Taare Zameen Par

Hats off to Amir Khan for again delivering a quality product and for me,an answer to the 2007's equally good movie 'Chak De'.But the credit should be given to Tare... for striking the right note with such a sensuous but difficult subject. So beautiful was the portrayal of emotions in this movie that can leave, even the not-so-soft-hearted ones, spell-bound. I guess almost all the women crowd gathered in the hall was sobering :).
And not to mention, amazing timing of all the songs...Simply Superb. All the actors fit well in their roles and i am sure they can give anyone a run for their money. Especially Tisca Chopra, stupendous performance!!!. I guess she was the emotional fulcrum of the movie, since she was a character which is emotionally very attached with Darsheel(the kid). It was a very important character and she played the part beautifully.
In the end a very nice movie for everyone.




A Little Sweet, A Little Sour
A Little Close Not Too Far
All I Need, All I Need
All I Need Is To Be Free...

Chhoo Loon Main
Itna Kareeb
Chal Padun
To Kitne Door..

Instant unlimited music - Seeqpod

Being the ICTians we are, most of us know how to get our choice music using Internet - bit torrents, p2p (our lovely dc++) and websites(welcome to the world of spywares and pop up windows). However one of the biggest problem is that before listening to the music, you have to download it first. Especially in India where the bandwidth is a premium, it sucks to wait 5 minutes(50 minutes if you are in DAIICT) for a song to download, only to discover that it is not the one you want.

Welcome - Seeqpod. A website where you just enter the song/artist information in search box and listen to your music right then without the need to download it. With the obvious benefits of saving time and having access to one of the biggest music libraries; it also allows you to listen music without the guilt (or risk) of downloading illegal music. Just like Google searches the Internet for web pages, this website keeps track of music shared by anyone on the Internet (http/ftp servers). Other features include letting you create, save and share custom playlists your choice songs, and automatically searching for the video of your music on Youtube.
There are various alternatives on the Internet like imeem and SplashCast. However I find the clean interface of seeqpod best of the lot and since it's casting a wide net, SeeqPod provides the best results of any of the programs.

If you want to download the music for listening on the go, you will need more than the much honed copy-paste skills. Although the website does show the song link, it seems to be flash based and copying the link seems impossible. So you can either choose the easy(but prone to human errors) way of looking and typing the music link into the browser, or the more complex way as mentioned here
.

Hurray I'll get my B.Tech before my Masters!

Finally some news from DA-IICT about convocation

If you don't remember your DA-IICT login, then here is the complete mail. Note the deadlines are only 10 days from now.. so if you plan to go, then better send the confirmations. Meet ya all in DA-IICT :-)

Dear Students,
1. Fourth Convocation of DA-IICT will be solemnized on 19 January 2008.
2. The students who have completed their requirements for the degree (or are going to complete by 24 December 2007, would be conferred degrees in this convocation.
3. A letter in this regard, which is self-explanatory, is being posted to your parents’ address. A copy of the letter is also attached herewith for your ready reference. You may take a print of this attachment and send your confirmation in hard copy, along with the DD, at the earliest.
With greetings,

P K Chopra
Dy Registrar

Note : There was an attachment too. Click here [pdf]

Blogged with Flock

Synapse

The synapse site is under construction..
you can visit it here
I go to say this, orange looks bad.. really bad

Edit : my sources inside daiict tell me that the orange background is temporary.

Blogged with Flock

the new flock web-browser

hi,
for those who do not know about flock, read on
Wikipedia says
"Flock is a web browser heavily based upon Mozilla Firefox and other Mozilla technologies. Flock is also the name of the company developing the browser. Flock's creators call it a "social browser", due to its ability to interact with popular social networking web services. Such web services include Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Del.icio.us, Technorati, Photobucket, and various popular blogging and news aggregation services."

My use for flock is to blog, simple and fast. I am a fan of apps which use internet in background, like Amarok with audioscrobbler and wikipedia and alike softwares. basically using internet without using a browser actually. Although flock is a browser it still is kinda mix between the two. Give it a shot, it contains too many things to be my primary browser, but few of you might like the facebook, orkut, flickr, blogging etc etc features.

Blogged with Flock

We are DA-IICT

We are not IITian's,
We are not NITian's,
We are not IIITian's,

We don't ride on the success of our predecessors,

We graduate from DA-IICT and We are the best at what we do.

We learn to live, you live to earn.

Best IEEE R10 Student Branch Counselor

Now I don't know how to react to this! An extract from the mail of Ravi Bagree:-
"Dr. Anil K Roy has been awarded as the 'Best IEEE R10 Student Branch Counselor' in IEEE Region 10, i.e. Asia Pacific Region, for the year 2007."

Header Picture

A new header picture from my old phone album
cheers!

PS: has anyone successfully done this? Using Yahoo Pipes to join 2 flickr RSS feeds to combine into single, then show in slideshow widget on blogger.

sunscreen advise to those in final year in college.

• Value City Pulse, you will soon find out that there are more expensive, less comfortable and more distant places to bear a bollywood flick.
• Value Mannu and Daddu, they are your best friend, especially of those with late night appetites.
• Value your open air theatre, its no fun to see Yuvraj hit six sixes on a twenty one inch box and that too alone.
• Value your neighbouring room, even if it has a stinky occupant who likes Himesh Reshammiya, soon you will have far more unbearable characters in your life.
• Value the library, soon all your reading material will limit to sleazy pages of the morning newspapers.
• Value your playing field, semi-clad sweating jogging chicks can attract you to jog on the roads but at the end of the day your knees will hurt like crap.
• Value Sardar Kebab junction, just take my word for this one, if Gods ate, theyd eat his butter chicken and momos.
• Value the galla, the brightest, smartest and most intellectual discussions of your life are over once you are out of college.
• Value your instructors, soon you will encounter some waste of human organs instructing you.
• Value E-FJunction, soon you will understand that cafes and pubs are as good for hanging out as a toilet seat is for tap dancing.
  
• Value corridor cricket, it is, was and will always be the zenith of human endurance.
• Value mafia, your professional life will depend upon the skills you gain from it.
• Value your LAN, soon you will have a limited collection of hundred odd films and a two hundred GB harddisk ! yes you will.
• Value your labs, soon you will start spending nights in front of the computer at a desk, for someone else.
• Value your room mate, soon you may end up with a Karmic Healing freak.

How to write a good report

1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lit place in front of your computer.

2. Log onto Gtalk and start DC++ (be sure to go on away or busy!). Check your email.

3. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it.

4. Walk down to the FC and buy some chips and dew, or get chocolates from daddu's, to help you concentrate.

5. Check DC++ for new releases.

6. Call up a friend and ask if he/she wants to go to grab a coffee. Just to get settled down and ready to work.

7. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lit place.

8. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it.

9. Check DC++ for new releases.

10. Scroll through DC++ chat and spend some time coming up with new smiley combinations.

11. Yawn, check the time, and open a blank word document.

12. Start JAP or freedom and grab some new mp3z off limewire.

13. Check your email. (Any of this sounding familiar yet??)

14. Chat on Gtalk with one of your friends about the future. (ie what great movies and series you watched and plans for the holidays).

15. Check DC++ for new releases and scroll through chat.

16. Listen to your new mp3z and download some more.

17. PM/ net send a friend and ask if he/she's started writing yet. Exchange derogatory remarks about your prof, the
course, the college, the world at large, and how life sucks.

18. Go to daddu's and buy a pack of polo. You've probably run out.

19. Phone someone you haven't talked to in a long time( more than 12 hours) and moan about how hard it is to write a report and how little time you have.

20. Decide that you're hungry and have some snacks at the FC.

21. Check DC++ for releases, and browse through the whole list, finally finding something you overlooked.

22. Watch that new episode of House/Heroes/Scrubs... and keep promising to start the report once you're done watching it.

23. Check DC++ chat and comment on how good/bad the episode was, and after learning that there's going to be a season break, abuse the producers.

24. Wash your hands and face, drink some water and walk around a bit to clear your head.

25. Call up a friend to see how much they have done, probably haven't started either.

26. Look through your photos and try fiddling around with them in photoshop.

27. Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future.

28. Check to see if anyone is online on DC++ and start a conversation on who sucks more.

29. Check your email and listen to your new mp3z.

30. Call up the same friend you talked to previously, and get a progress report.

31. Read over the assignment one more time, just for heck of it.

32. Look out the window and watch the sunrise. It's almost galla time...

33. Pace the corridors and moan about how you haven't even started on the report.

34. Go to galla, have tea and snacks and share a few jokes with your friends.

35. Rush back to your room and check Gtalk to see if anyone has left you messages.

36. Mumble obscenities, and vent out your frustration by abusing everyone on DC++.

37. 7am - start hacking on the paper without stopping. 8am -paper is finished.

38. Complain to everyone that you didn't get any sleep because you had to write that stupid paper.

39. 8:30am - Go to class, hand in paper, and leave right away so you can take a nap.

Blogged with Flock

Back to college

Hi,
I visited college on 8th of Nov, for about 8 hours and I would say it feels great to walk in those corridors which I hated ( I have/had my reasons), and talking to familiar faces. Well my visit lasted few hours, but it was disappointing that I could not play a single game of DotA and Mouse was sleeping whole day!. I met few other people but couldn't find Ranjit :-(

Links and 3 reasons

Interesting read
http://apcmag.com/vista_activation

Especially where he points about the world where activation doesn't exist.
Apparently I have a feeling that windows users don't blog as much (ratio wise), or read blogs, online tech communities as much as linux users. Or maybe it's because linux gives so many problems that you cannot afford to be NOT online.

My top 3 reasons for not switching to linux

1. No voice support for Google Talk in linux (some, workarounds are on the way)
2. Gaming (Wine or Cedega is not a great option)
3. Absence of decent (256kbps or more) internet connection

Luckily I am not using voice chat that much, but I do miss it at times, all my games are running perfectly on cedega with 512RAM(only), and I have a decent internet connection, so I am using linux ;-)

Support!

Source
C|Net reviews of OSX and Vista on 1st November

Lets look at the "Technical Support" prices, I think they are applicable in US.

OSX - 90 days free, then $49 per incident

Vista - 90 days free, then $59 per incident

Ubuntu - $250 + Taxes(no idea how much) per Year, for 9x5 support (9 hours a day, 5 days a week)

24x7 support for Ubuntu costs $900 + Taxes per Year, but I think it's not worth that much.

I'll just say three things, apparently few people in my friends and family love Vista!

1. I have helped someone to find out reason for frequent reboots of a laptop, apparently she thought it was cuz of virus in OS, but it was a hardware problem in the end.
2. I have helped tons of people on how to install Windows(sadly).
3. I got a "few" people to shift to Ubuntu, even though I was using XP back then ;-)
   

OS costs ( from the same review)

OSX - $129 single user license

Vista ( I think OEM prices are lower, but you better check them yourself)

1. $99 Basic
2. $159 Premium
3. $199 Business
4. $259 Ultimate

Ubuntu - $50,000,000,000 for single user license :-D

Stumped

This will leave you stumped too!

If you goto microsoft marketplace, you can see Abi Word" listed there with description, "Open source and lightweight free document creator". Truly amazing ! I thought Microsoft had a policy of ignoring that other half (4% is share of Linux on desktop PC's) of software users/developers exist.
While we are at it, I found an interesting article while digging about Usenet on internet

http://www.digibarn.com/collections/newsletters/homebrew/V2_01/homebrew_V2_01_p2.jpg [Image]

This can be seen both right and wrong, after all most of us are making money by writing softwares :P
I bet even Bill Gates din't see something like GNU/Linux and no. of associated "free" software writers coming.

Business Today “Best Companies to Work For in India” list for 2007 is out!

‘Microsoft India’ has emerged as #1 in the Business Today – Mercer – TNS “Best Companies to Work For in India” survey. MindTree Consulting stands second while Infosys Technologies has gone down to 5th after being the #1 for last 2 years.

This is the first time that ‘Microsoft India’ have participated in this survey.

This survey is considered to be the most respected and comprehensive study of workplace satisfaction in the country.

 

Past results:

News Feeds

Help me here,
Is there any website which provides RSS feed which contains the whole news content and not only the headlines. I am sick of reading only headlines, so stopped reading news at all, which is not really good.
So if you know any website which provides Indian and/or international news in RSS feed itself, please do inform me.

Thanks a lot
Abhishek

Quotes from my head

Some of my "Original" creation

1. The only bad thing about linux is, out of 10 great features described, you are unable to get 10 of them working.
2. Running Windows in Vmware for Linux is like : Running Windows in a window

One of expanded version (not original)

1. There are 11 kinds of people. Those who know binary notation, those who do not and those who are too stupid to comprehend it!
   

For Ubuntu Users

For the LUG

My life and Windows Vista

OK, where do I start..
well I just HATE it.
I am not a person who will argue that Linux is better then Windows (I am using linux nowadays, except when I play some game). But I'll say that Windows XP was far better than Windows Vista.
I have no friggin idea why Vista is accessing my hard disk so heavily all the time, please don't give me spyware/virus/worms crap, I know that much about computers atleast. But Vista is plane crap. And I'll say 1 more thing, if the warranty violation was not the problem, I would have removed vista from my laptop long back.
Microsoft says - Vista has so far the least number of bugs then any other Microsoft OS. I'd say it took them 5+ years to make this piece of shit!

Also one more thing, I just tried to shutdown my machine, and Vista starts installing updates right after it logs me off!! It took about 20 minutes to install those updates.
I mean wtf, there is an option to install updates and shutdown, and I din't want to use it, that's why I just selected to shutdown. This doesn't end here, it says while installing updates DO NOT POWEROFF THE COMPUTER.
Consider this scenario, my laptop has 2-3 minutes of battery power left. I select shutdown, Vista starts it's 20 minutes of update install, and assume update is like Service Pack 1 or something, which on interruption will screw up your computer for sure, now what choice do I have. I have 2 minutes of power left and 20 minutes of installation to do, and no power source to attach my laptop to :(
Damn!!

PS : I like some features in Vista, the music management is awesome and few other features are also good, but it still doesn't make it usable.

Note : This is written by POV of a user, and not a programmer etc etc, Microsoft can say this is the greatest software made in history of mankind and 98% of people will buy that. Yes Linux userbase is about 2% in desktops!. Please correct me if I am wrong, last thing I want is to incorrectly quote Linux hard earned market share :)

And it changed at last...

New look DAIICT website is up and running...

Nothing is better than a change and that too after 6 years of same old boorish(as in clumsy) bluish tinge haunting our College's website. Ever since my second or 3rd year at DAIICT the question of a new website has been equivocated by Profs and students alike.

Lots has been talked about the Website in Batch of 2006 mailing list, the few good things coming out of this,

• A good, neat and clean UI.
• Proper info everywhere, FAQ's, Alumni pages are quite good.
• Finally all the clubs, committees and activities in college given a proper placing on website.

etc etc.

Hope now people applying outside India won't face many issues with regards to Website as all the information has been put up quite nicely.

Kudos to the team involved!!!

Btw last few weeks our people from our batch have been quite nostalgic when it comes to college. All was triggered by this pic sent by Vivek,



This pic reminds me of the countless nightouts at DAIICT, seems to be taken around 4-5 in morning this one.

And then this website thing and then there were mails forwarding pics of Profs and all, and mails about the new E-Cell at our college...

College was great, miss it like anything... as we realized during the Bangalore Meet last month

Technorati Tags: DAIICT

DAIICT site's new look

Finally, we have a better site! Check it out, its cool.
http://www.daiict.ac.in

Mails

Finally!

Yes!!

Awesome!!!

Ok, alright it's not that big deal, but just that you know I got my DA-IICT email forwarding enabled now.

All my DA-IICT emails are now automatically forwarded to my GMail ID now.. which is kinda nice as DAIICT gives us only 5MB Inbox.

That's all folks from my side.

Note: Not many people are active here, so it kinds of defeats the purpose of the blog. I want to test few things

1. Do anyone looks at the blog at all !
2. Is anyone interested in blogging here at all !

I'll put up a poll soon.

Have fun

Abhishek aka DarK

EDIT : for people who wanted to know how I got it done

I mailed the sysadmin [at] daiict about 6 times to setup a forwarding to my GMail.

University of Florida

Look at the page, watch the video

http://mediamatters.org/items/200709190009

And if you were at the scene, then do tell us in a bit detail.

Student Rockstar

 

FYI: This one is a do not miss contest for college students.

Student Rockstar

Cricket! (Kriket)

Alrighty.. the bad news

Dravid has resigned as a captain of Indian cricket team.

and if you have fast Internet connection, then you might want to try this out

http://www.cricinfo.com/3d/

It shows ball by ball animated cricket match, live !

Posting Spree

Well, if you are reading this blog, then you must've noticed the posting spree I am on, all this is because of windows live writer. It's a FREE software by Microsoft ( read correctly it's free, don't know if it's open source ), but it's one good piece of software. If you are a regular blogger, then you must give it a try. It supports Blogger, Wordpress and many other blogging engine, and the software is NOT available for Linux users. ;)

This is blasphemy/madness whatever

Well I am one of the unlucky/lucky guys who bought that damned sweatshirt of Class of'07, but the problem here is I don't see any time soon that I can use it. So free advice for juniors, get a T-shirt for Class of'08, I agree sweatshirt looks better, but usage is too restricted, and most of the people after passing out will work in south of India, somewhere and if it's like as in Chennai, then wearing the sweatshirt is a dream.

Look around Chennai

For those who know more than just my name ( well few don't even know that, but my post is for those who know me :P), I think they can recall how lazy am I. Well friends that hasn't faded yet, but I did went on a "cycle trip" to Mahabalipuram and a recent trip for bird watching. For those who want to see some pictures,

---

The whole point of going on a cycle, we could stop midway to visit the beach. Picture taken early morning

---

Cycling

---

The Mahabalipuram Shore Temple

---

Me!

---

Tired people :)

---

Lazy crocodiles in the "Crocodile Park"

---

My footsteps

---

Mahabalipuram is famous for it's Shore Temple and some more old sculptures, found nearby. And there is are quite some number of tourists, mostly from rest of Asia? I am not sure. Whatever, the point is there are tourists around there, so everything is quite costly.

For those who have all the time in their life to waste, I have uploaded about 100 (to be exact 98) pictures of the trip.

2. Bird watching :- First of all, unfortunately due to effect of lack of sleep, on a humans capability to recall stuff I forgot to take my camera for the trip :(, but still I have few questions.

1. How many kinds of crow you know of?
2. Who is/was Salim Ali?

try to answer without googling!

Linux/Fedora 7 and ATI Graphics Card.. eh ?

Hello windows users!, and hello fellow Linux (in particular Fedora 7) users ;-)

Yeah, I just installed Fedora 7 on my new Sony Vaio laptop, and it works great. I still have to figure out few new things, but I am happy as it's working for almost everything I need(I just need a console, few manuals, a browser and Internet). Here are few tips for people who don't find much help on ATI Graphics cards and Linux(in general).

1. Install Linux in text mode, few Linux distro's (like ubuntu) use graphical install, which won't work for you. There are bootup commandline switches (generally accessible by hitting F1). Fedora 7 has command line installation option from the boot menu itself so it's easy there. Note you might need ubuntu alternate disk to use the commandline install, I used alternate-install disk. Always try to get DVD versions of installations whenever possible.

2. Fedora 7 DVD version has support for my Wireless Card (Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Adapter) out of box so it saved me hassle of getting on to a wired network for installing the ATI Graphics Drivers, which can be found at ATI website. Here is the kink in the story, I needed to download it from the website, and I don't know how to use those text based browsers, so I needed to use laptop of my room-mate to get the link of drivers I needed.

3. Used wget to download the drivers ( The link for Linux x86 32 bit computers is https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/674/9206/0/www2.ati.com/drivers/linux/ati-driver-installer-8.40.4-x86.x86_64.run ) Pasted the link so that you can (type it for wget), Alternately the link is here.

4. To install the drivers you need to execute this command

./ati-driver-installer-8.40.4-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg Fedora/F7

If you are using some other distro of Linux you will need to find the correct switch, execute this command and read the instructions that come on your screen.

./ati-driver-installer-8.40.4-x86.x86_64.run

a useful hint is you will need something like

./ati-driver-installer-8.40.4-x86.x86_64.run --buildpkg <switch>

where <switch> is the missing argument.

5. One you get the things set, under Fedora 7, you will get about 5-6 RPM files, you might choose what you don't want to install, but for me as a new user, I just installed all! If you are interested in finding out which file does what, then you might want to go on some IRC Channel to ask. Nuf said, to install the rpm files use

rpm -ihv *.rpm

in the directory where the driver rpm's are present.

6. If you get dependencies error use

yum install <missing dependency filename>

under Fedora 7, I believe "apt" can be used in similar way

7. Type gdm while you are logged as root, or use startx as normal user

8. All done? You need to follow this link to get a graphical display on bootup

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=7381

9. All right reboot!, use reboot command on the console.

10. Post as comment what you see when you reboot :)

Note : This guide is written by a Linux newbie for Linux newbie, who has experience of working on Linux for few months, mostly for shell scripting and network programming, so he mostly worked on a terminal. Keep that in mind. This guide is written by sheer lack of Google results and support on forums for "Linux and Sony Vaio" or "Linux and ATI" when compared to "Linux and Nvidia" on any forum. Use it at your own risk. I am not responsible if anything goes wrong with your system/computer/laptop.

---

The post originally appeared here.

Centre for Entrepreneurship and Incubation at DA-IICT

For those who do not check the DAIICT mail.

ANNOUNCEMENT

DA-IICT has started the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Incubation at DA-IICT (CEID) with the motive of encouraging students with an entrepreneurial bent of mind to come up with innovative ideas and channelize their efforts to give birth to new ventures. Please look up the website

http://ceid.daiict.ac.in for more about CEID.

To mark its inaugural, CEID has organized an event on Sunday, September 9, 2007. The basic idea of the event is that all the student teams will be given some seed money and are expected to raise as much profit as they can in one day, using their entrepreneurship skills and creative thinking. The prize distribution ceremony would be held on September 10, 2007.

Please find the event details at http://ceid.daiict.ac.in/events/events.html

Students are invited to take interest and participate in this event in good numbers.

Faculty members and staff are requested to kindly encourage and guide students who may seek their guidance.

Naman Arora (BTech 2007) is working as part-time Coordinator at CEID. He can be reached at naman_arora@daiict.ac.in Details about Naman’s own start-up venture can be found at www.tempostand.com

On behalf of CEID: Naresh Jotwani, Rahul Dubey, Manish Gupta, Naman Arora

the new look of ORKUT

here's the new look of orkut

the home page...



the profile stuff....

First Blood at Mindtree

I have an idea. Stop laughing. I think (stop it) it would be great if people working in various companies write about their first blood experiences in this place. It might help the current senior batch to decide upon joining etc. Let me start with telling a little about Mindtree, where I am working as an Engineer in the R&D Services division in C++ practice.

Ok heres the thing. Mindtree is a no frills company. If you have any intentions of making big bucks, right from the word go, this might not be the best place for you, but if you are looking to make a career, I suggest you give Mindtree a chance to groom you. A lot of people would have told you that at Mindtree you do a lot of work. Let me tell you, they could'nt be any more wrong. At Mindtree, you get to blow your assess away working. You get to learn more at Mindtree in one single working hour than you would in a week in most other firms. The bottom line being, everyone here wants this company to be the youngest billion dollar company and by God you wouldnt believe how soon people here believe theyr going to get there.

The other extremely neat thing about this company is the profile of its top management. Most of them have had no formal management degrees, all they have is several hundred years' experience and an incredibly sharp brain between their ears. Its all about talent and nurturing yourself in Mindtree. The learning opportunities are plenty, especially if you are just out of campus and dont mind working twelve hours a day and further don't mind whether its the first twelve or the last.

Its exciting to hear the top management because most of the people in the team that founded Mindtree were wanna be entrepreneurs all their lives and when the opportunity came, they held it with both hands. Its one of those few firms that say openly that they want Mindtree minds (they don't call us employees) to be future leaders. Its a strange organization, most of the people working here have offers of much higher paying jobs, but they still don't seem to be interested in quiting. I think I'm a little too young to understand the reason as of now but whatever it is, its something pretty big.

I would suggest people who have opted for Mindtree to try getting a project in Mindtree. The exposure it would give you would be great, plus you would get to know your future bosses better. Always helps ;)

the temporary face of orkut

This's the new logo Orkut's branding for our 60th Independence Day.

Small Achievement

Hi All,

Greetings from Arpit Gupta from USA

I am having great learning and fun time here with only drag of cooking my own food and doing lots of personal chores that I haven’t done at DA-IICT. With this post I wanted to share my small achievement in blog world and contribute something to this blog.

Basically, one of my posts from my blog on strategic areas of Engineering Management has been selected by Businesspundit.com, popular business website. Check out Businesspundit

Just scroll slightly down and you would find my blog post titled “Blue Ocean Strategy”.
My blog link: Blog

I got lots of comments posted on this post, but unfortunately it does not show to others. So, I will be soon moving this blog out to blogger. By the way I was excited to see my own name in the feeds of Businesspundit.

Daiictians keep rocking !

The latest on DC++

well since all you guys have left thought I'd give you the latest snapshot of whats been hapenning on DC nowadays.


[21:06:49] <[Snowball-Fight]> f0L displays textbook form and evades the heater launched by Stan.
[21:06:50] <[Snowball-Fight]> All laugh as 3l3m3nt throws a powder ball at Stan that never reaches its mark.
[21:06:51] <[Snowball-Fight]> gowtham runs like the wind and avoids the dreaded 'yellow snowball'.
[21:06:53] +shoot bUllZ3y3 !regme khanjan
[21:06:54] <[Snowball-Fight]> Aragorn launches and.... Ouch, aaRJay thats gonna leave a mark!
[21:06:54] <[Snowball-Fight]> PiedPiper wings ArchTemplar , a mere flesh wound.
[21:06:59] <[Snowball-Fight]> Posing as a snowcone vendor, lethal waltzes right up to PiedPiper and scores another hit. ...Brilliant.
[21:07:00] <[Snowball-Fight]> Stan's myopia will cost him dearly in the ratings as 3l3m3nt is missed entirely.
[21:07:02] <[Snowball-Fight]> ArchTemplar, played strong all season and shows the fans post season play is no different and scores on PiedPiper
[21:07:03] <[Snowball-Fight]> 3l3m3nt is spared as bUllZ3y3's inexperience in the art of snowball making is displayed to all.
[21:07:03] <[Snowball-Fight]> Kylon AKA:'The Rifleman' nearly breaks Aragorn's arm with a tremendous shot.
[21:07:04] <[Snowball-Fight]> lethal excalims 'HEY, PiedPiper No iceballs! You'll put someone's eye out'.
[21:07:07] <[Snowball-Fight]> Aragorn excalims 'HEY, gowtham No iceballs! You'll put someone's eye out'.
[21:07:10] <[Snowball-Fight]> 3l3m3nt's myopia will cost him dearly in the ratings as Stan is missed entirely.
[21:07:10] <-Mirana-> User erudite used self-registration and is now registered!
[21:07:15] <[Snowball-Fight]> ArchTemplar wisely escapes the hit from Kylon by quickly dropping into a 'Snow Angel' defense posture.
[21:07:16] <[Snowball-Fight]> erudite runs like the wind and avoids the dreaded 'yellow snowball'.
[21:07:17] <[Snowball-Fight]> lethal fires and misses PiedPiper and summarily blames the low quality French made snowballs
[21:07:18] <[Snowball-Fight]> ArchTemplar fires and misses hav0c and summarily blames the low quality French made snowballs
[21:07:21] <[Snowball-Fight]> Aragorn, undaunted by recent allegations of steroid use, scores again on ammulu
[21:07:21] <[Snowball-Fight]> gowtham tossing widly, misses Aragorn by a mile
[21:07:25] <[Snowball-Fight]> lethal wisely escapes the hit from bUllZ3y3 by quickly dropping into a 'Snow Angel' defense posture.
[21:07:25] <[Snowball-Fight]> In a decidely vicious attack, Mouse sends a line drive square into ArchTemplar's er.. umm... 'nether region'.
[21:07:25] <[Snowball-Fight]> In a decidely vicious attack, Kylon sends a line drive square into Aragorn's er.. umm... 'nether region'.
[21:07:26] <[Snowball-Fight]> Although Wandrer launches a power shot right on its mark, Mouse's' fleet footedness affords a narrow escape.
[21:07:29] <[Snowball-Fight]> Xypher is spared as 3l3m3nt's inexperience in the art of snowball making is displayed to all.
[21:07:30] <[Snowball-Fight]> Maverick excalims 'HEY, ArchTemplar No iceballs! You'll put someone's eye out'.
[21:07:34] <[Snowball-Fight]> Forgoing the whole 'throwing' technique, Stan walks right up and mashes one right in Mouse's kisser.
[21:07:35] <[Snowball-Fight]> Wandrer dives and seeks refuge behind a mailbox from Kylon's attack.
[21:07:38] <[Snowball-Fight]> PiedPiper dives behind an SUV and evades a barage launched by gowtham
[21:07:39] <[Snowball-Fight]> 3l3m3nt excalims 'HEY, bUllZ3y3 No iceballs! You'll put someone's eye out'.
[21:07:40] <[Snowball-Fight]> Blinded by an incoming round, Mouse throws way long. Wandrer just giggles.
[21:07:44] <[Snowball-Fight]> bUllZ3y3 double pump fakes and spins left, lethal is livid with the display.
[21:07:45] /reg 12345
[21:07:47] <[Snowball-Fight]> Posing as a snowcone vendor, ArchTemplar waltzes right up to Mouse and scores another hit. ...Brilliant.
[21:07:47] <[Snowball-Fight]> Kylon, undaunted by recent allegations of steroid use, scores again on 3l3m3nt
[21:07:48] <[Snowball-Fight]> 3l3m3nt exclaims 'HAHA! You throw like a girl gowtham'
[21:07:50] <[Snowball-Fight]> Moving as a divine mist, ArchTemplar disolves to nothingness just before Mouse's round impacts.
[21:07:50] <[Snowball-Fight]> Aragorn launches and.... Ouch, PiedPiper thats gonna leave a mark!
[21:07:51] <-Mirana-> User Topgun used self-registration and is now registered!
[21:07:54] its +regme
[21:07:58] <[Snowball-Fight]> 'Oh no you didn't', yells bUllZ3y3 and beans 3l3m3nt in the eye!
[21:07:59] <[Snowball-Fight]> Stan is spared as gowtham's inexperience in the art of snowball making is displayed to all.
[21:08:01] <[Snowball-Fight]> First round draft pick ajax shows cause for owning 3 Snowbowl rings, Aragorn is denied.
[21:08:02] <[Snowball-Fight]> Although Kylon launches a power shot right on its mark, 3l3m3nt's' fleet footedness affords a narrow escape.
[21:08:04] <[Snowball-Fight]> ArchTemplar double pump fakes and spins left, Mouse is livid with the display.
[21:08:10] <[Snowball-Fight]> 3l3m3nt's myopia will cost him dearly in the ratings as zenith is missed entirely.
[21:08:11] bahh
[21:08:15] <[Snowball-Fight]> First round draft pick ajax shows cause for owning 3 Snowbowl rings, Aragorn is denied.
[21:08:16] <[Snowball-Fight]> ArchTemplar excalims 'HEY, gowtham No iceballs! You'll put someone's eye out'.
[21:08:16] <[Snowball-Fight]> ArchTemplar double pump fakes and spins left, Stan is livid with the display.
[21:08:18] <[Snowball-Fight]> Fans cheer widly as Mouse lands a deadly accurate slushball into the open collar of ArchTemplar.
[21:08:18] <[Snowball-Fight]> Mouse double pump fakes and spins left, Kylon is livid with the display.
[21:08:21] <[Snowball-Fight]> Moving as a divine mist, bUllZ3y3 disolves to nothingness just before lethal's round impacts.
[21:08:23] <[Snowball-Fight]> PiedPiper exclaims 'HAHA! You throw like a girl Wandrer'
[21:08:25] <[Snowball-Fight]> A capacity crowd is on its feet as local hero and MVP candidate, ArchTemplar creams Mouse and scores again.
[21:08:26] <[Snowball-Fight]> Blinded by an incoming round, Aragorn throws way long. android just giggles.
[21:08:29] <[Snowball-Fight]> Paramedics rush onto the playing field, 3l3m3nt isn't moving, 3l3m3nt just grins with indifference.
[21:08:30] <[Snowball-Fight]> 'OK its not funny Mouse, I cant see' says Wandrer.
[21:08:31] <[Snowball-Fight]> In a decidely vicious attack, Kylon sends a line drive square into Mouse's er.. umm... 'nether region'.
[21:08:32] <[Snowball-Fight]> PiedPiper dives behind an SUV and evades a barage launched by lethal
[21:08:40] <[Snowball-Fight]> bUllZ3y3 bounces a hard packed one off lethal's head. Oooooh, Thats gotta hurt.
[21:08:41] <[Snowball-Fight]> In a decidely vicious attack, gowtham sends a line drive square into Stan's er.. umm... 'nether region'.
[21:08:41] <[Snowball-Fight]> In a decidely vicious attack, Aragorn sends a line drive square into android's er.. umm... 'nether region'.
[21:08:42] <[Snowball-Fight]> Fans cheer widly as Mouse lands a deadly accurate slushball into the open collar of Kylon.
[21:08:44] <3l3m3nt> +throw bUllZ3y3
[21:08:45] <[Snowball-Fight]> Wandrer, played strong all season and shows the fans post season play is no different and scores on Mouse
[21:08:45] <[Snowball-Fight]> New comer Mouse takes a fastball to the chops from Kylon. Thats got to be dissapointing to the young upstart.
[21:08:49] <[Snowball-Fight]> Mouse dives behind an SUV and evades a barage launched by PiedPiper
[21:08:52] <[Snowball-Fight]> 3l3m3nt wings bUllZ3y3 , a mere flesh wound.
[21:08:53] <[Snowball-Fight]> 98 Mph., wow Aragorn turns on the heat and android's hip will never heal fully after that shot.
[21:08:54] <[Snowball-Fight]> Oh man, ArchTemplar just blasted PiedPiper right in the mush.
[21:08:59] <[Snowball-Fight]> Moving as a divine mist, Aragorn disolves to nothingness just before Kylon's round impacts.
[21:08:59] <[Snowball-Fight]> Snowball War Veteran 3l3m3nt takes the youngster to school and snatches Mouse's slowball and returns fire...
[21:08:59] <[Snowball-Fight]> A capacity crowd is on its feet as local hero and MVP candidate, PiedPiper creams lethal and scores again.
[21:09:01] !throw 3l3m3nt
[21:09:01] <[Snowball-Fight]> 3l3m3nt displays textbook form and evades the heater launched by gowtham.
[21:09:03] <[Snowball-Fight]> 'Oh no you didn't', yells 3l3m3nt and beans BHAVS in the eye!
[21:09:06] <[Snowball-Fight]> Forgoing the whole 'throwing' technique, bUllZ3y3 walks right up and mashes one right in 3l3m3nt's kisser.
[21:09:08] <[Snowball-Fight]> 98 Mph., wow Aragorn turns on the heat and AmigO's hip will never heal fully after that shot.
[21:09:09] <[Snowball-Fight]> PiedPiper, played strong all season and shows the fans post season play is no different and scores on ArchTemplar
[21:09:10] <[Snowball-Fight]> ArchTemplar, undaunted by recent allegations of steroid use, scores again on Maverick
[21:09:11] <[Snowball-Fight]> Mouse fires and misses bUllZ3y3 and summarily blames the low quality French made snowballs
[21:09:15] <[Snowball-Fight]> Kylon launches and.... Ouch, 3l3m3nt thats gonna leave a mark!
[21:09:16] <[Snowball-Fight]> bUllZ3y3 wings Mouse , a mere flesh wound.




ermm... new scripts in place leviathan 3.20, Harshit by the way was in campus today.

Chennai Mathematical Institute

Hi,
After a week I have internet access again. I think most of us can imagine how it feels like. Well for most of us who care and don't know yet I am now in CMI eating south Indian food, reading for a change(not anymore, now i have internet access). The college is small, even compared to DA-IICT. CMI houses only 100+ students and the campus is in an upcoming area, which is a dump as of now. We don't get anything here, you need to go to Chennai for most things, and ermm... that's all for now will update you guys later about the place, once the lectures start.

PS : Are all Infosys ppl joining on 28th August @ Mysore?

Guess who starred in Microsoft Advertisment!

Note: This is not Photoshop effect. Click on image to read the contents clearly.

At Microsoft India Development Centre (IDC), Employees were given opportunity to star in an AD for IDC Brand campaign. How could I have missed the chance to star in an AD for Microsoft? ;)

Let me take this opportunity to wish all the aspirants of Microsoft from DA-IICT “All the Best!” Hope to see many of you in Microsoft next year.

If you need any help on Microsoft selection procedure or want to know about the work culture at Microsoft, just get it touch with me and I will be happy to respond.

Updates at the end of Day 5

Number of job offers made : 417
Infosys 160
MindTree 060
TCS 100
Wipro 055
Patni 005
TechMahindra 008
Accenture 029

Placements @ DA-IICT 2007 Update II

Wipro - 55 Offers
TCS - 100 Offers
MSIT people a little confused, as out of 37 MSIT passed in Wipro Exam, only 1 selected. They are planning now to do something.

As usual after placements fever is on. Those who are selected are celebrating, while the other ones are depressed, and few like me are still waiting for some company to allow them to even take the test!

Well lets hope everyone who deserves to be placed gets placed.

A news is TCS rejected by 51 students already!
Considering their last year record with us, I think they will take it pretty hard when only 20/100 Offers are accepted.
Note : I am saying 20 on past year experience.

What's Next : Patni Computer Services, thing to note is they kept us in C Grade College last year with 1.8 Package, this year they offering 3.2lpa, so i guess our Grades have improved.

Placements @ DA-IICT - 2007

Guys just a quick post.. The placements for the batch of 2008 have started.

As usual TCS came on Day-0(or whatever they call it now). Infosys and Mindtree results are out.
160 got in Infosys, Mindtree took 60. I have uploaded the .xls files with selection details, You will need to mail me if you want to see them. I am not sure if the files are private or internal information of the company.

Cheers to selected candidates.

Woman President?

If elected, will Pratibha Patil be called Rashtra"patni"?

Mac. Nobody gives a shit.

For all those MAC lovers out there!

Courtesy: Achal Bhaiyya!

College Dazs

college Dazs
college Dazs

Dazs of fun and sorrow
Dazs of excitement and anxiety
Dazs of innumerable hrs of sleep
Dazs without any tension………….
Dazs with and without exams…..
Dazs where passing the exams matter very little and flunking is more fun
Dazs of uncontrolled frenzy of games and powerplay
Dazs of nightouts and dormant afternoon
Dazs where morning occurs after 4:00 Pm and evening at 6:00 Am
Dazs where no day passes when we haven't curse the college administration
Dazs where we never ate without cursing the cook…
Dazs of uncontrolled fun and amity (even with flora and Fiona of institute)
Dazs of high Jinks on hostel corridor and hazy morning after boozing all night on hostel terrace…………..
Dazs of feeling very great after attending lectures after months…lol
Dazs of ragging juniors and feeling like the don of the institute
Dazs of lamenting about abysmal and Byzantine course and profs
Dazs of umpteen cigarette and smoke …..
Dazs of sitting with whole group and killing time….
Dazs of happy and sad and neither sad nor happy Dazs
Dazs of unnecessary debates, bickering and sledging
Dazs of slovenly and indolence
Dazs of learning and experimentation
Dazs of doing all except what being told to do in lab…
Dazs of orkutting and playing in labs and pissing off the TA's and lab Assistants
Dazs of waking 10 minutes before exam and scurrying through the course notes…
Dazs of brethren and synergy and juggling
Dazs of being frenetic and obnoxious and chaotic
Dazs of TV serials and movies
Dazs of going to interview and gabbling
Dazs of doing bhangra on navrati and on DJ Nights
Dazs of learning the technicality of Cut-Copy and Paste
Dazs of going to labs 10 minutes before and arguing with TA for attendance
Dazs of proxies and sleeping in class with eye half open….
Dazs of studying with girl friend in library when we want to do everything except studying

college Dazs
college Dazs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This was mailed to me by "Deepak Agrawal"

Ambush Marketing at its best!

This is an interesting piece of communication which was sent to me by one of my friends. Jet Airways, one of the leading Airways in India announced to their customers that they have changed. Kingfisher Airlines, on top of it whipped them by saying "We made them change".

Source: http://creativecriminal.blogspot.com/2007/05/ambush-marketing-at-its-best.html

Musings of a Confused Mind (Part II)

We are suffering from a modern disease called Information Anxiety, which victimizes mainly those people who are not on earth for a vacation and who know that, in order to go on, they have to aim at personal growth and at a better quality life. In such cases, otaining and processing information are basic and due, to the great variety and quantity in which the information is offered, we start shivering when we see the piles of newpapers, magazines and the like getting higher in front of our eyes at a much faster speed than our processing capacity. This anxiety can drive you mad if you don't pay attention to and become conscious of how you are using your time and start selecting what you take in.

Now for people like us, who probably end up reading Times of India and know India Today as the only magazine to refer to... that too for college rankings! This seems like a far-fetched dream. But with the whopping number on Television Channels, Websites, Newsletters, Books, Yellow Pages that we know of, sometimes you do get overwhelmed by the sheer numbers. You watch three programs at the same time, have hundreds of tabs on your browser, surf through pages of books without reading a single word... information passes by without registering into our minds. We don't even remember the brand name after watching a cool advertisement. We ignore details just to cope up with the amount of information around.

Its strange... but the way our brain ignores information is probably the only thing that keeps us sane!

Hello all...

Seems like old days to be among fellow DA-IICTians and blog. I am Naresh, from the Class of 2006. Still into the post DA-IICT Syndrome, I was itching to write somewhere completely dedicated to DA-IICT. Thank god, I found this place!

If you were wondering what the Post DA-IICT Syndrome is, it is just missing DA-IICT. While we were at DA-IICT, though most of us liked the place, we never sang paeans of it. But once we left it, we realise what all are so unique about DA-IICT. There's no place like our college, people... I envy all of you who are there now, having a time of your life... Enjoyyy!

Here are some nostalgic posts by my friends about our college:

Me

Amod Verma

Riddhi Kaul

Vivek Pabari

Project Shutter Photo Contest

Note: I am not eligible to take part in this contest. I am posting the information here so that other Photography enthusiasts can make use of it.

Microsoft has initiated a Photography Contest – the Project Shutter Photo Contest! This is aimed at enthusiasts with an eye for photogenic visuals across three themes that best represent the individual’s locality – Food, Culture and Architecture. There are tons of goodies up for grabs, including a T-Shirt every 30-minutes through the next 12 days.

Here is the site.

Be sure to check out their gallery to find some of coolest pics.

For more contest information refer to this post on gurus.

Ahmedabad: City of Specialised Institutions

The state of Gujarat has been typically considered to be lagging in terms of education. However, Ahmedabad and its periphery has some of the most renowned institutes in some specialised fields(Unfortunately, there is no one university encompassing them. In fact I was wondering if we could have a top-100 university, worldwide, if all these institutes could be brought under an autonomous university structure) . Here is a non-comprehensive list of some of them:-

1. IIM Ahmedabad(General Management)
2. MICA Ahmedabad(Communication and advertising Management)
3. DA-IICT(Information and Communication Technology)
4. NIE(Entrepreneurship)
5. NIFT(Fashion Technology)
6. NID(Design)
7. NICM(Cooperative management)
8. NIF(Innovation)
9. CEPT(Environmental Planning)
10. CEE(Environment Education)
11. IRMA(Rural Management)

I wonder if any other place in India has that number of high quality institutes of national level in that many diverse fields.

Connecting to HuB in hostel (For chat only)

Hi,
before I start with all this I want you to warn about couple of things.

1. Doing this might be actually wasting your time "not working"
2. This might be a problem with few offices, where they don't allow p2p connections. Technically it's not p2p ( chat only case ) , but hey the admins are fools, they just wanna get you for nothing.

So, as we have got the things sorted out, I am stating the original posts, which happen to be here and here.

If you read the above posts, there is just a few steps you need to know.
1. Install hamachi, join the network - btech2003, for password of the network you need to mail me.
2. download DC++ client. You can find one here.
3. Get a VIP account from me. ( Gtalk/GMail ID is abhishek [dot] chhajer)
4. Connect and waste your time chatting!

And yea btw, the counselling for B.Tech. 2007 is over and I will let you know the cut-off and post some pics if I can walk out of my room and take them from the ppl who have those. :-)

PS: This might sound kinda weird for 2001 people, as they never got to see what we built after they left :D

We have no life!

Apart from reading never ending news about iPhone in various RSS feeds in the past few days, I happen to meet Prateek Dubey, who just came from MICA on weekends to work on his BTP! (heck no.. all he was talking about MICA, series like House and 4400). While talking to him he mentioned about how DAiiCTians have no life!

It just happens in MICA people are from various states and academic backgrounds, who were bored to hell in their first 2 weeks of the new semester. So Prateek took them down to McD, and the way he explained the expressions on their faces, it made me think.

Do DAiiCTians really have no life (not in absolute sense)? I mean if you consider my case I can be found sitting on my PC 30 secs after I am awake, and sitting there till I am asleep, sometimes on the chair itself. So some of you can say that I have no life. But what about rest of you in DA-IICT and what about you doing a job out there?

Musings of a Confused Mind (Part I)

"I want a Red Ferrari"
"I want to see the world"
"I want a girlfriend who doesn't ask about my whereabouts every 2 minutes when I am with my other friends!"
"I want a brain that works"
"I just need an IPOD"

Small little things in life. Everybody is looking out for them. Some profound! Some not so profound! But we are all running after them. And we should. What's their to look forward to otherwise?

Anyway, the point that I wanted to make expands into the Pink Floyd theory of Time.

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun

The Starting Gun is probably the only thing that counts. Some of us missed it. Some of us are on our way. For the people who are in between. Run faster! The race is long and though probably it ends up just being with yourself. But it's the people around you in the race that make it more exciting!

Weekly Roundup

A week for daiictians,
14-some posts,
42 contributors
Number 1 position on Google search...

Not Bad. But not yet good enough! With 40+ contributors, We surely can write a lot more! and what do we write? Well write about where you are, Anything interesting to share with others or just a small hi :)!

Just to ensure that the site it utilized to the fullest, I'll describe some of the features of the website to you:

• Apart from the blog posts that are available on left column, You can also have a look at the reactions made by visitors on our posts. That's the first thing on column 2.
  
• To its right, you find the site feeds.. Site Feed are an efficient way to distribute content to large number of users. You in generally click on the feed and add the link to a feed reader. There are many options that you can explore for feed readers like iGoogle, Google reader, MyYahoo, netvibes etc. My personal favourite being Google reader.
• Below the feeds is the block named "Elsewhere..". In this block you will see what other daiictians have posted on their own blogs recently.. If you want your blog to be added to that list, please mail the link of the blog to "avi+daiictians@jodhpuriguy.com". I'll add them add them as soon as possible to the tracker.
• Below the recent comments is the Polls section. Do vote on those about-weekly polls!
• Going down, we see a lots of contributors for this blog, the list of archive and the list of labels.
• Bonus feature :) : Now you can view the snapshots of external websites by moving the mouse over the small icon next to links...
  

This is all for now but we would sure enough keep the changes coming... Meanwhile just a reminder: If you are a daiictian, You have the right to post on this blog(of course others have that too :) Just let me or abhishek know your email address so that we can add you to the list of contributors. Mail us at: "avi+daiictians@jodhpuriguy.com" or abhishek[dot]chhajer@gmail[dot]com

hf!

Links # 3

Here is a newer collection of links I have recently gone through

1. http://www.seriesflash.com/n/humor_olimpics/
   
2. http://hindibaat.blogspot.com/
   
3. http://www.boredstop.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=35
   
4. http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/Shot_them
   
5. http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/Best_Captcha_Ever
   
6. http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/Hole_in_the_pavement
   
7. http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/Bad_Place_To_Land
   
8. http://www.thehumorarchives.com/joke/Piracy
   
9. http://shof.msrcsites.co.uk/durex.jpg?view=1

Look at the thehumorarchives links.. they are simply awesome

Technorati Tags: Fun, Links

art wants to be free

I am writing this right now because ten years down the line, either I would be successful in what I'm trying to do or have given up and am leading a 9-5 vegetable life. In both cases I would have lost the feeling I have right now. So this is the best time to communicate it.

Art and business do not seem to enjoy each others' company. At least thats what people in their mid forties would tell you. They will either say that art is for the rich and famous or tell you that art is not for sale. I beg to differ here, its like saying that art is a catholic and business is an asshole (read: makes no sense). Infact I beg to rubbish both the two notions. I believe that art can be free but artists can still make a handsome living. For me, art wants to be free. It wants to reach people. It wants to entertain and enthrall the masses. The distribution can cost but not the art. Thats the prime philosophy of TempoStand, which, if I may be allowed to digress, is wrongly being promoted as the first statup of DA-IICT. It isn't. Ankit Agarwal and Pavitar Singh both have been involved in their respective startups earlier and I may be missing a few I do not know of.

Coming back to the point. Our music is free for people who want to listen and enjoy. We will charge for distributing CDs and we will charge for people who want to remix the songs and market them. If you subscribe to our feeds (either via a subscriber or by email) , you would see that all our songs are available as podcasts, so it is free for everyone. However we believe that people would buy audio CDs of our albums too. People who want to support their favorite bands and us would buy their merchandise. There are several ways of earning money on the web, most of them apply to TempoStand too.

So its an idea that we believe in, more important than the idea is the fact that we believe in something. Unlike most hypocritical entrepreneurs I will not say that we are confident of where we will ten years from now, but starting and failing is much better than standing safe and observing. We are anxious and touchy, but we are loving every moment of it. Learning things the hard way is fun and it stays.


My father, a chief engineer with the State Electricity Board having an experience of 33 years, says "have fun with ideas, this is the only time of your life when you will have some of your own".

You've got mail

This is the mail got from someone that I dont know. Dont know how he\she got this confusion.

"Dear Mr Bhardwaj,

let me first introduce myself. I am working with Mr Sumit Katyal, the owner of the ICICI credit card. Today some Mr Khan called up in our office for the due payment of the credit card. I have a complain. its very annoying becoz he talked in such abusive way. This is actually not the correct way of talking. Now i want to make it clear that i would be paying the amount only when Mr Khan would visit our office and appologise for his deed.

Kindly look inthe matter urgently.

Thaks & regards.

LD Sharma"

This is what I replied.

"Dear LD Sharma,

I am grieved by the whole incident and would like to extend my heartfelt apology. I am sorry the way things turned out to be. I would be more than happy to dismiss Mr. Khan for his bad behavior and insubordination but unfortunately Mr. Khan is directly related to Mr. Dawood Ibrahim.

Now I have two kids and a wife and a mistress, and would like to keep it that way. Therefore the apology from Mr. Khan will not be forthcoming, but I would like to assure you I would do my best to rectify the problem, if you could just tell me the whole incident in detail.

Sincerely
Sandeep Bhardwaj"

hehehe...........guess Mr. LD Sharma will be pretty pissed off.

DA-IICT Scoop - Best way to exit DA-IICT

If you want to watch a larger print goto my flickr album, but I don't think it's needed.

So, do you know someone who took their advice ?

The Earth and all (a story)

The Earth and all

... giving an extra shuffle to an already well-shuffled pack of cards. You know it will change your luck, but you don't whether for better or worse. - James Glieck in CHAOS: Making a New Science


Long long time before this time, there was an earth, a moon, a sun. And there were others who we don't bother about much. The earth used to be hot, very hot. Then it had something to do with the little molecule and all. But we will not bother about those either. The lead role of this story is being played by Earth. Sun is suspected to be the father of earth, I mean that's what we think happened, that Sun wanted to have 9 kids or something, and so it dropped 9 small pieces and they became his kids, who kept bothering him for a long time, going round and round him asking for money and all. Its a little strange, I mean, who wants kids like those, and who gets kids like this, by dropping parts of himself. But that is what we believe happened. (The exact number of kids are still not known, there are rumours sometimes that sun has other kids, which nobody is sure of as of now, but well, let's leave him alone, sun would be the last thing I would want to gossip about)

So the Earth, like i said before, was very hot. And sun, did not want his kids to be as hot-tempered as he was. (Its common with almost all parents that they don't want their kids to do things that they think they did wrong, but they all know nothing about James Glieck and Chaos and shuffled pack of cards and all). So basically sun wanted Earth to be a good boy, he took help of certain little molecules to do that. Those molecules didn't know what they were doing though but they did cool earth down by using some other molecules. Anyway, what happened, in all of this was that, Earth became all blue. all blue. And then suddenly strange things started happening. Earth started getting certain kind of fungal infections. It was a green colour kind of thing. Very strange. When these strange things started happening, Earth asked Sun for help. Sun was confused, he had sent the little molecules to cool earth down, but well, he didnt ever expect it turn out this way (I told you, shuffling a shuffled pack of cards...). In the meantime, the green thing was spreading over earth's body which was not covered by water (How water came, is another story).

Sun thought, probably, if he heated earth up, these fungii will go off. So he did, when he did, he ended up drying up more water, and all the fungii got even more place to spread. (Remember, shuffled pack of cards). So, what could he do. Sun was help-less. Infact, it was later learnt that these fungii used sun's light to cook food for themselves. Earth asked help from her brothers and sisters, they had no clue either.To Sun's rescue came the STAR broadcaster (Ok, this is not the TV that you see, they have copied the name though, the purpose was similar, it was the source of entertainment(!) and mis-information for the stars), which said that there was one way. It showed the progress of technology in the galaxy. And it was great. Sun didn't like the broadcasts earlier but a close friend (read one of the Centauri brothers) told him about it and only then did he discover that Earth's was a known problem. There were shampoos available which released agents all over the body. The agents then took care of themselves and slowly got rid of the fungii. Sun suggested Earth to use these.

There were many brands available. All of them worked on a similar concept. The shampoo was applied, and it released very tiny agents on the body which grew and slowly took care of the fungal infection. The agents grew in different shapes and sizes. The shampoos looked like the shampoos, you'd bath your dog with, if you had a dog and did not have somebody else who'd give him a bath. The shampoos when rinsed, produced a great foam.Earth used it many times, we have been able to figure out about two or three times. We have also, discovered the kind of agents produced. The initial few times, the agents did not work very good, the fungii had even started growing on and underwater. The shampoo companies released newer version of shampoo which possesed ability to develop agents who'd think they are very intelligent. They would not only get earth rid of the fungus, but also will kill other agents, thereby to an extent solving the problem of cleaning the agents after the fungus was taken care of.

The shampoo company was making real big buck with this new technology. Even though nobody knew how well its going to work. So Earth shifted to the new product. Rinsed the previous shampoo. The great foam was raised all over the earth, and then later, the new shampoo came. It took few minutes for the intended agents to 'evolve'. The agents which came before the next breed of agents, thought believed that they were THE agents. They liked to believe so. The shampoo company had claimed that they were going to be 'intelligent agents'. Earth had no way to know, how 'intelligent' the agents were. The evolving agents proved James Glieck's theory about shuffled cards. They did there job allright, for sometime. Earth was happy a lot of fungi was gone. She bought another bottle of the shampoo.But the agents outdid themselves each time. They proved to be too intelligent and too diversely intelligent. They got rid of a lot of fungii, but then some of them started growing more fungii. Some of them started protecting fungii. But they were all ok, the agents that followed, started growing some other stuff. Initially, Earth ignored it. But it was too much to be ignored. The new agents started making holes on Earth's head and growing some new brown and grey colourfungii kind of stuff and this new stuff was spreading faster than the original fungii did. The salesstar who sold the shampoo said that the real agents haven't come yet, and Earth did not need to worry and MUST not rinse it, because the intended agents had not yet been developed.It was very itchy all that stuff, they were growing. Earth shook hard sometimes, sometimes it shook even harder. But it did not seem to solve a lot of problems.

Sometimes, Earth wondered about the purpose of its life, it wondered for how long will she keep going around the sun asking for stuff, and it wondered if that was the real purpose of its life. Or was it something else, was it some greater deed that was in store for here.Some other times, she just itched herself. Sometimes, she got some small kids floating around to itch here or there. All they could really do was hit as hard as they could.And the stuff continued to grow. The agents were underestimated, they became communicable and started troubling Earth's adopted son (read moon) and Marsi, Earth's favourite sibling. It led to differences between Earth and Marsi, Marsi complained to Sun. Sun was watching all this, and was helpless. The shampoo company said, don't rinse, wait, Marsi said, get rid of the thing, u've begun to look ugly, Moon said nothing. Earth itched.


(Theauthor claims lack of imagination is the reason for having no knowledge of the story beyond this point. Imagination claims, it has nothing to do with this disaster.)
(James Glieck has nothing to do with all of this, niether do his cards)


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I feel funny posting the same thing everywhere, but it was Avi who asked me to ask me to post it here, and I usually cant say no to such temptations. This story was originally published at ispeaking.blogspot.com, and later at duerf-speak.blogspot.com

DA-IICT Scoop - IDEA ppl

FYI,

Today few people from Idea came checking for students who haven't paid their pending bills and since they have left the college, I don't think they will. They(Idea ppl) were saying that there will be legal actions against the students. I posted just so that you know about the situation, if it bothers you then pay your bills, else hf!

PS : We started this place, so that ppl can tell us about what is happening in their part of the world and NOT just to hear my useless ramblings. Think about it.

hf = have fun (Just in case!)

DA-IICT Scoop - It's Raining here in Gandhinagar

As I have mentioned earlier.. I am still in DA-IICT and it's raining here since few days.. so I decided to take few pictures from my 3.2MP camera. If you want some details about the pictures you can visit my flickr album

All the Dustbins now have a USE ME tag nowadays!

Some Notes...

Hello Every one!

So here we have ONE more initiative from Abhishek Chhajer after the forum(ofcourse with navina and many others), DC++ and Gurus(with Kanishk). Did you know all this was done by this dork(or is it dark :) )?

Thumbs up for him!

Also everyone reading this blog: Please tell everyone you know about this blog and tell them to join it. In case you want to contribute to the blog, please post your gmail id(not the whole email address so that no spam comes your way) as a comment to this post.

Finally, Keep this blog alive by posting good stuff :)

Keep Blogging!

ps: subscribe to this blog's rss feeds available from top right to get the latest updates!

UPDATE: Keeping this post on top for one more day so that people can reply to comments and we can add them. Please do post your gmail id . :)

Microsoft Surface

Here is a parody video about Microsoft Surface (RSS Feeds aren't showing the video.. you will need to come to blog to watch it)

The original post is here. I dunno why the video on the site isn't loading.. so I decided to put it here.
PS: The video might be old for people inside DA-IICT, but for others it's still new. So hf !!

Links # 2

Links from Engadget

1. Nokia N95 + RC plane = unlimited DIY aerial photography - Pretty cool idea
2. Brando's USB-powered aquarium: for the fish owner to-be - Even better
3. Jet packs for sale! Life insurance sold separately - Ermm....

PS : I have added 4 new pictures on my flickr album, you can view them here.

Links # 1

Here is an installment of interesting links I found recently

1. Good Quotations by famous people - Discovered by Bokaro
2. It's Hard To Run a Blog In Sweden - Slashdot
3. Microsoft Was Distributing Ubuntu Linux - Slashdot
4. Zwok - Free game.. very addictive
5. Linux like Windows - Funneh!
   

For those who play games and like the Desktop TD game.. good news for them.. a new version of TD is released :-), find the game here.