Yash’s adventures with life, business and technology
It is not Photoshopped. This is an actual credit card that I have from ICICI bank. ICICI bank had come up with this offer where offered an add on credit card to existing card holders where you can chose any background for the credit card. 100% customized card – and you can see which picture I selected to be on my credit card!
Cool, isn’t it? 
Indian bloggers can’t have enough of the iPhone! Every blog that I’ve been reading regularly is talking about it and crying fowl over its pricing. iPhone is priced at 31K and 36K for 8Gb and 16Gb versions respectively. Apparently iPhone costs the most in India. People have been asking who’s going to buy it?
iPhone is an aspirational product. It is really an iPod with phone capabilities – a music player that can make and receive calls and has a web browser. Technically speaking it suffers with same kind of drawbacks as earlier versions of Windows Mobile. By pricing it at a premium Apple is making sure that it remains a lifestyle product. May be Apple doesn’t want your average Indian IT professional buying it. An average IT/tech guy might go for a Nokia N series,Sony Ericsson P series, HTC or BlackBerry after comparing the features with iPhone. iPhone is not just a phone, its an experience. Apple products have always been about an experience and iPhone is no different. Users of lifestyle products are willing to a paying a premium for that experience, brand and that little exclusivity. What’s special in having a phone that everyone has? Unlike Microsoft, Apple doesn’t want to rule every desktop/pocket. It’s all about experience.
In the US and elsewhere things are a little different though. There carriers are subsidizing the iPhone because they have a large market of consumers of lifestyle products who don’t mind signing long term contracts for expensive data plans. In India very few people will be ready to do that. The fact that 85% of the subscribers are prepaid subscribers and lack of 3G networks only makes the matters worse. iPhone in India is no more than a music player with phone and we already have market flooded with such phones so Apple has decided to launch the product in premium segment targeting the top of the pyramid. Bottom of the pyramid is already overcrowded. I guess the reason why Apple decided to launch iPhone in India was to tap the gray market demand. Apple knows people are paying 25K+ for unlocked iPhones in the gray market, so why don’t sell an official premium and pocket those customers. Personally I’d rather buy an official (under warranty) phone at 31K instead of buying an unofficial(cracked-unlocked) phone for 25K. Apple could not have sold it for less than the gray market price. Apple is importing the phones in India legally and they have to pay applicable taxes and duties.
It’s clear that Apple isn’t in the game for market share, they are here for the mind share!
Season 2 of the reality show Bigg Boss went on air yesterday (17 Aug 08) on Colors. 14 participants were revealed and it was a sort of casting coup on the part of the channel. Unlike season 1 which was dominated by film, tv and fashion world celebrities this season has a mix of quite a few newsmakers including the host Shilpa Shetty. There’s a full time politician, a UK Big Brother participant who was in news for making racist comments against Shilpa, an ex film actress who has been the wife of an underworld don, a singer, a stand up comedian, son of a late politician, items girls and as usual people from the tv and fashion world.
Celebrity participants of Bigg Boss season 2 are:
Ketaki Dave
Ketaki Dave is a well known TV actress. She is very famous for portraying the character of Daksha in the soap opera Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi and for her catch phrase Arrrr in that serial. This is not the first reality show for Ketaki. She was a participant in the celebrity dance show Nach Baliye (Season 2) along with her husband Rasik Dave.
It looks like she has been chosen to get the soap opera watching audience to watch the show. Their votes might take her a long way.
Zulfi Syed
Zulfi Syed is a model turned actor. He won the Gladrags Manhunt in 1997. He made his debut in Bollywood with the movie Pyasa. He is better known for the portrayal of emperor Shahjahan in the movie Taj Mahal.
I am not sure why Zulfi was selected. May be for his looks so that girls will vote to keep him in the house!
Rakhi Tandon
Rakhi is a TV actress. She shot to fame after plating the character of Sweeti in the comedy show Hum Paanch in the mid nineties. Rakhi is sister in law of the famous Bollywood actress Raveena Tandon.
Rakhi will definitely bring in some chutzpah in the Bigg Boss’s house. It remains to be seen how far she can go.
Rahul Mahajan
A big catch! Rahul is the son of late Pramod Mahajan a prominent politician and a one time Information and Broadcasting minister in the government of India. Rahul has been in the news ever since his father was shot dead in his home by his(Rahul’s) uncle Pravin Mahajan. Rahul has been in the news for taking drugs, his entry in politics, for his marriage and subsequent divorce.
Rahul seems pretty good in networking and making friends. He was giving a guided tour of the house to every participant as he/she entered the house. I feel his knack of making friends will take him a long way in the Bigg Boss’s house.
Monica Bedi
Casting coup really! Monika Bedi in her short lived career in Bollywood and at her young age has been though a lot. She has been in news for her affiliation with underworld don Abu Salem. She was arrested along with him in the year 2002 and spent a lot of years in jails. She has been acquitted in a few cases against her but a few are still pending.
It will be chance for Monica to make a comeback in the industry but I am not sure if she will be able to survive for long in the Bigg Boss house. Some people might pity her and vote to keep her in the house but it will be interesting to see how other participants treat her.
Raja Chaudhari
Raja is a TV actor. Better known as the ex husband of prominent TV actress Shweta Tiwari. Raja shot to fame after participating in the celebrity couple dance show Nach Baliye with his wife. Sweta’s success and Raja’s failure to keep up with her professionally eventually lead to their separation. Shweta is so much more popular than Raja that when you search for images of Raja on Google, you come across images of Shweta!
Bigg Boss will give Raja an opportunity to make a comeback in the TV industry and will also earn him some good money which he is definitely in need of! But the chances of him winning the game are slim. For one he is very hot tempered. I just hope he doesn’t fight with anybody in the house!
Sambhavna Seth
Sambhavna is the quintessential item girl in the Bigg Boss’s house. She brings the oomph and aahs in the house. Last season of Bigg Boss gained a lot of eyeballs by the inclusion of Rakhi Sawant, so this time they have two got hot girls in the house.
Ehsan Qureshi
Ehsan Qureshi is a standup comedian and shot to fame by appearing in The Great Indian Laughter Challenge season 1. He is known for his distinctive poetic style of joke telling. His inclusion will definitely bring some light moments in the house and will make the show enjoyable for the viewers.
Ehsan is a good comedian but I doubt he will be able to go a long way in the game.
Payal Rohatgi
Another item girl. A bold actress known more for her hot photo shoots than her acting skills. She has worked in a few bollywood movies till date like Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai?, 36 China Town, Dhol, Heyy Babyy, Ugly Aur Pagli etc.
Payal along with Sambhavna will bring the much needed TRPs for the show. She might just make it to last 5 contestants on the show.
Debojit Saha
Debojit is a singer. He is the winner of Zee TV’s singing talent reality show, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Challenge 2005. Debojit might prove to be popular with the audience and might just make it to the final 5.
Ashutosh Kaushik
Ashutosh is the winner of MTV Roadies season 5. He might not be well known to most of the Indian TV watching audiences but he might just click with the youth. He was the underdog in the Roadies and yet emerged the winner, his cool, straight talking attitude might also work this time and may even make him the winner again. Watch out for this guy!
Elina Wadia
Elina is not a celebrity. She may be an upcoming model or a struggling actress, but an appearance on Bigg Boss will definitely make her a celebrity by the time she leaves.
Sanjay Nirupam
Sanjay Nirupam is a full time politician from Mumbai. I was really surprised to see him on the show. I am not sure how the channel managed to cast him. How can a politician spends three months in the house without any contact, phones, TV, newspapers doing all his chores himself will be an interesting thing to watch. But I feel he won’t survive in the house for long. His presence will the atmosphere a little heavy for other participants and even Mr Nirupam will find it a little awkward.
Jade Goody
A big big casting coup! Jade Goody is a British reality television celebrity and businesswoman. She was at the center of allegations of bullying, racist and elitist comments against fellow housemate Shilpa Shetty in the Big Brother’s house in the UK. This is the third time that Jade is participating in this game. She has appeared twice in the Big Brother in UK earlier.
This season of Bigg Boss promises to be a complete masala entertainment for the viewers. Like a typical Bollywood masala movie, we have got actors, actresses, politicians, comedian, singer, and even item girls. My favorites to win the show – Jade Goody, Rahul Mahajan, Payal Rohatagi, Debojit Saha and Ashutosh Kaushik.
Michael Phelps an individual manages to win 8 gold medals in a single Olympic and India a country of a Billion plus people manages to win just one and that too after a long hiatus of 20 years.
I read a post by Arun Prabhudesai on his blog Track.in about the wild celebrations on Bindra winning gold. Abhinav Bindra the first individual gold winner for India is showered with gifts and money from the Governments, politicians and businessmen. Indian media goes gaga over the victorious Olympian as the icon starved country finds a new sporting hero. Arun makes a point that although Bindra’s feat is commendable, we shouldn’t go overboard with our celebrations and forget the ground reality that it’s a pity that in a country of 1.2 billion people we have to be content with a single medal!
Arun blames the popularity of cricket for the sorry state of other sports in the country. I don’t agree.
Q: Why aren’t people following and supporting other sports?
A: Because they are supporting cricket!
Q: Why are people supporting and watching cricket?
A: Because it’s the only sport where we have some kind of credibility. Even though our cricket team has its on and off days, it’s the only sport which has managed to win some titles for India in the recent past.
People worship heroes. People follow winners. People need icons to look up to. Cricket has a lot of winners. It keeps producing winners. There’s no dearth of superstars in Cricket at the individual level. When it comes to cricket, we may not be the best but we do have the “potential” to beat best the best (Australia) occasionally and we sometimes do. That’s enough for people. The key word here is potential. Cricket rules in India because at least it has the potential to be amongst the world’s best. Can we even dream of Sania beating Maria Sharapova? Can we even dream of Indian Hockey team winning the Hockey world cup? Especially after the team fails to even qualify for the Olympics? The answer is NO. No other sports with the exception of may be Chess (Vishwanathan Anand) can claim to be amongst the world best!
Why is it so?
It is not in our genes
Lets face it. We Indians lack the winning spirit. Most of the time we don’t play to win, we just play. We are not born athletes like Australians who are so keen on winning. They play to win. We have very few people who actually have that fighting spirit. Although this is changing, we have a long way to go yet.
The infrastructure
I read an article on Michael Phelps’s daily diet on Rediff. The only thing that guy ever does is eat, sleep and swim. How many of our athletes can actually afford to do that? How can one be the best if he is occupied with the routine stuff of the life? Bindra could manage to win gold because he had the resources to get the best training. Parents in India don’t encourage their kids to engage in sports from the early age because there’s no career in sports except may be cricket. And even if you do have resources to get the best training, if you are playing a team sport like Hockey or Football, your chances are making up to a big league are slim as your team mates may not be fortunate enough to afford the same level of training and facilities as you do. Look at Baichung Bhutia, he is probably the best football player India has produced and definitely has the potential to be counted amongst world’s best. But can he ever dream of playing for India in a football world cup? You know the answer!
Sports is managed and controlled by the government instead of private parties
That’s probably the biggest reason why we aren’t good at any major sport. Socialism is bad for everything be it business or be it sports. Cricket rules because it is not managed and funded by the government. BCCI runs it as a private establishment. They run it for profit. The rules of the game are simple – you pay good salary to your players, so more and more people will be attracted to join the sport, the more people take up the sport, the more chances of producing heroes, invest in facilities and better training and produce champions, once your champions start winning, money will start pouring in, with more money you can pay even more to your players and that will attract even more people to the sport and the cycle continues.
Sports in private hands is treated as a business. Players are like products and their victories are like sales on which the sport can make profit. Government in India approves budget for promoting sports, build a few stadiums,training facilities, funds some training camps and then proceeds to manage it all by itself! The administrators don’t have any personal motivation to further the cause of the sport. And the funding provided is almost always not sufficient. Just have a look at the training facilities provided for the Hockey team in the movie Chak De. Compare the dorm room of Hockey players with the dressing room of a cricket stadium. Our Hockey administration can’t even afford the astro-turfs which are a de facto standard for International Hockey matches.
This is the story with every government managed establishment in India. Its it not government’s job to run corporations, be it a business venture or a sports governing body. Any venture can not succeed if the people running it aren’t personally rewarded/punished for the success/failure of the venture. In a private organization if you don’t meet your targets you get the boot, in a government undertaking that’s not the case. So office bearers don’t care if their players win or lose.
Someone might argue that even in China it’s the government that regulates and manages the sporting bodies then how come China manages to win gold after gold? In China, it’s not the government, rather the Communist party that wants to prove itself to the world. The ruling party of China wants to put its best face in front of the world. The Chinese are driven by a specific agenda of winning most gold at the Olympic. People in China don’t take up sports because they love the game, it’s because the government “breeds” athletes. China “grows” medal winners and so no stone if left unturned when it comes to training athletes and sportsmen. Best training eventually produces best athletes. In China government is committed to the task of furthering sports. Not for the sake of sports, but to prove its one-upmanship over US of A in every field which includes sports. India has no such agenda so government here is least concerned with promotion of sports so whatever medals we happen to win are like a consolation price. After all something’s better than nothing.
At the end it all boils down to money. People don’t have money to be able to afford world class training so they can’t compete at the world stage. Money comes to only those who manage to win, but you can win only if you can afford to invest in training. Whatever little we have in terms of good athletes in the form of Vishwanathan Anand, Sania Mirza, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupati or Abhinav Bindra were fortunate enough to have the resources to get the best training possible. It’s the same logic – you invest money – you get best training – you win something – money starts flowing and then it goes on. The issues is of that initial investment, it is clear what the government is doing is not enough so unless we have more wealthy people in India who can afford to get best training for their kids we will have to be happy with whatever we manage to win!
I keep getting this mailer from HDFC Bank about opting for e-statements and saving paper thus saving trees. I get a paper statement of my account every quarter and for my company’s account every month. This particular letter with the headline “There’s a substitute for paper, there’s none for the trees” is invariably sent with each statement. Not just the bank account statement, it comes with the credit card statement too.
The intent of the bank is to get me opt for e-statements instead of paper statements, but why waste another piece of paper for giving that message? Its like sticking a poster on a wall with a message “don’t stick poster here”. The real intent on the part of the bank is not to help environment but to save on their stationary and mailing costs. If the bank really wants to save trees then they can just print it on top of the actual account statement instead of sending a whole new sheet of paper! The bank really wants to save the money and that’s it. They don’t give a damn about being environment friendly or so. You want to do anything you have fill up a physical form. You want to register for net banking, fill a form. Want the third party transfer facility – fill another form, want to register for bill pay? Another form. Want to apply for a debit/credit card, loan – more forms! If you really want to save the trees, why don’t you get rid of all these forms first? Why pester the clients with mailers about opting for e-statements?
People need e-statements because they need to file them for various purposes. If I opt for e-statements, I will still have a to take a printout in order to file it. And that statement won’t work if I have to apply for a loan tomorrow (I have personal experience of it). So even e-statements don’t solve the ultimate purpose of saving the trees. Banks don’t just waste paper on advises about saving the trees, they also waste a lot of paper and that too of very high quality on various promotional material that is sent along with the monthly statement. Mouth watering offers on credit cards, guidelines on using your net banking and credit cards effectively, mailers about balance transfer, EMI on call etc waste more paper than my one page account statement! If you want to save paper, stop sending these or just use the space at the back of the statement for that purpose!
People keep talking about paperless offices and paperless societies, but we can’t achieve a paperless world until all the systems are changed in tandem to work sans paper! Ever applied for a PAN card online? You can go online and fill up your PAN card application online and even pay the requisite fees online, but then you have to take a print out of the filled application form and have to mail it along with all the required proofs in order to get your PAN card! Ridiculous! Why do I need to submit a physical application if I have applied online? The data is already with you in electronic format, just use it! You want a proof of residence and identity? I can scan the required documents and attach them! What’s a big deal? But no! The systems haven’t really evolved to that level and until they evolve to that level, I will have to keep filing my monthly bank account statements and till then I can’t opt for e-statements!
Just saw that Firefox 3 is out. I tried to access Mozilla.com and firefox.com but it seems down because of the heavy traffic. I managed to download it from Downlaod.com.
The installation was fast, it checked my existing add-ons for compatibility and downloaded the updated versions of ones that were not compatible. I am still checking it out and will write a review after I use it for a few days.
Just came across this video that shows startup screens and startups sounds of all the versions of Windows till date.
My first tryst with Windows was on Windows 95, my first computer had Windows 98 Plus and then I kept graduating from one version to the other. Have used them all at some stage except versions prior to Win 95.
As I mentioned in one of the earlier posts, I was comparing two notebooks and I decided to go for Compaq Presario V3749AU. It’s been a couple of days since I am using this new notebook of mine and here’s a little review of its performance so far.
Standard specifications:
The system comes with just a single partition, Windows Vista Home Basic and a host of HP software pre installed. Since there is no Driver and application recovery disk, you have to make system recovery disks yourself which takes up two DVDs. There was a folder on C: with all the installers for the all the pre installed software, that was handy because that way I can reinstall specific software in future. You should backup that folder on a DVD as well. I did.
I wanted to install Windows Vista Business because I wanted to run IIS and all other Vista goodies like Windows Aero. The initial Windows experience index was 2.5, lower than what Microsoft recommends – 3.0. I noticed it was because the shared Video memory was only 64 MB, I went to BIOS and changed that to 128 MB – the maximum allowed and the score went up to 3.0. I installed Vista Business and was happy to find that Aero worked flawlessly. I am enjoying the Aero experience. Speed is good. Applications like Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio open quickly. It’s not blazing fast though. It’s on par or slightly better than my old Compaq Presario V4118AP which had a Pentium M 1.73 GHz processor. Graphics are certainly good, but I can feel a bit of jitteriness when I use Flip 3D to switch windows. I haven’t tried to install any games on it, but notebooks are not made for gaming for sure. The only game I have tried is Hearts and it runs slow on full screen mode with all the NVidia’s maximum quality settings.
The notebook is lightweight because of its 14.1″ screen. The keys are smooth and the touchpad is good. Integrated webcam is of good quality although its a VGA cam. The Cyberlink YouCam software that is included adds some nice lighting (or may be its in the cam itself) so images at night are also bright. The special thing about this notebook is the touch sensitive buttons for volume control. Mic and headphones jacks are in front instead of sides which is also a good idea. This notebook also doesn’t heat up much. May be because it has vents on the back and not underneath. This is a great improvement because my old notebook had vents on the belly and it used to heat up a lot when used on an uneven surface like a bed or lap because the vents would get blocked. That is not a problem with this one. Vents are behind where I can feel warm air being pushed out.
The collection of bundled software is very good. CyberLink OEM suit is included for all CD-DVD burning purposes. It has fairly good features and is comparable to Nero. CyberLink YouCam is the software for webcam which can also capture movies and snapshots. Adobe reader 8 and SQL Server 2005 express edition are also there. I don’t understand why SQL Server is included. That is something only developers will use! Anyway I liked it. A trial version of Office 2007 is also pre installed. It keeps asking you for registration key every time you run any application, and it won’t accept any keys I would enter! I am not sure which version was that but ultimately I had to install a fresh copy of Office 2007. A nice DVD player is also bundled called DVDPlay which also has a quick launch touch sensitive button. It starts automatically when you insert a movie DVD. Altec Lancing speakers have a good quality output as well.
Overall its a good notebook computer with a nice balance of performance and style. 2 Ghz, Dual Core, 64 bit processor and 2 GB of memory gives it a lot of power. NVidia’s graphics and included applications promise a good multimedia experience. It is small, lightweight and stylish. At Rs. 35500, it is one of the best budget notebook computers out there.
I just noticed Google has started using a new Favicon. It’s a lower case g in blue colour. I liked the old one more. It was a capital G with all of Google’s colours. More about the old favicon. I ran a search on Google and saw people are already writing about it.
Google Favicons – new and old -
Some say its sucks – I tend to agree to a certain extent. But we will gradually come to accept it.
Want to create your own Favicon? Here are some resources -
I installed Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise on a computer today and then tried to install D-Link DWL G122 USB WiFi adapter with the drivers that came with the adapter. It didn’t work. Searching for a driver on D-Link’s site turned futile because D-Link has since discontinued the product. Some search on Google and I came to know I can use driver for another adapter that uses same chip. I am not going in technical details – important thing is that you can use driver for D-Link WUA-1340 Win2K for DWL-G122 on Windows Server 2003.
You can download the driver from here.
Download driver version 1.30, plug in your DWL-G122 WiFi adapter and select the Win2K driver manually in the Found New Hardware wizard. Make sure you select driver for Win2K. Works perfectly for Win2K3 as well!
This is the blog of Yash Gadhiya. An entrepreneur from Mumbai, India. I write about tech, science, history, cats, movies, politics, atheism, design, programming and myself!
