A yard full of thoughts

My 3 year old laptop, upgraded!

2021-07-24T16:14:00.008+05:30

The Background:

For many of us, the laptops we bought pre-Covid were mainly for our personal entertainment and/or periodic work requirements - at least mine was. I never bought my machine in 2018 with the intent of using it as my workhorse. However, to be fair, it lasted me a good while (what with over 16 months of working from home). But come 2021, the chinks in its armor began to show. Therefore, a month or so ago, as I was getting seriously bogged down with my ageing HP Pavilion 15-CS1000TX laptop, I started considering a new laptop purchase from Amazon which would be able to fulfill my increasing needs from my machine.

Each laptop I considered was upwards of ₹80,000/- which was a fair amount considering that it was going to be a more modern, and a brand new laptop - however for me, it didn't make sense to put so much money into another machine for maybe 3-4 years. Also, it didn't help that I was getting only about ₹12,000/- in exchange for my laptop from Amazon. So, I started exploring my options to upgrade my current laptop itself, instead of a new purchase.

What to upgrade:

I pored over the manual of my laptop, went through dozens and dozens of reviews and products online, checked compatibility matches, speed, durability, price and finally narrowed down my decision to the following pretty obvious choices:

I needed to upgrade my RAM.
I needed to install a faster disk drive for my core OS operations.
Since my budget allowed for it, I went ahead with a third (optional) upgrade to swap my existing SATA HDD to a newer, faster SSD.

Which compatible components to buy:

Now the question was which RAM, which SSD, what capacity, what frequency, etc. and etc. That is where the HP manual for my laptop came as a lifesaver. It provided me with all the details I needed to know, and therefore, to purchase, the components I would need for my laptop upgrade. The list came down to the following:

RAM: Crucial SODIMM DDR4 8GB 2666 MHz
Primary Disk: Crucial P2 M.2 NVMe 2280 250GB SSD
[Optional Upgrade] Secondary Disk: Samsung 870 EVO 2.5" SATA 1TB SSD

The above items cost me roughly ₹20,000/- which was a lot less money than what I would have spent to purchase a new laptop. Business sense, check!

How to actually install the hardware:

Second part was to decide how to install, how to clone my current disk contents (including OS, programs, configs, data, etc.) into my new disk. And that's where YouTube came as a lifesaver for me. Following are the videos I referred - right from how to open up my HP laptop, to how to install the RAM, how to clone, how to boot - pretty much, the whole sha-bang. PS: the sequence below is how I went, so it is, in a sense, in an order of execution.

The end results

After following all the above videos and steps on my laptop, I guess I can say it has been a successful upgrade for me because:

My laptop boots in 30 seconds now, as compared to 6 minutes before.
My existing OS, programs, configs, data remained as-is - nothing had to be reinstalled.
My applications launch faster and respond quicker to commands.
Any file application is blazing fast (since I have both SSD disks).
My old HDD is now connected via a SATA drive cover and is being used as an external storage.

Some pictures:

Laptop internals before upgrades

Crucial SODIMM DDR4 8GB RAM

Crucial RAM installed in the free RAM slot

Samsung 870 EVO 2.5" SATA 1TB SSD

Crucial P2 M.2 NVMe 250GB SSD installed

Laptop internals after all upgrades

SATA HDD vs SATA SSD vs M.2 NVMe SSD comparison:

Speed tests done using the CrystalDiskMark 8 utility - higher numbers in the test results mean faster speeds.

Conclusion:

I am super happy with my decision to upgrade my existing machine instead of purchasing a new one. My laptop has the 8th gen Intel CORE i5 CPU - so that may be the only hardware letdown I see in the future. Otherwise, the current "custom configuration" laptop that I have, is definitely beast enough for me!

Fitibit app notifications and Redmi Note 10 Pro Max

2021-05-15T19:33:00.002+05:30

I've been a Fitbit Versa user for over 2 years now, and my phone has almost always been an Android one.

One issue I have faced a lot is that the Fitbit notifications for calls, messages/IM, emails etc. were never consistent. More often that not - even though my Fitbit device would sync seamlessly with my phone using the Fitbit app - the notifications would stop working all of a sudden, and almost always the error I would get on the Fitbit app's Notifications settings was that "The notification service is not running. A phone reboot is required".

Of course, rebooting never worked. So, there were the countless tries of clearing the cache/user data, uninstalling/installing the app, rebooting the Fitbit device - all were temporary fixes, and within a week or a few days, the same issue would come up.

Not good.

I may have finally found the solution to this after poring through countless Fitbit forums and Google results. If you are someone like me - using a Fitbit device on an Android phone (my current setup is Fitbit Versa2 and Redmi Note 10 Pro Max on Android11), then maybe these steps will help you.

Please note these steps are specifically for Android11 - for older versions of Android, it may not be exactly the same steps, but there will be similar settings available.

Go to your Fitbit app information details on your phone (Settings > Apps > Manage Apps > Fitbit)

Under "Other Permissions", I gave permission to all the items since Fitbit needs to be able to run in the background for notifications services to run (note this may consume additional battery on your phone)

Under "Notifications", make sure that "Show Notifications" is enabled

Change "Battery Saver" settings to "No Restrictions"

Finally, just to be sure, you may want to reboot your phone.

After the above steps were done, I am now not seeing the "notification service not running" error on the Fitbit app, and all notifications are now showing nicely on my Fitbit device - which is what I wanted (after all, isn't that what a smartwatch is for?).

Hope this helps you!

Bittersweet Pills

2020-03-14T19:15:00.001+05:30

Life - that's all I have been thinking of for a long time now.

I'm not sure how to put it, but I guess it would only be fair to say that I am grateful to be alive. Nah, not saying thanks to "God" or whatever people call it (I don't really believe in them, sorry) but I'm grateful to life I guess.

It has shown me a lot, taught me a lot, brought me down to my knees, made me grind my nose on the dirt, and also thrown me to Cloud9 whenever it thought I deserved it. In between, I kind of forgot what I wanted and how to be happy for myself, but it has shown me again how to be courageous, has given me the will to be strong, and the strength to fight for my happiness.

Life has taught me that happiness is not to be taken for granted, and that it has to be earned. Much like respect, but maybe a little harder. It has also showed me time and again that tomorrow is promised to absolutely no one, what we have is today and now.

I guess I'm on the brink of a long journey, where I will need to rediscover myself all over again. I know the only way I can do that is by shedding all I am today, by daring to stand naked infront of myself and to start forgiving and loving myself for all my past.

I need to start by embracing the fact that I am, and always have been, just a human.

When the time is right

2016-04-01T23:26:00.001+05:30

When the time is right, it will be a good day. A beautiful, bright and sunny day. Neither hot, nor cold. The perfect kind of day you would like to wake up to every morning. Crisp, clean air; chirping of birds; slight cool breeze. Things like that, the small things, that make so much of a difference.

It will come, someday, I know.

There will be a bright day waiting for all of us, I know.

The only problem is the night before that morning. This long, treacherous and frightful night. Full of anxiety and depression. Wading through it is like walking in a river full of mud. Every step is a challenge. Every stride, unsure.

I hope we all get enough courage and strength to see us through this black night. When we can all witness the new dawn and enjoy the beautiful day after it. And we will, someday. Maybe not together, but wherever we will be, I'm sure the same day will come to us all. Maybe at different times, but come it will.

Until then, trudge we must.

Fight we must.

Cry we must.

Live, we must.

The myth called Happiness

2013-09-18T09:26:00.003+05:30

I'm a Sagittarian. And by that virtue I'm a die-hard optimist. Someone who never stops believing. Believing in what? In little things such as happiness, for example.

Guess what? After years of bouncing and trouncing I've realized that all these are just myths. That is my take from my life.

Most of all, happiness is always short-lived is what I've learned. It comes, like that fleeting gust of wind on a hot summer day, makes you feel oh-so-alive and oh-so-fresh, and then, just like the wind that couldn't care less, it is gone. And you're back to negotiating the sweaty hot summer day all over again.

If you were an optimist such as I, you'd probably wait for the next gust of wind. The next wave of happiness. But even for an optimist, there are only so many such cycles that can be attempted before you start losing your faith.

Maybe it's just my take on these things that has landed me here - where I am today. Distraught, empty and everything but happy.

Maybe my karma has finally caught up to me.

Maybe happiness just wasn't my cup of tea. Ever.

Stage 2 starts?

2013-03-04T11:37:00.002+05:30

Dear all,

We wanted to make this announcement a lot sooner, but had to bite down on our excitement and hold the news until later. Anyway, now that we can share this big news, here goes: "WE ARE EXPECTING A BABY!"

Yes, that's right. We are excited, a little scared and very excited (did I say that again?).

Please keep showering us with your love and good wishes as you have always done. It always means a lot!

Love,

Stutti and Rahul

Cocktail OST - Yaariyaan

2012-07-14T11:19:00.002+05:30

I'm back after a long break.

Not that I quit blogging, no. I basically chose to focus on my photography site/blog for a while. If any of you missed me, then apologies.

Right - so this new Bollywood film Cocktail, released yesterday, has some good songs. I particularly liked this one called "Yaariyaan" (which means friendships/relationships).

This song is melancholic and soulful. However, it does have very prominent Coldplay elements in it - for instance the intro, the piano/guitar bits in between, the outro. Nevertheless, it's a good one that I thought you should listen to.

Click here to listen to the song - enjoy! :)

Vicky Donor OST - Pani Da Rang

2012-04-25T09:33:00.002+05:30

I watched this movie last Sunday. A good, but strictly one-time watch this is. Anyway, that's a different story altogether.

This particular song "Pani da rang" (which I think means "The color of water" in Punjabi) from the movie Vicky Donor has some interesting facts to it. Apparently it was written and composed by the lead actor Ayushman way back in 2002. And now it has been recorded and here it is. Quite nice to listen to.

Click here to play the song. And enjoy! :)

Goodbye Tumblr - Hello Wordpress

2012-04-17T10:46:00.000+05:30

My photo blog is no more.

Well, I shut it down. Remember, the one I had created in Tumblr? Yeah, that one. It was about two years old and had over 250 posts (mostly images).

The primary reason why I shut it down was because I started losing my photographs. Most of my older photographs just stopped displaying. The issues continued over several days, with more and more posts not displaying their associated photographs.

And that was it. I had to change.

I hadn't tried blogging using Wordpress ever, so that came as a natural choice I guess. I already had an account there, so it was a matter of a couple of minutes and I was done. The domain charges et al cost me about $17 for a year which I think was OK.

I installed a premium theme called "Photography" (but of course!), and as of now things are alright. Still a work-in-progress.

The "Food" gallery in my new website

What I miss in Wordpress is the tremendous amount of flexibility Tumblr offered - customizing templates there was a breeze. Here, in Wordpress, I can't change the fonts (or any custom CSS either for that matter) - I need to add some upgrade for $30 a year it seems to be able to do something as trivial as changing the fonts!

However, Wordpress comes with a lot of other tools which are easier. For example, it's inbuilt rating tool is excellent. Also, it can hosts galleries on its own which is a cool feature too.

Head over to the new site at www.RahulPradhan-Photography.com, take a look around, and please let me know what you think.

See you there!

Been Lazy

2012-04-12T09:32:00.001+05:30

No posts for about three weeks. I know, I've been lazy. And road trippin' too frequently. We'll talk about that soon.

I promise.

Kahaani: What I think of it

2012-03-11T18:24:00.002+05:30

"Kahaani" (Hindi for "Story") is a Bollywood drama-thriller film starring Vidya Balan as the main protagonist. It also has other actors in various supporting roles, of which Parambrata Chatterjee plays the second-most significant character of the film. Directed by Sujoy Ghosh (most notably of the "Jhankaar Beats" directorial fame) and screenplay by Advaita Kala (author of "Almost Single"), Kahaani is a staunch women-centric film.

Film Synopsis:

The entire film is set in Kolkata. The film opens to a gas attack in the packed, rush-hour Kolkata subway (or "Metro" as we call it in India) that leaves over a hundred passengers dead. After that, the film quickly moves to Kolkata two years later. Vidya Bagchi (played by Vidya Balan) lands at the Kolkata airport and goes directly to a police station. She is a resident of London and is in the city to find her missing husband. Her complaint is that her husband, Arnab Bagchi, had come to Kolkata on a software project assignment, but has been out of touch for the last couple of weeks.

Vidya Bagchi is heavy into her pregnancy, and the mission she has set for herself is intimidating. The young police officer whose "daak naam" (Bengali for "pet name") is Rana (played by Parambrata Chatterjee) offers her his help in the daunting task that lie in front of them.

It is a journey that Vidya has to make, and the entire film is about the roads they take and the inroads they make. What happens to Vidya? Does she manage to find her missing husband? What were the odds like? These are the questions that the film seeks to answer.

My views:

Truth be told, it was refreshing to see a film set in Eastern India after a long time. Most of the Bollywood films are either Mumbai-based, or London-based, or Delhi-based. Kahaani's selection of Kolkata as its backdrop, for me, was perfect. The film needs vibrant, chaotic, baabu-istic, dark shades and Kolkata gives it those colors very well.

This film, in my opinion, is a director's film. The pace is fast - you are not allowed to be lazy in the entire duration of the film. That is the backbone of any good drama-thriller genre, and Kahaani does that perfectly. The scene editing is excellent, the cinematography brilliant. The entire film is an accumulation of all the scenes to a bang of a climax amidst the perfect loud drum beats of the Durgaa Puja. And the cherry on the cake - a Durgaa Puja in Kolkata (please click that link with audio on!).

Vidya Balan has proven yet again that she is the unrivaled queen of Bollywood today. It does not matter how many Sheelas and Munnis come and go, you need talent to survive in the lonely spot at the top, and Vidya with her performance in Kahaani shows us what talent really is. With this film, she has set the bar extremely high for all the films to follow this year, and I really doubt if any other actress is even going to come close to it. Also, it would be grave injustice to not mention how well Parambrata Chatterjee has done his part in the film. Without his character - the shy, innocent, helpful police officer - the film would have been incomplete, and Parambrata's performance makes this character come alive in true Kolkata style.

However, the winner in the film is the story. Excellent script by Advaita Kala, who unfortunately did not fare so well with her earlier script attempt in "Anjaana Anjaani", but what a comeback she makes with Kahaani! The story is the hero of the film, and it works so well with a very competent director and some very good performing actors.

I will rate this movie 4.5 out of 5. This is a movie that you cannot afford to miss.

Paan Singh Tomar: What I think of it

2012-03-10T12:52:00.004+05:30

Paan Singh Tomar, supposedly, is a true life account of an individual by the same name. I say supposedly because I looked up Google for the name but all I got were links to the movie, but none to the actual individual. Either the individual was, indeed, never recognized for his efforts or the movie is a blatant lie. Nevertheless, let us continue.

Film Synopsis:

This film begins in the 1980's as a local newspaper reporter gets set for his big break - a once-in-a-lifetime chance to interview the dreaded dacoit Paan Singh Tomar. Paan Singh (played by Irrfan), however, resents the word "dacoit" and prefers to be called "baaghi" (rebel) instead. As the interview progresses in Paan Singh's secret hideout, the film moves to flashback, to the rural India of the 1950's.

Paan Singh Tomar begins by telling the reporter about his life in his village Morena, in Madhya Pradesh. He recalls about his family, and his wife (played by Mahi Gill). Paan Singh concedes that he was in the army as a "jawan". and mentions how his voracious appetite was a cause for trouble due to the limited rationing of the army's food supplies. At one point, a senior stops him from taking a second helping of food and tells Paan Singh that "this is the army, not a wedding reception". He advises Paan Singh that if he wants to eat a lot of food, he should join the Sports division of the Army.

Being a simpleton that he is, Paan Singh applies and is selected in the Sports division of the Army. His amazing pace and stamina in the long distance category leave his superiors and also his coach spellbound. However, at the request of his coach, Paan Singh moves from 5000m category and instead focuses on the Steeplechase event. He goes on to set many records in the National Army Athletics meet, breaking record after record. Paan Singh is also sent to Tokyo to represent the Indian Army in the International Army Athletics meet. However, because of his unfamiliarity in using spikes while running, he removes the spiked shoes midway and starts running bare feet only to end up losing the race which, he confesses to the reporter, was a regret he lived with.

Paan Singh's family back home expands and he now has two children. However, trouble starts brewing in his village as his relatives use unfair means to illegally occupy his land and steal his harvests. Paan Singh is forced to take voluntary retirement from the army to tend to his domestic needs. Then begins the crux of the movie, the reasons which turned a man, who had staunch faith in the army, into a killer and a dacoit. After the interview with the reporter ends, the time frame continues in the present day and follows Paan Singh's activities until the end of the movie.

My comments:

Frankly, I went to watch this movie with little expectations. It was a last minute call and I didn't really care if the movie was good or bad.

However, I have to say that this is quite a good movie.

The story line, as is the case with most inspired-by-a-true-story films, cannot be expected to have a sublime twist that will leave you spellbound. In fact, the strength of such movies lies squarely on the shoulders of the main protagonist, and whether or not the actor/actress can do justice to the real person and the real situation. Now, if the real person was a well known character (like Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady") then the actor's job becomes doubly difficult because the audience knows what and who the actor is trying to portray. In this case, however, I doubt if anyone in the general public had heard of Paan Singh Tomar. That left Irrfan with some flexibility to add his colors to the character on screen, and it shows.

Irrfan acts the way he has always done. And that is in a good, powerful way. He is one of the more refined actors in Bollywood today, and when playing a powerful and diverse role such as this (an army man, a sportsperson, a family man, a dacoit) you need that kind of talent to pull off such a character with conviction. Irrfan, in my opinion, does that well. For example, it is a pleasure to watch him as a hungry simpleton for whom a 5000m race is like a walk in the park - while his competitors are panting and collapsing around him after completing the race, he coolly sits down after winning the race, folds his legs, and eats a big bunch of bananas like he hasn't eaten for days!

All in all, watch this movie for Irrfan. He is the soul of this movie as expected. And the good news: he delivers.

I will give this movie 3 out of 5 stars. A good watch, this film.

Samsung Omnia W: What I think of it

2012-02-26T19:49:00.002+05:30

Click here for image source

I got this amazing phone, Samsung Omnia W housing the Windows Phone (WP) 7.5 "Mango" operating system (OS) as a gift from my dad about a week ago (Thank you Dad!). In this post, I will be sharing my experience after using this phone strictly as an end-user, as I've done for my previous mobile reviews. This review does not contain any tech specs, you can find them easily by clicking here. But the following basic points can be mentioned:

Samsung Omnia W I8350
WP 7.5 OS (aka "Mango") Operating System
1.4 GHz Scorpion Processor
3.7 inch SuperAMOLED touch screen (Gorilla glass)
8 GB internal storage, non-expandable
512 MB RAM
5 MP primary camera, with Auto-focus and flash
VGA secondary (front) camera
WiFi, USB
Etc. etc.

For this review, I thought that instead of writing a "worded" review, I'll jot down my experience as points and post them here. Well, maybe because there was so much to write about this phone that I got a little bit lazy! But more than that, I thought bulletined points would make for quick reading for those looking for quick user feedback on the phone.

My Samsung Omnia W is, like I said, a week old. I got it for INR 15,500/- (plus change) at Sangeetha, Bangalore. I went in expecting the price to be about INR 17,500/- but was pleasantly surprised by the lower price on offer. Apparently, that's because Nokia Lumia 710 slashed its price hence Samsung followed suit with its competition.

Below are my tit-bits about this phone. The last week, I would just note down these points as I experienced them, in the online Microsoft SkyDrive OneNote application. This was stored in the cloud (SkyDrive), opened in the phone, points added, and synced back to the cloud. The experience (as you shall read later in one of my points) was quite nice.

- User interface is clean, fast and responsive

- SuperAMOLED screen is awesome

- Call logs store each and every call/text/chat for all contacts. Does not club them per contact.

- The "People" hub is simply amazing

- Seamless integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google Mail

- Cannot create custom MP3 ringtones

- Voice and video calling is great

- Primary 5MP camera works really well

- Stock earphones suck

- Copy paste is easy but no option to "Select All", or "Cut" (only Copy)

- Same volume level used for music output and ringtone

- Music player is just OK

- No equalizer for music player

- Apps are less but growing steadily

- No apps for chats (GTalk, Skype)

- Bing search is decent

- Bing Maps suck

- Use the "gMaps" app for GPS navigation

- Microsoft Office is good, but can only create Word and Excel.

- PowerPoint can be viewed and edited only, NOT created

- Wireless sync with desktop is cool

- SkyDrive works quite well

- WiFi is nice, detects and switches to wireless networks automatically

- Zune desktop software needs to be downloaded and installed (101MB)

- Zune desktop software not very easy to operate

- Phone gets regular updates from Windows

- Internet Explorer works well, with multiple tab facility

- Can switch between 5 processes (Alt-Tab)

- Live Tiles can be ordered, switched, changed

- Main menu only lists all apps in one huge list alphabetically

- No option to club apps/folders like iPhone

- Battery life decent, about 12hours with medium to heavy usage (calls,texts,video,browsing)

- Look and feel of phone good. Slim and light easy to carry and hold

- Speech recognition works quite well but it's no Siri

- Strangely sending texts fails a lot of times, need to keep retrying

- Shows the Facebook profile pic of a contact ONLY for incoming calls, not for outgoing

- Built in themes are a joke

- Windows Live ID needed to access SkyDrive. Apps and Windows settings depend on the location specified in that ID

- Photos will show all photos in the phone, in SkyDrive and albums from your Facebook

- Dictionary/auto-correction when typing is nice. Adding custom words is a breeze

- Message hub is fantastic. One place for text and Facebook chats (conversation style per contact). Wish GTalk was also integrated.

- No "drafts" facility in messages, only in mails

- With earpiece connected, difficult to use the QWERTY keypad in landscape mode

My rating for this phone: 4 out of 5 stars

Closest competition (WP 7.5 only): Nokia Lumia 710, HTC Radar (The Nokia Lumia 800 is almost twice the price hence is not a "close" competitor per se, in my opinion, but definitely worth taking a look at).

Final Verdict: This is a great bang-for-the-buck phone. If you can live with about 5 GB of space (of course, the 25 GB of SkyDrive is not counted here), not so great music player and some of the negatives that I've pointed out, then this is a great phone to buy. This is not a flashy phone, and its looks are not attention seeking. But having said that, this sleek and light phone in the age of behemoth smartphones feels solid to hold and use.

Items for Sale (Bangalore, India)

2012-02-16T13:25:00.002+05:30

Dear all,

The following items of mine are for sale. If you (or anyone you know) might be interested in any of these items, kindly let me know. All you have to do is drop me an email (rahul.pradhn@gmail.com) and I will get back to you as early as I can.

Item 1: iPod Touch 4, 32GB, Black

Item 2: Nikkor AF-S DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lens

Please click on the links above to view the ads I've placed in www.olx.in, a free classifieds website.

Both items are for sale in Bangalore, India. Condition of both items are excellent.

Warm Regards,

Rahul Pradhan

Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya OST - Tu Mohabbat Hai

2012-02-12T09:01:00.002+05:30

For the first time in this blog, I'm going to recommend a second song from the same album/movie. This one, called "Tu Mohabbat Hai" is a peppy number by Atif Aslam, Monali Thakur & Priya Panchal from the upcoming Bollywood film "Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya".

Click here to listen to it, and enjoy! :)

Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya OST - Jeene De (Coffee House Version)

2012-02-05T11:49:00.004+05:30

A typical Mohit Chauhan song, this is again a light track from the upcoming Bollywood movie titled "Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya". Now this is the kind of song that I'd love to listen to when driving through an open road, with the wind on my face (you know, the cliched type of drives) :-)

What is also a nice coincidence is that the film's lead actors, Ritesh Deskhmukh and Genelia D'Souza, are also a real life couple and have just got married. In a miniscule way, let this be my wedding gift to them! Here's wishing them a successful and happy married life together!

Click here to listen to the song. And enjoy!

Almost Momos

2012-02-01T20:15:00.001+05:30

Almost had momos for dinner tonight.

Too bad that the chicken stall nearby does not keep/make minced meat. I guess I should provide this invaluable suggestion to them to keep a minced-meat making machine. They should listen to a regular customer like me, else their sales will take a bad hit (maybe that will work).

Now, it's gonna be porridge for dinner. Health conscious, you see.

Well, almost!

Blogger.in?

2012-01-31T22:40:00.001+05:30

Not sure when this happened, but the URL (or in layman terms, the "link") to my blog has changed. It used to end with "blogspot.com" but today I noticed that it has become "blogspot.in".

Google, you sneaky bastards, you had to do this without telling any of your users, isn't it? I hope this is not in line with the Government of India's ridiculous demand of content screening (who knows how these may be related - you never know!).

Now thanks to this change, my Outbrain widget (that star-rating widget below every post that you see in this blog) has stopped displaying the older ratings for the posts. That is because Outbrain registers, and by that extension - remembers, ratings by the URL (aka "link") of the page/post that was rated. Now since all my posts have changed from "blogspot.com" to "blogspot.in", for the Outbrain widget it is a new page/post and hence, the older ratings are gone - poof! How ridiculously sad!

I've had this Outbrain widget for quite a while, maybe about 3 years, and there were a considerable amount of ratings that my users had given me. And trust me when I tell you, these ratings are hard to come by (even though I cannot understand why).

All of them are now gone.

Strike Clean!

2012-01-30T23:32:00.001+05:30

Spent an hour updating the template of my blog. Lessons learned as a short note to self:

Remember to always keep the blog spick-and-span, neat-and-tidy. The blog should be easy to make sense of, so avoid clutter at all times. Oh and keep posting silly posts regularly - keep the readers interested. Too big a gap between posts might turn off your readers!

Got it. I just hope this will still make sense to me after about, say, 5 months or so.

Band Baaja Baaraat OST - Mitra

2012-01-22T10:39:00.004+05:30

This song is from a 2010 Bollywood film called "Band Baaja Baaraat". The film was a very watchable one, and it had some nice songs to go with it too. One of my favorite songs from the film (and also from 2010) is this particular one called Mitra.

I don't know why I took so long to post this song to my blog. But like they say, better late than never.

Click here to play this song. Enjoy!

Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu OST - Kar Chalna Shuru Tu

2012-01-16T16:11:00.002+05:30

This is a new song that I discovered just last evening. And I love it already.

A nice song from the upcoming Bollywood movie "Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu", this one sure has the appeal!

Bad news is that something's wrong with esnips.com, the site where I used to upload all my shared music files. For some strange reason they've removed their mp3 widgets. However, you can still listen to the song the old fashioned way - just click here to listen to it, that's all!

Oh and yes, enjoy!

Incoming, 2012!

2011-12-31T09:55:00.003+05:30

The last day of 2011. And a cold one in Bangalore.

All set to welcome 2012, supposedly the year the world ends (or so they say).

So here's wishing everyone out there a very happy new year 2012. May we survive.

Until then, go crazy, go wild!

Don 2: What I think of it

2011-12-25T21:51:00.000+05:30

Don 2 was probably one of the most anticipated movies of 2011. Especially with Farhan Akhtar again as the director of this sequel to the 2006 hit, Don. And boy, was I excited! I had got my tickets booked a week in advance and was really looking forward to it. The fact that it was Christmas only added to the excitement.

The film begins to an explanation as to why the European drug lords are hatching a plan, in an expensive yatch somewhere in the middle of the ocean, to have Don eliminated. Don (Shah Rukh Khan) is still at large, and rules the drug mafia. It then moves to Thailand, with a suave Don tackling, alone, about 10-20 odd bad guys who have been hired by the European drug lords to eliminate him. Of course, Don walks away with only minor cuts and bruises.

Then comes Interpol officer Roma (Priyanka Chopra) who is still hunting for Don. Five years on, looks like Interpol has made little progress in tracking Don. Her boss Malik, played by veteran actor Om Puri, shocks her with his retirement news. However, just as he was about to retire peacefully, the Don surprises them by surrendering to the Interpol.

Jailed, Don is thrown to the same high-security prison where his arch-rival from the prequel, Vardhaan (Boman Irani) is lodged. Don convinces Vardhaan to team up with him and escape with him. They plan their escape meticulously and do that successfully. If I calculated correctly, then it takes the two of them only about a week to prepare and make good their escape. Makes you wonder if high-security prisons are really that easy to break out of! Anyway, let's take that in good humor and move on.

Following the pretty easy escape, Don finds time to unwind with Lara Dutta who gets to play Don's eye candy this time around. The film then moves to Berlin and that is where the rest of the film focuses on. His plan is age-old : to lay his hands on the note chaapney wali machine so that he can print money and become, as he says, "billionaires" (I thought he was one already!). In his quest, Don assembles a motley crew of members including Sameer (Kunal Kapoor) who is a talented hacker and "is a big fan" of the Don, and Jabbar (Nawab Shah), a hitman who is in Don's team for sheer muscle power.

The Don has a plan, but how well does it work? Who are on his side in reality, and who turns into betrayers? Will Roma be able to finally catch Don and put him behind bars by foiling his master plan? That's what the rest of the movie is all about.

Frankly, I was disappointed. I thought the story was, like I said, age-old. Nothing new to lust after some plates that print money (so what if it was Euros in this case). There have been countless villains in the history of Bollywood who've always wanted that. Come on Farhan, was that all you could think of?

The first half is slow, and I'm just being polite. Even though the movie brings in some pace in the second half, it's so haphazard that at one point in time you feel like you're watching another movie altogether.

I didn't like the fact that Shah Rukh Khan is there in 95% of the movie. It almost becomes an overdose after a while.

I didn't like the fact that the Don is a super slick guy who has no fear whatsoever, and who single-handedly can beat the crap out of ten people where each of them is at least twice his size. In fact the Don is so slick, that his slickness starts reeking after sometime. And that makes you stop believing in the character altogether. In the prequel, there was an alternate (double role) character Vijay and that sort of balanced out Don's slick nature. Here, there's no such respite. You've got to tolerate an ever snickering, ever bashful, ever so smart, and ever so calculative Don in every frame of the movie.

I didn't like it at all that the number of lines delivered by Lara Dutta + Kunal Kapoor + Om Puri in the movie were not even half of the dialogues that Don's character had. Lara Dutta, especially, could've as well been mentioned as a guest appearance in the credits, along with Hrithik Roshan who appears for just about two minutes in the movie. Now that I think of it, Hrithik in his two minute appearance gets to say more dialogues than Lara, Kunal and Om Puri combined in the entire movie. What a shame!

I hated the fact that there had to be a love angle in the movie. And the timing of it. And the dripping zabardasti wala romance. It almost killed what little bit of pace the movie had just begun to gain.

Boman Irani is alright. Again, he is playing second fiddle here so what little he gets to say, he makes it believable.

Overall, this movie is like a recipe: 1/3rd from Ocean's series, 1/3rd from Bourne series, and final 1/3rd from the Bollywood archives. For me, it just didn't work.

I can only rate this movie 2 out of 5.

Oh and by the way, please don't spend that extra hundred bucks for the so-called 3D effect. There isn't any.

Liar, Liar

2011-12-02T21:56:00.001+05:30

"I hate liars". A typical statement if you ask any lady about her not-so-ideal man. That is to say that typically women resent/abhor/loathe men who lie. At least that's what I heard.

Yet, they get so angry when you don't tell them they're beautiful. Or, if you are one of those daring kinds, then maybe you could blatantly try using the word: ugly. That is what a non-liar would say, honestly. Yet, somehow, neither do we men muster the courage to (st)utter those words and neither are women going to be respond kindly to hearing those words.

So, who's the bigger liar here?

You can see the various comments somebody would get on their pictures posted in their social networking profiles. Even though the world, including whose photo it is, knows that he/she is not blessed in the looks department, people would discretely click on the "Like" button and be done with it. And some would go a step further and instead flatteringly praise the shirt/ear-rings/nail polish/hair style.

But who cares.

I, for one, would accept unhindered love shown on my checked shirt than on my crooked nose. Any damn day. We are emotional creatures after all!

Desktops: Then, and now

2011-11-19T21:28:00.001+05:30

I recently got a swanky new desktop for myself. It was a necessity, given the fact that I changed my job and that meant I had to hand over my company laptop (It also means that I do not get a laptop in my new company. Sad.). Though there were already two personal laptops at home, well, I had gotten used to having my own system, you know. I guess we all do after several years of that habit. Besides, it was getting increasingly difficult for me to post-process my photographs. So, a decision was made and I got the desktop, primarily for my photo needs.

That said and done, it cost me about INR 24,000/- for the new laptop. Like all of us here in India, this is an assembled piece and not one of those fancy-and-overtly-expensive branded PC's. Or, in other words, I got a "customized" PC. There, I think that sounds cool!

I was buying a desktop after exactly 10 years, and when I went to place the order I must admit that I felt like an overgrown child who had no clue whatsoever about the latest fads in the market. I mean, the PC configuration I got is just an average computer by today's standards. But a decade ago, if I'd have even thought of such a configuration then it would have been more expensive than our family car and would probably be called a super computer then.

And the prices, wow. Take a look at the table below. What I've tried to outline are the key components of my old PC (2001) and my new PC (2011).

Item	Then	Now
RAM	SD, 256MB	DDR3, 4GB
CPU	Pentium 4, 1GHz	AMD Phenom Dual Core, 3.3GHz
Graphics Adapter	Nvidia TNT2, 32MB SD RAM Internal	ATI Radeon, 1GB DDR3 RAM internal
System	32 bit Windows XP	64 bit Windows 7
Hard Disk Drive	Seagate Barracuda 80GB	Western Digital 1TB
Monitor	15 inch CRT LG Studioworks	20 inch LED Dell
CD/DVD	CD Reader (no writer, no DVD)	DVD R/W
Floppy Drive	Yes	Obsolete!
Network Adapter	External to Motherboard	Internal to Motherboard
Price of the PC	INR 45,000/-	INR 24,000/-

I feel old. Damn!