! Google also earns millions of dollars from typos in web addresses by serving advertisements on domain names that are mis-typed and owned by other bodies not connected to the parent company or domain name!!

Mobile phone nightmares!

My mobile phones bluetooth device started acting funny by disappearing often with other devices not being able to detect it. I had to give the mobile for service and check it out since I was using the bluetooth to connect wirelessly to the internet through GPRS. They informed me that they tried rectifying the mobile here, but to no avail, and hence, they were sending it to one of their main service centres at Hyderabad and they would get back to me in two weeks! Damn! Two weeks without my mobile phone! I would go nuts!

Thankfully, since my phone was still under warranty, they informed me that they would try to rectify the problem and would replace the phone's board if the problem could not be resolved.

The mobile phone is such a wonderful invention! Well, all inventions are equally wonderful and each of us can tell something good about each! Be it gas stoves, or pens, or electricity, or motorised vehicles!! I remember the first time I rode a motorised vehicle, a scooty when I was young. Having cycled all my life, the moment I sat on the scooty and raised the throttle, I was so exhilarated to ride the scooty! You just had to accelerate and the vehicle moved! I was so amazed! Just our petrol and zoom your way through! At that time, I felt that this was the most amazing invention of all time!

I felt the same amazement when I first used a mobile phone! Being able to reach someone wherever they are, directly and being able to speak with them was way too good! I felt that this was the most useful invention of all time! (I have felt the same for Email, the WWW, etc etc.) Ha ha ha ha ha!

The moment I am amazed with a particular invention! I feel that is the greatest! :-) Ha ha ha ha! But now, i am seated here without my mobile phone and literally disabled in a way! Fortunately, my sister was kind enough to let me use her mobile phone! So for the time being, I am still connected! But I have to make alternate arrangements and return my sister's mobile back to her!

In case you were wondering what mobile phone I was using that went dead, it is a Nokia 3230.