Revival !!!

Yes, the title is very much correct….. !! Blogging is back for me. I had stopped blogging a couple of months back, due to other works, and ofcourse boredom getting over me. But yes, this time, ill see my blog making it back to the top ranks in Google again. Well, in the months that i stoped blogging, I came across many and trust me many many things on which I could probably write at length, but somehow didn`t write.

I saw my google rankings dip, which was pretty much expected. But yes , people reading this, and I really have no clue who it is, this time its a more determined attempt to keep blogging, and keep this blog more fun.

I am now thinking of the various ways I can keep this blog a good place to be. So my dear readers, please do not hesitate to add this to your favorites, (please do …will take just two clicks ~~).

Ubuntu Ultimate !!

I just installed Ubuntu Ultimate 1.4 a few days back. And indeed it is ultimat. Well Beryl had really tempted me to install this version of Ubuntu.
It was such a wonderful expeirence instaling it. The same version of the OS runs both as a live CD and as the installer. What is the beauty of this is the ease with which it got things done. Minimum user interefernce, a wonderful environment during installation as well.
I entered the live cd option during installation and it took me to the desktop. And there, there is an icon for the installation, and that`s it. No pop-ups, very little information asked for, and what more, it even detects your Win XP account and offers to transfer your documents and settings from that account.
Now that is what compatibility is..!! It mounts all your NTFS and FAT drives automatically, installs all the required codecs, which even plays .flv( which I had not expceted). This is one version of Linux that I would love to recommend to my parents as well. That is the ease of using Ubuntu Ultimate.

Besides the installation, the user interface is good. Great software bundled into it, and yes , Beryl`s cube3d effect rocks !! It also detects bluetooth deivces with utmost ease.

For those who are interested in installing Ubuntu Ultimate , you can download the DVD and CD version from here.

For more details on Ubuntu Ultimate, log on here.

Cricket & the Indian !

Undoubtedly, Cricket is a religion in my country. Two days back on Sept 24, the Indian cricket team created history by winning the first twenty -twenty world cup. And that broke the 24 year gap from the last world cup brought in the country and this one.

The finals between arch rivals India and Pakistan , was an icing on the cake. I watched the match in my college cafe. Cricket is indeed one of the many things that unite India. With every wicket or six hit by the Indian side, people cheered, danced and hugged. The atmosphere is full of excitement and all animosity between people is forgotten. Everyone is praying for one common goal- THE INDIAN VICTORY. Superstitions of all kinds are followed- fingers crossed one legged posture, no exchange of seats, and what not. But not one criticizes; everyone does something similar to that.

 

 

The new format of the game is there to stay. The limited over match was created to arouse interest among the viewers who were not patient enough to watch the longer version of the game. And now we have a limited over match, which takes less than half of the time than even the limited over matches. No doubt, ICC is aware of the changing requirement. God know, what we may see in the next 10 years- 5over matches.

Vista Update

Microsoft has almost announced the date for windows vista update. Now, vista has been just successful in the market with not many people appreciating its high hardware requirements.A google news search on the topic yields the Microsoft announcements.

Lets see how the first update makes vista , somewhat more liked !!

Some Blogging Tips !!!

A few days back, my blog reached a new landmark. Total hits on my blog reached a 1K. I was waiting for this day since a pretty long time, when I started blogging seriously and then, almost gave away the idea of doing so. But out of the blue, I realized my blog was making good progress, courtesy one post on “windows vista”, which till day remains to be my top post. Eventually, my blog also reaches the first page of Google search results if searched by name.

Well, I have learnt a little something about blogging now, and how to make your blog a good place for readers. Though, I am not an expert (actually I am far from being that), I can offer some very very basic guidelines to the new comers of the blogging world. First of all, make sure what you are going to blog about- it may be personal, tech related, life in general, or whatever you think is your area. This will always help you decide what post you should make next. Select a good service provider, like WordPress or Blogger. Both of these are great service providers. If you want, you can host some web space ( free or paid ) and host a wordpress blog there as well. The advantage of doing so, would be the freedom of installing plug-ins of your choice on the blog, some of which may not be supported if the blog is hosted on wordpress.com . Make sure to submit your blog to search engines, install a hit counter. Now, the topic you blog on are as important as the title of the post and the images included in the post. This may not always be true, but trust me, many of my hits came from a windows vista wallpaper that I had in one of my posts. One last thing, make your posts long only as much as you can read. Else, no reader would ever like to come back.

Again, I repeat , I am no expert on blogging, but these are just some things that I have learnt. So all newbies to blogging, march ahead !!!

Chak De India !!

Yes, I just saw this movie…And trust me…its a must watch. SRK has finally got a role that suits his age. Nice direction, great work by all actors and great direction.

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Well, I actually watched the movie on the eve of India`s 60 year of Independence. Now, that is what really Chak De India is !! The newspapers and magazines are all full of cover page articles on India, India Inc. , the future of India .

Something more tomorrow…on August 15 !!

Thinking !!!

Thinking … the term itself makes you do what you read now !! And, why such a vague title …. I have been thinking about what affects our thought process and what goes inside the head….how do we reach a conclusion, react, show emotions or take a decisions. What makes us do things simultaneously without (most of the time) interrupting the other activity…

The dictionary meaning says that it is a way of reasoning; judgment . While wikipedia describes in a much better way, I am still reasearching upon it !!

Hopefully the thought about thinking will be understood.

wow !!

The title of this post might be a little out of the blue…but yes thats one of the ways through which i wish to express my self…!!actually that comes after i realized that a Google search with my name brings my blog to the first page on the search results and despite the fact that my last blog dates back to June 9 , i.e around 60 days back, the number of hits on my blog is 639 !! I am not sure if this is a mistake by the wordpress script or whatever…the figure is pretty good and has inspired me to start the job again !!

Well, I did think of many many things that could have been posted, but alas, the laziness to type, the wonderful bed at home did not allow me to do so, making this blog completely out of time and out of date.

I guess frequent posts and on something better, except such crap might probably get me some more hits, who might even want to visit again.

So I request, all those who read this post to please check this blog again…and hopefully, you will find something interesting !!!!

Banning Orkut !!!

Extremists are talking about banning Orkut- the social networking site. Now , this is one very absurd and stupid thing to think about. The reason , they give is that the postings on orkut have a tendency to cause hatred and communal disturbances among people. It just shows the stupidity of the people and the organization who was involved in ransacking of cyber cafes in mumbai recently.

The Indian constitution has granted every citizen the freedom of expression. If the demands of organizations such as these are met, then who knows , India may soon become another Afghanistan under the rule of Taliban. They fail to understand that orkut is accessible globally and it cannot be stopped by such actions. Even if they do so, people will continue to use their blogs and hundreds other social networking sites to do so.

When the country already has a huge pile of problems like poverty and illetracy, why do events like these being given so much importance. If the organization believes that activites on Orkut has caused communal tension, then they better see with what they have being doin over the years.

Its better to concentrate on constructive issues rather than waste money, time and other resources on such petty issues.

The story about storage..!!

I was just going through the prices of some of the storage media recently and I was surprised to see the way the prices of these things have gone down. A 2gb flash drive from kingston costs Rs. 700 which is around $10.

The way people store things has vastly changed over the years. I remember my first PC (Intel MMX 166Mhz,16 MB EDO RAM, 2GB Hard drive) which had such a limited storage capacity, way back in 1997 and it  never felt short. But in a span of a decade , the requirements and the availability has vastly changed. With everything, right from music to movies to photos to books going digital, there has been a constant need to upgrade the currently available storage space.

Not only the storage requirements, but the form factor of hard drives has also seen a major change. Right from being inside the box to Network Attached Storage(NAS), it has been through a pretty long path. The hard drives were very much limited to sitting inside the CPU for a very long time. Then with the arrival of the USB, things changed. The beauty of the  USB was that it accepted most of the devices ranging from printers to scanners to disks. Then came the external hard disks and external casings which use the USB and are of great ease to use.

Now, NAS seems to be the hot thing around. Well , it indeed is a great appliance for those having more than 1 computers and there is a need to share the data. The NAS enclosures are available for less than $100 without the disk, of course. But I think its a great way to store data on a network.