Reservation and Strikes

Yes you want to protest, you want to make yourself heard, there are million other ways to do it. A bandh is certainly not the way to go. If everyone who thought that he is being exploited came on the roads and summoned a bandh, there would be bandhs 24 x 7, 12 months a year.

I know doctors study real hard and have a lot of brains but apart from making themselves heard and getting the media attention what are the things that we stand to loose?

1. Disruption of normal life. It might just be another day for striking medicos but for some it might be a matter of life and death. Someone could be on the way to his interview and he can not reach there. Why? Because some doctors are protesting.

2. Loss of Public Money. There are some people who would pay taxes. The money that comes from taxes is used for making doctors, paying policemen, erecting infrastructure. When a certain group of people decides to strike, they are wasting important resources.

3. Students themselves. I know they are the best brains in the country and can do no wrong but what about the time that they have wasted on all this hoopla? I think it would be the 13th day tomorrow. We are talking about 13 days of missing classes, 13 days of utter disrespect, 13 days of neglect towards the patients and 13 days of shame.

Ofcourse there are more things to say but maybe later...

P.S.: Before some doctor decides to burn my effigy and gimme some kinda erratic medicine, here is the disclaimer in bold. I am against resevation based on social grounds.

From Tables to CSS

A complete redesign of the Blog and the Website is keeping me busy now a days. I hope to complete eveything before I start working.

I am trying to eliminate (or minimize) the use of tables in my pages and port everything to CSS. And in process, I might come up with a new design.

Need loads of luck :D (As if people actually read the blog :D)

Sensex down more than 800 points !

When people throughout India were talking about Da Vinci Code, Reservations and Elections, something significant happened. The sensex tumbled by more than 800 points in a single day. Going by the records, this is the single largest intra day fall ever recorded in history (in terms of absolute numbers though)

I am not a finance person, I would not have detailed account and analysis on the situation but since I proclaim all the time that I have huge amount of common sense, I can talk about something that appealed to me. To start with it was a very good time to invest. Since most of the stocks were down by 4-5% than their regular values, an excellent oppurtunity exists. Further since markets are going down by this huge amount, they are bound to bouce back (Newton's law). And finally with all the other investment oppurtunities being unattractive, equity markets is the in thing.

So why did the sensex tumble like it has never done before? It was attributed intially to global dip in stock prices. Then somehow there was a report that FIIs would be charged 40% interest and then to top everything else, the metals were doing badly. As they say a cascading effect setup in the market and the results are for everyone to see.

I would again say that I am not a finance guy but I think the entire stock market depending on just FII is bad for health. Is there a mechanism by which we limit the participation of FII in the bourses?

Open Letter to the People of the World

I do not have a Million Dollar Homepage where I could sell pixels, I don't have One Red Paper Clip which I could trade, I don't have a soul that I could auction on the web, I don't have any pets called Toby that I could threaten to kill, I don't know how to run an adsense fraud and make millions sitting at home ... but I do know one thing. I want an iPod !

This is an open appeal to the people of the world (going by the stats, world consists of two visitors I have on this blog) - Please donate me an ipod. All I am asking for is just one ipod 1 GB shuffle - nothing more and nothing less. And if you can not donate, get me one if you are coming from US. I checked on amazon, one iPod Shuffle 1GB is only $99 in US. I could have bought it here but It is not available here. They say its out of stock. And according to ebay, if it was available, it would be atleast Rs. 7000.

If there is humanity, if there is god in the world and angels in the heaven and satan in hell, if there are enough millionaires left around, if there are flights connecting India and US, please please get me an ipod. I have a friend who is supposed to give me a gift upto the value of Rs. 3333. And thats my budget :D

And now ... Google NoteBook

Welcome to yet another service from Google. Google Notebook. Google Notebook is a nifty little tool that can be used to keep notes !

I don't know about other people but I have a habit of saving my thoughts all the time. I have an assorted collection of text files, doc files, html files, chits, post-its and what not with all my notes and random thoughts on em. I was wondering how to organize them. Yesterday only I saved a few as drafts on this very blog. Google Notebook might be the answer ...

The installation is easy. You download a 140 odd Kb file from their server, install it and you are done. It also informs that you can uninstall it from Add/Remove Programs any time you want and on top of everything else, it's very small and fast.

One of the best things about Google Notebook is universal accessibility. You could save your notes and view them anywhere in the world. All you need is Microsoft Internet Explorer and a Google Account. Once a notebook is created, it’s kept as private and no one has an access to the. Of course these notebooks can be made public also. You can just send an url to a public notebook to other people and let them view your notebook. My public notebook is located here.

However, Notebook is still in the Beta stage and they are working on it. Few features are still under development. Search - the backbone, is not functional as yet. They say "Search will be available in a few days".

Yet another handy tool from Google and yet another reason I want to work with them someday :)

"The" Da Vinci Code

Ever since Dan Brown published this piece of fiction/non-fiction/truth/fact etc. the world has split into two parts. First we have the people who think Dan Brown rocks for having written such a great book. And the second group is of the opinion that Dan Brown should rot in hell for even thinking about the Christ and Christians like that.

And just to get it on record, I am not against Christ, Christians or Christianity.

After the standard disclaimer about my religious intentions, I think that all the gung-ho about the book and now the movie is uncalled for. I mean the guy wrote what he thought could mint him fast cash. He did a good work at it and in my humble opinion he should be left alone.

I think there are far greater and graver problems in the world than thinking about the negative impact of the book/movie on the "people of the god". Why can't the protestors spend some time in helping people who can do away with some help rather than burning all those candles in the Vatican?

Further did these protestors ever think about the results of these protests? At least people like me would be even more curious to go and watch the movie, think about it, talk about it to everyone I know. They are giving huge huge publicity to the movie even before it hits the cinemas here in India.

And finally my last two cents is about the protest itself. I know a person living next door to me who would openly criticize Hindu god. Do we expect Iskon guys, Hindu priests, politicians, religious preachers to assemble in his yard and light candles and tie black bands across the arms, legs, faces and everywhere? Can we really do something about everyone who has a different opinion from masses? Why cant we leave the author, producer, director, everyone alone and let people decide for themselves if its worth watching or not? I think its time to grow up!!!!

Lost - at Yahoo Poker

One of the good things about Yahoo is the Yahoo Games service. You can login there and play a large number of games online with real people for free. Ever since I learnt Poker, I have been playing it online at Yahoo.

The results have been dissappointing. I have played about 50 rounds there and have won just one. May be I am a bad player, may be its difficult, my be I dont understand the game and the dynamics, may be I have an IQ of 33, may be I should go back to good old Teen Pattee...

Anyways the problem with playing online remains the fact that you can not see other people and guess what they are trying to do. A lot of people would have bluff written all over their faces when they would lie (something like the Top Secret files marked as CONFIDENTIAL in bold and capitals). This should be a good practise in knowing when to fold, when to bet and stuff. I would also know about the odds and ends of the game and hope to learn the game some day ... !

Me @ Yanker Pass (12500 feet) ...

Me, Myself and the Mountains
2006 May: Yanker Pass, Himachal Pradesh

This place is 12,500 feet above the sea level. Clicked by Mohit Jain.

The day for Junk Food

During my trek, we were given "simple, nutritious and vegetarion meal" only. It lasted around 9 days and we fled the trek after that. Coming back to Delhi, I was longing for some treatment to my tummy.

So I went and had the following within a span of 15 minutes ...
1. Half Plate Chowmein
2. Double Egg Roll
3. 20 odd GolGappe aka Pani Puri aka Puchka
4. 200 ml. fresly squezeed Orange Juice
5. Pakodes

And right now I feel good about life and food. :)

Poker .. :)

Ever since I heard that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are poker players, I wanted to learn this game. I downloaded a few eBooks, went to a few online tutorials but it didn't help.

Finally on my trek to Yanker Pass, I finally learnt the Art of Poker. Yes the "Art of Poker". According to a friend, the best thing about the game is the mathematical completeness. Further the returns can not exceed the amount you are ready to risk makes the game perfect.

I have heard a few stories about poker being the game for the salesmen, here I am, entering the game ... :D

Canon PowerShot A75 - Not Working Anymore !!!!

I happily owned a Canon PowerShot A75. I further owned SanDisk 1 GB CompactFlash Card. Like everyone guy who owns a Digicam, I always dreamt of clicking random pics of people, things and life. Life was cool, I was clicking things when I wanted to until ...

... until I filled up the memory card and I realized that I can not transfer images because my licensed Windows XP Home Edition would not recognize the camera as a device. I was in Catch 22 situation. I could not delete the images and I could not copy them anywhere.

Why did this happen to me? I am just an ordinary guy .. I ain't no macho man, I ain't no hi-fi. Ok I ripped this off Bombay Vikings song but this is the truth. I never meant to harm anyone. I am a simple guy with a white, clean heart with a sense of responsibility. I expect sun to rise in the esat every morning, like everyone else. I expect things to be right, like everyone. After all is said and done, I am left with myself and things not turning out the way they should.

Stu Nicholls| CSS PlaY

While trying to redesign my website, I stumbled upon and needless to mention, I was impressed.

Hats Off !!!!

F.r.i.e.n.d.s.

Nah, not the classic telvision reel F.r.i.e.n.d.s but my real life friends. For the past two days, I have caught up with a lot of friends my schools and colleges.

And now I know what they mean when they talk about the past and reliving history. Do I yearn to go back in those days ...

Sachin Tendulkar - Happy Birthday

Sachin Tendulkar just celebrated his 33rd birthday.

Many congratulations on this special day. :)

The Google AdSense website is temporarily unavailable

I thought I would check my account on adsense and here is what I found ...

The Google AdSense website is temporarily unavailable. Please try back later. We apologize for any inconvenience.

...
...
...




...

The same text was written in 20 odd languages ... !!!

On further investigation, I found this page located online here.

EDITED LATER:
This post was wrecking havoc with the formatting of the blog. The text has been removed and can be found at the link.

Why do people watch movies?

Almost everyone I meet is very keen on watching movies. They don't need a reason for the movie. Exams got over? Someone has a birthday? Want to just chill out? Nothing else to do? Let's go watch a movie.

For someone like me, watching movie is a very difficult task. Apart from everything pleasant, few things make it absolutely terrible task. To start with I can not sit at one place for more than an hour. A movie would typically end in about a couple of hours. Another reason - the moollah factor. For me a movie is never worth 100 bucks even if it is about computer gaming, hackers, Pamela Anderson striping, money or anyone else. You could get atleast a couple of good books for the same price.

So if you are planning to meet and have good time, going to a place like Barista and Café Coffee day is a VERY good choice. You get to sit on good, comfortable chairs, bean bags, have some great coffee and sit in conditioned air. Why go to a movie where you can't even talk? If you want to go to a movie, you can go all alone as once in the hall, you are all by yourself.

So you want to celebrate? But why with a movie? Someone got something desired. The celebration could be spending time by cutting a cake. You could celebrate by doing some group activity, something that brings everyone closer.

And the biggest reason of all is the quality. There simply aren't any good movies left. A producer thinks about getting maximum people out to the theatres, people go to movies just because they have to (even if they suck big time) and people “act” because they ain't got anything better to do. It’s like someone has programmed it in the minds. George Orwell was correct about the world he thought would come in future. You do things you never knew you were doing. It's like someone has programmed you to do it.

In the end, movies are a waste of time, effort, money and resources. Hope people enjoy their show :)

Mines Sweeped ... in 5 Seconds .. :)

One of my favorite games is MineSweeper. About five minutes ago, I sweeped the mine area in the beginner mode in 5 seconds. Its a new record for me, the previous one being 7 seconds :)

Too bad, I could not take a screenshot...

Good Morning

Wake Up
Drink some water
Start the Comp
Login to Yahoo Msgr
Start Winamp
Login to GMail (sep@gmail)
Logout of GMail
Login to GMail (sg@gmail)
Login to gmatclub.com/phpbb
Login to BuildtoLearn.com
Login to Sitemeter.com (check stats on my sites)
Login to Go.com
Login to orkut (check messages)
Login to Live.com (check news)
Use the facilities (obvisouly)
Watch another episode of Simpsons
Read another chapter of any eboook (this time it was Fight Club)
Make some changes to my Homepage
Write something (this time it was this entry)

If you did'nt notice, I never log out of a website once I have logged in :)

Do you GooglePage?

GooglePage is yet another free service from Google. This is a clone of webhosting, you can create, save, share your stuff with the world.

GooglePage gives you 100 MBs to store pics, audio files, video files, HTML documents and what not. The entire thing is ad free and runs as fast as a rocket in orbit around good old Earth. The best part is no limitation on file types. I tried uploading an exe and it went in a jiffy. I am not sure about the size and hosting bandwith but would test in some time and post here.

Saurabh Garg @ GooglePage :)

I just wish that someday someone at Google would spot a bright young talent and ask the talent to join google make web a better place to hang out :)

Pepsi TV - The most dissappointing ad ever

Pepsi TV - The most disappointing ad ever

Pepsi came up with the concept called Pepsi TV. Interesting concept I must say. People speculated that Pepsi are coming with an entertainment channel. Speculations were about “K”Ekta Kapoor tying up with Pepsi to start shows for Pepsi TV. Stars like SRK, Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra were signed up to work on Pepsi TV promos. I was personally looking forward to Pepsi TV.

What did they come up with? "If you drink Pepsi with TV, it becomes Pepsi TV". Wow.

They say, the power is in simplicity. They tried to get the maximum power and make it over-simple. What happened to those who thought Indian advertising is growing leaps and bounds with new, better ideas springing up from everywhere? What about some creativity?

I don't know who (didn't) had the brains behind Pepsi TV, but I am sure they were either trying to create the worst concept of the year or did not get their paycheck from Pepsi. After concepts as good as Bholu PocketMaar for SBI, Pepsi is a real dampener.

Sand in the Hand :)

I think my english is deteriorating day by day. For example the title of this post ... "Sand in the Hand". I know the reason. My thought process is in Hindi and my vocabulary is very limited. When I get down to translating my thoughts in English, something really funny comes out. I think I need a course in English Hons ;)

And why Sand in the Hand? Some time back, there was a movie titled Dil Chahta Hai. It was an amazing movie about lives of three friends. In the move, there is a side character (lets call her Amy) who was deeply in love with one of the main characters (lets call him Jack). But as usual for Jack, Amy doesnt even exit. Amy tries everything in the world to woo Jack and impress him. But Jack, being the hero hardly gives a sweat about her.

Anyways this is not about Jack or Amy but this about all those people who care about someone and the other person ignores them like anything. I certainly am one of those. And I know there are people for whom I am the world and for me they are like any of the 1 billion people in the world.

But Why?
Becuase, for Amy, Jack is like a handful of sand. She can see Jack within her reach all the time. She can extend her hand and get hold of Jack anytime she wants. But for a moment. And since Jack is like sand, the moment Amy opens her hand, Jack will slip away. Drift apart. Amy can see a lot of Jack but she cannot contain him. She cannot have him for life.

So what can Amy do? I serisouly have no clue. I dont really know. I think I would ever know...

Running low on social fuel ...

Hi Blog (trying to imitate the way people use Hi Diary)

Today I realized that I am running low on fuel. Not the $70 a barrel one, but social fuel. Ever since I have left MDI, I have had minimal contact with the outside world. I have forgotten what did it felt like having a coffee with a friend.

I have been largely constrained in my home, reading books ranging from Three Musketeers to India Unbound to Byomkesh Bakshi to Grisham. When I am not reading my books, I am working on my website. My website is working on the good old funda where work expandes to fill time.

Talking of the social fuel, I have been sitting in front of my computer trying to use all the social networking websites (read Orkut) to find out long lost friends and trying to fix meetings (without any success). I have been talking to few people who are gracious enough not to reprimand me, boring them to death. I am sure I am standing with all of my 85+ KGs on their nerves and I will be booted out of Yahoo anyday.

To increase my levels of social fuel, I registered on a few forums ProjectW, GMAT club, PagalGuy etc. to meet new people and recharge my batteries. I could not think of any other method to do it ...

I am in serious need of some contact with the real world of people made with bones and skins...

Close Eyes, Click, Open Eyes, Guess

There is no end to what people can do. There are so many people with gifts of thought and expression. Everyone remembers the Red Paper Clip guy and the Million $$$$ Home Page. This one is up there along with those two.

So the concept is, you load the page, close your eyes, move the mouse around, open your eyes, and guess which one of the million little mouse images is yours. I tried a few times and I was unable to locate my pointer even once. May be you will get lucky?

Close Eyes, Click, Open Eyes, Guess

And for all those lazy ones, who do not want to visit the page, here is a sample ...

Ofcourse it wont work if your pointer is customized and you are using something other than the default mouse pointer (which I did when I was unable to guess my pointer after a few shots).

An Experiment - for the Wisdom of the Crowds

I sent out this email to about 200 people...

Hi,

You are recieving this email because you have added me as a friend.

I am conducting an experiment. I request a simple favour from all you guys.

If you were told to guess the number of characters in my password (am giving a hint that my password for all webservices is same), what would it be? Please send in your answers to septemberthe22nd@gmail.com because it would be difficult to compile data in here. It would also be helpful if you could give a reasoning for the same.

For example a sample reply could be 8 and why 8? becuase all the websites ask for atleast 8 characters in the password)

Thanks a lot.

Regards,
Saurabh Garg

Once I recieve the replies, I would give out more details on the nature of the experiment, result and the further details about it.

Silk Route - Boondein

Artist: Silk Route
Track: Boondein

Koi Ho, Yaadon Mein,
Palko Pe Boondein Liye,
Aaeina Bani, Yeh Aankhen Teri

Dheemi Se, Khusbu Hai,
Haawao Ke Jhokon Ne Jo,
Chuke Tujhe, Churaaayeee

Saanson Ki, Raahon Mein,
Kya Mile Sakenge Kabhi,
Dhoonde Tujhe, Nigahe Meri,

Saathi They, Janmo Se,
Rahon Mein Kyu Kho Gaye,
Manzil Humne, Bulane Lagi,

Nagma Ho, Bhiga Sa,
Ya Tum Ho Koi Gazal,
Har Pal Jise, Gungunata Rahu,

Hoton Se, Hole Se,
Sargam Jo Bahne Lagi,
Aane Lagi, Chahe Meri

Yet another meaningful song with absolutely great lyrics and music. Performed by Silk Route with soothing voice of Mohit Chauhan.

Google Pack, A Message from GMail and some Attitude

I really love people behind GMail. Here is a screenshot of a message from them. Amazingly cool attitude !

And I just got the link for Google Pack!. It has everything from a web browser to an antivirus to an image management tool to an instant messenger client to a popup blocker to anything else. Basically you install Google Pack on a newly formatted PC and you can do all the work in the world ! Infact the line on their homepage says "Free! Download the essentials to make your PC just work: Google Pack"

I am waiting for an application like Open Office to be included in the pack. My other favorite company is going to have a very tough time in the future. I guess all they need is an operating system and an office suite to lock horns with the Big M. Lets Us C !!!!

Dear Spam Sender ...

Got this in email. Found it funny and here it is.

Bug with GMail

I am very proud to announce that I have found a bug with Gmail. Yes ... a bug.

When two different people send an email to only you and the subject line is exactly the same, GMail treats it as same conversation and clubs them together.
This document on GMail Help says that "Gmail groups all replies with their original message, creating a conversation."

I think a conversatin is only identifiable with the recepiants and the subject line. The subject line can have standard modifications (such as Re:, FW: etc.) which are ignored by GMail when creating conversations. So if two entirely different people send in their mails to same group of recepiants with the same subject line, GMail would treat it as same conversation and club the two. The email contents could be different. In effect the entire point behind having a conversation is lost. We are not clubbing related information but clubbing unrelated information !

Time for some fixes... !

Jonathan Ive - My Hero !

After quite some time now I have had an oppurtunity to call someone My Hero! Jonathan Ive is the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple. Yes the company that can boast of names such as Steve Wozniak, Guy Kawasaki and Steve Jobs. I am sure there are more names to the list but I have heard of only these three people.

So what's so great about this Ive guy? To start with he is credited with the mind behind the designs like G4, G5, iPod, iMac. I mean wow. I always thought that these were cool looking boys toys and the company has put in a lot of money and mind and time to design these. I never thought that all the designs could have come from the team led by one person, one mind, Jonathan Ive.

So what do I know about Jonathan now? He is Sr.VP at Apple. He is said to be one of the key people in the entire history of Apple. His design on iMac in 1998 saved the company from ruts.

Most importanly, I firmly believe that design is as powerful medium of expression as is speech/words. Simplicity makes a lot of sense ...

what are words that mean love that start with the letter "O"?

I think when I type. I have'nt typed for quite some time now and I have'nt thought for quite some time now. There is no reason for not thinking/typing but here I am.

So I was idling on the internet and I was looking at the search engine queries that people use to find my blog and I came across this wonderful query. Someone actually typed a query "what are words that mean love that start with the letter "O"? including the quotes and the trailing question mark.

Coming to psychoanalysis, the guy/gal must have been a techie. I have reasons to believe this. One he used quotes et al and Second s/he used Dogpile.com. Considering the fact that only 0.8% of people use Dogpile to search the web, I can safely quote him/her as techie.

This link refers to the original query and results. My blog is listed at number 13.

Hats Off !!!!

The Most Beautiful Woman on Earth

My blog got even more beautiful ... :)

Simone Singh - the most beautiful woman on the planet.

Test

Test

--
Saurabh @ Septemberthe22nd@GMail.Com

F R U S T A T E D

I just realized that if you have your Yahoo Messenger status as "Frustated", all the friends who have'nt sent you a message in a decade would respond and talk to you.

I was online for an hour with no status message and no one was talking to me. I change it to frustated and suddenly I am flashed with 12 people. And as I am talking to these 12 people (yes its a feat), I am writing this ... :)

How to advertise women's magazine?

Case
Think (lol !!!) that you are a marketing executive for a women’s only magazine. Like every other magazine your company has advertised everywhere but no results.

The Problem
Try to find out new ways to reach your target segment in this internet age when ladies are more content on watching saas-bahu conspiracies and internet savvy.

The Answer
Place a rack full of your magazines in the waiting rooms at gynecologist (female specialists) and pediatrician (child specialist).

Why this post?
I went to a relative's clinic. She happens to be a gynecologist. She was busy with a lady and I was asked to wait and guess what do I see? A branded company rack full of a women's only magazine with all the issues lined up neatly. I went WOW then and there.

On asking more questions, I was told that they have placed that rack there for free (including 12 issues of the magazine). What more, to drive the sales, they placed a registration form and a drop box for completed forms. I was further told that the company reprentative would come once every two days to put the magazines in order and collect the forms. Everything that a marketing professor would teach. You reach the cusomter. You create a want. You provide a method to fulfill the want.

I also saw one of the numerous Prof. Sanjay Bakshi's mental models at work. The drop box for the filled up forms was transparent and a fairly large cube (2 feet per size) and it had some 15 forms in there. I asked the helper if ladies actually filled in those forms. I was told that yes ladies fill up the forms but all the forms in the box were not genuine. I was told that the company people filled some 20 forms at random and dropped in the box. Social Proofing at work. Other ladies would see these great magazines. They would further see that some women have went ahead and applied for subscription. Here is a product that they like and here is a list of people who also like the product. They are not incorrect in loving the magazine and they would also fill in the forms. Pretty Neat. Another mental model in application.

Links in this post
http://www.sanjbak.com
http://www.uncommon-knowledge.co.uk/social/social-proof.html

Million Dollar Home Page vs Crorepati Page

The concept is simple. You register a fancy domain name. Make a 1000 x 1000 grid. Put individual pixels for sale and you get a million. Cool and Easy.

A student [Alex Tew] in UK created the original Million Dollar Home Page and got famous. I have to salute him for the amazing amount of creativity and thought process behind the concept.

As always, since it is an easy way to get rich and famous at the same time, people were bound to copy it and here it is... An indian homemaker has copied it and hosted her own indian thought-about creative concept at Crorepati Page. Well done my friend. I am very tempted to put my very own million rupee page on the internet. I think I would do it on saurabhgarg.com ...

I copied this from the Crorepati Page ...

And lastly, who am I?

My name is Sunaina Bansal, and I am married to my loving husband, Karan. I am a homemaker. In addition, I am highly educated and like to think creatively, and be aware of the many milestones that man (and woman!) has achieved today. And it is this awareness and the accompanying confidence that helped me create my concept. I sincerely hope that this influences the online Internet community in India and contributes to the growth of Internet marketing. And that it also influences more women to try the Internet, which also adds to the online community and enormously benefits the companies that advertise on my website. I hope I gain your support."

And here are my honest uncalled for opinion on that ...
1. You do not get creative if you steal the idea. You have not created the concept. You have just copied it from the web. EDITED LATER: She has given due credits to the original Million Dollar Page and I accept my mistake.
2. Growth of internet marketing? I have serious doubts.
3. Benefits companies that advertise on your website? Yet again ... doubts !!!!

I wish people would start thinking originally and stop passing other people's idea as theirs. And if you have to copy it, how about giving the original ones some credit? EDITED LATER: Yet again, I am at mistake. :(

EDITED LATER
Unlike a lot of other people, here someone actually took an initive to reply to the email. My sincert apologies to Sunaina. I was at mistake by being rude.

Here is the reply I sent her ...

Hi Sunaina,

I dont know if this would reach you or not ... (hope this does)

Few things first...

The about us page on your website do NOT say anywhere that it was Alex Tew. Well, now it does (just checked) but the day I posted, it wasn't there. I am not saying that you have added it after I wrote about it but I might have missed it the first time. Hope this clarifies things and reason for my posting it.

I do not call gmail a imitation of hotmail because they do not take credit for being the original email service. They just say that it's yet another email service of course with a change.

Talking about your website and internet marketing, I seriously have my doubts on it. You can have testimonials but I REALLY REALLY think that websites like Alex's and your's do not contribute towards it. Well this is just a personal opinion. I am not convinced.

I agree to the fact that yes internet marketing is growing leaps and bounds; it is the next big thing. If you realized, internet marketing is getting more and more personalized with companies like Google (with their adsense program) targeting people for selected keywords. Your website is opposite. It is in effect is a potpourri of advertisers who think yours is a good website/idea. A website like yours, it's like a classified page on a newspaper (well worse than that - newspapers at least categorize information, your website doesn't even do that. You allocate space based on the preference). So for a person lets say searching for ipod, your website is a bad idea. He can see a list of 1000 advertisers and their services but he hardly can spot an ipod ad. Whereas a website that has a simple page on music is better.

Talking from advertiser's point of view, they would not give you money to place on your page. They would not get their target audience from your website. Please ask them the number of hits they get from google adsense or link exchange and compare with hits from your website. You would be surprised.

Further, I agree that they are getting more than 250 hit per day but once you get more people to advertise on your website, the number of hits is bound to reduce. I might be wrong but these are my personal opinions. I would be glad if you could prove me wrong. I would love to see more stats once your website get that millionth pixel sold.

If you get offended by it, please accept my apologies. I was just trying to say that, like everyone else, all you did was copied an idea and posted in online for reaping quick buck because I don't see it as the answer to cyber marketing.

As far as spreading the mantra is concerned, I am trying to ! I am connected with friends etc just through my blog that hardly attracts about 5 visitors per day. I wanted them to read about your website and I posted it.

I sincerely apologize for being very rude. Trust me it's not in my nature to be rude or negative. I appeared negative but I think you could have guessed the reason. I am real pissed off with a lot of people trying to pass off as genuine inventions. Your case is an exception. You have given Alex credit and I think that is more than enough for me.

In the end, thanks a lot for at least taking time off to reply. I have written to lots of other Indian ideas that are passed off as original without eliciting even acknowledgement for the email. I would edit my post and please accept my apologies yet again.

Regards,
Saurabh

P.S.: Do I get a spot on your website for free ;)?

Star News reports on Dhoni !

Ok so continuing in the series of TV bashing; here is yet another one...

Rupurt Mudroch's Star News was the first to report that Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India’s wicket keeper has clipped his hair.

I mean move over Mr. Bush, leave the bird flu aside and no information about good old politics. Headline today on Star News is Dhoni and his clipped hair.

That was not all. Star news actually went ahead and interviewed the barber at Taj who clipped the hair, compared the earlier look when he had long hair with the new look. They infact got a hair specialist to comment on the hair style.

They did their bit of background research also. They went to Ranchi, Dhoni's hometown and talked to his friends. They found out that Dhoni had long hair since last three years and he always took great care of his hair. They also dug out a picture when he was just one year old. They talked to his mother about his hair.

I agree to the fact Dhoni is on of the best wicket keepers to have served India but I think Star News should realize that they are a news channel with some kind of responsibility attached. They should move beyond these tabloid kind of news lippings just to get a higher TRP rating. And if this was not for higher TRP, I think something is serisouly wrong with Star News.

I thought media industry is growing leaps and bounds in India. I guess I was wrong. If someone out there remotely related to Star is reading this, please do something about a news channel that can make headlines of a the personal life of a cricketer.

Windows Live vs Google Reader

Microsoft happens to be my favorite company. Google is a close second. Google a new company, revenues from advertising, Microsoft a behemoth, revenues from software, both trying to get the best of each other.

For a past few days, I have been grappling with that ultimate feedreader. I initially started with FeedReader until one fine day it somehow managed to delete all the feeds without even asking me. I lost all the news clippings etc that I had saved over few months.

Next in line was good old Windows Live. It works fine, is feature rich and easy to work with. Apart from just a normal feed reader, it is host of things bundled together. It would be a messenger, email console, antivirus and what not all in one interface.

And finally I just stumbled across Google Reader. Amazing piece of web based software. However as all the Google initiatives, this is also in Beta stage. One needs to sign in to google with the regular account to have fun with this ultimate feed reader. Google Reader looks a bit buggy as of now. When you add or delete a feed, you need to re-login to see the effects. In due course of time, it might get better with all the research and development happening at Google.

As of now, FeedReader is certainly out of picture. It is very hard to choose between Windows Live and Google Reader.

The "really idiot" Idiot Box

I have always felt that making a good comedy show is very difficult. You can make scary movies, suspense movies, thrillers; just about anything but making a comic show is real hard. This is also proved by n number of shows on TV and m number of movies and just about 1 divided by m multiplied by n actually manage to get a very faint smile.

Ever since I completed my education, I have been confined in my house. Although I am a proven claustrophobic, I can manage in my home without much difficulties. Respite being provided by a huge terrace and few friends who have managed to not work in a call centre. Almost everyone works in some call centre aka BPO aka KPO aka Value Added Service Provider. It is real hard on someone like me who

- hates television,
- reads the newspaper in one sitting in the morning and
- has an erratic internet connection that can’t work more than 10 minutes on stretch

to sit at home and spend time.

So because of all the above citied reasons, I am forced to watch television. The very first problem is the sheer number of channels on air. My good old BPL television has all of 32 channels and I have hard time selecting 32 out of about 100 channels that are beamed down to my home.

By the way these 100 channels include at least 40 regional channels with all the languages like Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Bangla etc thrown in. So much for unity in diversity. I can only understand one channel in a diverse selection.

After those regional channels, there are about 20 odd movie channels that would air movies like Jungle Ki Sherni, Bhoot ka Badla, Basanti ka Baag, Andheri Raat Main .. so on and so forth. Who the hell thought of those names.

Then we would have some news channels. These channels are actually like any other entertainment channel with models clad in business suits acting as newsreaders. The stories are pepped up to touch the audience. Each news channel would have at least one sting operation running in daily and one news item about how they made world a better place to live by exposing someone with the sting operation. Further they would have a four digit number where you could sms your opinion about a certain issue. No offenses meant to him, I am also a huge fan, but today it was Aamir Khan's birth day and every channel had a marquee running with all the messages from people. I sometimes wonder do people actually send in the messages or the channels cook em up?

Not to forget some 10 odd channels where you would have sages and great souls delivering sermons. Some of these people would use an electric guitar, some would sing hindi film songs, some would have a ten year old kid crying and singing praises. And no one ever told them that they would put the worst bathroom singer to shame with their singing skills. The best part about these "religious" channels is the creative names. Aastha, Sanskar etc.

After all this, we have some sports channel and they would have WWF (not the wildlife fund but wrestling) all day long with commentry in Hindi. The kind of language used in that hindi commentry would put any "awara" to shame. And finally there would be a few channels left that you can spend time on (only if they are not showing those numerous saas-bahu sops and shows starting with letter K).

Ok this started out as a post to highlight a few good comedy series on television. I got emotional and got off-topic but here are a few good comedy shows on TV...
1. Lo Kal Lo Baat on Sab TV
2. Sarabhai vs. Sarabhai on Star One
3. The ever classic Dekh Bhai Dekh
4. Office Office on Sab TV
5. Khichdi on Star Plus

Would add more as and when I find more intersting shows or I can recall ...

Secrets to Cyber*** success ... !!!

Well, here is something that would make a lot of people happy. Some people I know and a lot I don't.

Wired.com published an article titled "Secrets to Cybersex Success". Here is a true and comprehensive guide for all those who are "moved" by the very concept.

There was this friend who once told me that a common friend of ours asked her for the "favor". Ofcourse she refused to grant the favor. The friend who asked for the favor can read the above mentioned guide and make sure that he is never embarrassed again in public.

apparently this author has authored a book called "The Sexual Revolution 2.0". WOW !!!! the world has ACTUALLY changed in the two years I wasted with MBA.

As I was typing this, a message on my Yahoo messenger from "neogirlowyah" pops up and she says "Hi there I was looking around yahoo and i saw your ad.. anyway, you seem interesting.". All this when I had never posted any kind of ad on the internet.

When you have lot of time to read everything on the internet, these are the kinds of posts that come on to your blog.

LibraryThing.com

I very recently came across LibraryThing.com. It is one of the most convenient methods to catalog the books. Fast and Easy.

After getting a free account, all you need to do is enter the title of the book in the window. The website would search through the amazon databse and come up with matches. You select the book from the results of the search. And the book gets added in your database.

Another good feature is the cover image. The website would also fetch the image of the cover page of the book and publish in your catalog.

An indicative list of my books is located here.

Dangerous Curves Ahead !

Dangerous Curves ...
2006 Feb: St. Francis' Cathedral, Goa

Long Time No See

Its been long since I posted something on my BLOG. Last time I talked about placements at MDI Gurgaon and it seems like ages since I wrote something.

Just to break the jinx, here is a post, titled Long Time No See ...

There are reasons why I havent been posting stuff.
1. Very busy with placements and placement aftermaths.
2. Trip to Goa.
3. Lack of internet connection at home.

Placements and Mental Models

I can think of a few situations that really make placements – placements.

One, Social Proof – if the other guy is applying to 10 companies, I should also apply to atleast 10. If the other guy is getting x amount as salary, I would not settle for anything less than 2 times x.

Two Excessive Self Regard - if the other person does not get this job, may be he wasnt upto the mark, may be I am a better student, may be I shall apply.

Three Availability Bias - this company is offering a better profile, this company is a better recruiter, the package is good here, so on and so forth.

Four Envy/Jealousy - Even if I dont get this job, I shall spoil the chances of the other person getting it. Its either me or no one. I shall not let him get it, I hate him, he wasnt good to me !

The Placement Season

Here at MDI, placement season is in. For some people (including me) this is the reason why they joined a business school and why they slogged their behinds for two years. I can see tensed people running around with CVs, books, reading material etc. clenched as if they were the last cigarettes of a person in prison.

People with work experience have already been placed. I cannot divulge the exact number, as this information is classified ;). It feels great to be a part of something classified. I can now understand the excitement in the dull lives of spies.

For the past 5 hours, I have been sitting in the computer center and filling up forms and answering questions on my weaknesses, strengths, creativity, social responsibility, my hobbies, my criminal record and dunno what else. About 5 minutes ago I yelled if someone can tell me my biggest achievement till date. And someone told me a magic answer that would work for just anyone.

Some questions are appropriate - my educational background, projects etc. But most of the questions are totally, utterly obnoxious and could be avoided. A question wants me to talk about my creativity. I want to somehow explain to them that creativity is something that can not be put into words. I want to post some of the actual questions but as I have already told, it’s classified.

I don’t understand why these companies want us to fill 5-page, 6-page forms to evaluate our application? In the end experience tells us that the company with the longest form would use *JUST* our CGPA to shortlist and select people. They would not even read the CVs.

I sometimes think that this is some kind of race between the companies to have the biggest and longest and toughest form. Some companies for the very purpose of making a form complex would put in* INTERESTING* questions. They think that we (applicants) judge a company on the basis of length of the form they get filled from us.

Few questions do indeed come to my mind right now.

1. If you are a company, shouldn’t the selection be based on more than just your CGPA, or your resume or your form for that matter? You aren’t buying a computer according to the specifications but you are trying to select a guy to work with you and each guy HAS to be different. A form does not do any justice at all. What is the guarantee that the chap with the maximum CGPA would be the smartest? I can see that a lot of people with higher CGPA are not exactly the brightest.

2. I see everyone running after the biggest salary. Shouldn’t your first criteria be the kind of work you do rather than how much money you would make? Isn’t this similar to some of the things that you would openly cry out against (something like bar-girl-ing) where you are forced to work against your wishes to make some money?

3. Why do we (applicants) start reading books, articles, newspapers just before the placement season? I can see everyone trying to cram every last word written by the God or Marketing, Mr. Kotler. If they think that knowing what Kotler knows would help them get that dream job, they are in a big trouble. Can’t they think that there would be millions of others would read even better than them? And don’t they realize that Mr.God would not be there in their workplace to help them out? And what’s up with newspapers? Knowing the news for a week would definitely not help anyone. Interviewers are smart enough to realize that people read only a week before the interview. Didn’t we join a business school to *LEARN* rather than *PREPARE*?

Confused, tired and form-ed !

Just when I was packing up this text I realized I have to talk about the great enemies that would surely spring up in placement season. People would give anything to strip you out of your jobs, interviews and discussions even if they don’t want it themselves at all. Experience tells that placements make the best of friends into worst of enemies. Everyone is so incentivized to cheat, stab in the back that no antidote would ever work. Placement offers an interesting study into behavioral decision making.

More on this later ...

The SaurabhGarg weBLOG ! on Movable Type

The SaurabhGarg weBLOG ! goes on Movable Type.

I finally got hold of MT and uplaoded it on my webserver. Thanks to kAgE for uploading the MT setup.

I cant use FTP from my hostel. It sucks but with friends like kAgE, its never an issue. I now have something new to do !!! :D

Let There Be Light !

Floating candle at a restaurant
2006 January: Sugandha's and Satyajeet's Naukri Party, Gurgaon

The place is called Park Bulachi and they would light a floating candle on the dinner table.

I took about 4 pics and here are the rest of the three...

SaurabhGarg.com > OneHelluva Page

SaurabhGarg.com > OneHelluva Page is my new project. I talk about people who have been struck by lightening and zapped me ... !

Ponder This !

Got these in an email ...

Life is sexually transmitted.

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there? I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta its butt."

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!

If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap, why didn't he just buy dinner?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

Alt + Tab Replacement

When you press Alt + Tab on a computer running Windows Xp operating syste, you get a list of all the programs running on the computer.

If the number of programs running is large, using Alt + Tab could be cubersome and hard. I recently came across a tool called PowerToys for Windows Xp released by Microsoft that makes the lives pretty cool and esay.

With PowerToys Alt Tabreplacement tool, the Alt + Tab becomes something like this...


The text on the website says...

Alt-Tab Replacement
With this PowerToy, in addition to seeing the icon of the application window you are switching to, you will also see a preview of the page. This helps particularly when multiple sessions of an application are open.

PowerToys Alt + Tab Replacement Tool can be downloaded from this link. I have been using this for about a month now and I face no problems at all of any sort.

To Design or Not To Design

To design or not to design is the BIG question in front of me right now. I bought saurabhgarg.com about three months ago and I haven’t really made a website.

I have a couple of choices in front of me right now. I can design it from scratch; display all my creativity to the entire world and boast of the excellent design. On the other hand I can use some ready made template, customize it and save on a lot of time.

I would now proceed to do a decision tree analysis. Assuming that I design it myself, following things are bound to happen...

1. No CMS. I would have lots of static web pages. Updating each of them would be a huge task. But again even if I go for a template, I still don’t have the expertise to make even a simple CMS. The template thing would also have static pages.
2. Time. I right now have nothing to do at all. And with all the travel coming up in the later half of February, I would not get time to design and update it.
3. Effort. I hate to work! and I can’t even imagine putting that much thought into the work. Although working is fun for me, I still hate doing small things such as editing HTML etc. I enjoy working on Photoshop and other editing software but I believe that they lack the power to keep me busy.

If I decide upon a template, following things would happen

1. Plagiarism. Even though I would have a nice, good looking website, it would be work of someone else and I would certainly be using it without giving credits or royalty. I do not want to do this. I guess this reason alone is more than enough punishment to not to use a template.

So the decision has been reached, I would create my own design, go the hard way and hopefully try to complete the website soon.

AND BY THE WAY THIS IS MY 150th POST !!!!