The Incredible era of Social Networking…II

When this happened I got some sound suggestions asking me to get on the network bandwagon. A lot many things can happen and the traditional you-apply-i-select approach is past gone. One has to get in touch with the folks there, the community guys. Raise a few questions, get some insight into the developments going on. Talk to prof, find out about the R&D going on. In simple words “DUDE Grow UP, you just can’t afford to live alone…”

First and foremost I joined orkut, then brushed up all my contacts on Facebook which I had joined to keep up with my lieterary itinerary. And I am yet to begin any of those I have initially planned to do. A really sad irony, ain’t it? I know. Time is one of the reasons I can site but heck 24 hours is way too much time. Frankly I am not at all happy with the progress that’s happening and to be absolute frank again I digressed quite a bit...

This is about my findings. And here are some of the best ones I have come across after literally trying out and testing almost all the ones there. Believe me the list doesn’t end just yet. There are way too more and I will test them later. I do wonder though who in the world are going to use so many but I just hope these would fascinate you as much as it did to me….

Let’s start with

Kosmix - An incredible search site which brings news from almost all the major sites out there in whatever format you want - video, news, pictures, tweets. A little high on bandwidth but visually it’s mind blowing. Have been using it for quite sometime now. It just bloody rocks!!!

Del.ic.ous – hmmmm…yummmyyy…mouth watering eh? Ya I know it’s one of the biggies out there. But that was the first time I got the slice of the power in it.

Sphinn – In the same lines of digg, propeller, furl, etc it just sounds cool…AIn’t used it much though but time pass guaranteed.

Mixx – Your blend of the web says the tagline and it’s one heck of a site. No wonder CNN, Reuters, USA Today are some of it’s partners. All standard social rules apply. This is a must visit site.

Current – You see you don’t have to look far away for innovation. It’s there in everyday lives. This is one of the prime examples for it. Go for it…

Just to get the feel of how many there are I am going to list out ‘few’ of hundreds out there – BallHype, Blogmarks, Blinklist,Diigo, Furl, Fark, Faves, Hatena, Kaboodle, kirsty, Link-A-Gogo, Mister Wong, Multiply,Propeller, Simpy, Tip’d, Tumblr,Xanga,

Here are some of the major players – twitter, Facebook, Digg, LinkedIn, Technorati, FriendFeed, WordPress, Blogger, Add to BX, Google Bookmarks,

Then there are all sorts of innovation in search too that are trying to get at least 1% of market share of google. I have discovered there is also a site for these search engines too to search – AltSearchEngines. Through this I have found one of the coolest search engines ever - KallOut.

KallOut

is a application that needs to be downloaded and installed. With this you don’t need that search bar again. It’s the most unobstructive way to browse or search in the web. All one needs to do is highlight a word you want to search. You get a small icon like this. Hover the mouse over it and watch the magic unfold as you click on it and are welcomed by an open palette where your results will be displayed. This is just one part of the story though. The absolute essential feature that I have fell in love with this is it’s ability to integrate with IMDB. I faced this problem countless number of times especially, when I want to download movies – I copy a movie name, open up a tab, search the movie and then come back. That little extra effort always bugs. With Kallout all that is history.

Sadly though I am not getting the panels and all my results are getting displayed in a seperate IE window :( ... if any of you folks get this working as is shown in the window, please do let me know in the comments. I also mailed them twice, once through direct e-mail and once through the feedback form. Didn't get any response so far. Currently CoolPreview of Firefox is doing some wonders in my ways of browsing the net, but I would still love to have kallout.

In the mean time to get some cool special effects to make my blog much more jazzier I cought up on Zamenta which promises to do so much but I just couldn't get the whiff of it. I mean through firefox extension I tried beautifying it, but it just didn't work. Luckyily RWW came to my rescue and provided me with this beautiful thingy (software/web 2.0/widget/extension/call it whatever) Apture

which makes your linking life so easier and it certainly does wonders which I think you folks must have definitely been awed by now!

Just to be on the same tech side through these umpteen lazy hours here are some of the best sites about the Web technology, news and analysis. Mind you, not a day goes by without me reading through all these sites. Let me rephrase it all 90% of my day is spent reading all the articles being posted- a real tough job you know – so much information to assimilate and comments to go through. Anyways here goes the list…

Read Write Web – My current favorite. A pro-twitter, pro-apple, ambi-Microsoft website with tons of information with whatever is happening throughout the web world.

TechCrunch – Will let them do the talking – “as a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.”

LifeHacker - Again Won't do much talk talk talk...coz this just hacks into your life with so much gyan vyan, it's just too incredible a site to let go..

Well, folks there ends my 2.0 journey...see you soon.. adios..amigos...

The Incredible era of Social Networking… I

Very recently, almost a week now, I have become a relentless pursuer of the new upcoming sites/wikis/blogs/mashups – call it whatever you feel like. It all started with checking out few comments posted on one of the articles in Counter Currents. After I closed the window I clicked on the ‘Share This’ button and it was the first time I really paid close attention to all those tiny things listed out there. Then it was like -Common… gimme a break!..When does this stop? It’s like these things keep mushrooming and the end is no where in sight.

It’s quite interesting to go back in history and start from what actually was missing for someone to go onto networking. I mean first and foremost it started with chat. Every guy/gal you knew had Yahoo! . The fun of chatting was just too good to resist. Going into chatrooms with psuedonames, looking for a specific kind of people and ending up with ASL constantly. And then you may/may not realize that all the rooms are filled with these kinds. Some go in for the kill and might have been successful, that’s another story. Mails too played the integral part of communication. We so much needed it in exchanging notes, ppts, photos, etc. err, they still do? Ain’t it?

Well unknowingly my first brush with networking started with Orkut. You know back in those good old you-scrap-i-scrap-what-a-crap days , it was so much fun. Things started to simmer down, came out of the s’crap’s. Then my blog happened which again wasn’t serious networking per se. Still with few comments here and there, getting some readers (follower’s concept wasn’t there back then) kept me active. There was something missing still – the interactions were not fast enough, the blogs weren’t small enough and certainly the frequency was just not long enough to keep anyone hooked. But the immense happiness I get looking back at my old blogs or the times when I post new ones or the times I get comments (got it? Comments? ) is something I can’t express. It keeps my spirits alive the whole day.

Anyways, in middle of this there was again unknowingly I was part of another network StumbleUpon – one of the coolest add-ons ever I have ever installed on Firefox. This was a must every time I installed Firefox (and that happened heck of a lot times). The idea of just getting the sites of your interest on just the click of the mouse is a nirvana to all those lazy bums who have no clue what to spend the time on the net for. Gosh! I was one heck of a stumbler, some of my finds have been just amazing and my main interests included – U.S. Imperialism, Anti-war, Internet, Athiests, and so on.
Well things moved on and here in brief this is how it happened..

• Came to Bangalore


• Part of great company, great project


• Project ended, next project.


• Project 2 lots and lots of free time and I mean a lot!!!!


• Blogs, blogs, blogs… didn’t really post comments/feedbacks and all but heck discovered hell lot of blogs. Still wasn’t part of the networking ‘wave’ as such.

So as it stands these three –stumble, blog, mails kept me on. Then things started changing/rather about to change… Next part …

Fight the Fat - Day 1

Have you heard of the saying "If you can't beat them, Join them" ? Have you? hmmm...Just asking..Nothing related though.

First of all I would like to nominate 'yesterday' i.e. 29:07:09 05:25:04 +/- few seconds here and there as a the lead contender for the second prize in the category "Groundbreaking life decisions" (here is the first-Link). That was the exact moment I strongly decided to follow the GE/GM - Weight Loss Diet Plan after hearing few miraculous things from Linda about it's outcome. The name confusion is because it's not abundantly clear who actually started this. It's popular by the name of GE but most of them list it as GM. Whatever it is, there is one common thing - John Hopkins University findings.

After the snacks coming straight back to the office, I heavily researched on this and no surprise. Google had 131,000 results. Its a one week course aimed at reducing 5-6 Kgs per week. Ok, I think you don't get it. It's 5-6 Kgs per week. Almost too good to be just another "eat less, run 30 minutes daily, bam, 5 gone" kind of treatment. Filtering through the filth, it was not until I checked some real life experiences by the people who have followed this and have shown some tremendous results (some lost almost as much as 8Kgs!), did I put my heart on it. I have started reading through all the comments, collecting some of the common doubts and have taken a print out too. Well here is the gist of things one must do if he/she is planning to shed some excess weight over a span of one week (or) in simple words - Arre saale itna to kar ...dek wo tummy teri...

Day One
All fruits except bananas. Your first day will consists of all fruits you want. It is suggested you consume lots of watermelon and cantaloupe.

Day Two
All vegetables. You are encouraged to eat until you are stuffed with all the new and cooked vegetables of your choice. There is no limit on the account or type. Avoid oil and coconut while cooking vegetables. Have large boiled potato for breakfast.

Day Three
Any mixture of fruits and vegetables of your choice. Any amount, any quantity. No bananas yet and no potatoes today.

Day Four
Bananas and milk. Today you will eat as many as eight bananas and drink three glasses of milk. You can also have one bowl of vegetables soup.

Day Five
Today is a feast day. You will eat 1 (one) cup of rice. You also have to eat 6 (six) whole tomatoes and drink 12 (twelve) glasses of water today to cleanse your system of the excess uric acid you will be producing.

Day Six
Today is another all vegetables day. You must eat 1 cup of rice today and eat all the vegetables you want cooked and uncooked to your heart's content.

Day Seven
Today your food intake will consist of 1 cup rice, fruit juice and all the vegetables you care to consume. Tomorrow morning you will be five to eight kilograms lighter than 1 week ago.

If you desire further weight loss, repeat the program again. Repeat the program as often as you like, however, it is suggested that you rest for three days before every repetition. You can find much more over here - Link.

Friends, well-wishers, and those-would-be jealous folks this is my day 1. Seeing the routine I definitely knew I can do till day 4 comfortably. I was not wrong and here I am blogging away my successful first day's report*.

Fruits Day -

• 9:30 A.M. - 1 Apple, 2 Oranges
• 12:00 P.M. - Cut fruits - mixture of watermelon, musk melon, papaya, grapes and pineapple. Everything was perfect except for the musk melon - some were sour
• 12:20 P.M. - 1 Ltr Water
• 1:30 P.M - 5:00 P.M - 1 Ltr Water
• 5:00 P.M. - Cut fruits - only water melon this time
• 6:00 P.M - 9:30 P.M. - 1 Ltr Water
• 9:30 P.M. - Cut fruits - mix of water melon and musk melon
• 10:40 P.M - 12:00 A.M. - 1 Ltr Water

Investment so far -

• 2 Oranges - Rs.30
• 1 Apple - Rs.15
• Cut Fruits - 45
• Water - Free
• Total - 30+15+45 = Rs. 90/-

That ended the day 1's investment.

Experience so far -

Felt little hungry just before snacks and thanks to few calls to mom and dad it subsided. From then on I didn't haev any hunger pans. Water helps a lot for that if you didn't figure out by now. Mind is the key here, it's very important to be pre-occupied and not think about foody-foody thoughts. This you can by you know working, attending meetings, coding and if you ain't got no work - blogging!

...* - Day hasn't ended yet though, hence the star.. More to come

P.S. - If you read through again you would find I said this day as being 'nominated' - the reason being I just can't figure out how in the world this is going to work. So life changing/ not there is too much to prove.

P.P.S - Krishna Hari Kalluri and I have already wagered over it and I owe a Mexchicken pizza with coke if I don't make the 79 mark by next wednesday. So my ardent readers, cheer me on, you defnititely don't want to see him win...would you?

Fight the Fat - Day 0

Just to borrow the words of the latest Terminator series "It's the beginning of the end" ...

Weight hasn't ever been an issue for me. I for one always belonged to it's-good-to-do-exercise gang but never the oh-my-god-look-i-am-so-fat gang. Throughout my almost 3 years stay, roomies paired me up with Srinu in comparing the tummies and judging the fattest guy and having a laugh about it. It never really bothered me though. I always felt, there were only few extra pounds that I had to shed which, I was confident with few weeks of gym I can just get that extra digits after 8 (usually either 1 or 2). In the course of time I was able to comfortably do that and hover around 78-79. And ya, like I said before these numbers were immaterail to me. I knew I was little overweight and also pretty much sure even with this I was like the normal dude like-lean, tall, good-build and in my case handsome.

Then something happened. The first time I observed this strange feature was when I was going through some snaps taken at Barbaque Nation for Srinu's farewell (his first UK Trip...). Below is the preview!

Taking advice from none other than my buddy, roommate, classmate and sort-of well wisher who occasionally speaks his rightful mind, I wore that in-shirt. And damn just have a one more clean look at the pic above before you continue reading. Yes, I know, I should have seen the signs then but I didn't. Guess what? 4 months later or am not sure at least 8-10 months later I end up looking the same if not more awkward as seen below (that's the recent birthday snap which I will be blogging very shortly...).

!!!Concentrate on the guy on the extreme right..especially the T-u-m-m-y!!!

Added to all this was not so regular daily remarks from the most unexpcted sources - Bunty (my cousin, just couldn't believe, he could say that!), Bhargavi ( his wife), Uniques batch folks (almost all of them), Joy (this guy is sure turning out to be a one crackpot jackass manager kind with his oh-so-diplomatic remarks) - "you are great dude but you need to you know just workout on getting a V shape than a H shape" apart from the regulars - mom, dad, Indarni atha, Laxman Bhai, Swati so on and so forth. Fact is what he said struck me full force when I was narrating it to someone else, the incredulous sarcasm. The guts I tell ya?.. All these started hitting slowly, like the way heavy rain starts pouring down with few drops as a teaser. To complete the analogy the heavy rain that befell was after seeing Srinu (after his second trip!). Blistering Barnacles!

Is he a human/half-breed or what? How in the goddamn world did he lose 5Kg I ain't got no idea. But one thing for sure it just didn't feel right. The whole eat-nothing-but-chicken-at-lunch routine just got smashed to bits. I have become the butt of the jokes now and surprisingly it started to pinch me. When I am about to dress or come out of bath, crossing RevT on my path to my room, if there is one thing they don't miss it's the huge semi-spherical dome with a nice smooth curvature and you know what happens right? ga ga ga ga like small kids with knickers who have just seen someone missing catching a pen...so funny eh?

There are so much more to report but to cut the long boring-mindless-senselsess-stupid story short, Srinu was the last straw. As you all know for any right-minded person who is in his right -frame with this almost-right bunch of guys in a room, it's jsut impossible to stick to a resolution. Its as impossible as Hari getting up at 6 in the morning all by himself for playing crickent on Saturday. I mean, hello, just give it try? Then there are always excuses, not today, not tomorrow, slept late, from monday, from thursday,from my bonda day- what the heck and ya now the mother-of-all-excuses- TOEFL!

Is there anyway to come out of this mess? As astounding as it might sound there is ...Read on...

Life Changing Conversation...Seriously...

“Hi ra…ఏంటి be ? ఇది నిజమేనా?”
“Yes… ఈ రోజు apply చేశా..ఇంకో 15 days టైం పడుతుందంట దాని తర్వాత I will be in VPP”
“Oh..సరే ..so e company?”
“Company ఏంటి రా ?”
“saale… quit చేసి… చెప్పూ బె ఎ company?”
“Company ఏమి లేదు రా బాబు. నేను ఒకటి చెప్తే నువ్వు shock అవుతావ్ .”
“ఏంటి?”
“Me and nikmo have decided to quit and pursue HobbiesnYou passionately.”
“eh?”
“విను…next year fall ki నేను వాడు MBAకు పోతున్నాం . So ... అంట వరకు దీని పైన full time work spend chesi. Finance చెయ్యడం, marketing చెయ్యడం, ఇక్కడికి అక్కడికి పోవడం… ఇవ్వన్ని చెయ్యాలి . అంత వరుకు దీని పైన concentrate చేసి magazine మర్చి కళ్ళ రోల్లౌట్ చెయ్యాలని plan. Success ఐతే అద్బుతం aక్కద్నుంచి కూడా దీని ముందుకు తీసుకేల్లచు. లేదా try చేసామన్న ఫీలింగ్ అన్నా వుంటుంది. అది matteru …”
“baap re…really great ra…I mean hats off…”
“thanks ra”
“seriously I mean I am really proud of you mate…” (Incidentally that’s the first time I have ever said to anyone and it was the first for him to hear… ok cutting out the parents though… they are always proud you see and it’s a great feeling being told)

This was the conversation I had with Nikhil when I first heard that he applied for VPP. Not verbatim but the essence of it. Then we went on to talk little more about how things are going to be coming ahead, encouraged him further. This indeed was a bold step and with my recent trip I can see his intentions are pretty much nailed to the wall (literally). And I wish him all the very best.

That’s how my first step for the beginning of my end of IT career as I see it began. I am eternally thankful to both Nik duos. Right until then I haven’t even thought quite clearly what I want in my life. The call for change had long begun, ever since the first round of mass exodus under the guise of most humane policy for whatever control from our erstwhile esteemed company Satyam. The sad part of it all is it still exists as can be seen by Nik’s case as a “policy” people can avail. Then I started registered at N&M , sent out resume, waited for the non-existent calls. For the ones I did, they didn’t call back again. My parents too had high hopes on my MBA and I got weekly “dream” reminder. So many things were going on in my mind. Seeing your friends making grand plans and here I was stuck up in this hole with growth neither vertical nor horizontal, MS was slightly ringing in my mind. I was hesitant though. How would the future be? Can I pull it off? Is there a value in MS?

Few days of confusion prevailed. My mind kept on wavering, can I or can I not? I had almost given up once and then again passionately boasted all around. At last Laxman Bhai came to my rescue. Through her thoughtful advices and guidance I got the confidence I need to zero in on my decision for MS. God, it felt great.

So on a bright Saturday afternoon I called my mom. I didn’t want to break the news fast and I wanted to have the right cinematic touches. I was certain that this decision of mine is going to shake them up pretty good and I could just visualize the most proud expression on my mom’s face. So I took things slowly. I talked a while about my current day to day activities, Saturday lunch etc. and all that. I was little sad knowing dad wasn’t there at home as I wanted this to be a super bonanza news and blow them away with this news at same time rather than individually. Anyways I saw no point in holding back and told them with full heart that “Mom, I have decided to do MS. Haven’t decided the course yet but I am going to do”.

I started my hunt for Universities big time and the course selection was the toughest part. This time it was Chitti* who paved the way. Talking to one of his friends who would be going for his studies in coming month I have come to realize MS in CS is not a good option. He asked to me to have a look at one of the most hot and happening courses there namely MIS. I stuck with google and some good old sites like i20fever for my help and realized well the sites were really ‘old’ and everything else was useless.

A solid 100 odd hours I wasted in choosing some crass universities thanks to orkut which lead me to edulix. That’s where it stands. Have 11 more days ticking and have heck of a things to do starting with SOP’s to LOR’s to ahem University choosing itself.

Just hoping to get the best. Wish me luck folks… This blog is gonna rock from now….

!!!!Heeeee haaawwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!