Monthly Archive for March, 2007

Air India + Indian = Air Indian?

March 29, 2007. Filed in News

Overheard on Rediff.com

no chanceby Full2njoy on Mar 29, 2007 08:56 AMTill the 50 year old airhostess aunties with their faces looking like a cake (due to the makeup) are sacked and some youngsters are recruited and good service is ensured, there is no chance for Air Indian against Emirates, SIA, BA etc.Its like trying to paint the donkey and trying to pass it off as a horse. no point going in for a cosmetic change. truth is nothing run by the govt functions in India.

RE:no chanceby bharat on Mar 29, 2007 09:04 AMTypical Air India/ Indian Airlines Airhostess:1. Tummy cascading over the saree.2. Can barely pass through the aisle with the backside bouncing against the seats as she walks.3. Facial expression as if someone has forced her to drink castor oil.

I can’t seem to recollect the last time I travelled in any of these national airlines, but somehow by the thought of it and the things I heard, I seriously would prefer travelling by train than travel in one of these airlines. As if stories of the pathetic service, food quality and young old hostess were not enough, there were recent stories on how the aircrafts are not tuned and managed according to current industry standards.

Flowers

March 28, 2007. Filed in Misc

Found via Flickr.

I hate flowers. I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move. – Georgia O’Keeffe

Tech School

March 26, 2007. Filed in Uncategorized

Now that I have attended one of better tech schools in Australia, I agree to most of the things listed by Paul of GTech. Been there. Done that.

Sharing

March 19, 2007. Filed in Funny and Security

Found this via foobr; worth mentioning here for reasons more than one:

Indian Cricket Team

March 18, 2007. Filed in News

If only they accept that commercial contracts just get you fame, and not game, they wouldn’t have gone down the way they did. I usually don’t watch cricket, nor am I interested in it, but the way India played yesterday is worthy of few remarks. The result of the game was no different than what people expected looking at the Indian innings. For the second time in two World Cups, India – so proud of its batting – had been bowled out in its opening game by a lowly-rated team.

On the other side, our favorite competitors, Pakistan have been bruised out of the worldcup when they lost to Ireland. So for all those who made plans to watch India play Pakistan in the next round will have to do away with watching some other teams compete.

Gnome 2.18 Launched

March 15, 2007. Filed in Blogroll

My favourite desktop manager for Linux, Gnome has jumped to 2.18. Improvements to Tomboy, Seahorse and Gnome Power Manager. I have used these apps for a long time, and certainly recommend them for any user switching to Linux. Managing OpenPGP and SSH Keys using Seahorse couldn’t be easier, and Gnome Power Manager seriously needed some bump. I haven’t tried the new document manager myself, but the new document manager supports multiple instances of the same document at the same time. This is something useful if you are editing a document and referring to its original state.

And last but not the least, just as Remote Desktop Sharing in Microsoft, Gnome now supports desktop sharing over the Internet. Much useful for me for browsing my server sitting at alternate location without using VNC.

The detailed release notes are available on the official link. This release surely sets high standards for the upcoming KDE version. Personally I have not liked KDE much for various reasons including its unstability.

Quicktime 7

March 14, 2007. Filed in Blogroll

Quicktime has always been a pain point for me, and yet I come back to it. Time after time, player after player. It’s the default player for Mac OS X and not only it looks good, it works well most of the times. But like the famous .mac membership, Qucktime isn’t free. It requires user to cough up fair amount of money before the user can enjoy full screen and host of other features legitimately. VLC and mPlayer on the other hand provide almost the same, if not better, functionality free (free as in beer) of cost. Keeping the feature Vs Cost debate to the minimum, I launched my software update application and was shocked to see this:

QuickTime 7.1.5 delivers numerous bug fixes and addresses critical security issues. This update is recommended for all QuickTime 7 users.

Important Notice to QuickTime Pro Users
QuickTime 7 will disable the QuickTime Pro functionality in prior versions of QuickTime, such as QuickTime 5 or QuickTime 6. If you proceed with this installation, you must purchase a new QuickTime 7 Pro key to regain QuickTime Pro functionality. After installation, visit www.apple.com/quicktime to purchase a QuickTime 7 Pro key

This is plain ridiculous. I cannot understand why don’t they offer a free upgrade ever? It’s almost like Windows: you launch a software, convince million people to buy it, declare it unsafe, launch a new software and charge for license for newer software.

It somehow feels too unhealthy to be Apple.

Lavazza Enters Indian Market

March 12, 2007. Filed in Delhi and Food

lavazza_01.jpgStarbucks may not have entered Indian coffee industry yet, but another coffee tycoon Lavazza did by buying 100% stake in Barista. A popular coffee joint since its very beginning, Barista indeed served everything good except what it was expected to – Coffee. I have had countless breakfast, lunch and snacks at various Barista outlets all across Delhi and North India, but could not get a single cup of well made cappuccino.  Keeping my tastes and disgust with Barista coffee aside, the outlet chain was probably the first one to teach the masses difference between cappuccino and latte. The chain served excellent sandwiches especially the chicken tikka ones and quite decent panini. Nonetheless, I knew Lavazza was making a move after seeing a faint red logo on Barista menu labelled as ‘premium’ coffees. So with a big shout to Starbucks, I hope there is some more international coffee brand presence in India. Probably Starbucks can buy out Café Coffee day and start off.

Read more about the buyout here