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View From my Window!

Click Image to Enlarge Description of the View Leftmost white building - ' The Renaissance ', Smaller Building between the two white buildings : ' The Residence ' Under Construction : New wing of 'The Renaissance' Yellow Buildings among the greenery : NITIE Hostel and Academic building White 'stepped' building on the right: New Hostel, IIT Bombay Water Body: Powai Lake Greenery near the horizon: Parts of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Borivali

ByteFeed

I have started a new blog - ByteFeed - http://byte-feed.blogspot.com/ This is my ‘Tech Dump blog’ containing snippets of the Tech News and analysis I glean from the Web everyday. I track about 40 blogs, of which 10 are Tech blogs and some are themselves Tech News aggregators. I got hooked to reading Tech Blogs about 10 months ago - when I started using Google Reader . Slowly my reading list grew and I kept adding deleting ... then gradually not only did my reading list increase, my ability to read and filter more and more content daily increased. So, apart from reading these blogs, I started sending some interesting ones via email to Shubham and Hemant - occasionally marking a few other friends too. Of late, I realized that I had been sending too many such emails and I better start a parallel blog to record these 'filtered' blog posts. Since these 'referred posts' are mostly on Technology, I used to send excerpts of these via emails by the subject 'ByteFeed'

Wah Taj .. Aah Taj

GreatBong does it again ... he has again managed to put across a sane voice among all these Taj maniacs, and as usual in the most hilarious way ... जिओ अरनब जिओ ... An excerpt And I wondered. What if? What if, many ages ago, we had the technology we have today? We could have reported the Rowlatt Act as bogus through simple clicks in Orkut, launched SMS campaigns for the release of that man who gave us “Gandhigiri”, and dialed into FM stations to express our solidarity with those dudes in Champaran. How cool would that have been ! Read full: Aah Taj My two cents are these - whether or not Taj had won - tourists visiting India would anyway have visited this beauty before visiting Goa, Kerala or Bangalore. It not being in the list would not have made any difference. But anyway - what can one do if all patriotism Indians have can be exhibited only when they are sitting (on bench?) in front of the computer screens or watching a "Rang De..". Well why am I blaming others ... what a

Mouse cleaning

While I don't use the mouse anymore (have switched the trackball-touchpad long ago) ... but many of you who do will find this useful - Amit Agarwal's mouse cleaning tips. Most of these mouse problem are because of the dust that sticks to the bottom of the mouse surface at points that are in constant touch with the table or the mouse pad .... from accumulated dust that is disrupting the smooth movements of the mouse. To solve this problem, hold the mouse over a piece of white paper and gently (but firmly) drag the mouse from the top edge of the paper to the bottom Source: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/07/clean-mouse-with-white-paper-for-smooth.html

Reliance Comm. site's Verisign certificate is outdated!

Millions of online customers using the Reliance Communications Website are being taken for a ride by the company. The site proudly displays the 'Verisign Verified' seal on its bill payment gateway ' http://bill.reliancecommunication.co.in '. However, on clicking the seal one will get the following message from the Verisign server: Alert! You have accessed an outdated Verisign seal verification page. This page cannot confirm that this Web site is a current VeriSign customer. You should investigate the Web sites security before transacting with it. Verisign is a seal of trust on the web - just like the ISI mark on electronic goods in India. Displaying an outdated Verisign seal on a website is similar to forging the ISI Mark on household goods. While I am not aware if Reliance Communications can be legally challenged in the courts (especially in India) - this is definitely tantamount to cheating its online customers.

'The Foutainhead' - the movie

External Links: | Cross-posted on Movie Reviews | IMDB Entry . Its is not everyday that you watch a 1949 Hollywood flick - but when it is based on the famed novel - ' The Foutainhead ' - the period of the movie doesn't matter; the story of Howard Roark is as fresh and as inspiring today as it was 70 years ago. But watching a 1949 hollywood movie makes you remember those 'Black & White' cinemas we used to watch on Doordarshan in our childhood - Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar types! The dialogue delivery seems weird and melodramatic. If you have ever seen one of those Clint Eastwood ' Inspector Callahan ' movies, the dialogue delivery is in the same style, albeit even more accentuated. I would say that the performances are good - by 1949 standards. Gary Cooper, with the wooden dialogue delivery does a perfect portrayal of Roark and Patiricia Neal is perfect as Dominique Francon who is the detached from world but selflessly dedicated to Roark. Robert Douglas also

Rajni does it on blogosphere too!!

The tales of Rajnikant's popularity among public are all across newspapers, and TV channels (especially so after his latest flick - Shivaji - demonstrated 'rioting capabilities'). But now Rajni has touched down on blogosphere as well and this blog post bears testimony to the kind of storm Rajni can incite even among the net savvy generation. Probably the longest post on blogosphere - this post has 1134 comments !! I wonder if 'Big B' or even Google could match this. Representing, Maratha pride coupled with Kannad and Tamilian lineage [Ref: 1 , 2 ] - could he make a good president as well? GreatBong wonders ...

Caste'ing Couch

Update Here is a good article demystifying the Indian Presidential Election process and its significance with respect to the current election. Indian politics has been witnessing reversal of two opposite kinds. On one hand is Mayawati, coming from a caste-based politics background, who broke the divide between Dalits and Brahmins and thus grabbed the CM's seat in Uttar Pradesh (a state known for caste based politics) through a pan-caste vote. On the other hand is the Congress party, maligning the election for the most revered post in Indian Democracy by playing the caste card. Clearly, selecting an unknown candidate like Pratibha Patil was not for merit but to: cleave the NDA's fold by fielding a 'Marathi' candidate dent support for Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, due to the Rajasthan ki bahu connection Patil's choice is a political masterstroke, also because it brings back the tradition followed by the Congress party under Indira Gandhi, of appointing a phony at the pr