Tag Archives: People

The Word of 2009 – Unfriend

Here is facebook  or of  social networking sites’ in general,  contribution to English language. “Unfriend“.   “Unfriend” has been named the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary

Unfriend was defined as a verb that means to remove someone as a “friend” on a social networking site such as Facebook.

Some more interesting words

Here is a few more !

Hashtag = I bet you know this !

Intexticated = when people are distracted by texting while driving

Sexting = Sending of sexually explicit SMSes and pictures by cellphone.

and here is my favorite

Funemployed = People taking advantage of newly unemployed status to have fun or pursue other interests.

On E-Books and E-Readers

Amazon customers bought more e-books than printed books for the first time on Christmas Day.

Kindle, is now the most popular gift in Amazon’s history.

Kindle is now available in India

Don’t you see scope for a blog post in these three lines ?  Yes, and if you read books, I mean, a lot of them, this is enough for more than a blog post for you.

Will I ever consider buying an e-book reader, and start replacing my printed books with e-books ?

Yes, E-books are more convenient, cheap, and eco-friendly (less printed books = less number of trees cut )   – of course after you pay a good amount initially, for the e-reader , but I will not get to smell my new book .. (I love that smell ! )  .. and many more little and beautiful things about printed books …

Can I share books with people ? I buy a book, finish reading, and then exchange it with a friend for another one … ( free ! )  – is this possible with an E-reader and E-books ?

I have always wondered if the reading experience will be the same. But these new stats from Amazon is giving me better feeling about ebooks. People do like E-Books and E-Book Readers .. especially Kindle.

But, I should admit, I love the idea of ebooks, and would love to have a Kindle for myself ! but things are not looking so pretty in India,

Kindle in India

Even though the advertised price is $279, it may come up to $ 405 in India  including shipment charges, and taxes.  Browsing the Amazon online catalog and purchasing the book also may be costlier in India.

Do you have good things or bad things to share about ebooks ? Will you buy one for yourself ?

New Sources :  guardian.co.uk & intoday.in

Are you a farmer on facebook ?

farmville-game-facebookWe usually start our weekends at the Forum Mall, here in Bangalore. This weekend, while we were in the Mall, She said,

“let’s go to the apple store”.

I was surprised, because apple store is one of the two restricted areas for me inside The Forum;  reason ? : gadgets are dangerous for me. ( the other restricted place  is Landmark, coz, I am addicted to books too ).

I asked her “what for ?” and she said …. ” I want to check my facebook” … and I was ..

” WHAT ?”

This happened 10 minutes after we left our home , where we have broadband Internet, and  where we are supposed to be back again in another two hours of three. Why can’t she wait for few more hours before she can check facebook again ? The answer is, A facebook app, or a game called “Farm Ville”

I decided to see  what this is all about, and I have to admit, I got myself addicted to this game now. So, if you have a facebook account, and going to check this out, take this as a warning. You may get addicted.

This is a simple flash based game, that you can install as an app on your facebook account. You get a small area or, farm which you can develop with plants, trees, sheep and goats etc. Slowly, you develop your farm and earn points, add your friends as neighbors, etc etc ..  There is a stupid option where you can purchase points, ( yea, pay using your credit card .. no !! I am not kidding )  with which you can buy virtual trees and seeds … interesting uh ?

I usually ignore all app requests on facebook and I was ignoring this one also, so far. But, when I started using this, I found out that almost all of my friends are already in there, living in their virtual farm houses. With straberries, Apple trees, and orange trees.  I got a chat message from a friend asking me to send him an orange tree as a gift ( yes, you can send people trees and more as gifts ).

What makes it sooo addictive ? I don’t have an answer. But, there is something that you will notice. Each plant or tree gets ready for harvesting in certain amount of time. So, if you have a plant that you are supposed to harvest in 2 hours, you should login to facebook and connect to this app on that time, and if you are late, your fruit will be gone as in the real world. ( now you know why she wanted to go to apple store and login to facebook from there !! )  So you are connected to this app all the time, you check back at certain intervals to make sure that everything is fine ….

If you get started after reading this post .. let me know !!

Future of Google Wave : Themes and then Wave Desktop Clients

Google Wave will be released later this year. The world is waiting ( just like you and me !! ) … but, lets take a moment to think about how Google Wave will be evolving.

Google Wave Themes

First simple thing that I am thinking about it Google Wave themes. Not everyone likes the googly blue everywhere they go. So, when Google Wave is out, people will be looking for options to change looks and feel of Google Wave. Their prayers will be answered when themes are released.

Looking at the speed at which google wave plugins are being developed, I have no doubt about google wave themes being released very soon. Don’t worry about looking for them around the wide wide web .. I will search and find them for you .. just stay tuned .. ( rss rss … ding dong !! )

Google Wave Desktop Clients

If you are wondering what a Google Wave desktop client is, I have an idea to make it really really easy to understand. If you are using twitter, you are probably not using twitter.com to tweet and retweet right ? You might be using tweetdeck or twitterfox of something similar.

So think about using google wave from a software similar to tweetdesk, instead of using the web interface ? Like tweetdesk made it easier and interesting to manage your twitter account, we may find an app to make google wave more fun and useful on desktop .. may be an adobe air application ? anyone thinking about that ?  ( hmm did anyone ask for my twitter account ?  here you go .. )

I will be wrong if I say, people have started thinking about Google Wave Desktop clients. They have actually started making them. Here is a video that I found on this blog.

My Wave Web Chat Client Demo from Benjamin Nortier on Vimeo.

These things are still in the development more reformed and usable forms are yet to be developed or released. Let’s wait and watch !!

Sign Up for Free Wave Experience

If you are looking for a way to test google wave before google releases their version, here is a test server where you can sign up for a free account. Its not quite ready yet, but you can get the feeling of what it is like to be inside google wave. Click here

ps: image credit monterd

Tweetbacks : Steal your comments from Twitter !

Tweetbacks

Tweetbacks

Ready for some action ? Okay, we are going to steal some comments for your blog posts from twitter. Don’t worry, they took our comments first, now we are stealing them back, so you will not be punished ( if you get caught, I don’t know you, ok ? )

Check out some blogs, with loads of twitter love. They get hundreds of RTs about theirs posts, and we envy their Tweetme counts. But most of these blog posts with 100+ tweets about them, do not get many comments. People tweet about them but ignore the comment form. But, they still love your those blog posts.

Continue reading →

Twitter : Will you follow me just because I followed you ?

Twitter Wallpaper

Twitter Wallpaper

This is not a “happy” post.  I am just explaining how I feel about a certain nature of some ( read many ) twitizens, they follow you just because you followed them, or they follow you, to make you follow them.

Should I follow you just because you followed me ? Is it the only way to say thanks to my new follower ? Of course not, an RT, or a Direct message will do. But still, people do follow back. Are you expecting someone to follow you back, just because you followed them ?

Okay, let me make this clear. I will follow people only if their tweets are useful or good or nice etc. ie, if I am interested in what they tweet about.  If you are following me, thank you, thank you very much, but don’t follow me just because I followed you, but only if my tweets are useful to you !

ain’t that fine people ?

photo by JoshSemans

Kal Kissne Dekha ! Ha Ha Ha !! is that a movie dude ??

Will you call a video portfolio of an “actor wanna be” a movie ? the answer is a BIG NO. So, Kal Kissne Dekha is not a movie at all. Then what is it all about ?

It’s a video resume of  Jackky Bhagnani that all producers and directors of bollywood ( and Hollywood, if you please sir ) must watch, and consider for upcoming projects.

He Looks good ( his face reminds me of Uday Chopra )
He can Dance quite well
Does action scenes well
Does fight scenes well

Okay, that’ll be a long list, lets just say that he is capable of doing anything that a bollywood movie would ever want from a hero. He is a complete package, the “ready to cook” type. Now, will you please consider casting him for your next movie ?

That’s all  people. This is not made for us, but for producers and directors like a product demo, you know …

It’s recession time dude, good luck anyway, hope someone comes to you with a good script … As an actor, you are ok, but this movie spoiled that too !!

“Taking Chance” a Movie and beyond

Kevin Bacon, playing Lt. Col. Mike Strobl, touches a casket during the film "Taking Chance," I have no idea which category this movie belongs to. It’s based on a real life incident, and it’s about war, but you won’t see any fighting in it, it’s patriotism, but not the usual type you get to see in that category …. anyways, it was good to watch, and left me touched.

If you ever felt bored with the usual bollywood patriotism, with love and masala mix, this is will be a treat for you. Love watching war related movies, with loads of action and techno combat scenes ? Try to look beyond that, and try to know what happens beyond that.

But don’t watch the movie just because it’s different, but because it’s worth watching, and because films, are still a form of art, a way to express and share something with the society.

This movie is about a  US Marine officer who volunteers to escort remains of a fallen Marine. It’s not simple as it sounds, because there is an ocean of emotions out there. I don’t know if there is such an expression or idea, but I think  it something like a “collective emotion” where you feel emotionally bonded with the people around you, and you share one common emotion. The success of the movie is in expressing that collective emotion, and also making you also a part of it.

Okay, there is expression, emotions etc etc .. but a movie is not just that, there are technical aspects, the way director and his team uses the medium and much more. As far as the visual appeal goes, the movie reached only average, it could have been more intense, carrying the emotions around the movie. Otherwise, it gets a good rating, overall.

I don’t why directory decided to stick on to narrations by characters, instead of bringing a flashback and telling the story by showing what happened there … may be they were trying to make it as realistic as possible ? I won’t say it was bad, but it was different, and you will notice it at some point, because your brain’s movie database is expecting a flash back there since you are so used to it.

Rating : 8.5/10
Type:  Try Hard, not to Cry ….