Chronicles of Gautam

Love them or hate them, but you cannot ignore Apple's products. The Ipod, Iphone and the Ipad have not just become iconic products of this decade, but have redefined the industry and become synonymous with the product itself. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I say music player = iPod and tablet = iPad. Apple has die hard fanboys, who swear by its products and have an almost blind adoration for the  person largely behind them, Steve Jobs. Few companies or people evoke such strong emotions or reactions as Apple and Steve jobs. Your Electronic Life as Apple sees it! After the spectacular success of the Ipad, it is natural that other companies want to have their share of the 'tablet' pie. But competing with the likes of Apple is no mean task, though lots of companies have tried, and failed ( Zune , anyone?). Interestingly Google has succeeded quite a bit in arresting the Iphone's free-rise, by developing the android mobile platform, and giving it away, for free ! Andro...

As tradition has it, I am back in Mumbai for this year's Christmas - New year festive season. For the 6th year in a row, I am spending this time of the year in Mumbai. Four years of my college and two years of working, I was never at home during Diwali or Holi, or Ganesh Chaturthi for that matter, but I am always here during Christmas and New Year; simply because I have had holidays every single time. As I look back over the years, I realize how much I have changed. Christmas time gives me a fixed point, some sort of rigidity to the timeline of my life, where I can look back and recollect over my last year. At the same time last year, I was thinking vastly different things, my priorities were different. As I said in some earlier post and repeat it here, life changes. For the last three years now, all I was doing this vacation was preparing for the XAT, and I must do the same now this year too. Wish me luck! Two of my pics from Seoul below: Me at City Hall Subway Station, S...

   Seoul - Infinitely yours Recently I had been to South Korea, one of the four ' Asian tigers' . Specifically, I had been to the very live and bustling city of Seoul, the place where the Miracle on the Han river took place. This event refers to the phenomenal economic success of the Seoul city in particular, and South Korea in general in the last 3-4 decades.  It is a story of the epic rise of a country from being war-ravaged  in the 1950s to becoming an awe inspiring, sky touching, electronics producing giant. A GDP growth chart is suffice to astonish us with the sheer growth rate and consistency with which South Korea has recorded its economic growth. South Korea's GDP (PPP) Growth from 1911 to 2010 - Source Wikipedia I was in Seoul for almost one and a half months, working for a Korean customer mainly to initiate them about our product and set up their development environment. I lived in a hotel for the first week and then moved to a service apartment for...

While on the bus the other day, I passed a spot where an accident had taken place. Usually most people stand up and crane their neck to get a glimpse of the scene. I am not one of them. I am sensitive in this sense, preferring  to move on rather than have a disturbing image affixed in my brain. Probably some poor guy must be lying in a pool of blood with many parts of the body broken and writhing in pain, or worse, dead. One split second before the accident, all was well and then Bang! His life just changed forever. This just underscores how fickle life is. We fret and fiddle and plan and arrange, and then just out of the blue  everything changes. All that we think changes. All plans change. Life changes. This does not mean we should not think about our future - that would be plain stupid. I just want to say how, in particular cases, the best laid plan can go awry. In case you are wondering if I am smoking pot, be assured that I ain't doing no such thing. Its just that I saw...

Am I connected or not? One of the frustrating things about using Windows is, surprising as it may seem, having to deal with problems involving wi-fi. It would appear that using Windows would at least guarantee a pain-free, hassle free experience with wireless drivers. But Alas! It is not so. Nowadays I can safely declare that any Ubuntu (rather any Linux} box outperforms Windows with regards to just about everything - including driver support. And if just dealing with problems is not enough, there are those confounding messages that as Windows users one must inevitably encounter. Just the other day, I was having some problems connecting to a network, and above is a screenshot of the screen that I was presented with after fiddling around for some time. Now what in the world am I supposed to infer from this? Is some kind of cruel joke being played on my by some bored Microsoft programmer? Poor me (and the legions of other Windows users out there).

Here I was innocuously working on my embedded linux terminal, at the place of my work; when out of the blue I found out that using the Linux operating system might mean supporting terrorism in this world! Or at least supporting the ideas that terrorists seem to believe in. Have a look at the above screenshot of the my terminal. My box does not want peace, has no satisfaction, is not interested in love, but as soon as I say kill, it eagerly asks "Whom to kill?"

Protoype of Android cordless home phone ( source: Curventa ) Motorola and SGW Global are introducing Android powered Cordless phones in the market. Both the companies have showcased their upcoming Cordless phones at the CES 2010 in Jan. (See http://androidandme.com/2010/01/news/motorola-introduces-android-powered-home-phone/ and http://www.sgwglobal.com/ ) SGW Global's Phone: SGW's phone is equipped with DECT CAT-iq 2.0 and WiFi, offers a large 3.2” touch screen and virtual keyboard. The Android Cordless phone promises to offer a rich set of telephony and advanced audio features including HD sound and multi-base/handset/line support. The phone will support a range of connected applications – from “always on” web browsing, email and widgets to internet radio and Picasa. Other solid features are social networking and IM, photo viewer, music player, YouTube, news and weather. Interestingly i...

While I am writing about movies that I have watched recently, let me add another post telling movies which I have to yet watch - and I have them with me already ready for viewing. So here is my upcoming movies playlist: The Pursuit of Happyness (English) Jogwa (Marathi) Up (English, animated) Wall-E (English, animated) District 9 (English) Inglourious Basterds (English) Pulp Fiction(English) I know all are good. Don't give me any spoilers :P PS: All the spellings are as they occur in the movie titles. I know its happiness and not happyness, etc. So no complaints about spelling errors.

Some of the popular personas on firefox Do you use firefox? If yes, then do you use Firefox personas ? Personas are what themes in Firefox could never be: methods to change the look and colours of Firefox at the click of a single button without trying to change the overall browsing experience. I highly recommend choosing from the thousands of available personas and dressing up your browser according to your mood. Beware tough, if you use linux, or a system with low memory, you might have trouble using it. I tried using it in linux but could not get it running properly to my satisfaction. The colours would only half load, and no amount of reinstalling/changing the persona could coax the browser to wear the persona properly. It might have something to do with the low memory on that machine also, because I see no reason for it not to work otherwise. Suggestions are welcome.

In continuation with this list of movies I had seen in Bangalore till then, here is an update: 1. 2012 (English)*** 2. 3 Idiots (Hindi) ****1/2 3. Alien vs Predator (English)*** 4. Avatar (3D)(English) **** 5. Batman Begins (English) ***1/2 6. Chance pe Dance (Hindi) *1/2 7. Euro Trip (English) *** 8. Harishchandrachi Factory (Marathi) ***1/2 9. Harry Potter and the half-blood prince (English) ***1/2 10. Ishqiya (Hindi) *** 11. Kaminey (Hindi) *** 12. Lock, stock and two smoking barrels (English) ***1/2 13. Mumbai Meri Jaan (Hindi) *** 14. My Name is Khan (Hindi) *** 15. Natarang (Marathi) ***1/2 16. Office space (English) *** 17. Rann (Hindi) *** 18. Ratatouille (English) ***1/2 19. Rocket Singh: Salesman of the year (Hindi) *** 20. Se7en (English) **** 21. Sherlock Holmes (English) **** 22. Terminator I (English) ***1/2 23. Terminator II (English) **** 24. Terminator III (English) *** 25. Terminator IV (English) **1/2 26. The Hangover (English) *** 27. The Man from Earth (English) *...