Cant we be just a little more far-sighted?

Image via Wikipedia

I'm seriously stunned at how myopic our politicians are! Our country is going through one of its worst phases with uncontrolled food prices, terrorism, inflation, economic slowdown, etc. and all we are worried about is something which happened more than 10 years back? Yes, I'm talking about one of the darkest days in the history of this country. The Babri Masjid demolition.

When we finally seemed to have buried the past and moved on, all of sudden comes a report leak and the opposition starts shouting and disrupting the Parliament session and development and other vital issues take a back seat. Largest democracy in the world eh?

Anyway, I somehow feel our political parties need to come to terms with the changing political scenario of this country. Most of these disruptions nowadays are telecast live on news channels, and it really makes me sad. These are the people we send to the Parliament for voicing our needs and here they are doing everything else apart from that!

Hope some sense prevails.

Image uploading sites

Image via CrunchBaseWe all are born photographers arent we? :P Anyway, these days the trouble doesnt end there, you have to upload the photo somewhere to share it with others. There are loads of image uploading sites on the web. Some of them are really popular and some popular but useless. So, here's my take on some of them.

Flickr happens to be perhaps the most popular image uploading site. However it does have an uploading limit. So, basically its useful for posting private/family photos, but not for using it as a source for pics on your blog. And of course as with all yahoo services, you need to register to start uploading.

I learnt about a really cool image uploading site today called Imgur, which lets you do a whole lot of stuff apart from letting you upload your pics and it has a really cool interface. No registration is needed to upload. But the problem with it is, your images get deleted if they dont receive a 'hit' in 3 months. So basically if you have a huge blog which isnt very popular and you dont go through your really old posts at least once in 3 months, your images get deleted.

Photobucket is good, great options etc. but way too many ads for my liking. I dont feel like using it even for my family pics! You also require a registration to upload.

Finally, Imageshack. I'm sure most of you have used at some point in time, but fact is imageshack is the best we have! You dont need to register to upload images, your images get deleted only when they dont receive a hit at least once in 1 year (pretty reasonable), and if you register, your images dont get deleted at all! Plus, there are loads and loads of options (more for registered users). Registration, as with all these services, is free.

Chrome OS...what the hell is Google trying to achieve?

Image by niallkennedy via FlickrAnd here comes another OS...Google Chrome OS! (cant they think of any better name than that for an OS?)

Anyway, coming to the point, as of now Chrome OS is very much in development and currently the version thats "leaked out", seems to be a dampener.

First up, you require a constant internet connection to do stuff (even to log in to your OS, you need a net connection). Apparently your username and password are the same ones which you use to log in to your google account. Secondly, there are loads of google apps on this OS and all of it runs in the guise of the Chrome browser (hence the name). Although google apps are seriously cool, they still leave a lot to be desired when it comes to offline activities and privacy concerns. As of now, there's no provision for installing extra apps apart from Google ones (hope this will change by the time the final version comes out). So basically its more like icloud installed on your desktop! I seriously dont want to be in a situation where I have Chrome OS installed and find myself unable to connect to the internet!

One thing that this OS will definitely do is bring much needed attention to Linux. Hopefully we'll find better drivers, softwares and codecs for Linux if Chrome OS becomes a success. However I dont like an open source platform being used by corporate honchos like Google (oh well, thats my way of looking at it).

But, here's wishing Google Chrome OS all the luck! Hope it turns out to be something really useful.

Mobile number portability at last!

Image by NiklasNikon via FlickrTRAI has finally done something really useful! It has managed to introduce mobile number portability, which basically means that you dont need to change your mobile no. everytime you get a new SIM.

This will definitely come as a relief to all mobile users out there. India after all is acknowledged as the fastest growing mobile phone/wireless market, and perhaps its only appropriate that we had some of the cutting edge facilities users in many other countries enjoy. Quite surprisingly however our next door neighbour, Pakistan, seems to have caught the portability train earlier than us (way back in 2007)! [Source - Wikipedia]

As per the new rules, you need to pay upto Rs.19 (dont expect it to be anything less than that!) for the transfer (which is quite reasonable I think). Also you need to hold on to your service provider for 90 days (again, pretty reasonable I believe). What this will do is increase the competition among operators who will have to dish out some pretty customer friendly offers to hold on to their customer base. For instance, since Vodafone has discontinued its 'unlimited GPRS' aka Vodafone Live net-on-phone pack, I'm planning to take full advantage of this offer and switch to Aircel, which apparently has an unlimited GPRS plan for just 98 bucks!

At last we are free from the clutches of crappy offers! w00t!

Smile Pinki

Image by Steve Rhodes via FlickrI would say, I had the privilege of watching this movie yesterday.

Smile Pinki is the story of a five year old girl Pinki from Bihar who has cleft lip who gets a new lease of life when . The social stigma, the superstitions associated with cleft had kept the little girl in a miserable state until the family comes across Pankaj Kumar Singh, a social worker associated with G.S. Memorial Plastic Surgery Hospital in Varanasi. The movie follows the journey of Pinki as she goes through her surgery and smiles all over again!

A brilliant short film by director Meg Mylan, which deservedly received the Oscar for the best Documentary Short, this is a must watch for everyone. Undoubtedly one of the most inspiring movies I've seen in a long long time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Check out the following links for official sites and videos of the movie:

Official site of the movie "Smile Pinki"

Acceptance Speech by Megan Mylan, Director (Oscar.com)

Acceptance Speech video by the Director Meg Mylan (Oscar.com)