My New Toy | Bose Wave Music System

Hey, I finally did it, finally fell for it, spent, and bought, a Bose Wave Music System. Watch out for my review in the Indian Express on Sunday, 1st February 2009.

G

Google Takes a Giant Leap

For all of us, who love Gmail, the problem has been keeping it offline in the same format. My company, uses Zimbra for our corporate email and the Zimbra Desktop Client Still in Beta, makes this possible. Today Google's announcement on the Official Gmail Blog, made Google take a Giant Step with Gmail

So what have they done ?

The problem with all this online world is that you need to be connected, but you can't be, atleast it's not a reality as yet, so how do you access informaiton offline, store it offline, there have been discussions of POP/IMAP and various protocols, but they are just not as good.



Today Gmail Labs released a new feature that bridges the gap between desktop and web-based applications like never before: Offline Gmail. You can now access your Gmail from your browser any time, whether or not you're online.



Google Gears Offline makes it possible for you to download all your Gmail to your Desktop, every last gigabyte, and in offline mode, is much faster, amazingly fast.

Though still in Beta, and I haven't played with it as yet, as I dont' use Gmail as my first email address, but soon you will see an update from me.

We're making offline Gmail available to everyone who uses Gmail in US or UK English over the next couple of days, so if you don't see it under the Labs tab yet, it should be there soon. Once you see it, just follow these steps to get started:

1. Click Settings and click the Labs tab.
2. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
3. Click Save Changes.
4. After your browser reloads, you'll see a new "Offline0.1" link in the upper righthand corner of your account, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don't already have it.

So, time to wait, and see when you get a chance to try it.

G

Amritsari Meat Wala - Lajpat Nagar

Well in no manner is this a restaurant review, as this is not really a restaurant, but a take away, and a small dhaba. The place may not be worth a visit to have a family sit down, but in case you are in some serious heart wrenching mood to have Red Meat (mutton Keema) with Kalegi (Liver) or Mutton Keema with Mutton Pieces, you need to make sure you have eaten from Narender Kumar's Amritsar Meat Wala.

The guy makes an awsome keema, both for lunch and dinner, and the menu is simple, Keema Meat Rs. 100 a plate, Keema Kalegi, Rs. 100 a Plate, Keema Egg Curry Rs. 60 a Plate. He has some rotis, and on some days Chicken Korma. Pleasantly surprised a Menu exists, without Dal Makhani, and the hype (Butter Chicken).

The guy starts serving at 7:30 PM in the evening, in case you reach their earlier, he will not budge till 7:30 (I had to take Keema packed to a friends house on friday, and he made me wait a cool 45 minutes, worth it, for his food).

He has this big handi (Promise, will soon update it with a picture) he cooks the keema in. The Meat Pieces, Kalegi and Eggs are all in there. He has a tandoor that serves nice rotis. He has been talked about / Written across the Media, and if you are a carnivore like me, head on, and try his Keema.

It’s well worth a visit, so let me give you the directions to the Amritsari Meat Wala. It is on the right of the Defence Colony Nirula’s. Go towards Lajpat Nagar 1, parallel to the railway track. Amritsari Meat Wala is in a corner there. You can call up 9818995844 or 9810552974 for directions.

He Does not deliver, and don't even ask him if he does, he will tell you "SIR, ITNA TIME NAHIN HAI"

PS: Even my Mum and Dad, who are not too big a fan of non-home-cooked meat, loved his fare.

LG's Sky Charger at CES 2009

We all have to do a bit for the nature. This is something I would have loved to implement on our rooftop, but LG Beat me to it. Seen at the CES 2009, this is the LG Skycharger, It stores energy using the Wind and Sun into batteries, that in turn helped the visitors charge their mobile phones and cameras, laptops.

Brilliant, I must say.

G

Make a Quick Buck, Online

Beat the recession by finding some extra income on the Web

Money can’t buy me love, the Beetles once sang. But the times are tough and there is nothing wrong in making some extra dough. This week, I will teach you how to do this without actually having to get a new job or end up doing something on the wrong side of the law. And no, I am not suggesting that you take to multi-level marketing or paid surveys either.

For starters, if you have a digital camera, make a movie, maybe of your dog doing some tricks or your child taking first steps, throw in some animation if you know how to go about it, and upload it on revver.com. They will attach an advertisement to your video and if it becomes popular you can earn up to 50 per cent of the revenue.

Alternatively, upload your videos and pictures to break.com. If they like your work, they will pay you up to $400 for an original video and up to $2,000 for short films. The site also pays up to $50 a picture, if it wins one of their regular contests.

If you are a genius in mathematics, physics or chemistry, or someone who has a diet that actually works, know how to get house things done in the proper manner, or how best to handle a problem child, you can join bitwine.com as an advisor. You will get introduced to people who need advice—you can charge them or become an advisor for free.

If you think there are better ways of reviewing a product or a software, you can start a blog and start ranting at wordpress.com or blogger.com. You can even open an account with payperpost.com and advertise the rate you want for reviewing stuff. You can charge between $5 to $100 a post and some software companies or websites could pay you to review their stuff.

Those of you who can write funny slogans for T-shirts, can set up their own stores at cafepress.com. The website will manufacture and sell the garments for you, and you will make some money without any investment.

Some of us like collecting things. But after a point these only add to the clutter in the house. If you too have old stamps, coins, mugs, collectible lighters etc lying around, open a shop on ebay.in, and start selling. You will not only make good money, but also clean up your house in the process. For instance, I met an old lady who makes puppets and sells them online. If you are also the “crafty kind” then this is one opportunity you can’t afford to miss.

This list is in no way comprehensive, as there are many other sites that let you make money. Just make sure they don’t charge you to sell you a book, or set up an account—in that case they are the ones who are making all the money, not you. So, best of luck with the recession, and if you end up making some money, think of the guy who tipped you off.

--
The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday, 25th January 2009

Why Choosing your Web Host is important

I have a Gmail account, I think most of us do, it's made our lives simpler, I envy Gmail (ahem Google) to have made this brilliant an email client, and at times wonder, if email hosting will make revenues for System3 going in the future, but as long as people need support, and feel any free system is bad, we can still live with our services.

Anyway, some of you would have heard of the (yet again) Plastic Bag Ban in Delhi, while browsing through Gmail today morning, I came across the following ad



And I clicked it, why - Two Reasons, 1. I found the Ad funny, 2. I wanted to this post for sometime.. Now you must be wondering why and how this is related

I run A Hosting Company, incorrect, I run a data center, and when we see customers design their web applications, the web designer is all but bothered about one thing, cost of hosting.

Take for Example Kurkure.in ( A Pepsico company ), they chose the right host, the host is Net4India, I have nothing against them, though people have told horror stories, but then people tell horror stories about any hosting company they have worked with, but here, I think, the people who made the site, did not design the server well.

1. You place an Ad on Gmail, you pay x amount to Gmail to show that Ad
2. Someone clicks, and if the ad is on adwards, a lot of people click
3. You choose cheap hosting, shared, limited bandwidth, limited resources, and what is the end result

Page takes atleast 2 minutes to load, what is the end result

I saw the ad, but not the site. Why, Choose the Right host people. Spend Time with the hosting company (sorry, with the IDC Providers, and not hosting resellers), to size your hosting properly, make sure you have a plan, that helps you grow, helps you cater to the traffic, and shared hosting for something like Kurkure (hey, get rid of Kareena Kapoor, save on that budget, and pay for your hosting), or stop advertising online.. stick to regular mass media.. Tv rules man.

G

Nothing Rajni Kant Do - Choke There (Spoof Chak De)

I am no big Fan of Sharukh, or the Chicklit Hindi Cinema, but somethings in the movies just leave you touched. While searching for some stuff on you tube, I some how bumped into the following Trailer (Actually an Advertisiment) for Sun Silk Gang of Girls, Very Nicely done.. Kudos BCWebWise

At one time, Webchutney, owned by a Friend Sidharth Rao was doing such brilliant stuff, look forward to more work like this.

So, time for me to shut up and show you the You Tube Video



G

VAT - The Reality

There have been long arguments if the VAT / Sales Tax is a good thing for consumers or not, and how the VAT is utilised to build the City and there by the country. From my point of view, the Government has the right to Tax people, and I fully agree with it, though What I don't understand is why Have Double Taxation (Like we have on software, when you buy software, you are taxed 4% VAT and 12.36% Service Tax, because it is unclear to our folks, if this is a product or a service, or a service disguised as a product). Though leaving this discussion apart, there has been a new consumer learning that happened for me a few days back. Though I think this is a very stupid thing to point out, but I think there are a lot of smarty pants out there to make a fool out of us.

For those of you who grew up as Kids in the 1980's 1990's, you would recall a program called Rajni on Doordarshan, that used to teach about consumer rights, and recently there have been a lot of advertisements for the campaign Jago Grahak Jago, but still there are these cheap skinned people who are out to make a fool out of you and make a Quick buck.

So what is the lesson. A few years, I don't recall when, all the prices on products moved to Tax Inclusive, i.e if a Product said, Price: Rs. 100 (Inclusive of All Taxes), no one could charge you anything above this.

Then came along a Store, I will not want to name it, but you will know, which promises to sell everything for 99 bucks, now they sell the same product, with a 100 Rupee MRP at Rs. 99 + 4% VAT = 102.96, i.e making Rs. 2.96 more than they are supposed to charge, and they just told you, that they were actually giving it to you a buck cheaper.

We are building a new office, and I had to recently buy Godrej locks, and I bumped into a wholesaler, here in Lajpat Nagar, who offered me 8% discount on all my purchase, now what is the catch

Price of Lock: Rs. 110 (one of them) this is MRP on the Box Inclusive of Taxes
Discount: 8% i.e 101.20
Tax: 12.5% (Now this is another area, how does a consumer know if the tax on this item is 12.5% or 4%, anyway), so 12.5%
Total Price: Rs. 110 Less Discount 8.80 = Rs. 101.20 + Tax (12.5%) 12.65 = 113.85

So you thought you got an 8% discount, and the guy fleeced you.

The Next Big trick is these guys who sell Paint and Hardware. WOW the game that they play. Most of these Big Paint Showrooms now have jazzy looking girls at their billing counters (an eye wash / distraction) and PC's with LCD Monitors / Thermal Printers, that print your bill, since most of the times you are in a hurry or buy cash, you get the thermal print out, take it to the paint mixer, take your paint, reach home.

Put it in your account books, in a few months you look at the account books, and what do you find, chances are if the thermal print survived, it reads "ESTIMATE", so you were sold material, and given a bill, which reads Estimate.

Now you go back to the store, after some ruckus, the guy says, hey buddy, you know what, I will need to charge you Tax (again 12.5%), so you say, ok, I bought Paint worth Rs. 10,000 / Tax: 1250, wow man that's high, and some of us just come back, but realize this, the Paint that he sold you was Tax Paid, so even if he had to give you a bill, he can't charge you an additional 1250, yes, he can charge you 8750 + 12.5%, thus still taking 10K. But why would he do that.. Right

So next time, check your bill, and Jago Grahak Jago

Thanks to this lovely store in GK, who pointed this out to me, and gave me a great discount of 10% on my purchases, lovely guy.

This fleecing is happening across the city, from the manufacturers (Who don't print prices clearly) to retailers who are out to make a quick buck (no wonder they have pictures of stars visiting their shops, obviously you have so much money to blow away).

The worst part, if you want a bill, they actually have to do it hand written, as the computers, are just a show off, only to generate those thermal prints.

Just my 2cents of a lot of irritation :)

G

PS: I think there is a simple alternative, stop buying anything on cash. Buy it either cheque / credit or Debit Card. Since the retailer now get's the money straight into his Bank, he will have to file taxes, and see how our country will grow.

Delhi Police BRT Action - Filmy, Very Filmy

FINALLY SOME ACTION
How many times have you heard the trouble with the BRT, for those of you who are not living in Delhi, or for those, who would really want to see what the best brains of IIT can do, click here for some Google Results. It is one mess that has been created, and with the current way it's being run and developed more, all I can foresee is another big mess, teaching India's, to drive in a Lane is impossible, there was a time in Bombay (Ahem Mumbai) where you could drive in a lane, now even the average mumbaikar, does not want to stick to his lane, let alone the country.

In the last few weeks, there has been a lot of news, about people racing in the BRT corridor, Red Beacon Cars misusing the corridor, and then police / traffic police being deployed to monitor it. I because of my work have to use the BRT Road every now and then, and have never seen any police action, till today, and this was a moment worth capturing. Please note, this was taken with a very low resolution camera, as that is what was handy to me in my car, so apologies for the bad picture quality.

There were these 2 SKODA cars, that were racing, and an Army Jeep, and all caught, fined. The brilliant part, one of the havaldar's, was holding a video camera and recording everything, now that is one FINE thing done by our Police team in Delhi.

Thank you.



Though a small suggestion and an open letter, why not have atleast 2 to 3 Polieceman at all red lights, even when they are working, following picture shows you a car, all dark tinted glasses, the guy eventually jumped the red light, so can I call him a repeat offender, but hey, if you had 2 - 3 Police men there, you could have made some money. It is simple logic

High Density of Policeman at Traffic Lights
Averagely 2 to 3 Cars have a Rule Violation
*Wrong type of Number Plate
*Blasting Music at full volume (after all we are dilliwala's)
*Dark Tinted glasses, you can't even see inside
*Honking at Red Lights
*Jumping Red Lights

Now Calculate this,
Average Wait Time at a Signal is approximately: 2 Minutes
Average Time to Challan Someone: 1 Minute
Average Cars to be challaned: 2
Rough Challan Charges: Rs. 100
Total Charges Per Red Light Collectible: Rs. 200
Number of Signal Changes in an Hour at a Busy Crossing (5 Minutes Green / 2 Minutes Red / 4 Way Crossing): 7 to 8

Total Collections Per Hour: 7 x 200 = Rs. 1400
Total Collections in a 12 Hour Day (8 AM to 8PM): 1400 x 12 = 16,800
Total Collections Over a 20 Day Month: 3,36,000
Average Salary of a Police Person: Rs. 20,000 Per Month (I am not sure of this)
Incentive to be Given to the Policeman for Challans: Rs. 10,000
Total Policeman: 3
Total Salary Cost: Rs. 60,000 + Rs. 30,000 = Rs. 90,000
Per Month Profitability: Rs. 2,46,000

Law of Averages, say, collections are only 50%, you will still make a cool profit of Rs. 78,000 at above salaris and benefits.

Remember this is only one Side of the Signal, there are usually 2 sides, and about 4 on most of the major crossings in Delhi, so at 2 Sides, you have an average Profitability of Rs. 1.56 Lacs Per Month

Now multiply that by the number of red lights..

There are multiple benefits

If averagely we need 6 Policeman at Each Traffic Light
And We were to Man an Average of 1000 Traffic Lights
An Employment of 6000 People is Generated
The Profit is 2000 Times (Mind Boggling Numbers)

What does all this profit do, reduce tax, improve policing, make sure people who listen to a Whip, listen, avoid accidents, drunken driving.

I know this seems simple logic, and I am not mathematician, but I think it works, it just needs to be put in.

G

The New Mac Book: AS Shiny as it Get's

The shinier the gadget, the higher the chances of it flying off the shelves. The Samsung Metal Series phones have been a killer, people love the metal look on the Apple iPhone, and now Apple has launched the MacBook in aluminium.

I have used an Intel MacBook white for about a year—and it has a serious shortcoming. The plastic quality. Within a year, my MacBook looked like something I was born with.

The new MacBook’s aluminium body is light and suave, manufactured from a single, solid piece of aluminium. This MacBook still has a non-backlit keyboard (oh why!) but the track pad is now bigger and the button has gone. It is integrated into the multi-touch track pad, which allows you to do all those tricks that you do on an iPhone.

The screen is much brighter and shiny, it uses OLED for display. Though colour fidelity is a bit awkward, there is high contrast and sharp reflection. The speakers on this model are much better and a bit louder.

The new design with the black screen border and the aluminium finish now unifies the MacBook, the MacBook Pro, the iMac, and the iPhone designs.

There are some things I don’t appreciate though. The Mini DVI port on the old MacBook has been replaced with a mini display port on the new one, so if you have a DVI to VGA converter, well you will just have to buy another one. The Firewire port is gone, I wonder why, because most external drive manufacturers now offer both Firewire and USB models. The display port is understandable as Apple has chosen to replace the DVI with an advanced bus for high definition video, audio and data streams, but right now displays that will connect are limited.

The Intel graphics card is gone and a brand new Nvidia 9400 M card has been added to the new MacBook, which not only means that you will be able to attach a 30” display to the Book, but also that graphic speeds will be much higher. Though the graphics card takes away 256+ MB, Apple should seriously consider separate RAM for it.

A brilliant change is that the hard drive is available for upgrade through the bottom cover. No screws to be removed. The MacBook is also green—it uses a highly recyclable aluminium and glass enclosure. Apple guarantees it had used a mercury-free LED backlit display, arsenic-free glass, and PVC-free internal cables.

What make an Apple MacBook stand out are the little details—the magnetic latch on the power adapter, the pull-out tabs and the sheer brilliance of design. If you have the money, and want a brilliant machine, buy yourself the aluminium version. If you don’t have the money and still want to own a Mac, buy yourself the older Mac—nothing wrong with it except the plastic body. The new aluminium MacBook is priced upward of Rs 72,910.

--
The above review appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday 18th January 2009

Enabling the disabled

Last week, most newspapers carried an interesting article about an NRI making a touchscreen for the blind. This is a topic close to my heart and I have been inspired to dedicate my first article of the new year on latest gadgets for differently abled persons.

As a child, I had the opportunity to learn Sanskrit. The other student who took the class with me was visually impaired, though he could read and write. This was my first interaction with someone who couldn’t see. A few days back, at a Titan watch showroom, I came across their Braille Watch, launched in December 2008. The watch is pretty and very useful, an ideal gift if you know someone who is visually impaired. It is also priced at an affordable Rs 995. Though there are other manufacturers making such watches, I have to commend Tatas for taking the lead, and bringing out the best designed watch I have come across in the recent times.

Another great device is the Tango. Invented by Richard Ellenson, the father of a boy with cerebral palsy and made by a company called Blink Twice (www.blink-twice.com), this device lets people affected with cerebral palsy learn how to speak and use touch to convey how they are feeling. The Tango, priced at $7,000 is, however, not affordable for all and still not available in India.

Another great invention called the Frog Pad (www.frogpad.com) is a keyboard that lets you use the computer with one hand. Though not specifically designed for people with disabilities, this is a great tool (at US$150) to help people with just one hand use the PC. It comes in both left-handed and right-handed versions.

Similary, audio books are gradually becoming common, though they are still more popular among people who like to travel a lot. I recall a mail from a society in Pune which wanted help from people to dictate and record books, so that those who could not read could listen to them and acquire some knowledge. In fact, there is a big movement on the Web urging people to read a book, record it and send the MP3 file to the nearest blind school. This is not a tough process since most phones now have built-in voice recorders that create MP3 files.

This article can go on and on. We also have to remember people like Jaipur’s Mujib Khan, who has adopted normal cars to work for physically challenged people (http:// tinyurl.com/ mujibkhan), and all those mechanics who attach additional wheels to scooters so that they can be driven by differently abled people.

Assistive technology can do a lot to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities. That is, if the technology is made available. Sometimes it can be very costly, and thus beyond people with low incomes. It is time Government programmes and private organisations came forward with assistance.

--
The above article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday, 11th January 2009

How to Backup your PC Online - Unpublished Indian Express Article

How to Backup your PC Online

A few days back, one of my accountants created havoc in the office, it was the next day to christmas from what I recall, the problem was, he was getting ready to file the Quarterly Tax Returns that we have to file, and he came with a sad looking face to me, I just lost all our Accounting Data, expecting that he will get a shouting from me, on how, why, aisa kyon karte ho, he was surprised to find me smiling, smiling, because everything was backed up, yes, without him having to do it, everything was automatically backed up, where, to a server outside our office, so even if he had come in, saying I burned the hard disk, we would have been covered, so how do we do it, or to be precise, how can you do it.

Well we as a company can spend resources and time to do it, and also offer this as a full featured solution to our customers to be able to do Disaster Management, but for you at home, I have a few tricks up the sleeve, that will let you do this online, without ever having to really do anything, it’s all automatic, and all for free, don’t believe me, read on.

Though if you use online office editors, such as Google Docs or Zoho, Edit Grid or one of these, your documents would be stored online, but at times you have some documents, etc that you have downloaded, and or given by a friend, that you want backed up, a very innovative jugaad, as you may call it, from my younger brother to my mother was, why don’t you email everything to yourself, but then, hey it’s all step by step, dependent manually on you, so how do we do it automatically.

So how do we do it, head on to www.mozy.com and sign up for their free plan. They have a free plan, that let’s you use 2GB of space on their servers for free. In case you need more space, you will need to depend on a paid plan. Once you have signed up, visit the email account that you used to sign up and confirm the account by clicking on the link in the email.

Once the confirmation is done, we are just steps away from ensuring that your important files are backed up. Download the Mozy client from their website, once you have the client downloaded, it will take you approximately about 3 minutes to have it setup. Then it will come up to a page to ask you to select files and folders you want to backup, select these (this is a lengthy process for it to search for files, so be paitient and let it complete it’s job)

I know most of you will just straight forward jump on to selecting everything, but remember backing up your MP3 collection may seem important, choose properly on what means a lot to you, for example, your files that you keep on your desktop, your address book, the backup of your phone data in case you have it on your PC, the documents folder.

Once the selection is made, the PC will start backing up files to Mozy’s web server, and will give you a pop up window that shows you the backup process. Now let’s setup the options so that you can have the backup done automatically. Go to the application and it’s preferences and make sure the following are setup

Goto Scheduling, and Schedule the time your Backup should be done, you need to make sure your PC is on at the time this is scheduled, I personally select a time of 11 AM daily, Also on the automatic backups, I have selected 30% in the option 1 (wait until the compute r is less than this % busy), 10 in the second option (wait until user is away from the compute for atleast these many minutes), and 24 (hours between backups)

I have also changed the option, to alert me after 2 days in case the backup has not happened. In the bandwidth let this option be, as it is set to 1 mbps, and probably the home plan you have is only 256k or 512 k, that’s it, you are all set.

Now in case you were to delete files of your computer or loose your computer, all you need to do is, goto www.mozy.com and select restore files, and it will give you 3 options, 1. To download the files using a Mozy client, 2, a web download, i.e like you download files from websites, and third to ship you a DVD (most expensive).

I personally feel Mozy is a great free service, though on the paid front, I would not really be able to comment, as I have not used it, but there are a number of other services, and a few others are coming up, so look out, and keep your data secure.

Download Boom De Ah Da - Discovery Song

Discovery and it's whole network is one of the most favourite channels I have to watch on television. Ever since I bought myself the Tata Sky Plus, I can now record and watch all the programs that I wanted to. A new campaign by the Discovery Channel The World is Just Awsome, and a lot of people across the globe have fallen in love with the song and made it their ring tone, and soon we should see it topping the charts.

If you haven't heard the song, or want to download the ring tone for your phone, or the mp3 for your pc, head on to Discovery's Website, and download it.

For those looking for lyrics, Thanks to Wikipedia, the lyrics are

--
(Dialogue)
Astronaut 1: It never gets old, huh?
Astronaut 2: Nope.
Astronaut 1: It kinda makes you want to...
Astronaut 2: Break into song?
Astronaut 1: Yep.
I love the mountains,
I love the clear blue skies
I love big bridges
I love when great whites fly
I love the whole world
And all its sights and sounds
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da (twice)
An African tribe dancing, with one getting near the camera (Going Tribal/Last Man Standing)
I love the planet
I love real dirty things
I love to go fast
I love Egyptian kings
I love the whole world
And all its craziness
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da (twice)
Richard Machowicz firing a Milkor MGL grenade launcher (Future Weapons)
A construction catching Machowicz's fire
I love tornadoes
I love arachnids
I love hot magma
I love the giant squids
I love the whole world
It's such a brilliant place
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da (repeating until fade)
--

So go ahead download it, if you are a discovery fan, or a geek in your heart, I am sure you will love the song.

G

Vista Capable - A New Mess in the New Year for Microsoft

Ever Seen this Badge and Wondered Why o Why ?

In our greed to get the latest, we end up depending on principal vendors to tell us what to buy. I was in a meeting at a customer place, and we were having a similar discussion yesterday, what is the minimum requirement to run your software, and the vendor gave a description, the software actually does not run on the minimum requirement, so it makes you wonder why do all software vendors say this, why do car vendors talk about mileage under certain conditions only, software to work on this minimum spec, while these things never ever happen. What is then the ideal configuration, and you will be told to buy the super computers of the world just to run an office suite or maybe that drawing application that you wanted to use.

A lot of you must have switched to vista, and or thought about switching to vista, and gadget geeks like me must have come out with a standard answer "NO", if you explored why the "NO" came out Vehemently, well the reason was, that most of the machines were not ready for it, and if they were, you needed some sort of an upgrade. No there was nothing (well actually there were, but now they are fixed) wrong with Windows Vista, but the machines over all were not ready.

In a recent news item, Microsoft has landed itself in a soup, in a lot of ways this is good for the consumer. The links to the story

Network Computing | Technologizer

New Year Resolution

Hi,
It's the new year, well it has been for some days now, and no it just did not dawn on me. Just that every new year brings in a lot of hopes, lot of resolutions, things that you plan to do, and things that you look back on.

1. Last year, I made sure I had written a story in each of the releases of Indian Express, except the sad weekend of 26th November, that none of us globally will forget. I also wrote some articles for the Readers Digest, and made a resolution to keep it up this year, and make sure that you don't miss a story from me, I know.. those who follow it to the last mile, there was no story on 4th January, well, actually I messed it up, I repeated a Topic, but am posting that story here for you to read in a seperate post.

2. I also thought, that in 2009, I will try to update my blog regularly, well not daily, as that would be a bit difficult right now, but frequently, and not only with my Indian express stories, so that this does not become a repository of just Indian Express stories I have done.

3. The economic crisis, seems to be setting into all industries, and this is not only making people loose jobs, but making it difficult for entrepreneurs, to evolve, to come to market with strategic options, so as to both up-sell and down-sell to their customers, to help survive together. Tough times have always brought out the best in entrepreneurs, and we at System3, i.e My Company, will work to bring new products and services out this year, so that our customers and potential customers can have a larger variety to choose from.

So to all my readers, A very Happy New Year, and hey, have a ball

G