Category Archives: Random

Indiatimes.com

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Indiatimes.com

Indiatimes.com, I don’t understand certain things about them. Let’s start from the top of that image, where it it says “Rs. 2500/ year”, is .in a new programming language or is .asp a new domain extension (TLD)?

Checkout the “Matrimonial” link (with the new image) on the left, well nothing wrong about it, its just a link to timesmatri.com, which is Times group’s matrimonial website. If you look tiny bit right off that link, you see shaadi.com and Bharatmatrmony.com’s Ads. Are you telling me that you make more money through Shaadi.com and Bharatmatrimony’s affiliates? Are you telling me that you yourself don’t believe in your product and then you want me to signup for Timesmatri.com?

{Distraction}I guess the time has come, when I should start a new category called Advertising.{/Distraction}

Indiatimes started a new feature a while ago, its more like a slideshow and they generally run it for subdomains people.indiatimes.com or women.indiatimes.com. If you have come across any of those, you might have had noticed its generally related to women, not just any women, but hot n Sexy women. BTW if you noticed, the “next” link in those slideshows are really very close to the Ads and I don’t think its unintentional.

Coming back to their main page, if you see the above image, you will see the main section called “Top Headlines”, you should also be able to see a link called “Countdown: the world’s top temptresses” in bold, it seems like it is very important headline. If you were to click it, you will land up here, which is one of those slideshows.

This link is a part of their subdomain “women” (which is closely related to Femina). I thought Femina talked about how women are independent these days. It is supposedlly a magazine for women, which gives them a strength to compete in this “big bad world of men.” The Indiatimes’ Women subdomain has a caption “Inspired, Independent.” Just checkout how are they presenting the women on their website.

Indiatimes Women

This is total crap, they are selling soft-porn in the name of the media. So does Hindustantimes.com, will write about it someother time.

Do you have multiple personalities?

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Ever thought that your behavior at 2 different places is entirely different? I am not talking about at some particular moment, but in general.

Confessions (Beta Testing – Puneet :p)
Happens to me always: While in school or with friends, I can be really naughty or prolly think of something really mischeveous to do. But if I am at home, there isn’t a decent non-naughty person like me.

Also, ever wondered, you never use the language at home, that you use while with your friends ;)

BTW if you haven’t seen my tag cloud, then have a look at it and let me know what colors shud I use for less used tags and for the most used tags.

Mumbai vs New Orleans

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Ok…Enough is Enough, *I dislike* these comment-spammers. I was deleting all those viagra and diamond comments/trackbacks and by accident deleted about 7-8 genuine comments :| . If your comment was one of them, then am sorry. I’ll look and install a plugin to shoo these guys, right away.

This is one of the mails that I have received from multiple people:

 HERE ARE SOME COMPARISONS:-
 

Parameter New Orleans Mumbai
Inches of rain 18 37.1
Population 4,84,674 1,26,22,500
Casualities after 48
hrs		 100 37
No.of people had to be
evacuated		 Almost entire city 10,000
Cases of looting and
arson		 Countless None
Time taken by Army to reach the
spot		 48 12
Status after 48 hrs. Still no electricity and
water		 Almost normal
External aid India contributes USD 5
Million		 None

Well…..I do not agree 100% with this email/data, as there are some things which this message overlooked, such as the 150 – 175 mph winds, levy was broken….etc. But I would still say, it is somewhat reasonable comparison. The mumbai flood also created a lot of trouble (Ask, N-P)

With due respect to all the people who died and the others who suffered, I think people need to have patience. Help others in distress, than looting.

I understand that they haven’t seen something like this before and would critisize govt. for not providing drinking water (Botteled water, I believe), Portable Toilets/Showers, clothes etc. even after 48 hours of the tragedy.

But I think they should also realize that, there are millions of people in this world, for whom these conditions are part of day-to-day life.

I also understand (from Radio stations) that, the levys were being repaired/upgraded by the army and wouldn’t have had cracked if the repairs had been done. Guess why the repairs were taking longer than expected? – lack of funds…..due to the Iraqi *Freedom* movement.

One of the evilest face of the American media was also seen during the course of the hurricane. Checkout this article. It might take u to a weird Ad, just click “Skip the Ad” on top right. The article talks about how blacks and whites are portrayed in the media. A white gathers food for his family while a black loots….

To add to all this, Kanye West’s video (might have bloody popups) was ‘cut’ by the NBC just because he said some good words about Dubya…. Read an elaborate article and transcript here. The last thing I heard on American News channels was that Chinese censor stuff….

This link (might have bloody popups) is really pathetic. Ever saw police goin looting?

If you are visual person like me, you would like to wath the images.

I had promised, a few days ago, on Poonam’s blog, that I would write something about Indians in USA. I haven’t got a chance since then, but I’ll certainly write it perhaps this weekend. Till then read more about this. I’ll post updates about it soon.

BTW saw a real hottie today via /.
I really want it….dammm checkout its spex:

6.8GHZ CPU (AtomChip® Quantum® II processor or 4 x Intel® Pentium® M processors 1.7CHz) / System Compliance: Two Operating Systems with Voice Command (Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional and Linux®) / Memory: 1TB Quantum-Optical non-volatile RAM (NvIOpSRAM-SODIMM 200-pin) / Storage: 2TB non-volatile Quantum RAM (NvIOpRAM-ATA IDE) …..

Why does it happen to me?

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Well….. Why? Why just me? Since a couple of days u have been reading that I have been getting emails for other people… here and here. Guess what? I got one more email today. This time it was for some Gauri Sharma about her college stuff. I read the email and started cheking the scrapbook entries @ my Orkut a/c. Suddenly I noticed “Gauri Sharma” in my frnd list (met online). It just stuck to me that, it might be her, coz she is around the same place I am. Checked her site and bammmm she had an email id very similar to me. Mailed her about it and she did get the info which was for her.

Now, if you think this is it, then don’t think, coz weird things happen to me every moment. As I mentioned earlier, I was checking my scrapbook entries @ Orkut, I got a scribble from some guy who is in my friendlist but I dunno him. I don’t even recall y or how he added me. The scribble read:

bhaiye suna hai aajkal india mein hi ho…..kis company mein ? So finally your wish to come back to our country came true? aur kya chal raha hai ?

I was kinda freaked out coz I did visit India a few weeks ago, but what is this job thing and how does this guy know me? I thought it can’t be a case of mistaken identity coz I have my pic (old, but yes it is my pic) and there isn’t much chance of any confusion. I was thinking that he prolly was my junior at school or college at some point of time or whatever. I asked him who told him about that and then after a few scrap posts, he asked me:

Means u r not that gaurav sharma ? IIT kanpur one? (who studied in Cambridge classes in UDR ?)

“lol…….does he look like me?” I asked.

The reply was “yes….u look a lot like him…almost same….:)”

Holly smoke!! This is prolly my 3rd or 4th look alike. Read this(my old lj blog) to know about my other look alikes.

Peace till my nxt post…

Google Talk: A boon or a Misery?

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Disclaimer:Google Talk: A boon or a Misery? – I am talking about myself, not the entire GT using community

I talked about Google Talk and the issue that I keep getting other’s emails(click and scroll down).

And guess what…..I never thought that both the things can co-relate themselves and make my life miserable……

I am online on GT since I dled it, I have invited a few people. A few minutes ago, I got an invitation from some girl TP (name initialized, just to create hype.) I didn’t know her, so thought might have read my post on the GT. I accepted the invite. And initiated the conversation. Following is the uneditted conversation, except her name:
-+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+-

Gaurav: hi

tanayapras……: hello

Gaurav: sorry, but do I know you :p

tanayapras……: i am arriving in delhi tonight, i hope :)

gunjan?

Gaurav: :( (

:( (

:( (

tanayapras……: sorry

Gaurav: mere saath aisa kyun hota hai, I always get other ppl’s mails ab msngr par bhi :|

lol thats ok

hope, I didn’t scare you

tanayapras……: no no

Gaurav: lol ok. Actually I get a lot of emails addressed to other ppl, but then….they send them to
me…. so ur frnd must be having an id gsharma*

Sent at 10:00 PM on Wednesday

-+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+–+-

During the conversation, as soon as she realized that this was a wrong id, she sent an invite to g._mylastname_. As a lot of u know gmail would consider that as my id coz a ‘.’ placed anywhere in the id is insignificant (except while logging in.)

I guess she has freaked out a lot, I haven’t heard from her since then :p, I’ll delete her after a few days, if there is a no-response and if u r reading it, then let me know if u want to be deleted from my GT :p

I am sure, I’ll have a lot of these kind of incidents, so I’ll try to keep you updated on them :D

Sahara Samay

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Happy Independence Day in Advance….

We have 6 Indian channels – Zee TV, TV Asia, Set Max, Sony TV, Zee Cinema and B4U Movies. Most of the time we are tuned to one of these channels. 3 of the Star channels (Star TV, Star News and Star One) are also available on Direct TV (we have Dish Network :( ). I was surprised to know that MTV Desi and Aastha channels can be subscribed @ Direct TV.

I was watching Kahin Pyar Na Hojaye @ B4U and started flipping channels, by accident I landed to channel 584 (only relevant to ppl. who have Dish Network) and I saw that they were showing some channel called “Samay.” It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what it is. Well, it is Sahara’s news channel Sahara Samay. I never heard about it before, not even when I was in India.

I was delighted to see a 24 hr. Indian News channel and on top of it, it shows commercials from India, which means no more crappy Ajmeri Baba and Peer Syed Sahib Ads. There is another Ad which irritates me a lot, I’ll post about it later.

Indian channels are swamping USA now. Zee has started Zee punjabi and Gujrati and there are other channels (mentioned above). So, generally we get to see free preview channels on weekends, so I am not sure if its a free preview or they showin it for free forever.

While writing this post, I searched to check if the Samay is a free preview…..and guess what, I found out that I can also watch Sahara One!!!!!! I think when I was in India, I saw a commercial of Chacha Chaudhri @ Sahara One :D I wish they are not just preview channels, but they come w/ Indian ads also.

Some of you (esp. who live in India) must be thinking, whats the big deal….why am I getting so excited (if you didn’t know that I am excited rt. now then – I am)….Its just that I am fed up of those bloody Baba Ads and definetly the Zee and Sony are not too much youth oriented….they just keep showing that fijul ki rimjhim all the time. I want to see what is meant for Indian (living) population and not fijul ke tailored progs. for Intl. audience with subtitles :| and apart from that I want to see Indian ads and know what exactly is going on there. Although web is a good place to keep yourself updated….but TV has a visual delight. So now most prolly am gonna watch the newly discovered channels, whole night and may be will discover another channel :p.

I watched about 30 minz of Dus today and liked it a lot, hopefully am also gonna complete it tonight!!

PS: Yes Shahara One shows CC :D

pay for receiving sms

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hello (after a loooooong time)

I came back 2 US exatly a mnth ago n was (still am) caught up in daily routine thingy. Hopefully I will rite more often now.

Actually I was reading this
@ np.com and tht. that, I shud say smthng about the matter.

I h8 h8 h8 h8 and seriously h8 paying for _receiving_ SMs. I have Cingular, they charge me 10 cents outgoing or incoming SMs. When I got the plan,

me (on the fone)- You mean 10 c for receiving SMS?
the girl – yes
me – U sure?
she – yes
me – Is there a way that I can accept or reject SMS?
she – we don’t have anything like that.
me – so, what if some XYZ keeps messaging me unwanted messages.
she – aaaaaa…you can turn off the messages.
me – what do you mean?
she – you can change the settings and choose not to receive any message.
me – What if someone is sending a very urgent message?
she – I am not sure.

ohhhh….well….cellphones r just rip offs in USA. There have been a lot of improvements since I bought my 1st CDMS AT&T fone (4 yrs ago). I asked the salesman,

so where do I put the SIM card? (I was still a FOB)
the guy – what card?
me – don’t u have to put a chip kind of card in the phone to activate it?
he – no
me – then how do you activate it?
he – just call this 800 # and they will do it for you….

AT&T charged 10 c for sending SMS but receiving was free.

Then I bought a sprint fone…..wallah, it was even better, it had no SMS at all, so no jhanjhat @ all.

Then came my Cingular fone, which has a SIM card. But it sucks that they charge money for receiving SMs. I definetly see a potential law suit here. They are charging you for something which is not in your hands and they will charge you for it no matter u authorize it or not. I wish I had the time and expertise to initiate the law suit and could have made a lot of $$ :D .

I used hutch during my trip to India n their signal was much better than wot I get here.

Rest later,

Poojaniya Server ji ko pranaam aur PHP ko sadar charan sparsh. (I was good @ the rattafication of hindi letters to the family)

Ajmeri Baba got a new Ad!

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Good news for all the people, who were fed up with Ajmeri Baba’s commercial. He got a new commercial and it is *much* better than the old one. One can atleast stand the commercial.

Lately I have been getting a lot of hits from search engines with keywords: peer syed sahib and ajmeri baba. So I am wondering if my previous post about the babas n their commercials made Ajmeri Baba think over his commercial?

Waise it is possible… if you are reading this post Ajmeri Baba, then please help me in getting my peace of mind….by not broadcasting any of your commercials!!