http://www.google.com/chrome
And heck I like it. What exactly?
1. Minimalist UI ala Safari
2. No "menu" bar
3. Good use of title bar for tabs - saved space
4. Seems pretty fast or maybe that's just the late night broadband peaking up :)
5. Great address auto-complete - only pages that you actually typed show up
6. Maintains the firefox short-cuts
7. Simple blue and white theme is nice and soothing
8. Default page rocks - ulti cool use of history
Great to see engineers taking KISS seriously in this day and age of "features"
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Road Trip - Chickmangalur
Decided to take a long impending break from work this week. So I headed out to Bangalore to catch up with my good friends and travel companions. Considering that it was a long weekend we were really pushing our luck and calling up all the nearby locations for a room. Luckily we didn't find any and decided to take the advice of Bhavin's friend and try out a homestay kindof place out near Chicmangalur. Boy was it wonderful. A beautiful coffee estate nestled up in a small valley sufficiently far away from the hotspots. It is around 60kms from Chickmangalur but the roads are horrendous so be prepared to cover than in 90mins to 2hrs. Since a picture says a thousand words here are a few.
Btw none of us carried our cameras so these were from my phone cam. The trip turned out to be around 5k/person for the 2 days. A bit higher since we drove there. But the drive was beautiful especially since its around now that the paddy crops are planted and the variety of lush green all around could have given disney animators goosebumps.
But the highlight of the trip was the amazing food at the resort. Mangy food always rocks! esp the shevai with coconut milk was the best.
 |
| Chickmanga |
Btw none of us carried our cameras so these were from my phone cam. The trip turned out to be around 5k/person for the 2 days. A bit higher since we drove there. But the drive was beautiful especially since its around now that the paddy crops are planted and the variety of lush green all around could have given disney animators goosebumps.
But the highlight of the trip was the amazing food at the resort. Mangy food always rocks! esp the shevai with coconut milk was the best.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Salut
What a wonderful sight for Indian sport. Finally a presence at the Bejing Olympics that we can be proud of
1. Virdhawal Khade - swimming
2. Saina Nehwal - slowly progressing along - defeated the 4th seed today
3. Bajranglal Takhar - 5th place in the Men's rowing
4. Abhinav Bindra - the gold medalist in 10m rifle - god the replay of our anthem playing in Beijing just killed me.
5. All our boxers and wrestlers - good show Biwani boys.
regardless of the results. these are the true heroes. amazing men and women with determination that supersedes any other. please dont even try to put our crappy cricketers in the same sentence/paragraph/page/book/volume. These Olympians are the heroes that we so desperately need.
Salut!
1. Virdhawal Khade - swimming
2. Saina Nehwal - slowly progressing along - defeated the 4th seed today
3. Bajranglal Takhar - 5th place in the Men's rowing
4. Abhinav Bindra - the gold medalist in 10m rifle - god the replay of our anthem playing in Beijing just killed me.
5. All our boxers and wrestlers - good show Biwani boys.
regardless of the results. these are the true heroes. amazing men and women with determination that supersedes any other. please dont even try to put our crappy cricketers in the same sentence/paragraph/page/book/volume. These Olympians are the heroes that we so desperately need.
Salut!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Friday, April 18, 2008
Britain's really got Talent
Last year this little girl, Connie, was just an angel and this year they have a young boy, Andrew, who chilled me to the bones with his singing of Pie Jesu
Britain seems to really have some hidden gems in voices of its kids. Wish the show was telecast here too.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Rediscovering Pondicherry
I have been to Pondicherry 3 times before. Mostly spent my time at my cousin's house out there without wandering out into the wilderness of the small town. Auroville is probably still the only place to visit for an outsider in Pondy. Even after having been there thrice before I decided to chugg along with some friends out there. And as usual we did not think any prior bookings were necessary.
I caught the bus from Hyd to Chennai and I reached there a good 13 hrs later. We caught the local bus from Chennai to Pondy and reached there right in the middle of the blistering afternoon heat. After trying a few places some of us came up with the idea of trying out a resort and lo and behold we managed to land out at The Dune. Another classic choice. The place was just fantastic. Designed by a French architect, partnered up with a desi, the small haven has multiple villas and cottages each with its own theme eg. bangle house, doll house, white house and the list goes on. With tastefully designed rooms and a beautiful beachfront right in front of you there is little that could go wrong. Mind you though, with the open bathroom motif in every house, this is definitely not for the faint hearted either :). The ambience, food and location is simply spot on. The seafood is definitely below par but well I dont think Pondy is that big of a fishing town anyways.
All in all another beautiful part of India discovered, or for myself - rediscovered.
Check out some of the pics here.
I caught the bus from Hyd to Chennai and I reached there a good 13 hrs later. We caught the local bus from Chennai to Pondy and reached there right in the middle of the blistering afternoon heat. After trying a few places some of us came up with the idea of trying out a resort and lo and behold we managed to land out at The Dune. Another classic choice. The place was just fantastic. Designed by a French architect, partnered up with a desi, the small haven has multiple villas and cottages each with its own theme eg. bangle house, doll house, white house and the list goes on. With tastefully designed rooms and a beautiful beachfront right in front of you there is little that could go wrong. Mind you though, with the open bathroom motif in every house, this is definitely not for the faint hearted either :). The ambience, food and location is simply spot on. The seafood is definitely below par but well I dont think Pondy is that big of a fishing town anyways.
All in all another beautiful part of India discovered, or for myself - rediscovered.
Check out some of the pics here.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Blog Statistics
Since I have recently touched the 500 unique visitors per month, with time spent on site != 0, I thought I should post some usage statistics about Desi Fun(da)
Average #users/month (past 12 months) - 300
Most visited entry - Gori Chamdi - Readers Digest Joy
2nd most visited entry - Chroma Store
Search Engine - 100% users coming from Google
Best search term - guavus with 13.6%
Browser - 81% users using Firefox
Geography - 87% from India
A bit about the name
Desi Fun, da - A typical Bangalorean way of saying things
Desi Funda - Meaning Indian fundamentals
[ Desi ofcourse means Indian ]
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
LIC's new avatar
If you know me, I must've given you a pep-talk on LIC. I simply adore this PSU. It does what a PSU is meant to do and does it to perfection. It has been providing returns to the average Joe, aka myself, consistently for half a century now. And to do it with unparalleled honesty and consistency in the public sector arena and that too at such a large scale simply deserves respect.
But the new face of LIC confuses me. The consistent ad campaigns and tv presence is kinda new and maybe something that is required in this day and age of nasty private sector competition (satire attempted). However this is not how the PSU blossomed. Its army of tin soldiers ie. LIC agents are the main propaganda and advertisement vehicle that has helped this company maintain its distinct lead in the insurance sector. Has the strategy changed? I sure hope not. And yeah keep up the good work... none of my policies have matured yet! So work hard too LICians :)
But the new face of LIC confuses me. The consistent ad campaigns and tv presence is kinda new and maybe something that is required in this day and age of nasty private sector competition (satire attempted). However this is not how the PSU blossomed. Its army of tin soldiers ie. LIC agents are the main propaganda and advertisement vehicle that has helped this company maintain its distinct lead in the insurance sector. Has the strategy changed? I sure hope not. And yeah keep up the good work... none of my policies have matured yet! So work hard too LICians :)
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Dzire
Take a look here
It looks like they took the front of the "heart" and the back of the "men are back" cars and stuck them together.
Maruti's latest Swift Dzire has without a doubt gone and dethroned the Mahindra-Renault Logan as the ugliest looking car on the desi roads.
Definitely not desired by anyone I know.
It looks like they took the front of the "heart" and the back of the "men are back" cars and stuck them together.
Maruti's latest Swift Dzire has without a doubt gone and dethroned the Mahindra-Renault Logan as the ugliest looking car on the desi roads.
Definitely not desired by anyone I know.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Best Wishes Madame
To a wonderful person.
You walked down the aisle today
With a smile that said it all
Towards the luckiest guy in the world
May the journey be full of love and joy
Full of happiness and things that keep you smiling
For you may never know, but I'll say
Your smile is the only thing good in this world anyway
Wishing the latest Mr. and Mrs. a wonderful life together. And ofcourse dont forget to name your first-born after me :)
You walked down the aisle today
With a smile that said it all
Towards the luckiest guy in the world
May the journey be full of love and joy
Full of happiness and things that keep you smiling
For you may never know, but I'll say
Your smile is the only thing good in this world anyway
Wishing the latest Mr. and Mrs. a wonderful life together. And ofcourse dont forget to name your first-born after me :)
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Work Experience
Time and again work experience seems to pop up in the most unrelated of contexts, and sometimes relevant as it may seem there does not seem to be enough time to go ahead and layout everything that I have actually worked on and experienced. So I thought I'd just take a trip down memory lane and put things down in black and white. Just for personal reference of course.
1. Church - Altar Boy: Probably the first thing that any Catholic boy does in his life. I still remember the first time I did that. I was with a friend Kenneth in Irla and goofed up quite a bit. I especially remember how many times I actually stood up aside the altar when I wasn't supposed to. But well managed to get through that.
Unforgettable Moment: Goofing up
2. Boarding School - Choir, Altar boy, Cleaning up, Sweeping, Mopping floors etc: While at the boarding school at Boscos we did it all. Cleaned up the whole place, cleaned up the playing fields, washing our clothes and god knows what else. We did it all and we showed up in style at the school. Boarders kicked ass when we came along at Boscos man.
Unforgettable Moment: When one of the boarders went berserk! Also remember making those giant cutouts for our late night chill outs.
Cant forget all the great s.d.b. priests and brothers that we met. You guys simply rocked.
3. School - Hockey Team player: I was in the hockey team during my school days at Don Bosco. Played the defense quite a bit and people said I was pretty good.
Unforgettable Moment: When I missed the penalty shot against St. Stanislaus Bandra, while all my friends in the boarding looked on. We also lost the match so that was the pits. Also remeber bro. chris whacking me in the shins with my own hockey stick during my first match. Damn that hurt.
4. Internship at ABB: This was the final year project during my BE and we managed to squeeze into ABB for this. Thanks to some of the wonderful people out there that helped me realized that the journey had just begun.
Unforgettable Moment: When the department head told me that my project was the only real world project she had seen all year. And also when I realised my work may not be used by the company in production :(
5. Engineering College - Placements: Helped out with going out to a couple of companies in Mumbai to come out to the first ever placements that our college had.
Unforgettable Moment: When one of them accepted.
6. Engineering College - Debating: We kicked some ass while debating at Agenls's in our final year. I think it was pav and anna on the team with yours truly. Of course I was just the stand-in :)
Unforgettable Moment - Winning. Yippieeeeee!
7. PA, US - Serving, Cleaning, Mopping up etc: This was at University Park, PA. The first on campus job that I had was at the central eatery. We did everything. We had some early morning shifts at around 6.00 am where we went in and sliced frozen bagels etc for the morning rush. I did fries, burgers, burritos, salads, club sandwiches, sodas etc. Man I cant even remember all the places I served. We also had the late night shift on Sat night where we cleaned and closed up right up til 1.30am in the morning. Phew.
Unforgettable Moment: Cleaning up puke. Yuck!!!
8. PA, US - Serving tapes to Cray: Yeah for one day me and a friend served up tape drives to a Cray supercomputer, that was on campus, so that data could be transferred onto cds. Yeah baby.
Unforgettable Moment: Seeing a supercomputer in person :)
9. PA, US - Working with the big guys: Got a job on campus for a cool 16$ an hour, which was a record, that was to code for this handheld computing project for the department of health in PA. This was under the supervision of a defense building on campus.
Unforgettable Moment: The look on the sys-admin's face when he realized I wasn't a citizen of the US of A :)
10. PA, US - Biochemistry?: My first assistantship was with the Biology/Biochemistry department. The lady out there wanted someone to do work comparable to re-writing LAPACK in 2 months :) That didn't work out.
Unforgettable Moment: Realizing that I was given an impossible task and that I needed to find another assistantship asap. Peed in my pants.
11. PA, US - Civil Engineering: My primary source of income during my education was through a graduate assitantship with the Civil engineering department. I wrote Visual Basic programs for a professor there. I interacted with the hardware equipment manufactures for a month or so to understand how to integrate their stuff into our program. It was super to see that thing up and running.
Unforgettable Moment: Interacting with Dr. H. - super guy.
12. PA, US - Volunteering: During my free time I volunteered with an organization at the local church. The basic work there was simply interacting with differently-gifted children.
Unforgettable Moment: A kid that I was interacting with for nearly a year underwent a brain surgery, it was really big risk that the parents just had to take. After he was released from care and came back to the sessions he pulled me to the nearest ABC chart and started telling me A for apple, B for Ball. That moment I can never forget.
13. PA, US - Thesis: Phew man. The toughest professor in Wireless Networks at the university was my guide and he sure as hell knew what he wanted. He made sure I worked my ass off and well I managed to satisfy his requirements.
Unforgettable Moment: My first thesis proposal going in the dustbin. Then my thesis experiments running on multiple computers and me collecting and understanding the data. And then of course Graduating, Yipee!!!
14. PA, US - Start up1: Yeah baby. Quantum Bio Inc was launched sometime late in the winter of 2002. I interviewed with Lance and the crew out in the Chem labs at Penn and was bought on board. We got our rented office and moved into it sometime in the middle of Jan 2003. And boy was it fun. We actually took the comps and printer from the chem building out to the incubation centre, yeah we did the loading and unloading, and also pinched some CAT5 cables and stubs in there too :). Then we headed out to Office Depot and purchased the cheapest tables we could find and hauled them back to the office. We then assembled them ourselves, yeah! Then we layed out the Ethernet cables to main switch board and also punched in the pins ourselves. We then setup the network with a MacOSX PC serving up as the server. Each one of the 5 guys installed a different flavor of Linux just to test the code on different versions while we coded :) Damn we even had our code for the common copier, that was billed against us. Of course we managed to get the admin account for our consumption :)
Unforgettable Moment: Damn everything was unforgettable man. I still remember the guys next door who were into precision instrumentation and measuring. That dude bought us beers a couple of times just to break the ice. Cheers buddy.
15. Back in Bangalore: Working at Sun was awesome. Was part of a really great team. The people gelled well and things were great. The lead was super.
Unforgettable Moment: Seeing a real world angel :)
16. Start up2: Working in a start up is always the tops for me. So I quit my job at Sun and moved out to Gurgaon on a whim.
Unforgettable Moment: First two weeks at Gurgaon, man the dust is still coming off me till now. The other thing that was rocking was the ability to do whatever I wanted to do and push it forward, and of course the ability to talk to the founder directly and frankly was priceless, well at least for me :)
17. The giant: For reasons best known to me I needed to get out of Gurgaon. Microsoft offered me a job, along with 2 other biggies, that seemed to be a really great opportunity and I am currently here pursuing it to the fullest
Unforgettable Moment: Making those right now :)
Other experiences
a. been a class prefect in school :)
b. fund raiser
c. Master of ceromonies @ family parties and couple of corporate events
d. Horse riding
e. ...
So that in short is the experiences that I have had the pleasure of having, ofcourse not everything is covered here. Sound interesting? Now that I have this written down I wonder what I should tell the next person that asks me this question, any suggestions?
1. Church - Altar Boy: Probably the first thing that any Catholic boy does in his life. I still remember the first time I did that. I was with a friend Kenneth in Irla and goofed up quite a bit. I especially remember how many times I actually stood up aside the altar when I wasn't supposed to. But well managed to get through that.
Unforgettable Moment: Goofing up
2. Boarding School - Choir, Altar boy, Cleaning up, Sweeping, Mopping floors etc: While at the boarding school at Boscos we did it all. Cleaned up the whole place, cleaned up the playing fields, washing our clothes and god knows what else. We did it all and we showed up in style at the school. Boarders kicked ass when we came along at Boscos man.
Unforgettable Moment: When one of the boarders went berserk! Also remember making those giant cutouts for our late night chill outs.
Cant forget all the great s.d.b. priests and brothers that we met. You guys simply rocked.
3. School - Hockey Team player: I was in the hockey team during my school days at Don Bosco. Played the defense quite a bit and people said I was pretty good.
Unforgettable Moment: When I missed the penalty shot against St. Stanislaus Bandra, while all my friends in the boarding looked on. We also lost the match so that was the pits. Also remeber bro. chris whacking me in the shins with my own hockey stick during my first match. Damn that hurt.
4. Internship at ABB: This was the final year project during my BE and we managed to squeeze into ABB for this. Thanks to some of the wonderful people out there that helped me realized that the journey had just begun.
Unforgettable Moment: When the department head told me that my project was the only real world project she had seen all year. And also when I realised my work may not be used by the company in production :(
5. Engineering College - Placements: Helped out with going out to a couple of companies in Mumbai to come out to the first ever placements that our college had.
Unforgettable Moment: When one of them accepted.
6. Engineering College - Debating: We kicked some ass while debating at Agenls's in our final year. I think it was pav and anna on the team with yours truly. Of course I was just the stand-in :)
Unforgettable Moment - Winning. Yippieeeeee!
7. PA, US - Serving, Cleaning, Mopping up etc: This was at University Park, PA. The first on campus job that I had was at the central eatery. We did everything. We had some early morning shifts at around 6.00 am where we went in and sliced frozen bagels etc for the morning rush. I did fries, burgers, burritos, salads, club sandwiches, sodas etc. Man I cant even remember all the places I served. We also had the late night shift on Sat night where we cleaned and closed up right up til 1.30am in the morning. Phew.
Unforgettable Moment: Cleaning up puke. Yuck!!!
8. PA, US - Serving tapes to Cray: Yeah for one day me and a friend served up tape drives to a Cray supercomputer, that was on campus, so that data could be transferred onto cds. Yeah baby.
Unforgettable Moment: Seeing a supercomputer in person :)
9. PA, US - Working with the big guys: Got a job on campus for a cool 16$ an hour, which was a record, that was to code for this handheld computing project for the department of health in PA. This was under the supervision of a defense building on campus.
Unforgettable Moment: The look on the sys-admin's face when he realized I wasn't a citizen of the US of A :)
10. PA, US - Biochemistry?: My first assistantship was with the Biology/Biochemistry department. The lady out there wanted someone to do work comparable to re-writing LAPACK in 2 months :) That didn't work out.
Unforgettable Moment: Realizing that I was given an impossible task and that I needed to find another assistantship asap. Peed in my pants.
11. PA, US - Civil Engineering: My primary source of income during my education was through a graduate assitantship with the Civil engineering department. I wrote Visual Basic programs for a professor there. I interacted with the hardware equipment manufactures for a month or so to understand how to integrate their stuff into our program. It was super to see that thing up and running.
Unforgettable Moment: Interacting with Dr. H. - super guy.
12. PA, US - Volunteering: During my free time I volunteered with an organization at the local church. The basic work there was simply interacting with differently-gifted children.
Unforgettable Moment: A kid that I was interacting with for nearly a year underwent a brain surgery, it was really big risk that the parents just had to take. After he was released from care and came back to the sessions he pulled me to the nearest ABC chart and started telling me A for apple, B for Ball. That moment I can never forget.
13. PA, US - Thesis: Phew man. The toughest professor in Wireless Networks at the university was my guide and he sure as hell knew what he wanted. He made sure I worked my ass off and well I managed to satisfy his requirements.
Unforgettable Moment: My first thesis proposal going in the dustbin. Then my thesis experiments running on multiple computers and me collecting and understanding the data. And then of course Graduating, Yipee!!!
14. PA, US - Start up1: Yeah baby. Quantum Bio Inc was launched sometime late in the winter of 2002. I interviewed with Lance and the crew out in the Chem labs at Penn and was bought on board. We got our rented office and moved into it sometime in the middle of Jan 2003. And boy was it fun. We actually took the comps and printer from the chem building out to the incubation centre, yeah we did the loading and unloading, and also pinched some CAT5 cables and stubs in there too :). Then we headed out to Office Depot and purchased the cheapest tables we could find and hauled them back to the office. We then assembled them ourselves, yeah! Then we layed out the Ethernet cables to main switch board and also punched in the pins ourselves. We then setup the network with a MacOSX PC serving up as the server. Each one of the 5 guys installed a different flavor of Linux just to test the code on different versions while we coded :) Damn we even had our code for the common copier, that was billed against us. Of course we managed to get the admin account for our consumption :)
Unforgettable Moment: Damn everything was unforgettable man. I still remember the guys next door who were into precision instrumentation and measuring. That dude bought us beers a couple of times just to break the ice. Cheers buddy.
15. Back in Bangalore: Working at Sun was awesome. Was part of a really great team. The people gelled well and things were great. The lead was super.
Unforgettable Moment: Seeing a real world angel :)
16. Start up2: Working in a start up is always the tops for me. So I quit my job at Sun and moved out to Gurgaon on a whim.
Unforgettable Moment: First two weeks at Gurgaon, man the dust is still coming off me till now. The other thing that was rocking was the ability to do whatever I wanted to do and push it forward, and of course the ability to talk to the founder directly and frankly was priceless, well at least for me :)
17. The giant: For reasons best known to me I needed to get out of Gurgaon. Microsoft offered me a job, along with 2 other biggies, that seemed to be a really great opportunity and I am currently here pursuing it to the fullest
Unforgettable Moment: Making those right now :)
Other experiences
a. been a class prefect in school :)
b. fund raiser
c. Master of ceromonies @ family parties and couple of corporate events
d. Horse riding
e. ...
So that in short is the experiences that I have had the pleasure of having, ofcourse not everything is covered here. Sound interesting? Now that I have this written down I wonder what I should tell the next person that asks me this question, any suggestions?
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