|
|
Last few days I was on year-end vacation with my family to Kumbakonam. Why Kumbakonam, no specific reason other than we got a good recommendation about a resort there which was affordable for a group of 10 Adults. About 45 days back I booked 5 rooms with Paradise Resort, the property is on the Tanjore main road on the outskirts of Kumbakonam (Google Map). From Chennai you take NH45 (GST) branch off to left after Vikravandi (much before Villupuram) towards Kumbakonam. In that road (NH45C) stay on the Kumbakonam by-pass and take a right towards Tanjore, you will find the resort. From Chennai t is about 275-290 kilometers and takes about 5 to 5:30 hours,due to recent rains the road after Vikravandi was not good. The resort is also few kilometres before Swamimalai. The resort had very comfortable and clean Rooms & Bathrooms, nice atmosphere, good swimming pool (where we enjoyed a family swim) and decent food. The food and service needs to be definitely improved, other than that we enjoyed the stay.
_1.jpg "பசுமை தாயகம் (2)")
_thumb.jpg "Paradise Resort (13)")
Since it was the month of Margazhi (sacred in Vaishnavism) and it was Kumbakonam (where every few steps you have a historic Hindu Temple), the vacation became a mini-pilgrimage. Each day we went to 2 or 3 temples, I was trying to ensure we don’t over do it and had time to enjoy a good rest in the vacation.
- First day it was Thirunallar (Lord Shani)
- Second day it was the famous Uppiliappan koil and Kann Kodutha Vanitham (near Koradacheri), in the evening it was Alwar procession in Sarangapani Koil
- Third day it was Ramaswamy Koil (which had the entire Ramayanam story painted in its wall), Chakrapani Koil (Lord Sudharshanar)
- Last day on our return we went to Srirangam, Trichy before returning to Chennai
_3.jpg "Ramaswamy Koil Ramayanam Paintings (6)")
I wanted to capture more of the historic works inside the temples, but in most places they don’t permit photographs even on the outskirts for no reason.
Wish you all a very happy new year 2011
I have been using in my Desktop PC, Pinnacle PCTV Hybrid Tuner (330e) to watch TV with Tata Sky DTH. It is quite useful to catch up on News & happenings during the day and for a break few episodes of 30 Rock/How I met your mother in late evenings. After working for few years without any issues Pinnacle PCTV conked off this week. So I went around shopping for a replacement and settled with AverTV Volar GO A833 USB drive. It has drivers for Windows 7 x64 and works fine.
The device is advertised to have support for Windows Media Center (to be used as the Player), but it turns out that works only for TV Cable as input video source. In my case with Tata Sky DTH the input video source was Composite and Windows Media Center requires you have a IR Blaster for it to work. AverTV Volar Go doesn’t ship with one, so I tried to use the IR Blaster from Pinnacle but it didn’t work. So I had to uninstall Windows Media Center and stick with the AVerTV 6 Player Application. The device comes with a small remote control that you can use to adjust volume control, ON/OFF the player and it works fine. The Player supports TimeShift & MP4 recording as well. Since there is no IR blaster I am not able to control the set top-box from TV Player application itself.
%20300_3.jpg "AVerTV Volar GO (A833) 300")
In support of Lions Blood Bank (Chennai) we had organized a Blood donation camp in our Office at Vishwak Solutions (Chennai). The last time when we had a similar camp in our office I couldn’t donate blood as I was on that day on Anti-Allergic medication. Today I didn’t want to miss the opportunity and volunteered to donate.
The first time I donated blood was in college days and then only once or twice after that, so I was a little tense. But the good Samaritans & volunteers from Lions Club helped each of the donor(s) to be at ease and the whole process was nothing more than having two injections (shots). The first injection was to check the hemoglobin level and the second was to collect the blood, all got over in 10 minutes. The camp doctor first checked the blood pressure, weight, enquired whether we had breakfast and then only authorized the donation. After donating I felt good about myself – emotionally and physically.
I am making this post to request & encourage each one of you reading this to donate blood whenever you get a chance and safe a life. It is so easy!
 
Early this week I got Apple TV device through one of my friend who came from USA. Before getting a Kinect I was using XBOX 360 in my Bedroom to access Digital Media. But once Kinect came I had to move XBOX, Kinect & LED TV to my Study room. So I got Apple TV to fill this need.
The first impression you get after you open the package with the $99 device is how small & cute it is. The device on the sides came with a Black Tape stuck all around, so for few minutes I was wondering why there are no ports or even power socket. The remote is even more smaller & unbelievably thinner. Hat’s off to Apple on the minimalist design.
 
Apple TV allows you to access YouTube Videos (Favourites & Most Popular), Movies & TV shows from iTunes & Digital Media (Photos, Music & Videos) that you have stored in your Home PC (or Mac) in iTunes libraries. The device has no hard-disk or any other drive, so no noise or heating. The device runs iOS (as in iPhone & iPad), so Indic Language (like Tamil) files names appear legibly. You also get an iPhone app “Remote” that allows you to manage any iTunes Library including Apple TV from your iPhone – quite convenient and thoughtful. The app (unlike Logitech Harmony app) is minimalist and easy to configure & use.
While accessing Music & Videos the experience is great thanks to iTunes. But when it comes to Pictures the experience nose-dives due to same iTunes & its poor Pictures management support. I have like 15,000 pictures in my PC, neatly organized into folders like Personal, Events, Travel, Family, Friends and so on, with each of them having sub-folders for each year in which the photos were taken. It took a long time before Apple TV could showed the first photo, then it displayed all the 15,000 photos in one go – how can you scroll through thousands of photos?. There was no way for me to sort/group/search for a particular album or year or keyword. After some time I gave up the fruitless exercise and took my son to my PC where I showed the photos he wanted to see. I am at loss at why even after 10 Versions iTunes doesn’t have proper features to add/delete/edit pictures, categorize them into folders/sub-folders and so on. If there is one thing I hate in iPhone & iTunes it is Pictures management.
Read about my experience with Google TV here.
The TiECon 2010 conference that happened on 24th November 2010 was a success due to great voluntary effort by all the organizers (incl. myself) involved. TiE Chennai chapter had organized a Celebration dinner for all the organizers today. Venue was Hotel Accord Metropolitan, G.N.Chetty Road, Chennai. It was a nice occasion where we all shared on what went right and what could be improved in next year conference. My thanks to all other organizers, charter members and board of TiEChennai for having me as part of the team.
Today I watched the movie “The Japanese Wife” by acclaimed director Ms.Aparna Sen. The plot couldn’t have been more captivating – 635 Letters, 3 Phone Calls, 15 years of marriage, but they have not met; a husband in remote Bengal as a School Teacher and a wife in Japan. Having seen her previous work “Mrs. & Mr.Iyer” I was expecting a phenomenal movie in The Japanese Wife.
Aparna Sen has told the story brilliantly well, we are transported for the 90 minutes to the remote Bengali village. The initial scene was very enjoyable where a big package from Japan comes to the little village and the whole village getting excited. Rahul Bose & Raima Sen have done their roles finely and measured. India can be proud that it has the talent to produce movies like these and not only the usual Bollywood & Kollywood Thamasha’s. A must watch movie if you enjoy this genre.
I have three little criticisms about the movie:
1. Rahul Bose’s character as SnehaMoy Chatterjee is pictured relatively older to what he should actually be. Even in flashback when he is in college he is shown old, and after just 15 years he should be only 35 Years, how does he become so older as he is shown.
2. With all the love and affection he has for his wife Miyage, he could’ve learned Japanese language easily.
3. The story is almost exclusively told from the SnehaMoy side, ignoring Miyage side of it. May be the cost of shooting in Japan might have limited the effort.
When I first saw Project Natal video (the code name of XBOX Kinect) nearly two years back, I was sure that this was yet another concept video from Microsoft and had little chance of coming out the way it was depicted. It was too futuristic. Even if they did release it, I was expecting it to be clumsy, too complicated to configure, will only work for a single person – basically unviable for everyday use.
Then first week of last month I got an email from Microsoft India with some special offer towards Kinect launch in India. I was somehow caught by it and ended up ordering Kinect Sensor for Rs.9500 and two games to go with it (Kinect Joy Ride and Kinectimals – each for Rs.1999) from Microsoft India store on 4th Nov. It got delivered few weeks after on 17th Nov. The sensor came with a free game of Kinect Adventures.
I tried to fix it in my bedroom where I had my XBOX – there was not much free space there. Though it worked there, Kinect requires 6 to 8 feet distance and width for moving around comfortably & effective playing. I moved the TV, XBOX and Kinect to my study room, where I have plenty of space. Setting up Kinect is very easy, just plug it into the USB port, let XBOX upgrade itself and you are ready to go. The sensor needs to be placed in a table at 2 to 6 feet height, near the edge of the table and you need to ensure you are clearly visible to the sensor. The best place will be to fix it on top of your TV – but for that you require an adaptor which unfortunately Microsoft doesn’t ship or is available anywhere I searched. Once setup Kinect senses multiple people in the area easily, you can go in and out any time. The on screen display at bottom left shows how Kinect sees you and if you step away from view it gives you instructions in the top left of the screen even within the game itself.
The Kinect Adventure comes with some 3 to 4 adventures, my favourite was the Raft ride and Fixing the water leaks. You control the Raft with your whole body, jump on obstacles and so on. Myself and my son was hooked to it for the next few hours. Ever since we have been playing it on weekends. One of the cool features in Kinect games are the Photo Shoot and Share. Since Kinect has a camera (essentially that’s how it sees you) it takes snapshots of you playing at key moments – just like Theme park photos of you screaming. The best part unlike ThemePark photos which we love to have but cost a bomb, Kinect PhotoShoot are free!. It is fun to watch those photos and you can even share them on FaceBook (you have to login to a website explicitly to do this). See a sample picture of me playing below:
This week my son started playing Kinectimals and it looks lovely – it is a complete island with Tiger pubs to train and play with. Looks very realistic and fun, kids are sure to love it. It gives them some exposure of getting to know animals a little better (at least virtually) and caring for them.
I have been using iPhone3G from Dec ‘08 (exactly two years) and I got so used to it. By far it is the best device to do email, browsing, twitter, facebook and above all to make/receive calls & messages. It is very hard to imagine a mobile before iPhone, that’s the impact it has had on me. The upgrade to iOS 4.0 turned out to be a double-edged sword. On one hand, the device started to support display of Tamil language natively in all applications – messaging, contacts, email, browsing, twitter & more. On the other hand, the device became very sluggish. Clicking on contacts or messages app will take solid 10-20 seconds to load up. I talked to my friend Muthu Nedumaran (the man behind the Tamil fonts that got shipped in iOS 4.0 and Mac OS) who advised me to upgrade to iPhone 4.
I guess due to poor sales of iPhone in general in India, iPhone 4 is not released yet here. After some research the best place to buy an iPhone4 turned out to be Singapore, as by law there TELCOs can’t network lock a device. The device bought in Singapore should work with Vodafone India and anyway since I have a iPhone3G plan with them, data also should work. After further research on the web, I learned that you can’t buy iPhone4 from any Apple stores in Singapore or from TELCOs like Singtel, who sell only with singapore mobile contracts. Apple Singapore recommends you buy from its online store and have it shipped to any address in Singapore. That’s what I did, I gave the house address of my Uncle in Singapore. After few phone calls he made to confirm my India credit card to them, the device got delivered in few days, in time for me to pick up during my trip last week there. The device (iPhone4 32GB), Black Bumper and AppleCare 2 year protection plan together costed me SG$1195 (nearly Rs.41825).
After coming back to Chennai, I had to cross one last hurdle which was to get a MicroSIM. It was not available from Vodafone Chennai, but a trip to a corner mobile store and Rs.100 got my regular SIM cut into a MicroSIM. Finally, I got my iPhone4 working and I love it. Much better speed than 3G due to the 1Ghz Processor, the retina display is gorgeous, noise cancellation feature even on noisy airports is awesome – worth every cent of upgrade. After upgrading to iPhone4, apart from loading my regular apps I use ( Twitter, FaceBook, LIFCO Tamil Dictionary, Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, Kindle) I was able to load VLC Media Player (Free) which only runs on iPhone4 or iPad. This meant I can select any of my WMV (Windows Media) videos into iTunes, have them synced to my iPhone4 and play them with VLC Player.
I have been an early user of Windows Mobile (as it was called earlier) with BenQ P50 (disaster when it came to Battery life), HTC S710 (a versatile phone I liked and used for a long time), but over the years I have moved to Nokia 9300 and finally settling with iPhone for last few years. Though Windows Mobile had lot of technical capabilities, they lacked on user experience and ease of use – it had lot of Desktop Windows legacy carried forward unnecessarily.
From the time of early previews of Windows Phone, I was impressed with the new User Interface of Tiles and Microsoft focus on standardizing and simplifying things. I was not ready to switch yet from my iPhone, but still wanted to check out WP7. At my firm, Vishwak Solutions we are developing a WP7 News App that presents data from any Media Portal powered by VPF. Though the emulator is very capable, we needed a WP7 physical device to check the touch and flow experience. I wanted a basic WP7 device, so I ruled out Samsung Omnia 7 and HTC HD7 – both of which I rate as high-end/costly devices. This narrowed the list to HTC Mozart 7 and LG Optimus7. WP7 is not yet launched in India, so I was planning to buy either one of them when I visited Singapore last week. But before the trip I saw in one of the tweets that you now get HTC Mozart in National Market, Bangalore. I checked out for the same in EBAY India and ordered it from a seller from Indore for Rs.29,190 (incl. of shipping). I had my fingers crossed expecting more of a brick delivered to me, but was feeling a little safe with PaisaPay guarantee the site offered.
Within two days I got the phone delivered. It was a brand new HTC Mozart 7 device from T-Mobile Germany – it was obvious the box was opened, but was new nevertheless. I didn’t want to risk having any rootkits, so immediately I factory-reset the device. It came back to live in German language, I selected few screens clicking on the word that didn’t start with N aiming to get “YES” correctly selected. Then English UI appeared, everything worked fine. I assume the importer had opened the box to do precisely this. The device feels quite sturdy and well build. Microsoft has a good chance with WP7 if they are able to quickly release more features, get momentum on Apps development and gain overall market traction.
When I checked for the same device during my trip in Singapore last week, I was hearing prices of SG$800-850, which makes it Rs.30,000 plus taxes. I think I have got a good deal once in my life!
|
.jpg "Paradise Resort (13)")
_1.jpg "Thirunalaru Koil (2)")
_1.jpg "Ramaswamy Koil Kumbakonam (1)")
_1.jpg "Oppiliyappan Koil (1)")
_1.jpg "Kankodutha vanidham (1)")
_1.jpg "Chakkrapani Koil Kumbakonam (3)")
_1.jpg "Chakkrapani Koil Kumbakonam (6)")
