Whatsapp new desktop app

Whatsapp has released it's new desktop app. just installed it today and tried. Earlier using the web app i had an issue working if mobile and laptop are connected to different networks (seems like a problem only with me) but ow using the desktop app that issue has been sorted out.

Look wise there is nothing much different in desktop app and web app though. Both needs the mobile to be connected to the internet.

Windows 7 background being grainy

Lately I have been taking a lot of pictures of my daughter and edit them using Adobe Light room.
Every time I find a photo that have a bit of noise in it i make sure to reduce the noise using light room, the resulting picture looks perfect when viewed in any picture viewer ( windows default, Picassa ...)

The trouble is when I need to set the same picture as my desktop background. All of a sudden a fine looking picture starts looks grainy on the desktop. I thought I was doing some mistake while editing the photo or could be an issue with my camera. After doing some searching I found that many faced the same issue. Turns out that windows does so due to some performance reason.

The Fix: Re-size your picture according to your desktop resolution. Initially all my pictures coming out of my D7000 camera were around 4900 x 3200 pixels. So my re-sizing them to my desktop resolution of 1600 x 900 and then making it as desktop background solved the issue.

Snapdeal - Savings day

I am sure everyone remembers Flipkart's attempt on trying to create an amazing shopping experience on the Big Billon day which of course had its pitfalls. Interestingly Snapdeal made fun of Flipkart by giving full page advertisements showcasing how they are better than Flipkart in terms of giving discounts and their service.

Now Snapdeal has also come up with its own version of "Big Billion day" calling it the "Savings Day", or should i say they have just "shoot oneself in the foot". 

At the very least inspite of some issues on Flipkart servers, people were were able to login and surf through the website for various offers [its another issue that many could not buy]. Now i am trying to see if i can buy anything on Snapdeal from morning, but initially through the snapdeal page did load up, i was not able to login, next after a couple of minutes the entire snapdeal webpage itself is not loading. i cross checked on "http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/" and found that the site is dead for almost 25 mins now.

I thought after the Flipkart's debacle on its Big Billion Day, Snapdeal would be much better prepared to handle to huge load that flipkart servers could not handle. Surprisingly seems like they are not even half as prepared as Flipkart. Image your entire site going down on your so called and so hyped "Savings days" and that too in a matter of minutes !!!

So much for all the hype and trying to beat your competition, i guess then its Flipkart who gets to have the last laugh.

KM Player vs VLC

Ever since collage days everyone wanted the best music and video player. Starting from Windows Media Player, Real Player, VLC media player. KM player and many more are out in the internet for free download. 

For many years i was really found of KM player. In the beginning it had a simplistic design and could play multiple formats of video. I always found VLC player a bit outdated in terms of its UI, i would always vouch for KM player did any one ask me of my choice, but lately its no more the same,

The updated version of KM player is a advertising machine that annoys me to the core and more over its constants updates left me with disappointment, What was once my favourite media player is not something i can not stand. 

Hence i have switched back to VLC player. The UI still looks outdated but atleast it does not annoy me with stupid advertisements and does its job.

Apple Watch

Finally after a long wait Apple announced the launch of Apple Watch. First impression is "Not so impressive. Seems like a lot of functionality is stuffed into a small piece of device. A watch is no more a watch but a lot lot more than that. It also looked a lot more bulky in the side view.

In fact I actually like the one designed by Motorola. It looks more like a normal watch and not like you are strapped on to yet another piece of smart device.

The shape of Apple watch was rather a let down with too silky curved edges. The home screen had apps in such small size, i am sure people would click on the wrong app many a times. There was no mention of the pixel size or the battery life of the device.

The entire presentation was not like the ones I am used to see for previous products. The length of detail that used to be said about a product before its launch was missing.

Almost a month without Facebook and Twitter

Its been almost a month since i distanced myself from Facebook and Twitter by deactivating my accounts.

Though in the initial days after deactivating i had the urge to go back and check my Facebook account i some how controlled myself to not to do so.

Now after a month i don't have that urge any more and i am happy to have Facebook out of my daily life for good.

A break from Facebook and Twitter

Yesterday I decided to take a break from the two most popular social networking sites, i.e Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter, because I hardly ever used it. it was just lying there. Hardly any posts on my page. Facebook because I realized I am spending too much of time on it.

Twitter, it seems will completely deactivate my account after 30 days, but Facebook never really deletes the account. it just keeps the account in hibernate mood which can be reactivated any moment by simply logging in back. Clever Facebook people.

Election 2014

Going my the current trend, looks like US needs to start preparing visa approval for Narendra Modi :)

India Election 2014 - Exit polls

India Election 2014 - Exit polls

Exit polls started coming out already and it seems like every one are giving NDA a majority, hope the final results are also inline with the exit polls and NDA gets a majority to form a government. Not that I have too much of hopes with NDA but I want Modi to be given a chance to show his capabilities. 

Well if not anything much I hope atleast our income tax gets reduced. :)

The Age of Online Storage

I still remember the fist computer that i purchased in my first year of Engineering had a HDD of 20 GB. 20 Gb then was more or less sufficient for all the that we used to have. 14 years later even my mobile as over 30 gb of space.

Initially Google came up with the idea of storing your files in the cloud with its drive program. You could link the Gmail space to your desktop and add files in there. Those files would be saved as email with attachements in your gmail account.

Soon more players came into the field, 'Dropbox" and "Box" leading the race. Nowadays online storage has started to become more cheaper than before. Google just dropped its price for the online Drive storage. I just brought a 100 Gb of cloud space for a price of 2 dollars per month.

My Adobe creative cloud offers me 20 Gb of free space on their server, I have a Dropbox space of about 10 GB and Ubuntu offers 2 Gb of free storage to sync everything on my Linux server.

Soon in a couple more years i feel we would no more require to buy HDD except for a little storage for the OS to boot :)

Moto G

After a long time Motorola comes back to India with its new mobile Moto G. After constantly pushing the launch date by over a month they announced that it would be launched on Feb 5th 2014. But it did not happen on that day, Flipkart still kept on saying "Coming Soon".

They have partnered with Flipkart to sell the mobile exclusively. It was later announced that booking for the new mobile will open on Feb 6th.

I woke up in the morning of Feb 6th and logged on to Flipkart to see a disappointing message "SOLD OUT". Wow. over 20,000 mobile sold out in 1 hr flat and that too the 16 GB version was sold out in 15 mins !!!.

Waiting for the next batch of stock to arrive. This time i will burn the might night oil to buy one the moment its back in stock.

By the way i am buying this mobile for my wife who is currently using an iPhone 4. iPhone 4 was an excellent mobile until we upgraded to its latest OS 7. Since then its become a piece of brick. I mean it still works but horribly slow. Hence we have decided to ditch the Apple company and move over to Android. Apple you lost my respect when it comes to iPhone.

Good bye post paid connection

Finally after months of wanting to change all my post paid connections to prepaid i did change them last week. The problem with the post paid was that i was getting unrealistic bills. Every month the bills ran from 600 to 1500. Having 3 post paid connections as home (Me, Wife and Mom) the total bill came up to almost 3000 per month.

Having pre-paid connection gives a better control on my usage and hence changed all of them. Now i expect not spending any more than 1000 for 3 connections per month. Me and Wife require internet connection, so that's 103/- per 300 MB per month and 31 Rs recharge for Free SMS packs. Since mom does not use either SMS or Internet its non for her :)

Feeling Happy and Tension Free :)

Dhoom 3

Watched Dhoom 3 yesterday. It was indeed a nice a way to end my year. Had book my tickets in Inox Garuda Mall. Though the movie was supposed to start at 7:15 it started at 7:45 due to a technical issue.

I had heard all kind of mixed review about the movie and hence my expectation was less. I was prepared for the worst, but interestingly i just loved the movie. I am not sure what is that people did not like in this movie.

Aamir Khan acting was as usual top notch, Katrina's screen appearance is best described as a guest appearance since she hardly has any role in the movie, yet she looked gorgeous and sexy.

Abhishek Bachchan's acting was tolerable. The less said about Uday Chopra the better. Though the previous movies of the Dhoom franchise was more about how the hero steals things this movie had none of that. Probably this why many people disliked the movie. But then again why should a movie always have the similar plot. James Bond franchise changed the way they make movies and so did the Batman franchise, so why not Dhoom.

The stunts in the movie was good, In fact almost up to the level of Hollywood. Its the slow motion scenes that spoils the thrill. The bike stunts and direction was commendable. The songs were good enough and had the larger than life feel, something that you usually see in Karan Johar movies.

Over all it was a great movie, something i recommend all to watch.

Apple iTunes update

Apple has updated its iTunes to version 11. After the update it seemed like its a remix version of the old iTunes. Every thing was new and took some time to understand the new menu. But I liked the new interface, the old one looked like it was designed in 1980 and then they fired their designer.

Also now apple allows users in India to download or rent movies and music.

Life of Pi

Watched the movie Life of Pi in PVR on Saturday and enjoyed every bit of it. The special effects and picturization was superb. The movie starts of with a writer having a conversation with Pi Patel (Our own Irrfan Khan). Other familiar faces in the movie are Adil Hussian (English Vinglish) and Tabu who play the parent role of Pi Patel. Pi Patel and his family live in Pondicherry and own a Zoo. Over a period of time they are forced to sell the zoo animals and settle abroad and hence they start they journey on a ship.

Due to harsh weather and storm the ship collapses and the only immediate survivor would be Pi Patel, a Bengal Tiger, a Zebra, a Gorilla and a Hyena. The core strength of the movie lies on how Pi Patel survives the whole journey until he finds land again.

A must watch movie and surly a visual treat specially for kids. Only after booking the tickets and reaching PVR that we realized the movie is also running in the IMAX format.

Black Swan

Watched this movie last night. Do watch it if you get a chance, Let me warn you that its a slow moving story with little twists and turns.

The plot is based on a ballet called the "Swan Lake". Swan Lake tells the story of Odette (White Swan) and Odile (Evil Black Swan). Odette is a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The curse will be broken only when she marries. Natalie Portman plays the role of Nina Sayers who is selected for the lead role (Swan Queen) in the ballet.Nina is a perfect choice to play the role of Odette (White Swan), but the role also requires her to play the role of the Odile (Black Swan) since they are twins in the Swan Lake story.

The story revolves around Nina's struggle to get perfection in her role, her struggle in adopting to the the evil, seducing character of Odile (Black Swan) and other issues.Its was an interesting movie to watch and in many places its even described as the psychological thriller.

I would rate is 3/5.

Car checks at Office or Shopping complex entrance

Every time you enter in your car to your office premises or any shopping mall, the security guys will stop you for a security check (Car Security check i mean). I don't get the whole idea of this check. Its completely flawed.

The max the security person check is only in the "diki" and using a mirror he also checks under the car but whats the use. He does not checks whats kept in the back seat. If a terrorist really wants to do something bad then he can as well carry the "stuff" in a bag and keep it in the back seat or even in the front seat. No one is going to bother check it.

This beaing the case why even do this superficially checks and waste the time.

Airtel 3G USB data Modem

I have been using Tata Photon Plus for quite sometime now. I am a happy customer with the service provided except for few "No connectivity issues". Though the speed as not as what they had promised (3.2 Mbps) i still manage to get around 1.5 Mbps that serves my purpose of casual surfing the web and occasional downloads. Every since the 3G "STUFF" started making rounds about all the new technology and high speed connectivity i was very eager to switch over to 3G bandwagon as soon as it is launched.

Finally after all the waiting, 3G service was started in Bangalore by Tata, Reliance and then after a long delay by Airtel. I always wanted to try Airtel since i had a lot of expectations from this company that the service will be very good and also since i have mobile postpaid and land line connection from Airtel.

Airtel was the last to start its 3G service after various delays. Even though the demo of their new 3G service was ready in their showroom, every time you ask them when is the service starting the guy had no answer. Only thing the sales person would tell was "The service will start soon!!!!!!!", this used to really piss me off. The best company in telecom sector is taking so long to start the sevice when other have already started!!!!!!!!!!!

On one fine day in Jan, the news paper had in its front page that Airtel 3G service is starting from now. Well i was super exited agian. Soon i switched over my mobile connection to 3G. The joy was short lived, i was told that the speed that i would be getting on my mobile is just 128 kbps even though my handset has the capacity for 7.2 Mbps.

I again started running around the Airtel showooms to buy the 3G datacard hopping atleast this service will be good. Every time i went i was treated with one only message "The service is still not started, will take some more time....", That was it, i have decided not to go back to Airtel again and will be contining the Tata Photon Plus.

Airtel now Sucks!!!!!!!

Confessions of a Shopaholic

Confessions of a Shopaholic : 2009

Saw this movie yesterday. It was coming in Star Movies and I felt it was interesting, As we all know, watching a movie on TV channel sucks. All those hundreds of adds makes you go mad. So I went to my movies collection to see if I already have the movie. Walla :) I did have the movie with me. So I copied on to the pen drive and started watching it on my TV.

In the main lead are Isla Fisher, Hugh Dancy, Krysten Ritter.  The whole story revolves around Isla Fisher, she plays the role of the shopaholic girl who loves to shop, who feels the world is better when she shops. She miss uses her credit card and goes on a shopping spear which will end in a huge credit card bill. Krysten Ritte plays the role of her best friend and Hugh Dancy plays the role of her boss and her love interest in the movie.

She gets a job as a journalist and strating writting columlns in one of a famous, well known magazine. Interestingly the topic she chooses to write is actually opposite to what she is in her real life. She keeps her identity a secret and gives herself a name "The Girl in the green Scarf"...

Her writings in the magazine is soon a hit and she is a over night star. Problem starts when the credit card debt agency starts bugging her to pay back her dues. Finally the climax is all about how she sorts out her love life, her career and most importantly the theme of the movie: her shopping habit.

It was an entertaining movie. One for the evening :)

Day Two with PS 3

Finally got hold of the game "Need For Speed" for PS 3. Started playing the game for a while and in no time I was addicted to it. The thrill of playing this game compares to nothing else. Crossed a couple of level before it was time for Bed.

Once finished I had the big question again in front of me, Should I really buy a PS 3??? After analyzing all the pro's and con's I decided not to buy one. I do agree its a great gadget to have but I guess I am not such a gaming person after all. I like playing only a couple of games but investing a huge amount (~25K) for that was not worth it.

Will be returning back the PS 3 to its owner in a day or two. It was a wise decision to try it first than blindly buying it...